*Your smartphone as your seeing-eye dog. When your augmented vision is the only visual reality you have.
*If this works, it would give the rather gimmicky AR scene a sudden boost in moral stature.
"LookTel combines the power of a Smartphone with advanced "artificial vision" software to create a helpful electronic assistant for anyone who is visually impaired or blind.
"You can use LookTel to automatically scan and recognize objects such as money, packaged goods, CDs, DVDs, and medication bottles, as well as landmarks. Point the device video camera at what you wish to "see" and it will pronounce the name very quickly in clear and easy to understand speech. LookTel can be taught to recognize all the objects and landmarks you wish to identify. With a small amount of help from a sighted assistant one can easily teach LookTel to be your helpful assistant for many tasks where vision makes a difference in your independence.
"LookTel also incorporates a text reader allowing users to get access to print media.
"For more complicated visual tasks such as locating a specific street corner or bus stop, LookTel enables you to remotely connect to another person for assistance. Not only can you talk to them, but you can also transmit live video from the cell phone's camera so that they can see your surroundings and help you with orientation, recognizing objects and media, and more. Your position will also be shown to them on Google Maps using the GPS services available on smart phones. These services aim to help users to independently go about daily activities with the confidence that they will have the assistance they need anytime, anywhere...."
"Partners
"LookTel was developed under sponsorship from the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Eye Institute (NEI), and is the recipient of the following Grants: 1R43EY016953-01 & 2R44EY016953-0. Blindwisdom Inc. (www.blindwisdom.org) Many individual end users and researchers at the Atlanta Research Education Foundation(AREF) of the Veteran’s Administration have collaborated with us to evaluate LookTel in end user trials."
*That wouldn't be a new augmented reality for everybody, but that sure could be a big shiny life-changing reality for somebody.
