'Smart glasses' hope for blind

BRITISH-DESIGNED "smart glasses" that provide a new set of eyes for the visually impaired are being tested in public for the first time.

THE devices, which use a pair of video cameras to enhance residual vision, have the potential to transform the lives of thousands of registered blind people in the UK.

The glasses are being trialled by 30 visually impaired volunteers at testing venues in Oxford and Cambridge.Dr Stephen Hicks, of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford University, who led development of the glasses, said: "The idea of the smart glasses is to give people with poor vision an aid that boosts their awareness of what's around them - allowing greater freedom, independence and confidence to get about, and a much improved quality of life."We eventually want to have a product that will look like a regular pair of glasses and cost no more than a few hundred pounds - about the same as a smart phone."The device consists of a pair of video cameras mounted in a headset, a pocket-sized computer processor, and software that projects images of close-by objects onto displays in the see-through eye pieces.The software interprets nearby surroundings to make important objects such as kerbs, tables, chairs or groups of people stand out more clearly.In some cases, details such as facial features can become easier to see.Of the more than 300,000 severely sight impaired people in the UK, it is believed about a third could benefit from the technology.Twenty volunteers with a range of eye conditions and levels of vision took part in preliminary tests of an earlier version of the glasses conducted last year by the Oxford team.The new trials are being conducted with support from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).

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Liberia links seven more deaths to Ebola

A HEALTH official says seven people believed to have the Ebola virus have died in recent days in the Liberian capital, in the first reported deaths in Monrovia.

DEPUTY Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah said on Tuesday that brings to 16 the number of people believed to have died from the virus in the West African country since the outbreak began.

The deaths are worrying because no new cases had been confirmed in Liberia in more than two months.The outbreak appears to have begun in neighbouring Guinea and has also spread to Sierra Leone. In all, the World Health Organisation says nearly 250 people have died of the virus, which causes severe bleeding and high fever.

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Complaints about data fees on the rise

MORE mobile users are complaining of being hit with up to thousands of dollars in fees for exceeding data limits.

THE Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman says overall mobile and network complaints dropped by almost a fifth in the first three months of the year, compared to early 2013.

But while complaints about faults such as slow data speeds dropped 67 per cent, disputes over excess data charges rose by nearly a third.Ombudsman Simon Cohen says mobile plan customers have been shocked to discover huge charges for exceeding their data cap."Commonly we are seeing consumers come to us with complaints in the hundreds to thousands of dollars," he told AAP."It might be the case where the consumer has a low cost service but the amount charged for excessive data use is at a very high rate, and as a result the charge they received is many times the regular monthly bill they were expecting."Many consumers felt the charges weren't properly explained to them from the beginning, and that they couldn't get the telecommunications provider to properly hear their complaint."A great deal of clarity of how customers are being charged is critical to reducing problems down the track," Mr Cohen said."Many Australians have finely balanced budgets and they don't have the flexibility to have significant variations in charges for basic utilities like mobile phones."One in three internet disputes were over billing issues, with many complaints related to faulty services or late connections.The ombudsman received 36,256 new complaints in the three months to the end of March.

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US home building declines 6.5% in May

THE pace of US home construction has slipped in May, with many Americans still struggling to afford new houses.

THE Commerce Department says builders started work at a seasonally adjusted annual rate on 1.01 million homes.

That was down 6.5 per cent from 1.07 million in April.Construction firms began work on fewer single-family houses, condominiums and apartments last month.Building tailed off in the Northeast, Midwest and West.Only the South experienced greater construction activity in May.Housing starts have risen 9.4 per cent over the past 12 months.But apartments account for most of the gains, suggesting that more Americans will be renting instead of owning homes.Applications for building permits, a gauge of future activity, fell 6.4 per cent in May to an annual rate of 991,000.

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Walmart tech lab buys Stylr app

WALMART Stores' innovation lab is diving deeper into mobile apps with another acquisition.

THE latest purchase for WalmartLabs is Stylr, a mobile app that allows shoppers to find clothes in nearby stores.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Stylr is WalmartLabs' 13th acquisition in the past three years. The purchase is the latest effort by Walmart, the world's biggest retailer, to develop new digital tools to help create a seamless shopping experience for shoppers who are increasingly jumping back and forth from stores and their mobile phones.Walmart chief executive Doug McMillon, who took the helm in February, vowed Walmart would pick up the pace in technology in his address earlier this month at the company's annual shareholders meeting."It is important that we all understand the shift that has happened in technology and retail, what it means for us, and what we're doing to win," said McMillon."People now spend more time on digital devices than they do watching TV. A lot of times, they're doing both at the same time."Walmart has a ripe audience: 65 per cent of its customers have smartphones, while 80 per cent of shoppers under age 35 do. Half of Walmart smartphone users have used the device in its stores to assist with shopping, company officials say.Stylr will be removed from the app store by the end of the month, said Ravi Jariwala, a spokesman for WalmartLabs. Walmart's own mobile app won't run Stylr, but its technology will be used to develop future mobile innovations.WalmartLabs technology enables Walmart's mobile app to guide shoppers to products and tracks customers' spending as they shop.New York-based Stylr's founders Eytan Daniyalzade and Berk Atikoglu will be joining WalmartLabs in San Bruno, California, as part of the deal.

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