“Location Based Services” are currently delivered in the outside environment through hand-held devices: cellphones; personal digital assistants; monitors installed in vehicles. This “just in time” information is made available to:
Breaking with current outside only technology, Talking Signs, Inc. proposes the construction of a Location Based Services system utilizing existing underground wiring systems, wireless local area networks and infrared identification codes that provide Location Based Services inside as well as outside.
Currently, Talking Signs® technology is an environmental labeling system that allows blind travelers to locate and identify landmarks, signs and facilities of interest. It uses short speech messages stored in infrared transmitters as labels. The user’s hand-held receiver converts the transmission from light to speech. The infrared beam pattern provides control of range and breadth of coverage, and the directional nature of infrared light allows the user to accurately locate each label.
Along with the speech message, a digital number is transmitted which is the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) for the transmitter - enabling full integration into the entire World Wide Web in the user’s language and according to the user’s desired specifications.
Turning the current Talking Signs® System into a universal, device independent communication system with stored information not in the hand-held device, but at an Internet Provider, can be achieved in the following way. Hand-held devices (such as web phones and PDAs) can be equipped with Talking Signs receiver elements that receive codes (Geo-ID or “domain codes”) transmitted from Talking Signs transmitters. Using Wireless Local Area Networks (IEEE802.11 or Bluetooth for example) these codes can be transmitted via installed fiber and cable systems to an ISP and call up the web page of whatever the hand-held device is pointed at…or anything else on the Web!
This system is called the Talking Signs Geospatial Communications System. It is a “terrestrial” system, and relies on the current wired infrastructure. It provides a safe distributed Internet communications system inside and redundancy to the current GPS/cellphone system outside.
The Talking Signs Geospatial Communications System is already being installed in the form of wayfinding systems for people who are blind or print impaired. The City of San Francisco has passed a resolution calling for the installation of Talking Signs® systems (called Remote Infrared Audible Signs, RIAS) in all public facilities. San Francisco Municipal Railway is the installing the system at platforms in the city. The Bay Area Rapid Transit and Seattle Sound Transit systems plan projects in 2001. In Japan, seventeen cities are installing the Talking Signs® system (called Pedestrian Infrared Communications System) at street crossings.
The Federal Access Board’s committee on public rights of way has drafted language for the ADA Accessibility Guidelines that specify the use of RIAS for wayfinding purposes. It suggests that this system be used for making the built environment accessible to people who are blind or print impaired. Additionally, efforts are underway by U.S. and Japanese officials to develop ISO standards on RIAS.
When this system is fully implemented, it will be of great assistance to firemen, police and medical personnel in emergency situations. It will provide absolute (x,y and z axes) location for e911 calls from cellphones, inside as well as outside. It will provide Location Based Services to the general population in the form of multi-lingual, hypertext information…just in time…where it is needed, inside or outside.
More Talking Signs® information