A New Microsoft iOS App (Free) Designed For Low Vision Community Uses AI and Camera to “Narrate the World Around You”

From Microsoft

Seeing AI, a free app that narrates the world around you, is available now to iOS customers in the United States, Canada, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore.
Designed for the blind and low vision community, this ongoing research project harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to open up the visual world and describe nearby people, text and objects.
Because this is still a research project, there are some abilities that we consider “experimental.” One of those is the Scene channel, which uses AI to describe the photo you capture so that you have a better idea of your surrounding environment.

From the Seeing AI Website:

A free app that narrates the world around you. Designed for the low vision community, this research project harnesses the power of AI to describe people, text and objects.
What Does Seeing AI Offer?
Short Text
Speaks text as soon as it appears in front of the camera.
Documents
Provides audio guidance to capture a printed page, and recognizes the text, along with its original formatting.
Products
Gives audio beeps to help locate barcodes and then scans them to identify products
Person
Recognizes friends and describes people around you, including their emotions
Scene
An experimental feature to describe the scene around you
Currency
Identify currency bills when paying with cash. (Coming soon)
Download App via iTunes App Store (Free)
Overview/Demos

See Also:PhotoMath, Another Very Cool App (Also Free) that Uses a Cameraphone
Download app, point your camera at any math problem or algebraic equation. Within a second you’ll have the answer. It even shows the steps used to solve the equation.  

See Also: CamFind and Vision API
An image recognition app.

More AI Powered Tools From Microsoft Announced Today
See Also: Microsoft delivers ‘AI-powered’ Presentation Translator add-in for PowerPoint
See Also: Microsoft Wants to Tackle Environmental Issues with New AI For Earth Program
See Also: More Services and APIs from Microsoft Cognitive Services

Filed under: News