Microsoft demonstrates app that helps see for the blind
  Microsoft developer Saqib Shaikh lost his sight when he was 
only 7 years old.  Flash forward to now, and Shaikh is building 
Seeing AI, a cognitive app that aims to help those who are 
visually impaired or blind have a better understanding of the 
world around them.
  The app was demonstrated in a video shown at the Microsoft 
Build 2016 Developer Conference in San Francisco Wednesday.  In 
it, Shaikh demonstrates how the app could help serve as something 
of a digital seeing eye dog.  For instance, in a restaurant, he 
can take a photo of the menu on his phone - a voice in the app 
guides him until he's got the image centered - and the artificial 
intelligence will read for him the contents of the menu.
  The app is designed to run on smartphones and also works with 
special smart glasses that have a tiny camera built in.  The 
camera can "see" people or things in their path, the app 
recognizes who or what they are, and a digital voice relays the 
information to the user in realtime.
  In the video demo, the system helped Shaikh know what was going 
on around him as he walked down the street, and even described 
who was sitting around the table at business meeting.
  The project is part of Microsoft's larger push to advance 
artificial intelligence and incorporate it into more aspects of 
life in the near future.  The software used to develop Seeing AI 
is part of the larger Cortana Intelligence Suite, which makes 
"big data, machine learning, perception, analytics, and 
intelligent bots" available to developers, according to a 
Microsoft press release.
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