mercredi 11 septembre 2013

The smartphone app that lets a blind skater roam free

Feeling the town

Pirttimaa and Oja

Like many young people, Ronja Oja likes skating. She is also blind.
The 21-year-old Helsinki student usually knows where she is, skating in areas she is familiar with - but sometimes she does gets lost.

This used to mean either finding someone nearby to help, or phoning a friend.

"Before if I got lost and called someone all I could say was 'hey I am here, somewhere, I don't know where I am, please come to get me'," she says.

Using data from FourSquare (a location-based social network for mobile devices) and Open Street Map, BlindSquare looks up information about the surrounding area and communicates this to users with speech.
Shaking the smartphone tells you where you are and how to find the nearest junctions.

Read more... Using BlindSquare

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