App Helps Blind Use Volunteers to See
WHITFIELD: Giving sight to the blind is just another way smart phones are helping people live fuller lives. Here's CNN's Samuel Burke.</s>NEFERTITI MATOS, BLIND USER, BE MY EYES: Please identify some of the items in this vending machine.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see chips.</s>SAMUEL BURKE, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Nefertiti Matos is blind. And she's using "Be My Eyes," a free iPhone app that connects her to sighted volunteers via a video call.</s>MATOS: The first time I used it was in the office. I just went to this vending machine with no braille symbols, no tactile anything. And with Be My Eyes I was able to identify there's a lot of junk food in there. But knowing I now could go up there and purchase something, it's very freeing.</s>BURKE: When you're not using the app, when you have to ask somebody out in the street, is that something that's tiresome for the visually impaired?</s>MATOS: It can be. It also makes me feel like I leave an impression of dependency. And so I feel like technology of this kind really furthers us along in giving the proper impression, which is that we can do anything, really, with the right tools and training.</s>BURKE: Be My Eyes empower the blind users as well as volunteers like Melissa Gould. The first time you got a blind person calling, what was that moment like?</s>MELISSA GOULD, VOLUNTEER, BE MY EYES: It was sort of surreal. I just answered the call, and it was a woman holding her phone at her problem, which was on the floor. She had dropped her necklace, and I just kept saying, OK, go a little right, and then I could see her hand, and she took it. And it was a beautiful moment. I felt happy that I could help someone. What I really feel about this is that it's a good deed waiting to happen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Open Be My Eyes.</s>BURKE: Blind users say the only change the app really needs is more sighted volunteers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been known to wait up to about five minute, and by that time, I'm, like, OK.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you please tell me what train station this is.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's 23 Street Station.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Perfect. Thank you very much.</s>WHITFIELD: Wow. Extraordinary.