Software helps the blind see - via smartphones
  It can identify faces as well as objects
  By Hiawatha Bray - Globe Staff July 22, 2013
  It can be hard to find what you're looking for at the 
supermarket - even harder when you're blind.
  But shopping recently got a lot easier for Karla Geagan, a 
legally blind 15-year-old from Wayne, Penn.  She has been testing 
new technology from Visus Technology Inc., a Boston company that 
programs smartphones to identify people and objects.
  "I can point at anything, no matter how far away, and it'll 
tell me what it is," said Geagan, "In the grocery store, I just 
point it to the food item, and I know instantly what it is."
  Geagan is one of nine middle-school students who have completed 
a two-week test of the Visus Visual Assist System, conducted by 
Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton and cosponsored by the 
cellphone carrier Verizon Wireless.
  At Carroll Center for the Blind, students tried a new 
smartphone.
  "It allows a blind or visually impaired person to utilize the 
speech capability of an Android phone, with the camera 
capability, to do a variety of visually related tasks," said 
Brian Charlson, the Carroll Center's director of technology.
  Chief executive Stephen McCormack said Visus is building a tool 
to help blind people more easily integrate themselves into 
sighted society.
  "With roughly 15 million people that have some visual 
impairment in the United States . . .  there's a very significant 
market," said McCormack, a graduate of the College of the Holy 
Cross in Worcester with a doctorate in biomolecular engineering 
from the University of California Santa Barbara.
  The Visus system is set to go on sale early next year.  Its 
$999 price tag will include a Galaxy Sbled phone, a wireless 
Bluetooth earpiece, and a 4G wireless hot spot for sharing the 
phone's 4G data service with other devices.
  McCormack said the company hopes to offer a version for Apple 
Inc.'s iPhone by early 2015.
  The Visus software comes with a host of visual aids.  Geagan's 
favorite feature identifies retail items by scanning them with 
the phone's camera.  The software consults a database of common 
retail products to identify the goods.
  Another tester with limited eyesight, 15-year-old Kyle 
Quinnzaino of Everett, is a big fan of the phone's magnification 
system, which uses the camera's zoom lens to display enlarged 
images of hard-to-see items, like the Carroll Center's cafeteria 
menu.
  "Sometimes I couldn't see it," Quinnzaino said, "so I'd take 
out my phone so I'd know what we were having for lunch or 
dinner."
  The Visus program can be trained to identify faces, so a blind 
person who encounters a friend or colleague won't have to guess 
at a name.  Instead, he can scan the face with his phone.  An 
electronic voice can announce the person's name through a 
wireless Bluetooth earpiece.
  Another Visus feature lets the user scan a large area with the 
camera to pinpoint objects containing text, such as signs or 
bulletin boards.  The software can translate the text to speech 
and read it aloud.  The phone also makes it easier for a blind 
person to find a restroom.  It is programmed to recognize the 
standard symbols indicating a men's room or women's room and 
point them out to the user.
  "The low-vision kids think it's a hoot," Charlton said.
  The software can even generate a map of the inside of a 
building.  Using software licensed from a defense contractor, 
Visus can shoot a video as the user is guided through the 
building.
  The next time the user visits the location, the software uses 
this video map to tell him how far to walk and when to turn left 
or right.
  Karen Ross, the Carroll Center's director of education 
services, noted that most blind or visually impaired youngsters 
attend the same schools as other kids, but their vision problems 
make it difficult to keep up and fit in.  The Visus system could 
help change that, Ross said.
  "It levels the playing field for those students so they can 
compete with their sighted peers," Ross said.
  The system could also make life easier for senior citizens 
whose vision is fading, or those who have trouble remembering 
names.
  Hiawatha Bray can be reached at [log in to unmask]


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