Third Eye: An Eye for the Blind to Identify Objects Using Human-Powered Technology

The visually impaired face a number of challenges when performing their daily tasks. These tasks may be differentiating objects that have similar shapes or knowing the content of a restaurant menu. In fact, there is an increasing interest in developing effective solutions that can help the visually impaired to recognize objects. However, automatic techniques cannot answer most of the questions asked by the visually impaired. In addition, it can be seen that there is an obvious deficiency in the number of applications that target Arabic blind users. Therefore, to address all of these issues, there is a need to design an effective solution that can help Arabic blind people to identify any objects at any place without any restrictions. The proposed solution is developing a mobile application that uses human-powered technology to help the visually impaired cope with the many challenges they face. This application is developed using an Arabic language interface to enhance the content of Arabic mobile applications and targets Arabic blind users. As a result of evaluating the proposed application, it is shown that it is easy to use and useful and can be employed for many important purposes in daily life.