Can your medicine packaging talk?

Yes, they can. Finland based VTT Technical Research Centre recently developed a NFC-based applications  that can help visually impaired people to find out medical information about the medicine package without reading the content.

Here is how it works:

User can touch the info code on the packaging by using the mobile phone. NFC technology can acquire the brief information about the package, feed into the application. Then application can automatically download product and dosage information and can be heard from the phone. 

The project, named "HearMeFeelMe", is jointly developed by VTT, TopTunniste (Finland) Tecnalia (Spain) and Demokritos (Greece). 

The testers' favourite was Top Tunniste's Touch 'n' Tag demo, a mobile phone application that enables visually impaired users to identify everyday items, including food, with the help of voice memos. The phone must be equipped with an NFC reader. To record a memo tag, the user touches the NFC label on the packaging and dictates the information into the phone. The recording can then be listened to by touching the label again with the phone. The test run indicated that the application was most commonly used to mark food packaging. According to the majority of users, it was useful in recognising items and recalling product information. Additional benefit was seen in the possibility of recording the desired information in the user’s own words.

Another demo application was developed during the HearMeFeelMe project, completed at the end of 2011. This was the so-called speaking medicine packaging. When touched, this provides spoken dosage instructions and other important information. The data was stored on the NFC chip by pharmacy staff and could be listened to by the user at home. The demo version was only available for PC, but the application is designed to run on programmable smartphones equipped with an NFC reader and a code scanner.

This kind of application has huge potential, not only for visually impaired persons, but also helpful to old people because of age. Let's wait and see. More information can be found here at VTT.