Microsoft unblocking AI to help 1 billion persons with disabilities

As over one billion people roughly 15 per cent of the worlds population grapple with some form of disability Microsoft has begun unblocking the potential of Artificial Intelligence AI to improve assistive technologies in several ways the companys India President Anant Maheshwari said on MondayMaheshwari who had a lifealtering learning experience in 2008 when he was afflicted with a severe case of labyrinthitis and vertigo said nearly 200 million people experience significant difficulties in functioning globallyLeaving behind a billion people is contrary to our mission of empowering every person on the planet to achieve more Inclusion is at the heart of everything we create at Microsoft Maheshwari said in a blog post on the occasion of UN International Day of Persons with DisabilitiesTake the Seeing AI app which turns the visual world into an audible experience he addedLeveraging AI capabilities in computer vision for the blind and the lowvision community the Microsoft app uses Optical character recognition OCR to read text scans barcodes and recognises faces emotions and objects to describe the worldMicrosoft Translator is another example where people who are deaf or hard of hearing derive immense value from the transcriptions and realtime captioning as wellAccessibility checker in Office helps one to ensure all content is accessible to all with the use of alternative text for images or videos Whether at work or at home the Windows 10 cloudbased platform provides builtin assistive technology thats on the move said MaheshwariFor people who are hard of hearing or need help focusing Windows allows to quiet visual distractions highlight content in Edge and customize visual alertsWith Narrator Speech Recognition and Skype Translator people with vision loss or limited mobility can easily surf the web collaborate and communicate real timeMicrosoft AI for Accessibility is a new 25 million fiveyear programme from Microsoft for developers globally including in IndiaThe programme will put AI tools in the hands of developers to accelerate the development of accessible and intelligent AI solutions for people with disabilitiesJenny LayFlurrie Microsofts firstever Chief Accessibility Officer whose deafness set in at a young age has a mammoth goal ahead to utilise AI tools for accessibility and inclusionAccessibility is all about making anything and everything accessible to everyone We have several programmes for the disabled like Seeing AI and auto alttext features that are helping narrate the world for people who are blind or have low vision Jenny recently told a group of visiting journalists at the companys Redmond headquartersCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in the headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever