The Research AI division of Microsoft has released the virtual guide for the blind and dubbed ‘Seeing AI’.
Aim of Seeing AI
If you add the word ‘describing’ to name of app, it is explained to its function. The app, ‘sees’ the world around and ‘describe’ it to the users. The app accesses t the camera of the smart phone and uses it to examine the environment around the user. It can assist the user to tell them that the person is in front of them it can also describe their emotion state to the user.
The app can also be used to identify the common products with the help of barcodes. When you recognize them, it will help the users to locate it by emitting the short beeps and it gives the description of product, if it is available. There is another nifty features is the ability to instantly scan the documents and dictate them out loud to the user.
AI of Microsoft Gives ‘Eyes’ to the Blind
How it Works
The app is based on concept of artificial neural networks. The tech industry is copying the neural network system of the human brain and it forms the basis of the artificial intelligence part of the app. It is the kind of ‘think on its own’ to an extent and let you say that the image of a dog is shown to the program with the label of ‘hotdog’ and other animals are shown with the labels of ‘not a hotdog’.
The program will be able to identify the images, which are shown from that pint onwards is containing of hotdog or not. The same is used by popular app ‘Photos’ of Google.
Availability
The app was first presented at the build conference of Microsoft last year. The developers have been hard at work since then and this app is available for free on iOS platform since 12th of July.
At the time, the app is only available in the select countries like US, Canada, India, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. There is no news of the availability for Android and the rest of the world. The app does not require the internet connection at all time for core features to work and give the access to the web, which is required for complex features like description of the entire scene.
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