>Device Helps Blind Navigate Streets
>
>ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sitting in Gwennie's Restaurant in Spenard, Jim King,
>who has been blind since youth, took an imaginary
>tour of downtown Anchorage.
>
>A metallic voice from an electronic device the size of a spiral notebook on
>the table informed King he was at G Street and
>Third Avenue, his chosen starting point.
>
>King's fingers worked a small keyboard. A voice told him he was at E Street
>and Third Avenue. A few more keys, and he was
>heading south, to Fourth Avenue. He kept to E Street and reached Ninth
>Avenue, then turned west along the Delaney Park Strip
>toward his goal of L Street and Ninth Avenue.
>
>"We're at our destination. Isn't that cool?" King said. "I love it."
>
>The $2,000 machine, in King's estimation, is a giant step forward in helping
>the blind to live full lives. Called the
>VoiceNote GPS, the device combines computer technology, including digital
>voicing, with the global positioning system device,
>which allows a person to pinpoint his or her location. The device, in
>essence, makes an audio map.
>
>"I can record a route," he said. "I can walk from one location to another
>location, and as I go along the way, I can record
>certain critical points in the route, and the next time I walk that route,
>the VoiceNote will tell me how close I am and tell
>me how I'm progressing."
>
>King now is using the machine while heading to Nome on the National Iditarod
>Trail.
>
>He and seven other people, calling themselves the Alaskan Express Freight
>Sled Expedition, are taking snowmobiles to Nome as
>a promotion for both the VoiceNote GPS device and a nonprofit educational
>organization called the Iditarod National
>Millennium Trail.
>
>The team expects to reach Nome sometime around Feb. 23, said Ron Arnold,
>director of the Iditarod National Millennium Trail
>and organizer of the expedition.
>
>Sitting on the back of a snowmobile driven by another person, King is
>continuously recording his position through a GPS
>device and storing the data on his VoiceNote.
>
>The VoiceNote comes with a five-gigabyte hard drive, according to King. It
>can store a multitude of GPS coordinates - for
>downtown Anchorage, for example, and other cities and points of interest,
>and for the Iditarod Trail.
>
>The coordinates can be uploaded to a database or Web site.
>
>"Blind people will be able to do the Iditarod from their living rooms," King
>said. He owns electronic GPS maps of the entire
>United States
>
>"This is not a replacement or a substitute for a cane or a guide dog," King
>said. But in the hands of a blind man, the
>VoiceNote can act like a dog to guide him along a chosen route, squawking
>out his current location if he gets lost or simply
>chooses to wander.
>
>"This is analogous to a PDA," or personal digital assistant, King told the
>Anchorage Daily News.
>
>The VoiceNote GPS device is made by Pulse Data HumanWare, a New Zealand
>company specializing in tools for the blind and
>people with low vision. King, a big, gregarious man, had followed
>development of the VoiceNote and tested one of its first
>prototypes.
>
>"I knew I liked it before I got it," he said. He also owns a $3,500 model
>that can print read-outs in Braille.
>
>The specialized keyboard on the VoiceNote works on the Braille system. The
>machine does not accept voice input. The output,
>however, can be in voice or in other forms of data.
>
>The Alaskan Express Freight Sled Expedition expects to visit a couple dozen
>villages on the way to Nome. While in the
>villages, King has been demonstrating the VoiceNote.
>
>Children are particularly excited by the device, said Jerry Cashman, a
>spokesman for Pulse Data, the manufacturer. The group
>was near Galena on Friday.
>
>"He's taking all sorts of recordings, and the equipment is doing very well"
>in the cold, Cashman said.
>
>After the journey, other travelers, sighted or blind, will be able to take
>the same trip, he said.
>
>More Business News...
>
>Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
>All Rights Reserved.
>
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