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Hands on with LookTel Recognizer: Visual recognition through an iOS app
For $10, LookTel Recognizer by IPPLEX offers a brilliant app for anyone with visual impairments. It offers recognition technology that allows iPhones to "learn" objects and speak them back whenever that object appears on-screen (or, more accurately, on-camera) at a later time. From canned goods to slippers to stuffed animals, LookTel quickly mastered most every item I threw at it. You hold out the phone and let it "look" for you. The most practical uses of the app are in pantries and at stores. When the phone recognizes a brand, it speaks out what it sees. This lets unsighted or visually impaired users distinguish between items that are similar in feel and shape. This app builds on the success of LookTel's earlier Money Reader app. LookTel's technology is a true recognition wonder -- so it's a pity that the app itself doesn't match up to its potential. It's sad that such a significant and important app is weighed down by a barely adequate user interface, one that was clearly developed by engineers rather than usability experts. From table items that don't respond to standard interactions like swipe-to-delete, to inelegant button layouts, the GUI on-offer is dire. Take the following table for example, with its glaring lack of Edit features. This is part of the interface meant to be used by a sighted person who sets up the recognition items. There's no option to rename items, to make them more instantly comprehensible for editing. For example, the first of the three 8:33 AM items is Greek dressing, the second olives, the third Cup-o-Soup. Imagine trying to wade through hundreds of these. What's more, you must select each item to delete it from the list, and you cannot reorder or group items for better management. The Share Items option is dire. You must share all items in your library, not just select a subset. If I want to share my pantry data, the teddy bear and slipper images are going to go along as well. The non-sighted user experience is flawed as well, working especially poorly with VoiceOver. VoiceOver is Apple's built-in accessibility interface that uses a separate interaction vocabulary of touches and spoken interface descriptions. When tested with VoiceOver enabled and screen curtain (a developer aid that allows the screen to be disabled, in order to better simulate sightless use), Recognizer ground to a complete halt outside of point-to-recognize use. Specifically, Recognizer offers a built-in barcode mode which allows the app to scan for barcodes and look them up online, a la Red Laser. It was nearly impossible to switch into this mode reliably using VoiceOver, and once in that mode, the barcode recognition almost never worked. It took me over two minutes to get the app to read and recognize the barcode from my Cup-o-Soup box. I found that Recognizer worked best when kept out of VoiceOver. Its rather quirky flash mode meant VoiceOver kept going into and out of "Torch-on" "Torch-off" mode (that's what VoiceOver calls the onboard LED). It was pretty annoying. Disabling VoiceOver (I have the triple-Home-button shortcut enabled on my iPhone) led to much better use. Recognizer is one of the worst battery hog apps I have ever encountered. I tested on a 4S with full charge. It might not last through a normal one hour shopping trip to Super Target. Surely, a better use of the built in AV frameworks could minimize that battery drain when used by non-sighted users in recognition mode, and could reduce the load in learning mode. In the end, Recognizer is amazingly promising in its technology but lets itself down with a kludgy interface. It deserves far better. If you need this app, buy it now. It really is a wonder. At the same time, the developers should really hire a GUI and usability team that understands how the app should be used in real life, who its end-users are, and help craft a better experience.
LookTel releases recognizer app for the visually disabled
LookTel, which came out with the Money Reader app last year that helps the visually impaired accurately count money, has come out with a new app using the same technology to help people with vision problems to identify common objects. LookTel Recognizer allows users to magnify items and store them to a database for later reference. You can use this for groceries, credit cards, ID, medicine or anything you can think of. Snap a picture with an iPhone, add an audio message, then save it to the database. When someone who is visually impaired uses the app, they can point the iPhone at an object. If it's in the database, it'll be recognized, and the user is informed what the item is using the prerecorded audio message. LookTel Recognizer is out now for $9.99, and you can see it in action in the video below.
LookTel helps the blind count their money using an iPhone
Smartphone cameras are quite versatile. Some people used them to take pretty pictures, while others use them for the recognition of a face, product or an object. LookTel has taken this idea of object recognition and used it as the cornerstone of a new app called Money Reader. Money Reader uses your iPhone camera to identify dollar bills from $1 up to $100. The app is designed to let those with a visual impairment accurately count their money. The identification happens in real-time so users can quickly count or sort a pile of cash. Besides its utility in counting money, LookTel is hoping to use this recognition technology to identify landmarks, recognize objects and read back text. It may also be used with GPS and maps to provide a voice guidance system for the blind. The Money Reader app is available for US$1.99 in the iTunes App Store and is compatible with the iPhone (4, 3GS) and iPod Touch (4th Generation).
LookTel's Money Reader iOS app helps the visually impaired count money
We may not use cash as often as we once did, but there are still times when it comes in handy or is necessary, and that can pose some problems for the visually impaired. They now have one other possible solution courtesy of LookTel, however, which has just released its new Money Reader app for iOS devices. Using a "patented and proprietary object recognition technology," it's able to recognize paper bills (from $1 to $100) instantly, and simply speaks the value aloud. What's more impressive, though, is that you don't need to hold the bill steady in front of the camera, or even have the whole thing in the frame -- even just thumbing through a stack will work. See for yourself in the video after the break, and hit up the App Store to grab it now for $1.99.
LookTel's 'artificial vision' makes Windows Mobile useful to blind people (video)
There's a surprising abundance of tech geared toward helping out people with visual impairments, but you won't find too many smartphones populating that sphere of electronics. Aiming to reverse this trend, LookTel is in the Beta stage of developing so-called artificial vision software that combines a Windows Mobile handset with a PC BaseStation to provide object and text recognition, voice labeling, easy accessibility and remote assistance. It can be used, much like the Intel Reader, to scan text and read it back to you using OCR, and its camera allows it to identify objects based on pre-tagged images you've uploaded to your PC. Finally, it allows someone to assist you by providing them with a remote feed of your phone's camera -- a feature that can be useful to most people in need of directions. Skip past the break to see it demoed on video. [Thanks, Eyal]
