Welcome to the fortieth-third episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
Listen to the fortieth-third episode of the Access On podcast (Browser).
Or listen on your preferred podcast platform.
Timestamps
Below is what's on the show this week, and when you can hear it.
- Register for our webinar on what's new in iOS 26 0:00
- Workaround for the Braille Screen Input problem in the Uber app 2:29
- Resolutions to issues raised by Access On listeners 3:43
- As Google discourages sideloading, what's the difference between Android and iOS? 4:31
- Working with Sound Curtain on my iPhone 8:25
- What does Eye Tracking do in iOS 26? 14:02
- Honeywell Thermostat review 15:48
- Comments on Jonathan Mosen's national convention address 17:37
- My gym upgraded its treadmills, now they're inaccessible 23:28
- What's it like to use a touch screen with JAWS? 27:41
- Interested in the Ace browser 29:56
- Issues with my Ray Ban Meta Glasses and my Apple Watch 30:45
- Apple audio describing its keynotes 37:48
- Bookshare 40:29
- Procer 44:47
- Vispero 48:24
- Computers for the Blind 51:24
- National Library Service 53:27
- Tech Tip, playing a series of audio files in Dropbox for iOS 55:38
- Closing and contact info 58:33
Transcript
Audio:
Live the life you want.
Access On.
Jonathan Mosen:
Welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. If you're experiencing issues with Braille screen input in Uber for iOS, there is a workaround. We take you through assigning a Braille keyboard command to Screen Curtain for iOS. Google is clamping down on what Android apps you can install. So, is it now much more open than iOS? And in our Tech Tip, playing consecutive audio files in Dropbox for iOS.
It's Jonathan Mosen at the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland welcoming you to episode 43 of the podcast. And if you're an iPhone user and you're a relatively early adopter, you've probably already got iOS 26 on your phone.
There are a lot of new accessibility changes, particularly in the Braille area this year with the new Braille access mode, which includes live captions and a way to read and write BRF files on the iPhone itself. Plenty more as well, both accessibility related and not.
And that's why the National Federation of the Blind's Center of Excellence in Nonvisual Accessibility is conducting a webinar on September 30th, all about what's new in iOS 26. We'll be going through a detailed summary of the key changes and of course we look forward to hearing your impressions of iOS 26. There will be some time for discussion so that you can share your tips and tricks as well because we all learn together. And that's one of the great benefits of being a part of the National Federation of the Blind.
If you'd like to register for this webinar, do so now. You can go to nfb.org/cena. That's nfb.org/C-E-N-A. And when you get on that page, make sure you select the link for events and training and you will find the place there to register for the webinar on what's new in iOS 26 on September 30th. We will then be running this on Access On if you don't have the opportunity to attend live. And those who register will be able to get a full recording of the webinar as well. So it's worth doing. nfb.org/cena is where you go to register.
Plenty of listener feedback coming into Access On and we appreciate that. So, let's start with some of it. Francisco Crespo's writing in and he says, "Hi Jonathan. I just listened to the email from Curtis regarding Uber and Braille screen input. I've experienced it myself and was able to find a workaround that I shared with Curtis via text and now with you and the Access On audience while we wait for Uber to fix it. Here's how to do it, as they say." Here's how, that was a big thing for a while, wasn't it? Here's how everybody said that.
Anyway, Francisco says, "After you double tap on the edit field and the keyboard expands, tap a key on the QWERTY keyboard. Since my keyboard is set to touch typing, I touch the return key on the bottom right corner of the screen to avoid entering any characters.
And when one of the keyboard keys receives VoiceOver focus, you will be able to use BSI normally. Hope it works for you and everyone affected by the issue." Genius, Francisco. Thank you very much for that. That is definitely a tip that we can use and I appreciate you sharing it with us.
Just to comment on a couple of past listener comments on Access On where we have had some success, you may recall that Rich Yamamoto gave us a very detailed report on an issue that he had found regarding tagging people in Facebook for iOS. I'm pleased to report that we reached out to Meta, explained that to them. They have been able to duplicate the issue and if a fix hasn't already been deployed, it will be soon. So thank you, Rich. It's nice to be able to make that kind of difference.
And similarly, Sonya also reached out to us about some difficulty that she was having getting in touch with Dot Inc. and getting what she needed for her Dot Watch. Well, Dot reached out to us and we were able to connect Sonya and the right person from Dot and there's a good outcome there. So thank you very much to DOT for reaching out to us.
Here's an email from Christopher Wright and given the emails I've received from Christopher over the years in various podcasts, I'm not surprised to get this one. He says, "I'm curious to find out what you and other listeners think about Google's announcement that all Android apps will have to be verified or essentially digitally signed to function. This means there will be no difference between Android and iOS, which is a shame. As usual, Apple leads the way with decisions that prioritize profit over digital freedom and everyone else follows."
"It's not going to be long until all bootloaders on Android devices are permanently locked to prevent you from installing alternative operating systems on the hardware you own. Apple completely removes the ability to bypass Gatekeeper on macOS. Microsoft makes it mandatory to use UWP apps and/or requires all code to be signed before it will run. X11 on Linux disappears in favor of Wayland leaving people with less choices for desktop environments/applications, et cetera, et cetera.
Who knows, maybe AOSP will disappear and Google will start licensing Android to OEM partners just like Microsoft does with Windows. It looks like my next phone will be a Fairphone assuming the product is still available and custom Android versions still exist. If not, maybe I should go back to the iPhone. After all, what's the difference between the two platforms at that point?"
"Speaking of iPhone, I was very upset but not surprised to learn that Apple can arbitrarily pull any app from their supposedly free and open third-party app stores in the EU. This makes me very sad. I'm a fan of digital freedom and this applies across the entire board. DRM and other forms of copy protection do nothing to prevent piracy. Instead, they inconvenience honest customers.
I have far more respect for you if you sell your digital products without any kind of protection. I understand the benefits of having a closed system. It makes things easier for the casual user that doesn't know any better and isn't interested in being a power user. My question has always been why can't we have both options, keep things simple and locked down for the average user by default, but allow advanced users to tinker?"
"Of course the answer is simple, it's all about money. It always has been and it always will be. Instead of letting you install anything you want, pay us more money so we can arbitrarily decide if we want you to run something on the hardware you own. Oopsie, we stopped supporting your device because we want more money and we aren't going to let you install another operating system to continue using hardware that's otherwise fully functional."
Thank you very much, Christopher. There may be people who want to respond to all of that. [Email] [email protected] if you want to share your views, [email protected]. Certainly, the ability to sideload applications was a significant point of difference and it was one of the major things that attracted some people, who wanted the freedom that Christopher was talking about, to the Android platform.
And perhaps what's happened here is that Google is recognizing what a very insecure, dangerous cyber world we live in, but I'm sure that there will be people who will want to comment on this. Has this decision to clamp down on sideloading made you rethink your platform choice?
This next email says, "Hello, Jonathan and all. This is Melissa Riccobono, member of the Greater Baltimore chapter with a question regarding the Sound Curtain on my iPhone. First of all, I do really like this feature. For those not familiar, when you turn Sound Curtain on, it stops all sound coming from your phone so you can use your Braille display in complete silence.
There are many times this is helpful, but what this feature has taught me is how often I go back and forth between my Braille display and having VoiceOver speak things for me. For example, I love to write texts in Braille but often will use VoiceOver to check how the text sounds before I send it. I find I pick up on major typos more easily that way."
"However, I have found no super simple way to turn Sound Curtain on and off aside from putting it as my triple tap shortcut, which I really don't want to do. There is a command on the Braille display to turn Screen Curtain on and off. Why is there not one to turn Sound Curtain on or off?
Also, Sound Curtain turns on as soon as the Braille display is detected even if it is not actually connected to my phone. It seems to me having a setting where you could have Sound Curtain turn on only when the display was connected and actively being used would be helpful."
"How do others feel about this? Is there a way for me to assign a shortcut to a combination of Braille display keys so I could create my own way to turn this feature on and off with the touch of a button. And I should know this, but truly what would be the best way to give Apple feedback about this feature?"
Thanks, Melissa. There is no command assigned by default, but it is possible and fairly straightforward to assign one. This is where I get to say here's how again. Here's how. So I'm in accessibility settings. I've gone into VoiceOver and now I'm going to double tap.
Automated:
Braille, Mantis Q40.
Jonathan Mosen:
So I've got a Mantis connected but this will work with other Braille displays. So I'll double tap Braille.
Automated:
Match input and output table.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm going to go to the end of this quite extensive list of Braille settings. So I'm going to perform a four finger single tap towards the bottom of the screen.
Automated:
In progress.
Jonathan Mosen:
And flick left.
Automated:
Searching, dim. Mantis Q40, 6.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now that's my Mantis which is connected and you hear the serial number about to be spoken there. And now that focus is on the name of the Braille display, I'm going to flick down which will use the actions rotor.
Automated:
More info.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's what I want. So I'll double tap.
Automated:
Braille commands, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
And Braille commands is what I want, so I will double tap that as well. Now we're on a screen with a series of categories pertaining to Braille commands. I'll flick through them.
Automated:
Braille commands, heading. Braille, button. Device, button. Interaction, button. Keyboard, button. Navigation, button. Rotor, button. VoiceOver, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
And VoiceOver is the one that we want because Sound Curtain is a VoiceOver feature. So I'll double tap VoiceOver.
Automated:
Copy speech, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm going to search on the word sound. So I'm going to bring up the search feature in VoiceOver, which on a QWERTY keyboard, which is what the Mantis has, is VO with F for find.
Automated:
Enter search text.
Jonathan Mosen:
So it's actually called find rather than search. And I'm going to type the word sound and press return.
Automated:
Toggle Sound Curtain, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
And that's what we want. So I'm going to double tap.
Automated:
Braille keys, heading. No assigned Braille keys, dimmed, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
I am not using a Braille keyboard and there's no assigned Braille key, but you can assign one. If you're using a Braille input key, this is where you can assign anything you want. If you try to assign a command that is allocated and you decide you're happy to do that because you don't use this particular command at all, it will just warn you. It will say this command is already being used for whatever the function is. Are you sure you want to override it? And you can choose, yes, I do want to override it and then Sound Curtain will be applied to that command. If I flick right.
Automated:
Assign new Braille keys, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's where you will double tap and assign the new Braille key. Now because I'm using a Mantis with a QWERTY keyboard, I have gone elsewhere into the keyboard settings and assigned a VoiceOver function to a keyboard command. In my case it is VO with the number 6. I don't know why I used VO with the number 6 other than I wasn't overriding anything.
So whenever I'm in a meeting and just want to use Sound Curtain, I press VO with the number 6 and Sound Curtain is active. I toggle it off again by pressing VO with the number 6 and everything's back to normal.
It is an interesting comment you make about when you turn Sound Curtain on, but then you don't have a Braille display connected, it stays on. It would be good if that could be addressed because there seems no point in that and it could be potentially confusing. And Melissa didn't say this, but I will say this, Melissa is also the host of our wonderful Nation's Blind podcast here at the National Federation of the Blind, some great content on that podcast.
And if you're not subscribed, do go and do it now. Pause this and search for Nation's Blind podcast in your podcast client or National Federation of the Blind in your podcast client and you will find it there. And I'm sure that you will enjoy what you hear.
It's that time of the year of course, and we're thinking about iPhone things and iOS things and Kiko Denaka is writing in and says, "On the new iPhone, what is Eye Tracking and how do you use it?"
Well, I can understand why with a name like Eye Tracking, it may sound like it could be a useful low vision feature, but in fact this feature is not intended for the blind or the low-vision community. Rather it's an accessibility feature that lets you control your iPhone or your iPad using just your eyes. So it's really designed for people who don't have the ability to operate the phone with their hands or their voice or any other convenient way.
There's no extra hardware required to use Eye Tracking. It uses the front-facing camera and so it may be that for those who want to use this feature, the new iPhone 17 range with the superior front-facing camera with Center Stage may help with the accuracy of Eye Tracking. And it's all happening on internal software. You navigate the user interface elements by looking at them.
Keeping your gaze, I've often heard this called dwelling on an item triggers actions like taps, swipes, and similar actions that you would usually perform with a touch screen.
If you want to enable this, you would go to settings, accessibility, and Eye Tracking and enable it from there. Apple will walk you through a calibration process. If you can see it, a dot appears in the various screen positions. You look at that dot and the system learns your eye movement. So that is a brief synopsis of what Eye Tracking is intended for. I hope that helps.
Audio:
Hi, Jonathan, it's Katherine from Pittsburgh sending in a review of the Honeywell Smart Focus 200 thermostat. I got it upon recommendation of Mrs. Riccobono who had written in to a previous podcast saying how accessible this thermostat was and I can concur. You control it through an app. You do need sighted assistance once the thermostat's installed, which I recommend having a HVAC professional do the install part.
And then you need a little bit of sighted assistance to connect the thermostat to the, it's called First Alert app because you have to go to a menu on the thermostat, click app, and then put a security code that's displayed on the thermostat into the phone. But once that's done, you can do everything else on your own provided you know your Wi-Fi network and password. So you connect it to the Wi-Fi.
Mrs. Riccobono's review actually said that you were not able to set the schedule independently with VoiceOver. I was able to do that, so they must have updated the app. I would recommend creating the schedule. They have some pre-existing ones in there that you can use and you can set different temperature levels.
It's not perfectly accessible. VoiceOver is doing some guessing about what some of the controls mean, but it's got them right. So for all intents and purposes it is accessible and you can set the schedules and then from there you can also decrease and increase the temperature on the fly as needed. So would highly recommend this thermostat. I got it from a company for about 88 bucks, so I wouldn't pay too much more than that. But great product, really glad I got it. And thank you to Mrs. Riccobono for recommending it.
Jonathan Mosen:
Well, thank you for that review, Katherine. That was great. This next email I think comes from William. It only has the email address in the from field, but based on that I think it's William. And he says, "Hello, Jonathan. Thank you so much for your excellent podcast. As a senior citizen who has lost his vision due to retinitis pigmentosa, I'm so grateful for today's technology that makes my life easier and to those of you who give me the help I need in finding and using that technology."
"In your most recent podcast," so this takes us back to episode 41 in fact, "you included some clips from the NFB National Convention and one comment you made gave me pause. You said, 'When a server in a restaurant places a cup of coffee in front of us, it's unnecessary for him or her to say, "Careful, it's hot."' To me, that's far better than placing a cup of hot coffee in front of me and simply walking away.
Of course saying, 'Here's your coffee, sir,' might be more appropriate. But I've been blind long enough to know that sighted people often don't know exactly how to communicate with those of us who are not sighted. I always appreciate any effort they make to let me know what's happening."
William, I'll just pause your email there and say, I certainly appreciate this point and agree with it. I would rather be told, here's your coffee than careful it's hot because as I say, we know the coffee's hot. That doesn't take away from the fact that it's also helpful to know that the coffee is there and I certainly relate to that as someone with a hearing impairment.
Normally I can smell coffee actually when it arrives. But it's a fair point that you make and to bring us back to the technology wheelhouse that Access On tries to stay in, I will tell you a story about this.
I was in a frequent flyer lounge a long time ago. I think I was working for Freedom Scientific at the time. And I was here in the United States heading back to New Zealand where I was living at the time. It was very hot and in those days I did drink beer. And I was in the frequent flyer lounge and the person there said, "Is there anything I can get for you?" I said, "It's really hot. I would love a beer." And then I got my ThinkPad out, my laptop and I started to work away.
And what I didn't know was that the woman was back with the beer and sort of hovering over me. And it was a bit noisy and I have a hearing impairment, she didn't say anything, but I didn't know she was hovering there. And I reached out to get something out of my backpack because I was working and I knocked the beer out of her hand and it went all over the laptop. And in those days, laptops weren't quite as resilient about that sort of damage as they are now, and that was the end of that laptop until it got a thorough servicing.
So I do appreciate the point that you're making. It is really important to be told sometimes when something is here. I do try and defuse these situations as nicely as I can and perhaps just make a gentle point. So if somebody does say to me about coffee, careful it's hot, I might smile and say, "That's wonderful. That's exactly what I ordered," or something like that. But I take the point and I appreciate you making it.
And William continues, "Moving on to the point you wanted to make, you said, 'We don't need to know when a program is loading since that's what we told our device to do.' I'm afraid I disagree. I spend much of my time with a Windows desktop computer and when I tell it to do something, I really want to know if the dang thing is actually doing it.
Knowing a program is loading gives me some much-needed reassurance that my computer hasn't gotten hung up while I'm sitting there waiting for something to happen. I've gotten so much out of the Access On podcast and I offer these comments only as another view from an old guy in New Mexico who values and needs your insights."
Thank you so much for writing that email. I really appreciate that and there's absolutely no harm at all in having a bit of debate. In fact, we welcome that on Access On. So thank you for taking the time to write in with your thoughts. I'll just expand a bit on my rationale. I think if something is likely to take a long time, then it is good to know and most screen readers have a percentage indicator that will speak progress.
JAWS usually speaks it in numbers as a percentage, and NVDA has these handy little ascending tones which are quite fun and instructive showing you that things are happening. So I agree with you to that extent.
The point that I was making really is that sometimes the verbosity slows you down. If something is happening so quickly that the verbosity is actually slowing you down from getting at the information you want, then in my view it's superfluous. So an example of this is the loading page thing on a website. Often the page has loaded and could be speaking by the time Microsoft Edge is finished saying, "Loading page. Load complete."
Another example of this in Windows, I think this one may have been taken care of now, but for a while if you pressed enter to open a folder in File Explorer, windows was saying, "Working on it." And by the time it had finished saying working on it, you could have heard the first name of the file that was in the folder that you just opened.
So certainly when you're doing a Windows update or something significant like that is going on and you know it's going to take some time, absolutely, progress indicators are very important. I think it's about proportion and using the right tool in any particular situation. But great discussion, thank you so much for writing in.
"This is Steve Bauer," begins this email, so I'm confident it's from Steve Bauer. "Reaching out regarding the accessibility of a piece of equipment at Planet Fitness. Generally I'm in the gym three or four times each week. I've been a Planet Fitness member since 2012. Recently the location where I go replaced all of their equipment with newer models.
Typically, I use three different machines which used to be close to each other, which was nice. Now they are separated by some distance, but I am able to locate them without much trouble."
"My big problem is with the new treadmill machine, the buttons which control the tilt of the walking platform and the speed of the machine are designed quite nicely and are easy to use. The huge problem with the new machine is the start and stop functions, which are a small area you touch on a flat surface. There is absolutely nothing on this surface to guide you to the spot you need to touch to start or stop the machine."
"With help from friends showing me where to place my hands on the machine and pointing a finger to where the start function is, it works maybe 1 out of 15 tries. I have resorted to having a friend or a Planet Fitness staffer start the treadmill for me. And when I'm finished, I slow down and press the emergency stop bar."
"I have opened a ticket with Planet Fitness corporate and with Matrix Fitness, the manufacturer of the treadmill, and I have emailed the local franchise person. Sadly, I have received no response from anybody. This matter could have been avoided with a very small, slightly raised tactile bump or raised symbol on the flat metal surface below where the start and stop areas are located. The cost of this would most likely be minimal, but now to retrofit or fix the problem, it is going to be expensive and no doubt Matrix Fitness will not want to invest the money to fix the problem."
"Finally, I have talked with four other members who are sighted and they don't like the actual design of the new treadmill and I don't either. It's not near as comfortable to use as the previous model. I am working with the local gym manager. We are going to try and place something below the start and stop areas but don't know if they will stick and stay on the machine.
With people cleaning the machine before and after they use it or for those who will just pick at the tactile item, only time will tell if they will last. We are using something that is round, clear, and very thin. If anyone has encountered this same or similar problem, I would like to hear how you resolved the situation if you did."
Thank you, Steve. Frustrating when you just go and do your thing and then something happens like this and it sets you back. This is exactly the kind of thing that we will be tackling when we've made our appointment of the new Accessibility Excellence Advocate for Home and Independent Living. Health equipment like this is certainly included in their remit. So we look forward to reaching out to the company concerned when we have an appointment in that role.
I know that some of this equipment is compatible with Apple Watch. I presume you've investigated this option. And I don't know actually how widely adopted this has become after Apple Watch introduced this standard where a lot of fitness equipment could be controlled this way. But when Apple introduced this I thought, "Well, this can be a potential workaround for some of this technology that poses difficulty."
But if you haven't investigated that, it might be interesting to find out whether such a new treadmill is in fact compatible with HealthKit and with the Apple Watch. It would be interesting to get people's take on this issue. If you have any thoughts for Steve, do drop us an email with an audio clip or write it down and send it into [email protected].
It's always good when it's time to get a new gadget and Cleora Boyd is about to do this and writes, "I'm needing to get a new computer and considering getting one from Computers for the Blind. One of their add-ons is to get one with a touchscreen. Freedom Scientific says JAWS supports the touchscreen and I'm wondering how well it works with the touchscreen. Does it work like VoiceOver on an iPhone? Does it interfere with using JAWS the way I usually do? Any information and recommendations you have would be appreciated."
Yes, Cleora, there are some similarities between the way JAWS works with a touchscreen and VoiceOver. The basic gestures are the same. You can flick left and right to explore the touchscreen and you can double tap on an element that you want to activate. There are some differences in terms of the gesture set, but basic navigation is the same and you can use the JAWS documentation or FSCompanion to find out about the gesture set.
You can also go into JAWS keyboard learn mode by pressing the JAWS key with the number 1 on your number row and then you can execute all sorts of gestures on the touchscreen and find out what they do. No, it won't interfere at all With standard JAWS keyboard commands. They'll continue to work as they always have. So using JAWS with a touchscreen is an addition to, not a substitute for what you already use and know.
I would be interested to hear from people about how often they use a touchscreen in the Windows environment. I do have for my personal use, a ThinkPad that has a touchscreen and I think next time I upgrade I will probably give the touchscreen a miss. It makes it a little cheaper and I suspect the battery life may be fractionally better because it's not powering the touchscreen.
I just find that it's not something I use. But then I've been using JAWS for Windows since the beginning. So the keyboard commands are just intuitive to me and I don't really think about using the touchscreen on a Windows device. If you do it differently, if you find the touchscreen is helpful, let us know about that. [email protected] is how you get in touch.
Rick Roderick says, "Hi, Jonathan. I have been reading all these ads for the Ace browser. Do you know anything about it? Is it accessible?"
Rick, the only Ace browser that I'm aware of is an Android app which claims to be very fast and it achieves that speed by being sensitive to how much data that you're consuming because you're using the browser on a mobile device. I have not used it personally, so I don't know whether it's accessible with TalkBack.
There are several options available that are accessible on Android that are commonly known about. So if there's a different Ace browser, I've not come across it. Maybe somebody in the Android-using community has tried this one and can comment on first whether it's accessible and second what the perceived advantages might be.
Let's go to this email from Kendra who says, "Dear, Jonathan and the folks at Access On. I have the Apple Smart Watch, iOS 10 and the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses and I'm also a VoiceOver user. I just tried to update the Meta Ray-Ban glasses only to discover the critical menu that leads to the location where you find the updates on the Meta AI iOS app is completely inaccessible with VoiceOver. Therefore, in order to update or even check for updates on my Meta Ray-Ban glasses, I have to get sighted assistance every single time."
I have had these glasses since the Christmas break and I have never had a fully independent updating experience with Meta Ray-Ban once since I bought them. Since I looked up the support page for disabled users, it was not available to users who live in the United States. I'd love to get Meta to jump on and fix this critical accessibility issue in order for Meta Ray-Ban owners to be able to both update and check for updates without the requirement to get sighted assistance."
"My boyfriend doesn't know enough about blind tech to assist me and I don't have anyone else who's sighted that would know how to help me other than to use Aira or visit my local Best Buy or LensCraft to get this sighted assistance. This is not right. We, the blind, should be able to update all of our tech devices with non-visual means and without having to get sighted assistance."
Kendra, I will read the rest of your email in just a moment, but let's talk about the Meta AI app first. I've had no problem doing this and I've not heard that it's a typical problem, so there are a couple of things you might look at. It is possible that screen recognition has become enabled in the Meta AI app. And sometimes screen recognition is incredibly helpful when you're in an app that's not behaving as it ought to, but sometimes it can make the experience of using an accessible app a little worse. So you might want to see if screen recognition is on and if it is, turn it off.
If you're using an external keyboard, the other thing you might also want to check is to go into accessibility settings and then keyboard and devices and make sure that full keyboard access is disabled. It is amazing how many voice related bugs or quirks are resolved because somehow that feature has gotten turned on. And if you switch that off, the full keyboard access, it's really remarkable what comes right again.
Having said that, let me show you how the experience is for me with the Meta AI app and the Ray-Ban Metas. I have my Ray-Ban Meta glasses on now just to make sure we get the full experience, hope you think they look all right on me. I'm going to perform a forefinger single tap on the bottom half of the screen now that I'm in the Meta AI app.
Automated:
Devices, tab, five of five.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'll double tap.
Automated:
Selected, devices.
Jonathan Mosen:
We'll go to the top of the screen.
Automated:
Add device, button. Devices, heading. Profile and settings, button. Device, one of one, Ray-Ban Meta, Jonathan's Glasses, heading.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'll continue to flick right.
Automated:
Glasses battery power 100%. Jonathan's Glasses settings, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'll double tap that button.
Automated:
System, heading. Back, device settings, heading, Jonathan's Glasses. System, heading. Updates, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
There's the updates button. I'll double tap that.
Automated:
Automatic updates, back, button. Updates, heading, Jonathan's Glasses, automatic updates. This will turn on automatic updates for all devices using Meta AI. Switch, button, on.
Jonathan Mosen:
I do have the automatic updates switched on and I find that this just takes care of everything anyway because as long as you put the Ray-Ban Metas and for that matter the Oakley Metas, now that they are out, in their case and you keep the glasses switched on, the updates just happen in the background when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network that the glasses knows about.
Automated:
Your device is up-to-date, check. Home, your device is up-to-date, check, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
Even though it thinks my device is up-to-date, I can double tap the check button.
Automated:
Close, button.
Jonathan Mosen:
And flick right.
Automated:
Updates, heading, Jonathan's Glasses. Your glasses are up-to-date.
Jonathan Mosen:
So there's no update there, but if there were, it would give me the opportunity to download and install the update. It keeps you appraised of progress right throughout. Then the glasses will restart and you will be running the latest version. So in my experience, it is totally accessible and I hope that those steps that I suggested before might assist to make it work for you too, Kendra.
Here's the second part of Kendra's email. She says, "Now, regarding my Apple Watch, I can't type on the on-screen keyboard at all. I can't enter passwords or anything of the sort. All I get with VoiceOver is a little field that only allows one to scribble the text, which is also inaccessible with VoiceOver. I can't get anyone to drive my watch since the same resources or their lack also applies to my Apple Watch. I wish Apple would fix this accessibility issue so I can use that keyboard independently."
Kendra, here's what you do to fix this one. I would suggest going into something like the Messages app, open an iMessage thread and then double tap as if you want to bring up the keyboard to reply to the message. And then at the moment it sounds like what you will get is the scribbling option.
At the bottom right of the keyboard, you will find a button that is accessible with VoiceOver and it says, "Change input method." When you double tap that, you will find a series of options, one of which will be the QWERTY keyboard. There'll be dictation as well. If you set it to the QWERTY keyboard, you will then find that it stays set everywhere in the watch until you change it again.
I would make one final comment about your email and you made the comment that your boyfriend doesn't know enough about blind tech to be helpful. But if he knows a little bit about tech but not necessarily blind Tech, you can disable VoiceOver while he helps you to make any change that you want to make. So on the iPhone that would be achieved by triple clicking the side button.
And on the Apple Watch it would be achieved by triple clicking the digital crown if the accessibility has been set up that way. And then the Apple Watch just becomes a regular Apple Watch, the iPhone becomes a regular iPhone. He may be able to feel more at home then to make any changes and then he can turn VoiceOver back on using those same toggles. So I hope that's helpful.
And Antoine is happy because he was watching the Apple keynote on YouTube and found that it was audio described. And he initially thought that this was the first time that Apple had audio described the keynote. He was very impressed with the quality of the audio description. But then he went back onto the Apple website and found that there was quite an archive of audio described keynotes from Apple.
Yes, indeed, Antoine. I think what might be relatively new is the audio description being available via YouTube. But Apple has been audio describing its keynotes since they started recording them when the pandemic started. And to watch them, you just need to watch them on some sort of Apple property. So if you go to the Apple website and watch them from there, or you have an Apple TV and you've got audio description enabled there, there has been audio description on these events since all the way back in 2020.
And Apple's leading the way here. The audio description is very well done. I know that there are some people in the tech press who keep saying, "Oh, we miss the Apple live events and we wish Apple would go back to those."
And if they do, I hope there will be a way to live audio describe the events because they are scripted and people know what's going to happen before it happens usually unless there's some sort of weird technology hiccup, which can of course happen in these live scenarios. But I know that many blind people appreciate the audio description that Apple puts into these live events.
So a very busy time with Access On listeners sending in feedback. We certainly appreciate that. We'll take a break and then we'll hear more from exhibitors at this year's national convention in New Orleans.
Audio:
Do you want to leave a legacy for the next generation? Join the National Federation of the Blind Legacy Society, the Dream Makers Circle. Joining is easy. You can give a portion of a bank or investment account by simply filling out a payable on death form at your bank and indicating the NFB should receive a percentage or a fixed amount upon your passing. Consider designating the NFB as a partial beneficiary of your life insurance, retirement, or in a trust or will. For more information, call Patti Chang at extension 2422, or email pchang, P-C-H-A-N-G@nfbO-R-G.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's go back to national convention in New Orleans and continue our airing of the Technology Vendors Showcase so you can hear about some of the latest and greatest in access technology.
Audio:
Hi everyone, I am Mary Ann Mendez. I was a member of Bookshare and I'll get into what it is. But for those of you who don't know, Bookshare is an accessible ebook collection. We have almost 1.4 million accessible books in our collection. These are books that are available. I liked what others have said here. We offer flexibility in that books are available in multiple formats. You can access books in BRF, you can access them in Word, EPUB, DAISY.
You can also access books using multiple devices. So we pride ourselves on ability to read the way that works for you. So you can use products like the Victor Stream. The Victor Stream 3 now supports our human narrated. We have a sprinkling of human narrated books. Most of our books are text-to-speech, Braille, and accessible with Word and EPUB. But now we have a sprinkling of human narrated books that are available for you to download from our website or you can access those via the Victor Stream's latest updates. So please check that out if you have one.
Wanted to share with you that I was a member of Bookshare for two decades. We are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year. Happy anniversary, Bookshare. Yay! We are super happy about that. So I was a very young Bookshare user and I found my way to work with the organization. I manage Bookshare's customer support department now. So we are here to offer a couple of exciting discounts for you. We have partnered with NFB now and Bookshare is offering some super exciting discounts.
We have a 30% discount for those who have not joined Bookshare, first-time members who are non-students. Students can join Bookshare at no cost. This would be K-12 and higher education students can join at no cost to you through a grant of the Office of Special Education and we are so grateful for that.
But if you are not a student, now is a really great opportunity for you to come on to Bookshare and sign up. 30% off of a membership if you've never joined Bookshare before, and that means it's 55.99 dollars for the year. That means you can download all the books that you can think of and each month you can access that collection.
And then we also have a 20% discount for those who are renewing. So that's going to be 63.99 dollars for anyone who has a Bookshare membership is an opportunity for you to renew. And if you have the ability to renew on your own, that's great, but if you have maybe just renewed recently and you want to lock in that subscription price for that 20% off, we have a table in the exhibit hall and you are welcome to come and visit us. We are at D14. That's Bookshare. Just do it, right? D14, come on to the table.
What I want to share with you is to qualify for Bookshare, those who have not signed up before have to have a disability that prohibits you from reading print books. So if you are qualified to access Bookshare, which most of us are here, we worked out an opportunity where you can come and join Bookshare and we will offer the proof of disability that we normally require you to submit the documentation before you can access Bookshare.
But during the convention, you can come to our table and you can walk away with a Bookshare membership and start reading right away. We'll collect that documentation from you after. So it's a really great opportunity. If you haven't experienced Bookshare before, you can come to our table, we'll sign you up. You can walk away using Bookshare that day.
Hello, my name is Manuel Diaz Ferreiro. I am from Argentina. I'm sorry for my English. It's very, very bad. Before to explain our device, for me it's important to tell that I'm very happy to stay here. In Argentina, we work a lot with blind people and for us the most important is the community.
In Argentina, we have around 2,000 users and all the improves and the new tools for the device are ideas for the users. For this reason, I invite you for our booth, D16, because all the feedback for us is the best that you gave us. In Spanish, I always say my mom say good thing for me. For this reason, you can feel free to say all the ideas, all the challenge that you need to solve and we try to improve the device.
PROCER 4 is a portable device, AI powered. It's a reading device. It provides instant access to printed, handwriting, digital text, image, documents. It's like a Nintendo Switch, the form factor of the device. And you got three ways to capture the image, acquire the image, with a portable scanner, with a camera, you can put in your glasses when you're reading. And you can link your Google account, Drive account, Dropbox account, and read all kind of text in several formats.
In the last update, we added a lot, the tools with AI powered features like a assistant, describe the user environment, answer the question about what it sees, recognize objects, people, clothing, and visual elements like charts and diagrams, image description. PROCER Chat, it's like ChatGPT.
Translator and interactive storytelling is for the kids in general, is like in Argentina, the name is chose your own adventure. These stories, it's create with AI and you can choose the gender, like romantic. I'm very romantic for the reason I say.
And for the students, we added table detection and navigation. You can detect the table in your study book and move your rows and cells and read the information. It's important that you can upload your entire books and process and the device create a thesis for you. And if you don't understand, it can again and the device simplify the information but improve your learning. But again, I'm sorry for my English. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks a lot.
Hi everyone. I am Liz Whitaker. I manage the user education and documentation team at Vispero and we're very excited to be here once again this year. So I wanted to mention a couple of our newer features that we have, these are our AI features. So do we have any JAWS users out there?
Yeah? All right, have you guys checked out Picture Smart AI?
Yeah.
Oh, good. All right, so for anyone who doesn't know, Picture Smart AI is the feature of JAWS that describes images. Now this could be anything from images on a web page to photos on your computer, charts, graphs, all sorts of things. Even the shared content on conferencing applications when someone shares their screen.
So when you use Picture Smart AI, it's going to give you a very detailed description of that photo and you can chat with it. You can ask it questions and get even more information.
The second feature I wanted to mention is FSCompanion. That's F as in Freedom, F as in Scientific. Oh, you've heard of that too. All right. So FSCompanion was implemented into JAWS and ZoomText last year. And you can think of this as your AI tool for learning how to use JAWS, ZoomText and other applications like Microsoft Office, apps, your Google apps, navigating web pages, and a whole lot more.
So the way it works is you ask it questions. You can ask it a keyboard command, how to perform a specific task. It'll give you those step-by-step instructions. You can then copy and paste those to a document, whatever you want to do. And the great thing about it, you can use it if you're new to JAWS or you can use it if you just need a refresher. If you're performing a certain task and you need those steps, you just pull up FSCompanion.
So there are a couple of places this week that you can check out these features. Tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM in studio 9, Ryan Jones is going to discuss our newest AI features and he's going to show you how they work. We're also bringing back the AI Training Suite. We had it last year.
It was a big success. So we're back with it this year. And that's going to be in the Regent Room on the fourth floor tomorrow and Thursday from 9:00 to 5:00.
So if you come by the AI Training Suite, you'll get to talk to us, ask us your training questions, get your hands on these features that I just mentioned. And you get to also preview a feature that is so brand new, it's not even out yet.
Yeah. So come by the AI training suite to check that out. You're going to love this feature and we have swag.
Yeah. So come by and see us. We'd love to say hi, love to chat with you and answer your training questions. Thank you very much. It's great to be here and thank you, Mark.
My name is Nathan. I am the executive director at Computers for the Blind. We've been coming to NFB for a couple years now and this is our second year here at the showcase, so we're excited to be here. Some of y'all may have remembered us from last year, but if not, here's a little introduction.
So we're a small nonprofit based out of Dallas, Texas, and our mission is to close the digital divide. And we do that by providing low cost computers to the BVI community that comes with accessible software built right in. We set them up in our office and ship them out to you.
Right now we're providing low cost laptops and desktops with Windows 11 Pro and there's different configuration options on them and it's starting at 200 dollars. We often have discounts that lower that price even more. So depending on when you contact us, you may find an even lower price.
All of our computers come with a free one-year license, the Home manual license of JAWS, ZoomText, or Fusion. So for people who haven't been able to get into that or want to start on it, we offer that for one year for free. We also offer introductory training classes for free that are included with our computers. So right now we have a JAWS introductory class that anyone who gets one of our computers can sign up for and do that with us. Our computers are donated to us from companies across the country. We refurbish them, get them to working condition and then ship them out. That's how we're able to offer them at the price.
So here at the conference, our general laptop comes with 8 gigabytes of memory and a 250 gig solid state drive and that starts at 250 dollars. But here at the conference we have a special. So we're selling our upgraded laptop, so it's going to come with 16 gigs of memory, double the memory, and 500 gigs of storage, so double the storage, for 150 dollars.
So that's generally 435 dollars. We're offering a 285 dollars off [discount]. So we are in the exhibit hall, booth B24. You can come to us, purchase the laptop and walk away with it here at the conference. Or we can ship it wherever you need us to ship it to if you can't take it with you.
My name is Liz Bottner. I am one of the assistive technology specialists within the Patron Engagement Section of the National Library Service at the Library of Congress. Truly, it is an honor and a privilege. I along with my colleagues who are here with me this week are extremely happy to be here exhibiting at the 2025 NFB Convention.
For those of you in the audience who may be unfamiliar with who we are and what we do because maybe there's one or two, I don't know. It's okay. NLS is a free Braille and talking book library available to United States residents and citizens living abroad who identify as blind, having low vision and/or having a print disability.
And whether you are extremely familiar with us, like the gentleman to my left who said that he was using his eReader to take notes, hooray, currently, tonight, this evening, or you, as I mentioned, may not have ever heard of us. Please come stop by our booth in the exhibit hall, booth C20. C as in Charlie, 20, and we will be happy to share with you information about new equipment and in some cases, program offerings available to NLS patrons.
Two of the equipment offerings that we will be highlighting at the booth are the new digital advanced talking book machine, otherwise known as the DA2 and both models of Braille eReader. Additionally, while we would be happy to talk to you about the new My Talking Books, Amazon Smart Speaker skill, which allows for accessing your talking books within the Braille and audio reading download or BARD collection using an Amazon smart speaker, smart speaker not provided. And so do come by our booth, C20. Thank you and have a great convention.
Jonathan Mosen:
Thank you, Liz. And we will be concluding our look at the technology vendors presentations in a future episode of Access On. There were just a few left to let you hear.
Time now for one of my favorite sections of the podcast. It is our Tech Tip and I can promise you this is a good one. I can say that with confidence because it's come from Joe Goode, who's in Arizona. And he says, "I've always found the Dropbox app incredibly useful for a variety of purposes.
However, my one consistent complaint is that it's far from the best media player. Specifically, if you open a single file from a music folder, it won't automatically play the next one. Instead, you have to play the file, tap the back button, and then select another from the same folder, a process that becomes tedious very quickly."
"Here's an example. As a big fan of Old Time Radio, I keep a folder full of favorite episodes I play often, but the process of having to start an episode, go back and tap the next one, it's one that I find tedious at best. Recently by complete accident, I stumbled upon a workaround using the loop feature while playing media.
Somehow unbeknownst to me, the loop all function was turned on. This will play every file in the folder, one after the other. Ironically, it won't start over once the last file finishes, which kind of defeats the purpose of a 'loop' feature. But that's okay. I'm not usually one to loop the same file over and over anyway."
"So enough rambling, here is how this works. One, while a file is playing or even paused, swipe right until you see the transport controls, back 15 seconds, play/pause, and forward 15 seconds. Two, keep swiping right passed the forward 15 seconds button until you find the loop playback option.
Three, tap loop playback, and you'll see three choices, off, which is no looping at all, this file, which loops only the current file, and all files loops the entire folder. Select all files. That's the trick. Now everything in your folder will play consecutively until the last file is done. Since discovering this, I'm enjoying using the Dropbox app a lot more. Happy listening."
Thank you very much, Joe. That is indeed a very handy tip. And if you have a tech tip that you would like to share with the Access On audience, send it in to [email protected] and put Tech Tip in the subject. You can write the tech tip down or you can record it if you prefer. And sometimes with tech tips, it's worthwhile to record it and do a little bit of a demo. That is fine as well.
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.