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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.
the beacons cost $20 each.
yes. resources are finite, but $20 per is not a lot.
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...
am i the only one who thought they were testing a bacon system...
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
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.
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.
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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...