Hi Michele and others; Great idea! I am new to an area and one thing that needs to be added to your idea is the ability to find out the busses that run in your area. I know busses run on a surtain road near me, but I have no idea what its number is or if it is a ride on or metro. Your idea could also be used for mapping the subway routs. If this imfo could be put on a web site, then a bn user could download onto a card or emboss just the imfo he wants. He can also look it up with the computer or bn and just make note of the time, with out downloading. I love your idea. Sure wish I had more computer knowledge to help out.
Terry Powers -----Original Message----- From: michele thredgold [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 6:49 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Braillenote] bus/train timetable access sfdjsfdksfkfdkjsfdkfsjf Hi listers. I will be sending this to any relevant lists where there may be any like-minded people interested in participating in the development of a program whereby blind people can access their local bus or train timetables in a more user-friendly manner than is currently available at metre websites, or even in bulky Braille documents. My idea is to create a program which either possesses copies of the current timetables within it, rather like the GPS mapping model, or has a search tool whereby it can locate the relevant timetable on the Net and then translate the whole, or part of it, into readable answers to various questions. For example, I would imagine the software being programmed to ask the user the following information: bus name/number read whole timeable or part? search between which times? Which day: Monday to Friday, Saturday,, Sunday and public holidays? stop locN/street name? If we're really ambitious, the program could also give route descriptions of the various buses and trains. Now my reason for approaching the BN list. Although I am anxious to see if this program could be developed for computers with speech, I'd really like it to be BrailleNote friendly, since the whole point of it would be to have timetable information at our finger-tips while we're on the go. It would save having to carry around chunky Braille documents for us Braille users. Therefore, I have started with this list and disondered whether any of our really smart cookies would be interested in putting their heads together to see what they can come up with. Unfortunately, I often have plenty of creative ideas for furthering BN software but haven't the least idea how they can be achieved. However, I think this is something which would really enhance independent travel, particularly with the GPS as well. This would be a chance for HumanWare to lead the way in developing software which others may also adopt which would ultimately be of benefit to more blind people than simply use the BN. As I said at the beginning of this message, I will be posting this message to other relevant lists. I will also approach universities where this idea may be taken up as a worthwhile challenge for students. However, it would be wonderful if our more ingenious BN users who do beta testing and have done so program developing of their own like Alex, could possibly put their heads together on this one. I apologize for the repetition but I'm very excited about this. Please don't tell me it's impossible. I'm sure that where there's a will, there's a way, even if it means carrying the timetables round on an extra card, like the dictionary/thesaurus software. Cheers! Michele ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
