Visually Impaired People gets the Power to Feel the World with Microsoft’s New iPhone App

The world is advancing in rocket speed. We are not far away from entering a futuristic world of Hollywood Sci Fi films, courtesy the continuous technology enhancement. We get to witness so many new, innovative invents but there are few sections who remain in complete oblivion.

I am talking about the visually impaired section of the world population. I will not refer them as unfortunate ones but they are unfortunate enough to the extent that they fail to see the modern developments or just plainly enjoy the beauty of mother nature. They are the deprived section who has to depend on someone or the other to accomplish few of their basic day-to-day task.

However, technology did not deprive them totally and the result is the brand new iPhone App developed by Microsoft. This particular application has been build with the sole purpose to give an extra pair of eyes to the Blind population.

Seeing AI is a smartphone application that make use of the device’s camera, backed up by Microsoft’s Machine Learning and Image Recognition algorithms, to detect and describe, in an automated voice, the nearby people, text and objects.

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So how does this application function??

The app user need to point his or her phone’s camera at a person or any object and the application’s embedded automated voice will tell him or her what that object is or who is the particular person and how is that person feeling.

Sounds Interesting Right??

Let me brief you on the multiple benefits that the blind section can derive from this app:

• The app recognizes your phone’s saved contacts and notify their physical location from you.
• Describes anybody who is within your vicinity and also the emotion he or she is feeling
• Read those texts for you which comes into view of the camera lens.
• Read out loud the room number plate
• Scan and read documents for you
• If you need to read a document from a sheet, the app’s voice assistant will guide you to hold the document properly and also will inform you on the text formatting
• Identifies currency bills at the point of cash payment
• While shopping in the local store or scanning the home pantry, the application identifies the food products and read out the description mentioned on it’s container. You just have to point your camera lens on the product’s bar code, the camera scans it and narrates the above details.
• The application also describes the scene around you.

Summing Up

Being visually impaired steals you of the ability to see and enjoy the mesmerizing world around. It also makes you dependent on others. People help you out of pity. But you don not have to be pitied and guided all the time. Microsoft’s own researched application has Artificial Intelligence imbibed into it that serves as your extra pair of eyes. Now you can do almost all the task on your own and you do not have to depend on someone’s pity for guidance. Moreover, you can atleast experience, if not view, the beauty and the modernity by getting an apt description of the world that you are living in.

However, this particular smart phone application is only available for free download for the iPhone users in the United States. There is no word on when this will be made available for other countries and for the android phone users.