IIIT-B develops way finder service over mobile phone

Bangalore, Mar 4 (UNI) Bringing the fruits of IT revolution to the masses, the International Institute of Information Technology - Bangalore (IIIT-B), in collaboration with some private players, has developed a voice-based location and vicinity service that can be deployed over GSM networks.

The technology was developed with the aim of providing a voice-based free service to the visually impaired.

''One can get the complete details of where he or she stands by dialling a pre-determined number, say 666, and get details of the street, locality and area names announced to them through their cell phones. Not just the blind, even others like tourists can use this service. We are ready to provide this service free of cost to the blind and with a nominal cost to others,'' IIIT-B Director Prof S Sadagopan said.

Speaking to UNI here, he said IT major Infosys Director Dinesh Kumar had broached the idea of 'Where am I' service for the blind with him last year, and identified Way Finder, a Swedish company, and GSM service provider Airtel to offer this service. Then city-based IT firm Spatial Data (Spinfo) collaborated with Way Finder and modified their maps to suit the Swedish company's application and provided a copy of Bangalore map. Way Finder hosted these maps on their server.

However, the application was considered unsuitable for the Indian market as it could run only on high-end mobile sets costing upwards of Rs 15,000, voice was not of Indian accent and pronunciation of names and places was not satisfactory.

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