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OrCam, Israeli-Made Device to Help Visually Impaired “See,” Now Valued at $1 Billion

The Israeli startup OrCam, which makes the MyEye device to assist the visually impaired, announced that it has raised another $30.4 million in funding bringing its valuation to $1 billion, The Times of Israel reported Tuesday.

OrCam, which was founded by Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram, who also founded MobilEye, which was acquired by Intel last year for $15 billion, makes MyEye 2.0, which can recognize images and text and then tell its user what it is seeing in real-time.

In a statement, Amiram, who is also the CEO, said that the new funding would go to refine the company’s “breakthrough technology.”

The OrCam consists of a small camera, which can attach to a user’s glasses frame, which is attached to a smartphone-sized computing device that can fit into a pocket and a speaker. When the user looks at text or an object, the device, using artificial intelligence algorithms, converts the text into words or identifies the object. The result is then broadcast to the user using the speaker. The device can read text off of any surface and can recognized faces too.

OrCam is the only wearable artificial vision device that is activated by either a pointing gesture of following the wearer’s eyes. This allows the hands-free operation of the device.

[Photo: TechCrunch / YouTube]