App to help blind 'see money'

The blind have a reason to smile, courtesy a new smart phone application that helps them "see the money" as it aids in identification of notes.

The Android app 'See the Money' detects the exact denomination from a simple photo of the note clicked via the phone.

Developed by researchers Suriya Singh, Kumar Vishal and C.V. Jawahar from the International Institute of Information Technology - Hyderabad, and Shushman Choudhury from the Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur, the currency recognition software relays the information as an audio clip.

"It can be used on low-end smart phones. In our current approach we have been able to report a recognition accuracy of 96.7 percent on 2,584 images. We have worked with the Indian Rupee. However, it can be extended to other currencies," Singh told IANS.

The app will be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Kannada. It takes 1.09 seconds for the app to tell the currency denomination, running on a typical smartphone with specifics of 1.2 Ghz CPU and IGB RAM.