Trekker device gives blind greater mobility-System uses global positioning systems and satellites

Quebec-based VisuAide’s new Trekker satellite-based navigation PDA is a GPS locator for the blind. It shows and reads out locations by street.

Steve Makris
CanWest News Service Calgary Herald

Cutting-edge Canadian technology will give the visually impaired unprecedented independence.

Quebec-based VisuAide announced earlier this month a portable satellite-based navigation system for blind people.

Using GPS (global positioning system) technology, the Trekker will "talk" to users, telling them where they are within four metres using real street terminology.

And it will point out attractions such as nearby hotels, restaurants and museums.

The system was unveiled at the Technology and Persons with Disabilities conference at California State University Northridge in Los Angeles.

Here Is How It Works:

– Users will download electronic maps on their Trekker personal digital assistant, a Compaq Pocket PC, from the visuaide.com Web site.

– On the way to the destination, users can get the Trekker to describe or show areas of interest.

– As they arrive on site, the Trekker’s satellite receiver announces the exact location and also shows it on an on-screen map.

Trekker technology will be available in a personal digital assistant, for about $2,400, and in a note-taker device that records braille and talks back, for $1,500.

A cheaper talking device without a screen will be available later.

VisuAide, which makes other products for the visually impaired, including digital book readers and software that allows computers to read text, says most of its business is outside Canada.

"More than 70 per cent of our technology is sold abroad, to countries such as Sweden, England and Netherlands," said Yvan Lagace, VisuAide vice-president of sales and marketing.

"Unlike Canada, these countries’ governments provide the visually impaired with most of the funding for devices to help improve their lives."

But current technology, several years old, has had a tough time finding its way to the visually and reading impaired, now estimated at 10 per cent of the population.

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind, or CNIB, started a national campaign a year ago aiming to raise $33 million to help shore up its digital book library and buy new digital book readers for the visually impaired.

The campaign, with six months to go, has realized only one-third of its goal.

"As business gets tighter, the remaining companies that give are getting inundated by other causes, so it’s a challenge to us," said campaign chairman and Microsoft Canada president Frank Clegg. "But, when we get a chance to show them what this campaign is about, they get excited."

Microsoft Canada has donated $2 million in cash and in-kind services, including a children’s Web portal, for the CNIB library campaign.

The software giant, along with IBM, HP and other companies, are laying the foundation for a digital book library.

"A worldwide library would take up 90 terabytes (90,000 gigabytes) of digital book information that can be shared with the reading impaired everywhere," said Gerry Chevalier, national chairman for the CNIB library.

A digital library, according to Clegg, would allow people to download audio on home PCs or affordable MP3-like audio players.

VisuAide plans to release a smaller digital music player, the Vib, for $300 that will do exactly that.

Digital reading books contain a human voice recorded on a CD-ROM using the international Daisy standard, which allows users to search by chapter or even pages on any compatible device.

Currently, VisuAide’s Victor Pro portable book readers are being tested by the CNIB across Canada.

At $700 each, they play back books on CD-ROM and can remember user page tags for future reference.
© Copyright 2003 Calgary Herald

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