Scan the Tags to Find Your Way Outdoors, Indoors, and Identify Objects
NaviLens, developed in Spain, is a set of two free apps for Apple or Android phones that use a new kind of QR type multi-colored coded tag that can be affixed to landmarks, buildings, and even to personal items at home. Blind Abilities wrote this about the NaviLens app when used for mobility: “unlike existing QR codes that can only be read from a short distance, the NaviLens tag can be detected by your smart phone camera up to 60 feet away with a 160 degree wide-angle range. This means that you will now be able to detect NaviLens tags that are almost at your 9 o’clock or 3 o’clock direction, thus being simple to find if you are blind or visually impaired. For example, you will now be able to find an indoor room if you are walking down a hallway, or another destination as you are approaching a bus stop or store front. With NaviLens, you don’t have to aim or point your phone as precisely as before.” In New York, the Metropolitan Transit Authority has installed 100 NaviLens tags at its Brooklyn Jay Street-MetroTech Station, where travelers can also use the NaviLens app to get real-time train arrivals information in 24 different languages. The Navi Lens website provides lots of info and free, downloadable tags to schools and associations order-section. Individual NaviLens users can print out tags for personal use on a color printer by going to the quick start menu and selecting “Request tags for Personal Use.” In England, Kellogg’s is experimenting with NaviLens on its Coco Pops cereal boxes, which also have large print and Braille. Read more about it here.
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