Sonar device Helps Blind Navigate 17
Anonymous Coward writes "The Courier-Journal in Louisville is running a story today about a new handheld sonar device that lets blind people "see" by hearing. It gives audio feedback that changes in pitch according to the distance of objects. The story begins... "Fred Gissoni, who has been blind since birth, was using a hand-held sonar device to examine his back yard when a bird landed on a wire. The device began emitting tones, and Gissoni could tell where the bird was and how it moved. He even noticed the quivering of the wire.""
This has potential (Score:2, Funny)
Deary me...Standards are going down... (Score:2)
Inevitable minaturization, etc... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Inevitable minaturization, etc... (Score:1)
For people who still have their sense of sight, the more sensible approach (no pun intended) would probably be to use visual feedback instead.
Re:Inevitable minaturization, etc... (Score:1)
But then, I'm a birdwatcher... YMMV.
Re:Inevitable minaturization, etc... (Score:2)
From my small experience that particular application wouldn't be especially useful, as you usually can't hear a damn thing between machinery noises, air flow hissing, and the fire noises. It might be useful in industrial firefighting, or working in tunnels & the like, maybe.
A lot of work is being done to miniturize IR cameras and displays, and that has obvious extra benefits over an ultrasound ranging device, regardless of how it's data is displayed
I've seen these (Score:5, Interesting)
he held a cane in one hand and this device in the other. He pointed it right at my face and i got a good look at it. at the time i remember thinking it was a sonar device of some kind, as it had what appeared to be an emitter and reciever, and he had headphones plugged into it. he would point it at a seat, and if someone was sitting there or there was garbage on the seat he would move to the next. didn't take long for him to find a seat that was empty. In fact he was seated before the train started moving. It wasn't rush-hour so it didn't take long for the train to start moving.
anyway i was impressed with it and wondered why i hadn't seen any before or after. maybe he was a beta tester?
Prior Art? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Prior Art? (Score:2)
Down the road (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Down the road (Score:2)
Does it solve a real problem? (Score:2)
A school project about 10 years ago was to propose a device to help the blind. We quickly found that while not perfect, dogs and canes work just fine for near navigation. Any technology solution came up with ended up being worse than those two for the simple problem of obstical avoidance. (CPUs were not up to the task of what this device is doing though, at least not in portable packaging)
The real problem blind people have, and one that this doesn't appear to solve is long navigation and location. Wh
Re:Does it solve a real problem? (Score:2)
It seems to me that most store owners could be easily persuaded to let some government agency or private group put hide a RFID tag near their door that would respond with a simple serial number. That way when the blind guy came up to the door he, or she, could not onl tell that the door was open, but he could tell that the door led to Victoria's Secret. Each individ
... as a bat (Score:2, Interesting)
That's as I recall - anyone else out there have any further details?
Erm... (Score:2)
batphones (Score:2)