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EyeRing Could Help Blind People See Objects
cylonlover writes "Generally speaking, the vast majority of augmented reality applications that enhance the world around us by overlaying digital content on images displayed on smartphone, tablet or computer screens are aimed squarely at the sighted user. A team from the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT's Media Lab has developed a chunky finger-worn device called EyeRing that translates images of objects captured through a camera lens into aural feedback to aid the blind."
Somebody send Geordi La Forge over there to straighten those people out.
Nobody is going thru life poking their finger every which way, even blind people realize how dumb that looks.
Hell even Google's got the camera on glasses figured out, and you can do a earbud or cochlear implant if you still insist on doing sound waves.
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RTFA shows that it is for reading not for walking down the street.
It uses a camera, an android app, OCR, and text-to-speech technology to aid the blind.
Somebody send Geordi La Forge over there to straighten those people out. Nobody is going thru life poking their finger every which way, even blind people realize how dumb that looks.
Hell even Google's got the camera on glasses figured out, and you can do a earbud or cochlear implant if you still insist on doing sound waves.
The article says that these are just a proof of concept: tight now the device only can identify currency, text, pricing information on tags, and colors. The idea is that it can be used to develop the glasses to give the blind information about their surroundings.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
I read TFA, its still a clunky, hackerish and unrealistic approach. There is far better technology out there, and I;m no longer impressed just because someone managed to use Android.
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This sounds like the perfect opportunity to throw in OCR. Recognize a printed sheet of paper, or anything else with words on it, then read it back to someone, or do something else with the text. Perhaps even translate it. Maybe even someone who isn't blind could benefit from that.
Is your society in the jungle? If we are part of the same society, which I think we are, it seems the more we can create to assist others in our society the greater the return in: research, technology, investments, job growth. In our society we do have moral and ethical character that makes our lives have more personal value when we help others. A capitalist doesn't doesn't see "inferior people", they see opportunity, good or bad it all gets shared with society in one form or another. And yes, I get your point about living in a Darwinian way, but we do not live in a utopian society that I am aware of.
Targetting the blind with this kind of product misses the bigger audience that might want to have eyes on the back of their head...
For example, I'm sure the police, military or the even firemen would be interested in something like that, then they can amortized the development costs to provide a version for blind folks pointing forward at an even lower cost.
Someday, maybe even sharks will be interested in it (when they get that version with the embedded laser)...
Until they walk into a McDonalds. We're going to see a lot of blind people beaten up.
My other UID is three digits.