WearTec

“Imagine being blind and trying to find your way around a city you’ve never visited before — that can be challenging for a sighted person. Georgia Tech researchers are developing a wearable computing system called the System for Wearable Audio Navigation (SWAN) designed to help the visually impaired, firefighters, soldiers and others navigate their way in unknown territory, particularly when vision is obstructed or impaired. The SWAN system, consisting of a small laptop, a proprietary tracking chip, and bone-conduction headphones, provides audio cues to guide the person from place to place, with or without vision.”

The Georgia Institute of Technology is working on the SWAN prototype which currently “consists of a small laptop computer worn in a backpack, a tracking chip, additional sensors including GPS (global positioning system), a digital compass, a head tracker, four cameras and light sensor, and special headphones called bone phones.”
The use of bone phones, which work through vibrations to the skull bone is a clever way of ensuring the ears, one of the most important senses for blind people, aren’t blocked up with headphones. “The sensors and tracking chip worn on the head send data to the SWAN applications on the laptop which computes the user’s location and in what direction he is looking, maps the travel route, then sends 3-D audio cues to the bone phones to guide the traveler along a path to the destination.”

Definitely an interesting concept, that could prove useful in a range of situations.

Link to press release.