New Computer Game to Help People with Visual Impairments

A woman takes an eye test in east London. REUTERS/Olivia Harris
A woman takes an eye test in east London. REUTERS/Olivia Harris
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New Computer Game to Help People with Visual Impairments

A woman takes an eye test in east London. REUTERS/Olivia Harris
A woman takes an eye test in east London. REUTERS/Olivia Harris

A team of researchers at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, has developed new electronic games that help patients get rid of vision problems.

The innovative computer game, dubbed "Gözcü” (spotter), does not require the use of hands, but is managed by eye movement.

Kursat Cagıltay, a computer professor at Middle East Technical University of Ankara, said in a statement about the new innovation, that the project aims to improve the sight of people with partial visual impairments.

He added that the innovative games offer the eye the required exercises by tracking what is happening inside the game and controlling its elements with the eye movement.

"It is known that eye exercises are usually practiced by using beads, threads or colored objects, under the supervision of a specialist, but these traditional methods have no positive results in most cases, especially in young people with visual impairment. But, the new games give better results, because the patient has to follow the game while sitting in front of the computer screen, and thus move his eyes in all directions,” said Cagıltay.

The team behind the games was able to achieve good results during the pilot phase, which involved a child with strabismus, he explained.



Alphabet to Roll out Image Generation of People on Gemini after Pause

A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)
A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)
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Alphabet to Roll out Image Generation of People on Gemini after Pause

A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)
A large Google logo is seen at Google's Bay View campus in Mountain View, California on August 13, 2024. (AFP)

Alphabet's Google said on Wednesday it has updated Gemini's AI image-creation model and would roll out the generation of visuals of people in the coming days, after months-long pause of the capability.

In February, Google had paused its AI tool that creates images of people, following inaccuracies in some historical depictions generated by the model.

The issues, where the AI model returned historical images which were sometimes inaccurate, drew flak from users.

The company said it has worked to improve the product, adhere to "product principles" and simulated situations to find weaknesses.

The feature will be made available first to paid users of the Gemini AI chatbot, starting in English and later roll out the model to bring more users and languages.

Google said it has improved the Imagen 3 model to create better images of people, but it would not generate images of specific people, children or graphic content.

OpenAI's Dall-E, Microsoft's CoPilot and recently xAI's Grok are among other AI chatbots that can now generate images.

The search engine giant also said over the coming days, subscribers to Gemini Advanced, Business and Enterprise would have access to chatting with "Gems" or chatbots customized for specific purposes.

Users can write specific instructions for particular purposes and create a Gem, saving them time from rewriting prompts for repetitive use cases.