For millions of people with visual impairments, daily navigation presents constant challenges that most of us take for granted. Simple tasks like walking down a street, identifying objects, or finding specific locations can become frustrating experiences that diminish independence and self-assurance. While asking for assistance is a natural solution for many, it often comes with a psychological cost for visually impaired individuals who value their autonomy and wish to move through the world on their own terms.The Vision Aid smart visor concept represents a thoughtful application of cutting-edge technology to address these challenges in a way that respects dignity and enhances independence. By reimagining how visually impaired people interact with their surroundings, this innovative device transforms existing technologies from mere conveniences into powerful tools for accessibility. Rather than developing entirely new systems, the concept cleverly repurposes established technologies to create a wearable solution that feels both familiar and revolutionary.Designer: Mauli RaiWhile various assistive technologies exist for the visually impaired, from smart canes to body-mounted cameras, many require additional components like earpieces that create a fragmented user experience. The Vision Aid concept takes inspiration from the most natural form factor for visual assistance: glasses. By building upon an accessory that visually impaired individuals already wear daily, the design creates a seamless integration into existing habits without adding stigmatizing or cumbersome equipment.The technical heart of the Vision Aid concept lies in its sophisticated Time of Flight (ToF) cameras positioned at the top near the forehead. These specialized sensors create accurate three-dimensional maps of the surrounding environment, providing precise spatial awareness that traditional visual aids cannot match. This mapping capability works in conjunction with RFID sensors that identify specific objects and locations, creating a comprehensive understanding of the wearers surroundings that can be communicated through non-visual means.User feedback is delivered through bone conduction technology and subtle vibration patterns, eliminating the need for earpieces that might block important ambient sounds. The sensory feedback preserves the wearers ability to hear traffic, conversations, and environmental cues while simultaneously receiving navigational guidance. The dual-channel feedback system allows users to process directional information and object identification simultaneously, creating a richer understanding of their surroundings.The design incorporates several quality-of-life features that demonstrate deep consideration for real-world usability. A thermal sensor automatically activates the device when worn, eliminating fumbling with power buttons or switches. The recording mode creates a spatial memory of routes traveled, allowing users to confidently retrace familiar paths or avoid problematic areas in future journeys.The Vision Aid concept represents a powerful shift in how we think about assistive technology. Rather than treating visual impairment as a condition requiring compensation, the design approaches navigation as a universal challenge that can be addressed through innovative interfaces. This perspective moves beyond mere accessibility to embrace the principle that good design should empower all users to navigate their world with dignity, independence, and confidence.The post Smart Visor Concept Helps the Visually Challenged Navigate the World with Confidence first appeared on Yanko Design.

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MacworldApples all-in-one iMac is a great value for what your geta fast computer with a fantastic screen, but todays deal makes it a must-haveB&H Photo has slashed the price of the M3 iMac to an amazing $999 right now, a jaw-dropping savings of $700 and the best price weve ever seen. Really nothing even comes closethe catch is that youll have to place your order soon because this deal ends on March 31.This iMac has last years M3 chip, but its still a great machine with a gorgeous 24-inch Retina display with a 44802520 resolution that promises to deliver gorgeous colors and deep contrast. Its built around a stunning minimal designbut youll have to settle for blue to get this price. The M3 chip comes paired with 8GB of RAM, which is enough for Apple Intelligence but still pretty stingy, but its still great for streaming, everyday work, and so on. We reviewed the M3 iMac and found it to be a great addition to any office, but we admittedly had the model with 24GB memory, considerably more than what the one on sale has. Thankfully, it has 512GB of storage, double the entry-level model.Plus, its not just the iMac that youre getting, but also the Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and a color-matched Magic Mouse, as well as a nifty power adapter with a built-in gigabit ethernet port. Unbox it and its literally plug in and start playing.This deal is set to expire just before midnight on March 31, but if you want one its best to hurry up because if supply runs out itll be gone forever.Save $700 on the M3 iMacBuy now at B&H

MacworldWhile we all expect Apple to take the iPhone 17 in a bold new direction this year, the rumors have been very quiet about the Apple Watch. But a report today from a well-known source finally adds some intrigue to the next round of watches.According to user Instant Digital on Weibo (as spotted by MacRumors), Apple may be working on a completely new Apple Watch with a glass frame, which supports touch interaction. Currently, the Apple Watch Series 10 has an aluminum frame while the Apple Watch Ultra is made of titanium.The rumor includes little in the way of details but does note that Apple is looking to bring the all-glass enclosure to the Apple Watch before the iPhone.Apple has experimented with various materials for the Apple Watch over the years, including ceramic and solid gold, but an all-glass frame would be a major change. While the watch would likely look the same, an all-glass enclosure would let Apple design a single one-piece design that blurs the line between screen, sensors, and buttons.Apple has been exploring all-glass devices for decades and already has products, like the AirPods 4, with touch-sensitive controls. But since its launch in 2015, the Apple Watch has had physical side buttons and a Digital Crown with a display that supports multi-touch gestures. The Apple Watch Ultra adds a second Action button on the left side that is customizable for a variety of uses.There were reports last year that Apple was considering a radical new Apple Watch Series X to celebrate its 10th anniversary, but the Series 10 was another in a long line of incremental updates.

What if you could build a business-specific generative AI (genAI) solution that was hosted in the cloud? What if that cloud used the most energy-efficient systems in the world? And what if those services were also all running on the worlds most secure computing platform, the Mac? Wonder no more, because MacStadium and webAIjust made this real.Weve talked about both companies before.MacStadium is a force to be reckoned withand offered the first major deployment of hosted Apple-as-a-service cloud solutions; webAI, meanwhile, hascreated quite a stir with its offering, which runs quite happily on a MacBook Air and runs even better when hosted in the cloud. The two companies together now offer a service that lets you install and use webAI models on MacStadium-hosted racks of Macs. This delivers quite a lot to business users: it means they can run their own, self-trained genAI models to support their own unique business goals on Macs in the cloud, making those models available across their company as a hosted solution.This beats other hosted approaches, as the service remains business-unique, protected by Mac security, and boosted by the lower energy costs Macs require. In other words, the combined solution should help businesses maintain their own data privacy and security policies by being hosted on a highly secure set of platforms. This isnt for every company, of course many will want to create their own Mac-based clusters. But the service does mean that companies of any size can now reasonably deploy and manage a bank of Macs to support their business with AI.Et tu, Apple?To my mind it also hints at a highly plausible future for Apples own server-based solution, Private Cloud Compute. Its a reasonable next step to imagine Apples protected solutions offering up AI-as-a-service to enterprise customers, all protected by a low-energy, high-security promise. Even if Apple never does commence competing in the hosted cloud infra space, you now have the alliance between MacStadium and webAI.This collaboration with webAI represents a significant milestone in the evolution of AI for the enterprise, MacStadium CEO Ken Tacelli said in a statement. By combining our macOS cloud expertise with webAIs interconnected model approach, were creating a platform that will fundamentally change how organizations develop and deploy advanced AI systems on Apple silicon.There are some significant advantages to whats on offer for example, the system supports up to 20,000 concurrent API requests per minute. In addition, the way webAI has been architected means you get an up to 30% reduction in model size with minimal loss of accuracy. It also makes it possible for enterprise customers to host and operate the worlds largest AI models natively on Apple Silicon.Thats really important when you consider just how much more energy efficient Macs are at this level and should help cut a big chunk out of the environmental running costs of AI. Thats a good thing, not just in terms of the dollar per kWh, but also in terms of the wider impact of energy consumption. The service also makes use of AI inferencing, which helps reduce model size without undermining accuracy.More affordable than Nvidia?Cost is a positive force in these deployments. webAI co-founder and CEO David Stout told server-focused site,The New Stack, that on a cost-per-token basis, these Mac clusters are more affordable to run than Nvidia GPUs. Its more private than any other solution, he said.Working with MacStadium, Stout claims that the system should be seen as one of the most secure systems for private processing off-site. And its going to be an AI-native solution, not something that we retrofitted to fit AI into the story.What this means to most businesses, of course, is that they can deploy powerful, cloud-hosted AI models on the worlds most secure platform at an affordable cost, which should enable even smaller business to securely deploy, and provision hosted AI solutions in order to compete. And all with a Mac.You can follow me on social media! Join me onBlueSky, LinkedIn, andMastodon.

New generative AI (genAI) models introduced this week by Google and OpenAI have put the companies data centers under stress and both companies are trying to catch up to demand.OpenAIs CEO Sam Altman on Thursday tweeted that his company was temporarily restricting the use of GPUs after overwhelming demand for its image generation service on ChatGPT.The move came one day after OpenAIintroduced the 4o image-generation tool. Its super fun seeing people love images in ChatGPT. But our GPUs are melting, Altmanwrote in a post on X.OpenAI primarily relies on Nvidia GPUs to power its ChatGPT service, and in the past has run into issues with its AI infrastructure being overwhelmed. Altman said OpenAI would introduce rate limits which limits the use of AI creation on GPUs until the system becomes more efficient.Similarly, Google also is dealing with a surge in demand for itsGemini 2.5 AI model, which rolled out Tuesday.We are seeing a huge amount of demand for Gemini 2.5 Pro right now and are laser focused on getting higher rate limits into the hands of developers ASAP, Logan Kilpatrick, product lead for Googles AI Studio developer tools,said in a post on X.Google has built its AI infrastructure on its homegrown TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) custom-built chips tuned to run Gemini. The TPUs are different from GPUs, which can run a wide range of AI, graphics and scientific applications.The problems with surging demand are a reminder for enterprises to secure stable computing capacity to prevent AI downtimes, said Jim McGregor, principal analyst at Tirias Research. The shift to images, video, agents, its going to drive the demand for more AI compute resources for the foreseeable future, he said.OpenAI and Google are widely used by individuals and enterprises. Typically, it takes time for the hardware to catch up to efficiently operate new AI software, and unintended interruptions can affect productivity of companies, analysts said.OpenAI has always had capacity issues when new models are launched, said Dylan Patel, founder of semiconductor consulting firm SemiAnalysis. The demand for AI is insatiable, Patel said.OpenAIs image creation tool is more compute intensive than text creation, and it also demands more computing power from GPUs, said Bob ODonnell, principal analyst at Technalysis. Thats just classic system overload, he said.Nvidias GPUs consume massive amounts of power and can throttle down performance if overloaded or overheated. GPUs also operate at lower temperatures, which affects performance.CentML, which provides AI services on Nvidia GPUs, has experienced significant spikes in demand, particularly when supporting new models, said Gennady Pekhimenko, CEO of the Toronto-based company.The company saw a spike in sign-ups within the first few days after it started serving DeepSeek, which was released earlier this year.CentML has plans in place that guarantee uptimes, reserved instances, and guaranteed outputs, all of which are part of itsservice-level agreements.There are many things OpenAI could do to catch up with demand, including reducing the size of the model or optimizing code, said Pekhimenko, who is also an associate professor for computer science at the University of Toronto.For some commercial use cases, thelarge language models(LLMs) used by OpenAI and Google Gemini may be too heavy; smaller or open-source language models that require fewer computing resources and cost less might be enough, Pekhimenko said.Enterprises can also buy genAI computing capacity from different companies, which provides protection against downtime from industry behemoths, Pekhimenko said.CentML alsoprovides options to get compute capacity from majr cloud vendors. But theres no lack of computing capacity, unlike the previous years, when GPU shortages hobbled AI scaling, Pekhimenko said.Altmans evocative take on GPUs burning may have been a way to promote the new image-generation models. Probably [OpenAI] also liked to generate a little bit more hype around it. So, they tried to frame it this way, Pekhimenko said.Major cloud providers are investing billions in new data centers to keep up with the growing demand. US President Donald J. Trump recently touted a private-sector investment of $500 billion to build out the AI infrastructure from companies including OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle.But the release of the DeepSeek model from China proved AI could be done at a more reasonable cost with software optimizations. It undercut the notion that more hardware is always needed to scale AI.Recent reports indicated that OpenAI may be looking to build its own data centers, asMicrosoft pulls out of data center projectsin the USand Europe. That indicates a potential oversupply of AI computing capacity.