Welcome to the fifty-eighth 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.
On the show this week:
- Happy new year! 0:00
- a simpler way to apply for your free ElevenReader access 1:02
- Brava follow-up 2:24
- Join us for our accessibility boutique looking at Braille displays 9:09
- The National Federation of the Blind's Accessibility Excellence Advocate for Education and Employment, Charles Hiser 10:10
- Greg Stilson from APH discusses the Monarch 29:11
- Closing and contact info 1:06:17
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Live the life you want.
Speaker 2:
Access On.
Jonathan Mosen:
Happy new year and welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. In this Braille Literacy Month, we look ahead to our first boutique of the year comparing Braille displays. We follow up on previous episodes with more on how to get your free ElevenReader and some Brava hints.
We introduce our new accessibility excellence advocate for education and employment, Charles Hiser. And Greg Stilson from the American Printing House for the Blind joins me to discuss the Monarch multi-line Braille device. It's Jonathan Mosen at the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
I hope that 2026 is going to be a fantastic one for you. You can be assured that Access On is here to cover all of the developments in tech, and we are never short of tech developments to cover. Before we get onto the main items for this week, I do want to cover a couple of things following up from previous podcasts.
You may recall that last year, ElevenLabs introduced a benefit for members of the National Federation of the Blind, where you can have access to the ElevenReader Premium product free just by verifying that you are a member of the National Federation of the Blind.
We did get some feedback that that process was a little bit complex to get going and ElevenLabs have come to the party and simplified that a little bit. So I do want to explain the new process. It's pretty simple. All you have to do is, first of all, create an account either on the ElevenLabs or ElevenReader websites.
So if it's ElevenReader you're interested in exclusively, you can go to elevenreader.io. That's all one word, elevenreader.io and create an account there, or you can create it within the app. When you've done that, log into your account on the web browser you're going to use to register for this benefit.
And then when you're logged into your ElevenLabs or ElevenReader account, head over to elevenreader.io/nfb. That's elevenreader.io/nfb, and you will find the form there where you can submit an application for access to ElevenReader Premium. So that streamlines the process considerably. Now, let's talk about Brava, the smart oven.
We had a chat about this in episode 57 of the podcast, the last one for 2025. We got a lot of feedback on this, including from some people who've gone out and bought the Brava with the 200 dollar discount that is available for Access On listeners. You can find out about that in episode 57.
Well, I actually bought one as well. Bonnie and I decided that we would treat ourselves to a Brava and we got to using it over the break. So I have a few more lessons to impart as a result of our experiences.
And I got to say, I am not a super good cook at all. This is not something that I excel at, but I like the technology. I'm geeking out. And Bonnie's very happy with me because I'm in the kitchen with her geeking out on cooking with the Brava. And we have had some great experiences with this.
Most of the meals that we have cooked have been every bit as good as the steak that we cooked here on the Brava at the Jernigan Institute. But we have had a couple of issues and I thought if I share those with you, they might help if you're interested in acquiring a Brava of your own.
The first problematic cook that we had was actually on Christmas night when we tried to cook roasted potatoes in the Brava. We had everything else cooking in a conventional way, like with the stove and things like that, but we decided we would do the roasted potatoes in the Brava because there was a recipe for that.
Now, roast potatoes can be a bit tricky at the best of times because they are quite easily burned and the oil that you put on them can sometimes splatter and cause issues no matter how you cook them. But in this case, one moment it smelled pretty okay like roast potatoes were cooking with perhaps a little bit of smokiness.
But the next thing, it was a test of the smoke alarm in our new automated house. And I've got to tell you, all sorts of things broke loose when the smoke alarm went off. We got a call to say, "Do you want us to send the fire brigade?" It was all pretty dramatic and we had to open the windows and the doors and everything to get the smoke to dissipate on Christmas night.
And then we had a few more successful cooks, but a few days later we tried to cook a combination meal of two pork chops and asparagus.
This is a preset that's available when you search on the recipes and we were using the timed cook function rather than the temp sensor. Now, in that particular case, and I think this is something that Brava is going to address, not all of the options for the thickness of that particular meat had a timed cook option.
So I chose the thickest one that did, and that was a bad idea. And that time things got extremely bad. The smoke created was far worse than on Christmas night to the extent that the smoke detector kept triggering on multiple occasions, causing multiple calls from our alarm monitoring service.
They know us well now, you see. So we had to open every window and it was below freezing on that particular night. And oh my goodness, it was all quite dramatic. So I decided that I would drop an email to Travis and Zac from Brava, who were on the last episode of the podcast to say, "What are we doing wrong? What's the problem here?"
And one of the cool features of Brava is that it has a camera in the oven which records every cook. So you can go in and take a look at those for yourself. And Brava, should they need to can take a look as well.
So Brava was able to see exactly what we did and what happened and they spent half an hour with us by video call going through the issues and they were really patient and informative and it was just outstanding customer service. I think we did cover this to some extent in the last episode of Access On, but let me reiterate this.
With Brava, measuring really matters. In the case of the roast potatoes and the pork chop, we significantly underestimated the thickness of what we were cooking. And if you do that, you have the potential to do what we did and produce incredibly undesirable results.
In the Brava smart oven, thinner meat actually requires longer sear times or more direct heat from the bottom to achieve a good crust compared to thicker meat. And while that may seem counterintuitive, it's because of the physics of Brava's pure light technology and how infrared energy interacts with distance.
In a Brava, the intensity of the heat is largely determined by the distance between the food and the lamps. For example, thicker steaks sit higher on the tray, placing them closer to the top lamps because infrared energy is more concentrated at a shorter distance, thicker meat sears much faster.
Thinner cuts sit lower and are further from the heating elements. This increased distance means the light energy is less intense by the time it reaches the surface of the meat. So I ordered a tactile ruler, which is allowing us to measure the thickness of what we are cooking.
It has markings every half an inch, and that has made a huge difference to us. Brava is having a discussion internally, potentially about 3D printed tools that they might ship with the oven that would do the same thing. Some people do report that they can feel the little grooves in the temp sensor, which can also be used to measure.
I find those quite hard to discern, but this tactile ruler is doing the job really well. And the other thing that we did talk about in the last episode, but I want to emphasize how important this is because I didn't do a good job of explaining it to Bonnie when we got the Brava.
Another thing you have to be really careful with when it comes to using this, when you're cooking multiple foods in different zones, and it makes perfect sense, you've got to ensure that what you're cooking stays exclusively in the assigned zone.
This is because the Brava uses very localized infrared heat, so the temperature of what you're cooking in one zone could be very different from the temperature in another. So I hope this is helpful and that it might avoid your smoke alarm going off, but we still really enjoy cooking with the Brava. We're using it pretty much every night.
Now, it's producing great food. And now that we're a bit more informed, we're having a really good success rate with it. And if you've purchased a Brava, how are you getting on? With yours, be in touch and let us know your experiences. [email protected] is the email address to which you can attach an audio clip or write the email down, [email protected].
Over the next few weeks, we are taking the time to showcase Braille on Access On in honor of Braille Literacy Month. And we also have a boutique coming up on January the 27th at 2:00 PM Eastern from our Center of Excellence and non-visual accessibility.
It's going to be taking a look at today's Braille display technology. Braille displays are expensive and it's hard to find them all in the one place. So we're going to do our best to highlight for you some of the different Braille technologies that are out there these days.
It's not just single line or multi-line, but it's also different technologies that are used to make the Braille cells. We'll cover all of that and also some of the popular models that are available today. If you'd like to register for this, be there and ask questions and listen to it in real time. You can head over to nfb.org/cena. That's nfb.org/cena and choose the boutique and training link. You will find a link to register for this Braille display discussion on January 27th.
You will recall that in 2025, we advertised for two new accessibility excellence advocate positions. And we've already talked to one of our successful accessibility excellence advocates, and that's Ron Miller, who was in the home and independent living role.
Now, let's hear from the second. Charles Hiser is the National Federation of the Blinds Accessibility Excellence Advocate for Education and Employment. And he joins me here in the International Braille and Technology Center conference room at the Jernigan Institute.
I know that people like to geek out on this podcast. So I will say we are recording this with a couple of Sennheiser mics connected to the Zoom H6 studio. Welcome, Charles.
Charles Hiser:
Hello. Great to be here.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm sure members would want me to say welcome to the National Federation of the Blind as well. Tell me a bit about yourself and your background before you came to us.
Charles Hiser:
Well, first, let me say I have been a member of a couple of chapters in the National Federation of the Blind as well as one division. But because of the times in my life when I was a member, I was not very active in the advocacy slice of the pie as it were. So I come from Cincinnati, Ohio.
So at one point in my life, I was a member of the Cincinnati chapter, and at another point in my life, I was a member of the Akron Ohio chapter, and I was also a member of the Ohio Association of Guide Dog Users Division. So the National Federation of the Blind has been a part of my life, and I have been a part of those chapters and divisions, but this is really the first time in my life that I have been really thrown into the deep end of the organization.
And so far, I'm really enjoying it. I have never been around so many blind people that are passionate about what they do and are just so understanding and expecting the best from me, but also willing to understand that with a new position comes growing pains and have just been so kind and courteous. And I've loved my time here at the Jernigan Institute so far.
Jonathan Mosen:
Well, one of the things that really drew me to you when you applied for one of these roles was the passion that you had for it. And I think people succeed at the National Federation of the Blind when they realize that this isn't a job, it's a cause, it's a calling really.
And the things that you talk about the way that you conduct yourself really indicates that you understand that. What was it about this particular role or coming to the National Federation of the Blind that really interested you and motivated you so much?
Charles Hiser:
Well, it's funny, and Jonathan, you will know this, but I'll be candid here. I actually applied for the Home and Independent Living position first. So it's interesting that I got this role, although Ron Miller and I are working extremely closely. Our offices are right next to each other and we have conversations every single day.
So in a sense, we are two sides of the same coin advocating for excellence in everything and anything that we can. So I think that the biggest reason I applied for this role at the National Federation of the Blind is exactly what you just said, Jonathan.
I have passion for not just blind people being able to do something, but being able to do something well and having the tools to exceed in ways that people may not believe we can, simply because they look at us and apply their own low expectations to us.
And I don't think that's fair. I think that we should be given the same chance as everybody else to prove our own skills. And in order to do that, we need the same access to facilities, the same access to equipment and information.
So the reason I am so passionate about this is because I have experienced these inequalities in my own life. I have seen friends experience these inequalities, and I want to see a world in which any person, no matter your ethnicity, your disability, anything, can do whatever they want to do and the only barriers to access are learning the craft or learning the task or being educated.
The accessibility component is non-existent because accessibility standards are up to a point where you can just sit down and use your own intuition to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.
Jonathan Mosen:
To get people there though, obviously there's a lot of persuasion that's necessary and a lot of education that's necessary. And some of the work that you're doing will be very highly charged, right?
Because we're talking about people who just want to get on with their schooling or who have worked so hard to find a job, only perhaps to find that some system or other is preventing them from either taking up that job or from doing the job to their fullest potential. So these things matter really deeply, don't they? And that must be something that you think about.
Charles Hiser:
Yes, absolutely. And it's something that I find myself thinking about more as I continue on in this role. I find myself talking to members at the Jernigan Institute, staff members and NFB members alike. And I'm also really interested in hearing the perspectives of every blind person who wishes to give us a call here.
And I want to hear the struggles that people are facing. I want to know the inaccessibilities that you come across every single day. I want to understand what you want to do and what is stopping you from doing that so that we can target the advocacy toward the issues that matter to everybody today.
Jonathan Mosen:
What's your take, if I can talk about some specific technological trends of the moment on AI and the impact that it is having on the lives of blind people at the moment? I mean, it's having an impact on all of our lives, but I think there are some quite interesting and unique use cases, particularly when it comes to interpreting the visual world around us, various other things that might perhaps remediate accessibility barriers. Where do you think we're at in the AI space?
Charles Hiser:
Well, first of all, I think it's important to say that AI is here to stay no matter how you feel about it. A lot of money has been invested in AI data centers and the capabilities of these various models that we're seeing. So it is here, and I think that that means that blind people should get equal access to it so that you can use AI in the way that you want to use it.
From the perspective of blindness and AI, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is the visual interpretation. Apps like Seeing AI, for example, are very powerful tools, and the more you use them and the better you get using them, the more they enable you to do whatever you need to do. Again, they're only going to get better. AI is here, it is improving, it is constantly being worked on.
And the more that the models behind all of these apps and services improve, the better that they're going to get. I do think it's important to say too, that AI sometimes needs a little bit of coding in the sense of what language it uses and how it talks about blindness. We do not want AI to perpetuate negative stereotypes about blindness, for example.
And in the sense that AI can sometimes power products that are targeted towards certain demographics such as blind people, it is super important that the companies behind these products understand that blind people do not want to be discriminated against in any way. And I think it's very important that advocacy is put toward making sure that blind people are fairly represented in these AI products.
Jonathan Mosen:
I like to think we're making some progress. I don't know about you, but it has been a while since I've been apologized to when I point out that I'm a blind person. And when the LLMs first started coming along, you said...
Charles Hiser:
Yeah, it would happen.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm very sorry to hear that.
Charles Hiser:
All the time. All the time. Yeah.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. One of the areas where there has been... I'm detecting a little bit of a change of heart or perhaps a little bit more open-mindedness is using AI as it is today in 2026 to perhaps remediate accessibility concerns. When technologies like accessiBe first came along, part of the problem was the way that that particular company marketed itself, it really did rub people up the wrong way in the way that it kind of sold blind people down the river to try and generate revenue.
But also there was a perception that it could not compete with the work of an accessibility professional in terms of remediating some of the constraints that might be preventing a blind person from using a site or an app. The technology's evolved a lot and perhaps so is our thinking. What's your feeling about that in terms of whether it's ever appropriate to use automated solutions?
Charles Hiser:
Well, before I say anything to that, I'm still adjusting to the fact that it's 2026. So you said 2026 and I went, "Oh yeah, it is 2026."
Jonathan Mosen:
There you go. See, it's later than you think.
Charles Hiser:
It is later. Yeah. Time never stops. Okay. So remediation tools and AI, and I think this touches more broadly on using AI to code in general. I am not a web developer or an app developer, but I have friends who are, and they tell me that just like when you are using AI to write, it is important that you already have the skill to code because AI can make mistakes, AI does not write the best code.
And to narrow back down into the accessibility focus, AI does not always remediate correctly or in a way that makes sense to people using access technology. So AI is not a substitute for somebody who already knows how to code for accessibility purposes.
And AI certainly is not a substitute for the accessibility tester. You cannot run a webpage through AI and expect it to spit you back a version that is going to work perfectly with every screen reader in every browser, along with every switch control device and every magnification piece of software. It still needs human intervention. It still needs human testing. You still need to have the human component, because at the end of the day, humans are going to be the ones using these websites.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I think all of us who've used AI for anything will be able to verify that. I mean, even if you are writing something, you sometimes find that the AI just says something that isn't true. It's hallucinating. I had an experience the other day where I needed to generate a spreadsheet and I gave all the details and thought, let's see if various LLMs can have a go at this. And one of them generated the spreadsheet, but it wouldn't load into Excel because there was some sort of fundamental problem with the file format that it created.
Charles Hiser:
Yeah. And when you're talking about writing, and again, I've been told it's similar in coding, AI can be kind of formulaic in that it is getting harder to do this, but you can still tell most of the time when something has been generated by AI.
And in a similar way, if you read code that has been generated by AI, you can tell that it has been coded by AI because it follows certain prescribed formula that it believes is creating the optimal coding experience, again, in the similar way that it believes it's creating the similar written experience. But when I read written posts on Facebook, for example, I can tell if it's AI, I would probably say, I don't know, 90% of the time.
I'm probably not perfect at it, but it has a certain tone. It loses something, I think. And coders have told me similarly that code written by AI is not as creative. They don't seem to employ the niche solutions, especially when you're talking about accessibility coding that would provide the most optimal experience for a screen reader.
Jonathan Mosen:
So we're looking forward to you getting involved in education and employment related tasks. And one of the things we can reassure people about is that those resolutions that are technology focused that were passed at convention last year and recent conventions, in fact, will continue to be top of mind in terms of advocacy priorities. So I think you're kind of chomping at the bit to get going right and start that dialogue with some of the changes.
Charles Hiser:
That's exactly what I was going to say. I was even going to say chomping at the bit.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. So we're looking forward to that. And before we go, I thought it'd just be nice to learn a bit more about you personally, because you have a really interesting background.
Charles Hiser:
I do.
Jonathan Mosen:
You're a Mac user, right? So you use voiceover on the Mac.
Charles Hiser:
Yes. For most of my life, I was a Windows user. I used Windows throughout my education. I used Windows in the beginning of my employment journey, but about a year ago when I was doing accessibility testing as a job, I wanted to understand how the other side lived.
So I got a MacBook Pro and I used it consistently for exactly a year, come to think of it, until I came on here where the National Federation of the Blind uses Windows computers. But I still use my Mac at home for a lot of tasks. As a matter of fact, I spent a lot of time writing an email on it last night.
Jonathan Mosen:
There you go. And, of course, we do have a Mac at the International Braille and Technology Center as well because we keep up with trends in all of these operating systems and we are going to be doing a webinar soon on different screen reader options and we're going to delve deep.
We've had some listener requests about this, delving deep into the viability of the Mac, how you make the best use of it. So that's coming up. So your skills are going to be very handy for that one.
Charles Hiser:
Well, I'm glad I was hired with a purpose in mind.
Jonathan Mosen:
Many purposes indeed. And outside of the tech sphere, so you're a dad, which is exciting.
Charles Hiser:
I am. I have two little ones. I have a son who will be two in February and a daughter who will be one in April.
Jonathan Mosen:
That is such a great age. They're just so curious and into everything. So good luck with.
Charles Hiser:
They are fantastic kids, but they're a handful, they're kids.
Jonathan Mosen:
Oh yes, I'm sure. I've no doubt about that. Yeah. And you sing and play, right?
Charles Hiser:
I do. Again, I haven't kept up on this as much lately because I haven't had the time with two little ones and moving to Maryland from Ohio. But yes, I was a classically trained singer as a child, and a little bit later, I was a semi-classically trained violinist. I say semi because I did have some training, but I only played in my high school orchestra. I didn't do it professionally like I did with my singing.
But yes, I am a musician. I do have some interest in knowing that my music will be recorded well and sound good. So in that sense, I also am a tech enthusiast of audio equipment and audio engineering, though I do not have those skills just yet, but I'm developing them.
Jonathan Mosen:
So you make your own music? Do you write your own things?
Charles Hiser:
I have dabbled in composing, but I've never recorded anything. But one of the things that I would really like to explore over the next couple of years as we settle into living here in Baltimore is setting up some kind of home studio.
Jonathan Mosen:
Oh, that's a lot of fun. That's a bottomless pit in the money department. I can tell you that.
Charles Hiser:
Tell me about it. I have expensive hobbies. This is one.
Jonathan Mosen:
Me too.
Charles Hiser:
The other expensive hobby that I've really gotten into is aviation. I'm an aviation enthusiast, and for my birthday last year, one of my presents was a couple of hours flying in a Cessna 172. That was a lot of fun. But again, that's a bottomless pit. You can spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on just getting private pilots to take you flying.
So it's a lot. And then I've been talking to members here at the Jernigan Institute who are ham radio enthusiasts, which also has crossover in aviation in the sense that both of them require a lot of understanding of radio. So I don't know if I'm going to get into ham radio, but it is interesting to talk to people about.
Jonathan Mosen:
There are quite a few blind people who are into ham radio, and we will do a feature on this on Access On at some point and talk about some of the latest and greatest technologies. It's one of those things where people think ham radio has probably had its day, but of course it still comes into its own in search and rescue situations and-
Charles Hiser:
Right.
Jonathan Mosen:
... just for general communications. And it has kept up with the times. It's computerized. There's a lot of technology out there and it's kind of just cool to use radio waves to talk to someone on the other side of the world. So we are going to be hearing a lot from you on Access On in the future, and we look forward to that.
We're delighted to have you on board and we look forward to you making a difference on behalf of members of the National Federation of the Blind and blind people all around the world.
Charles Hiser:
I'm looking forward to it, too. And I'm also looking forward to learning from blind people all around the world because I have a lot that I bring to the table, but I also understand that in order to advocate effectively, I need to know what needs to be advocated for. So I'm looking forward to everybody reaching out to me and telling me what you want to see from us.
Speaker 5:
Walking Alone and Marching Together is a podcast series that brings to life the history of the National Federation of the Blind from 1940 to 1990, based on the comprehensive book of the same name. This podcast is designed to make the rich and complex story of our movement more accessible, engaging, and immediate.
Speaker 6:
The book, Walking Alone and Marching Together, has been available in nearly every format imaginable, but its sheer size and depth can make it daunting to approach. That's why we're bringing it to you in a multi-episode podcast, breaking it down into manageable, compelling chapters that allow you to experience the history in a way that fits into your life.
Instead of simply looking back on events that happened decades ago, our goal is to immerse you in the times, challenges, and triumphs of the organized blind movement as they unfolded.
Speaker 5:
Episodes are coming out fall of 2025. Subscribe and follow now.
Speaker 6:
National Federation of the Blind, live the life you want.
Jonathan Mosen:
It's something that people have wanted for years. A multi-line Braille display, some of us even started calling it the holy Braille, and we have it. It is called Monarch. It is a collaborative venture between APH, HumanWare, and the National Federation of the Blind. And to talk about progress with Monarch, I'm sitting here in the Jernigan Institute with Greg Stilson from APH. Welcome to the Jernigan... Well, welcome back, Greg. You're here a lot.
Greg Stilson:
I am. Thank you so much for having me again.
Jonathan Mosen:
It's nice to have you here. So tell me about the journey of the Monarch. It's out there now. It's in people's hands. What are you hearing? How's it going?
Greg Stilson:
We have nearly 1,400 devices in the wild being used by students, teachers, professionals, trainers globally. And you're right, it's been a journey, right? This journey started in 2020 when we put out the request for information. Basically, we put out a request asking our partners, companies, mainstream and assistive tech companies to open up their NDAs for us and tell us kind of some of the top secret Braille stuff they were working on.
We had the goal of developing a multi-line tactile intelligent display. And we went from learning about what's out there and we saw a number of prototypes that were not ready for primetime and it was the partnership of HumanWare and Dot Incorporated out of South Korea that really brought this magic to life or this dream to reality, I guess.
We had these sort of specifications, we had the vision of what we wanted to see, but honestly, the technology didn't exist to bring what we have today forward. So yeah, that partnership with Dot and HumanWare, along with the National Federation of the Blind later on in the journey really was what made this happen.
Jonathan Mosen:
I don't know how much Dot have released publicly about their Braille technology, but it's different, isn't it? I mean, it feels different, but also it's a lot lighter than the piezoelectric cells. And that is a significant factor when you've got line after line of Braille.
Greg Stilson:
Yeah. You know more than most, Jonathan, about the piezoelectrics, right?
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah.
Greg Stilson:
Most people think that those cells, what you see is just the cells and that's it. And the reality is there's a whole, I don't know, inch piece of technology that goes called the back panel that goes behind those cells. And so stacking these cells in the fashion that we have with the Dot cells just wasn't possible.
The most you could ever do with those cells is two lines because you have this additional technology that supports the movement of the piezoelectric cells. The interesting part about the Dot cell is it's really what you see is what you get. The cells are extremely thin. I'm not going to say paper thin, but they're not very thick at all.
And we can sort of assemble them like Legos next to each other. And so you can create different spacing. In our case, we've created a tactile array that's equidistant pins apart, but the way that we've done it is we've got a sort of algorithm that we skip certain numbers of columns between characters to represent the typical Braille spacing.
So with the piezoelectric or even some of the other technology breakthroughs beforehand, this type of equidistant pin configuration while keeping the pins, the traditional height just wasn't a reality.
Jonathan Mosen:
And one of the challenges that's held a lot of this technology back for the longest time has been finding technology that feels like Braille to a good, fast Braille reader. So you can read it at speed, and this definitely does.
But when people come to the International Braille and Technology Center where they can put their hands on a Monarch, they definitely feel that it is different in some way.
And one of the things that seems to have resonated when I talk to people about this, I say to me, it feels a little bit like thermoform. And then they say, "Yeah, maybe that is what it feels like," and they don't notice it after a short time.
Greg Stilson:
Yeah. And the reason you feel that is because HumanWare and Dot worked together for years before this partnership started to really refine their Dot cell feel. If you remember the early Dot Watch pin configurations were very close together, the pins felt too sharp to many people and HumanWare and Dot work together to refine that Braille pin, if you will, so that it feels as close, at least the touch of the pin feels as close to piezoelectric as you can get. What you feel that kind of feels, I'm going to use the term thermoformy, but it is the membrane that goes over the top. My feeling is that it does feel like that texture. However, it doesn't get as sticky as thermoform typically.
Jonathan Mosen:
Or squeaky
Greg Stilson:
Or squeaky. You got it. Exactly. So for those of you who have texture challenges and things like that, it is not, because that was something that would really put me off was I hated reading Braille on thermoform just because if your fingers got at all sweaty or there was any moisture in the air, you would get that squeakiness.
And you don't get like that on the Monarch's membrane, but that membrane is there for a very specific reason. The pin technology that's used in the Dot cell is electromagnetic. And so there's a magnet that is basically flipping a cam inside that cell.
The slightest amount of dust or what often happens when reading Braille is finger oils, the slightest amount that gets in there would prevent the pin from not flipping correctly. And so that membrane is crucial and it is essential for this technology to work.
I also am really proud to say, checked with our repair team before coming out here that we have nearly 1,400 units in the wild, each consisting of 480 cells. We've received two devices each with one cell back to get repaired. That is repair numbers in the refreshable Braille world that is just unheard of.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yes, it will be unheard of in any other kind of display. So there are some caveats with this technology at the moment. And one of the things that I really notice probably because of my use case. So I do a lot of audio production and sometimes that audio production is time sensitive, like if I'm trying to speak to a 60-second piece or something like that.
What I can't do right now is leave my finger on the time and see it ticking over because you've got to have your finger off the display before the display will refresh. Is that something that you ever think will be fixed with this technology or is it just sort of how it is and we just get used to that?
Greg Stilson:
It's a good question. And it was one of our initial real concerns about the technology. The dot cell, as you pointed out, your finger prevents it from applying the amount of force that it needs to raise that cell. Many folks have probably seen the Dot Pad X, the new Dot Pad, and that does have a faster refresh rate.
However, what we notice is that that refresh rate may look really fast. However, your finger still can block those pins. So even as Dot has done a great job as improving the technology, your use case of resting your finger on that Dot Pad X to feel it ticking along still doesn't fix it.
You still have to lift your finger up and then put it back down. I don't know if that's something... When you look at it, it's a problem with physics. Do we have enough space to create the amount of force to flip that cam with a magnet?
These guys at Dot are way smarter than me, when it comes to physics. So if it was an easy problem to solve, they probably would've already solved it. So I don't have an answer for you. What I can say is we are currently doing as much as we can in the software side.
So one of the things that we have on the Monarch is the finger detection through the touch sensor. And so we know where your fingers are. And so ensuring that when you lift your finger up or lift your hand up, that we are able to fix those pins immediately, that's something that we're doing in the short term.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's talk about why anyone would want this because I'm sure there are people saying, "Look, I've been using refreshable Braille for all this time and my single line of 20 or 40, or if you're really lucky, 80 cells has been sufficient."
And I think the best way to tackle this question might be to look at some specific use cases. So could we talk first about the Monarch in education? And I think it's fair to say that was really the catalyst for APH creating this, right? Is to get this under kids' fingertips.
Greg Stilson:
You got it. Yeah. The federal funding mechanism was there for education. We also knew that multi-line Braille immediately had tremendous uses in education. And for APH, being the largest producer of textbooks in the country, for us, it's an easier delivery method to also deliver textbooks or content electronically and create a cheaper path to getting material for teachers and students, right?
Jonathan Mosen:
Is it necessarily though, because would it not be possible without Monarch to simply get a textbook to a child who would just open it up on their regular old 40 cell note taker?
Greg Stilson:
So it's a great question, right? So you think about when you use a textbook. So much of the way that you interact with a textbook is via skim reading, right? You're looking for indentations, you're looking for paragraphs, you're looking for headings, you're looking for tables, right? And a lot of the textbooks that we deliver to students can be STEM oriented, right?
And so STEM textbooks require significant amounts of formatting. You think of even in literature, poetry requires a significant amount of spatial formatting. And really that's what Braille formatting, Braille transcription is manipulating the space on the page to convey meaning. When we look at a textbook, there's so much more than just the content that you're absorbing.
You're absorbing what is important because it's in a box or you're discerning what is centered, what is right justified. And on a single line Braille display, you miss out on a lot of that content because you're seeing it sort of as a ticker tape, if that makes sense.
Jonathan Mosen:
And then, of course, there's graphical content and the concerns that the Federation and others have had for a long time about having more tools in the toolbox to ensure that kids can participate fully in STEM subjects. Can you tell us a bit about graphics on Monarch and how that's going, how kids are receiving that?
Greg Stilson:
So we just looked at our stats for 2020. Well, we run in a fiscal year, so our fiscal year ends at the end of September. And we looked at our fiscal year 25 and what was incredible is this was the first full year that Monarch had been in existence. And what we learned was that over 48% of the graphics that were downloaded from the Tactile Graphics Image Library, that's over 19,000 graphics were from Monarch users directly.
What that shows us is that there is a tremendous demand for instant tactile graphics, right? And it's a way that students have just never had access to really feeling what something looks like just by searching a database, right? I'm a blind person myself and I always had to wait for a graphic to be delivered to me.
Having the power of being able to search a library like this, maybe you're a Lord of the Rings fan and you wanted to see what the Middle Earth map looked like.
Well, you can go on the Tactile Graphics Image Library tomorrow and search for Middle Earth and you'll see it right there. And we don't have everything, but one of the things that we are shifting our model in the Tactile Graphics Image Library is that library was originally created for tactile artists to have templates to draw on, to create their own.
So if you wanted to create say a clock face and you could download the template, the tactile template of a clock, and then you could put the hands wherever you wanted. That was the original model of the TGIL. But now, what we're finding is that folks want to see... I had a kid the other day, I said, "Hey, do you want to see an image of a car?"
Because he told me he was into vehicles and he said, "Do you have a 2001 Dodge Charger?" And I said, "Okay, that's awfully specific, but no, I don't." But that's the world that I want to get to is kids could literally, what they want to see, they could feel.
Jonathan Mosen:
So it is not possible at the moment, say, to open up a JPEG on the Monarch and just see what it does.
Greg Stilson:
Not a visual JPEG. So I think that that's really the dream and that's really where AI comes in, is being able to take a visual image. What I don't want to see, and this is where we've seen some of the players in the space go, is I don't want to see a tactile graphics being just simply an outline drawing.
Whenever you talk to folks who are in the sighted world, they think that, "Oh, well, all they need to see is just an outlined drawing and that's it." The Braille Authority of North America released tactile graphic standards for a reason.
And you think about the textbooks that you used in school, there are very strategic placements of point symbols and Braille labels and things like that, simply looking at an outline of a visual graphic. I would love to test this with a number of blind people because I feel like the reality is many would not understand what that is without any context.
Jonathan Mosen:
So at the moment then, the way to get graphics is to use the library that's built in, and that's the exclusive way to get them at the moment.
Greg Stilson:
That's one. We also offer a tool that we call Wing It. It's a way to pair a smartphone or an iPad with the Monarch. And so what that does is it allows a peer, sighted peer, blind peer to draw anything on that glass surface and whatever is drawn is going to be replicated on the Monarch instantaneously.
And what's really cool about this is that the use case is often gen ed teacher forgot to provide a graphic ahead of time to the teacher of the visually impaired. What this does is it allows that teacher or the teacher of the visually impaired or even a sighted classmate or blind classmate to draw on the iPad screen.
You can add labels even without knowing Braille. So for example, I can draw, let's say they're looking at determining, is this angle acute or obtuse? You could draw the angle and then label it A, B and C or however you want to label it.
When you're labeling, the user doesn't have to know Braille. When you tap the label button on your iPad, it will pop up the iOS keyboard. You type in whatever that label is and we translate that into a Braille label instantaneously.
There is such a shortage of impromptu learning tools out there. And don't get me wrong, our teachers, the visually impaired are incredibly creative people, but I always joke that they carry around their Mary Poppins bags to pull out their Wikki Stix or their bump-ons or whatever they're doing.
So we thought that this was a great opportunity to be able to create an impromptu learning graphical tool as well.
Jonathan Mosen:
Wing It is a lot of fun. And I actually find that as a blind person, just drawing is kind of fun to just draw, doodle around and see what comes up on the Monarch. It's not a freedom that many of us have had before.
Greg Stilson:
Right. I will say, when we demonstrated Wing It at the 2025 National Convention, the number one thing that we had people doing on the iPhone or the iPad was they would draw their signature and the amount of people that had never felt what their signature looked like was incredible. And so it was just one of those moments where you had an aha moment there.
Jonathan Mosen:
Let's talk about some of the resistance because I know that at the national convention presentation that Anne Lancaster gave, she addressed some of this. And one of the things that we are hearing is people saying, "I'm reluctant to give a kid a device this expensive because if they break it, what's going to happen?" All that kind of stuff.
How do you get around the fact that this is an expensive device, these kids are young, they're going to knock them about, and people perceive risk in there?
Greg Stilson:
I hear that concern. Number one, when we built this device, we knew that we were building it for kids. So we've done drop tests. I'm not going to say it's not going to break, but these kids are handed, many of them are handed iPads with glass screens as early as two years old.
And so there's always been this resistance of handing blind kids assistive technology and allowing them to take it home and things like that. And the reality is, I mean, my third-grader can take home her Chromebook and she's sighted.
And so I really have a problem with gatekeeping this technology because so much unintentional learning happens at home. And I think this fear, yes, it is expensive and APH and HumanWare stand by our warranties. It's a two-year warranty on this device. We stand by the technology that's in it as well.
So I think this is a situation where one of the first things you look at is, would you not let a sighted kid take their technology home or would you not let the sighted kid not take their technology from class to class?
And in most cases, they allow the sighted population to do that. And so gatekeeping it is a real challenge. But like I said, APH is very good at taking care of their customers. We ensured that we had at least a two-year warranty and any of the students who are in the Monarch student pilot project, we automatically cover additional accidental breaks because we don't want anybody being restricted to use these devices.
Jonathan Mosen:
You make comments about there being cost savings over time if a kid gets a Monarch early in their education. Have you been able to quantify those? Are there studies that you've done that you can give to public policy makers and fund holders?
Greg Stilson:
We are actually putting together a white paper on this. One of the things that you don't immediately reduce yet of a textbook is the transcription cost. So having a human transcriber doing the transcription, what you are able to reduce is the binding, the packaging, the embossing and the shipping of the actual physical paper.
And unfortunately, we don't always get bumped to the front of the line when you ship free matter for the blind. And so where you save is, we estimate about 6,000 dollars every time that emboss copy is run. And APH typically would eat some of that cost as well for somebody getting a printed textbook from APH, but we estimate about 6,000 dollars a textbook.
Now, if you assume that a student has six classes every semester, the device is already paid for itself just if each one of those classes has a textbook. So in addition, we're also able to deliver content... In addition, we're also able to deliver content, textbooks, and other curriculum wirelessly and digitally, right? So there's no longer needing to wait for your textbook to get shipped or any of that kind of stuff. We can deliver it via a download link and you can have it on your device immediately.
Jonathan Mosen:
Young sighted kids love their multimedia content and it can be incredibly impactful for learning. And this is also a possibility with Monarch in the sense that it's not just all reading textbooks and looking at graphs. Kids can have the same fun, accessible way of learning and playing at the same time.
Greg Stilson:
You got it. And I think that this is where I'm most excited about. So often our blind students are not given the same learn through play opportunities that their sighted peers have. And one of the things that we took the initiative on really early was creating a software development kit for the Monarch so that APH and HumanWare aren't the only companies developing content for this platform.
And I call it a platform because that's really what it is. It's a tactile platform that content can be created for. And so, one of the exciting partnerships that we established this year was with PBS Kids has a series called Cyberchase, and one of their games that they have available for their PBS Kids app everywhere and on the web is Cyberchase Echo Explorer.
And I think that this is one of the perfect examples of what a tactile educational game can be because it combines tactile graphics, it combines a game board where you can physically move a character around.
It provides Braille content, so you're reading the content, but it also has audio sound effects and great music and all that kind of stuff that is super engaging. And we're going to be releasing that along with a few other apps in early 2026. Where are we at? 2026. And our target is January.
We're going to have a number of different games and apps that are going to be launched in addition to what I call the foundation software of Keysoft that goes on the Monarch. So I think that's the most exciting piece.
You all have seen most likely the chess game that's on there that just is the tip of the iceberg of what we can do. But I think there's so much more to come on how we can create engaging educational experiences for students through play.
Jonathan Mosen:
I've seen a lot more excitement creeping in among blind adults since screen reader started deploying support for the Monarch earlier in 2025. What are you learning about the way that adults can benefit from this much Braille real estate?
Greg Stilson:
Every screen reader is going to implement multi-line support differently. And in my opinion, it's a great thing to experience because we're now seeing some really incredible innovation around multi-line Braille. So you can implement multi-line Braille by just treating the Monarch as a 320 cell display, word wrapping and things like that. And that's how you can use it in some environments.
But the folks at Vispero, as an example, implemented some modes of using multi-line Braille in the Monarch in very unique ways. So you're able to do what they call cropped mode, which allows you to format a table in a table form. So you can actually feel the rows, the columns, the cells.
You can point and click within a cell and then expand it. If you're looking at an Excel spreadsheet, you can point and click and reveal the formula or whatever the content is in there.
But they've also implemented split mode, which I think is one that is really unique. And I see different people using it different ways and in different use cases, where you're able to select how much of the display real estate you want to give to one app and then select how much you want to give to the other app.
So if you're only looking at saying you want to keep the clock on the top of single line, you can do that. Well, you have your Microsoft Word document on the lower portion of your Monarchs so that if you want to make sure that you're presenting and giving good keeping time, you can do that as well. So there's a number of different ways, and I sort of attribute it to the way that sighted people use multiple monitors.
Jonathan Mosen:
But it's expensive, Greg, isn't it? I mean, this is the elephant in the room, right? The elephant in the two blind men. I mean, it costs a lot of money this thing. And we all know if we've been listening to technology podcasts about blindness over the years, why that is, you have to spread the cost of development among a smaller number of units and all that sort of thing, but it's not cheap.
So how do we get those who might fund these items, both in education, in voc rehab, whatever, to a point where they understand the value prop of this for employment and education so it's under the fingertips of more people?
Greg Stilson:
It's a great question and it is the elephant in the room. I don't sugarcoat that it is expensive. Much of the first of its kind technology in our field was extremely expensive. The one that is often quoted is that the Kurzweil reading machine was over 25,000 dollars when it first came out back in what, the early '80s or mid '80s, something like that.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I think it goes back to the '70s.
Greg Stilson:
'70s. There you go. So you think about 25,000 dollars in 1970s money, that's a lot of money, right? Cost will come down, especially as we get more of these devices out there. Today, I would encourage parents, teachers, and students to ensure that they get in touch with their ex officio trustee in their state.
That's the person who manages the APH funds and just write a justification letter on why the student would benefit from Monarch. And I can tell you that in just early literacy, students will want to read more on an electronic device like this. It's going to be more engaging.
It's going to be a vehicle to get more content under their fingertips faster. And you look at it, right? I have a nine-year-old daughter who's sighted. She rarely at school is reading physical textbooks anymore. Most of it is now on a Chromebook or on a screen of some sort, which I'm sure they're going to do a psychological study afterwards and determine how that affected their learning patterns.
But she tells me all the time that she's reading on her Chromebook or a tablet or something at school. And I look at that as the equivalent to what we provide our blind students today.
She's still getting a full formatted page of text on this visual screen, but if we limit our students to one line, and don't get me wrong, one line of Braille is better than no Braille at all, but if you limit a student to one single line of Braille, they're not going to get the formatting information and they're not going to understand the proofreading capability or the editing capability that you can do with multiple lines.
And there are alternative ways of doing it. You can still have them looking at paper, textbooks, and using a Perkins Brailler. And I'm not saying any of those things are wrong. What I'm saying is that if the technology is there and the funding is there, this is the tool that's going to provide them the equal access to that information.
So I start there and have teachers, students speak to their ex officio trustee. Every state has one or two of them. For college students and professionals, this can absolutely be funded through voc rehab.
I've coached several students, especially in college, on how to write justification letters to voc rehab, specifically citing unique things that this does. And I would say number one is electronic delivery of textbook for faster and cheaper access to the textbook.
Number two is if you have a student who's all in STEM, access to the Desmos graphing calculator, they're going to have to utilize that, and it provides access to a tactile image or a tactile graph that you create, unlike anything that you've ever had before.
Because one of the things that we always had to do, or I always had to do as a blind person is I would have to create my graphs using Wikki Stix and a physical piece of Braille graph paper with the axes on there.
And you would plot your points and you would put your Wikki Stix to connect the dots or whatever you decide to do and you never knew if that was right or wrong. You also didn't know what would happen if you changed that graph. So if I change the minus one to a plus one, how would that impact the graph?
And now I have to pull my Wikki Stix off and then regraph it. Here, you can write an equation in your Nemeth or UEB math code, you can choose to graph it, and instantaneously, it will show you what that graph looks like. It'll show you where the X and Y intercepts are.
And if you need to change it, you can go back and change that and regraphs it on the fly. That in and of itself, I always tell people access to STEM through Monarch because of the math integration with the Microsoft Word that we have on here along with the Desmos graphing calculator really creates a solution that's unlike anything else.
Jonathan Mosen:
So on the one hand, it's an equity issue that if sighted kids can read in full page electronic text, then blind people are just as worthy and they should be able to do the same. And then the second is that question of cost efficiencies to be gained over time. So when you look at them both like that, it's a very strong case.
I have seen adults who have saved up or made some sacrifices, got a loan even to buy a Monarch because they were just so excited. It was the kind of device they'd waited for forever and actually reading about their journey with the Monarch that they have bought, sometimes that considerable sacrifice is really amazing the way that it's changed their lives.
If you're out there doing your job with your 40 cell Braille display, how do you pitch it to say, "Well, actually I'd be better off for the Monarch."
Greg Stilson:
As the device is today, we're continuing to build because of the development of the SDK and partnerships, you're going to see this device grow exponentially. We didn't have Wing It a year ago, and now that's there. We're going to be releasing a periodic table app here in January.
So the value of the device and the use cases it's going to support are growing exponentially, including one of the most common features that we're being asked for, which is cloud storage. So one of the things that you mentioned, Jonathan, is in a workplace.
Workplace is used cloud storage, and that's something that we're going to be bringing to the Monarch in January as well, is access to Office 365 or cloud storage and Google Drive as well. But I will say to your question, there's a number of vocations that really lend itself to the Monarch.
If you're doing a lot in Excel, that's a big use case to use your Monarch with JAWS because you are able to see and quickly browse a spreadsheet with your finger. Rather than having to arrow through each cell or each row, you're able to just scan that screen, pan up and down and find where you want to actually click in and do some work.
If you are doing any type of proofreading, I've heard really good stories about Braille proofreading if you are a Braille proofreader. We have some UI designers that really have taken advantage of Wing It to sort of structure their user interface design.
So there are some significant use cases there that can be justified for such a tool. If you present a lot, I can tell you firsthand presenting on a multi-line Braille display or reading a speech is a much better experience than trying to do it on a single line display because you can scan read down a margin and find your next bullet point, find your next section that you want to speak to. So there are several use cases that absolutely can be justified.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. I have been reading from electronic Braille for every public presentation I have delivered since 1996. So for me, using a Monarch daily as I do now, it was an adjustment actually initially, because you just get so used to it. It's muscle memory having that one line of Braille. Now that I am used to it, I wouldn't want to go back because it's even little things like I have to read a lot as you can appreciate for airing on this podcast, for example, and I get listener emails or I'm reading from a script or something like that.
And there are times when I go back now, I might just go back up a line and just confirm that I read what I thought I read. You can do that by panning back, but it's not as fluid and it slows you down. And in the case of recording something, you might have to stop and go back and start recording again. So it has definitely improved my efficiency and productivity in those sorts of environments.
Greg Stilson:
Yeah. I think that the Monarch can do a number of things. It has an email client, it has internet, it has all those type of things. I think the number one use case that I love hearing about is people refalling in love with reading. And I've read so many stories about people who they start reading and it takes them a little bit to get used to the Braille spacing or the dots or whatever it is.
And then after a day or so, they start to really read like they would read on paper. And I think that that is something that always touches me a little bit, because when we built this device, we said the number one thing that it has to do is feel like you're reading a piece of paper.
To me, that is the greatest excitement that I can get is knowing that we pretty much achieved that goal and now folks can have access to as many literature books or textbooks or whatever that they need. And it feels like reading on paper.
Jonathan Mosen:
For such a major investment, you want to know that it's evolving, that it's being maintained. And I can say I've been using a Monarch for a year now and I have seen it become a lot more stable and I've seen it become a lot more capable.
And you've already teased some of the new things that are coming cloud storage. What about the ability to pair with your iPhone or Android device for that matter via Bluetooth? Currently, the terminal mode only supports USB. Is that something that's coming?
Greg Stilson:
Yes. Yep. So in version 1.4, we will support Bluetooth terminal. Apple is currently, they do have the protocol. They are working with the device, but as typical Apple does, they don't tell us when it's available yet.
So we hope to see that in the next 26 point something release, but the Bluetooth protocol is supported. So you'll be able to pair immediately with JAWS or NVDA right off the bat.
Jonathan Mosen:
Anything else you can tell us about that's not too far away?
Greg Stilson:
Down the road, one of the things that we know is a need, and especially in the classroom, is if students are using this on a daily basis, they do get tested and they have assessments and things like that that they need to do. And oftentimes you'll be using one device for your daily work and then the assessment will require that you use something completely different to be assessed on.
And I think it's one of the biggest challenges that our blind students face is getting assessed sadly on the technology use rather than the content from the assessment. And so, one of the things that we're doing is working with some of the larger assessment companies here in the United States to support Monarch through their assessment platforms.
And I can't say much more beyond that, but just know that that is a big path forward that we are working with those partners on and making sure that the students, if they are using a Monarch during the day, that they could use that also through their assessments.
Jonathan Mosen:
You mentioned the Dot Pad X earlier, and that's interesting because Dot Incorporated is an OEM, an original equipment manufacturer supplying you with Braille cells, but they've also gone into the retail market by coming up with Dot Pad X and they're marketing that here in the United States. Is that an uncomfortable position to be in?
Greg Stilson:
You're a great interviewer, Jonathan Mosen. Listen, Dot, they are a great partner in working with us on the specifications that we have. I know that they also have obligations to their own shareholders and things like that and directions that they need to go. So I think the devices are very different. I always sort of equate one to a PC compared to one to a refreshable Braille display like we have today.
The Monarch is a fully intelligent computer and the Dot Pad is a display for something else. I think they both have their place and the technology that Dot has created is on its own. It is the best thing that's available for multi-line Braille today, and we are incredibly happy to be working with them.
Jonathan Mosen:
Are you confident that since this device is running Android, it's not going to get into a position where networks may refuse to let it connect because the operating system is getting a little old?
Greg Stilson:
We are already looking at that and there will be an Android update coming in 2026. The nice thing is that because this device is so different, it's nothing that would fit into the Google Play Store box today. The support isn't available. Having the content that would work with a multi-line experience isn't available through Google yet.
So having to go an uncertified route the way that we have also allows us to be more flexible in being able to update quickly. And so we're confident that we'll be able to continue updating Android as needed.
Jonathan Mosen:
Well, we will continue to focus on this wonderful world of multi-line Braille. The Monarch is the leading device in this category for sure in terms of just all of the things that it does. So we'll keep focusing on that and other devices. And we look forward to having you back on the podcast in future to discuss how Monarch is evolving. I really appreciate that.
Greg Stilson:
Thank you so much for having me and look forward to the next time.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's Greg Stilson. We are going to be featuring a demonstration of the Monarch. Since it talks, it's an easy device to demonstrate. We'll do that next week, but in the meantime, if you want to find out more about the Monarch, you can go to aph.org/product/monarch.
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].
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