I will never cease to be amazed at how all these projects are developed with seemingly no input from those of us who are blind! I agree with 100% of what has been said here, and my dog also seems quite happy in making sure I get safely from one place to another. I haven’t heard a complaint yet!
From: Scott Howell Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 5:58 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Smartphone-Friendly Innovation Holds Promise of Freeing Dogs From Involuntary Service Well I think this is quite relevant to the discussion of iOS. First there is no way in hell a smart phone, including any iOS device will have sufficient battery to allow for the level of travel a dog can. You would have to hull along a considerable amount of batteries and find a charging station somewhere. I can get about 10 years of near continuous service, always on, and always ready to go from my dog, and hey I do not have to perform any upgrades or reboot him. Although I wouldn't mind tweaking some of his processes. :) I do not see this type of project ever working out because there is just simply no way to produce 2D maps for all the buildings etc. that is out there unless they expect crowd sourcing. I think instead of trying to replace the dog or cane, they would be better served in partnering with APple or a developer to integrate these ideas into a map program. For example, if it were possible to use cell towers, GPS, etc. to help navigate more efficiently indoors, that would be of some value. Trying to use a smart phone to tell you how to get from point A to point B inside or out will never be successful. I do not see blind people walking around waiving their iPhone so the camera can tell them about obstacles in the way and never mind the drop offs etc. Another project that seems to have not considered all aspects of what blind people could benefit from. On Jul 24, 2012, at 2:48 AM, Sieghard Weitzel <[email protected]> wrote: Hello Listers, I came across this article and am pretty shocked by it, I did not know that there are people and apparently organizations out there who consider guide dogs as providing an “involuntary” service which they apparently consider to be animal cruelty. I don’t really have the connections and the time, but I hope maybe some people on this list do advocacy sort of work and may look into this. The biggest joke is that this research seems to be geared towards getting around inside buildings which of course would be great, but apparently these folks don’t think much about how much a dog helps in getting around outside. Here is the article (hope the mods don’t object since the article refers to “smartphones” and not “iPhones”, but of course we all know how many accessible smartphone choices we have and I assume something like this, were it available, would not be a Windows Phone app!) Smartphone-Friendly Innovation Holds Promise of Freeing Dogs From Involuntary Service For Immediate Release: May 14, 2012 Contact: David Perle 202-483-7382 St. Paul, Minn. The University of Nevada–Reno (UNR) science team working on smartphone technology that will help blind people navigate on their own, even gauging their pace and warning them far in advance of obstacles such as a stairway, will present its invention at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in St. Paul on May 15 (the second day of the conference). The team, headed by researchers Dr. Eelke Folmer of the Player-Game-Interaction Lab and Dr. Kostas Bekris of the Robotics Research Lab, has won a PETA Proggy Award for Leadership in Ethical Science. PETA's Proggy Awards ("Proggy" is for "progress") recognize animal-friendly achievements. "This new technology promises not only to give blind people the independence they want but also could mean that dogs will no longer be bred for this type of service," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "We commend the UNR team for developing 'eyes' for the blind that are both user-friendly and animal-friendly." The low-cost system would enable blind people to navigate around buildings using nothing more than a smartphone. Its software is based on the same technology that enables robots to navigate but uses the person's stride length to track his or her movements. The system uses two-dimensional digital maps and the smartphone's built-in components, with the phone able to communicate what it "sees" using synthetic speech. Upon initial use in a particular environment, the user touches certain landmarks. The smartphone remembers the information and is able to give the user directions on subsequent visits. 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