Microsoft’s Seeing AI helps users with visual impairment detect Indian currency

The latest update to Microsoft’s Seeing AI App brings new capabilities to the image recognition and narration app. The Microsoft Seeing AI App, designed for users with visual impairment, can now detect Indian currency and narrate the denomination to the user. This includes all the notes that are currently in circulation including the new currency bills issued recently. The Seeing AI app now supports five different currencies including the Euro, US & Canadian dollars as well as British Pounds.

Seeing AI combines artificial intelligence and rich computer vision to describe surrounding people, text, objects, colours, and currencies in real-time to the user, and is available for download on iOS devices from the App Store in 56 countries. Since its launch in July 2017, the app has completed over 5 million tasks for 30,000 monthly active users.

Currency bills are particularly challenging to identify, as they come in different sizes and textures, and are often modified by government. People who are blind or have low vision are known to fold these notes up in different shapes to be able to recognize and use them when needed, though still require means to differentiate denominations. Seeing AI brings this power to the users’ fingertips no matter where they are.

Designed for users with visual impairment, Seeing AI combines artificial intelligence and rich computer vision to narrate the world around users in real-time. By describing surrounding people, text, objects, colours, and currencies, Seeing AI serves as an example of how inclusive technology empowers people of all abilities.