A simply amazing story about the power that the blind are finding with the iPhone and third-party apps. While I read this story I had one thought that kept popping in my head: how the hell do they keep their phones charged?
I often use Google maps to drive from point to point and doing that eats the battery, now imagine you have to keep it on all the time otherwise you might get lost, that’s just scary to think about.
A while back I posted about how I didn’t like the concept of indoor mapping using shoppers with WiFi, but I hadn’t thought of the power of such technology for the blind, luckily some one has:
>”One of the biggest concerns of the blind community is finding their way around independently,” he says. “You can find an address, but what if you get someplace and you have nobody to help you find your way around the building?” His solution, still in the works, will attempt to sketch a map of the building based on previous routes taken within, and the strength of the wireless signals bouncing from the different sources. It’ll also take into consideration the pace and number of steps a person takes from one point to the next. If a blind person were to arrive to a hotel, he’d only need to be shown to his room once. The iPhone will remember the way for him, and navigate him back and forth from the room to the lobby.
That’s fantastic.