Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Two mobile solutions companies, Ipplex and LinkMe Mobile, have partnered to create mobile applications for elderly and vision-impaired consumers.
The companies unveiled their first augmented reality application, LookTel, at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas.
"LookTel allows users to instantly interact with their world through their mobile phone - recognizing everyday objects such as text, money, packaged goods, CDs or medication bottles, even signs and landmarks," explained Ipplex in a March 24 press release.
"The app combines precision image recognition technology with text reader capabilities using full featured Optical Character Recognition (OCR). By simply pointing the mobile device at what the user wishes to 'see,' LookTel pronounces the name of the object or reads text in clear and easy to understand speech."
The application also provides additional support to the vision-impaired by way of live video, audio chat, push-to-talk audio, and GPS-tracking data.
Their groundbreaking application was selected as a finalist in the CTIA Wireless Emerging Technology Awards Healthcare/Public Safety/Transportation Category in 2010.
Augmented reality-like technology has previously been used to help vision-impaired and blind people see with their ears. Almost 10 years ago, a senior scientist at Philips Research Laboratories in the Netherlands developed a "seeing" system called The vOICe.
The vision technology offered totally blind users a sonic representation of visual sensations by way of image-to-sound renderings. The technology is now available as an Android application from the Seeing With Sound website, http://www.seeingwithsound.com/.
A video of the LookTel technology in action can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf-0Dj95SgY&feature=player_embedded
More information about LookTel can be found on the LookTel website, located at: http://www.looktel.com
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments