Blind Bargains Audio: Featuring the BB Qast, Technology news, Interviews, and more

I'm not going to lie. The interview I was looking forward to the most in Anaheim was with the American Printing House's Director of Sales Dave Wilkinson, who promised that I could play with toys and maybe learn a thing or two. Code Jumper is a completely hands-on tool to teach basic coding concepts to kids and even adults through the use of interactive audio pods. We get an extended hands-on in this podcast where we try to fix things, and then proceed to break them again. We also talk about other products in the APH Innovations line including the HumanWare Braille Trail, Freedom Scientific's Jupiter Video Magnifier, the Sunu Band from Sunu, and the TactPlus Printer from Kanematsu. You can check out the new and being improved APH website to learn more about these and many other products from the company.

It would be so cool if you could click a button and run one batch scan on a big old G Drive full of documents to check them for accessibility issues would it not? Well oddly enough Jeff Mills, one of the Co-Founders of Grackle, tells Joe that the company is working towards this very thing in an upcoming release of the product. And he notes that the new unlimited plan is active now. To learn more about this plan, and see more about the product in beta, visit the Grackle Docs website

Checking an embossing job and editing Braille from your phone sounds like science fiction, however in this interview, you will learn that these features exist today. Bjorn Lofstedt, Owner & CEO of Index Braille, provides J.J. with information about the BrailleBox and what s new for the v5 embosser line. To learn more, and to check out the other products not mentioned in this interview, visit the Index Braille website

Hi, how was your summer? See any good movies? TV? Read any books? So, yeah its been a while since our last episode. This little thing we try to avoid called real life got in the way. And we are really really sorry that happened. We are happy to be back on track with our little podcast and we are in no way recycling show notes from Episode Number 9, Number 9, number .. er um 9 a lot. The RockStar and Ranger are back with a new victim, seems HR won't let us call them that anymore, 3rd Chair and we think he crushed it his first time out. We meant the actual chair, but he was pretty good on the show too. Plus, we welcomed Popinjay to the format in style with a bunch of food we didn't have to eat, there is some talk about music during "In The Nexus" and a new homework assignment for "Between The Covers". Patrick and Spheres have a few surprises in store as well for this Extra end of the line episode.

Public travel can be daunting for many people. And it is easy to take some aspects of common activities for granted. Tarah Ornelas, Joe Ornelas, and Brandon Kley, ALL Cofounders of Confident Navigator, discuss with J.J. the challenges that come from providing this service in a public space. To learn more, visit the Confident Navigator website

The CSUN Exhibit Hall contains many Video Magnification products that might look the same at first glance. Tom Perski, Vice President of Professional and Consumer Outreach for IrisVision Global, explains to Shelly what sets IrisVision apart from others in the field. Samsung driven hardware, voice control and the Google Assistant are all features of the IrisVision Live platform. And these same features are available as upgrades for existing users of the product. To learn more, visit the IrisVision website

Shelly and Joe have been using Eschenbach products for a very long time. As noted in this interview, the durable products hold up well and they can be great allies in the needs for daily reading tasks. Joseph Buttazzoni, West Region Sales manager for Eschenbach, provides a look at the company s latest entry into electronic magnification with the Visolux Digital XL portable video magnifier and its accessories. The interview also contains some information about the newest process for how the company creates traditional low vision aids. To learn more, and to see a full range of products, visit the Eschenbach website

Each year we manage to catch up with Adi Kushnir, of the Elita Group, to learn what changes have come to their Windows based notetaker platform. Much has changed since the 4th generation Focus Driven Units from last year and J.J. gets his hands on an ElBraille using a 5th gen Focus in this overview of the ElBraille 40. Pricing, specs and a U.S. release date are all mentioned here and to learn more visit the Elita Group website

Shelly had a chance to reconnect with Charles Palmer of Patriot Vision to learn about their new iPad based Patriot Pro 12.9. The unit, with its stand and laptop case, is 8 pounds and it also sports an iOS app that has been two years in the making for providing Video Magnification. The software is Voiceover aware and will change the product s user interface if it detects that it is active. Therefore, icons for features like zoom and OCR options will appear if Voiceover is in use. If not, the device will rely on a user to perform hand based gestures for navigation of text and magnification. To learn more about this new Video magnifier, or review other products like the wearable Viewpoint headset, visit the Patriot Vision website

Games can be fun, but when used in the right venue, they can be educational as well. Marty Schultz, Founder of Blindfold Games and Co-Founder of Objective Ed, traveled to CSUN to receive the Touch of Genius award

The CSUN Exhibit Hall can give you glimpses into the future with moonshots, prototypes and emerging products. Sam Kim, CEO of Overflow Biz, Inc., gave Shelly a first look at an iOS app that just recently arrived on the App Store. Flowy allows for a teacher to screen share content onto an iOS device. From there, and the same features are coming to the PC and Mac versions of the product, a student can magnify or alter the visual aspects of the content being shared. Site based subscription models are being finalized now, however, an individual student license is said to b $4.99. You can learn more about the app by visiting Flowy in the App Store

Producing large amounts of accessible documentation for Fortune 500 companies can take a lot of resources. However, once you have created processes to perform to that scale, you can then move towards providing materials to the Education market. Joe spoke to Lucy Morrissey, Marketing Manager for T-Base Communications, about their new Fast Track program and how it can create accessible textbooks. The company uses some machine learning, along with humans as well, to produce these books for many levels of Education. To learn more about the company, and to see how your organization can benefit from their services, visit the T-Base Communications website

20 years ago, if one were to describe a Video Magnifier as being portable , you would have needed to drag a device over 30 pounds behind you in a little red wagon to move it from place to place. Now a portable Video Magnifier can fold down in seconds and weigh as much as a fully loaded laptop. Charlie Collins, Sales Director for LVI America, shows Shelly the new Surface Pro based ML Tab that will be launching soon. To learn more about this tablet based solution, or to find out more about the other Video Magnifiers offered, visit the [LVI America website](https://lviamerica.com/ website)

Not everyone enjoys the thick slabs of glass that came with the Smartphone Revolution. Some out there would prefer to hold a candy bar styled phone with, gasp! physical buttons. Sam Seavey, Consultant for BlindShell, explains to J.J. that a person doesn't have to give up modern features when considering the purchase of a Feature Phone. The upcoming launch of the BlindShell Classic, an Android based phone now heading to the U.S., contains on board speech and a high contrast display. To learn more about this new phone, and see when it arrives to your phone provider of choice, visit the BlindShell Classic website

We have to be honest and say if you place a motorcycle in your booth, you may possibly get our attention for an interview. Shelly opens this segment by speaking to Dan Parker, OrCam user and self-professed Fastest Blind Man , about his specially designed audio detection system and how it allowed him to drive incredibly fast on the Bonneville Salt Flats circuit. We then switch gears and turn to Bryan Wolynski, Consultant for OrCam, to learn about the new MyEye 2 app for iOS. This recently released free app works with the latest OrCam to allow greater control of settings, Bluetooth audio connection and identify the unit s battery status. We also learn a bit more about the unit s voice control functionality and various pricing for the hardware options available in the OrCam line. Visit the App Store page for the MyEye 2 app and visit the OrCam website to learn more about various available solutions