2017 May 16 | AIVAnet

16

May

MIT is building a cheap handheld device for translating Braille instantly

Why it matters to you

MIT’s low-cost handheld Braille translator could be a game-changer for millions of people around the world.

Thanks to the power of modern machine translation tools, the ability to instantly translate from one language to another is commonplace. Due to the advancement of technologies like deep learning, it recently got a whole lot better, too. However, a group of six researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) — calling themselves Team Tactile — are interested in doing something far less common: Creating a device that can carry out a real-time translation of text to Braille. The results could be a game-changer for millions of people around the world who are either blind or have low vision.

“We are creating the first dedicated text-to-braille converter to give people who are visually impaired greater access to the large amount of printed text information encountered in daily life,” Grace Li, a researcher on the project from MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, told Digital Trends. “With our device, people who are visually impaired can take an image of any printed text and immediately read the resulting braille translation.”

The Tactile device features a scanning mechanism with which users can take a photo of a particular image they wish to translate; anything from a textbook to a restaurant menu. Optical character recognition (OCR) tech is then used to extract the text, the device translates it into Braille, and the lines of text appear on a physical display, which uses pins that move up and down to form the Braille characters.

At present, the device only captures a small portion of a document but in the final product, the team wants to be able to apply the technology to imaging an entire document.

“The ultimate goal with real-time translation is braille on demand,” Li continued. “We are aiming to have our final prototype ready for manufacture within the next one or two years. We will then be working with manufacturers and distributors to bring our device to market the following year.”

Team Tactile is hoping the finished device will cost users less than $100, making it significantly cheaper than any other comparable solution on the market.

16

May

Ultra-affordable Lenovo Moto C starts at $97 but won’t be available in the U.S.

Why it matters to you

If the Moto G is too rich for your blood, the Moto C might better fit your budget.

After a few months of rumors and speculation, Lenovo has finally taken the wraps off of the ultra-budget Moto C and Moto C Plus. But just how cheap is the phone? Well, the Moto C starts at $97.

For that money, you obviously can’t expect anything too fancy, but the phones are actually quite powerful for the prices that they come at. Not all the details of the phones have been unveiled just yet, but we do have a pretty good look at the design as well as some of the specs under the hood.

Let’s start with the Moto C. The device comes with a 2,350mAh battery, as well as a MediaTek quad-core processor. There are two variants of the Moto C — a 3G version and a 4G version, and both come with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. The rear-facing camera sits in at 5 megapixels, while the front-facing shooter offers 2 megapixels, and the phone is available in four different colors: cherry, white, gold, and black.

The Moto C Plus ups the stakes a little with a 4,000mAh battery, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. The rear-facing camera increases to a much nicer 8 megapixels, and the phone offers a MicroSD card slot to expand on that storage.

As mentioned, there are a few things that we don’t know about the phones just yet — like their exact screen size, or what version of Android the phones come with. Still, we expect that the devices will run Android Nougat, and previous speculation suggests that the Moto C will offer a 5-inch camera.

Unfortunately we shouldn’t expect to see the phones in North America — the phones will launch in Latin America, Europe, and the Asian Pacific region. We don’t have any information on specific countries just yet, but we do know that the Moto C will start at 89 euros, or $97, and the Moto C Plus will start at 119 euros, or $130.

Updated on 05-15-2017 by Christian de Looper: Added news of Lenovo Moto C’s announcement.

16

May

A worry-no-more wearable tracks your feverish child’s temperature

Why it matters to you

Fevers can be frightening for both parent and child. Degree helps parents monitor their kids’ fever to respond quickly and effectively.

Two caring parents have used their engineering expertise to develop a smart thermometer that continuously monitors a child’s temperature. Called simply Degree, the wearable thermometer fits snugly into the child’s ear and relays information about the progress of his or her condition during a fever.

The unique device was inspired by an unfortunate event — when the daughter of Greta and Johannes Kreuzer suffered a febrile seizure, with a severe fever and sudden changes in body temperature. “You just can’t see it coming without monitoring the body temperature continuously,” Greta told Digital Trends. “We thought, it can’t be that we have the measuring technology for adults but aren’t able to monitor our children to help them when they are sick.”

Degree was designed to be light, flexible, and minimally invasive — so as to not disturb the child — while robust enough to maintain continuous monitoring. It’s placed in the ear, near the hypothalamus, which the Kreuzers call, “the body’s own temperature sensor.”

The wearable is accompanied by an app that displays the temperature on a curve graph so parents can more confidently track its progression. Alarms can be set within the app to signal sudden temperature increases or if the device has fallen out of the child’s ear.

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Degree’s accuracy was tested on adults in the heart surgery center in Munich, Germany. The wearable’s size and fitting were tested with the children of the Degree team, who were between 10 months and 12 years old. Greta said they all responded well.

“I am convinced that parents will treat fever of their children with much more confidence and without stress if they actually are able to track the temperature,” she added. “Right now, many of them feel uncertain what to do — including me with my first child — and don’t know how to help. With Degree, they can learn very fast what the best individual treatment for their child is.”

To fund Degree, the Kreuzers turned to Kickstarter, where the device is currently available for 95 euros ($104).

16

May

Snapchat doubles down on AR with new sponsored Lenses and geofilters

Why it matters to you

Get ready to see a lot more AR-based advertising through sponsored Lenses on Snapchat.

Augmented reality is the future of mobile photography — or, at the very least, mobile advertising. This week, Snapchat is debuting three new features that build on its system of Sponsored Creative Tools: World Lenses, Audience Lenses, and Smart Geofilters. They each operate slightly differently, though the goal is the same: to get you to take more branded selfies.

World Lenses debuted in April, but have now been opened up to advertisers. Think of them as the Sponsored Lenses you’ve probably already encountered, that dress up your selfies with AR-based content — only fleshed out for a greater degree of interaction.

World Lenses will be able to literally manipulate the world around you (in addition to your face) by placing 2D and 3D objects in the environment that can trigger animations and actions when tapped on or looked at. They’re named as such because they’ll be launched in entire countries and regions simultaneously, rather than specific, localized areas. That’s where Audience Lenses come into play.

Audience Lenses are functionally the same as World Lenses, though these are targeted based on location and demographics. Additionally, they’ll tie into Snapchat’s Lifestyle Categories — sets of users grouped by their interest in similar content producers. Advertisers will be able to tap into all of this data to position a campaign squarely for a certain audience, as opposed to the less discriminate approach of using World Lenses for everyone on Snapchat.

Finally, there are Smart Geofilters. Before Lenses, geofilters were the first destination for sponsored content in Snapchat. In the past, they acted as static borders or artwork atop a user’s snaps. Over time, they became a bit more dynamic, showing current scores for sporting events, among other uses. Now, branded geofilters will also be able to incorporate location data to deliver a unique filter depending on where they’re used.

Warner Bros. will be one of Snapchat’s first clients to use Smart Geofilters in the run-up to the launch of Everything, Everything, an upcoming film based on the popular young adult novel of the same name. In addition to the movie’s logo, the geofilter will display the user’s high school or university name when a snap is taken within those boundaries.

None of these additions are completely new to the service, though they are powerful expansions to the tools advertisers already have at their disposal. Snapchat is noticing that interactive content is keeping people engaged. For example, the average user messes around with a sponsored Lens 15 seconds before sending it, according to the company via TechCrunch.

Rather than simply doubling down on autoplay ads and more exclusive content for the Discover feed, Snapchat is taking a serious look at how and why people use its app — and it could help lead the company in a more profitable direction.

16

May

Computer-generated doctor could clear up confusing test results

Why it matters to you

Medical test results can be confusing, but this computer-generated physician may help the elderly get a better handle on their health.

Americans are aging and doctors are in short supply. By 2025, there could be a shortage of 90,000 physicians, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

To deliver results more efficiently, many clinics have turned to online portals where patients can access and review their scores. But, rather than clearing things up, these numeric results often end up confusing patients, particularly older ones, even more.

“This is one reason why patient portals are often underutilized, especially by less educated, older, sicker patients,” Daniel Morrow, an educational psychologist at the University of Illinois, told Digital Trends. “This is a big problem because these are the patients who most need to understand this information and stand the most to gain from ready access to well-designed health information that can support self-care.”

Morrow and his team developed a computer-generated doctor that reads test results in layman’s terms, accompanied by graphics that compare the patient’s test scores with ideal results. The aim is to make these online portals more accessible, while making the results understandable and engaging.

“Traditionally patients turn to their providers, such as physicians and nurses, to help make sense of their numbers,” Morrow explained. Nurses and doctors help patients grasp their test results, and give nonverbal cues that engage and support the patient emotionally.

“The use of a conversational agent to deliver test results in portal environments can emulate some aspects of face-to-face communication that may help patients understand and respond appropriately to their health information,” Morrow continued. “This should also increase patients’ use of their portals.”

In the study, participants between the ages of 65 and 89 played the role of patient, listening to the hypothetical test results delivered by the computer doctor in either a natural or synthesized voice. The participants then answered questions to show their comprehension. In both cases the participants accurately understood and remembered the content or the report, though some participants preferred the natural-sounding voice to the synthesized one.

The questions of natural versus synthesized voices is important when it comes to human-machine interactions. A phenomenon called the “uncanny valley” — in which a human replica suddenly becomes really creepy when it seems too humanlike — can make people reject robots all together.

Roboticists and AI developers are constantly trying to avoid this valley by making their bots obviously not human, by making them cartoonish or by exposing their inner wires.

Morrow and his team don’t expect their computer doctor to deliver results in the immediate future, but their next steps will be to refine the system and test how patients might respond to various configurations to find which one is most relatable.

“The agents will vary in age and gender, but also in realism, such as stylized and cartoon versus photo-realistic,” he said. “We will examine whether some types of participants prefer the more stylized agent over the more realistic version, perhaps to avoid the ‘uncanny valley.’”

A paper detailing the study was published this month in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics.