Jerusalem based OrCam Technologies, a global leader in personal, empowering AI-driven tech innovations, announced that OrCam Read, a first-of-its-kind, the handheld digital reader that instantly reads text aloud from any printed surface or digital screen, has been named by TIME to its prestigious list of the 100 Best Inventions of 2021.
To assemble the 2021 TIME Best Inventions List, TIME solicited nominations across a variety of categories from editors and correspondents around the world, as well as through an online application process. Each contender was then evaluated on key factors, including originality, creativity, efficacy, ambition, and impact, resulting in “100 ground-breaking inventions that are making the world better, smarter and even more fun”.
Enclosed is a link to a video on Orcam Read https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbEEmc0xtvw&t=12s
“We are truly honored that TIME has distinguished the OrCam Read Device as one of the Best Inventions of 2021,” said Professor Amnon Shashua, OrCam Technologies Co-founder and Co-Chairman. “We deeply appreciate TIME’s recognition of our handheld technology’s innovation as a breakthrough reading solution with the ability to transform p eople’s lives. OrCam’s mission from day one has been to pioneer computer vision and personal AI technologies that function as ‘AI as a companion’. OrCam Read directly, easily and positively impact the learning process and overall quality of life of students and adults of all ages who have reading challenges, including dyslexia.”
Launched in 2020, OrCam Read is a highly advanced AI-driven assistive technology that is packed into an easy-to-use personal, handheld device with a singular purpose to meaningfully empower the user who is challenged by reading – including those with dyslexia, dyspraxia, mild to moderate low vision and reading fatigue – to read anything, regardless of their condition. Featuring intuitive point-and-click operation, the lightweight OrCam Read is the first and only personal AI reader that can instantly capture full pages of text and screens using precision laser targeting – without any display screen, app, or cloud connectivity.
With the OrCam Read solution, users instantly and independently hear any printed and even screen-based text read out loud, with the simple press of a button. Users target the device’s laser frame at a page of the book, a menu, an advertisement, or a screen displaying text, press a button, and the device instantly vocalizes it in a voice that sounds remarkably natural; it also can read the text in multiple languages. And since the device can respond to voice commands, you can ask it to read, say, a phone number from an ad, the operating hours of a business, or a favorite story. The device includes precise Table Reading capabilities – the first assistive tech to offer this highly accurate functionality – making information from restaurant menus, utility bills, nutritional information on products, and spreadsheets easily accessible.
The company created an earlier assistive technology device, OrCam MyEye. OrCam MyEye is a voice-activated, wearable device that communicates vital visual information to people who are blind or have low vision. The size of a finger, the lightweight device – which magnetically mounts on the wearer’s eyeglass frames – instantly reads any printed text and digital screens out loud, recognizes faces, and identifies products/bar codes, money notes, and colors.
OrCam technologies are globally awarded for their highly advanced, AI-driven OrCam MyEye and OrCam Read solutions – which pack easy-to-use, innovative tech into wearable and handheld assistive technology platforms that significantly empower tens of thousands of users worldwide. OrCam MyEye and OrCam Read are reliant only on a Wi-Fi connection in order to download software updates. All other operation is in real-time while entirely offline – so the devices protect data privacy and may be used virtually anywhere, such as on an airplane ten of thousands of feet in the air, a submarine in the ocean depths, and even on a space-bound rocket.
OrCam MyEye 2, designed for blind and visually impaired people, was chosen as a TIME Magazine Best Invention of 2019 and in early 2021, OrCam Read was recognized as an EDTech Awards 2021 Cool Tool Finalist as well as a winner of a CES 2021 Best of Innovation Award. While last year’s CES was an all-digital online event due to the COVID-19 pandemic, CES 2022 is scheduled to return to Las Vegas in-person next month. OrCam Technologies has nabbed its third consecutive win at the annual CES 2022 Innovation Awards and will participate in the event from January 5 to January 8, 2022. CES (the initials for Consumer Electronics Show) is the annual trade show and tech event organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) were some of the biggest brands and global innovators in the consumer electronics industry come together to showcase groundbreaking technologies.
About OrCam Technologies
OrCam Technologies, a global leader in personal AI assistive technology platforms, was jointly founded in 2010 by Israeli innovators, Professor Ammon Shashua and Mr. Ziv Aviram, who are also the co-founders of Mobileye, (now an Intel company), the collision avoidance system leader and autonomous driving innovator. Inspired by this development of ground-breaking artificial vision technology that supports safer driving, OrCam harnesses highly advanced AI-driven computer vision and machine learning to provide increased independence to people who are blind or visually impaired, have reading challenges, or have hearing loss.
OrCam is set to go public this year. The company is hoping to raise $300 million in the IPO according to a valuation of $3 billion. OrCam is currently finalizing the list of underwriters for the public offering, which is set to be led by Goldman Sachs, which also guided Mobileye in its IPO. OrCam is planning to complete one more pre-IPO funding round in the near future in which it is set to raise $150-200 million at a valuation of $1.5 – 2 billion.
OrCam currently employs 200 people, most of them out of its headquarters in Jerusalem. According to estimates, OrCam is currently closing on an annual revenue of $100 million and is profitable. It’s most recent funding round was in 2018 when it raised $30 million at a valuation of just over $1 billion.
For more information: www.orcam.com
Media contact:
Rafi Fischer
OrCam Technologies
rafi,fischer AT orcam.com
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