Many adults start to notice memory loss in their mid-40s, but mild age-related cognitive decline among healthy, educated adults typically starts in the 20s and 30s, according to a study by the National Institute of Health. Remembering other people’s names can be a challenge for many adults and is often — though not always — related to mild cognitive decline. We have written about a wide range of wearables that help people understand what they “see.” Examples of past articles include Orcam’s My Eye eyeglass frame-mounted camera for people with low vision, the AIpoly smartphone app that helps blind people recognize objects, and Stanford’s Autism Glass Project that uses augmented reality to help people on the autism spectrum understand the emotional content of what they see.
Orcam is back with another vision enhancing wearable. MyMe is a thumb drive-sized computer vision device with a camera and onboard processing power to run the device’s AI-powered machine learning algorithms. It uses low energy Bluetooth to transmit information to the user’s smartwatch or smartphone. MyMe has a laundry list of functions, but the headliner is face recognition. You can wear the MyMe device clipped to a lapel or pocket; when the camera recognizes a face, it displays their image and name on the mobile device. You can also find other contextual information about the other person from your contact manager such as place of employment, the occasion when you saw them last, and so on, but the key benefit is reminding you of their name. Other features with MyMe include adding contacts, creating groups and subgroups, connecting with online friends, and more. People concerned with privacy will be relieved to learn that MyMe does not upload any data to the cloud.
MyMe was successfully funded on Kickstarter, and the first versions of the wearable are scheduled to ship to backers in March 2019. Articles on other sites have suggested MyMe could help people with mild to moderate dementia recognize faces, which may be accurate, but the wider application lies in helping anyone remember names. Orcam’s credentials are impressive. The co-founders of the company also founded Mobileye, the autonomous vehicle computer vision technology now owned by Intel.
