GPS can locate you with in a 30 foot circle with you at it's center. The United States government controls that. They keep it that way for good reasons which I won't go in to here. I'm just giving you an over view of how GPS works so that you'll better understand.
As was already pointed out, inside a building the GPS signals are very week. The stores in a mall are very close together and even if you should by some chance get a good clear signal, it still won't do you any good. Here's why. GPS or ground positioning system can only use latitude and longitude signals. Where those two points meet is where your standing. That raw data isn't going to do you much good in the real world. A sailor at sea who knows how to shoot a star with a sexton and hasn't forgot totally how to use one could figure out where he and his ship is. Today, they have computers to do that for them and give a constant reading. Meanwhile back in the real world, a GPS system locates you using internal or external maps. The data can be right or wrong and those of us who have been using GPS for the blind for many years have come to know that there can be gotchas in the data base your using. For example, the map data may say your at point X when in reality, your nowhere anywhere near that place or point. As they use to say in computer programming, garbage in, garbage out. In other words, the GPS can only report to you what's in it's database. With week signals inside a mall and no database to refer to, your GPS is useless even if it did get a good clean signal. There are other ways it can be done but not with GPS alone. ------- Regards, Alan Go Chicago Bears in 2013! Teenagers; Tired of being harassed by your stupid parents? Act now!!!!! Move out. Get a job. Pay your bills wile you still know everything. Please click on: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~alanandsuzanne/ There, you'll find free files of my arrangements and performances played on the Yamaha Tyros 1 keyboard. The albums in Technics format formerly on my website are still available upon request. Thanks for listening! ----- Original Message ----- From: Sieghard Weitzel To: viphone@googlegroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 11:00 PM Subject: RE: Using the Seeing Eye App in a Mall Hi Sarah, I don't think there is a single GPS app which will do this. The GPS signal is very weak to begin with and while modern receivers are very good and often might pick up the signal inside a building, the accuracy will suffer especially given all the interference of concrete, steel etc. Another thing is that I doubt the stores in a mall are mapped. I think we'll have to wait until malls map their buildings and put other technologies like RFID or Bluetooth beacons in place and then provide apps which can access this information before we get useful results inside malls or other large buildings. Give it 10 years and we probably look back and shake our heads in wonderment why this didn't exist before. Regards, Sieghard From: viphone@googlegroups.com [mailto:viphone@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sarah Clark Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2013 10:12 PM To: viphone@googlegroups.com Subject: Using the Seeing Eye App in a Mall I would like to use the Seeing Eye app to identify stores I am walking past in a mall, but I can't figure out how to get this info. I was using it inside a mall today, and it told me a couple of things, like that Starbucks was nearby, but it was mostly telling me about streets and intersections near the mall. What settings do I need to make sure the app is set to in order to get it to identify the stores inside? Is it part of the location wand, or is it a particular setting, or some combination of things? Thanks, Sarah -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. Post a new message to VIPhone by emailing viphone@googlegroups.com. 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