Future Development

Mike May joins Glen Gordon on FSCast episode 198 to discuss what's new in indoor wayfinding. Listen to excerpt of his interview. You can also read the Transcript of the episode About FSCast FSCast is Freedom Scientific’s podcast, featuring news, interviews, and product demonstrations relating to Freedom Scientific products. FSCast is a great way to make the most of the products you have as well as learning about what’s new and what’s around the corner. Our products are all about helping people fulfill their potential, so FSCast also features interviews with users of our products in a range of roles and vocations.

Read original article on the APH Blog GoodMaps is making everyday travel more accessible. Born as a spin-off of the work APH started with Nearby Explorer, GoodMaps has been hard at work creating and implementing their state-of-the-art mapping techniques, including mobile LiDAR scanners and Camera-based Positioning System (CPS) for incredibly accurate maps. Not only has this simplified the mapping process for venues, but it also makes the free GoodMaps Explore app fast, easy, and effective for travelers. Want to learn more about what makes GoodMaps tick? Read our introduction blog, and get to know the GoodMaps advantage: The GoodMaps Advantage promises: more accurate navigation; more simple implementation with little to no upkeep; to be more usable by providing free and intuitive apps for users; to be more secure for the venues that can control levels of information access. Now that you’re familiar with GoodMaps, let’s talk about all the exciting plans they have for 2021! APH Smart Cities Expanding on a previous APH initiative to make our hometown of Louisville, Kentucky an accessible city, GoodMaps is working with local venues to switch from the infrastructure-heavy beacons of the past, to their new and more accurate mapping system. Building on the great relationships APH has maintained in the community, GoodMaps is already transitioning previous legacy buildings that used the old Indoor Explorer technology to this new accessible tech. The goal of the APH Smart Cities initiative is to continue expanding the accessibility and safety of indoor spaces in the Louisville area with the mission to bring on more buildings so we can become a fully inclusive community for people who are blind or visually impaired. So far, the following buildings have committed to this technology transition: Kentucky School for the Blind (KSB) Louisville Science Center Floyd County Library Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts (KMAC) Actor’s Theatre of Louisville LouieLab (a civic innovation hub and coworking space) Louisville Metro Hall Speed Art Museum Muhammad Ali Center University of Louisville Student Activities Center With many more to come! GoodMaps Explore New Release Since our last check in, GoodMaps released a new version of their GoodMaps Explore app on both iOS and Android platforms. The new release contains improvements to indoor directions, outdoor to indoor transitions, and indoor location notifications. The full release notes can be found here: GoodMaps Explore What’s New. Plus, they introduced a great new audio tutorial featuring GoodMaps Chief Evangelist Mike May and J.J. Meddaugh from A.T. Guys! The audio tutorial is great for users who want to learn about the Explore app, covering both indoor and outdoor use. It’s even broken into chapters, so busy travelers who want to learn about one specific feature can do so quickly. Take a listen. Going Places We can’t give you any details yet, but GoodMaps is on the move. The team is hitting the road to expand its impact across the country and beyond! Stay tuned for updates as the year goes on.

American Printing House has a big goal: a future that belongs to everyone. For more than 160 years APH has created products that provide access for people who are blind and visually impaired. To create a world that welcomes everyone, we know it’s going to take a lot of change makers. Join us as we highlight GoodMaps on Change Maker Podcast.

From TomTom and Garmin to built-in apps on every smartphone, people have been using turn by turn navigation for outdoor travel for almost two decades, but what happens when you step inside the office building, store, or airport? For people who are blind or visually impaired, the maps, monitors, and hanging signage provide no additional information on the correct direction to go. The concept of accessible indoor navigation, while well discussed in the disability community, is still in its infancy when it comes to implementation. GoodMaps is working to change that. What is GoodMaps? For several years we at APH worked to develop the beacon-based navigation app, Nearby Explorer, which allowed users to not only navigate outdoor spaces but indoor public spaces within the same mobile app. The more work we put into the program, the more it was evident that we needed to find an easier to implement, more accurate indoor positioning option to make public spaces universally accessible. In comes GoodMaps. Born as a spin-off of the work APH started, GoodMaps started in early 2019 with a mission to further the cause of accessible navigation building on the work of Nearby Explorer with some game-changing innovations. The first major change made by GoodMaps was to move away from the less accurate, more expensive, and burdensome hardware infrastructure that had been limiting the viability of indoor navigation for decades. Now powered by LiDAR-based mapping, GoodMaps creates maps by using mobile LiDAR scanners, which quickly produce digital representations of the space. By utilizing LiDAR and image recognition, fast and accurate maps are created at a fraction of the effort of traditional indoor hardware approaches. Camera-based positioning (CPS) provides potential accuracy as good as three feet, a vast improvement over the 10-50 foot distances of beacon technology. This was just the first of the team’s goals. The GoodMaps Advantage promises; more accurate navigation, more simple implementation with little to no upkeep, to be more usable by providing free and intuitive apps for users, and more secure for the venues who can control levels of information access. Partnership with APH Huntington APH Huntington, a new program in Huntington, WV, provides access technology and self-advocacy trainings to people in the community who are blind or visually impaired. One initiative of the program, the APH Huntington Indoor Navigation Initiative, is brought to the Huntington community in partnership with GoodMaps. Since September 2020 GoodMaps has mapped: Cabell-Wayne Association for the Blind Cabell County Public Library Phil Cline Center of the Huntington YMCA Brad D. Smith Business Incubator More to come in 2021! Learn more about APH Huntington. GoodMaps Explore for Android Users Previously only available on iOS devices, you can now access the GoodMaps app, GoodMaps Explore on Android devices by downloading it from the Google Play Store. Learn more about their recent update and hear from users about what they love about navigating the world with GoodMaps on the site. Looking Forward to 2021: An Exciting Year to Come Stay tuned for all the exciting new announcements to come in the new year. From presentations and conferences to launching a new Smart City, GoodMaps has a lot of exciting announcements that we just can’t tell you about yet.