Tuesday, March 23, 2010

LookTel Looks To Help The Blind With Mobile App

Santa Monica-based IPPLEX/iVisit, a developer of mobile phone software, said this week that it has launched Looktel a smart phone application which automatically scans and recognizes common household objects and provides other assistance to the visually impaired. The firm said the application is targeted at people who are visually impaired or blind, and can read signs and labels, recognize money, CDs, medication, packaged goods, and other products; associate tags to objects; and recognize landmarks. The software also includes an optical character recognition (OCR) text reader which can read articles and text to users. Looktel said it software currently supports Windows Mobile smart phones, including the HTC Touch Pro 2 and netbook readers. LookTel said its technology was developed with the help of grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Eye Institute (NEI).

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