Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind the source for blindness news and information since 1907

The first accessible iPhone came out almost four years ago. Before that, there was talks and Mobile Speak. Accessible cell phones are not new, but what is new is that most of us are buying phones that we can either use out of the box or install free software that makes them accessible. A new company called Odin Mobile is touting itself as the cell phone carrier for the blind. The question is, do we need something like this, or does this move away from the philosophy of universal design?

According to an article in CNET, the company is going to start out by selling three different phones. The Huawei is a phone that is supposedly designed with the blind in mind. It is a smart phone based on the Android operating system. Features will include simple gestures, GPS navigation, and object recognition. The phone will cost $300. This is more than an iPhone and will probably have less functionality. The other two phones are feature phones that have higher contrast screens and larger numbers.

From one perspective I can see that this might be a good option for seniors who are losing their vision, but on the other hand, good design is better for everyone, as opposed to something designed for a small percentage of the population.

Read all the details by visiting this link: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-6452_7-57587793/newly-minted-odin-mobile-sells-phones-for-the-blind/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title

If you have an opinion about whether we need a cell phone carrier for the blind please leave your comments in the reader’s forum.

It’s taken a very long time, but more and more television shows are trying to reach out to all kinds of groups. There are now more racially diverse and gay characters, but there are still very few characters with disabilities. Two of the most famous that come to mind are Auggie from Covert Affairs who is blind, and Tyrion Lanister from Game of Thrones who is a midget. In both of these cases, the actors do a very good job of demonstrating that their disability does not define them, but over the years, many shows that have featured disabled characters have done a very poor job of making the characters realistic.

Coming this fall to NBC, there will be three new shows that feature characters with disabilities. Michael J. Fox returns to television playing a news anchor that has Parkinson’s disease, Blaire Underwood will be playing a detective who uses a wheelchair, and finally, J.K. Simmons will be playing a blind father. In only one of these cases is the actor actually disabled. I believe that Michael will do a fantastic job of continuing to bring awareness to the struggles of having Parkinson’s, but there is a danger that the two able bodied actors will continue to enforce the stereotypes because they can only identify with their characters to a certain level.

For me, the biggest concern I have with the new show The Family Guy, which features J.K. Simmons playing a blind dad is that it’s a sitcom. I worry that this means that his blindness may be the butt of many of the jokes. Based on the description from NBC’s website, the character of Mel Fisher is the kind of guy who does not let his blindness get in his way, but we’ll see what the show actually ends up being like when it starts airing in the fall. The character will also have a guide dog, and it is my sincere hope that the producers do their research and that J.K. is properly trained on how to work with a guide, and that a real guide dog will be playing the part.

I find it a shame that NBC was not able to find a blind actor to play in this role, but I hope that the show helps people identify with the blind community in ways we haven’t seen before. To learn more about the new shows visit this link: http://www.nbc.com/the-family-guide/#About

Information is power. As we all know, the more information we have access to, the more likely we are to be independent and successful. Access to the written word has improved tremendously for those in the United States especially now that the Kindle collection is accessible, but the same is not true around the world. There is currently a treaty that most of the world plans to sign that will give blind people around the world access to more written material then they have ever had. The treaty though may end up restricting access rather than adding access if for-profit companies have their way. This week I received an email from Bookshare urging me to sign two petitions to keep the treaty in its current form so that libraries like Bookshare won’t be in danger.

One of the proposed changes to the treaty is a clause that says if a book can be purchased then it can’t be borrowed. This clause could potentially eliminate services such as Bookshare, and possibly make it impossible for blind people around the world to have access to material that is loaned rather then bought. Part of the text from the petition on the White House’s website reads as follows: “Less than 1% of printed works globally are accessible to the blind. This is because laws around the world bar printed material from being turned into formats useable by the blind and visually impaired, or for such material to be shared across borders. That’s why 186 countries will soon convene in Morocco to finalize a Treaty that would empower the world’s nearly 300 million blind citizens with the same rights to read, learn, and earn that the sighted enjoy. However, huge and powerful corporations – many wholly unaffected by the proposed Treaty – are working to fatally weaken it or block its adoption.”

There is also a petition that you can sign from the NFB. Find it at this link: https://nfb.org/civicrm/petition/sign?sid=2

I am grateful to live in a country where my access to the written word continues to grow, but I think that we have to give that same access to every blind person around the world. Please add your name to these petitions and help our government realize how important this issue is.

Spring is my favorite time of year. It’s the time when my plants start popping up again in my garden and it’s also the time to start planting food. This past week my husband and I planted lettuce, arugula, tomatoes, onions, and strawberries. There is nothing quite like going out to your backyard and picking food that you grew yourself. Unfortunately most of us are not able to grow all the fruits and vegetables in our own gardens. Thankfully though many farmers around the country have Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs at their farms.

If you are like me and live in a place with lots of farms, it is good to shop around when deciding what CSA to participate in. For those that are not familiar with what a CSA is, here’s how it works. Local farmers offer a certain number of shares to the public. A share is usually a box of fruits and vegetables, but it can also be other things like cheese. You then purchase the share for a fee and you get a box of food each week. The benefit to the farmer is having income that they can count on for the season and the benefit to the consumer is having access to fresh local produce. To learn more about CSA’s in your area, visit this link and put in your location information: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Another great option to get local produce is “you pick” farms. Every summer I look forward to spending time at one of my local blueberry farms. I get more blueberries than I could ever want and they’re at a price you can’t beat. The way a “you pick” farm works is just like it sounds. You pay a fee for the food you buy, but it’s at a reduced cost because you picked the food yourself. Visit this link to help find “you pick” options in your area: http://www.pickyourown.org

Enjoy finding produce in your area to support local farmers, and if you have good gardening tips, share them in the reader’s forum.

One of the amazing things about technology is how many challenges it can solve. Come up with something that you have trouble doing and there might just be a researcher out there that’s trying to find a solution. I recently came across three new projects that are in the works that could make the lives of the visually impaired much easier.

Optical Character Recognition has come a long way and continues to get more accurate and faster, but you are still limited to using a camera or a flat bed scanner. Imagine having access to OCR in a pair of glasses. This is the idea that a group of students from Florida International University are working on. Their project is called iTalk, and the way the technology works is similar to the OCR apps on your phone, but instead the camera is in a set of glasses you wear. This means we could interact with pretty much anything that has text. Imagine going to the store and picking up a box of cereal and reading the label right then and there. To learn more about this exciting project visit http://eyes4blind.com

The next project is called Access Lens and is similar, but it relies on the user using a set of gestures to interact with the text. This youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyBT4e_PoK8&feature=youtu.be demonstrates how the technology works. The user first takes a picture of the item with text, then you would actually read the paper by touching it. The video shows a person interacting with a map by actually feeling the map. This kind of technology could open the doors to having better access to printed materials, especially those that are spatial like a map or a diagram. To read more about the project visit this link: http://www.wearabletechworld.com/topics/wearable-tech/articles/336638-access-lens-breakthrough-wearable-tech-the-blind.htm

Finally, a new app is being developed by a team at UC Santa Cruz that will help the visually impaired take better pictures. There are many features in the app including a simple swipe up gesture that takes the picture and audio cues that tell how many faces are in the picture frame, as well as how to focus the picture. The app also will make a 30 second audio file to help with picture sharing. It will record who is in the photo as well as where the picture was taken. The app will be discussed at an upcoming conference and hopefully it will be available soon. This app would make me want to take pictures more often. To read more visit this link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23516-app-helps-blind-photographers-take-the-perfect-snap.html

Access to the written word for those of us with print disabilities has only continued to get better as technology has improved. Not that long ago, our community only had access to 5 percent of published material. Organizations like Bookshare and the Gutenberg Library project increased this number, but there were still so many books that remained out of reach. Once the IOS platform became accessible, the number of available books increased further with access to iBooks and recently the Nook collection from Barnes and Noble, but it was Amazon’s Kindle book collection that we were still waiting for. Many in our community thought that Amazon didn’t care, or didn’t want to make the effort, but last week they proved us wrong.

After reading about the update to the Kindle app, I immediately went and downloaded it from the app store. At some point in the past I had added “Treasure Island” to my Kindle book collection, so I opened it up and started reading. When you open a book, the menu will be off and voiceover will say, “to read continuously swipe down with two fingers or tap and hold to select text.” If you choose continuous reading, it will automatically change pages for you. You can also move to a specific chapter or page by activating the menu. To turn on the menu, double tap with one finger. The menu also allows you to go back to your list of books.

As many may remember, iBooks is one of the few apps that allow you to download books from within the app. With this in mind, you must use the Amazon website to get your books. Their website is easy to navigate on your IOS device, or you can also add books to your wish list using the Amazon app.

After testing out “Treasure Island” I decided to find other books to add. I searched for free books on the Amazon website and found thousands of options including books that were recently published. After downloading them, I went back into the app, selected settings and hit sync. This is something you’ll need to do every time you get a new book.

The final bit of happy news is that these books are also accessible with Braille displays. This is going to open up a whole new world to Braille readers. If you like your experience with iBooks you will like the Kindle’s new changes. Now we can only hope that the Kindle made by Amazon will also be accessible at some point in the future.

One of the fundamental challenges that the blind face on a regular basis is how to navigate in new places. Oftentimes we learn how to get where we need to go, but we don’t necessarily get a feel for an entire building and its layout. A new project is aiming to solve this problem by introducing people to a new environment using a video game.

The software that is being developed is called Audio Based Environment Simulator or ABES. The research is being done using the layout of the Carol Center for the Blind. Participants learn the layout of the building by being given the challenges of getting jewels out of the building before monsters find them and moving the jewels to a different location. Game play involves a keyboard and a set of head phones. Since the game play is fun and challenging, participants have found the game to be engaging and useful.

Once the players have finished the game, the researchers test whether the game gives the participant the spatial awareness they need to navigate the building. To test this, the participants are taken to the actual Carol Center for the Blind where they are asked to navigate to different parts of the building. The researchers, who did not inform the participants of the purpose of the study until after they had finished playing the game found that participants were retaining the information about the building without knowing that they would need to. These findings make the researchers excited to start applying this technology to other buildings.

Imagine being able to virtually explore a building like an airport or a college campus before ever going there. I can see this being a benefit to a wide range of people especially children who are learning mobility skills.

To read more about this exciting new technology visit this page: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-virtual-games-unknown-territory.html

Last Monday, tragedy struck our country. But despite that tragedy, we should celebrate the thousands of runners that participated in the Boston Marathon, including the 40 visually impaired runners. One of those runners was William Greer who had the honor of being guided by NPR’s host of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” Peter Sagal. I had the opportunity to get Peter’s perspective on being a sighted guide for the first time.

Q: How did you get started as a sighted guide and what inspired you to do it?

A: Honestly, it was just because I was asked by Team with a Vision, the charity that was organizing fundraising runners for the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The invite came at a good time for me–I wanted to run Boston this year, but hadn’t done anything to arrange it. And moreover, I really wanted to try something different for my 10th marathon than just run that distance again for my own purposes. Helping somebody else do it seemed like a great solution to my lack of motivation.

Q: What are some of the challenges of being a sighted guide and how did you adapt to overcome those challenges?

A: Very few. For one thing, William Greer, my “guidee,” is a very self-reliant, capable man, and has run 6 marathons prior without a guide. He has very limited vision, but was able to manage a lot–such as avoiding runners in front of him–without my help. He also is a great runner and a fine fellow, a good companion for 26 miles and change. I really enjoyed every minute of it.

The only “challenge,” if it was one, was a sense of responsibility for him. It’s one thing to screw up your own race, but another to screw up somebody else’s. But as I said, William was so capable and self-possessed, I realized very early on it would be more pleasure than duty. At the end of the race, as the bomb went off, and William was feeling tired from his effort, I felt that sense of duty more, to see him to safety, but again, he helped make it very easy to help him.

Q: Do you plan to offer to be a guide to another runner in the future?

A: I’d love to. It really was the most enjoyable race I’ve ever run. I’d be happy to help William again, or take on the challenge of guiding someone who is completely blind.

Q: How has your role as a sighted guide changed your perception about the blind community?

A: Well, it’s hard to say. I think it’s a mistake to take any one example of any “community” as a stand in for the whole. William is a guy who has triumphed over an accident that could have and almost did kill him, and has accomplished things–like seven marathons, and qualifying for Boston–that most sighted people couldn’t dream of. I don’t think that has anything to do with him being visually impaired; I think it has to do with his character. I’m sure there are other brave, motivated people in the blind community, and I’m sure there are some jerks. Not that I’ve met any, yet… I will say this: anybody who might think that being blind or visually impaired keeps you from leading a rich full life should meet William.

To read more about Peter’s experience, please follow this link: http://www.runnersworld.com/races/peter-sagal-eyewitness-bravery-horror

There are some people who only get their news from the TV or radio, and then there are news junkies like me who want access to as much news as I can handle. When I say “news” I mean everything from what’s happening in my local community to the latest and greatest tech gadget. Before the iPhone, getting the news meant visiting a lot of websites and trying to navigate them. Now, I instead have two apps that get me all the news I could want. For all your news in one place, look no further then NFB Newsline and Earl.

These two applications are similar, but very different in their execution. For those that don’t know, NFB NewsLine is a service provided by the National Federation of the Blind. For many years this service was done exclusively over the phone. Now, though, you can access NewsLine on the web or even your iPhone. If you don’t already have access to NewsLine, visit this link to learn more information and to fill out an application to subscribe to the service: https://nfb.org/audio-newspaper-service

The NFB NewsLine app is very easy to navigate and gives you access to hundreds of newspapers and magazines. Reading through articles is effortless once you know how to use the app, and you can add and remove newspapers simply by visiting your settings. If there is a newspaper that you want that they don’t have, simply send an email to nfbnewsline@nfb.org to see if they can add it into their catalog. The Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind is also available through NFB NewsLine.

NewsLine is a great app, but if you want a different experience for reading your news, try out a new app called “Earl.” This app uses high quality text-to-speech and your voice to have the news read to you. Unlike NewsLine, this app can be used by anyone sighted or not. The app starts out with a simple tutorial that goes over how to talk to Earl, how to add newspapers, and how to access your news. The app also comes with a set of extra gestures for users who want to move through the app more quickly. Finally, since the app does not use VoiceOver, you have a choice of 5 high quality voices for listening to your news that may seem more pleasant than the offerings from VoiceOver.

My impression of Earl is that it provides a great alternative for reading the news. You don’t need to be a VoiceOver user to enjoy using it, and it provides access to hundreds of newspapers and magazines. It even has smaller town newspapers that you may not be able to find anywhere else. As with NewsLine, if you find that your local paper or a newspaper that you like to read is not in Earl, send an email to support@EarlSpeech.com and they’ll do what they can to add what you’ve requested.

It should be noted that Earl can be used for free to read three articles each day. If you’re happy with the experience and want to have access to as many articles as you want, you can subscribe for a monthly charge of $9.99 or a yearly subscription of $99. NewsLine is free to use for anyone who is visually impaired.

Do any of you use the NFB NewsLine or Earl app? Give us your impressions in the Reader’s Forum.

One of the first accessible pieces of software that I was introduced to over a decade ago was OpenBook. This software allowed me to scan papers and be able to read the text using my screen reader. At the time, scanning documents took quite a while, but if you had the time, it made printed material readable.

In the past ten years, programs like OpenBook have come a long way and Optical Character Recognition technology (called “OCR”) now takes seconds instead of minutes. You can even use your iPhone to read documents. The fundamental problem of using the iPhone for text detection, though, is that you have to hold the phone just right or the image isn’t good enough to make the text readable. But thankfully, there is now a solution to this problem called “Stand Scan.”

Think of Stand Scan as a mounting device for your phone. When Stand Scan is set up, it looks like a light box. There is a hole on the top where you line up your camera lens and a white bottom where you place your printed materials. The pro version also comes with an LED light to make scans even more accurate. Since it’s made from lightweight materials, it can even be folded up and put in a bag when you’re done. This makes it portable and useful when you’re out and about. I think I might even set it up the next time I’m at a new restaurant to read the menu–it’s really that easy to carry around.

I am very impressed with this product. I have used it with two OCR apps on my iPhone and have had very good results. The apps I tested it with are Text Detective and Prizmo. No longer am I worried about whether or not my phone is level or if I’m getting the entire document or page in the picture frame.

The basic Stand Scan model is $20 and the pro version, which comes with the light, is $30. If you’re looking for a way to avoid using a flatbed scanner or if you need a scanning solution when you’re away from home, then Stand Scan is the easy and affordable way to go.

Here is a link to Stand Scan’s website: http://standscan.com

Have any of you used Stand Scan yet?