Wearable Personal Assistant MyMe Sketched for 2018 Release

Wearable personal assistant MyMe, a clip-on image recognition device, will be introduced in 2018, said OrCam Technologies Ltd. vice president Elad Serfaty at Calcalist’s 2017 Tech conference in London Thursday.

Jerusalem-based OrCam was founded in 2010 by Mobileye co-founders Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram. It develops and manufactures devices for the visually impaired. Its lead product is MyEye, a small device with a camera and a microphone that clips onto glasses, reading out street names, newspaper stories and menus, naming people encountered and identifying cash notes and commercial products.

OrCam's new product, MyMe, has been under development for at least two years, but this is the first time a release date has been given. Designed for people with Prosopagnosia, a brain disorder also known as face blindness, MyMe is an AI-based device the size of a USB stick that can be clipped onto clothes. It combines visual and audio signals to create an “augmented attention” experience.

"We call it the personal assistant," said Mr. Serfaty, explaining that the device works by downloading the contact lists found on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin. Once you meet a person, the device will tell you their name, position, social history and more in real-time by automatically transmitting the information to a linked smartphone or smartwatch.