LookAround is a new smartphone app for people who are blind or vision impaired, developed by an Irish company and launched in June this year. NCBI News spoke to John Ryan, founder and director of Point the Way, to find out more about the app and the scope for developments in smartphone technology for people who are blind or vision impaired.
“LookAround doesn’t guide you anywhere. You shake it and it speaks to you, telling you what street you are on, what the nearest cross street is and your bearing. It can also tell you about the nearest points of interest and the nearest café or restaurant, for example. You can set the preferences so you only hear about what you are interested in and you can also call the business from the app, rather than having to write down a phone number. It’s a way of finding out what is in your surroundings, which people who are blind or vision impaired might miss out on otherwise,” said Ryan.
Point the Way was formed in 2010 when John Ryan and his business partner Tim Walsh took part in Launch Pad, a programme for start-ups at the National Digital Research Centre. They submitted an idea, pitched it and won a small investment and office space to allow them to work on their idea. That idea was a navigation app for people who are blind or vision impaired. You type a destination into the app and the phone would then vibrate when pointed in the right direction to allow you to reach that destination. It would vibrate again when you reached a junction and the user would then point the phone in front of them again and wait for the phone to vibrate when pointed in the right direction.
The idea for that app came from Tim Walsh, who noticed that some audible signals at traffic lights had been removed in Dublin city centre some years ago and began to think of ways around it. He and Ryan then realised that, rather than trying to develop a new piece of equipment, they should work with equipment that more and more people were using – smartphones.
Point the Way then began collaborating with Sendero Group, an American company which develops accessible GPS, on LookAround for android and launched the app in June this year. While the app is aimed at people with vision impairments, Ryan believes that it could have a wider market, including tourists.
Android is playing catch-up a little in terms of accessibility but it is improving all the time. The app features text-to-speech and reads everything aloud. According to Ryan, accessibility has not been built into the Android operating system as well as it has with Apple’s iPhone so the app tells you what each button on the screen does as you put your finger on it and you hold the button down to select that option.
As the market for smartphones continues to grow and android develops into a market leader, the scope to develop products for people with vision impairments is enormous, according to Ryan. “A smartphone is a very powerful computer in your pocket. They are very sensory, so it knows when it’s being shaken and what direction it is facing.
The market for smartphones is incredible and we are going to see fewer and fewer traditional mobile phones in the next year or so. Android are seeing 500,000 activations a day, making it the number one smartphone platform in the US and the EU.”
Point the Way spent six months developing and user-testing LookAround in the US and are now looking at the future and thinking of their next big project. Ryan is interested in developing products outside the vision impaired space but is also in talks on developing an Irish way-finding app. We will continue to watch this space with interest. LookAround is available on android smartphones and Apple app store. For more information on Point the Way visit www.pointthewaygps.com.