[Trainer-Talk] an article about BlindSquare

Fri Oct 16 17:46:30 UTC 2015

Very cool. I'll have to try this tomorrow when I'm at Time Square. Thank you for passing along the article.

Scott

Scott Davert, MA, VRT
Coordinator, New York Deaf-Blind Equipment Distribution Program
Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults (HKNC)
141 Middle Neck Rd.
Sands Point, NY 11050
scott.davert at hknc.org
516-393-7561 (Voice)
http://www.icanconnect.org/new-york :: HKNC: http://www.hknc.org

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-----Original Message-----
From: Trainer-Talk [mailto:trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Julie A Adkins via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2015 9:40 AM
To: List for teachers and trainers of adaptive technology
Cc: Julie A Adkins
Subject: Re: [Trainer-Talk] an article about BlindSquare

Thanks, David. That means a lot coming from you. The thing is, I hate writing!  And I feel like I don't have the time. I am amazed by people like you that write things all the time. I do try to email things out here and there when I think they are really important. And I do hope some day to have a website with my training materials posted on it. I just can't seem to ever really get caught up enough to do extra stuff like that. Something really neat has come out of this article. The developer of Blindsquare is going to try to get those iBeacons and Blindsquare Event set up at the AER Conference coming up in Norfolk in a few weeks. There will be a lot of orientation and mobility trainers there, and most importantly, a lot of people from the VA. I could see the VA really making a difference in getting these iBeacons used in the United States. 

Julie Adkins
Assistive Technology Trainer

> On Oct 15, 2015, at 10:42 PM, David Goldfield via Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> This was a great piece, Julie. I reposted it to my local computer users' group list. When this gets posted, could you send me the URL as I'd like to tweet it and post it on some LinkedIn groups, if that's OK.
> Also, have you considered starting your own blog? You have a lot of knowledge, are a good writer and have a lot of enthusiasm, which is a great combination to be a good blogger.
> 
> David Goldfield,
> Assistive Technology Specialist
> 
> Feel free to visit my Web site
> www.davidgoldfield.info
> 
>> On 10/15/2015 11:33 AM, Julie Adkins via Trainer-Talk wrote:
>> This is trainer Julie Adkins.  I finally bought BlindSquare and was 
>> so impressed that I wrote this article.  I have just gotten in 
>> contact with the developers (to tell them how awesome their app is), 
>> and one of them said he will try to get iBeacons set up at the AER 
>> conference in Norfolk coming up November 4-6.  It is not definite 
>> yet.  If you haven't seen BlindSquare in action with iBeacons, there 
>> is a link in the article to a YouTube video showing a lady independently navigating in a mall.
>> 
>>  
>>  
>> The article begins below.
>> 
>>  
>> If you are an independent traveler, or you like to have control over 
>> planning your route and finding places around you, I just can't say 
>> enough good things about an app called BlindSquare.  Okay, it costs 
>> $30.00.  So, you may ask, why would I want to spend $30.00 on an app 
>> if my phone has a GPS app built in, and I can just ask Siri to give 
>> me directions wherever I want to go?  First of all, it finds many more places than your iPhone does.
>> This is because behind the scenes it uses data that has been input by 
>> thousands of users of a very popular app called Four Square. 
>> Secondly, the app makes it extremely easy to find places to go and 
>> things to do (these are called "Points of Interest" or POIs in GPS 
>> apps).  Everything is broken down into categories, like Food, Arts 
>> and Entertainment, Nightlife spots, Outdoors and Recreation, and Shop 
>> and Service, and then each category has a list of subcategories of 
>> things as specific as Afghan Food, or Falafel Restaurant (in Food), 
>> or Shoe Repair or ATMs (in Shop and Service).  You can just read 
>> through the list of places in each category to see what is available, 
>> or have it announce the places to you as you are walking or riding. 
>> If you need directions, you can ask it to give you directions to your 
>> destination through the built in Maps app, Google maps, or several 
>> other popular navigation apps, such as Wav, TomTom, and Navigon. You can even order an Uber ride from right within the app.
>> 
>>   
>> If you are walking or riding and having BlindSquare announce Points 
>> of Interest to you as you go, you can use a filter to narrow it down 
>> to just the information you want to hear.  The example they give is 
>> that you want to go shopping for clothes, but you don't know which shops you want to visit.
>> You would ask BlindSquare to only tell you places in the Shop and 
>> Service category as you are walking through the city (and of course 
>> then you could even narrow it down to one of the subcategories if you 
>> wish, like clothing store).  Or maybe have it only look for Food if 
>> you are looking for restaurants.  And, of course, you could just 
>> search for a specific place if you know exactly where you want to go, 
>> or have it search within a specific distance.  Easily save places to 
>> your Favorites so you can find them again quickly.  You can even 
>> simulate a trip from a certain spot so you can find out in advance 
>> what will be around you when you go somewhere, preplan your routes for when you will be there, and so on.
>> 
>>  
>> You can ask Blind Square to tell you what points of interest 
>> (including
>> intersections) are around you within a certain radius, and you get to 
>> choose the radius.  It even has a feature called Look Around that 
>> allows you to point your phone in a direction and find out what is 
>> located in that particular direction (again, you get to choose the 
>> distance).  Just shake the phone to exit this Look Around mode.  When 
>> you are walking, you can also just shake the phone to find out where 
>> you are.  You can even leave your ears open to listen to traffic and 
>> other sounds in the environment by using bone conducting head phones.  
>> No, I didn't realize there was such a thing, either.  Apparently they 
>> have been in use by walkers and joggers for quite some time.  There 
>> is a link within the BlindSquare app to find them on Amazon.  It 
>> appears they range from about $50 to $150, depending on their 
>> features, such as battery life and sound quality.  I would imagine you would want to be sure they are wireless (Bluetooth).
>> 
>>  
>> If you want to read about all the features Blindsquare has to offer 
>> (yes, there are more!), you can find the help file on the internet at 
>> https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1Rz0w2tRq0uAVx9DQ0hpyVCX9G3c8
>> IundPnz ksTI1nVQ.  Also check out this YouTube video of a blind 
>> person walking around by herself in a mall to see how it can work 
>> indoors with devices called iBeacons that transmit information about 
>> the person's location as he or she walks by: 
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jH-Bdjmgb4.  No, sorry, these 
>> iBeacons are not set up in your local mall. But this shows what is 
>> possible for independent travel in the future.  The video has 
>> dialogue in another language, so if you use a screen reader, be sure 
>> it is set to read captions.  There are other videos about BlindSquare 
>> on YouTube-just be sure they are in English.
>> 
>>  
>> If you want to try BlindSquare out without buying it, they have a 
>> demo version called Blindsquare Event that is free. You can't use it 
>> to get around in your environment (it is not going to connect to any 
>> GPS apps), but it lets you try out its other features as if you are 
>> located in places like Times Square in New York or Big Ben in London.
>> 
>> When the app opens, choose the option for Demo, and then choose the 
>> simulated location you want to explore.
>> 
>>  
>> Julie Adkins
>> 
>> Assistive Technology Trainer
>> 
>>  
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> 
> 
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