Microsoft’s Seeing AI app for iOS uses machine learning to help narrate the world to blind people

Microsoft has launched it AI project app to the public which will help people who have visual impairments. Called as Seeing AI, this app helps visually-impaired people to see things via this app, which uses artificial intelligence to detect everyday objects for such people. Announced last year in March, this intelligent camera app helps blind people to ‘see’ via audio narration. Its features are in the form of channels and include support for reading documents, scanning barcodes of objects while shopping, describing and identifying the faces of people it comes across. Moreover, it apparently allows video calls by describing the people you’re talking to. The AI can also read any text aloud the moment it senses a text.

One great feature of this app is that it can anticipate what will happen in the immediate future by sensing the environment around the person, a problem which blind people often face. For instance, the app assesses the action of the object in front of the user. It can also read currency notes. This app tries to replace the dependency on a fellow human in a blind person’s life. Currently, the iPhone app is free to download on the App Store. An Android version hasn’t yet been announced.