For blind users, using modern day technology for even the simplest tasks becomes that much harder.
That's because device like smartphones aren't necessarily designed with the vision-impaired in mind. Thankfully, there are at least a few guys working on the issue.
Microsoft has just released something it calls a 'Seeing AI'. As you can tell from the name, it's an artificial intelligence program that sees things. The reason it's noteworthy however is what it does with that capability.
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The Seeing AI is a tool designed for the blind and vision-impaired to be able to experience photos. If you wanted to look at a photo from your last birthday, you'd just pull out your phone, scroll through it, and expand the image.
Seeing AI helps blind people use their touch to instead experience a photo. They can touch different parts of the image and the AI describes exactly what they have their finger on, including both objects and people. It's for that reason this tool has machine learning, complete with object and scene recognition.
"This new feature enables users to tap their finger to an image on a touch-screen to hear a description of objects within an image and the spatial relationship between them," Seeing AI chief Saqib Shaikh wrote in a blog post. "The app can even describe the physical appearance of people and predict their mood."
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It may not seem like much to you, but it makes all the difference in the world to a person used to experiencing their surroundings by sounds, smells, and touch. With this AI, a blind person could actually enjoy those banal motivational posters people send on WhatsApp, or unfunny memes on their Facebook news feed.
Other algorithms have been able to achieve this before, but Seeing AI also lets a person tap on an image to learn about specifically that part. For instance tapping on the edge of a picture could let the person know there are flowers in the background, something the AI would have stripped out of the initial description as inconsequential.
Of course, there are still limits to the app's functionality, but at least it's a start. And Seeing AI is free to download for iOS devices here.
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