Hi Dominique
Thanks for your excellent explanation about the sound scape.
I hope you would be able to give us much more info about it in the near future.
Regards
Anthony
-----Original Message-----
From: fb-exchange-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <fb-exchange-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Dominique Farrell
Sent: 04 August 2021 18:02
To: fb-exchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [fb-exchange] A Beacon of Hope – Brian Manning - NCBI
https://www.ncbi.ie/a-beacon-of-hope-brian-manning/
A Beacon of Hope – Brian Manning
As a blind person, I have long been a user of GPS technologies. Indeed, it is
fair to say that my own internal ‘Guinness Positioning System’ has found me
spending many happy hours in various emporiums of libation through Ireland and
the broader world, ‘happy’ being the operative word here.
I was delighted therefore earlier in the year when I was asked to help test a
newly developing mobility App for vision impaired people called Microsoft
Soundscape. Microsoft Soundscape is a truly innovative peace of technology that
is designed to assist Vision impaired people to meet our everyday mobility and
navigational challenges.
From the beginning of this review however, I must emphasise that Soundscape
serves mainly as a support tool to our primary mobility aid. For example, I am
a guide dog user and consequently Soundscape is a support to my dog, certainly
not a replacement for my trusty pooch.
When I open the app, I am presented with a number of options, such as search
for an address which will help me chart a route to a specific location and help
guide me. I can also activate other assist features such as getting information
on places around me, hear my surroundings, or my location and near by markers.
This app utilizes fantastically innovative 3D audio technology which prompts
you as to your destination and relevant information along your journey through
various audio prompts. Incorporating cutting edge developments in earphone
technologies, if you are using Apple Airpod Pros, Soundscape can feed you
information on where you are facing through the respective ear -This means that
if a point of interest, or for example, an intersection, is on your left then
the information is fed to you through your left ear, similarly if the relevant
detail is located on the right of your path for example your ultimate
destination, then you receive this prompt through your right ear.
Soundscape is additionally able to provide salient information on locations in
front or behind you by using the Ahead of Me feature – Just rotate your head to
be fed this information! Using the Places Nearby feature you can also access
information on nearby services such as entertainment, shopping education and
public transport. Soundscape can then help you access public transport, staying
with you on your journey.
Another very impressive element to this technology is its ability to embrace
Irish place names! I live in Gurranabraher in Cork and I have travelled through
other Irish sounding places and my experience is that Soundscape will announce
the placenames with a near native fluency.
The fact that you can set your own markers, ‘Beacons’, however, is likely the
most invaluable tool in the armory of this app, enabling the user to create
their own locational map in their town or city. I
intend to use Soundscape to mark a bench on my favorite walk – Whilst my guide
dog will help guide me with relative ease alond this route, by his very
training, he will see a bench as an obstacle and therefore steer me away from
it. Whilst using Soundscape, however, I set a marker on one of these benches
that are scattered all over the Mardyke Walk in Cork, I will easily locate it.
Imagine the joy of being able to spend hours just sitting down and listening to
the good citizens of Cork as they sport and they play. Imagine that, an
instrument of navigation that can direct you to what is probably the nearest
thing to heaven on earth. What an accolade.
Soundscape is a free App and is going to be released in the Irish Appstore
before the end of July. Again however, I must reemphasize the qualifier that
this App is a support to your primary mobility aid, i.e. your cane or guide dog
and not a replacement for it.
Sent from my iPhone
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