Cognitive technologies help blind people "see" what is happening around

Chieko Asakawa - IBM Research Lab. She is engaged in development in the field of assistance to people with disabilities. For the most part we are talking about those who have completely or partially lost their sight. For Asakawa, her work is more than professional interest. The fact is that she herself completely lost her eyesight at the age of 14.

After that, the girl did not give up, but began to try to find herself in a new world for herself. She had to learn the "font for the blind" in a multi-volume encyclopedia dictionary, since then there were no personal computers, no smartphones, or the simplest braille training devices. “I remember that when I needed to find an English word that starts with„ s “, I had to scroll through several volumes of the English-Japanese Braille dictionary. Try to imagine it, ”says Asakawa.

Previously, everything was more difficult, because blind people could not get help from anyone other than other people. Everything began to change in 1984, when Asakawa got into IBM Research on a study program and became a student-researcher. In 1985, she joined IBM to work officially, becoming an employee of IBM Research. She took up the development of systems that translated English text into English Braille text. Soon, she and her colleagues created a computer system that made paper braille dictionaries unnecessary. Of course, even now many blind people work with paper, but computer technologies simplify the task of reading and orientation in space. In 1997, Asakawa also developed a browser that voiced the contents of web pages, naming it Home Page Reader.
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Nowadays, the situation has changed dramatically. Smartphones allowed access to network resources at any time. And now Asakawa is developing a digital assistant for blind people. For several years now, as part of the team at Carnegie Mellounonah University, he has been perfecting a program that uses IBM's cognitive technologies.

“My dream is to create a cognitive helper who recognizes everything that surrounds me, lets me know who entered the room, who wants to meet with me, and what obstacles are visible on my way,” says the girl. Work on this assistant has been going on for a long time. A few years ago, Asakawa, along with colleagues from Carnegie Mellón University, created a prototype of such a program, naming the NavCog application. It helps navigate the blind in unfamiliar terrain. True, this requires special wireless tags that show the direction of movement using a radio signal.

The NavCog program has been significantly improved since the beta release in 2015, with several new features. Previously, the application skillfully, using the phone's sensors and IBM's cognitive technologies, only tell the user about his whereabouts. Information is whispered through the device speaker or headphones connected to the phone.

Now this digital assistant can already warn the user about who enters the room or is suitable on the street and in what mood, with what facial expression. This helps blind people to more fully participate in the social life of society. “Computers help people live and work to the fullest,” says Asakawa. “Technologies have helped me make some dreams come true, including reading books or surfing the Internet on my own. Cognitive technologies are a big step forward for me. ”



Soon, developers are planning to add a number of new features, which will make the application even more versatile. You can follow the development of the project on its Facebook page .