Google Lookout's new feature will be enhanced, helping visually impaired and blind people by reading back food labels and long documents. According to PhysOrg's latest report, Google confirmed that it would improve its Lookout App to allow users to scan objects. The app's new feature will scan the labels and read it back to them.
Google’s Lookout app for vision-impaired now scans food labels and long documents: Google has updated its Lookout app, an AI toolkit for people with impaired vision, with two helpful new capabilities: scanning long documents and reading out food labels.… https://t.co/5cqnpjKf8q pic.twitter.com/Lp1AtL0EPr — Peter Heywood (@PeterHeywood_) August 11, 2020
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Scan Document and Food Labels are the two new features that will be added to the app. Food Label will allow people to quickly identify products on store shelves by identifying images, scanning barcodes, and reading the texts back to them.
Blind people and other visually impaired shoppers will know not only the label of the products they're looking for, but also information such as expiration dates, nutritional contents, and other relevant details marked on the product labels. Lookout will now guide users to focus on the most critical sections of the products, notifying them if their camera is pointed at the wrong spot.
On the other hand, the Scan Document will help Google users to navigate documents easier such as instructions and letters. People can now quickly scan documents with the help of Google's Talkback, a feature of Android's screen reader that provides spoken feedback and audible vibration cues.
Other changes in Google's Lookout App
Lookout's layout was also changed, allowing users to navigate quicker and at greater ease as they scroll between modes located at the screen's bottom. It will also have an enhanced Quick Read feature, which will read back short snippets of text on posters or signs.
Google’s Lookout can now detect paper currency and read document text aloud https://t.co/SGVUVBg8Lq pic.twitter.com/cWR46PAR8C — FoundersGyan (@FoundersGyan) August 11, 2020
Users can also detect the denomination of cash with the help of the Currency option, allow them to identify the value of their money even when folded. However, it was confirmed that the additional feature could only read American bills as of the moment.
Another new update is called Explore, which can identify objects around a room when the person points the camera in his/her surrounding. Lookout's update also widens the range of the phones it can utilize. The app is now available to all Android devices with at least 2 GB running Android 6.0 or higher. Its language scope is also increased, which now includes Spanish, English, German, French, and Italian.
"Expanding this app to more people and devices is part of our commitment to make the world's information universally accessible and to build helpful products with and for people with disabilities," explained the product manager for Google's Accessibility Engineering, Scott Adams.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
