Many companies have created apps to help blind people. Microsoft created apps that can describe a photo. Huawei made an app that uses sounds to tell users if people they are talking to look happy, sad or angry. Now, Google is testing an app that will allow blind people to run alone.
Panek, CEO of Guiding Eyes for the Blind, had always loved running. But he started losing his eyesight (视力) when he was 8, and by his early 20s he was blind. Later in life, he started running with other people or a guide dog to help him. But he didn't like this way. He asked a group of experts of Google whether they could create something to help blind people run on their own.
The Google team soon created Project Guideline. The Guideline app uses a smartphone camera to recognize (辨认) a line painted on the ground. Through earphones (耳机), the app makes sounds when a person moves away from the line. The sounds get louder in either the left ear or the right ear, the further the person moves away from the line.
After trying the app, Panek used it while running outside in a park. In November, 2020, when he was 38 years old, Panek successfully ran 5 kilometers around New York City's Central Park using the app.
