Soon `smart glasses` that could help the blind to see

Zee Media Bureau

London: Researchers have developed new `Star Trek-style` smart glasses that could transform the lives of blind and partially-sighted people. According to a report, the glasses don’t replace lost vision but assist with spatial awareness and this will also be the first large-scale test of smart glasses and augmented reality for sight enhancement worldwide. The joint project between the University of Oxford and the Royal National Institute of Blind People, will first create 100 pairs to test on 1,000 people. While the idea had won a £500,000 grant in a Google charity competition, the makers hope to make the device available at around £300 and could be available in the shops by 2016. “The idea of the smart glasses is to give people with poor vision an aid that boosts their awareness of what’s around them – allowing greater freedom, independence and confidence to get about, and a much improved quality of life,” Dr Stephen Hicks of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford, who is leading the development of the glasses, was quoted as saying in the Daily Mail. The glasses would have a spectacle-mounted 3D camera that would enhance images of nearby shapes and objects. It would highlight and outline them clearly on the inside of small transparent displays that are part of the spectacle lenses. (With Agencies Input)