Dec. 4 – “A technology to recognize faces and gestures has existed for some time, but our challenge is to combine what we know and take it a step further, creating a meeting point between technology and social life in an interface that allows the blind to overcome barriers.” Marcello Pelillo, professor of artificial intelligence at the University Ca ‘ Foscari of Venice speaks of disability, research and socialization. He will intervene in Boston – Friday, December 6 – during the workshop “Challenges 2013,” an event organized by the Bocelli Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The day is part of the Year of Italian Culture in the U.S., and will open with a speech by Maestro Andrea Bocelli. The workshop will bring together international excellence personalities in the fields of scientific and technological research and development economics. Because advanced computers can “see” a smile, but blind people are not, this remains a goal to reach for science and technology. A group of Italian researchers intends to take up the challenge. The Italian research project was written in collaboration with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired (UIC); it provides for at least two years of study and will start as soon as the necessary funding is provided. The objective is to improve social relations of the blind through minimally invasive innovative technology, such as low-cost -based smartphones and micro cameras. The universities involved are Ca ‘ Foscari University of Venice, Siena, Trento, Palermo, Florence and Modena and Reggio Emilia. Pelillo, scientific coordinator of the project, explains the groundbreaking research: “On the role of nonverbal communication there has been research since Darwin’s age. Today we have the technology to ensure that computers can analyze and interpret behavior and ‘social signals,’ such as facial expressions, gestures, and body posture. These signals – allow us to get information on mood, attitude and reactions.” According to the World Health Organization, there are approximately 285 million people with severe vision problems and 90 % live in developing countries. In Italy, Istat estimates about one million people with visual impairment, including 362.000 blind. Technology is already providing prototypes that assist the blind and visually impaired to move or use objects, and even read, communicate and stay informed via mobile devices. The novelty of Italian researchers of is, however, their approach towards the social sphere, characterized by daily encounters and meetings, moments of everyday life in which it is important to understand and interpret facial expressions and gestures to identify friends or foes. The instruments will be able to “learn,” knowing people and places to the point of being able to report abnormal situations, such as the presence of a large group of people in a usually deserted place. The information will not be communicated to the user via an auditory system, which, it was found, already fills the perception of blind and visually impaired: additional audio stimuli could cause confusion and therefore be useless for the purpose. The researchers are thus going to work with multiple technologies (multimedia and computer vision, Braille tactile interfaces) by modulating the use according to what was experienced. Their work will be carried out in collaboration with the Italian Union of the Blind and Visually Impaired. “The ability to interact with the surrounding world – says Barbara Leporini, President of the Union for Tuscany and researcher in computer science at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies of the National Research Council in Pisa – can undoubtedly open new horizons not only in the private sphere, but also in fostering greater inclusion in working groups and round tables. The research and new technologies must also be put to this type of use in order to remove or reduce as much as possible those communication barriers that blind people have to come to terms with on a daily basis.”
