Earlier this year, Microsoft released a new app called Seeing AI that advanced the level of recognition of objects and text for blind and low vision people. This app uses the power of AI to describe nearby people, text and objects. Blind and low vision users can just hold up their phone and hear information about the world around them.
Seeing AI app can also recognize and locate the faces of people they are with, as well as facial characteristics, approximate age, emotion, and more.
Seeing AI was originally available for people in the United States, Canada, India, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore.
Now Microsoft has just expanded the availability of this app to visually impaired people in the UK Ireland and Australia.
According to the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), more than two million people in the UK live with sight loss, and almost half of blind and partially sighted people feel moderately or completely cut off from people and things around them.
Expanding the availability of this new app to more countries is certainly promising, but Will Microsoft release this app for Android devices? Less than 20% of smartphone users in Europe use an iOS device, meaning Microsoft’s Seeing AI app won’t reach the majority of the people who are in need.
You can download the app here from the App Store.
