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Google's upcoming product, Google Glass, is being used for more than twitter updates and Facebook postings. Two PhD students, named Brandyn White and Andrew Miller, have created a project called OpenGlass that uses the Camera on a Google Glass to assist the visually impaired.
So What Is OpenGlass?
OpenGlass is an open source project by Dapper Vision, which founders, Brandyn White and Andrew Miller, hope will provide assistance to the visually impaired. The OpenGlass project hopes to support it and others through six main categories;
- Vision – The OpenGlass project hopes to use Google Glass to provide image classification and parameters to search for unknown images.
- Crowdsourcing – The OpenGlass project will use social media and search services to answer questions on image classification and identification.
- Augmented Reality – The OpenGlass project will include image overlays and virtual information within the visual field provided by Google Glass.
- Distributed Backend – The server used to provide support to OpenGlass will be stateless and can be replicated.
- Native Apps – OpenGlass will be designed for Android SDK/NDK apps allowing for direct access to Google Glass sensors, camera, and networking.
- Open Source – OpenGlass code is on Github and released under the Apache 2.0 license.
Why Is This Important?
Projects like OpenGlass illustrate the ever-growing ability of technology to assist users with disabilities. Furthermore, by perfecting and distributing the OpenGlass project freely through open source code, Dapper Vision is also leading the way in social responsibility.
What is the purpose of creating and perfecting a product that assists disabled members of the community only to turn around and sell the product for more than most can afford? This corporate paradigm is outdated and with more visionaries like Dapper Vision, hopefully far behind us.
