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HoloLens Can Act As Eyes For Blind Users and Guide Them With Audio Prompts, New Research Shows (techcrunch.com)
New research shows that Microsoft's HoloLens augmented-reality headset works well as a visual prosthesis for the vision impaired, not relaying actual visual data but guiding them in real time with audio cues and instructions. TechCrunch reports: The researchers, from Caltech and University of Southern California, first argue that restoring vision is at present simply not a realistic goal, but that replacing the perception portion of vision isn't necessary to replicate the practical portion. After all, if you can tell where a chair is, you don't need to see it to avoid it, right? Crunching visual data and producing a map of high-level features like walls, obstacles and doors is one of the core capabilities of the HoloLens, so the team decided to let it do its thing and recreate the environment for the user from these extracted features. They designed the system around sound, naturally. Every major object and feature can tell the user where it is, either via voice or sound. Walls, for instance, hiss (presumably a white noise, not a snake hiss) as the user approaches them. And the user can scan the scene, with objects announcing themselves from left to right from the direction in which they are located. A single object can be selected and will repeat its callout to help the user find it. That's all well for stationary tasks like finding your cane or the couch in a friend's house. But the system also works in motion.
The team recruited seven blind people to test it out. They were given a brief intro but no training, and then asked to accomplish a variety of tasks. The users could reliably locate and point to objects from audio cues, and were able to find a chair in a room in a fraction of the time they normally would, and avoid obstacles easily as well. Then they were tasked with navigating from the entrance of a building to a room on the second floor by following the headset's instructions. A "virtual guide" repeatedly says "follow me" from an apparent distance of a few feet ahead, while also warning when stairs were coming, where handrails were and when the user had gone off course. All seven users got to their destinations on the first try, and much more quickly than if they had had to proceed normally with no navigation.
The team recruited seven blind people to test it out. They were given a brief intro but no training, and then asked to accomplish a variety of tasks. The users could reliably locate and point to objects from audio cues, and were able to find a chair in a room in a fraction of the time they normally would, and avoid obstacles easily as well. Then they were tasked with navigating from the entrance of a building to a room on the second floor by following the headset's instructions. A "virtual guide" repeatedly says "follow me" from an apparent distance of a few feet ahead, while also warning when stairs were coming, where handrails were and when the user had gone off course. All seven users got to their destinations on the first try, and much more quickly than if they had had to proceed normally with no navigation.
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Sounds like a great idea. Right up until a forced update gets someone killed because their hololens stopped talking to them at a bad time.
GENERATION 667: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation
Yeah I also like the holo lens
What's it _like_ to be a bat?
Love seeing tech put to these uses.
Cuz she can give eyesight to the blind!
There have been other devices that give "Vision" to the blind. One device that was developed almost 20 years ago displays actual images on the persons back with a 256x256 array of vibrating pins [with rounded tips].
The Good: the system worked very well. The blind test subjects were able to re-purpose their visual cortex to "See" by touch, the images on their back.
The Bad: the system cost more than $10,000 in 1995 dollars.
Cost is very important. A reflective, fold-up cane for the blind costs about $2.00 to make and less than $10.00 at a medical supply store.
who said nerds couldnt be fashion leaders.
We're almost at Jordy's Visor...
Let's hope nobody hacks it and puts said wearer in to a D&D adventure when they are just trying to find Starbucks.
So each time when a person wearing this enters a room we will hear stuff like:
"The mantlepiece is full of a clutter of photos, candles, a clock and a vase. The fireplace below is a reproduction Victorian one with a marble hearth, although if we wanted to light the fire we would have to clear away a couple of storage baskets that are full of wii controllers, wii games and DVDs.
Next to the fireplace is the TV which is sitting on a storage unit with the DVD player, Sky Box, Wii and an old VHS Recorder that doesn't work any more.
Along the next wall is the piano which takes up most of the space on that wall. On top of it is a metronome and a piano book and a pair of headphones for some reason. Next to that is the door which has had the paint stripped off so you can see the wood which had been waxed not varnished. Then you get to the brown leather sofa. Then there is the window with wooden venetian blinds and an Ikea chair which converts to a rather uncomfortable futon bed. Then another leather sofa. Next to that is a pine storage unit thing with more DVDs.
Then we are back to the fireplace! Hanging over the fireplace is a painting of Looe in Cornwall."
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.