Microsoft's PeopleLens Use AI to Help Blind Kids Improve Social Interaction

Leading tech company Microsoft recently unveiled their original AI-based system that could help the younger population who are blind improve their social skills. According to the experts behind the project, the technology could assist the confidence of kids in everyday exposure to their immediate environments and interaction with their circle.

Microsoft's Solution to Social Challenges Blind Children Experience

Children, particularly those born with eyesight challenges, commonly experience difficulties socializing with their families and peers. Due to the limitations of their impairments, these kids struggle to work out their emotions and thoughts, hindering the communication they have with the people they are talking to.

The limitations of blindness are truly frustrating for the children and decrease the convenience of connection offered by many families and educators.

With that said, Microsoft developed a device called PeopleLens that offers assistance to blind younglings. The goal of this system is to relay a transparent medium of conversation between the impaired kids and the people around them.

PeopleLens produces a high-quality sound for the user to hear the conversation clearly. In addition, it can detect the exact location of nearby individuals that talk to the wearer, making the children appear to face the person they are conversing with.

Among the solutions that PeopleLens offers is to have the children give a sense of clarity regarding the relative position of the subjects during physical communications.

Microsoft Research Lab's lead research expert Cecily Morrison explained that PeopleLens assists the learning kids to create their own People Map, a mind-based aspect that is crucial to effectively determine and recognize the communicating individuals near their vicinity.

The device could alert its user whenever a subject is close and ready to interact with them, which is an approach similar to how sight works whenever people talk with each other, Morrison continued.

PeopleLens Research

PeopleLens is currently in its prototype phase. The AI program is embedded inside an augmented reality (AR) glass, which could be synchronized to a phone for personalization and control. According to YourStory, the glass will be provided by Nreal Light instead of Microsoft's own HoloLens headset.

The system could only detect people the user already registered in the database. However, the process of listing a person's face is simple and can be carried out by just taking images of the subject in multiple poses through the synced phone.

PeopleLens' system immediately analyzes the feature of a subject and registers the person's data. Through a specialized algorithm, the program will conduct a series of observations by locating the person's position, tracking their movements, identifying their faces, and how they gaze into several directions - all to improve the user's experience.

PeopleLens also relay a distinct set of sounds that indicate any movements detected around them. The sounds will depend on the type of movements nearby people do, and the distance between them and the user, according to a report.

PoepleLens is still in development, but Microsoft is already conducting several tests that include learners' participation from the age group of five to 11 years. A study discussing the device is expected to be carried out in three months, starting September 2022, through the help of scholars from the University of Bristol. Interested participants can join on their research website today.

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