An excellent idea.  Great mobility guide.  I guess you can advocate this
idea to cell phone companies by writing to their technical department or
sales research department.  Currently there is no directory assistance
charge for people who are visually impaired in asking for a telephone
number.  Why should there be even a charge if a person with visual
impairment use the cell for directions?

[log in to unmask] writes:
>Hi All,
>
>My ride home from work involves a lengthy trip, roughly 180 blocks, down a
>straight road here in Portland.  The road really has very few twists and
>turns.  After several years of advocacy most Portland bus drivers are
>pretty good about calling out stops as required by the ADA and in my
>opinion good customer service.  So generally when travelling on this
>street
>I know where I am within a few blocks.
>
>Today I happened to get a ride home from a friend and was also doing some
>technical consulting on a cell phone on the trip home.  The lack of
>hearing
>bus driver announcement of stops and talking on a cell phone got me to
>thinking and wondering if something might be possible in the way of
>providing location information via cell phone.
>
>I've read several news stories of late talking about how cell phones are
>going to have to give location information to 911 operators at some point
>in the future.  At present they don't and I'm not sure if the requirement
>that they do is a proposal or law at this point.
>
>Anyway, my thought was, why not have some service available from the cell
>phone where your location could be given back to you verbally when you
>dial
>a certain number.  This doesn't seem like it would be all that complicated
>a process, especially since the same info is going to be fed to 911
>operators.  Or perhaps all that will be sent is some geographic
>coordinates
>but even then it wouldn't be too tough to calculate the nearest street
>address from a database.
>
>I'd actually bet that some cell phone companies are working on a way to
>use
>your geographic position to cell you some sort of service.  The key would
>be getting the companies to think of making this available in a way that
>people who are blind can access it.
>
>What do folks think?  Maybe this is already possible today.  If not what
>would have to happen to get it working and who could take the idea to
>industry and make it a reality?
>
>Kelly


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