It looks like progress on the assistive technology front with Google’s Project Guideline, “an artificial intelligence system designed to help blind and vision-impaired people to run races by themselves.”
Main point: It’s “an attempt to give those people more independence. They wouldn’t necessarily need to rely on a tethered human guide or a guide dog to help them around a course.”
Things to know:
- “…a runner attaches an Android phone to a Google-designed harness that goes around their waist.”
- “…use the phone’s camera to track a guideline that’s been laid down on a course.”
- “…audio cues to bone-conducting headphones when a runner veers away from the line.”
- “…doesn’t need an internet connection to work, and it can account for a number of lighting and weather conditions.”
Points to ponder:
- An external system using one’s smartphone.
- Someone will need to lay a line on the road to track.
- Lane control for runners could be another way to look at it.
- Entirely on the smartphone, so less vulnerable to Internet glitches at the wrong moments.