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Developments in indoor mapping
Transcript
9 December 2012
Roberta: Last month experts from around the world spoke at the Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation Conference and one of the big things discussed was how indoor mapping could help enhance the mobility of the blind or vision impaired. Here to talk about the exciting ways indoor mapping will help people who are blind is Media Access Australia’s Digital Media & Technology Coordinator, Clarizza Fernandez.
Hello, Clarizza.
Clarizza: Hi, Roberta.
Roberta: Now, what is indoor mapping?
Clarizza: So indoor mapping shows the location of points on interest such as entry and exit points, amenities and lifts, or elevators, inside buildings. This information can be delivered to you on a smartphone or mobile device. This data is retrieved through Wi-Fi connections and can pinpoint exactly where you are standing, similar to how satellite technology can pinpoint where you are outside.
Roberta: So how is this different to GPS then?
Clarizza: Well, as I mentioned, GPS uses satellite technology, whereas, indoor mapping uses Wi-Fi connections to find your location indoors. The other thing is that indoor mapping provides detailed indoor information that satellites can’t provide.
Roberta: This kind of technology has been used at some shopping centres, I believe, so can you tell us more about it?
Clarizza: Yes, in Australia, kiosk company Abuzz, provides a service for commercial businesses like shopping centres and museums where their indoor information is shown in kiosks to help customers find where they are in the centre. So you can usually look for the level a particular shop is in, where the elevators are, or find accessible toilets.
Abuzz also has a smart phone app called Wayfinder which delivers this information to your smart phone. In other countries Google’s indoor maps app for android phones does a similar thing. So places like airports, IKEA and train stations have been providing indoor mapping information to Google to include indoor information for their apps.
Roberta: So how can this type of technology help people who are blind or vision impaired?
Clarizza: This is very exciting because if this technology becomes mainstream people who are blind or vision impaired can gain more independence in unfamiliar places, shopping centres, museums, trains stations and its dedicated screen reader technology works with indoor maps on people’s phones. All the essential information like where to find an accessible toilet or escalator can be delivered through text to speech technology and that’s really exciting. The other thing is that this type of technology can also benefit many others. So even if you aren’t blind or vision impaired it’s quite useful to know where you are indoors.
Roberta: Well, that is a very exciting development indeed and if listeners would like to find out more about it for people with a disability you can visit Media Access Australia. You can also listen to this segment as free podcasts on iTunes by searching for ‘media access news’ and I have done that. It’s a great service that you’re doing there, Clarizza.
Clarizza: Thanks, Roberta.
Roberta: And I’ve been speaking with Clarizza Fernandez who is Media Access Australia’s Digital Media and Technology Coordinator. Now, a couple of weeks ago I was talking with Ally Woodford about the DVDs that are available with audio description and I think if this is of any interest to you at all the best thing to do would be to go to your local video store or perhaps your rental store and see what is available.
Some of the blockbusters are there. There’s some for the kids, there’s romances, there’s adventures and there’s a bit of horror as well. So it could be that it’s a very good thing to give as a gift to someone who may benefit from audio description. And if you want to know more about audio description you can go to Media Access Australia’s website, which is very, very accessible, and find out more audio description on Media Access Australia.
Media Access Australia is a supporter of this program and if you would like to contact them it’s 02 92126242. That’s 02 9212 6242.