woo! Microsoft Designs A Headset To Aid The Visually Impaired

Microsoft Corporation, in collaboration with the Guide Dogs Association, the world's largest breeder and trainer of dogs for the visually impaired, has designed a headset that talks to the visually impaired to aid them move about freely in town.

The goal of the two companies is to someday help not only millions of blind people around the world but possibly everyone looking to get more information from their environment.

Microsoft calls the project “Cities Unlocked” because it unlocks the potential a city has for people with disabilities. 

BBC reports that the gadget works with a Windows phone and uses location and navigation data with a network of information beacons in urban locations to describe routes. One concern some experts have raised is how realistic the technology will be if it is to rely solely on a network.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said, “It is the first move in a bigger pitch from Microsoft that claims we need to start thinking about how we use technology differently. About how we need to use technology to help empower us more. And about how technology exists to help human potential.”

According to Pocket-Lint’s Stuart Miles, the device works by giving audio cues about your surrounding area, dynamically and in real time, so you know where you are, what's around you and therefore where to go next. It's like an audio tour of a museum. But whilst an audio tour merely guides you around a set route, this has the potential to dynamically guide you around the world.

“The headset has been hacked from a pair of AfterShokz sports headphones with the band using jaw conducting tips so you don't have to wear ear buds, an important factor as a wearer must also be able to hear what is going on around them clearly. The headband has an accelerometer and GPS to not only determine where you are but which direction you are facing,” he said.

How the Microsoft headset works 

It works with a Windows Phone app that helps users understand the information that is being presented by using Cloud-based location and navigation data pulled from a network of information beacons. This aids orientation, navigation and provides enhanced contextual information such as points of interest and additional journey details.

According to Pocket-Lint, a host of elements coupled with beacons on Bing maps enable the system to know exactly where you are, thus giving accurate information. “It also means that it doesn't matter where you are or which way you are facing as the system can determine that and deliver information relevant to you,” Stuart Miles added.

At any point you can request to be “orientated," which gives you a quick spin through the landscape around you with the destinations sounding off within your 360-degree realm.