GOING BEYOND THE VISION LOSS BOUNDARIES Michal Tvarožek, Martin Adam, Michal Barla, Peter Sivák,...

GOING BEYONDTHE VISION LOSS BOUNDARIES

Michal Tvarožek, Martin Adam, Michal Barla, Peter Sivák,

Mentor:Prof. Mária Bieliková

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Presentation outline

Motivation Case studies SPOT-IT system overview Marketability / Deployment Summary

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Motivation

Insufficient information accessibility Information overwhelming Demand for contextual information

and context aware applications

Intelligent environments

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Target group:Visually impaired people

Substantial social impact Worldwide 161 million people suffer from

significant visual disability 37 million people are totally blind

Total lack of information Sight provides 90% of information

Need for information Independence Peace of mind Quality of life

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Visually impaired people:Problems and issues

Dependency on the help of others Getting generic information Shopping Timetables

Asking “the darkness” Dangers

Obstacles undetectable with a cane Warning signs

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Case study I – Visiting a doctor

A blind person visits a hospital She listens to office locations,

numbers and doctor’s names She does not slip on wet floors She knows the locations of lifts,

toilets, shops, wending machines, …

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Case study II – National park

A blind person visits a national park He knows the locations of various

sights and amenities He listens to information guides

automatically at the correct places He receives information about

souvenir shops

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Requirements / Prerequisites

Light, small and convenient client device Low implementation costs Low power needs, low latency Ubiquitous operation using existing

infrastructure Association of information with real-world

entities Dynamic messages Interface suitable both for visually

impaired and sighted users

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

System overview

Contextual information Entities (objects / “ideas”) RFID tags Messages (information)

Users Visually impaired Sighted

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

What is an RFID tag?

System operation

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Messages

Message categories Critical messages alert of danger Message cache

Lowers latency and power consumption Enables operation without internet

connectivity Dynamic message content

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Messages II

Contextual Information Description Language (CIDL) Validity Structured messages

Extensibility Support for different languages Links to multimedia/web content

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

RFID Name and RFID Tag service

RNS translates tag data to RTS server addresses Tag migration

RTS supplies messages RTS hosting

Central authority oversees RNS servers Abuse of critical messages Updates

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Personalization and customization

Operation modes Message category priorities

Too many tags nearby Message filters

Repeating of irrelevant messages Rogue messages – SPAM

Notifications User interfaces

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

User interfaces

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Marketability / Deployment

Early adopters Local authorities, Blind associations Mobile operators

Advantages Low cost of RFID tags No in-place infrastructure required Extensibility to applications for sighted users Might also use existing RFID tags

What is/might be needed? Affordable PDAs / Smartphones Integrated RFID readers RFID tag dispensers RNS authority, RTS providers

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

Summary

RFID tags associate information with real-world entities/objects

Relevant contextual information at the place you need it at the time you need it in the form you need

A higher quality of life for both the blind and the sighted

Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies Slovak University of Technology

GOING BEYONDTHE VISION LOSS BOUNDARIES