The donation covers every blind and visually impaired adult the Vision Ireland charity supports. The training that comes with them is paid for by Meta.
- On 12 August Meta announced a donation of 15,000 Ray-Ban Meta glasses to Vision Ireland.
- That is all the blind and visually impaired adults the charity supports.
- The programme runs in phases, and training in object recognition, text reading and voice commands is included.
The headline I saw first said glasses for every blind person. I opened the source. This is Ireland, and fifteen thousand people.
Even cut down to its true size, this is good news. The glasses read a sign you cannot see and tell you what is in front of you. For someone used to asking a passer by, the difference is daily.
And since you will think it too: yes, this is also good image and a way into 15,000 people wearing a camera on their face. Both things stand at once and neither cancels the other.
I will stand with the people who will see better tomorrow. But I keep the right to ask, a year from now, what happened to what the glasses saw.