Apple’s `Be My Eyes’ App for the Blind

According to the National Federation of the Blind, Apple has done more for accessibility than any company has done and with the aid of a new app, iPad and iPhone users could go still further. `Be my Eyes’, is an app which enables blind people to seek remote help from sighted person whenever the need arises.

The latest app helps the blind to get instant help from sighted people on using the iPhone’s video call feature and in the first few days of its launch, the app has around 54,000 sighted volunteers. Sighted people who are ready to contribute help, can then install the app and receive alerts whenever help is required. Be My Eyes is a new crowd sourcing app which can connect the blind with the sighted person through the iPhone’s video call feature wherein it will enable users to lend their eyes to the blind.

The app has the potential in guiding the blind in difficult and challenging situations with over 4,000 people who have come forward to help the blind on more than 8,500 occasions according to the app’s website.

Live Audio-Video Connection 

When a first sighted user accepts a request to help a blind user, a live audio-video connection is set between the two and the sighted user could inform the blind person on what is seen whenever the blind person focuses his phone at something with the use of the rear facing camera.

Should the user be busy in extending help at that point of time, the request is automatically rotated through other sighted user till one of them accepts the request. The app has already assisted several people on almost 12,000 occasions. Tim Cook had commented eloquently on the priority he renders to equality and accessibility and went further informing a lobbying group of investors to `get out of this stock’, if it considers environmental concerns and making Apple devices accessible to disabled users, to be a waste of money’.

This new app connects the blind person with the volunteer sighted user across the world through the video chat when the app is activated and the blind person can then focus the phone’s camera to the problem faced while the help can verbally guide them.

App Invented – Hans Jorgen Wiberg

Seems to be quite amazing for the blind person seeking help since the sighted volunteer could then direct the blind person and inform them if they are walking in the right direction or if they are purchasing the appropriate product from the grocery store or even informing about expiry dates if any on any of the products to be purchased.

Hans Jorgen Wiberg invented the app who himself, was visually impaired in April 2012 and first presented the idea at a start-up convention in Denmark and the making of the app then took around two years to be created. Moreover, the app also offers sighted volunteers `a level up’ type of a system wherein they acquire points for daily acts of kindness though it is uncertain whether the volunteer obtains rewards on reaching certain levels. The app is available only for iPhones though the developers are working out on expanding the services to Android and Windows phones as well.