British-designed "smart glasses" that provide a new set of eyes for the visually impaired are being tested in public for the first time.
The devices, which use a pair of video cameras to enhance residual vision, have the potential to transform the lives of thousands of registered blind people in the UK.
The glasses are being trialled by 30 visually impaired volunteers at testing venues in Oxford and Cambridge.
Dr Stephen Hicks, of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford University, who led development of the glasses, said: "The idea of the smart glasses is to give people with poor vision an aid that boosts their awareness of what's around them - allowing greater freedom, independence and confidence to get about, and a much improved quality of life.
"We eventually want to have a product that will look like a regular pair of glasses and cost no more than a few hundred pounds - about the same as a smart phone."
The device consists of a pair of video cameras mounted in a headset, a pocket-sized computer processor, and software that projects images of close-by objects onto displays in the see-through eye pieces.
The software interprets nearby surroundings to make important objects such as kerbs, tables, chairs or groups of people stand out more clearly.
In some cases, details such as facial features can become easier to see.
Of the more than 300,000 severely sight impaired people in the UK, it is believed about a third could benefit from the technology.
Twenty volunteers with a range of eye conditions and levels of vision took part in preliminary tests of an earlier version of the glasses conducted last year by the Oxford team.
The new trials are being conducted with support from the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).
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