Google is conducting advanced experiments for a new application that relies on artificial intelligence techniques to help the visually impaired to run on their own without the help of any other party, and this step comes in response to the request of the blind runner Thomas Paniken, who is the CEO of Guiding Eyes for the Blind He is the one who loves practicing his favorite hobby, “running” since childhood, but completely losing his sight in his teens, and specifically at the age of eight, made him give up his hobby.
“The safest thing for a blind man is to stay in place, but I don’t stay in my place,” says Thomas Panek, 50, who lost his sight due to a genetic condition, and who is currently running a dog school used to help the blind. Another with the help of his dog, but he showed his dissatisfaction with practicing the hobby with the support of an external party and decided about a year ago to find a way to run on his own, and wrote through his blog that he wanted more independence.
In return, Google, in cooperation with Thomas, the owner of the project, designed an application that allows blind people to run individually without the need for any help from humans or animals, and through which Thomas could run 5 kilometers in Central Park in New York without relying on his dog or any human help, and that Using only the artificial intelligence that the application has, where the process requires installing it in the smart phone and operating the phone camera that picks up a guide line drawn on the running track that monitors the person’s location and provides him with audio instructions via the earphone.
According to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, the new application “Project Orientation” uses the phone’s camera to explore lines and marks on the ground, and instructs blind and low-vision users with sound alerts via headphones and a device that is placed around the body, and Thomas said during his experience of the application: I drifted to the left of the streak, the sound is louder and more jarring in my left ear, and if I drifted to the right, the same thing will happen, but in my right ear. “
During several months of running using the application, Thomas praised the service and said that he enjoyed a freedom that he had not felt for decades while practicing his favorite hobby, “running”, as the system was able to put it in the right direction, knowing that the application does not need to connect to the Internet and can be relied upon in circumstances. Different weather.
