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Admin
... and in breaking news, here's a man who's invented colour radio.
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It actually seems like a pretty interesting assignment to implement this demand.
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Not bad for a snoofle art
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I'm looking forward to the first test case: tie on a blindfold and see if you can navigate across the city without crashing.
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Yeah, it's such a shame that nobody's invented headsets you can wear under your helmet and listen to what your passenger (or the driving instructor on that other bike over there) is saying.
Oh, wait, they have. They are trivially found for purchase on-line by searching Goggle or Bong for motorcycle intercom.
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And of course most of the motorbike sat nav systems have Bluetooth support, so they, too, can use those headsets.
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I call BS -- nobody could be that stupid.
Oh...wait...there's a despair.com poster for that exact situation: https://despair.com/collections/demotivators/products/idiocy
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I always wondered why drive-up ATMs had braille on the buttons...
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That's so that there's only one part number for the keypad: "keypad with braille dots that works even in dank(1) weather".
(1) "Dank" means "unpleasantly cold and wet". I have no idea why a "dank meme" is somehow better than a non-dank one.
Admin
And in other news, let me tell you a story about a user with a broken cup holder.
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I believe it was used as a description of quality (damp and sticky?) marijuana, and spread to other things that cause easy amusement.
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I once had a job in a kitchen, with a lovely young lady. She worked hard and was good to work with, but...
After a couple of weeks I'd noticed that there was always a small piece of raw meat on a cling-film-wrapped saucer on the bottom shelf of the fridge, refreshed regularly so it didn't go off.
I queried the practice with my co-worker, who told me it was 'for hygiene reasons'. When I asked for more info she pointed out the line in the food-hygiene manual which said 'raw meat must always be kept on the bottom shelf of the fridge'.
See also: http://www.finventing.com/2010/07/22/dogs-must-be-carried/
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Your co-driver could be blind
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It amazes me that nobody seems to think about the case of a sight impaired person riding in the drivers side back seat. Just because you don't think outside the box doesn't mean that no one does.
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You've never walked up to a drive through ATM to get cash while you're out with your friends partying?
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Giving a little benefit of doubt (just a little), but is it possible that this story happened in some country where progressive government rules mandate accessibility features?
I mean, here in the US, we have people who make money off suing small businesses under the ADA because their signs on the handicapped parking spots are 1-inch too high or low (https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/handicapped-parking-sign-too-low-see-you-in-court)
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Having verbal directions on a motorcycle seems like a splendid idea, so you can keep your eyes on the road.
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Having verbal directions is a wonderful idea, but it made me scratch my head when an ADA type regulation was cited.
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Vision impairment isn’t a binary. Someone could see well enough to drive but not well enough to quickly switch focus distance to reading a small screen while driving a motorcycle.
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Seems like some folks are missing the point here. The device already provides audio feedback (and let's assume that the driver has a way to hear it through a headset or whatever). So the real facepalm here is asking it to be compatible with a screen reader. That's roughly on the same order of nonsense as providing text-to-speech for movie captions.
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A driver's side back seat for a motorbike. Might be a tall order.
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http://www.rhjunior.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Camp-Calomine-0059.gif
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Use the force Luke
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^^^ We have a winner! ^^^ That's exactly what I was thinking - it would be redundant to add a screen reader to a GPS app. It would also be confusing, since it would read the names of all the streets and avenues that are visible on the screen. And when the map moves it would probably have to start over.
Admin
"That's roughly on the same order of nonsense as providing text-to-speech for movie captions." -- actually has some real uses, many movies are captioned in a multitude of languages, by converting to audio, you can listen to them in any language that is comfortable to you - often a better experience than reading the screen while trying to focus on the visual aspects.
Admin
In addition to the other reasons, blind people are still technically allowed to be passengers in vehicles, and even ride in the back seat, so it shouldn't be unthinkable that they might use a drive-up ATM.
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If your interpretation of the story is correct, then your point is absolutely valid. I interpreted to mean "the hardware is capable of audio output, but it was determined that audio was not appropriate for this use case."
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I'm solidly on Team Corporate Policy, here. As developers we have an overwhelming tendency to assume that our users all have normal hearing, normal sight, and normal ability to control input devices (among many, many other assumptions). Those assumptions are generally wrong and leave out a large number of potential users.
So this particular software is designed for motorcycle riders; do we know that it wouldn't be useful to a blind pedestrian? Or for that matter, a blind motorcycle passenger? Might they also want to know about traffic conditions? Maybe not, but I've never been a blind pedestrian before, so I honestly don't know. I certainly think it is a mistake to assume that blind pedestrians have their own software that does the same thing, so that we don't need to include them in the user-base.
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"While self-driving cars will eventually be commonplace, and no one will need directions, audible or otherwise."
Where's the rest of the sentence?
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The points about the device already providing audio feedback miss that it's only audio driving instructions, not audio of every bit of text on the screen and where the buttons are and which one you just pressed.
Plus, what about the people who are blind and deaf and need to hook up a braille terminal to get their driving instructions?
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"I believe it was used as a description of quality (damp and sticky?) marijuana,"
The buds, in particular. Sticky buds....
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Brian, the article explicitly mention adding verbal instructions, so apparently, the device had no audio facility before.
Admin
Do you mean a blind passenger using the audio facility of the device to then repeat the instructions to the driver? Why not let the driver look at the screen directly? Or listen to the audio instructions directly?
I think that audio GPS is way more secure than any screen version, and it should be compulsory that the screen turns off as soon as the vehicle get over 10 kmh, so you are not distracted from looking at the road, but that's another debate.
Admin
Scariest thing I heard of in a long while (the BBC did a feature): there's blind long-distance runners that like to get their fix running along the side of freeways/motorways. Just considering that is a brown trouser moment for me.
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In all fairness, there ARE folks who can see just fine enough to drive/ride, but who are farsighted enough that they can't focus on things close to them.
Admin
While you are, as a matter of fact, technically right about the missing sentence, pedantic or not. The next sentence is, in fact, the rest of the sentence, if you change the fullstop after "otherwise" to a comma, of which, there have been too many, already.
Admin
I'm having a déjà vu. Wasn' there the exact same story, slightly differently told, already here?
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I don't mean to spoil the circlejerk here, but what about people with uncorrectable farsightedness? Doesn't impact driving, does impact using a map. (And don't bother to bring up having to read the speedometer, obviously reading a big red arrow is different to reading text.)
A screen reader would be useful especially if the device were button-operated. Ad-hoc audio feedback is not the same as having e.g. menu options read back to you.
Or what if a visually impaired passenger wanted to set up the device in advance?
Admin
Have you ever worn motorcycle gloves? How much braille you think you can feel through them?
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One does wonder what a screen reader would say when "reading" a map display...
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The article clearly stated that it also provided directions, presumably textual, not to mention the obvious fact that there would be a menu system for setting the thing up. Getting the device to iterate, audibly, through the various elements of the display (next direction, estimated time of arrival, distance etc.) seems like a perfectly reasonable feature to me. And again, what about entering a destination in the first place?
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EXACTLY!! For example, almost everyone over 45 ...
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ah, right, D'oh slaps self , I get it, sorry. There ARE already audio instructions - so any screen reader stuff is obsolete.
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I did her of a case of a video maker having a signer added for the deaf & then then being told the needed to make that accessible for the blind (who could hear the original voice over anyway!)
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I used to go running with a workmate who liked to run with his eyes closed. First time we went out together I was a bit behind, but I looked up to see him crash, full running speed, into a bus shelter. I had to keep going with him after that just to make sure he didn't do that again!
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The accessibility could be reduced to outputting "Don't drive if you're blind".
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“...many movies are captioned in a multitude of languages, by converting to audio, you can listen to them in any language that is comfortable to you - often a better experience than reading the screen while trying to focus on the visual aspects.”
Only if you read too slowly.
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I wanted to comment using Unicode Braille characters but the server errored on me when I tried.
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What if the rider us deaf & blind?