GPS navigation plan to help blind (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Geoff Adams-Spink
Age & disability correspondent, BBC News website

An Italian technology company is pioneering a GPS satellite system that will give blind people greater independence and mobility.

The Easy Walk service has been developed by Il Village, a firm in Turin in northern Italy.

It is currently being tested by a group of 30 people from the Italian Blind Union who are providing feedback. The plan is for Easy Walk to be launched to blind and partially sighted people in Piedmont in the autumn.

Easy Walk uses a mobile phone that runs the Symbian operating system, a small Bluetooth GPS receiver, text to speech software called Talks (though rival products are also compatible) and a call centre that will operate around the clock seven days a week.

It requires just two dedicated keys on the mobile phone - one which, when pressed, tells the user their exact location including the house or building number and the other one alerts the call centre that the person needs assistance with navigation.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6458005.stm

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. the blind will drive with GPS?

Hell, I laugh every time a drive up ATM has braille and vision impaired assistance.

or they plan a more pedestrian version?

[eppur_se_muova]

2. GPS is built into many handhelds now, including phones. nt