On the surface, this may seem like a good idea but a lot of blind people have raised serious concerns about this.
For one, the app he’s using be my eyes explicitly mentions in its terms and conditions that it should not be used for navigation purposes, which seems fair enough, asking a volunteer what colour your socks are or where you left the tin of tomato soup is different to asking them to navigate you through a busy environment with Cars, pedestrians and other obstacles, and it’s unfair on the volunteer as well. I’m also not sure that it will be safe, the camera would have to be at a certain angle and the volunteer wouldn’t be able to see all the obstacles, even if they did they might not be able to relay the information in time to avoid the runner from hitting them.
Finally, some are concerned that this gives a distorted view of where the technology currently is to help blind people, the Be My Eyes service is great but it’s far from the only thing that a blind person needs and the worry is that authorities will use these highly distorted Incidents as a justification to cut back on the actual support that blind people need.
marxistopportunist on
Do the glasses also warn him before he enters an area where glasses might be stolen?
2 Comments
On the surface, this may seem like a good idea but a lot of blind people have raised serious concerns about this.
For one, the app he’s using be my eyes explicitly mentions in its terms and conditions that it should not be used for navigation purposes, which seems fair enough, asking a volunteer what colour your socks are or where you left the tin of tomato soup is different to asking them to navigate you through a busy environment with Cars, pedestrians and other obstacles, and it’s unfair on the volunteer as well. I’m also not sure that it will be safe, the camera would have to be at a certain angle and the volunteer wouldn’t be able to see all the obstacles, even if they did they might not be able to relay the information in time to avoid the runner from hitting them.
Finally, some are concerned that this gives a distorted view of where the technology currently is to help blind people, the Be My Eyes service is great but it’s far from the only thing that a blind person needs and the worry is that authorities will use these highly distorted Incidents as a justification to cut back on the actual support that blind people need.
Do the glasses also warn him before he enters an area where glasses might be stolen?