MyEye2.0—“See for Yourself”

May 8, 2018

by: Ilse Strauss, Bridges for Peace

More than 350 million people the world over are blind or partially sighted. Another billion battle with reading difficulties, such as dyslexia or reading fatigue. The Israeli company, OrCam, develops and produces assistive technology in the form of an intuitive portable device to come to the aid of the visually impaired, partially sighted, blind and those who deal with reading disabilities to help them overcome many of the difficulties they have to face every day.

OrCam’s latest invention, MyEye2.0, offers breakthrough artificial vision technology and comprises a small, lightweight smart camera—approximately the size of a finger—which is mounted on the wearer’s eyeglasses frame. This tiny device has the ability to convert visual information into the spoken word. It reads text out loud from virtually any surface and can recognize faces, products and money notes in real time.

The wearer simply points the MyEye2.0 at the text or object he or she needs help with and the brilliant little device does all the work. For instance, focusing the camera on a magazine article will result in the device reading the text out loud, while pointing at a specific item will produce a detailed description, even down to the object’s color.

Moshe Fischer, who has been legally blind since childhood, shares that MyEye2.0 opened up new horizons, enabling him to do things he never dreamed possible, like read the newspaper, window shop or simply choose something from a menu in a restaurant.

With this cutting-edge technology, OrCam hopes to help millions more around the world experience the same liberty and progress as Fischer, enabling many of them to “see for themselves” for the first time.

Photo Credit: www.orcam.com