mm this could work well in conjunction with a dog or cane?
regards
Maria and crew from australia
email:
[email protected]
check out
www.powerradio104.us
where we play lots of great music
On 21/07/2012, at 1:25 AM, Fred Olver wrote:
> Footwear for the blind
>
> Bluetooth shoes
>
> Jul 14th 2012
>
> MORE than 285m people across the globe suffer from visual impairment.
> Yet the tools to assist the blind in walking have changed little since
> the 1920s,
>
> when their canes started being painted white to make other pedestrians
> more aware of their presence. The gizmos that do exist have tended to
> be expensive
>
> and clunky, and have not caught on. This may change if Anirudh Sharma,
> a 24-year-old computer engineer from Hyderabad, a city in the Indian
> state of Andhra
>
> Pradesh, has his way.
>
> His innovation, dubbed "Le Chal" ("take me along" in Hindi) pairs a
> smartphone app with a small actuator sewn inside the sole of one shoe
> via Bluetooth.
>
> The user tells the phone his desired destination, which is translated
> into electronic commands using voice-recognition software. The app,
> which can be
>
> programmed to run in the background, fetches the local map of the area.
> The phone’s Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks the person’s
> location in real-time,
>
> telling the actuator to vibrate when it is time to turn. The side of
> the shoe where the vibration is felt indicates which way to go. Mr
> Sharma opted for
>
> a vibrating signal because for the blind, who rely on their sense of
> hearing to make sense of the environment, audio feedback is a distraction.
>
> The system does not require constant internet access. Once downloaded,
> maps can be stored locally and combined with GPS data. The app uses
> Open Street Maps
>
> (OSM), an open-source rival to Google Maps. OSM allows editing, a
> helpful feature in updating rapidly changing urban landscapes. A
> speed-dial function
>
> can rapidly retrieve the most frequently visited routes.
>
> The shoe pod is also equipped with an obstacle-detection mechanism. A
> sensor in the tip of the shoe, devised by Mr Sharma’s business
> partner, Krispian Lawrence,
>
> scans the vicinity using sonar, which emits ultrasounds that bounce off
> obstacles, indicating their presence. The shoe sets off a distinct
> pattern of vibrations
>
> to alert the person of any obstruction and guides him around it.
>
> For now, the footwear, being tested at the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute,
> one of India’s biggest eye-health facilities, may be most useful in
> areas with little
>
> or no traffic, such as quiet residential streets or parks. The
> challenge, Mr Lawrence says, is to get the algorithm to tell an
> uncovered manhole from a
>
> flight of stairs, but he expects it to be able to do so in due course.
> Dealing with moving obstacles like cars may take longer, though the
> pair are working
>
> on ways to alert wearers not just about cars' presence, but also their speed.
>
> To ensure that the final product resembles a regular shoe, fashion
> technologists are being consulted to help with ergonomics and design.
> Mr Sharma and Mr
>
> Lawrence, who started a company called Ducere Technologies to
> commercialise their idea, say their high-tech brogues should not cost
> more than an ordinary,
>
> stylish pair. Many of the world's visually impaired will like the sound
> of that.
>
> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/07/footwear-blind?fsrc=scn/tw/te
> /bl/bluetoothshoes#_methods=onPlusOne%2C_ready%2C_close%2C_open
>
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