On March 6, 2018, Accessibility NYC hosted a meetup at thoughtbot entitled, “Aira: AR to Enhance Information Access and Cultural Experiences for the Blind.” Aira provides live audio descriptions to people who are blind or low vision by streaming in real-time a video feed from a camera worn by a user to a “highly trained remote human agent.” Presenter Marty Watts shared stories of the diverse ways Aira’s users, or as they refer to them, ‘Explorers’, utilize the service. These use-cases range from describing where to find a menu in a coffeeshop to describing a live-performance at a Disney theme park to describing this past summer’s solar eclipse as it happened. Marty also described how the service enables and empowers people who are blind or have low vision to navigate and interact with the world more independently and autonomously.
Here are some highlights from the presentation: