How Apple and Microsoft Built the Seeing-Eye Phone
Unsung Science
CBS News
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2021
⏱️ 47 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Your smartphone can see, hear, and speak—even if you can’t. So it occurred to the engineers at Apple and Microsoft: Can the phone be a talking companion for anyone with low vision, describing what it’s seeing in the world around you?
Today, it can. Thanks to some heavy doses of machine learning and augmented reality, these companies’ apps can identify things, scenes, money, colors, text, and even people (“30-year-old man with brown hair, smiling, holding a laptop—probably Stuart”)—and then speak, in words, what’s in front of you, in a photo or in the real world. In this episode, the creators of these astonishing features reveal how they turned the smartphone into a professional personal describer—and why they care so deeply about making it all work.
Guests: Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO. Saqib Shaikh, project lead for Microsoft’s Seeing AI app. Jenny Lay-Flurrie, Chief Accessibility Officer, Microsoft. Ryan Dour, accessibility engineer, Apple. Chris Fleizach, Mobile Accessibility Engineering Lead, Apple. Sarah Herrlinger, Senior Director of Global Accessibility, Apple.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Your smartphone can see, hear, and speak, even if you can't. |
| 0:07.8 | So the accessibility engineers at Apple and Microsoft wondered, could the smartphone ever |
| 0:12.4 | be smart enough to serve as a talking camera for people who were blind or have low vision? |
| 0:18.3 | Could it describe what it's seeing in the world around you or in photos in front of you? |
| 0:23.4 | A group of people sitting around the table playing a board game. |
| 0:26.8 | Seeing AI is one of the most incredible revolutionary products I think we've ever put out there. |
| 0:33.0 | I get emotional when I think about what employees have created. |
| 0:37.2 | Today, the origin stories of two amazing accessibility features from Microsoft and Apple. |
| 0:43.2 | I'm David Pogue, and this is UnSung Science. |
| 0:50.8 | Tired of ads interrupting your gripping investigations? |
| 0:54.0 | Good news. |
| 0:55.0 | Add free listening on Amazon Music is included with your Prime Membership. |
| 1:00.0 | Ads shouldn't be the scariest thing about true crime podcasts. |
| 1:03.6 | To start listening, download the Amazon Music app or visit amazon.co.uk forward slash |
| 1:08.8 | true crime ad free. |
| 1:10.6 | That's amazon.co.uk forward slash true crime ad free to catch up on the latest episodes |
| 1:16.4 | without the ads. |
| 1:18.0 | For two decades, FBI agent Robert Hansen sold secrets to the Kremlin. |
| 1:22.2 | He violated everything that my FBI stood for. |
| 1:25.4 | Hansen was the most damaging spy in FBI history, and his betrayals didn't end there. |
| 1:30.4 | Do I hate him? |
| 1:31.4 | No, I don't hate anyone. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CBS News, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CBS News and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.