I finally got a good demo of the Garmin voice controlled products. As sexy as this may sound, a blind person still cannot independently use a Garmin with voice recognition.
What happens is when you say something like coffee shops, a list is presented on the screen, then you have to choose one of the options but they are not spoken. The sighted user sees which numbered item they want and they say for example, Select number 4. There was no way to up and down arrow through the list to hear what the options were.
Magellan has a similar voice recognition product. Since sighted folks don't need all the voice feedback blind users need, the interface simply doesn't echo everything presented on the screen.
Typically, the destination is being set before a trip begins so there isn't the need for the sighted driver to use the GPS unit strictly with speech. They can look at the screen and speed things up by not having to listen to a lot of what they would consider unnecessary voice prompts.
Mike Michael G. May CEO Sendero GroupDevelopers and distributors of the Cadillac of accessible GPS products as well as distributing BrailleNote, VoiceNote, Victor Stream, Talks, Miniguide and the ID Mate
Crashing Through by Robert Kurson available at http://www.CrashingThrough.com MikeMay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.SenderoGroup.com 1-888-757-6810, Fax (530) 757-6830, Mobile (530) 304-0007 Sendero Group, LLC 1118 Maple Lane, Davis, CA 95616-1723, USA
