New Tech Hopes to Help Blind Navigate through World

In ancient Egyptian mythology there was god named Horus. His right eye was white and represented the sun and his left was black representing the moon. According to the myth, Horus lost his left eye during a fight with his uncle to avenge his father’s death. His uncle tore out his eye but lost the fight because the assembly of gods declared Horus the winner. His left eye was restored by another god. The Eye of Horus became a symbol of healing and safety, making it the perfect name for a new wearable device for the blind and visually impaired.

Horus, designed by Eyra Ltd, an Italian tech start up company, helps the wearer navigate public spaces.

It’s comprised of a headset and pocket computer and acts like an audio guide, worn like headphones and powered by a smartphone. It reads books, signs, detects obstacles, and has facial recognition feature. The device has two cameras in the headset to capture 3D images of it’s surroundings which sends them to the Tegra pocket computer and translates that into sound. Although the white walking stick can detect what’s on the ground, Horus can detect everything that is surrounding the person. If the person is coming towards an object, say a tree which is on the left of them, the user will hear a sound coming from the right ear to signify that there is something to avoid on the person’s right.

The facial recognition is also a cool feature of Horus, the user will have to teach the device who the person is by taking pictures of them and saying their name aloud. Once Horus has stored the face it will be able to recognize the person, even at a distance, in real time.  Another cool thing? It doesn’t need an internet connection to work.

The device is offered in three languages: English, Italian, and Japanese with the english version set to come out in January and cost roughly $2000.