Beyond canes and seeing-eye dogs, there is always room for more technology ideas to help the visually impaired ease up daily tasks that go beyond just walking and navigating sidewalks safely. MIT researchers have come up with a novel way for the visually impaired to independently identify objects and learn more about them. “EyeRing is a wearable intuitive interface that allows a person to point at an object to see or hear more information about it,” say the researchers. Their EyeRing is actually a system made up of ring, smartphone, and earpiece.
The user points to an object with a camera-equipped ring worn on the finger. This camera-equipped ring is designed to capture an image and send it to a smartphone for processing. The idea is that the wearer of the ring will simply point the ring at a word or item, snap a photo, and an app on the phone will speak the word or describe the item to them.
In detail, the researchers describe the design as a micro camera worn as a ring on the index finger with a button on the side, which can be pushed with the thumb to take a picture or a video that is then sent wirelessly to a mobile phone to be analyzed. Via EyeRing helps visually impaired point, press, and hear information.
