Blind Abilities

Blind Abilities was there! (Yes, we were in attendance at FCB2017 and we have some choice audio from the Exhibit hall floor! Join our Blind Abilities special correspondent, Cheryl Spencer and Pete Lane as they provide interviews with: – Allison with Election systems & Software – Barry with GuideLights & Gadgets – Renee Byrd, with deTerra Essential Oils – John with Low Vision Aids and Magnifying America – Sam from HumanWare – Becky from Guiding eyes for the Blind and Patrick Lane chatting about Aira. You can find all their contact information and web site addresses below. Aira: Visual Interpreter for the Blind Election systems and Software Guide Lights and Gadgets BScheur@schuer.com KNRausch 781-286-1696 doTERRA Oils Renee Byrd 904-923-5934 Low Vision Aids and Magnifying america John Palmer 1-800-364-1610 Humanware Sam 1-800-722-3393 Guiding Eyes for the Blind Becky davidson 914-243-2210 BBarnes@guidingeyes.org Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Alex Tavares is a recent Masters Degree graduate from Harvard University that has developed a revolutionary tool for assisting in teaching Braille to children and newly blind braille learners. Alex talks about what is The Read Read and how his years as a teacher led him to develop this innovative device that he would like to bring to classrooms and into the hands of the braille students. Alex talks about the experience gained from a 12 week study with students and instructors at The Perkins School for the Blind. Alex tells us about his volunteering and his teaching experience that led to the creation of The Read Read. May 23 was the launch of The Read Read Kickstarter which set a goal of getting 400 devices out to students and classrooms. you can check out The Read Read Kickstarter on the web Follow the news and updates on Twitter @TheReadRead and, consider sharing the links to help support such a great initiative. Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Nick D’Ambrosio presents this episode on the 3-finger Voiceover gestures, continuing the Blind Abilities’ series: iPhone 101. Join Nick, along with Pete and Jeff for this informative walk through the 3-finger group of VO gestures, including: – 3-finger single tap – find your location on your phone, – 3-finger double tap: turn speech off/on. Note: not quite the same as turning VO off and on by triple-clicking your Home button, – 3-finger triple tap – turning on and off your Screen Curtain, – 3-finger quadruple tap – copying last phrase spoken by VO to the clipboard, – 3-finger swipe up and down – moving up or down a list or page on a web site. Note: remember to swipe ‘down to go up’ and swipe ‘up to go down”. – 3-finger swipe left and right – move to the next or previous page in a book, or Home screen on your phone. … Stay tuned as Blind Abilities brings you much, much more in its iPhone 101 series! Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

The Business Enterprise Program (BEP) was established for Blind/Visually Impaired individuals to create opportunities and careers through food vending services and food and merchandise sales on Federal and state properties. The BEP program is nationwide and if you or anybody you know is interested in owning their own business, wants to work and begin a promising career, share this podcast and let them know about the Business Enterprise program. Jeff Thompson talks with John hulet, the Director of the BEP in Minnesota, Scott Eggen, a 30 plus year veteran in the BEP and Michael Colbrunn a new comer to the program. Michael is enjoying the choices and challenges that he has accepted by owning his own business. If you are interested in knowing more about the BEP, email John Hulet Contact your State Services if outside of Minnesota and ask about the Business Enterprise Program and how you can learn more. Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Blind Abilities presents another episode in their series: iPhone 101. This is their second installment focusing on Voiceover gestures. In this segment, Pete Lane reviews the 2-finger gestures. Pete describes each gesture and then demonstrates how each is used in a realtime iPhone application. Pete also walks us through the Voiceover Help,/Practice area, by using the 4-finger double-tap gesture. * Gestures covered in this episode are: – 2-finger single tap: stop VO from speaking, – 2-finger double tap, AKA the Magic tap: play and pause audio such as music, podcasts, and much more, – 2-finger flick up and down: “Read All” gestures, – 2-finger scrub: moves to the previous page or screen, and – 2-finger triple tap: brings up the List Chooser. Stay tuned as Blind Abilities continues to review more VO gestures as well as much more on the iPhone! Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Maria Johnson a.k.a. Girl Gone Blind is a mom, a blogger, radio host, fitness instructor, health and wellness advocate, podcaster, and most of all… Maria shares her experiences and assists others going through the turnstiles entering the journey of Blindness. From learning about her LHON eye condition, losing most of her usable sight, struggling with the acceptance of her vision loss and continuing her fitness instruction classes, Maria talks about it all and then some. Join Maria Johnson along with Jeff Thompson of Blind Abilities as they travel the unexpected life of a Girl Gone Blind. You can find Maria on Twitter @Girl_Gone_Blind Check out her blog at www.GirlGoneBlind.com and find Maria Johnson a.k.a. Girl Gone Blind on RNIB Connect Radio A big Thank You to Chee Chau for some of the beautiful music used in this production. Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Pete Lane adds this addendum to his post dated May 2, 2017 in which he described his process for unsubscribing to unwanted junk emails. A listener, Mandy Van Cleave wrote in to apprise us of a new button added to incoming emails in iOS 10, that allows us to quickly unsubscribe with the tap of a button. Pete quickly walks us through that process in this 4-minute demo. Special thanks to Mandy for being so attentive and we encourage others to share their thoughts, and even corrections to our posts! Thank you for listening! You can find the iAccess Demo: Unsubscribing to Unwanted Junk Emails here You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Erich Manser is an Accessibility Researcher for IBM, an Explorer for Aira, has held the World Record for a BVI in Triathlon and has participated in the Boston Marathon 8 times to date. His latest Boston marathon was enhanced by a Visual Interpreter device from Aira. Aira is a revolutionary device that allows the user, the explorer, to connect up with an Agent who can see what the user is looking at. The Aira glasses have a camera that allows the Agent to actually visually interpret what is in front of the glasses. Whether it be a vending machine, new hotel lobby, an airport jet-way or to the extreme in which Erich took the Aira team. Erich’s Agent, Jessica, virtually completed her first Boston Marathon while being in Ohio. Erich talks about his blindness, his work as an Accessibility Researcher, accessible vehicles, and his experience using the Aira: Visual Interpreter for the Blind. You can find out more about Erich on Twitter @ErichManser You can find out about Aira on the web at www.Aira.io Follow Aira on Twitter @AiriIO Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Listen to Drew Weber’s audio overview of the newly released HookeAudio Verse Bluetooth Binaural Microphone. Read Weber’s text review below: Find more info about the Hooke Verse at the Hooke Audio Website. https://hookeaudio.com To the Hooke Audio team. I first learned of the Hooke Verse, in Summer 2015, from an article at the Apple Vis website, written by one of it’s developers Anthony Mattana. I honestly can’t tell you guys how proud I am for your perseverance, for at least 2 years. I have watched as closely as I could as this product came from an amazing idea, to a wearable reality. I also can’t tell you how thankful I am to have been able to test a beta hardware unit for a little over a year, and watch as the iOS app grew into what it is today. The Hooke Verse, has, in fact, changed the way I record 3D Audio into my smart phone. As a totally blind user, I appreciate the fact that accessibility was definitely not an after thought, but was built-in to apps for various platforms from the outset of the project. That is rare, and for that I thank you. Description of Hooke Verse from Website.” Hooke Verse is a pair of Bluetooth headphones that incorporate binaural microphones designed to capture 3D audio. Specially placed mics allow you to capture sound like you actually hear it. Once captured, Hooke Verse’s 3D audio can be experienced on any pair of headphones or two channel system, no special speakers or algorithms required. Your listeners will feel like they’re there. With the free Hooke Audio mobile app, you can capture 3D audio wirelessly to your iOS or Android device using Hooke’s proprietary Bluetooth recording codec. With the Hooke Audio recording cable, you can capture 3D audio to any device, even if they don’t have Bluetooth. With the Hooke Verse, your videos and recordings can have professional binaural 3D audio. ” Description of the Hooke Audio iOS app. ” Record WIRELESS binaural 3D Audio and 3D Sound using the Hooke Verse available at www.hookeaudio.com. Turn your device into a professional field recorder with the Hooke Audio app. 3D Audio is sound captured identically to the way your ears hears audio. When you listen back (with headphones) you’ll feel like you’re there. The Hooke Audio app accesses your camera to bring your smartphone videos to life in 3D Audio. It also doubles as a field recorder, put your device in your pocket and record 3d audio on the fly. Seamlessly pair high-quality audio to your video camera with zero latency and listen to concert videos, podcasts, adventures and home videos come to life like never before. For Visually impaired users, Hooke Audio is 100% accessible using Voiceover. Visually impaired users can find helpful recording tips by pressing the settings button inside the app. Share your 3d audio videos and sound recordings via email, social media and text message straight from the app. No special speakers or algorithms required as long as you’re wearing any pair headphones. Sound matters. Be hear. Change the way you record the world. ” Back story I received my beta Verse unit in April 2016. I have heavily tested for the past year+ and feel that this gives me enough experience to give my honest opinion about the product. I was amazed as I listened to the development team talk about plans for the product on an internet radio show some time before, developing a Bluetooth profile to record HQ stereo for one thing, creating a product to record binaural 3D audio that would pare with my Smartphone was the icing on the cake. I can honestly say after the year+ of testing that this product has in fact,

Pete Lane continues the new Blind Abilities series: iPhone 101 with an introduction to Voiceover gestures. In this episode, Pete walks through the very basic settings needed for new users to operate their iPhones using Voiceover, the built-in screen reader that comes on board all Apple products. Pete describes how to turn Voiceover on and off, using three different methods: first, by walking us through the Settings app, flicking down to General, then Accessibility and going to the very bottom of the Accessibility screen to turn on the Accessibility Shortcut. Second, Pete demonstrates how to use the shortcut by pressing the Home button three times quickly. Finally, Pete takes us into the Voiceover settings screen and shows us the Voiceover toggle button. This is where we would show a sighted person how to turn Voiceover on and off. Caution: be careful with this button as it is often difficult to turn VO back on if you toggle it off. In addition, as a sneak peek into an upcoming episode in which we’ll learn about more Voiceover gestures, Pete introduces us to the Voiceover Practice area where we can work on our gestures without triggering any of the normal VO actions. So sit back and relax, as Blind Abilities takes us through the basic Voiceover settings in this ten-minute demo, presented as only Blind Abilities can! Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Prizmo Go was created for everybody and with VoiceOver Accessibility, Prizmo Go is another good tool for the BVI community to put in their toolbox. With the ability to share the text captured and with pretty good recognition, Prizmo Go ranks up there with Office Lens, another recently released OCR app with VoiceOver Accessibility working well. The capturing of text and the reading is remarkable. Prizmo Go has 2 in-app upgrades available. Export Pack allows for exporting text and files, open in other apps, and work with WorkFlow. Cloud OCR is an upgrade for the OCR, although the on-board OCR works well, the Cloud OCR claims to have better recognition and 6 more languages and is able to detect what language the text is automatically. Prizmo Go recognizes the relationship of the camera to the image and tells the user to move or to adjust the angle or to turn the camera. This Free app with in-app upgrades is actually a pretty good OCR application and this being version 1.0 there is a good chance that we will see even more opportunities from the PrizmoGo App Team. Be on the lookout for the next upgrade coming soon. . Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Blind Abilities adds to their iAccess Demo series with this brief demo on how to quickly unsubscribe from spam and junk marketing emails that we all hate to receive on our iDevices. Join Pete Lane as he walks us through his process, quickly and efficiently! Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

John Olson from 3D Photo Works gives us an overview of the tactile replicas of some of the finest art in the world. 3E Photo Works goal is to provide the blind with access to art and photography at every museum, every science center and every cultural institution, first in this country and then beyond. Since the invention of Braille nearly 200 years ago, advocates have worked continuously to improve access to the printed word for the blind. Today, technology makes access nearly immediate. However, a new challenge exists. The next frontier is to provide the blind with access to photographs and art, not words that describe them, but access to the actual images. 3DPhotoWorks has devoted nearly 7 years to developing a solution. Our process converts any painting, drawing, collage or photograph to a 3 Dimensional Tactile Fine Art Print. Our prints have length, width, depth and texture. Using their fingertips, the blind experience our prints through tactile feedback. This feedback creates a mental picture that allows the blind to “see” (their words) the art, often for the first time. Sensors are embedded throughout the print that when activated by touch, provide custom audio that grows the narrative. You can find 3D Photo Works on the Web and by phone at 518-392-8161 Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Blind Abilities presents another installment in their series iPhone 101. This post fits into the Resources section and takes us through an in depth walk through of the new apple Support app. this app provides a wealth of information, including built-in resources and articles on any kind of Apple device you might own. It is “device-specific” meaning it contains all devices that are registered under the user’s Apple ID. If the on-board information isn’t enough, the app provides quick one-touch buttons which connect you directly with Apple Support. If contact is made with Apple, a trouble ticket is created and displayed right inside this app. Join Pete Lane as he takes us through a detailed look at this new and beneficial new app! You can contact Pete Lane on Twitter Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

Blind Abilities presents the next installment in their series iPhone 101 with an in depth demonstration of setting up a new iPhone. Pete Lane walks us through a description of the packaging, the box and its contents, an introduction to the orientation of the phone, turning on voiceover, arranging various language and location preferences, connecting to a WiFi network and many more phases involved in turning on and setting up a new iPhone. Stay tuned ads Blind Abilities continues to fill in those gaps to help you fully understand and operate your new iPhone. Our approach with this series is to follow the progression of a new user, so thanks for your patience as we proceed thoroughly through each and every step along the way! Feel free to share any questions, comments or suggestions by email. Thank you for listening. You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.