iPhones could some day serve as guidance devices for the sensory impaired, based on a new patent filing (number 20190196594) by Apple. Unless the invention regards a completely new stand-alone device, which I doubt.
In the patent filing, Apple notes that people use a variety of senses to navigate and interact with the various environments they encounter on a daily basis. For example, people use their senses of sight and sound to navigate in their homes, on the street, through workplaces and shopping centers, and so on. Apple says that such environments may be designed and configured under the assumption that people will be able to use senses such as sight and sound for navigation.
Of course, many folks are sensory impaired in one way or another. People may be deaf or at least partially auditorily impaired, blind or at least partially visually impaired, and so on. By way of example, the World Health Organization estimated in April of 2012 that 285 million people were visually impaired. Of these 285 million people, 246 million were estimated as having low vision and 39 million were estimated to be blind.
Navigation through environments designed and configured for those lacking sensory impairment may be challenging or difficult for the sensory impaired. Some sensory impaired people use guidance devices or relationships to assist them in navigating and interacting with their environments. For example, some blind people may use a cane in order to navigate and interact with an environment. Others may use a guide animal. Apple thinks it has a better idea.
Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “Sensor data is obtained regarding an environment around a guidance device. A model of the environment is generated based on the data. The model is mapped at least to an input/output touch surface of the guidance device.
“Tactile output is provided to a user of the guidance device via the input/output touch surface based at least on the mapping. Other output based on the model may also be provided. The guidance device may include a variety of different components such as sensors that obtain data regarding the environment, input/output mechanisms for receiving input from and/or providing input to the user, processing units and/or other components for generating the model and/or mapping the model to various input/output mechanisms, and so on.
“Additionally, the guidance device may cooperate and/or communicate with a variety of different electronic devices that have one or more such components in order to perform such functions.
Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.
