[RELEASE] Blind Assistant CFW0001 (first official release)

**Pegasus2000** · January 23rd, 2008, 19:41

This is a very important advice.

Blind Assistant is the attempt to create an homebrew that is able to
recognize the names of the people that are present in a room. This
can help blind men and people that are visually impaired.

Visilab Research Center has released the first official version of the
program here:

http://visilab.unime.it/~filippo/Bli...dAssistant.htm

The source code is released too, and it is under GPL license.

Blind Assistant uses a complex algorithm of recognition based on
PentLand/EigenFaces and on SIFT (Scalar Features Inverse Transform)
to recognize the name of the people that are present in the room.

In the following versions, I'll add also the ability to recognizes the place
in which the user is in that moment, and other features.

Each Blind Assistant installation, is able to auto-update itself using
Internet connection. So, when Visilab will release a new version of
BA, your program will detect the update, and it will download it and
install it, in a fully automatized procedure.

The system supports either PSP Fat or PSP Slim, with custom firmware
3.71 M33-4. The Sony GoCam device is fully supported, and Eyeserver
is only the second choice.

The engine for vocal synthesis is the ndFLite, based on the Alan
Cox's work (Carniege Mellon University).

The graphical interface is based on the tecnologies released with the
new Nanodesktop 0.3.3.

I hope that it is useful for the blind.

**blackrave** · January 23rd, 2008, 20:57

What you do, Pegasus2000, is amazing. It would be fantastic to see things like this implemented in other homebrew applications. Keep the brilliant work going!

**Safari Al** · January 23rd, 2008, 21:37

now THIS is being creative! I don't think I've ever seen anything like this!

**Mr Corky** · January 23rd, 2008, 23:36

Wow, I would have never thought this would be possibe, but a cam I don't have so I can't use it. Great work though, ol' chap!

**mavsman4457** · January 24th, 2008, 01:38

Thank you for your hard work. This is great to see people making applications to help out those that are really in need. You're very kind and keep up the good work.