San Francisco Airport Testing Beacon System For Blind Travelers

An anonymous reader points out this pilot program in San Francisco to help blind passengers better navigate the airport. San Francisco Airport is testing out location-aware beacons to help visually-impaired people navigate around one of its newest terminals, a program it could roll out to the rest of the airport if successful. An early version of the system was shown off to press today for use on Apple iOS devices, though SFO also plans to make it available for Android users and eventually expand the system to serve up information for those who can see. The beacons are coming from an indoor positioning company Indoo.rs and have been installed throughout the terminal. Each beacon will connect to a smartphone app to pop up with information when a user gets within range. For the visually impaired, the system uses Apple's Voiceover technology to read out points of interest as they come on screen, though an early version of the app also gives people visual cues for how to navigate to locations from a directory that can be sorted. That means you could tell it to help you find the nearest power outlet to juice your gear, or the nearest coffee shops to recharge your body.

Comments

ADA??

[stomv]

Yes, being blind sucks. That's part of why we have the Americans with Disabilities Act. Investing capital on taking care of those less fortunate is what leads to a prosperous society for all.

Re:ADA??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, being blind sucks. That's part of why we have the Americans with Disabilities Act. Investing capital on taking care of those less fortunate is what leads to a prosperous society for all.

No, it's something a prosperous society does for those less fortunate.

People on the edge of starvation don't build ramps for wheelchairs nor put Braille on signage in order to better their lives.

It's worthwhile, but let's face it: a large reason why we as a society do such things is so we can wrench our arms out of joint patting ourselves on the back about how great we are.

We do it to show that we can.

Re:ADA??

[easyTree]

Investing capital on taking care of those less fortunate is what leads to a prosperous society for all.

In light of this understanding, it does make me wonder why your country doesn't have a National Health Service favoured by many civilized countries.

Contrast this with:
  * http://www.hhs.gov/

where there's a series of questions to help you determine if you qualify for healthcare :S

Re:ADA??

[zennyboy]

You do note, and therefore know, you can have Private Insurance in the UK too. Even WHO thinks the American system is bad for consumers... http://content.time.com/time/h...

Re:ADA??

[Loki_1929]

Yes, as I stated, if you have enough money, you can escape the NHS. I would argue that more people would get better care if they weren't being taxed so heavily to pay for the NHS, particularly if they aren't using it ("double payers"). The existence of a private system pinpoints a painful but obvious truth: that the NHS and systems like it are not the panacea of healthcare they're often hailed as being. For those who would otherwise have nothing available, systems like the NHS provide a safety net that ensures they get at least some level of care, eventually. For everyone else, it can mean long lines, denied care, and other challenges.

US health outcome numbers are skewed by a variety of factors such as gang violence, drug problems, a high rate of imprisonment, a higher percentage of rural communities where access to the latest and greatest healthcare tools isn't readily available, the fact that many low income individuals under 65 don't have regular access to medical care, overuse of defensive medicine, and a number of other things. It's the same sort of challenges you find when comparing any stats between very different countries. If you control for those differences, you'll find that some of the best care on Earth is available in the US, but it's an imperfect system.

Our system leaves some people without access to much care. The NHS leaves some people on a waiting list for years on end and drives others to head to other parts of Europe, India, Malaysia, and even the US for care. Each system has its issues; nobody has completely figured out healthcare just yet. The only way to realistically do so is to so cold and uncaring that even an economist might feel a twinge of moral concern. Nobody wants to pull the plug on grandma, and that's just step one to making a system that can provide a reasonable level of care to all. Step two is kids.

iOS? Android?

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiosity, how do blind people use iOS or Android devices?

Re:iOS? Android?

[milkmage]

first they get the manuals.. in braille. then they turn on voiceover (it's baked in to iOS)

lighthouse for the blind:

http://lighthouse-sf.org/brail...

Re:iOS? Android?

[dottrap]

You can tell Siri to enable VoiceOver for you on iOS.

Re:iOS? Android?

[tlhIngan]

Out of curiosity, how do blind people use iOS or Android devices?

iOS has VoiceOver that actually works pretty damn well for using iOS. So much so that the blind actually prefer using an iPhone and an iPad for their purposes than Android (which still has fairly poor accessibility especially across devices).

Tommy Edison (Blind Film Critic) demonstrates how he uses the iPhone 4s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - composing a tweet, browsing YouTube, etc.

It is certainly unusual, but the blind have actually taken to devices like the iPhone and iPad.

The beacons use Bluetooth LE, last I checked, and the technology has been deployed already - I believe MLB has been outfitting the stadiums with them, as well as stores deploying them. The beacons are standalone - they do not do anything other than transmit an ID. It's a related app that is responsible for accessing the appropriate services to determine what the ID actually means. So it's not like the beacons could easily record your movements through the store. At least not without someone having to dump the data off them as they don't link up to a backend server - your phone is responsible for the lookup. Don't want it? Easiest way is to not get the app.

Re:iOS? Android?

[awtbfb]

It is also quite straightforward to make your app VoiceOver friendly. The tricky part is managing some of the VoiceOver gestures. Aside from the equivalent of alt tags on images, the most important part is getting the step forward/backward and continuous scroll gestures working right in your app. Turn on VoiceOver, swipe down with two fingers and see what happens. Then swipe one finger left or right. If you've done your job right, the cursor will move in the order you expect. Scrolling on lists that go below the fold are also subtle, yet important.

Re:ROI??

[milkmage]

the beacons cost $20 each.

yes. resources are finite, but $20 per is not a lot.

mmmmm bacon

[muphin]

am i the only one who thought they were testing a bacon system...

Re:mmmmm bacon

[Anonymous Coward]

U are not. I pondered poking my remaining good eye out for a second!

Re:mmmmm bacon

[ArcadeMan]

"You know that Cinnabon odor? Like you're walking through the mall, and you're like “What's that smell? Ouch, I just got a cavity! Damn Cinnabon!” - Jim Gaffigan

Re:mmmmm bacon

[LifesABeach]

with eggs could be used for Lost and Found?

Re:mmmmm bacon

[kentfowl]

am i the only one who thought they were testing a bacon system...

Me too. I had envisioned this whole system where the smell of bacon leads them to their seat on the plane.

Sounds Rudimentary

[Scottingham]

From what they say, it seems like it is going to be a pretty rough implementation at first. How would the system deal with multiple beacons?

There is an Israeli research group doing research into using synthesizer timbres for navigation. I hope they collaborate.

Re:Sounds Rudimentary

[grouchomarxist]

Using signal strength you can get a rough estimate of which beacon is closest. With more than 2 beacons you can estimate your position relative to the beacons.

Beacon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that as bacon.

Re:Help the blind get advertised to?

[viperidaenz]

I know, right!
A system that tells someone what they're standing near or how to get somewhere specific would be completely useless for someone who can't see.

fucking mouth-breather.

Re:Help the blind get advertised to?

[Livius]

It could be abused with advertising, but it really does sound like the right solution with actual potential to help the blind.

Far too much of what is done for the disabled is purely for show, based on the idea that a nuisance for the able-bodied makes the desired political statement, even if the benefit is to only a tiny fraction, if any, of the disabled population.

How my mom gets through airports

[billstewart]

Yes, I know you're trolling, but I'm going to comment anyway.

My mom's not blind, but her vision's really lousy (age-related macular degeneration, like a lot of old people with serious vision problems.) She takes wheelchairs in the airport, which not only takes care of navigation, but also helps her deal with distance (she can do short distances herself, but has trouble with long distances or long standing.) As the Boomer generation gets old and decrepit, we're going to start doing the same.

Using technology instead of labor is what capital is for. The capital only gets wasted if these sensors are obsolete in a couple of years, and if we haven't learned any lessons about design or implementation from it.

Android's annoying

[billstewart]

Maybe a current Android phone is better, but my old one has helpful things like a microphone icon next to the keyboard that you can press and type by voice recognition instead of keyboard. Which I suppose is useful, after I put on my reading glasses to do texting or other apps in the first place. (I'm sorry, I want the equivalent of being able to tell Siri to do stuff without needing to look at the keyboard - how else am I going to text while driving\\\\\\\\ um, use the phone with limited vision? And my HTC's version of Android didn't even let me pick a font size for text messaging; HTC just knew I'd prefer to see more lines of conversation and wouldn't need to do the pinch thing to make the text bigger.)

Re:Android's annoying

[tlhIngan]

(I'm sorry, I want the equivalent of being able to tell Siri to do stuff without needing to look at the keyboard - how else am I going to text while driving\\\\\\\\ um, use the phone with limited vision

You say, "Siri, text Mom I'm going to be late" then "Siri, send".

If you're going to the Messages app and composing it there, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Android's annoying

[billstewart]

This is a belated reply, but the title was "Android's annoying". Yes, if I had an iPhone, I could use Siri, and it would Just Work, because that's what shiny Apple things do. On an Android phone, it's (optionally unlock the screen, then) go to Messaging, then hit the little microphone icon that tells it you want Google to interpret some speech, then tell it what the speech is, then hit the send button, all of which require me to put on my reading glasses first (which would be a bad idea, if I were driving, which of course I'm not.)

That's not even counting the HTC-skinned version of text messaging app, which knows I want to see lots of previous call history on the screen at once, and knows I'm not going to need to do the thumb-pinch thing to make the text bigger, much less having a menu entry to let me choose font size first, but that was my old 2.0-custom-HTC-AT&T version of Android, as opposed to KitKat.

Re:Blind after viewing Slashdot Beta ?

[easyTree]

Where is the precedent for corporations caring about users/customers?

I thought so... I guess you'll be stopping moaning about beta soon then...?

Re:Let's look at facts

[easyTree]

If others like you hadn't tried to opt out of providing you with a moral education, you wouldn't be asking this question.

Priorities

[wonkey_monkey]

That means you could tell it to help you find the nearest power outlet to juice your gear, or the nearest coffee shops to recharge your body.

Or, you know, the way to your boarding gate. That may have been a slightly more pertinent example in this case.

Re:Priorities

[sbrown7792]

But if they help the traveler leave, how will they extract more money out of them?
Won't somebody think of the 'convenience' shops selling $10 candy?!

Re:ROI??

[AmiMoJo]

Unfortunately it isn't enough to include any security features or useful information. These beacons use Bluetooth Low Energy which basically transmits and unauthenticated unique identifier. The device then looks the identifier up on the internet.

Anyone can easily fake the unique ID, effectively moving existing beacons around at will. The receiving device then has to look the ID up online, so unless the airport offers free wifi most travellers will either not have any internet access or be forced to use ultra expensive roaming. They could get around this issue with a dedicated app that has the data in it already, as long as they can resist giving it ridiculous permissions.

Non-technical solutions

[Loki_1929]

This really seems like an over-hyped, massively expensive technical solution to a problem that could easily be fixed with some volunteer organizations providing guides on an as-needed basis. Here's a thought: require all public high school students to provide X number of hours (start with 200) of public service as a requirement for graduation. Do something similar with college students receiving Federal student aid. Oh look, suddenly volunteers everywhere! And these volunteers can actually adapt to the needs of individuals and don't cost a fortune to implement, update, and maintain!

Re:Non-technical solutions

[drinkypoo]

Here's a thought: require all public high school students to provide X number of hours (start with 200) of public service as a requirement for graduation.

Why do you hate workers? Why do you love slavery? Why don't you want people to be paid for their work?

Re:Capt Sum Ting Wong will still miss the runway

[ArcadeMan]

I guess the moderator has not heard that this was shown on television.

Re:Let's look at facts

[ArcadeMan]

So... you want a beacon system for gay travellers?

Re:Needing an app to pick up these beacons?

[ArcadeMan]

Accessibility in iOS.

So ironic

[Skynyrd]

SFO is one of the worst offenders in the "poorly labeled airports" category. Even with good eyesight, it's a mess to navigate.

Perhaps they can learn something from this project, and use it on sighted users as well.

Re:Capt Sum Ting Wong will still miss the runway

[k6mfw]

I remember that broadcast, I missed the "joke" and was thinking it didn't make sense because about same time in other media one mentioned a different set of names, another mentioned names of crew withheld pending investigation. At the time I was looking into how will it effect my flight into SJC (about 40 miles south) and also what caused such a simple landing to go wrong (maybe it is not that simple). But later I cringed thinking about the KTVU falling for bad information. Supposably, they called FAA to confirm but got someone who was taking messages for a FAA official who asked another person, etc. I guess pressure to be the first to get the news before someone else (I think it is better to be second or third place and be right instead of first place and be wrong).