See the end for my note about
enabling the Siri commands.
From David Goldfield's Tech
VI list:
Original Source
Be My Eyes Releases Winter ‘25 App Update
Promising Significant New Capabilities for Blind
Users
Introduces Performance
Enhancements and Flexible New Data Choices for Users
![Be My Eyes logo]()
San Francisco, 5 February, 2025 -
Be My Eyes (bemyeyes.com), the
company that breaks down barriers to accessibility
for people who are blind or have low vision,
announced today a major update to its award-winning
app. The Winter ‘25 release is focused on enhanced
usability and performance as well as improving data
controls and choices for its users.
Although Be My Eyes makes continuous
improvements to its app with incremental updates
throughout the year, the Winter ‘25 release - which
coincides with the recent 10th anniversary of the
original launch of the Be My Eyes app - holds
significant new capabilities for its users. It also
introduces important new data management
capabilities including the formalization of a data
retention policy promised in the announcement in July 2024 about AI training
data.
The new capabilities are focused around two
main areas:
- User Experience and
Performance
- User Data Management
User Experience and
Performance
The Winter ‘25
release adds some new and exciting user experience
and performance features.
Higher Resolution Video
Call-a-Volunteer
video calls are now made in full 1080p HD resolution
as a default. This higher resolution provides
volunteers and Service Connect agents (when calling
a business) with clearer images and finer details
when zooming-in before providing any description or
answers to the user.
Auto Read Aloud
Be My AI, the
AI-powered visual interpretation agent, has also
undergone some enhancements. For example, at the
request of many low vision users, descriptive texts
can now be read aloud automatically even if a screen
reader is not active on the device, making for a
more elegant and easy way to access descriptions
without the need for additional software or
settings.
Image Saving and Sharing
Images taken with
the app, along with the AI-generated descriptive
text, can now be permanently saved directly to the
smartphone’s camera roll, or shared with friends or
family. Any saved photos will be excluded from a new
30-day auto-deletion data protection policy.
Previously saved photos can also be unsaved and will
then be archived according to the 30-day limit. When
a photo is shared it will also be saved indefinitely
past the 30-day limit, until such time as the user
chooses to unshare and remove the link.
Custom iOS Shortcuts
And for Apple iOS
users, the release provides new shortcuts to quickly
and easily access Be My Eyes functionality. Users
can use built-in phrases or build their own in the
Shortcuts app in iOS. For example “Hey SIri” will
now be able to read text aloud from a document with
“Read with Be My Eyes” or provide a summary
description of an image with “Describe quickly with
Be My Eyes”, and many more.
User Data Management
Since launching
its ground-breaking Be My AI service, which
interprets images taken by the user and describes
them in detail using advanced artificial
intelligence, Be My Eyes has been storing images and
the corresponding AI descriptions under strict
compliance with its data policy terms. It has done
so primarily for testing and product enhancement
purposes. However, with Be My AI now officially out
of Beta testing, and to fulfill the promise made to
formalize a new data retention policy and implement
it in early 2025, all images and their AI
descriptions will now be saved for just 30 days,
before being deleted. Users will have the ability to
save specific images if they choose, but by default
any images not saved will be deleted after the 30
day period.
Be My Eyes users have always been able to
control, opt out or delete their data, but now, they
have more seamless control via new Settings options,
accessible from an updated and simplified Settings
Menu. For example, some users may choose to opt-out
of the much lauded Be My Eyes AI training
initiative, whereby video data (with metadata
stripped of Personally Identifiable Information) is
shared with AI vendors to train their models in
being more inclusive, accessible, and without
disability bias. If they choose to opt-out they can
now do so with a simple switch in the app.
“We first launched the Be My
Eyes app 10 years ago. A lot has happened in the
years since, both within our app as well as the
broader market place in which we provide it. One
of the biggest is obviously generative AI, our
early and innovative adoption of it, and the
market’s thinking around how it will develop and
how to protect individuals from misuse” said
Jesper Henriksen, CTO of Be My Eyes. “We
take that maturity of thinking very seriously,
and is why we embrace AI so fully as part of our
product development plans and why we put so much
thought and effort into our data management
policies and control of them into our users’
hands.”
“We are very proud of just
how far our Be My Eyes platform has come in the 10
years since we launched” continued
Henriksen. “With over seven hundred and
fifty thousand blind and low-vision users, eight
and a half million sighted volunteers,
ground-breaking use of AI, millions of user
requests every month, and some of the world’s
most iconic brands as paying customers, I think
it is fair to say that Be My Eyes really is
doing its bit to make the world more accessible
and continues to be a world leader in providing
innovative, free accessibility solutions for the
world’s 340 million people who are blind or have
low vision.”
END
About Be My Eyes
Launched in
2015, Be My Eyes is a globally recognized and
award-winning access technology provider for people
who are blind or have low vision. With a global
community of 750,000 users, and over 8 million
volunteers, Be My Eyes connects blind and low-vision
users with sighted volunteers and companies, through
live video and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to
tackle inaccessible parts of everyday life, whether
at home or at work; all for free to the end user.Be
My Eyes is available in more than 150 countries
worldwide and its volunteers speak more than 180
languages. To learn more, please visit bemyeyes.com or
join us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky and TikTok.
Read more blogs
![]()
David Goldfield,
Blindness Assistive
Technology Specialist
www.DavidGoldfield.com
Director of Marketing,
Blazie Technologies
www.BlazieTech.com
Am Yisrael Chai
The Nation of Israel Lives!
![JAWS Certified, 2022]()
NVDA Certified Expert
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Email: [email protected]
Note about Siri commands in
Be My Eyes 6.1:
First, make sure you have
updated Be My Eyes.
Second, be sure you open the
settings tab at the bottom right of Be My Eyes.
Third, Double tap on
Shortcuts.
Fourth, Read that screen.
It says:
You can trigger shortcuts
with Siri using the phrases below or create your own
in the Shortcuts app..
With Siri you can say:
* Call a volunteer with Be My
Eyes.
** Ask Be My Eyes.
* Read with Be My Eyes
* Describe with Be My Eyes.
* Describe quickly with Be My
Eyes.
* Describe fully with Be My
Eyes.
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