Top prize for LED glasses that assist the visually impaired

Dubbed Smart Specs, the glasses were developed with specialist hardware and software from test and measurement firm National Instruments. They work by acquiring video feeds from head-mounted cameras, which process data to identify nearby obstacles. This data is then relayed to the user via a bank of LEDs, taking advantage of the individual's ability to detect changes in contrast. The final product is expected to cost about the same as a modern smartphone and significantly improve the quality of life of people with serious visual impairments. The Oxford team, led by Dr Stephen Hicks from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, utilised National Instruments' LabVIEW design software and Vision Development Module to create the Smart Specs. These were said to provide ready to run analysis functions and drivers for acquiring, displaying and logging images, allowing raw data to be acquired with little development effort. These images were then processed inline, using pattern matching and optical character recognition to identify objects worth highlighting to the individual. Describing why he chose LabVIEW, Dr Hicks said: "I have been an avid LabVIEW developer for more than 10 years, and have found that no other application development environment offers such fast and flexible software development and debugging."