BlindSquare vs feelSpace

BlindSquare is pioneering accessible navigation both indoors and outdoors. Know where you are, know where you're going, travel with confidence. BlindSquare is a new solution that combines the latest technology to help the blind with their daily lives. It has been developed in collaboration with blind people and carefully field tested. You need either an iPhone or an iPad to get started. It also supports some additional accessories to enhance the experience. How does it work? BlindSquare uses GPS and the compass to locate you. It then gathers information about the surrounding environment from FourSquare. BlindSquare has some unique algorithms to decide what information is the most relevant and then speaks it to you with high quality speech synthesis. “What's the most popular café within 200 meters radius? Where is the post office or the library?” You can control BlindSquare also through voice commands. The Voice Command feature is a premium service requiring purchase of credits for continuous use. Voice Command Credits are available as an in-app purchase on the App Store. Using BlindSquare as a GPS solution: When you start the app, it will start telling you the interesting places and street crossings around you. By changing the radius, you can limit the area you are interested in. You can also search by search term or by category. You can select an interesting place from the search results and perform the following tasks: 1) Get contact info (address, phone number) 2) Open twitter feed or restaurant menu (if provided) 3) Make a phone call 4) Start tracking the place (BlindSquare will assist you by repeating the distance and the clock face direction) 5) Start your favourite navigator for turn-by-turn instructions (TomTom, Navigon or Apple Maps) BlindSquare is aware of when you travel by car, bus or train and starts to report interesting places in front of you (for example, the next stops) and street crossings when you are passing them. You can also save your own private places to iCloud so they will be found with your every device. Using BlindSquare as a Foursquare client: If you like to play Foursquare, you can do the following with BlindSquare: 1) Get a list of nearby FourSquare venues 2) When you are in a place, you can check in by shaking your device 3) Do a check in with commenting and twitter/facebook sharing 4) Correct the location of the place BlindSquare supports the following languages: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean (South Korea), Norwegian, Polish, Portugues, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. VoiceOver usage is supported but it also includes higher quality additional speech synthesis by Acapela Text-To-Speech from Acapela Group. Instructions in English: https://www.blindsquare.com/user-guide/ and https://www.blindsquare.com/faq/ Please note: This app retrieves data in real time from Foursquare and Open Street Map. Use of a flat rate data plan is highly recommended. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. Having only been released in May 2012, BlindSquare has already received several prizes and awards: - GSMA: Global Mobile Awards 2013, Best Mobile Health Product or Service - Apps4Finland 2012 - OpenCities App Challenge 2012 - The Finnish Information Processing Association: Best Product 2012 Please note: To use BlindSquare, your iCloud account has to be active so BlindSquare can access it to save your settings and places. Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.

Orientation that you can feel! Description: The feelSpace app is a navigation app. It is designed to be used together with the feelSpace naviBelt. The App interfaces with the feelSpace naviBelt via Bluetooth. The naviBelt displays directions through tactile vibration around the waist. Directional information, orientation and navigation cues are intuitively understand in this way. Using tactile directions can help the user focus their eyes and attention on their surroundings during navigation. In the app, you can select the navigation mode. In routing mode or turn-by-turn-mode mode, the app navigates you from your current location to a desired destination. In the beeline mode, you receive information about the direction of a destination. Directions are displayed in a tactile manner (together with the naviBelt), graphically and, optionally, acoustically. The app is designed for outdoors use. Care was taken to ensure that visually impaired and blind people can also use the app without any problems. Features: • connect via Bluetooth to the naviBelt, • adapt intensity of the vibration, • map view, • select a destination though clicking on the map, searching for an address, entering coordinates, • select a navigation mode (compute and display tactilely the direction between your current location and the destination), • Set bookmarks, • Supported assistance through Siri Shortcut, VoiceOver Mode. If you do not yet have your own naviBelt, please visit our website: www.feelSpace.de and contact us. Feedback: We are happy to get your feedback. Please contact us by mail: feedback@feelspace.de Note: A naviBelt, GPS data, internet and Bluetooth are required to use the application’s full range of features. Their continuous use can greatly reduce the battery life of your smartphone. For long trips, an additional battery for the smartphone is recommended. The development of this App was supported with funds by the EU (“Europa für Niedersachsen”, EFRE).