Microsoft's 'Seeing AI' narrates the world to blind people

Microsoft has launched an app that'narrates the world' to people who are blind or visually impaired using AI. The app can, for example, recognize friends' faces and guess their emotions, read text out loud when it comes into view and even has experimental features that can describe scenes - for example, it identified a young girl throwing a frisbee in the park. The app, which is free and available on iOS-only, relies on holding up one's smartphone camera to hear information about the world. The app can also describe strangers around you. In a video demonstrating the app's abilities, the app described a young woman with glasses (left) by saying: '28-year-old female, wearing glasses, looking happy' (right) To use the app, the user must point their phone's camera, select a channel and hear a description of their surroundings.