Scientists Develop Reading-Camera For Blind People

Scoop Report: Blind people will be able to read also en-route due to a new invention. Scientists have developed a high-resolution camera with an integrated mini-computer.

At the moment the researchers from the Berlin Fritz-Haber-Institut of the Max Planck Society are trying to minimize the hardware so that it fits into glasses with a combined headset, reports the initiative “Partners for Innovation” in Berlin.

By means of the new invention newspapers, books and other texts can be scanned. The texts are afterwards transformed into spoken language and read out.

The new technique should contribute to making everyday life better for blind people. But the researchers admit that the device has not yet been tested on blind test subjects.

In the near future it can be applied to read out newspapers and product tags in supermarkets. Also road signs should be recognized.

One of the main obstacles at the development was that the object which should be recognized could not be comprehended by a single camera shot, said Raul Rojas from the department of mathematics and informatics of the Free University Berlin.

The human eye could not comprehend a newspaper with one look. Instead, the human eye see-saws, and bit-maps a complete picture. The tiniest movements of the camera produce several pictures, which are merged to an entire overall picture by the software.

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