ThirdEye

Those with normal vision don't worry about correctly counting change from a cashier or knowing how much medication to take. But for the 7 million Americans who are legally blind, not being able to distinguish a $1 bill from a $20 or read instructions on a medicine bottle can radically hamper independence. Last fall, University of Pennsylvania freshmen

Rajat Bhageria (far left), Ben Sandler (second from right) and Joe Cappadona (far right) came up with a solution during the PennApps hackathon: a Google Glass image-recognition app called ThirdEye that verbally identifies objects for people who can't see. The three engineering majors recently welcomed fellow freshman David Ongchoco (second from left) to the team and partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to test and further refine ThirdEye (designed with Cappadona's blind grandfather in mind). A search is now on for investors to help manufacture and distribute it.