Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]>

Peter and all,
the problem gets more complex the more we look into it.

Unfortunately GPS just is not going to be the universal wonder
gizmo some thought it would be.

In the best circumstances, when clear of structures, the best
GPS can give you is about 30 feet accuracy.  good enough for in
the block, but not for address finding.

    In between big buildings, or not even so big, gps gets
unreliable quickly.  It works better for cars because they're
more often in the clear than pedestrians are.

Besides 30 feet accuracy is fine for a car with sighted driver.
It isn't so hot for a bat trying to find a door.

do you want to walk down the center of the street just to get a
better gps signal?

At Smith-Kettlewell we have some very bright folks working on
variousl camera based projects to do things like finding signs,
and analyzing intersections.

These are still pie in the sky projects, and personally I have
not much faith we'll see usefull results from them in the next
few years.

computers rarely deal with the real world, reality is just too
messy for the current primative state of software development. I
have no signifficant hope for any camera/computer based device
being able to be of any use at all in orientation/mobility in the
next 5 years or more.

I have some small hope for one of our other projects which is a
reader for lcd displays.  Although I havn't yet seen it really
work.  I think this is about as good as its going to get any time
soon.

I still believe a wide spread installation of Talking Signs holds
out the best promise of providing blind folks with usefull
orientation information.

In a recent conversation I had with the president and other
leaders of both Talking Signs INC. and Mitsubishi Precision who
manufactures the equipment, I told them that now is the time to
push and push hard to get the system installed on a very wide
basis.  the product is now standardized so that installing it
fits with much common infrastructure, electrical codes and the
like.  There is still some work to be done teaching a lot of
people to tune and properly record the signs, but that's comming
along.

There has been a necessary emphasis on establishing talking
Signns  as a viable orientation system by putting them in
politically corrrect places like municipal buildings etc. but who
goes there every day.

Now its time to get them in stores, on transit systems, and on
street corners all over the place.

If I thought any person carried system stood a chance of doing a
better job in reality I'd say so.

If I had to bet on such a person carried system without
infrastructure, I'd take some kind of GPS based system with
internal maps.  the ones presently available don't impress me
much, after all they're built by the blindness business and
therefore second rate at best, usually third rate.

there is some small hope that traffic engineers are beginning to
see that lots of the designs they've been using in the past 20
years are very pedestrian unfriendly.  Perhaps some changes in
general design towards more pedestrian friendly ness may help a
bit in some areas.

I've been told for so many years that cutting edge technology
will help the blind, some day real soon!  With a very very few
exceptions, it just isn't so!

cutting edge technology as brought to the market place is for the
masses, it is only cheap because they make them by the millions.

I recently heard that the two largest manufacturers of cell
phones each expect to sell two hundred million units in the next
year.

And there is not one single accessible cell phone out there for
us despite promises.  Note, I didn't say you can't use some cell
phones a little bit, I said there is not one which could really
be called fully accessible.

I also didn't say there is no hope, obviously technology can be
very usefull indeed, it merely won't solve many of the big
problems we face overnight.

So far as I can see, from my 20 years as a rehab engineer, we
will always be chasing the tails of the rest of the world.

Of course, this is my very biased and rather cynical opinion only
and most surely does not reflect the opinions of anybody else,
particularly my employeers.

Tom Fowle


Net-Tamer V 1.12.0 - Registered


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