After losing eyesight during childhood, this Microsoft developer is today helping the blind see
Microsoft developer Saqib Sheikh who lost his eyesight at the age of seven has developed an app to help the visually challenged. The app developed by him can help the blind to read out text from posters or menus by clicking a photo of them. The app also guides them on how to take the photo. After taking the picture the person can command the app to read out the menu, reports The Huffington Post.
According to Forbes, Saqib is a software developer from London, England currently working for Microsoft. In the pursuit of the freedoms that sighted people all take for granted every day, Saqib has been personally involved in the development of an application of Artificial Intelligence, cognitive computing, image recognition and mobile headset technologies.
The image analysis processing, cognitive reasoning and speech intelligence in the device Saqib uses, allows him to ‘see’ the world around him in a way that was considered to be part of science fiction as recently as a decade ago.
Saqib explains, “The app not only runs on the smartphone but Pivothead smart camera sunglasses as well so the person can be hands-free”. The Pivothead sunglasses are smart wearable devices which have a camera. The person can take photos or videos simply by touching the side panel of the camera. And the Microsoft Seeing AI will recognise objects like “A young man on a skateboard jumping in the air”. The person using the smart sunglasses can hear it through the built-in sound feedback system.
Microsoft released a video in their developer conference Build 2016 to explain how the intelligent software system called Seeing AI works. “It is an honour to share a stage with Saqib today. He took his passion and empathy to change the world. He is here to inspire and teach about these applications. Microsoft build is all about taking the dreams we have to reality”, said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella during the release of the video.
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