Published 17:10 IST, November 26th 2020
Google's Project Guideline helps visually impaired run, play sports; here's how it works
Google Inc. is developing a technology that could help blind people run and play outdoor sports safely. The Guidline Project is currently in test phase.
- Science News
- 2 min read
Google Inc. is developing a technology that could help blind people run and play outdoor sports with safety. Called ‘Guideline’, the project involves assisting the visually impaired people using the camera on their smartphones. The project, which is undertaken in collaboration with American guide dog training school, is currently in its test phase.
“Project Guideline is an early-phase research project, created with and for people who are blind and low vision. To start, we collaborated with the non-profit organization, Guiding Eyes for the Blind and their CEO, Thomas Panek”, Google wrote in a statement.
How does it work ?
The Guideline project uses machine learning and requires a smartphone, headphones and a yellow coloured guideline painted on the ground in order to enable a user to follow a fixed itinerary. While the smartphone is tied at the blind athlete’s wrist, it’s camera approximates the user’s position and delivers audio feedback via headphones to help keep them on the guideline.
In other news, Google, on November 21 launched a new chat feature on its SMS initiative RCS (Rich Communications Services) for users worldwide to enhance the standard messaging experience. As many as 27 carriers and device manufacturers introduced the upgrade to RCS after Google shared the latest update on its communication app. Google’s messaging will allow users to share high-resolution photos, receipts, and end to end encryptions in the future apart from already available features such as video calling and Smart Reply to outdo spams.
In an attempt to beat Apple’s iMessage and Facebook’s WhatsApp that function on over-the-top (OTT) services, Google introduced the advanced chat feature on RCS replacing the traditional messaging system that doesn’t need a ‘separate account’. RCS will function across all networks, phones, laptops, and operating systems globally. “We’ve completed our global rollout of chat features to make this modern messaging experience universal and interconnected for everyone on Android,” Google said in a statement. “Now anyone using Messages around the world has access to modern chat features either from their carrier or directly from Google,” it added.
Updated 17:08 IST, November 26th 2020