Welcome to the fortieth episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
Below is what's on the show this week, and when you can hear it.
- Introduction 0:00
- BBC sounds no longer available outside the UK 1:23
- No Braille Screen Input in the Uber app 4:37
- Smart glasses questions and thoughts 7:49
- Bard Mobile and headphones 14:11
- My keyboard got stuck in Braille input on iOS 15:16
- The Yoto Player 18:31
- Thoughts on JAWS pricing changes 23:21
- No word from Dot about my Dot Watch 24:33
- Independent Science 27:49
- Aira 30:32
- Selvis Group 33:57
- Bridge the Gap Adaptations 36:32
- Salesforce 38:48
- APH 40:20
- Ashirase, Inc 44:01
- HumanWare 46:19
- Innosearch 48:56
- Agiga 52:08
- Tech tip, using emojis on Windows and Mac 56:30
- Closing and contact info 57:09
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Live the life you want.
Speaker 2:
Access On.
Jonathan Mosen:
Welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind.
There's plenty of listener feedback this week, including problems with Braille Screen Input in Uber for iOS. With an increasing number of smart glasses choices for blind people, listeners contemplate which one to go with.
If you have a child in your life, the Yoto Player may be worth a look, and maybe it has use for others too. And there's more from the Technology Vendors Showcase from our recent National Convention in New Orleans.
It's Jonathan Mosen of the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland welcoming you to episode 40 of the podcast. Incredible that we've published 40 episodes of this, and we appreciate everybody's support and listenership very much, and value the fact that Access On has become one of the most popular technology podcasts in the blind community in such a short time.
We are going to switch things around a little bit this week because we do have a build up of interesting listener comments to go through. So I thought we'd put those first to make sure we're completely up-to-date with what you're thinking about. And then we'll move on to our other feature from the Vendors Showcase from National Convention.
Peter is writing in from Hungary, and he says, "Hi, Jonathan. BBC Sounds one of the applications that are the most important for me stopped working outside the United Kingdom. For example, for me who lives in Hungary. Instead, another BBC application is offered. I downloaded the new one. My problem is I cannot find the My Sounds function in the new app or something that could replace it.
With My Sounds, you could kind of subscribe to the episodes of a program. It's not a podcast, but something similar. I listen every day to the Midnight News from BBC Radio 4 through the My Sounds service, or in fact, I did listen because I cannot find it in the new app.
Can you or anybody in your audience solve this problem? I'm, of course, not entitled to access BBC content in whatever method I wish. But if possible, I would like to keep on using My Sounds or a service equivalent to this one. Thanks in advance for any suggestion."
Peter, unfortunately, the BBC has severely curtailed the audio content that is available overseas, and I've been following this one with interest because I'm a voracious consumer of BBC content as well. And I think the catalyst for this has been the royalty costs of the music streams that's been going under the radar, and now it's getting a bit more prominence.
And as a result, they've had a whole look at what they're doing with audio. So the content that's available on this new BBC app that's available globally is, really, a fraction of what was available on BBC Sounds. And I haven't looked at this app for the last month or two. But when I did look, it wasn't as accessible, as intuitive, as screen-reader-friendly as the BBC Sounds app is. So it is unfortunate.
If you want to listen, by the way, to some of those music stations, you can still browse through them in your web browser. So, for example, BBC Radio 2, one of the top music stations in the UK, is not in the new BBC app that's available globally, but you can still go to bbc.co.uk/radio2 and browse it that way.
And this means that even some of the spoken word stations that were available from the BBC in other radio apps in the past appear to have vanished as well. So they really have locked it down.
I'm not aware of a My Sounds type function in this new app. And the best thing I can suggest is to use a conventional podcast app to subscribe to all of the content that the BBC is offering as podcasts, and that won't be everything, unfortunately. I don't think that they do a podcast of their news bulletins, for example.
So I don't think there is an equivalent way for you to get your Midnight News fix from BBC Radio 4. It is disappointing, but as you say, the BBC can do what it wants. It is a UK organization. It's just so unfortunate to miss out on so much quality content that we had access to just a few short months ago.
This next email says, "Hello, Jonathan. This is Curtis Chong, Treasurer of the NFB in Computer Science and Treasurer of the Aurora Chapter of the NFB of Colorado." Welcome, Curtis. "Thank you for your tremendous work with the NFB's Access On Podcast.
I regret to have to pass on some frustrating and unfortunate information about the ability of the Uber app to support Braille Screen Input on Apple devices. When I first started using Uber more than a decade ago, I had also begun using and benefiting from Apple's Braille Screen Input feature, a feature which, by the way, I use every day to good effect on a lot of apps running on my iPhone."
"When I noticed then that Braille Screen Input wouldn't work in the Uber app, I dutifully reported the problem, and Uber did fix the app to support entry of information on the screen using Braille. At some point late last year, an update to my Uber app caused Braille Screen Input to stop working.
In the Uber app, I could dictate information into an edit box and even enter information using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. But the moment I activated Braille Screen Input and started entering Braille, nothing happened. Nothing was input on screen."
"I reported this problem to Uber back in January of this year and waited. It is now well into the month of August, and so far, the Braille Screen Input problem has yet to be fixed. The AI, which I was apparently corresponding with, continued to ask me to submit an error message, and I continued to report that there was no error message to report.
Are other Access On listeners having the same trouble with Braille Screen Input that I am? It's not that I can't use the Uber app. I can. It's just that using Braille Screen Input, I am a lot more efficient and accurate entering driver names and street addresses as compared to dictation and/or the on-screen QWERTY keyboard. Thanks as always for your great work with Access On."
Curtis, one of the interesting things about the Uber app is that even with the same version number, there were times when the user experience differs. It's quite a complex app under the hood. So I was a bit concerned when I read your message that this could be one of those issues where it's working fine for some people and not other people, and there's no rhyme or reason, but I actually have checked. And at least for me, I can duplicate your findings.
I use Braille Screen Input all the time as well. It is my primary method of input into the iPhone, unless I have my Braille display handy. And if I try and type a location to go to in the Uber app when Braille Screen Input is active, I get the clicks as if I'm entering data. But when I go back and review what's in the edit field, the edit field is blank.
We'll see if we can escalate this one, Curtis, because I agree, it is a significant one. If others have any reports on this or different experiences, do be in touch, [email protected]. You can attach an audio clip to the email or just write it down.
This email comes from Luis Pena who is in Colombia, and he says, "Hi, Jonathan. I am writing to express my sincere appreciation for your podcast. The consistent quality and depth of your content are truly commendable, and I am particularly grateful for the effort you invest in producing such an excellent show each week." Well, thank you, Luis. It's a team effort here at the National Federation of the Blind and delighted to be a part of it.
He says, "I have been following your recent discussions on smart glasses with great interest as I'm currently considering the purchase of a pair. Given your expertise, I would be very grateful for your insights On a few points concerning the Meta and Envision models to help me make an informed decision.
I use prescription glasses with a high degree of correction. I would like to know if these smart glasses are compatible with custom prescription lenses."
Luis, if you order from Ray-Ban directly, there is actually a place in the store where you can add your prescription lens at the time of checkout, but you can also add prescription lenses after the fact. So, yes, with Ray-Ban Meta, it does appear that you would be able to do what you need.
If you were to order the Solos glasses direct from Solos and not the Envision version, my understanding is you could also purchase prescription lenses at that time. If you want the Envision Ally Solos glasses, then you would buy the glasses, and then subsequently, you can get an optician to fit the lenses that you need. So whichever option you go for, it should all be possible, Luis.
He continues, "My primary use case for these devices would be to read documents on the go. The current process of using a smartphone for this task is cumbersome, and I am hoping to find a more streamlined solution. Could you comment on the effectiveness of these models for this specific purpose?"
We don't have our Envision Ally Smart Glasses in the IBTC yet, Luis, but we certainly have ordered them. I must say with the current iteration of Ally, on the phone, I have found this a bit hit-and-miss, but it sounds like there is a lot coming out in software that will be improving the Ally experience, but there is a big difference between the summarization that AI tends to want to do and the full read top to bottom, left to right OCR that a blind person often requires to get a document in full. And both Envision and Meta are aware of this.
It used to be a bit of a fine science to use the right command with the Ray-Ban Metas to get it to read the entire document. If you go in and turn the Enhanced Accessibility Mode on, it is a lot more able to just read you the document rather than summarize it. This is a very common use case for blind people, and both of these companies seem to be on it.
The third question, "I would also like to confirm if both devices offer full support for the Spanish language or if their functionality is limited to English." Well, Luis, I think this is where you might be narrowing down your choice, because Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses are not available in all markets.
And if Meta is not officially selling those glasses in a particular market, what you will find is that Meta AI just doesn't work on the glasses. So you won't be able to use the "Hey Meta" command. You won't be able to get all of the descriptions.
You won't be able to ask it what you're looking at. You may be able to import the smart glasses from somewhere, but once they get into that region that is not supported, the AI function will stop working.
I actually have this experience in reverse a wee while ago. I bought the Ray-Ban Metas at National Convention in 2024. They were great when we were here in the United States. Eventually, when we got home, they twigged to the fact that we were in New Zealand, which is not an officially supported country for the Ray-Ban Metas, and they ultimately stopped working.
It was possible to work around that by use of a VPN to emulate being in the United States, but that has become less and less of a reliable option. On the other hand, it does look like Envision will ship the Ally Smart Glasses to you and that Spanish is supported. So it may be that this is the option for you at the moment unless and until Ray-Ban Meta roll out official support for the glasses where you are.
Daniel Garcia:
Hello, Jonathan. This is Daniel Garcia from the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri, Kansas City chapter. And I just got done listening to your episode about the Solos Ally glasses, and they seem to be very good glasses. I'm glad that they are designed... at least the software is designed for blind people, and they seem to be very great, the AI and all that.
But I'm just wondering, is it possible to access a live agent for visual interpretation with these glasses? Is it possible to access, for example, Be My Eyes or Aira, or are these glasses only good for AI as far as visual interpretation?
I think the price is very competitive, and the glasses are very good. But if you're not able to access Aira or Be My Eyes, that is something that might dissuade me from purchasing these glasses.
Jonathan Mosen:
It's good to hear from you, Daniel. My understanding is that Envision has said they're in early talks with visual interpreter services about integration on the Ally Smart Glasses, but that you won't see that at launch. So we'll just have to watch this space and see how it rolls out.
And obviously, the Be My Eyes integration with the Ray-Ban Meta and now the Oakley Meta Glasses as well is very seamless. It requires a few more steps to get Aira working with those glasses.
And if Envision and Aira can ink a deal where it's just as easy to call an Aira agent on their glasses as it is to call Be My Eyes on Ray-Ban Meta, then that could be a significant draw card for people who were seeking professional visual interpretation on a wearable.
Reg writes, "Hello, Jonathan. I was on the beta test list for BARD Mobile 2.O when it was being tested, and there was a lot of discussion about the problem with not being able to stop or pause the playback of books on many Bluetooth devices, including my Bose Frames glasses and SoundLink speakers, QuietComfort headphones, the headphones your caller was discussing, and Wonderboom speakers from Ultimate Ears among other things.
Although my JBLs worked fine. I finally luckily determined that the issue has to do with speed of playback. If it's set to normal speed, stop/pause will work. If the speed is set above or below normal, it will not. This was reported and thus far, has not been addressed."
Well, that is very handy information indeed. Thank you. Just goes to show the collective wisdom of Access On at work. So thank you Reg. I guess people at this point have to make a trade-off in terms of what's most important. But hopefully, that bug can be addressed.
Rod Carne is writing in. He says, "Hi, JM. I am being very lazy and always use a Magic Keyboard to operate my iPhone, and I've done this for many, many years. My excuse is that I am an octogenarian. Anyway, a few days ago, somehow my Magic Keyboard changed from being an English keyboard into a Braille input keyboard. I could not figure this out.
So I spent well over an hour with a young lady on the Apple support line, and she couldn't find a solution to my problem, so suggested a reset of my settings. Not wanting to do this as my settings had accumulated over many years and migrated from one phone to the next, so I spent another hour on the phone with another lady on the support line, and she could not work it out either."
"So, reluctantly, I did a reset of my settings and then had to deal with the complication of voiceover that had accumulated over the years without obviously being overseen by someone with the experience of a systems analyst. Anyway, finally, after looking in the myriad of possibilities that Apple has designed to torture us, I finally found the solution that experienced Apple staff could not.
Modifier key Y is the simple answer to switch Braille input on or off. Apple, for reasons known only to themselves, have hidden features for keyboards and typing in several cupboards. I use the caps lock key as my modifier key, and this option, I finally found, had migrated to VO typing. One tip for those using modifier keys. Do not turn on Full Keyboard Access as this really messes things up in a big way."
I heartily endorse that, Rod. I have seen so many voiceover compatibility issues which are caused by turning Full Keyboard Access on. That feature is not designed for voiceover users, and in many respects, it actively conflicts with voiceover users. So I would urge people to ensure that that feature is never enabled if you're using your phone with voiceover.
I'm actually running the beta of iOS 26, and for me, VO with Y is not doing anything in iOS. But certainly, there is this new Braille Input Mode where you can use DSF and JKL as if they were keys on a Perkins keyboard. And what I did find with one of the betas was it just came up enabled, which was a little bit disconcerting because I did assign a modifier for me.
A modifier wasn't assigned to that function and toggled it on and off, and it still didn't work. And what I found with that particular beta was to toggle the new Braille Access Mode on and off again, and that just magicked it back into existence. But I'm not sure that you are using the beta, Rod.
So that probably doesn't apply to you. Best of luck, and I'm glad you got it sorted out. Configuring voiceover to just the way you like it when you've been using it for years, it is a gargantuan task.
Tina Hansen is writing in. She says, "I don't know if you've heard of this, but a company named Yoto, that is spelled Y-O-T-O, has released an audio player that has been marketed to children, but could also be used by adults. Like a cassette player from the past, it stores audio on physical cards about the size of a credit card.
I don't have one yet, but I'm looking into it since it could possibly be a valuable tool for someone who is newly blind. I also think could help parents of blind children. I think this product is worth watching. The home page for the Stateside store is us.yotoplayer.com. That's U-S.Y-O-T-O-player.com. For what it's worth," says Tina, "check it out."
Well, Tina, Yoto has been around for a few years now at least, and I do know a little about this because I set one up about a year and a half ago. It was a Christmas present for my little granddaughter, Florence, who is about to visit the United States shortly.
I don't envy her parents taking her on a very long trip all the way from New Zealand, about 30-odd hours of travel all up, but we'll see what kind of mood little Florence is in when she gets here. She's now past two and a half.
So I got her a Yoto Player. Those little cards that she talk about, effectively, they are NFC chips. So you can buy content from the Yoto Store, and they have quite a lot of content, and they send you a physical card. And essentially, that card is just an NFC chip that says when you put the card in the slot, it will download the content over Wi-Fi that you're authorized to access.
And when you do that the first time, it does keep the materials stored on the player. Obviously, there is a limit to how much capacity the player has, but I think it's pretty extensive and that it may differ depending on the specific Yoto Player that you buy.
So those cards are essentially just a permission to access. There's nothing physically stored on the card. And because they're designed for everyone from toddlers up to use, you can put the cards in any which way, and they just work. So that is a real advantage.
Florence keeps inserting and removing her Yoto cards all the time. They also have a radio station feature, a radio directory on the Yoto Player, and they have a Yoto Kids Radio. So it is very much targeted at children, but I understand that it may well have an alternative use case.
There are other players on the market that are seeking to cater to the children's audience, but I'll tell you the reason why I personally went with Yoto. You can create your own content and upload it to their system.
So the way it works is that you might have old music that you listen to when you were a child or something like that and you want to make them available to your kids or your grandkids. I still have a huge amount of music that I used to play to my children and old radio stories from the golden age of radio that I want Florence to grow up with.
So I've been able to transfer that to the system, and then effectively, you use a blank Yoto card, so that whenever she puts that Yoto card into the player, she has access to that content.
But for me, the big selling point was that that means that I can create my own content in the studio and make it available on a Yoto card. So I get a bit elaborate with this, and I read Florence Stories. Some of which, I make up myself. Some of which are books that I read, obviously, just for her private consumption only.
And even though I'm now half a world away, it means that in the evening, when she wants, there're all sorts of stories for granddad to read to her thanks to her Yoto Player, and I have fun with this. I bring up REAPER, and I put sound effects in the stories and little bits of royalty-free music, and I try and make it interesting, mess around with my voice a little bit with effects, and she has those. She has those on her Yoto Player and really seems to enjoy them.
So Yoto was definitely worth checking out. It's not the only one of its type, but it is very good. And last I checked from their site, from the setup site, it did seem to be pretty accessible. There's an app that you can download from the App Store and also, from Google Play. If you are a parent, or a grandparent, or anybody else who's had any experience with Yoto or similar things, let us know how you find it.
Dennis Long:
Hey, Jonathan. This is Dennis Long. I'm sending this into comment on the money grab by Freedom Scientific, and that's what it is. It's a money grab. They claim it's about, "Oh, we had to raise it for AI or whatever." You might've been able to convince me of that. However, they raised the price on OpenBook by 150 dollars. OpenBook hasn't been developed in 10 years or better. It's a money grab. They haven't done anything inspiring this year to make JAWS worthwhile.
The only thing that makes JAWS worthwhile is the Leasey script from Brian Hartgen. That makes JAWS into a powerhouse. Other than Leasey, if Leasey went away tomorrow, which thankfully it isn't, JAWS would be worthless. It's not about the customer like it used to be under Eric Damery. Under Eric, it was the customer.
Jonathan Mosen:
Sonya Patel is writing in, and she says, "About a month ago, I placed an order for skins for my Dot Watch. I still haven't received them. They were 80 dollars. I had emailed and messaged Dot Incorporated with absolutely no response. Are they still in business? I'm not sure what to do next. One of my Dots isn't working on the watch, and the skin is what I need. Suggestions are appreciated."
That does sound frustrating, Sonya. And to the best of my knowledge, Dot are alive and well. They're continuing to supply Braille cells, of course, for the Monarch Project, and I know that they are working on their new iteration of the Dot Pad, which is their Braille tablet. So, yes, I think they're still very much alive and kicking.
I can't comment on support for the Dot Watch or how you might get that one unstuck. But I do have a contact at Dot, and so I'll reach out to them, and we'll just see whether we can get that unstuck for you. We'll get some clarity about that. I haven't heard about the Dot Watch for a wee while, in fact. So good to know there are people out there who use it and presumably find them helpful.
We love getting your contributions for Access On. Not only do we bring you the movers, and the shakers, and the latest technology, but we also like hearing about grassroots opinion as well, so please keep it coming. You can send us an email to [email protected], all joined together, [email protected]. That email can be written down in the good old-fashioned way or you can attach an audio clip if you prefer to do that.
We'll take a break, and when we come back, we will go back to the Vendor Showcase from National Convention and find out what some of the vendors were talking about this year.
Speaker 6:
Stay up-to-date on both local and national news by subscribing to NFB-NEWSLINE, a free audio news service for anyone who is blind, low Vision, DeafBlind, or otherwise print-disabled that offers access to more than 500 publications, emergency weather alerts, job listings, and more. Sign up at nfb.org/nfbnewsline.
Jonathan Mosen:
We played a little of this a few episodes ago. Every year, the Vendor Showcase is a National Convention event that I go to because it's like having the Exhibit Hall come to you, and often, it happens before the Exhibit Hall opens. So if you go to the Vendor Showcase, you can write down the names of booths you want to visit because they're telling you about some things that interest you.
We are going to play you now some more from the Vendor Showcase so that you can know what the vendors were talking about this year at convention. And even though, of course, National Convention has come and gone and we're all starting to think about Austin next year, you can follow up with any of these vendors if the products that they're talking about are of interest to you. You can tell them you heard about it on Access On.
I have left reference in place to booths and presentations that took place at National Convention. And the reason I've done that is because I know there are people who haven't been to a National Convention and they wonder what goes on.
So you will get some idea if you hear these little mini presentations about the kind of things that convention-goers can have access to when they attend a National Convention.
Speaker 7:
I'm here for independent Science. If you don't know who we are, Independent Science is a company of blind scientists who love science and want to make STEM more accessible for blind, primarily students we work with, but pretty much anyone. If you want to know about how to make STEM more accessible, talk to us. We want to help.
As part of that, one of our products that we like to sell is the Talking LabQuest 2. This is a accessible talking scientific hand-held data logger. It's a great device. It's portable. It is based on the Vernier LabQuest device, which is used in lots of schools and colleges. It has pretty much anything you'd want to measure. You can get a probe to measure.
So if you're taking courses in high school, college, middle school, graduate school and need to do data analysis and scientific experiments, you could probably get a probe that will do what you want.
The Talking LabQuest has a built-in periodic table, a built-in calculator. You can import data, save data, export data if you prefer to use Excel or something like that for your data analysis. It's a fun device, and so we'll be demonstrating that at the table tomorrow. Please come by.
In addition, we'll have information on our pre-employment transition service course offerings. These are modular programs that we offer on various topics to often state agencies. But if you want to hire us to do something, let us know. We're open to it. I think one of our most popular right now is a fully accessible crime scene forensics course.
So you can learn to do crime scene investigations. So fingerprint analysis, shoe print analysis, blood splatter analysis. Very fun. We have one on the science of baking cookies, which is also fun. There's environmental science. We're working on a couple others too. So we'll have offerings, information about those programs tomorrow. So how many of you have had good or bad science experiences in school?
Audience:
[inaudible 00:29:47]
Speaker 7:
Maybe I should have broke that out. Okay. Who's had good science experiences?
Audience:
Yeah.
Speaker 7:
Okay. That is excellent. Who has had less than great science experiences?
Audience:
Yeah.
Speaker 7:
Okay.
Speaker 9:
Wrap it up like-
Speaker 7:
Yeah. Okay. So one of the things we've got tomorrow is... Well, actually, at our table this whole week. Our research collaborator from Oregon State University is going to be trying to meet with people and would love to hear your stories of your science experience.
Good/bad, please come by and share it. She's going to be working to use that data to help make everyone's future science experiences better. And we'll also have a webinar on the 29th with a title that will be determined, but it will be awesome. So keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 10:
Next, we have Troy Otillio from Aira. Go ahead, Troy.
Troy Otillio:
Hello, National Federation of Blind. I'm so happy to be here. Fun fact, this is actually my hometown. I was actually born in New Orleans. How many people are born in New Orleans? Anyone?
Audience:
Nobody.
Troy Otillio:
So I'm it? All right. Well.
Audience:
Woo.
Troy Otillio:
Woo.
Audience:
Woo.
Troy Otillio:
we've got great food, drinks. I know everyone is excited to be here, but-
Audience:
Who that?
Troy Otillio:
Who that? So everybody is talking about AI replacing humans. But at Aira, we're doing something different. We combine the best of both, cutting-edge AI and professional human interpreters, to provide the real-time visual information to the people who are blind or who have low vision, and here's how it works. I know many of you know this, but we're introducing it to those who may not. Here's how it works.
Open the Aira app on your phone, on your smart glasses, on your desktop, and with a tap, you're connected to a trained professional agent. Not a gig worker, but a fully employed, fair, full-time employees, background checked, and accessibility-trained visual interpreter.
We call them agents. And many of you know this because why? We actually launched Aira at NFB 10 years ago. That's right, and... Yeah.
This product, this idea was built with the community, this community, and as CEO of Aira, I'm incredibly proud of that. The agent sees the live stream from your camera, describes exactly what you need, a document, a computer screen, an unfamiliar environment for our users, explorers, we call them, you call yourself. This unlocks everyday access, job applications, travel, remote work, independence, the list goes on.
But now Aira is getting smarter. We've partnered with Google to build a new visual AI system trained on real Aira calls. So what this AI is is literally built with the community, and based on those interactions, it can describe scenes.
It can read text. It can answer follow-up questions. It's fast. It's conversational. You can give it objectives, and much like a visual interpreter, it remembers what that objective is or it remembers where things were put down.
It's fast, and it's built with safety in mind, and we call it Aira AI, and it's powered by Google Project Astra. And if you saw the announcement at Google IO, you know even a lot more, and you should stop by our booth, which is in A5. A for Aira.
Thank you very much for putting us in the A aisle. So you just have to remember the number five and come see it in action. But we're not replacing agents. We're building a hybrid model. It's where AI handles simple tasks, and human professionals step in when context, nuance, or trust, those things that matter most are needed.
And that's not just a better product, that's a better philosophy, because access isn't about doing things for someone. It's about empowering people to do things themselves and with the right tools and support.
So I'm here to say the future of accessibility isn't AI or humans. It's AI with humans, and Aira proves what's possible when you build with inclusion from the very start. So come to our booth at A5 or come to our session tomorrow at 4:30. Thank you very much, and I look forward to meeting all of you.
Kayla O'Connor:
Hi, everyone. My name is Kayla O'Connor. I'm with Selvas BLV. We used to be known as HIMS. Maybe that rings a little bit more of a bell for you. I'm the Marketing and Education Coordinator for Selvas BLV.
I've been with the company for about two years now, so I'm happy to be back at this conference with you all. Selvas is a proud White Cane sponsor of the convention this year, and you can find... Thank you. You can find us online at selvasblv.com. You can see all of our products there.
If you're a teacher, know a teacher, know a student, we also have an education hub with downloadable resources. But if you are confused, you are actually at the NFB Conference. So instead of going online, you should come to our booths at B6 and 7. That's Bravo, B6 and 7. We're going to have products there that you can take home with you, and we're running pretty steep convention exclusive discounts on them.
So there's too many to name here because it's going to go through all of our products like the BrailleSense 6 tablet, the BrailleSense 6 Mini, QBraille, our new Braille Display, the Braille eMotion, our SensePlayer, and more. For example, one of our discounts is going to be a whole 900 dollars off of the BrailleSense 6. So come check it out. Yeah?
I'm sure a lot of you have a lot of questions about when we're going to release our new web browser. I also have those questions, but I do have somewhat of an answer.
We are now letting you participate in the beta release, beta launch. So if you already have a BrailleSense 6 or BrailleSense 6 Mini, you are able to actually test out our beta version of the web browser and submit feedback.
So if you want more information on how to do that, come by our booth, B6 and B7, and we can walk you through the process. You might've also seen my email, what was it two days ago or maybe even yesterday, about how to do that. But come to our booth. We can help you out.
Earl is always like the all-knower of how to do things, so he can help you. We will also be having a product showcase event tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM. It's taking place in Gallery 5 from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM. So come by, and we'll show you what we have to offer.
Lastly, we are also at work, and we'll be showing a new and improved version of the word processor among many other features. We will demo the use of NFB-NEWSLINE, which has been available on our devices for almost a year now.
But if you have any questions on how to use it, access it, we will be going over that as well. So we look forward to seeing you tomorrow at 9:00 AM, Gallery 5, and at our booth, B6 and 7 for our discounts at the convention. And thank you so much.
Raiden Bridge:
Hi, everyone. My name is Raiden Bridge. I am from Bridge the Gap Adaptations. I am a certified vision rehab therapist, and I've been in the field of blind rehab for about the last 23 years. I am from Pennsylvania and working with... from people from two to... 103 was my oldest person I got to work with. We have found that digital appliances are great, but lately, the ones that have one button or one knob to select multiple features, we just have not been able to adaptively mark.
So I started thinking... I'm waiting for somebody to create something, and so I decided to take a chance at something. And so I've created an adapter. It's called the Precise Point adapter, and it will fit on a one-half inch camera on your smartphone to work with light sensor apps.
Light sensor apps are great, because they can let you know if you left the light on in the room, but they can't hone in on those tiny little appliance lights. So my adapter is going to allow it to funnel down to that small, little light, so that when you're turning your knob or pushing your button and that light sensor is on, you're going to hear that noise, and you're going to know that you've made that correct selection.
So you can use that for your washers and dryers. So the kids that are going off to college are using these. And your ice options, you can select your ice options on your refrigerator panels.
I have those at B10, so please come on by. This is the first adapter we have or actually, any adaptation right now. It's the first, and it's in patent pending, so I hope it goes well. And I'm excited to be here, and I would love your feedback. If you like it, let me know. It's $11.99. I made it so that it would work on Android or Apple.
I don't want anybody to have to buy multiples if you change phones. I just want that one to go with you. So it does have an elastic band so that it will fit any size case, and it is made with contrast in mind for low-vision users against the different colored appliances. So come check us out. Again, B10.
Chanan Walia:
Hi, everyone. My name is Chanan Walia. Finally drive from today's rainstorm, and I'm thrilled to be here for my very first NFB with six of my colleagues from accessibility teams here at Salesforce.
Audience:
Wow.
We're glad to have you.
Chanan Walia:
Thank you. We are incredibly proud to be gold sponsors of NFB this year. If you use any of our products across the Salesforce portfolio from Slack to Tableau to Salesforce, we'd love to meet you. Two ways. One, tomorrow. Todd from Slack is hosting a demo and feedback session focused on Slack.
Todd will talk through how we collaborate with blind users to design, build, and refine how Slack works. We will demonstrate some of the successful results and likely some imperfections using common workflows in Slack, and share some exciting new functionality. That's happening Wednesday at 12:00 PM in Gallery 6. If you use Slack, we'd be so thrilled to have you join us.
We will also be at our table, C26, in the Exhibit Hall throughout the week. Stop by to share feedback or ask any questions about Salesforce products. We've also got cookies, the good kind.
Audience:
Are they are warm?
Chanan Walia:
They are warm, the good kind, not the browser kind-
Audience:
Is that for all?
Chanan Walia:
... from NoLa Cookie Company, and we've also got an open feedback forum and are collecting emails to get involved in future pilots, user studies, and our Accessibility Community Workspace. Once again, we and our cookies are at C26 in the Exhibit Hall.
Jennifer:
Hello, everyone.
Audience:
Woo.
Jennifer:
Great to be here. Happy to be here representing APH. I grew up using APH products, and I am now a technology product specialist at APH. And we have all kinds of great things this year, so please come check us out at booth A6 through 8. We have people from our Connect Center here to talk about that wonderful resource and that part of APH.
And then we have this little product that we partnered with the NFB to design and HumanWare. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of it. It's kind of Butterfly or something. The Monarch. Yes, we have the Monarch, and we are proud to show you new features of the Monarch.
If anyone was here at our wonderful presentation at 8:00 AM, we talked about some of those new features. The update came out today. We will have that to show, and one of the most important features of that update is that Braille terminal mode will be live.
And if you have a beta version of JAWS and if you have NVDA, you will have different screen reader support experiences on the Monarch. It is exciting guys, 10 lines on your screen. We will be able to demo that, and tables and Excel sheets displaying as they should, tables in columns. Isn't that exciting?
Audience:
Yeah.
Jennifer:
Yes. We also will be able to show you the Wing It app, which is an app where you can draw on an iPhone or iPad, and this means anyone. It works with voiceover or without voiceover. So someone can draw, and it shows up in raised pins on the Monarch in real time.
This is not meant to replace tactile graphics, but it's meant for those quick situations when you just need to draw something fast or do handwriting, or there's lots of possibilities.
So come check that out, and we'll be able to show you the eBraille book, one of the first eBraille books, and talk with you about eBraille where you can see tactile graphics and text in the same book. Very exciting. When it says, "See Figure 1," you'll be able to push a button and see Figure 1 raised. So very, very exciting.
We also though... Not just the Monarch is at our booth. We have other great products. One exciting product is the Paige Connect. That's P-A-I-G-E Connect. It's a simple attachment to the Perkins Brailler, which becomes a Bluetooth six-key entry keyboard, and you can go on sites to learn Braille with it and translate Braille in real time.
So very exciting. Come check that out. It will be launching very soon. It is not quite launched. It was developed in Great Britain. It is being sold over there, and it will be sold very soon through APH, and it will be low cost. I don't know an exact price, but the goal is under 300 dollars. So we will hope we can get to that goal.
We also have some great products for parents specifically this year. Well, anybody. It doesn't have to be a parent, but I see it as targeted toward parents. Memory shape puzzles in English and Spanish, tactile drawing stencils that have adhesive to a surface, and they can adhesive over, and over, and over again.
And if they aren't sticky anymore, you can wash them with dish soap, and they become sticky again. It's pretty cool. And there're all kinds of different shapes and cool stencil things that you can trace with kids or with adults that might need to have stencils of cool shapes and lines for something.
I know I'm probably missing stuff. Oh, we have a tactile shape slate. Lots of other cool stuff, so please come on by. Booths A6 through 8. We don't have cookies, but we have collapsible water bowls. So come get a collapsible water bowl for your dog or for you after you eat the cookie.
Junki Inaba:
Hello, everyone. I'm Junki Inaba, Chancellor of Overseas Business from so Ashirase from Japan. And so our company's name is Ashirase. "Ashi" means foot, and "rase" means notification in Japanese. So our company is navigation device, and so we are first-time startup company from that, so Honda, automobile companies.
Yes, and our mission is to create things so richness of human life through walking. So our product's name is also Ashirase. It's, so, yes, world's first so vibration navigation device for visually-impaired people. So there is lots of checking. For example, so route checking and safety checking.
Route checking. If so you turn or you go... so turn right, so there is a... so some landmark, so checking, and so safety checking using this, so white cane, and so guide dog, et cetera. Using this device, Ashirase, guided you to the so destinations. And so yes, this is very so simple to use.
Firstly, so pre- so insert that device into the shoe. And after that, so our product is using this iPhone or adapting the voiceover, so voice input, and so typing the... so destination point, and starting the navigation automatically. So, yes. So this device vibrating. If you go down right, so right side, right side of foot, vibrating.
And if correct way, so both side of front or front side of both foot vibrating. So you use Ashirase. So Ashirase gives route information, and so no need to so consider the route. And so you can so focus on safety. So from tomorrow, so our booth is... so A30, A30, A-3-0. So please come and see our so product. Thank you very much.
Joel Zimba:
I'm Joel Zimba from HumanWare. I'm a blindness product specialist. Great to be back with you all again in New Orleans. It seems like just a couple years ago. It was. Anyway, so Jennifer did me a favor.
She did the whole talk about the Monarch. We will also have the Monarch, and we will be immediately to the left of APH. So we are at A9, 10, and 11. So they're going to be right there beside APH showing off the Monarch. It's like we partner together or something, so that's great.
We also have all kinds of other things. As most of you know, we have the Victor Stream, which is probably recording me right now out in the audience if I had to guess. There are Braille devices, the Brailliant 20 and 40, and the Mantis Q40, which is our QWERTY Braille display.
We have magnification devices, the Explore 5, 8, 12, I don't know, 42. We have a new magnification product called Prodigi for Windows. It is a software product, which means your screen can be as big as you can stand it to be.
You can hook it up to your 100-inch cinema magnifier on your wall, I guess. But we're demonstrating that. We have all kinds of other things going on.
And if you would like to win a pair of Meta Ray-Bans, you can register at our booth to do so. It is a not very well-kept secret. It's not a secret at all that HumanWare is owned by EssilorLuxottica, who also owns glasses brands like Ray-Ban, and Oakley, and
Prada, and whatever else. So it is our flagship product, showing off the Meta Ray-Bans. So you do not have to be present to win when we draw on Friday. So do not storm the booth thinking it increases your chances.
I might disqualify you. We will get in contact with you. Although I do believe the Ray-Ban Metas are here on premises, so we can deliver them or we can ship them.
Speaking of shipping, we're giving you free shipping all throughout the convention. We do not have products for you to walk away with. There are draconian rules about taxes here at the show floor, so we didn't want that 10% discount to go to the city of New Orleans, even if they are your favorite son.
So that's not happening, but we will ship it to your house, and we'll also give you a 10% discount as we always do on everything but the Monarch. You can go to APH and argue with them about that, but we're not allowed to give you discounts. So A9 through A11. Come have a party at HumanWare. There will probably also be candy. We seem to always have candy. Thanks.
Patrick:
Hey, everybody. Good evening. How many of you today have struggled with navigating a shopping website?
Audience:
Woo.
Patrick:
Was it the checkout flow or finding the product descriptions that threw you off?
Audience:
Yes.
Yes.
The advertisements.
Patrick:
So at Innosearch, we believe that accessibility isn't just about patching what is broken. It's about reimagining and rebuilding access for the blind and low-vision community from the ground up. In the physical world, blind and low-vision individuals have lots of options.
Whether it's the dependable white cane, or your trusty loyal guide dog, or the tons of apps out there that work wonders, like Aira, Be My Eyes, or GoodMaps, that flexibility is very empowering, and it gives you choices.
But in the digital world, oftentimes, you're stuck. If that checkout button doesn't work for you or those product descriptions can't be found, It's really challenging. So at Innosearch, we've built solutions for this.
We have a screen-reader-optimized web experience. We also have a voice-powered phone line for shopping. So no screen required, no internet connection required. You can just simply dial in.
And recently, we've been working on a talking website interface where you can issue commands directly to your website. It's in development. But in the demo session during NFB, we'll be showing off some early workings of that. There's significant real-world traction.
So today, you can access from over 500,000 retailers, over 1 billion products are in our catalog, and you can have accessible flight booking as well. So all the major airlines, we support, and you can book your flights in an accessible way. And also, we're working on grocery and food delivery. Coming soon.
So whether you're a user or you're a business looking to serve this market, we're building the infrastructure to make this possible. So would you guys like to see it in action? You can visit us at booth C6. That's Cat-6.
We also have a prize wheel. You can spin it. You can win anywhere from 5 to 50 dollars. It will be in the form of a Innosearch gift card, so you can give our product a try. We'll also be doing a live demo on Saturday from 12:45 to 1:45 PM in Studio 6. You can try Innosearch now at Innosearch.ai or call our phone number,
1-855-SHOP-GPT, and that's 746-7478. You can also connect with me personally. My email is [email protected]. We've partnered with the NFB, and so you have the ability to round up to donate and support this great mission.
Kevin Chow:
Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here at the Federation. When I was in high school, after I lost my eyesight, this was my foundation and where I got a lot of my philosophy as far as blindness advocacy and speaking up.
So my name is Kevin Chow, I'm the Chief Visionary and Evangelist at Agiga, A-G-I-G-A, .ai. I just want to hear if anyone's had a chance to use any wearables and if you feel that there's more opportunity to make them for us as blind people.
Audience:
Yes.
Yeah. Come on.
Of course.
Kevin Chow:
So at Agiga, our mission is to empower everyone, specifically blind people, by making EchoVision where these are wearables made by blind people like myself with blind people like Stevie Wonder, Mike Major, Kuntz, and a lot of people in the National Federation of Blind.
And the specific things that this does, the EchoVision, that other wearables that are in glasses form that are specific in terms of hardware is it has a 13 megapixel wide-angle landscape mode camera. So you don't have to do weird awkward movements.
You're able to have a natural field of view and fully see things where it can both AI-describe as well connect to visual human interpreters. And it has a USB-C port in the back right arm. So if you run out of power, you're able to actively charge it and power it while you're using it.
And the software specifics are it can both take an image as well as a live video feed and do scene description, text reading, including a book reading mode, and describe people. So I break that down a bit more.
The scene description is very detailed and very accurate. It actually doesn't do any hallucination and make up things. It can describe people in full detail of what they visually look like similar to what a sighted person would see.
Everything from their height, width, color of the skin, eyes, hair, including facial expression. And you can also add familiar people's faces and have them identified by name plus title.
And we also, as blind people, we take public transit like bus and train. Your voice command, you can ask for bus or train schedule to a particular destination and have route schedule and route preview so you can know if you have enough time or if you should wait and build a mental map of your route, which line you need to catch, where you should transfer.
And we directly connect with both Aira and Be My Eyes. So with a single voice command or a button press, you can get a professional trained agent, like Aira that Troy talked about earlier, and we can also get a Be My Eyes volunteer to help you navigate wherever you are.
And a bit more about the text reading. We have proper OCR and a Book Reading Mode where you can hold the physical book in hand, and turn the pages, and have the book read to you. And also, all these different descriptions, you can... a single button press, you can have the scene described discreetly so you don't have to talk to it out in public and discreetly have that scene described, or you can also have in live AI mode where you can actively have real-time audio descriptions of your visual world as you're walking around.
So we have a talk tomorrow at 4:00 PM in Studio 4, where we're going to be talking about AI wearables and innovation, building this with the community. So please stop by 4:00 PM tomorrow in Studio 4 for that. And we also have our booth in C7.
That's cool-7 next to Innosearch. We're going to have a couple of things available at our booth. You can get face-on demo because you're going to be wearing it on your face.
We're going to also have freebie, really cool foldable sunglasses that can fit in the size of your palm or your pocket. It just says, "Cool sunglasses just to take away."
And we're also going to have an opportunity where you can enter a raffle lottery to win a free pair of the EchoVision. And we also have an NFB2025 promo code where you can get 50 dollars off.
So you can walk away with them pre-order and get them for 549 dollars. So please stop by our booth starting tomorrow, C7. We also have a talk, 4:00 PM, in Studio 4, and we also have a private demo room Friday all day. So please stop by our booth or find me, and I can get you signed up.
Jonathan Mosen:
There is even more to come from the Vendor Showcase in a future edition of Access On, so stay tuned for that. But now, we have another tech tip from our prolific Mr. Tech Tipper himself, Karl Smith. And this week, he says this, "Want to spice up your messages or documents? Add some emojis.
To do this quickly and easily, do the following. On Windows, press the Windows key plus period to open the emoji keyboard. On Mac, it's command plus control plus space. Once open, use your arrow keys to navigate to the emoji you want and press enter." Thank you so much, Karl.
That concludes this episode of Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us. Attach an audio clip or just write it down, and send it to [email protected]. That's [email protected].
To keep up to date with Access On, follow us on Mastodon, [email protected]. That's [email protected] on Mastodon. To subscribe to an announcement-only email list about upcoming episodes, send a blank message to [email protected]. That's [email protected].
To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, nfb.org, or phone us, 410-659-9314. That's 410-659-9314. And be sure to check out the Nation's Blind Podcast right from where you heard this podcast.