great story, however is this app working on Iphone?
can someone confirm?
thqanks in advance.
At 07:31 PM 12/4/2020 +0530, you wrote:
That's an inspiring story indeed! A visually
impaired securing investment from big name like
Sequioa and running a successful startup in tech.
I think the article would just need a slight
correction, IT-BHU was conferred IIT status in
2012 to what I know and was not one when the honorary would have studied there.
Â
On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 18:50, pranaya rani
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
This IITian lost vision 8 years ago, he now
develops ‘voice app’ that helps visually
impaired use popular apps | Technology News,The Indian Express
<https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/this-iitian-lost-vision-develops-voice-app-that-helps-visually-impaired-use-popular-apps-7083982/?utm_source=newzmate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=technology&tqid=1vC6MmM6E0MBglWplU1nVx.jC9he477xQVHH3wBuQQ>https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/this-iitian-lost-vision-develops-voice-app-that-helps-visually-impaired-use-popular-apps-7083982/?utm_source=newzmate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=technology&tqid=1vC6MmM6E0MBglWplU1nVx.jC9he477xQVHH3wBuQQ
This IITian lost vision 8 years ago, he now
develops ‘voice app’ that helps visually impaired use popular apps
International Day of Disabled Persons 2020:
Pramit Bhargava, an alumnus of IIT-BHU and
IIM-B, is behind the Louie app that enables
visually impaired users to use popular apps with just voice commands.
<https://indianexpress.com/profile/author/anuj-bhatia/>Anuj Bhatia
Louie Voice Control, Louie app Android, Pramit Bhargava, apps f
A drug reaction 20 years ago affected the retina
of Pramit Bhargava, an alumnus of IIT-BHU and
IIM-B. Since then, he slowly started losing his
vision, and by 2012, it had dropped to a point
when he could not read anything. Losing his
vision had impacted Bhargava, both mentally and
physiologically. Low on confidence, the
53-year-old even started questioning himself.
“I was becoming so dependent on people because
of the lack of technology. Even though I’m a
good user of technology, I realised that the
only thing available for the visually impaired
was a basic screen reader that was fairly basic,
and was difficult to use,†he told
<https://indianexpress.com>indianexpress.com in an interview.
Four years ago, Bhargava, who has worked with
Hindustan Unilever and
<https://indianexpress.com/about/motorola/>Motorola,
got the idea of developing an app that shows the
way as to how tech can become more accessible to
people with disabilities. While seeking help
from a sighted friend to book a cab, Bhargava
wondered if he could create a mobile app that
allows visually impaired users to use popular apps with just voice commands.
“Louie, in a way, is all about solving my own
problem, and with the hope that it will work for
other people as well,†said Bhargava, the
creator of ‘Louie Voice Control’.
<https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/the-rise-of-assistive-devices-how-tech-is-helping-people-with-special-needs-7062129/>The
rise of assistive tech: How tech is helping people with special needs
Bhargava visualised a mobile app that could be a
‘virtual friend’, doing interactions like
humans – something he himself wished existed for
booking a cab or sending a WhatsApp message.
While the idea of a mobile that lets blind and
visually impaired use commonly used apps and
controls the phone with voice commands had a
potential, Bhargava initially struggled to get
developers on board. But once he secured funding
from Sequoia Capital, Bhargava recruited his own
developers and started working on the app. His
team now consists of 14 people, including three
visually impaired developers who are in the area
of testing as well as user experience.
Louie Voice Control, Louie app Android, Pramit Bhargava, apps f
<img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-7083358
size-full"
src="<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg";
alt="Louie Voice Control, Louie app Android,
Pramit Bhargava, apps for visually impaired and
blind, International Day of Disabled Persons
2020, startups in India"
srcset="<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg
759w,
<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg?resize=450,205>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg?resize=450,205
450w,
<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg?resize=600,274>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg?resize=600,274
600w,
<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg?resize=728,332>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg?resize=728,332
728w" sizes="(max-width: 759px) 100vw, 759px"
/> Bhargava has worked with the FMCG giant
Hindustan Unilever in the past. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/Indian Express)
Bhargava says the mobile app, ‘Louie Voice
Control’, is a part of the larger effort to
make tech products and services accessible for
the people with disabilities and special needs.
With smartphones becoming more accessible than
ever, it becomes natural to design solutions
that benefit a larger section of the society,
including blind and visually impaired people.
The app’s name Louie was derived from Louis
Braille, inventor of the Braille, a system that
enables blind and visually impaired people to read and write through touch.
“Whichever app we support, whatever phone
functionality we support, we got to make Louie
so good that just like a sighted person, a
visually impaired person should also be able to
do each and everything within that app with just voice commands,†he says.
Louie is designed to be an accessibility app and
the voice functionality is an integral part of
the solution. “It’s a very complex
technology, and no other app in the world is
actually using it the way we are,†he said.
But how do you differentiate between your
solution vs
<https://indianexpress.com/about/google/>Google Assistant, Alexa or Siri?
<https://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/apple-updates-accessibility-website-to-make-users-aware-of-new-capabilities-7083580/>Apple
updates accessibility website to make users aware of new capabilities
“The difference in approach is that if you
take the voice assistants, be it Google
Assistant, Siri or Alexa, they are meant for the
sighted masses,†he explains. Citing the
example of Uber, Bhargava said none of these
voice assistants can actually do a complete
booking. “What Louie does is that it will ask
you for the destination, it will tell you the
rides and the order of increasing prices and
then it will confirm pick up. Even post booking,
you can call the driver and cancel your ride.
They do superficial support for each app, what
we do is we do complete 100 per cent support
within an app that we voice-enable,†he said.
For Bhargava, the blind and visually impaired is
the use case for Louie and that itself
differentiates the app from Google Assistant or Alexa.
Bhargava says the core technology used to
develop the Louie app is developed in-house.
However, there are many supporting technologies
that are used to make the app come from Google.
For example, the Louie app uses Google’s
speech to text conversion, which is where a lot
of artificial intelligence comes into play.
“With Louie, you can set up any voice engine
and voice that you want. We don’t have a voice of our own,†he said.
Louie Voice Control, Louie app Android, Pramit Bhargava, apps f
<img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-7083355
size-full"
src="<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg";
alt="Louie Voice Control, Louie app Android,
Pramit Bhargava, apps for visually impaired and
blind, International Day of Disabled Persons
2020, startups in India"
srcset="<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg
759w,
<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg?resize=450,438>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg?resize=450,438
450w,
<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg?resize=600,583>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg?resize=600,583
600w,
<https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg?resize=417,405>https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg?resize=417,405
417w" sizes="(max-width: 759px) 100vw, 759px"
/> The Louie app is designed for blind,
visually impaired people, and elderly. The app
works with Uber, WhatsApp, YouTube, among other apps.
Bhargava says the app, which is currently
available on
<https://indianexpress.com/about/android/>Android,
has a user base in 70 countries and there is a
WhatsApp group that is being used to get the
feedback from users. “Practically 99% of the
users that we have are all visually impaired.â€
Big tech companies like
<https://indianexpress.com/about/apple/>Apple,
Google and
<https://indianexpress.com/about/microsoft/>Microsoft
have been making their products more accessible
for the disabled. With
<https://indianexpress.com/about/ios/>iOS, Apple
has added features designed to make its devices
easier to use for people with disabilities.
Microsoft meanwhile offers an Xbox Adaptive
Controller specially designed for people with
special needs. Google, too, is not behind in its
efforts to make its services accessible for
disabled. It recently added Live Caption, a
feature which transcribes videos and audio on a
smartphone in real-time. Efforts are being made
to make products that benefit everyone, but the
accessibility tech is still in progress.
“One of the reasons why this app is so complex
for us is that there is no one standard Android
and unlike iOS where accessibility features are
baked in, here there are various versions of
Android, particularly the Chinese phones, where
different phones have got different versions of
Android. Because accessibility is like an
afterthought, it’s not baked in so you can
make an app which will be completely inaccessible,†he said.
Accessibility tech has a lot of potential to
grow in India, according to Bhargava. “The
core solution has to be technology, and even the
dissemination of these solutions through technology.â€
Right now, the Louie app is in beta stage and
can be downloaded for free from the Google Play
Store. But Bhargava is contemplating on how to
price the app in India. “The whole idea is
that how do you make it so affordable, so it
could be down to Rs 20 a month, it could be Rs
35 a month, but certainly not in the range of Rs
350-400 a month in India†. Bhargava is also
thinking of tying up with an organisation, and giving them a free license.
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![https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg"](https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/IMG_8479.jpg"){kind=link}
![https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg"](https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/12/louie.jpg"){kind=link}
