If you’re not blind and have never had problems with your vision you’d probably not understand or have a feel on what’s on the other side. It’s a privilege most of us take for granted and pay little attention to those who fall in this less advantaged category. Well according to latest developments coming from Microsoft, people with vision issues can not only get an audio conversion of images but now use touch to explore the objects and people in those photos. Previously, the Seeing AI app could only aid users by converting visual data into audio feedback. As much as that sounds promising, it’s important we first understand how the technology works before jumping to conclusions. It understandably will not let them magically see what is on their devices but at least know who is in the photos or what is before them.
In the age of artificial intelligence, we can only hope many more apps of this sort are introduced so that at least most of us with different areas of disability can have a feel of what it is like. The app is driven by machine learning keen to object and scene recognition. Seeing AI’s new feature can be utilized by opening a photo within its viewer and tapping anywhere on it.
How Seeing AI’s new touch feature works for those with low vision
- You can take a new photo or open a photo that’s already on your device within its viewer
- Tap your finger on an image that’s on the display to hear its description and objects within it
- Seeing AI will even describe the physical appearance of people within the photo and interpret their mood
With all these capabilities, you can even take snap shots of your surrounding and friends and listen to the apps interpretation on their mood as well as what they’re doing. Incase there’s other objects around or animals such as pets, the app will tell and so forth.
On top of what Seeing AI could already do, it’ll now let users tap around to find where objects are — but of course it has to interpret the picture or recognize it from before. Seeing AI app could also be able to interpret some items such as such as flowers in the foreground or a movie poster in the background that may have been overlooked before on a closer inspection.
Adding to the already supported platforms is the iPad which the app (Seeing AI) will now natively support, a plus for many people who own Apple’s tablets as their primary interface for media and interactions. Lastly, there are a few improvements to the interface so users can order things in the app to their preference. Users can download Seeing AI app here from the App Store.