Excerpt from: Crain's Detroit Business (click for full article)
Leader Dogs for the Blind is using technology to help clients navigate their communities in combination with a cane or guide dog.
The
Rochester Hills-based organization, which operates on an $11 million
budget, began exploring handheld audible GPS technology for its clients
in 2005, working with Quebec-based HumanWare Group Inc. to pilot a device called the Trekker.
But
the device costs about $2,000. In 2008, Leader Dogs began piloting the
scaled-down GPS Trekker Breeze for HumanWare, in the hope of bringing
the cost down and making the device more user-friendly.
Relying
on Google internal maps, the Trekker Breeze can announce stores and
buildings as a pedestrian approaches them, and can state the direction
that person is facing, the closest intersection and verbal directions.
Leader Dogs has about a year's worth of stock of the $295 model, which
Kapsys has discontinued, Haneline said, and continues to make it
available to its clients. When that store is gone, it will offer its
clients the more costly Kapten Plus and GPS Trekker Breeze, he said.
The
organization continues to provide the technology to clients at no cost,
President and CEO Susan Daniels said. About 2,000 people are using the
system currently, and Leader Dogs plans to train another 220 people on
it this year.
"We continue to be the only organization in the Western Hemisphere that provides this service to our clients," Haneline said.
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