Artificial intelligence helps “Robinson”, it gives her another eye to perform her daily tasks easily
Abbie Robinson, a visually impaired rock climber, who currently holds the World Championship title for paraclimbing is relying on a device that uses machine learning and computer vision to help her with everyday activities during the pandemic according to forbes
The report said that, Robinson was diagnosed with Stargardt Macular Dystrophy at 17, a juvenile form of macular degeneration that causes gradual loss of central vision.
This means she struggles to perceive color in detail, making reading and recognizing people particularly difficult.
The device
However, like many other students, Robinson has had to study from home as a result of the COVID-19 lock down .
In order to stay engaged with her studies, she uses OrCam’s MyEye2 device, which is equipped with artificial intelligence .
The device attaches to the frame of her glasses and reads aloud printed or digital text from any surface, the report said.
Robinson said the main use I have for it is reading; I can’t read a regular-sized book anymore without difficulty.
, it has been helpful in allowing me to read to enable me to complete my degree to the same level – I’ve got a lot of extra reading material to get through and not much extra time,” she said.
Reading and recognizing faces
The report mentioned that, Robinson also uses the device’s facial recognition capabilities to help her to recognize faces
In addition, she uses it to read the whiteboard in lectures, train timetables, training schedules
and food labels, which is particularly important as she has a sesame seed allergy.
The device is not however something that she uses for her climbing
“It’s not really built for that. What it has helped me with is supporting me in every day life.
So it speeds up my work, which has enabled me to get a much better work-training balance, she said.
In addition, it has helped her to train – as she reads her training materials.
It has helped her to travel independently as she can read signs without anyone else helping, according to the report.
How the OrCam MyEye2 works
The report said that, OrCam MyEye2 device uses computer vision to deal with millions of data points in each image.
so that it can identify the information that is most useful to the user.
The device detects the user’s finger-pointing motion to activate the device to read text out aloud, and also relays faces, products, denominations of paper currency and colors to the device wearer.
While the technology to read text aloud – OCR – has been around for years, OrCam says it is working on expanding the use of AI for its new devices, to allow users to ask questions about the text.