Microsoft working with Novartis to commercialize their scene description assistive technology for the visually impaired

Microsoft is working with Novartis to create an application that can be used by the visually impaired or blind to describe scenes captures by the camera of a smartphone audibly and thereby improve the independence of users.

The Viaopta Hello app is available in preview for iOS, Android and Windows and features:

• Uses Cognitive services and Microsoft latest image analysis technology to identify people, items and scene.
• The mobile app uses the Smartphones camera to take pictures of objects or people and then uses the back-end cognitive services to provide a description.
• The desktop app can provide a description of the content of pictures from any available document library, and if the picture contains a known contact, the app will identify them by name.
• ViaOpta Hello is available in twelve languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian and Hungarian.

See a video demonstrating the app below:

Find the download links for the preview app at Novartis’s website here.