Microsoft has released an app that uses a smartphone camera to narrate the world it sees for use by the blind and visually impaired.

The free app, Seeing AI, can identify people, facial expressions, currency, describe a scene and read pieces of text. It is available on the App Store for iPhone.

When reading text, Seeing AI can tell users if they have not moved a document under the camera and guide them. It can also scan bar codes and provide information about products.

Started as a research project for Microsoft, Seeing AI still has some more experimental settings. Users can turn on these features, one of which can be used to describe the scene around the user.