thanks Bob. yes, I've read about the Kapten, and it's not getting good reviews. it's a product meant for cyclests or others who's hands and eyes aren't free, but they don't seem to have worked out the bugs yet, and the map data doesn't seem all that good.
the map data in MapPoint is known for being very high quality, but it is hard to get at it via their object model, so we'll see what we can do. there's a wonderful project going on right now called the open street map. it's an effort by volunteers to map the entire world, so that no one owns the data, so that anyone can use it for anything. they've also got a lot of free software written for the project, and a way for anyone to write their own application and be able to download the data, as you need it, for free, from their servers. they've agreed to add data into their maps that would be specifically useful to the disabled, including things like whether an intersection has an audible signal, whether the sidewalks have warning bumps and/or curb cuts, and anything else people can think of that may decide a blind pedestrian or someone in a wheel-chair from taking a particular route. it would be great if we could integrate their data into this project as well. of course they have point of interest sharing, which is another great thing for a community of blind users of gps. Chip -----Original Message----- From: Bob Tinney [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2009 12:35 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: looking for collaborators for a GPS project Hi, I think you have a GREAT idea and I do have a netbook and I already own a gps receiver that connects via usb. I also want to mention that both Maxi aids and Independent living have just announced a new voice interactive hand held unit called the Kapten talking navigation system. Cost is $475.00. Bob Tinney, K8LR, [email protected] Skype, bobtinn Life is full of challenges, that's what makes it interesting! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allison and Chip Orange" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 5:13 PM Subject: looking for collaborators for a GPS project Hi all, some years ago I started a laptop-based GPS navigation project for the visually impaired. it was meant to be very similar in functionality to those published by sendero, except that it would run on laptops. now we've got netbooks to work with, and so it seems even more usable. the project gets it's mapping data from Microsoft Mappoint, which makes it visible via an object model. it has data equivalent to that of Sendero's products, including millions of POIs, but it's not nearly so easy to get at for personal navigation purposes as I imagine Sendero's data interface is, so progress is slow. MapPoint is mostly designed to display graphically various datasets on top of street map data, and so some finesse with the object model is needed. any user of this system would need to buy a copy of MapPoint, which can be had for as little as $99 sometimes. I had originally written it in visual foxpro, but MS has abandoned (or "end of lifed") that product. anyway, I've started rewriting the project using vb script under window eyes, even though I know this will make it accessible to a lot fewer people. I made that decision mostly because I thought it would be the fastest way I'd be able to get a working project out the door, and users can obtain a free 90 day trial of MapPoint to try it out. what's happened is that I've been hit by health problems, and I'm not able to dedicate much time to the project. some version of it is working now; for instance, you can press a "where am I" key, and be told the nearest street address. a very basic system is in place for adding your own points of interest. what I'm looking for is someone who is interested in GPS navigation, and is an experienced vb scripter, and who would like to come in as a collaborator on the project. I have plans to add some features not found in Sendero's products, just to make it more useful, and I've made the GPS handling module a shared object, so that other programmers can possibly develop location-based applications or features in their projects. If you have questions how about posting them here on the list if you think others may be interested in the answers, and if you'd like to discuss being a collaborator, write me off the list at my home address of [email protected] even if you're not interested in being a collaborator, I would like to hear from those who think such a laptop/netbook solution would be a good idea. obviously, it's going to be harder to work with a laptop while moving around, and so thought will need to go into more automatic functionality, and means of interfacing with the program other than the keyboard. I would like to explore the free vista/windows 7 speech recognition for instance. thanks. Chip
