At 07:04 PM 03/07/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>     "I don't think it's exactly AI caliber technology. "
>
>Is there something for the blind yet that
>can be worn as a cap and gives 'audible
>notice' of impending danger as well as
>assists in navigation/negotiation of common
>obstacles like street crossings and doors?
>
>To my knowledge the only device currently
>capable of this is 'dog'.
>
>THAT's the caliber of 'obstacle avoidance' and
>navaid I'm talking of.

That's fair, but I don't think that that's what the Segway's about.

With a small amount of ultrasound sonar and CCD based optical mapping, I
think what you propose would be quite feasible but it would require the
technology that's been built for mobile computing to get enough processing
power to handle the mapping; you'd need a fast P3 to handle everything in
realtime.

I think the first step would be to create a system that could generate a 3D
map of the area in front of the system.  After that, it should be
relatively simple to identify obstacles outside a certain acceptable tolerance.

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