[nagdu] Guide dogs vs smartphone

[Tracy Carcione]

Today, one of my coworkers was telling me about an article she read about
a smartphone app that could replace a guide dog.  I tried to explain to
her how that was unlikely, because my dog can look at a whole situation
and assess what he thinks our best option is to deal with it, and do it
quickly.  No smartphone app can do that.  I'm not sure she got what I was
saying, though.
I looked up the article she was referring to, and it's talking about a new
case for a Galaxy phone that sends out sonar pings and vibrates when it
detects an obstacle up to 6 feet away.  Six feet!  My dog can detect an
obstacle at least half a block away, and adjust so that I may not even
know he's going around something.
So, more silly hype about some machine replacing guide dogs, which I don't
see happening any time soon.  I guess these story writers basically have
no idea what a guide dog really does.
Tracy