The company also plans to use the technology for its Android app and make it available through Web browsers visiting its site.
Facebook is training its computers to help blind and visually impaired people scroll through the pictures posted on the world’s largest online social network.
The feature rolling out Tuesday on Facebook’s iPhone app interprets what’s in a picture using a form of artificial intelligence that recognises faces and objects. The iPhone’s built-in screen reader, Voiceover, must be turned on for Facebook’s photo descriptions to be read. For now, the feature will only be available in English.
The descriptions initially will be confined to a vocabulary of 100 words in a restriction that will prevent the computer from providing a lot of details.
Facebook is being careful with the technology, called “automatic alternative text,” in an attempt to avoid making a mistake that offends its audience. Eventually, though, Facebook hopes to refine the technology so it provides more precise descriptions and even answers questions that a user might pose about a picture.
Facebook also plans to turn on the technology for its Android app and make it available through Web browsers visiting its site.
On an average day, Facebook says more than 2 billion photos are posted on its social network and other apps that it owns, a list that includes Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Facebook is training its computers to help blind and visually impaired people scroll through the pictures posted on the world’s largest online social network.
The feature rolling out Tuesday on Facebook’s iPhone app interprets what’s in a picture using a form of artificial intelligence that recognises faces and objects. The iPhone’s built-in screen reader, Voiceover, must be turned on for Facebook’s photo descriptions to be read. For now, the feature will only be available in English.
The descriptions initially will be confined to a vocabulary of 100 words in a restriction that will prevent the computer from providing a lot of details.
Facebook is being careful with the technology, called “automatic alternative text,” in an attempt to avoid making a mistake that offends its audience. Eventually, though, Facebook hopes to refine the technology so it provides more precise descriptions and even answers questions that a user might pose about a picture.
Facebook also plans to turn on the technology for its Android app and make it available through Web browsers visiting its site.
On an average day, Facebook says more than 2 billion photos are posted on its social network and other apps that it owns, a list that includes Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.