WIRED Staff

Machine Helps the Blind See

An MIT fellow has invented a seeing maching for the visually impaired. An MIT poet has developed a small, relatively inexpensive “seeing machine” that can allow people who are blind, or visually challenged like her, to access the Internet, view the face of a friend, “previsit” unfamiliar buildings and more. An MIT poet? Yes that’s […]

An MIT fellow has invented a seeing maching for the visually impaired.

An MIT poet has developed a small, relatively inexpensive "seeing machine" that can allow people who are blind, or visually challenged like her, to access the Internet, view the face of a friend, "previsit" unfamiliar buildings and more.

An MIT poet? Yes that's correct. Elizabeth Goldring is a poet and senior fellow at MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies who has been working on the machine for a decade. Anyone can buy one for $4,000, which the press release (note: as press releases go, this one's excellent. There's also a video) notes is inexpensive compared to the $100,000 price tag of another machine the inspired Goldring's invention.

The image is a representation of what seeing-machine users see. Courtesy MIT.