Very, very interesting Ronan, I have a 6600 'phone with Talks but do I
need the update to Talks to use Loadstone? Also where can one buy this
headset?
Maureen.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ronan McGuirk" <ronan.mcguirk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 4:43 PM
Subject: [vicsireland] Well positioned in Dublin and Cork with GPS
Hello to the VICS list. I am enclosing our report on the use of
Loadstone
below. We look forward to the comments of VICS members.
Ronan
Report Begins:
Well positioned in Dublin and Cork
- GPS and a mobile phone as a mobility aid for people with a vision
impairment
- authors: Aedan O'Meara, Cearbhall O'Meadhra, Ronan McGuirk
Date January 2007
Overview
Over the past few months we have been experimenting with mobile phones
interacting with the Global Positioning System to assess the
usefulness of
this technology as a mobility aid to people with a vision impairment.
We have been carrying out a trial of the Loadstone-GPS system at two
locations in Ireland, (Dublin and Cork). In this short paper we
summarise
our experiences and are pleased to report that the experiment was
successful.
What is the Global Positioning System?
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite navigation system.
A set
of satellites is in orbit around the Earth. These satellites transmit
radio
signals and a person with a GPS receiver can determine his/her
location
based on these satellite signals. There is a very good article
explaining
the Global Positioning System in Wikipedia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System
What is Loadstone?
Loadstone-GPS is a free program designed for Series 60 Symbian mobile
phones. This software has been designed to work well with screen
readers
such as Talks or Mobile Speak on the mobile phones. In order for
Loadstone-GPS to work, it requires a separate GPS receiver that is
connected
to the mobile phone using Bluetooth.
It is worth noting that the hardware is standard off-the-shelf
equipment.
It is not specially designed for visually impaired people.
Furthermore, the
Loadstone-GPS program itself is free.
For more information on Loadstone-GPS check out the Loadstone website
at
www.loadstone-gps.com
What equipment did we use?
Ronan used a Nokia 6600 with Talks 2.5 premium edition together with a
Holux
Slim 236 GPS receiver.
Aedan used a Nokia 6680 with Talks 3.0 premium edition with
dictionary and
a Holux slim 236 GPS receiver.
Cearbhall used a Nokia 6680 with Talks 3.0 premium edition with
dictionary,
ThinkOutside Bluetooth keyboard, Motorola Bluetooth earphone And a
Holux
slim 236 GPS receiver.
How we used Loadstone
The Global Positioning system works by receiving radio signals from
Satellites and calculating the location of the receiver as a point of
Latitude and longitude on the Earth.
When you install Loadstone on your mobile phone and get it working
with your
GPS receiver, it can tell you your latitude and longitude, altitude
and
speed and direction of movement. However, to make full use of it, it
is
Necessary to have a way of converting latitude and longitude to place
names
or as they are called "points of interest, or P.O.I.s".
Loadstone, which is being written by a blind programmer, is specially
designed to make the recording of any point of interest to you
absolutely
simple. Pressing the hash key in the Loadstone program on your mobile
phone
puts you into an edit box and it is similar to entering a text
message.
After using Loadstone for a few months we collected hundreds of point
names.
The types of point names we collected included train stations, Luas
stations, shops, pubs and many road junctions.
Ronan found that he could use loadstone to tell which train station
the
Dublin Dart had stopped at. Using Loadstone on the Dart train gives a
great
deal of information. Not only can you tell which station you are at,
but
also when the train is moving you can tell the speed and direction.
You can
follow the curve of Dublin Bay as the train leaves Dun Laoghaire
heading due
west and gradually curves through the compass till it is heading
north.
Ronan found that he needed to learn the meaning of compass points such
as
West By North, and East by North East. Using Loadstone gives a very
rich
understanding of your location, speed, direction and altitude
especially if
you are travelling in a bus or a car.
Cearbhall collected points along the seafront in Bray. This is a half
kilometre of straight esplanade with no distinguishing features. He
was able
to use Loadstone to mark the point of entry to the esplanade (a
particular
set of steps and buildings alongside the walk that identified
different
parts of the route.
When you have collected a set of points yourself or downloaded them
from the
point share exchange, Loadstone is a good help when trying to
understand
your current location or find a point of interest. It is simple to
ask
Loadstone what the nearest point is or to get the direction and
distance to
a point you wish to reach. Loadstone is not a substitute for a long
cane or
a guide dog, but it is a useful addition to your existing method of
mobility.
How to look up an Internet map to get latitude and longitude
There is a web site at
http://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php with a search facility that is
very
simple and will give you the latitude and Longitude of any town or
large
village in Ireland, or anywhere else in the world. It will also do the
reverse. If you capture a point with loadstone you can look it up on
this
website to get the street address. Ronan found that it usually gives
the
correct street name in Dublin but the address number of the house is
only an
approximation.
Comparison of Loadstone with other location systems
Unlike mapping systems which some of us have over a year's experience
of,
Loadstone stands out as the only viable and cost effective option for
the
visually impaired who wish to be told at any time exactly where they
are on
the surface of the earth. (yes, you can use it anywhere on the surface
of
the earth, even at the poles though we haven't tried this yet!).
At the moment the list of already labelled points of interest is only
being
built by the voluntary efforts of current users. It is therefore a
very
rewarding project to be involved in as the information you gather will
be
there for generations to come who might need it! This is the only
program
that allows you to build entirely your own route to suit bus, train,
or any
other off the road route. It is totally portable and once one is used
to it
you will never leave it at home!
Aedan has gone back to using Wayfinder for comparison purposes as he
used it
for a year before getting Loadstone. He reports that his installation
of
Wayfinder, in his circumstances, was totally sterile in that it gave
no
information like individual bus stops, etc that he had built up with
Loadstone.
Wayfinder only announced the turns and was awkward in use to find even
the
name of the road you have turned onto. It appears to be purely a
mapping
program
designed for car users, or sighted pedestrians.
Ronan had previously used Mini GPs which is a program that came with
the
Talks premium edition and allowed the labelling of mobile phone cells.
Mini
GPS can tell you the name of the mobile phone cell in which you are
located.
However, in Dublin the cells can be quite large (3 or four kilometres
across
in places). Obviously this only gives you a very approximate location.
On
the Dublin Dart train system the mobile phone cells often include more
than
one station so it is not a foolproof method of identifying location.
Loadstone by contrast gives you a location that can be accurate to
about 5
metres.
Saving points to the Point share website
Each of us collected many points. The Loadstone-gps website provides a
database for sharing points. Over the past few months we have added
several
hundreds of Irish places to the point share exchange.
Coverage of points in Ireland today
Before we started using Loadstone, a number of Irish points had been
added
to the exchange. We are pleased to report that we have jointly added
several
hundred more.
We have captured all Dart stations from Bray to Tara Street and all
Green
line Luas stations from Sandyford to Stephens green. We have saved a
lot of
points in the Dun Laoghaire Dalkey area and also in Dublin 4. Ronan
went
hill walking on the Wicklow Way and has saved several points along the
route
and elsewhere in County Wicklow.
In Cork Aedan has added many points for Cork city centre, West cork as
far
as
Clonakilty, and in East Cork from Fermoy to Dungarvan and in Waterford
as
far as Lismore, Waterford City, and Dunmore East.
Cearbhall has collected most of the stations from Heuston station,
Dublin to
Waterford together with many points along the M50 from Bray to
Sandyford.
Problems we encountered with Loadstone
Ronan had problems with the Holux GPS unit not getting a signal but
has now
resolved this problem.
Cearbhall found that the interest points marked on the Bray seafront
change
each time he goes out. The change is small and not important when
noting
buildings alongside the route. However, a series of four rubbish bins
that
create a hazard for a blind pedestrian and are spaced about ten metres
apart, are reported by loadstone as being in significantly different
locations every time one passes. The accuracy of current technology
can
vary a bit from day to day and we are experiencing typical accuracies
of
about 5 to 10 metres. The Wikipedia article we mentioned above gives
a very
good explanation of the factors that affect location accuracy.
We have got to grips with the peculiar way Holux works. You need to
switch
it on in an area with a guaranteed signal and wait about 30 seconds
before
starting loadstone on the mobile phone. If you do this it works fine
afterwards. If you start it in an area with a bad signal (for example
on a
crowded train) then it often goes into a strange mode and won't see a
satellite signal until re-booted. We find that switching Holux off and
on
again with the switch on the Holux box works fine to get it back
working
again, provided you wait about 60 seconds, and we found that we
rarely
needed to re-boot the phone.
Aedan found that in order to get an accurate direction of travel it
was
necessary to walk fairly quickly. There is a feature built into the
GPS
units called Static Navigation that is the cause of this. We
recommend that
the Static Navigation feature be turned off. If you get a unit with
Static
Navigation turned on, you will either have to walk quickly to get a
direction or go through a somewhat complex process to turn this
feature off.
The Loadstone program itself can be a little confusing in its layout
and we
have contributed through the email discussion list to a more logical
layout
in certain parts of the newer versions.
Next steps
We have no hesitation in recommending this product or, more correctly,
project as a fine example of the blind helping themselves to create a
fantastically useful tool to assist orientation. We would encourage
other
visually impaired people in Ireland to try it out. If we work
together we
can build up a rich store of points on the point share exchange.
Looking to the future we expect technology to change fairly rapidly.
Loadstone-GPS currently works on the second edition Symbian phones.
As of
now it doesn't work on the 3rdrd edition. Hopefully this will change
over
time.
We expect that over time GPS technology will rapidly improve and GPS
chipsets will be built into mobile phones. Further, it is assumed
that
the new European GPS system Galileo, currently being built, with
several
satellites already put into orbit, will have an accuracy level of
centimetres. This would mean that in a few years, if we still have an
accessible system like Loadstone-GPS, we will be able to find the
door,
not just the building as at the moment!
We are in touch with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) to see if
their
maps can be imported into Loadstone. We will also examine the OSI'S
OWN GPS
programs to see if they can be used by a blind person in a laptop or
mobile
phone.
--- Report ends.
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