[nfbwatlk] Talking Signs in Seattle

[Carl Jarvis]

Right.  I talked several times with the afore mentioned fellow, but can't 
recall his name either.  I tried to get our Board to invite him to the last 
WCB convention, but there didn't seem to be any interest.  Also, he was 
willing to travel to our local chapter meeting in Port Townsend, but we 
never connected.  I would like to see his demo.
Carl

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "NFB of Washington Talk Mailing List" <nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 9:33 AM
Subject: Re: [nfbwatlk] Talking Signs in Seattle


> Actually, there is a fellow working on such a system in Seattle using
> the same technology as the RF ID tags used on merchandise. Don't know
> how far he's gotten, though. Although I'm not enamered of talking signs,
> the idea had some traction as regular merchants could use the system as
> you describe and text could be scrolled onto the little handheld
> receivers. Speech synthesis would be used for the blind. My chief
> concern there was maintainability of the system; someone would always
> have to update it.
>
> Mike
>
> On Fri, 1 Sep 2006, Carl Jarvis wrote:
>
>> Hi Mike,
>> Did you ever wander around Woodland Park back in the days when you could 
>> buy
>> an Elephant Key and put it into the box positioned by each exhibit?  The 
>> box
>> would begin to tell you everything you never wanted to know about what 
>> was
>> supposed to be in there.  Of course they might have moved the original
>> occupant and put something else in, or the box refused to work at all.  I
>> suspect that those little problems were what finally did the project in.
>> Still, I have a point here, it seems to me that talking signs could have 
>> a
>> very broad appeal.  Think of old uncle Fuddy Duddy arriving in our Fair
>> City.  As he rolls off the box car, he can trot into town and rent a unit
>> for the day.  As he pan handles his way up one street and down another he
>> will be aware of all of the local attractions.
>> But really, such a system could be underwritten by the local merchants. 
>> Not
>> that they would want to have old uncle Duddy dropping in, but it would be 
>> a
>> way of advertising under the guise of providing a public service.  And at
>> it's finest, such a system might even include a little screen so sighted
>> folks could stand mesmerized by the sight of all the local shops and 
>> their
>> mounds of merchandise, along with a road map taking them right up to the
>> front door.  Eventually the blind might have to fight just to have such a
>> system audio described.
>> Carl Jarvis
>>
>>
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