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定位话音讯息机助盲人轻松上路
Device Helps Blind Navigate Streets
(本网讯)肖文英/译
(美联社-科学) 2004, 2,16
美国阿拉斯加州安克雷奇消息--年轻时就已经失明的吉姆·金坐在一家餐馆里，遐想自己在安克雷奇繁荣地区畅游。
一个机械的声音从桌子上笔记本大小的电子仪器传出来，告诉金他正位于G 道三街，这是他选择的出发点。
金用手指在细小的键盘上敲打，立刻一个声音传告诉他，他正在E道三街，再敲上几下，听到说，方向南，朝四街。金一直沿E道走，到达九街，然后向西沿德莱尼公园区朝目的地L道九街走。
"我们现在到达目的地了，了不起吧？"金说。"我喜欢它。"
金估计价值2000美圆的这个机子，让盲人走向正常生活迈了一大步。VoiceNote GPS（全球定位系统话音讯息机）, 结合了电脑科技、数字声音和全球定位系统，让人们可以准确知道自己所在的位置，实际上它等同于声频地图。
"我可以记录一段路线，"金说，"我可以从一地方到另一个地方，一边走一边记录路上的重要地点，这样，我下次走这条路的时候，VoiceNote 就会告诉我我走在哪里正往哪里走了。"
金正使用VoiceNote朝Iditarod雪橇比赛终点诺姆进发。
金和七位伙伴，组成阿拉斯加雪橇快递远征队，正坐着雪地机动车向诺姆出发，一方面为推广VoiceNote GPS 机，一方面为宣传非赢利教育组织――Iditarod全国雪橇比赛。
Iditarod全国雪橇比赛负责人及远征队组织人阿诺德说，队伍预期在2月23日左右到达诺姆。
车子由他人驾驶，金坐在车后座，不停地用通过GPS记录方位并把数据贮藏在VoiceNote。
金说，VoiceNote带一个5g的硬盘，可以储藏很多定位坐标数据------如安克雷奇商业区、其他一些城市、景点和Iditarod雪橇比赛路线.。
坐标数据还可以上传到数据库或网站上。
"参加Iditarod雪橇比赛有关活动的盲人可以从自己的家里出发，"金说。他拥有包括美国所有地方的电子GPS地图。
"这不是拐杖或导盲狗的代替物，"金说。"但盲人手持VoiceNote，就象导盲狗领着他沿选好的路线走，在迷路或偏离路线时发出信号提示所在位置。
这好比ＰＤＡ，或者说个人数字助理，金告诉安克雷奇日新闻日报。
VoiceNote GPS由纽西兰公司Pulse Data HumanWare生产，这家公司专门研发盲人和弱视者的使用产品。热爱社交的金一直关注着VoiceNote的发展，他测试过它的第一代原型。
"得到它之前我就知道我会喜欢它的，"他说。他还拥有价值３５００美圆的新型机，这款机能将发出的语言信息打印成盲文。
VoiceNote使用盲文系统特制键盘，虽然不接受语言输入，但可以以语言或其他数据形式输出。 阿拉斯加雪橇快递远征队计划在诺姆沿途探访几十个村庄。所到村庄，金都示范了VoiceNote，小朋友对此特别兴奋，制造商Pulse Data 的发言人杰尔· 开什曼说。队伍在星期五已接近加利纳。
"他在记录各种数据，这机子在冷天气下使用，一样出色。" 开什曼说。经这次旅途后，其他旅客，不管是视力正常的还是失明人士，都可以轻松地沿同一路线走了。
Science - AP
Device Helps Blind Navigate Streets
Mon Feb 16,11:48 AM ET
ANCHORAGE - Sitting in Gwennie's Restaurant in Spenard, Jim King, who has been blind since youth, took an imaginary tour of downtown Anchorage.
A metallic voice from an electronic device the size of a spiral notebook on the table informed King he was at G Street and Third Avenue, his chosen starting point.
King's fingers worked a small keyboard. A voice told him he was at E Street and Third Avenue. A few more keys, and he was heading south, to Fourth Avenue. He kept to E Street and reached Ninth Avenue, then turned west along the Delaney Park Strip toward his goal of L Street and Ninth Avenue.
"We're at our destination. Isn't that cool?" King said. "I love it."
The $2,000 machine, in King's estimation, is a giant step forward in helping the blind to live full lives. Called the VoiceNote GPS, the device combines computer technology, including digital voicing, with the global positioning system device, which allows a person to pinpoint his or her location. The device, in essence, makes an audio map.
"I can record a route," he said. "I can walk from one location to another location, and as I go along the way, I can record certain critical points in the route, and the next time I walk that route, the VoiceNote will tell me how close I am and tell me how I'm progressing."
King now is using the machine while heading to Nome on the National Iditarod Trail.
He and seven other people, calling themselves the Alaskan Express Freight Sled Expedition, are taking snowmobiles to Nome as a promotion for both the VoiceNote GPS device and a nonprofit educational organization called the Iditarod National Millennium Trail.
The team expects to reach Nome sometime around Feb. 23, said Ron Arnold, director of the Iditarod National Millennium Trail and organizer of the expedition.
Sitting on the back of a snowmobile driven by another person, King is continuously recording his position through a GPS device and storing the data on his VoiceNote.
The VoiceNote comes with a five-gigabyte hard drive, according to King. It can store a multitude of GPS coordinates - for downtown Anchorage, for example, and other cities and points of interest, and for the Iditarod Trail.
The coordinates can be uploaded to a database or Web site.
"Blind people will be able to do the Iditarod from their living rooms," King said. He owns electronic GPS maps of the entire United States
"This is not a replacement or a substitute for a cane or a guide dog," King said. But in the hands of a blind man, the VoiceNote can act like a dog to guide him along a chosen route, squawking out his current location if he gets lost or simply chooses to wander.
"This is analogous to a PDA," or personal digital assistant, King told the Anchorage Daily News.
The VoiceNote GPS device is made by Pulse Data HumanWare, a New Zealand company specializing in tools for the blind and people with low vision. King, a big, gregarious man, had followed development of the VoiceNote and tested one of its first prototypes.
"I knew I liked it before I got it," he said. He also owns a $3,500 model that can print read-outs in Braille.
The specialized keyboard on the VoiceNote works on the Braille system. The machine does not accept voice input. The output, however, can be in voice or in other forms of data.
The Alaskan Express Freight Sled Expedition expects to visit a couple dozen villages on the way to Nome. While in the villages, King has been demonstrating the VoiceNote. Children are particularly excited by the device, said Jerry Cashman, a spokesman for Pulse Data, the manufacturer. The group was near Galena on Friday.
"He's taking all sorts of recordings, and the equipment is doing very well" in the cold, Cashman said. After the journey, other travelers, sighted or blind, will be able to take the same trip, he said.
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