[nagdu] Guide dogs vs smartphone

[Kristeen Hughes]

And a smart phone will never have the wonderful silky ears and all of the love my dog has. I love all of the guide work, but even more than that I have a living, breathing partner who can make decisions with me as well as for me and cares about the process in a way a piece of technology can never hope to do.

Kristeen & Mendle, who isn't worried about that pink slip just yet.

On Mar 18, 2014, at 1:19 PM, Tracy Carcione <carcione at access.net> wrote:

> 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
> 
> 
> 
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