A research team at the University of Colorado has recently developed a smart cane with the ability to support visually impaired or blind individuals in their daily lives. Essentially, it is a cane for visually impaired individuals, but with the addition of a camera to see...For visually impaired individuals, navigating or correctly grasping objects when going out on the street is always a major obstacle. This cane is expected to help improve their quality of life and thereby help them live more independently, conveniently in their daily activities. This has implications not only for the users but also more broadly to reduce the burden on health or social support resources.
As shown in the illustration above and the video below, a person entering a supermarket only needs to raise the cane to the counter, and the software will recognize the items on the shelf, along with their prices. Then the software will read the price and guide how many steps to take left or right to get the item.The research team stated that thanks to the development of supporting technologies such as self-driving cars and the boom in AI technology, they were able to turn this idea into reality. They also shared that the current version is just the beginning, and the team will continue to find ways to shrink the size of the device attached to the cane and improve it so that users can use their smartphones to attach to the cane, bypassing the need for separate devices as it is now.Read more: Sony updates the DSC-HX99 camera line with display capabilities for .