High-tech finger ring can read to the visually impaired in real time

High-tech finger ring can read to the visually impaired in real time
(Image credit: Twitter.com/CBCNews)

People with impaired vision may soon be able to immediately read books, magazines, menus, and computer screens, thanks to an audio reading device being created by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scientists have spent three years on software coding and trying out different designs, but the FingerReader still needs to be able to work on touch screens. There's a potential market of 11.2 million people in the United States with vision impairment, including 62-year-old Jerry Berrier. Born blind, Berrier says he would like to use the FingerReader to scan medical papers and other important documents. "Everywhere we go, for folks who are sighted, there are things that inform us about the products that we are about to interact with," he said to The Associated Press. "I wanna be able to interact with those same products, regardless of how I have to do it."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.