A woman uses a smartphone to search food to order online. gettyimagesbank
Baedal Minjok, the largest food-ordering online platform here, has developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) technology providing more detailed audio description of foods for those with visual impairments.
Woowa Brothers, operator of the platform, said Sunday it has completed tests of the AI-based description technology among a group of visually impaired users. The company teamed up with AI-based image startup Connect Brick to develop the function which verbally describes details such as the doneness and ingredients of dishes shown in menu images.
The technology works by having AI analyze images and vividly describe their color, level of doneness, visual appearance of main ingredients and delivering these descriptions as spoken audio.
The technology, for example, can provide a detailed description of a half-and-half pizza: “Golden brown dough is topped with pepperoni on one side, which looks as if it’s holding in rich juices, while on the other side, corn, ham, cheese and sauces are generously layered together.”
The AI audio function has advanced from a screen-reader feature that simply reads texts appearing on a smartphone screen.
Woowa Brothers said it tested the technology at Shiloam Vision Center for the Blind in Seoul’s Gwanak District for three days. Thirty visually impaired people joined the test by listening to the AI-based food description and evaluated its quality.
Test participants rated the quality 4.5 out of 5 on average, according to the company. The reviews included, “I can picture the food in my mind,” “I feel recognized as an equal consumer,” and “it has resolved the unbalance in conventional information sharing through ‘images’ which has been bothering disadvantaged people like us.”
The development of the technology comes ahead of Korea’s Disability Awareness Day on Monday, the company noted.
Kim Jung‑hyun, head of the company’s sustainable management office, said the company will “carry out corporate social responsibility of improving accessibility so that everyone can equally benefit from technological advantages without discrimination.”
Source: Korea Times News
