Hi, all!
I would add to Curtis' criteria for a useful electronic travel aid for
the blind the following: (1) the aid must be relatively unobtrusive.
That is, it must not call undue attention to the blind person. It should
also interfere as little as possible with the information the blind
person would get were s/he not using the aid (unless the aid conveyed
sufficient information on its own to travel safely). (2) The aid must be
rugged. As a practical definition of "rugged", I would propose that (a)
the aid should be dropable from a distance of 2 meters onto concrete
without a scratch and still be in working order and (b) I ought to be
able to step on it and have it come out unscratched and in working
order. If travel aids are going to get used, they're going to be abused
and an aid that konks out after the slightest mishap isn't worth much.
Upon reflection, I'd add a third criterion: (3) the aid should be built
from easily-obtainable parts so that one wouldn't be faced with a broken
travel aid for eighteen months due to a back-order of rare parts!
-- Mike Freeman | Internet: mikef@pacifier.com GEnie: M.FREEMAN11 | Amateur Radio Callsign: K7UIJ PGP2.6.2 PUBLIC KEY available via finger or PGP key server ... Pushing 40 is exercise enough!
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