Scenario: audio equipment for blind people in a museum. Ideas?

[Mudchild]

Someone has asked me to think about how audio equipment might be implemented in an exhibition space, and tailored for visually impaired people.

It might be something along the lines of: everyone is given a device with headphones (maybe even an ipod touch or something, I dunno) as they enter the exhibition. As they walk around, their proximity to an exhibit will automatically trigger an audio stream on their device. Maybe a soundbeam detects their presence and sends a MIDI message over wifi to their device to trigger an audio file or something? Of course you would need to ensure that the message would be sent only to that person's device, and not everyone else who is already at that exhibit... so there would need to be some consideration of device ID, or channel, or something...

Has anyone got any insight into how such a thing might be done, whether it is already being done, or where such questions might be asked?

Thanks

Mud

[jas]

I found a couple of links they may be helpful:

http://www.blind.org.uk/products/radios/sonata.asp

http://www.loc.gov/nls/other/talkingrooms/talking.html

[joelsampson]

I'm very interested in human / computer interface. RFID technology comes to my mind first. You stand near an exhibit, that one would play. It depends on the range you need, but there are lot of choices. You would need a custom player that would use the RFID signal to trigger a channel or something.

[adaragray]

since almost everybody has a cellphone nowadays this makes me think about NFC "Near Field Communication" you place your cellphone to a certain spot wich automaticly enables a bluetooth audio connection.

[joelsampson]

I think NFC would have to be VERY close, probably too close for a sight impaired person to handle. I see walking into "zones".