How the spirit of Louis Braille lives on in today’s AI innovators

May 16, 2018

Microsoft President Brad Smith traveled to Louis Braille’s childhood home in France to look at the history behind his centuries-old invention that made reading possible through touch. This recent journey, part of the Today in Technology series, ended at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA, with a demonstration of Seeing AI. The talking camera app, created for the blind community, “speaks what it sees,” says Anirudh Koul, a senior data scientist at Microsoft, and it uses the power of AI to make the visual world an auditory experience. The company will continue to leverage AI solutions like this as it invests $25 million over 5 years in the AI for Accessibility grant program to build technology for people with disabilities. For more on this AI solution with a connection to the past, visit Today in Technology.

What We’re Watching: Air Crash in India, Time running out for Iran nuclear deal, ICE protests move beyond LA, anti-immigration violence in Northern Ireland

Air India Flight AI171 crashed into the hostel canteen of the B.J. Medical College (BJMC), a well-known medical college in Ahmedabad, India, on June 12, 2025, while students were having lunch inside. Casualties in the building is not known.

West Asia News Agency, Majid Asgaripour/WANA via REUTERS

How the spirit of Louis Braille lives on in today’s AI innovators

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How the spirit of Louis Braille lives on in today’s AI innovators

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More from GZERO Media

NATO has long had an informal requirement that its members spend 2% of GDP on defense. However, despite decades of urging by successive US presidents, many member states have consistently fallen short of that target.

Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged this week to increase Canada’s military budget to meet NATO’s target this year. It’s not year clear where the money will go.

Canadian and US officials are reportedly approaching at least the framework of a deal covering trade and other issues.

In this episode of Europe in :60, Carl Bildt breaks down Serbia’s evolving foreign policy, and political developments in Poland.

GZEROMEDIA

Subscribe to GZERO Media's newsletter: Signal

The US on Wednesday evacuated nonessential diplomatic and military personnel from Baghdad and several military bases in the region.

The Trump administration wants to slash the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US’ main medical research institution, by 40% for the next fiscal year.

Flooding in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, the result of snow and heavy rain, has left at least 49 people dead, including several people on a school bus that was swept away by the waters.

An increasingly small proportion of each country’s population was alive during some of the most seminal moments in 20th-century history, altering the worldviews of today’s electorates.

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump activated 2,000 members of the California National Guard to quell protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation efforts in Los Angeles, after small but highly visible demonstrations had popped up across the city in the days prior.