"Visually impaired" - Google News - Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 9:01 PM
AR Used To Help The Blind Navigate Their Surroundings - Ubergizmo
You would think that technologies such as augmented or virtual reality can’t
really be utilized by those who might be visually impaired. However it seems
that researchers at Caltech are proving us wrong by taking advantage of
augmented reality
(AR)<https://www.caltech.edu/news/helping-blind-navigate-84515>, a wearable
headset like the Microsoft HoloLens, and software that helps the blind “see”.
How does this work? In a way it works similar to some apps that we have seen in
the past which uses a smartphone’s camera to identify objects and reads it out
loud to
them<https://www.ubergizmo.com/2018/08/envision-use-ai-visually-impaired/>.
However in this case, the upside is that with the use of a headset, the user
can keep their hands free and walk about as per normal as the headset and
software maps out what’s in front of them and will read out objects around them.
According to Professor Markus Meister, one of the researchers working on the
project, “Imagine you are in a world where all the objects around you have
voices and can speak to you. Wherever you point your gaze, the different
objects you focus on are activated and speak their names to you. Could you
imagine getting around in such a world, performing some of the many tasks that
we normally use our visual system for? That is what we have done here—given
voices to objects.”
However it should be pointed out that Caltech’s research isn’t the first of its
kind. Earlier this year at CES 2018, we got our hands on a device called the
MyEye 2.0 by
OrCam<https://www.ubergizmo.com/2018/01/orcam-myeye-2-0-helps-blind-see/> which
attempts to do something similar.
Filed in General<https://www.ubergizmo.com/topic/general/>. Read more about
Augmented Reality (AR)<https://www.ubergizmo.com/tags/augmented-reality/>,
Hololens<https://www.ubergizmo.com/tags/hololens/>,
Microsoft<https://www.ubergizmo.com/tags/microsoft/> and
_cold<https://www.ubergizmo.com/tags/_cold/>.
https://www.ubergizmo.com/2018/11/ar-help-the-blind-navigate/
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.info<http://WWW.DavidGoldfield.info>