Meta AI glasses could mean more independence for the blind community

Emeline Lakrout, a new Yorker occupied with a talent to run, climb and swim, does not let it be legally blind to prevent him from living an active lifestyle.

Although it was declared blind at 8 years old, Lakrout has taken up challenges, such as the management of the New York marathon and joined the American national paraclime team. A new technology – Meta’s Ai Glasses – is its latest tool to help it be warned and adaptable daily.

“Glasses make my life easier,” said the 27 -year -old. “They make things faster and they can do more during the day because it’s just faster and easier to do things and I feel less tired at the end of the day.”

Meta originally designed the glasses so that users broadcast videos on the go and interact with the world around them using AI. The last iteration of technology was unveiled last week and includes Meta-Ray-Ban display glasses, Ray-Ban Meta-Gen 2 glasses and a new model of Smart Oakley glasses targeting sports enthusiasts.

The members of the blind community have found new ways to use technology.

Users can connect their glasses to the “Be My Eyes” application which connects blind and visually impaired users with volunteers to help recognize objects and manage daily tasks in real time. These activities may include going through mail or helping individuals with grocery stores.

The new AI glasses also use optical recognition of characters, or OCR, which can recognize and read text aloud for users on menus, receipts and mail. For Lakrout, having access to textual information such as panels in a metro station or in street corners is what makes technology of AI useful. She says that the AI ​​glasses of Meta bring the blind communities closer to access to this information.

The glasses, however, are work in progress, says that Mark Riccobono, president of the National Federation of the Blind.

“(They) work well for certain things, does not work well in other situations,” he said.

Lakrout discovered it for herself. When she tried the glasses in a restaurant, they read the menu perfectly but could not tell her the price of a specific article on the second invite. When using some of the characteristics fueled by AI, the drums of the glasses is dead, and it therefore regularly had to keep them in their case to load.

More importantly, Riccobono said that Meta “became interested in working with blind to improve technology, making it more precise, making it more significant for the experience of the blind”.

Lakrout and Riccobono both agree that AI technology and Meta glasses are a useful step to improve the independence of the blind and visually impaired community. But in the end, the glasses “do not replace the need for human capacity,” said Riccobo. “We must therefore teach blind and we must still make sure that the blind develop the skills that the blind need to succeed.”