Learn about building AR assistants for the blind at XRDC in October!

Technology can help make peoples' lives better, and as XRDC approaches organizers are happy to announce that the October event will host a cutting-edge talk about how augmented-reality tech can be of service to the blind.

As part of XRDC's Innovation track of talks, CalTech professor Markus Meister and Computation and Neural Systems PhD student Yang Liu will be speaking at length about their work in a session called "Powering a Cognitive Assistant for the Blind Using AR".

You'll want to see this, because the pair plan to present a cognitive assistant for blind persons based on the Microsoft HoloLens. The system identifies objects in the environment and gives them virtual voices, communicating maximally distilled knowledge in a way that is intuitive and natural to the human user. By interacting with these voices, the blind user gains all kinds of new abilities: from obstacle avoidance to formation and recall of spatial memories.

With this technology, blind people can navigate an unfamiliar multi-story building on their first attempt, without any training. Liu and Meister will discuss the design principle behind the technology and argue that with the same principles, AR can power intelligent assistants that boost cognitive powers for everyone.

XRDC takes place this October 29th and 30th in San Francisco at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. Now that registration is open, you'll want to look over XRDC passes and prices and register early to get the best deal!

For more information about XRDC, which is produced by organizers of the Game Developers Conference, check out the official XRDC website. You can also subscribe to regular XRDC updates via email, Twitter and Facebook.

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