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Did you know? Nearly 1.3 billion people live with some of the other forms of vision impairment. But with the help of technology in this visual age, images, videos are becoming more and more prevalent in today's lives. In the early days, social media was predominantly text-based but now technology has started to adapt according to the needs of people with impaired vision too. All thanks to modern technologies for their design, making navigating social media for giving a wonderful experience to also the visually impaired. Let's look at such one technology called image recognition which made life easier for people with impaired vision. Here are the 7 ways it can aid people.
A screen reader is a software that can interpret or translate an image on the screen and reads it out to the users. Using this software, users can receive the information that is gathered from the tool of image recognition they are using. But sometimes there is a major difference between the visual page elements and also the alt-text which is interpreted by the screen reader. And this can in turn may confuse the users. That means there are also many websites that are inaccessible for screen readers and are being developed to aid the visually impaired using image recognition.
This is a feature that is already being used by many people with impaired vision. It allows the visually impaired to see what is in a photo using AI describing its main features. If a user turns off the screen reader after a photo is selected, then Facebook uses AI algorithms to detect basic characteristics within that image and translates that information into a new alt text. With the help of image recognition, the screen reader describes the features to the users.
MyEye 2.0 is a device that can be attached to any pair of glasses which provides audio feedback about the wearer's surroundings using image recognition technology. It can read signs, documents and also recognizes faces too. The interesting part is that it does not require any kind of internet connection for it to work. The device has a small camera along with a microphone which can be attached to the pair of glasses that are linked to a processor that can be clipped onto the body. The device starts to work when the wearer points to the text to generate a computerized voice that can read it aloud.
Aipoly is an app that uses the technology of image recognition to detect and identify objects. For the app to work, the user should point their phone's camera at what they want to see or identify and this app will tell them what it sees. As with MyEye 2.0, even this does not require any kind of internet access to work. The app functions using deep learning in order to determine what a specific object is.
LookTel is a smartphone application that uses image recognition technology to make the lives of those with low-vision that is much easier. This app allows the users to scan and detect objects such as packaged goods, money, soda cans, signs, and landmarks. LookTel Money Reader and LookTel Recogniser are designed for iPhone devices and Mac computers.
This is a free mobile app that joins people with impaired vision with volunteers and companies across the globe through a live video call. This app helps the visually impaired by guiding them with sighted individuals whose job is just to help them.
TapTapSee is also a mobile camera app that uses CloudSight image recognition API which is created for the visually impaired to identify objects within a few seconds. To use this app, the user is required to double-tap the right side of the screen to take a picture or to take a video. Some of the features of TapTapSee are picture recognition, video recognition, and the ability to save images using AI.
