[NFBMT] OrCam: From the New York Times

Sun Mar 5 18:20:26 UTC 2017

>From what I read, this is being developed to help those who can see well
enough to point to an object or to the first line of a page in order for the
device to start reading or to recognize the person or object.  So it would
seem by inference that this may not work well for someone who doesn't see at
all.

-----Original Message-----
From: NFBMT [mailto:nfbmt-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Dar via NFBMT
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2017 10:46 AM
To: NFB of Montana Discussion List
Cc: Dar
Subject: Re: [NFBMT] OrCam: From the New York Times

Now do I read this will help a total!
I would want to make sure I still would use my skills.
Or would you not trust the dog!
Or correct when dog wishes to get into trouble.
I love it when price is given we should jump and get it rite away!

Dar
Every saint has a past,
Every sinner has a future

> On Mar 5, 2017, at 5:40 AM, Bruce&Joy Breslauer via NFBMT
<nfbmt at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Israeli Start-Up Gives Visually Impaired a Way to Read - The New York Times
>
>
>
> By
>
> JOHN MARKOFF
>
> JUNE 3, 2013
>
>
>
> JERUSALEM - Liat Negrin, an Israeli who has been visually impaired since
> childhood, walked into a grocery store here recently, picked up a can of
> vegetables
>
> and easily read its label using a simple and unobtrusive camera attached to
> her glasses.
>
>
>
> Ms. Negrin, who has coloboma, a birth defect that perforates a structure of
> the eye and afflicts about 1 in 10,000 people, is an employee at OrCam, an
>
> Israeli start-up that has developed a camera-based system intended to give
> the visually impaired the ability to both "read" easily and move freely.
>
>
>
> Until now reading aids for the visually impaired and the blind have been
> cumbersome devices that recognize text in restricted environments, or, more
> recently,
>
> have been software applications on smartphones that have limited
> capabilities.
>
>
>
> In contrast, the OrCam device is a small camera worn in the style of Google
> Glass, connected by a thin cable to a portable computer designed to fit in
>
> the wearer's pocket. The system clips on to the wearer's glasses with a
small
> magnet and uses a bone-conduction speaker to offer clear speech as it reads
>
> aloud the words or object pointed to by the user.
>
>
>
> The system is designed to both recognize and speak "text in the wild," a
term
> used to describe newspaper articles as well as bus numbers, and objects as
>
> diverse as landmarks, traffic lights and the faces of friends.
>
>
>
> It currently recognizes English-language text and beginning this week will
be
> sold through the company's Web site for $2,500, about the cost of a
midrange
> hearing aid. It is the only product, so far, of the privately held company,
> which is part of the high-tech boom in Israel.
>
>
>
> The device is quite different from other technology that has been developed
> to give some vision to people who are blind, like the artificial retina
> system called Argus II, made by Second Sight Medical Products. That system,
> which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in February, allows
> visual signals to bypass a damaged retina and be transmitted to the brain.
>
>
>
> The OrCam device is also drastically different from Google Glass, which
also
> offers the wearer a camera but is designed for people with normal vision
and
>
> has limited visual recognition and local computing power.
>
>
>
> OrCam was founded several years ago by Amnon Shashua, a well-known
researcher
> who is a computer science professor at Hebrew University here. It is based
on
> computer vision algorithms that he has pioneered with another faculty
member,
>
>
> Shai Shalev-Shwartz, and one of his former graduate students, Yonatan
Wexler.
>
>
>
> "What is remarkable is that the device learns from the user to recognize a
> new product," said Tomaso Poggio, a computer scientist at M.I.T. who is a
> computer vision expert and with whom Dr. Shashua studied as a graduate
> student. "This is more complex than it appears, and, as an expert, I find
it
> really impressive."
>
>
>
> The advance is the result of both rapidly improving computing processing
> power that can now be carried comfortably in a wearer's pocket and the
> computer
>
> vision algorithm developed by the scientists.
>
>
>
> On a broader technology level, the OrCam system is representative of a wide
> range of rapid improvements being made in the field of artificial
> intelligence,
>
> in particular with vision systems for manufacturing as well as fields like
> autonomous motor vehicles. (Dr. Shashua previously founded Mobileye, a
> corporation
>
> that supplies camera technology to the automobile industry that can
recognize
> objects like pedestrians and bicyclists and can keep a car in a lane on a
> freeway.)
>
>
>
> Speech recognition is now routinely used by tens of millions of people on
> both iPhones and Android smartphones. Moreover, natural language processing
> is
>
> making it possible for computer systems to "read" documents, which is
having
> a significant impact in the legal field, among others.
>
>
>
> There are now at least six competing approaches in the field of computer
> vision. For example, researchers at Google and elsewhere have begun using
> what
>
> are known as "deep learning" techniques that attempt to mimic biological
> vision systems. However, they require vast computing resources for accurate
> recognition.
>
>
>
> In contrast, the OrCam technique, which was described in a technical paper
in
> 2011 by the Hebrew University researchers, offers a reasonable trade-off
> between recognition accuracy and speed. The technique, known as Shareboost,
> is distinguished by the fact that as the number of objects it needs to
> recognize grows, the system minimizes the amount of additional computer
power
> required.
>
>
>
> "The challenges are huge," said Dr. Wexler, a co-author of the paper and
vice
> president of research and development at OrCam. "People who have low vision
>
> will continue to have low vision, but we want to harness computer science
to
> help them."
>
>
>
> Additionally the OrCam system is designed to have a minimal control system,
> or user interface. To recognize an object or text, the wearer simply points
>
> at it with his or her finger, and the device then interprets the scene.
>
>
>
> The system recognizes a pre-stored set of objects and allows the user to
add
> to its library - for example, text on a label or billboard, or a stop light
>
> or street sign - by simply waving his or her hand, or the object, in the
> camera's field of view.
>
>
>
> One of the key challenges, Dr. Shashua said, was allowing quick optical
> character recognition in a variety of lighting conditions as well as on
> flexible
>
> surfaces.
>
>
>
> "The professional optical character readers today will work very well when
> the image is good, but we have additional challenges - we must read text on
>
> flexible surfaces like a hand-held newspaper," he said.
>
>
>
> Although the system is usable by the blind, OrCam is initially planning to
> sell the device to people in the United States who are visually impaired,
> which
>
> means that their vision cannot be adequately corrected with glasses.
>
>
>
> In the United States, 21.2 million people over the age of 18 have some kind
> of visual impairment, including age-related conditions, diseases and birth
>
> defects, according to the 2011 National Health Survey by the U.S. National
> Center for Health Statistics. OrCam said that worldwide there were 342
> million
>
> adults with significant visual impairment, and that 52 million of them had
> middle-class incomes.
>
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