Classification Medical technology Inventor Amnon Shashua | Types Artificial vision | |
Manufacturer OrCam Technologies Limited | ||
The OrCam MyEye is a portable, artificial vision device that allows the visually impaired to understand text and identify objects. The device was developed by OrCam Technologies Limited, and was released as a prototype in September 2013.
Contents
History
OrCam was founded in 2010 with the mission to "use advanced computer vision to help the visually impaired." The company was started by Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram who also founded the accident avoidance systems development company Mobileye in 1999. OrCam debuted the device in September 2013 after years of development and testing. Because of a $15 million investment in OrCam by Intel Capital in March 2014, the company has been evaluated at approximately $100 million. Today, OrCam has approximately 80 employees, is headquartered in Jerusalem, Israel and has offices in New York and London.
Design
The OrCam MyEye consists of two main components: the head unit and the base unit. The head unit consists of a camera and a microphone, and is mounted on the frames of a pair of eyeglasses. The box-like base unit contains the algorithms and processing components that give the device its functionality, and can be clipped to a belt or left to rest in a pocket. The head unit and base unit are adjoined by a connecting cable.
Uses
The OrCam MyEye recognizes text and products, and speaks to the person wearing the device via a bone-conduction earpiece. With the point of the person's finger, the device instantly responds and will infer whether it needs to read, find an item, or recognize a product depending on the environment. It may do so without searching for audio books, learning new software, or using other tools.
Reading
Product Recognition
Face Recognition
Specifications
The OrCam MyEye's processing power comes from an i.MX 6Quad processor, paired with the added power management provided by an PF0100 power management integrated circuit (PMIC). The i.MX processor, which computes algorithms, gives the device its high performance and energy efficiency. This allows the device to interpret visual inputs and communicate their meaning in real time to the person wearing the device.
In 2011, Hebrew University researchers documented OrCam's processing technique, revealing some of the algorithms. The technique, known as ShareBoost, allows the device to balance recognition accuracy with speed.
On a full charge, the battery provides four hours of constant use or 24 hours on standby. It takes four hours to fully charge and is designed to be charged each night.
The device is priced at $3,500 and is currently available for purchase in the United States, Canada, UK(£2,400 ) with American English as the primary source of communication. The device is also available in Hebrew in Israel. OrCam does intend to make the device available in other regions and languages in the future.
The OrCam Reader, an OrCam MyEye that only focuses on reading texts, is available in the United States and Canada for $2,500.
Reception
Upon its release, news of the OrCam MyEye was covered by several major international media outlets and technology companies, including The New York Times, TED, Digital Life Design, Reuters, Bloomberg News, Foundation Fighting Blindness, The Atlantic, Haaretz, Euronews, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Le Point, Ability, The American Interest, STMicroelectronics, Rescuecom, and many others.
OrCam said that there were over 342 million adults worldwide with significant visual impairment, and that about 52 million of them had middle-class incomes. The 2011 National Health Survey by the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that there are 21.2 million people in the United States over the age of 18 that have some kind of visual impairment.