[nagdu] Well everyone, time to give up our dogs

[NCBootman]

This is an amazing article! The fact that such a simple system could be 
deployed is amazing. The marketing potential is endless! Imagine going to a 
hospital for example. They have whole departments who do nothing but 
transportation and invest a fortune in signs, colored tiles, and the like! 
Just imagine if the facility implemented this and allowed anyone to be 
"guided" to their destination! And, there's relatively no cost.

As far as guide dogs are concerned, this as is typical of Peta shows a lack 
of knowing the facts. This won't eliminate our use of guide dogs indoors! 
Not every building will be equipped and even for the ones that are, this is 
just one more tool at our disposal to help us work even more efficiently 
with the dog. In my area, Peta came to town, made accusations, had no facts, 
and even when given the facts would not listen to reasonal rational 
discussion.  So, they were written off as idiots and ignored.

I applaud this research and so does my yet to be determined guide lol.

Greg

-----Original Message----- 
From: Aaron Cannon
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 6:51 PM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: [nagdu] Well everyone, time to give up our dogs

Wow!  Just wow!  I'll let the article speak for itself.  Just be sure
not to miss the priceless quote from PETA at the end.


http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112539355/indoor-navigation-system-gives-guide-dogs-a-rest/

Indoor Navigation System Gives Guide Dogs A Rest
May 21, 2012

Helen Keller, perhaps the most famous activist for the visually
impaired once said, “It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our
powers, but for powers
equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating
at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.”

Empowerment of the visually impaired took another step forward this
month with the presentation of Navatar, an indoor navigation system.
Navatar, which
was developed by a University of Nevada, Reno computer science
engineering team, is an improvement on existing systems because it
relies primarily on existing
smartphone technology and not on less practical and bulky sensors.

“Existing indoor navigation systems typically require the use of
expensive and heavy sensors, or equipping rooms and hallways with
radio-frequency tags
that can be detected by a handheld reader and which are used to
determine the user’s location,” said Kostas Bekris, of the UNR College
of Engineering’s
Robotics Research Lab. “This has often made the implementation of such
systems prohibitively expensive, with few systems having been
deployed.”

In conjunction with two-dimensional, digital architectural maps that
are widely available, the smartphone-based Navatar uses the device’s
accelerometer
and compass to navigate its user. The system is able to guide people
with visual impairments down hallways and into rooms through audible
instructions
similar to those given by GPS devices made for autos.

“Nevertheless, the smartphone’s sensors, which are used to calculate
how many steps the user has executed and her orientation, tend to pick
up false signals,”
said Eelke Folmer, who worked on the project.”To synchronize the
location, our system combines probabilistic algorithms and the natural
capabilities of
people with visual impairments to detect landmarks in their
environment through touch, such as corridor intersections, doors,
stairs and elevators.”

Folmer explained that Navatar ‘listens’ for voice prompts or a button
push on a Bluetooth-enabled device from the user to confirm the
presence of these
landmarks. This means the system can work to assist the user in
conjunction with their typical routine for navigation, including the
use of a cane.

On his website, Folmer noted that the system has a “high possibility
of large-scale deployment” because it only requires a simple digital
representation
of an indoor environment can be sketched up with simple design drawing
programs that could be downloaded from a building’s Wi-Fi network. The
UNR team
also performed a study involving 12 blindfolded and six blind users to
demonstrate the feasibility of their system.

While the system was able to track users within 1.85 meters of their
actual location, the researchers were able to identify several areas
for improvement.
Based on feedback from test subjects, the team’s report said improving
Navatar’s accuracy, making it able to repeat directions, and having it
capable of
working from within in a pocket are all improvement they are considering.

For their work on Navatar, Bekris and Folmer recently won a PETA
Proggy Award for Leadership in Ethical Science. PETA recognized the
system as an animal-friendly
achievement because of its potential to decrease the reliance on guide
dogs for the visually impaired.

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