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Panel: Brian Norton, Josh Anderson, Belva Smith, Wade Wingler – Q1 Hands free 911 Emergency Calling from Phone Q2 Adaptive Virtual Reality Gear Q3 Feedback for Bluetooth Locks Q4 When should I transition students from a magnifier to a screen reader Q5 Recommending Dragon for persons with visual impairment Q6 Smart Voice Recognition for the computer Q7. Wildcard Question: Black Friday Shopping
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WADE WINGLER: Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads. This is a show in which we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like answered on our show? Send a tweet with the hashtag #ATFAQ, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions, and we have answers. And now here’s your host, Brian Norton.
BRIAN NORTON: Hello and welcome to ATFAQ episode 42. My name is Brian Norton and I’m the host of the show. I’m in the studio today with a few of my friends and colleagues to discuss your assistance technology questions. Let’s go around the room and introduce our panel. Belva, you want to say hey?
BELVA SMITH: Hey Brian, host of the show.
BRIAN NORTON: How’s it going? We also have Wade Wingler.
WADE WINGLER: [SINGING] It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
BRIAN NORTON: Just around the corner.
WADE WINGLER: I’m so excited for the holiday season.
BRIAN NORTON: Josh Anderson?
JOSH ANDERSON: Hello everybody.
WADE WINGLER: Are you going to do Scrooge or something?
BRIAN NORTON: Excellent. That was one take.
BELVA SMITH: I told you I had confidence in you.
WADE WINGLER: I won’t have any bloopers this week because Brian didn’t botch the intro.
BRIAN NORTON: I only do that for your entertainment.
Just a few notes for our listeners, this is how the show works: we receive feedback and come across various assistive technology related questions throughout the week. Then we asked the questions on the show and try to set around as a group and into those questions. A couple of different things I want to make sure you understand, you can get a hold of us and ask us questions in a variety of ways. You can call our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Or you can send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. We monitor all three of those throughout the week. If you do call in, send us an email, or tweet, we will include that in the show in an upcoming show. If you’re looking for ways to tell your friends on how to find our show, obviously happened upon is that you can tell them how you found it. You can find us on iTunes, through our website ATFAQshow.com, through stitcher, and www.eastersealstech.com.
At the beginning of our show, I always want to throw in some comments and feedback that we got from folks throughout the week. Really the first comment was from Jane. She sent us a tweet talking about, I was wondering what happened to Mark Stewart. I remember he was on the podcast along with everyone else.
WADE WINGLER: It’s like where in the world is Mark Stewart?
BRIAN NORTON: Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?
BELVA SMITH: I was thinking Waldo.
BRIAN NORTON: I think it’s important to note, Mark is still a part of our team. He took a step back from ATFAQ to focus more on his clinical work.
WADE WINGLER: He’s out in the field seeing people a lot more than he is in the studio.
BRIAN NORTON: Correct. Josh has stepped in and it has been doing a great job for us. Just glad to have Josh here.
Another comment I wanted to make sure folks know about is the national Federation of the blind was pleased to announce a couple of weeks ago – and it’s still going on – that as they continue support, development, and distribution of the KNFB reader, for a limited time if you go to the Google play store, you can download it for $19.99, which is 80 percent off the regular price. We have talked about the KNFB reader several times on our show. It’s a great scan and read app so it has a picture of text and will start reading it. On the Google play store it’s a deal. I think it typically retails for about $100 if I’m not mistaken. Is that right?
ALEX RUSSOMANNO: It’s $100 on iOS.
BELVA SMITH: But it’s always been $49.99 in the Google play store. I always wondered why but now I know Google is helping fund that.
BRIAN NORTON: If you’re interested in that app – and we talked about it several times on the show – it’s a good app. We recommend it a lot for our consumers. It’s $19.99 which is a great deal. Definitely go check that out.
The third comment. Someone had sent this in. It says cut in your last episode of ATFAQ – it was actually a couple of shows ago – I thought I heard someone mention an app for iPhone that will use a Bluetooth headset and make the iPhone be able to be almost a personal listening system. This person has an iPhone and they are looking to move to the iPhone seven. We all know the iPhone seven doesn’t have an audio jack on it. Is that right?
BELVA SMITH: That’s right.
WADE WINGLER: It doesn’t have the 3.5 millimeter. It does have an adapter that will let you hook your 3.5 millimeter jack into the lightning connector. It also comes with headphones that work in the lightning. You can make it happen. It’s just awkward.
JOSH ANDERSON: Wade, didn’t you talk about something you had connected to your, that changed it to Bluetooth?
WADE WINGLER: For my car. The only do I do podcasts, but I do listen to podcasts. On my drive in – I have an hour-long commute – I listen to a couple of shows, and on the way out I listen to a couple of shows. Especially on the way home, my phone is usually dead I then so I need to plug it into the, charger and I also need to plug it in to the auxiliary jack on my car. I’ve got the Walkman style connection for my iPhone to my auxiliary jack. But when I bumped up to the iPhone 7, I lost that connection to the auxiliary port.
I ended up buying a thing called an MPOW Bluetooth adapter. It’s $13-$15 on Amazon. Basically it’s plugs into the auxiliary port in my, and when I turn it on, it becomes a Bluetooth device. Then my iPhone 7 just talked to that plug-in deal on the auxiliary port and it’s just like having a cable. I can charge my phone like I always have to the lightning port, and I can stream Bluetooth to this adapter hooked into the aux port.
BRIAN NORTON: What’s the adapter called?
WADE WINGLER: It’s called an MPOW Bluetooth adapter. When I bought it, but a part of November cut it was listed under Amazon as sort of the number one bestseller. It had good reviews and that’s why I bought it.
BRIAN NORTON: For this individual, talking about a personal listening system. It’s really just an amplifier, so it picks up sound in the room, amplifies it to the microphone that the iOS device is listening for. One of the drawbacks is many of them require a wired headset. You actually have to have something plugged into that 3.5 millimeter jack. I went back through our show and looked at the show notes. We were talking about a CS50+ personal listening system from sound the world. That allows you to have your iPhone and wirelessly, it has a headset that connects through Bluetooth. You will be able to use sound that way. It’s a personal listening system in and of itself that uses the iPhone as the microphone part. If you’re wanting more information on it or other types of products for the deaf and hard of hearing, Harris communications is a great place to go. That’s where I might start looking. You might also look at the Petra Lex app for iPhone. That is an app that probably works a lot like awareness. I think it does have the same drawback with awareness, simply that it does need a wired headset. Definitely something else to look at as well.
BELVA SMITH: Isn’t Apple supposed to be coming out with their own new headset to go with the iPhone seven?
WADE WINGLER: They call them AirPods. They are wireless Bluetooth ear buds like the white once you stick in your ear now, just without the wires. They are out or just about out.
BRIAN NORTON: I thought I got delayed.
WADE WINGLER: They are going to be expensive.
BRIAN NORTON: You think you paid 40 bucks for a cord, for a headset you might as well pay $100.
WADE WINGLER: $159 is what they’re going to cost.
BRIAN NORTON: And they are not out yet, right?
WADE WINGLER: It says late 2016 is when they are expected.
BELVA SMITH: I think it’s going to be closer to Christmas.
WADE WINGLER: Knowing Apple, they might release it for the holidays.
BRIAN NORTON: Probably holding back just for that reason.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our first question is, is there a way to independently access 911 using voice commands only? I believe Siri can do this, but the student has an android phone. Any ideas?
BELVA SMITH: With the android phone, you can’t just say okay Google dial 911?
BRIAN NORTON: You can. I know okay Google isn’t on a lot of phones. It’s not on every phone.
BELVA SMITH: Can you use the IFTTT app to do that?
BRIAN NORTON: I don’t know.
BELVA SMITH: I know you can with the echo. That’s why I was assuming that –
BRIAN NORTON: IFTTT —
BELVA SMITH: If This Than That.
BRIAN NORTON: — Is a program that’s computer-based or app based. Workflow is an app for your iPhone that will –
BELVA SMITH: There is an IFTTT app.
BRIAN NORTON: There is? Okay. Excellent. If this than that or you can set up a workflow and series of different commands that play off of each other to do different things. I don’t know.
BELVA SMITH: I’m pretty sure Google play has that app as well. I would also suggest for this person, if they have not already, that they should check out the smart 911 where you go and create an account and fill out your medical information so that if you do have to dial 911, they have that medical background information before they actually get to your home.
BRIAN NORTON: Okay. Am I correct in assuming that Siri does style number one if you say?
BELVA SMITH: Yes.
WADE WINGLER: Let’s test it and see.
BELVA SMITH: Why wouldn’t she? If you can say Siri, dial whatever number and she will dial it.
BRIAN NORTON: Obviously from my phone I didn’t want to try it. I’m assuming – I did try it from my computer and it didn’t do it. I have the new Mac OS Sierra that has Siri built into it. Maybe that’s simply because it’s not a phone.
BELVA SMITH: Do you want to try it life? I’ll hang up.
BRIAN NORTON: No.
JOSH ANDERSON: No.
WADE WINGLER: No. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.
BELVA SMITH: Everyone in this room just gave me the most serious look.
BRIAN NORTON: Because they will call you back and find you.
BELVA SMITH: We can’t just say practicing?
WADE WINGLER: They will hunt you down.
BRIAN NORTON: Just want to make sure I got the numbers right.
WADE WINGLER: You can tell Siri call emergency services, dial the number one. I hope no one has Siri turned on. Phone number one or those kinds of things. Then it was a calling emergency services and five seconds so you can stop it if you need to. But we are not going to do that today. We are not going to play that game.
BELVA SMITH: My youngest son actually practiced with 911 when it first came out.
BRIAN NORTON: How did that go for you?
BELVA SMITH: He had to come and get me and say mom, there’s a lady on the phone I want to talk to you.
BRIAN NORTON: It is a little tempting.
WADE WINGLER: It does work with hey Siri so you can be fully hands-free with that.
BRIAN NORTON: What about the Apple Watch? I know there is touch emergency dialing.
WADE WINGLER: On the Apple Watch you can hold down the iPhone and it will give you several different options. One of them is to call 911 or to provide emergency medical information. It’s like your emergency medical brace that you might wear. You can pre-populate that with medications and contact information and those kinds of things. There is also an app on android that will text a pre-program number if you call now 11. You can set up your android phone so that if you do call 911, connect it to If This Then That, and then it will text your spouse or medical caregiver or whoever so that when you call 911, my wife would get that text message saying Wade just called 911. She probably wants to know that.
JOSH ANDERSON: You can text 911, can’t you?
BELVA SMITH: In some areas. Depending upon who your phone carrier is.
BRIAN NORTON: I think we just did a blog about one called the red panic button app.
WADE WINGLER: Laura on accessibility minute just did one. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet but it’s a fascinating concept.
BRIAN NORTON: I think it can allow you to automatically send a text message containing your location to any kind of emergency contacts beyond number one so if you wanted to reach out to my spouse or your mom or your parents or whoever, you can just hit a red panic button in the app and it will send something out to those folks that you have listed as emergency contacts.
WADE WINGLER: We are bouncing around here. When we talk about texting 911, that’s growing and can be done in more areas. The FCC who manages that is really clear to say always plays a voice call if you can. When you think about texting somebody cut that’s a different kind of communication. If you can just dial no one, even if you drop your phone or whatever, it will leave that line open and they will be able to find you. You can interact more rapidly or the 911 operators can get clues about what’s happening in your environment if they are on the voice call with you. Always call if you can because 911, the voice version, works everywhere. You may text 911 and you may be in an area where it doesn’t work and you’re never going to know that they didn’t get it.
BELVA SMITH: This particular person is saying they have an android phone but are not saying which android. All entered phones are not alike.
WADE WINGLER: Different operating systems, different features.
BELVA SMITH: What I would probably suggest to them is first of all, try googling the name of the phone and OS and see if there is a particular way that you can either use the IFTTT or a way to do 911.
BRIAN NORTON: I’m sure carriers would have a good listing of ways that different phones that allow you to do hands-free access to those kinds of things.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question – I don’t know if we have good answers for but we are going to try our best. Does anyone have experience or insight in adaptive VR gear for someone who doesn’t have full control of his/her arms? I wanted to throw that out to folks.
WADE WINGLER: By VR we mean virtual reality, not vocational rehabilitation.
BRIAN NORTON: Yeah. VR gear would mean virtual reality, the headsets like Oculus Rift and others out there. A lot of them are phone-based one where you put your phone in a visor looking thing and it puts your phone in front. You get a virtual reality environment to be able to either play games or have an experience.
BELVA SMITH: Why do they need full range in their arms? Is it because if they are playing a game they have to move their arms to make things happen?
BRIAN NORTON: I think a lot of times the virtual-reality gear, they are headsets, so you have to somehow put them on. If you don’t have full control of your arms, getting it on would be an issue. Oftentimes there are controllers you have to click and move things through menus and other kinds of stuff. There are some hands, arms movements that is necessary to simply put it on but also to use the device.
WADE WINGLER: That’s fascinating. If you think about it, most virtual reality will use your head movement as her control, like a mouse on a computer. But then you have to click. The one we play with here – we do very serious work with here – is called oculus rift. Yet have a physical device to click and activate it, at least on all the programs I’ve tried. You can do a dwell select I suppose. You can program your game with an oculus rift so that if you dwelled on a certain thing for a while, it would go ahead and activate. I haven’t seen anything do that.
BELVA SMITH: What about doing it with your feet?
WADE WINGLER: I suppose that would be possible. You could certainly mount some of the controls in such a way that they can be done with a foot or an elbow or something like that. Depending on whether or not you can simulate a mouse keyboard click or must press or mouseclick or something like that, if you are using a computer-based system like oculus rift, you can certainly do the traditional keyboard emulation or mouseclick emulation thing. I haven’t played with it yet. Those are interesting questions.
BRIAN NORTON: We just got our three months ago. I’ve been playing around with it a little bit just to get use to what it’s capable of. I always mention to folks, there is an agency company called able gamers. They do lots of identity gaming. They look at the interfaces, Xbox, PlayStation, to help folks who have disabilities be able to use those through adaptive controllers and other kinds of things to give them better access to the games that are out there. I’m sure it sounds like virtual-reality is something that’s hitting the market and becoming “the thing” as far as gaming is concerned. I’m sure they probably might have some good information. Their website is ablegamers.com. Might want to check them out as well.
WADE WINGLER: Mark Arleigh over there is a friend of the show who’s been on assistant ecology update and number of times. He’s come to Indian and spent time with us before. He actually got to go to the White House and present on assistive technology recently. It was on his Facebook. Mark is a little bit of an assistive technology rockstar.
BRIAN NORTON: I would just throw this out to our listeners, if you have any experience with and no information on adaptive virtual-reality gear, let us know. We would love to hear from you and find out if you have any information to be able to share with this person.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question is, does anyone have feedback to offer or expense with Bluetooth smart locks. I’m interested in using them in my home but I’m hesitant because of some of the issues that people report. Those issues might be coming home to unlock doors, unreliable performance, other kinds of things. Anyone have those on their home?
BELVA SMITH: I know my son has one that he has to put a code in and it locks. Does that mean it’s Bluetooth?
WADE WINGLER: We’ve got that one where it’s a electronic lock with a keypad and you mechanically like it one way or the other. It is just a physical hardware keypad.
JOSH ANDERSON: With the Bluetooth one, you have a app on your phone. Once you are close enough to it, you reach out and touch the phone to it or touch a Bluetooth fob to it and it will unlock the door.
BELVA SMITH: Isn’t that kind of scary? I get nervous about having access to everything on my phone.
BRIAN NORTON: If your phone gets stolen –
JOSH ANDERSON: It does have your address, your contact information, and I really like that in it. If somebody took your keys and car, it’s got your address in the, and everything else, plus they have a way to get there. They can’t drive your phone there.
BRIAN NORTON: How many of you have your garage door opener on your visor?
BELVA SMITH: I do not.
WADE WINGLER: Or how many have a keypad on the front of their house that opened the garage door?
BELVA SMITH: I do.
BRIAN NORTON: We have those.
WADE WINGLER: All they have to do is guess your code. It probably start with 19, right?
BELVA SMITH: No.
BRIAN NORTON: How do you know that?
BELVA SMITH: The way we knew it was broke was because our garage door gets kept randomly opening. We would go to bed and get up and the garage door would be open. Or we would leave and come home and the garage door would be open. That’s how we know it was broken.
WADE WINGLER: You ever drive around the neighborhood just pushing your garage door button to see whose door you can open?
BELVA SMITH: No, but when I see someone’s door at dark, I wonder if they know that door is open.
BRIAN NORTON: I called my neighbors if I see their door open. We had a guy across the street, someone walked in the middle of the night, they were sleeping upstairs, stole laptops, the TV, all the while they were sleeping upstairs just because they left their garage door open. A
BELVA SMITH: Our, has the thing where, without having the remote in the car, I can program it. I’ve not even tried to do that.
WADE WINGLER: I’ve got a deal with my neighbor. When he leaves his garage door open, I just close it for him. He gave me the code because they leave it open all the time. Belva, I wouldn’t be as concerned about Bluetooth and an app. If you think about it, your phone is fairly secure. You probably have a touch code on it so someone would have to have that, or thumbprint recognition or those things. The other thing I think about personally – and this is a personal statement – anyone who once in my house is one baseball bat or break away from standing in my living room. We all have glass right there. I’m all about home security and do a lot to make sure my home is secure. In the end, if someone wants in, they’re coming in.
BELVA SMITH: As the old saying is, “A good lock only keeps an honest person out.”
BRIAN NORTON: I would just mention to folks, a lot of these locks, it seems like there are version 2’s out.
WADE WINGLER: They’re learning.
BRIAN NORTON: There are updated versions. Make sure you get the newer ones. Whenever I do locks at home, I have those professionally installed. I want someone I can go to who knows the equipment. I want to rely on myself to install it. Even though I might buy from a big box hardware store, I’ll still have a locksmith come out and put those in and make sure they are installed correctly so that if something doesn’t seem to be working right, I have someone to call and say it’s not working right.
JOSH ANDERSON: If you do go with a Bluetooth one, make sure it does have a keyhole and you have the key as a backup, just in case something goes wrong. Your phone dies, you don’t have an extra key fob or something like that, it’s basically useless to you.
BELVA SMITH: Or the Honda Fit, when the key fob dies, you can’t start the car. There is no keyhole. I would deftly make sure it has a keyhole.
BRIAN NORTON: Belva is bitter, for a few weeks she couldn’t drive her car.
WADE WINGLER: Josh, you said something about these deadbolts. Make sure they are a good deadbolt. Make sure they are mechanically sound, that they are not made out of material that is easily broken and those kinds of things. Sometimes in an effort to make them lightweight and to work really well, they might use materials that aren’t tough like you expect them to be.
JOSH ANDERSON: Something to keep in mind, a lot of them look like a regular doorlock which is a good idea. If you’re going to rob a house and are going down one with a Mercedes out of fronts as opposed to Belva’s non-mobile Honda fit. If you have a normal-looking doorlock, people might pass it by, whereas if it is something fancy they might say something is in there I might want.
WADE WINGLER: I want one that is programmable with Bluetooth so that when you walk up and don’t have the right thing, it plays the down of a Doberman parking.
BRIAN NORTON: Nice.
JOSH ANDERSON: Or a shotgun cocking.
BRIAN NORTON: Awesome.
***
BRIAN NORTON: This question is, in general, one should persons with visual impairment moved to a screen reader as opposed to a screen magnifier when doing computer access? I don’t know. This is one of the questions –
WADE WINGLER: Lots of facets to that one.
BRIAN NORTON: There are so many different angles, especially from the user perspective, but from a teacher’s perspective. I tend – obviously I’m not the one making the decision. I think we have to involve the client and figure out what they want and what their needs are and how they will respond. I usually tell folks, once they start getting to 4 to 5 times magnification, it is start to move on. Again, it is their choice. I’ve had many clients with a visual impairment who are not willing to change because they’re going to use every ounce of vision they have until they don’t have vision anymore. What do you guys think?
BELVA SMITH: The person’s question is in general. In general, I would say whenever you start to lose your productivity. It doesn’t matter if you’re at a level III or level VII. When you are no longer effectively able to sit down and write or read an email or perform whatever the task is you’re doing, it’s probably a good time to start considering it. Most definitely what you said, Brian, I don’t feel – and with all my experience – I’ve learned you cannot force a person to stop using the vision that they have. Just yesterday, I was working with a lady who has recently had eye surgery but has very little vision. She snuck a large print keyboard on me. I got her using a screen reader. She snuck a large print keyboard in on me and was excited because she can somewhat see the keys on the keyboard. What I noticed is a whole lot of time being spent with her trying to look to find the key instead of listening to where the key is. I did tell her when I left that, if she doesn’t stop trying to look at the keyboard, we may have to take the keyboard away and go back to a standard keyboard.
WADE WINGLER: You’re hardcore.
BELVA SMITH: I know, right?
JOSH ANDERSON: I’m just wondering how she’s not that whole keyboard and without your seeing it.
BELVA SMITH: Because there was a whole week I wasn’t there. She found this keyboard.
WADE WINGLER: I think you have to think about what their productivity goals are. If somebody has come to you and said, I want to use a computer as efficiently and effectively as possible and it is your job to help them get there, making sure they are maximizing all the options is a good idea. If she says, I’m not in a big hurry and my goals aren’t as aggressive as that, then obviously we want to make sure consumer choice is a big part of that.
BELVA SMITH: You don’t want them inflicting I stress on them because they are trying to use the vision they do have. I always encourage people to save that vision to do something else besides using the computer. There are other options available. No, nobody can make that decision for them. They have to be willing to do it themselves when they are ready.
BRIAN NORTON: When do you start encouraging people?
BELVA SMITH: When I see they are no longer being effective.
WADE WINGLER: Or you know that’s coming. There are times when somebody has a visual challenge and you know that right now it’s okay, but you are anticipating a big change coming up. I would say that if you know a big change in vision is coming, you want to brace for that a little bit and get your skills up as fast as possible.
BELVA SMITH: That’s why Zoom text or Magic, either one, that has the visual enhancements as well as the speech, is great at that point. Whether they realize it or not, they are already being introduced to the way the screen reader is going to work for them even though they are still using their little bit of – or whatever amount of vision that the half.
JOSH ANDERSON: And they are getting to using those listening skills, but it’s amazing how important it is to hear those different pieces and parts, commands, the computer to tell you where you are.
BELVA SMITH: The listening skills have to be developed almost immediately to become successful with a screen reader.
BRIAN NORTON: I always wait – like you mentioned, the productivity piece. How effective are you going to be? What’s the requirement of the job, at school? Are you able to get your stuff done?
BELVA SMITH: Sometimes they don’t realize it. For example, same person yesterday was doing four or five different key commands. I turned it into two and said, we can do it your way and we are going to be hitting a lot more keys on the keyboard, hearing a lot more verbiage; or we can do it my way, we are going to hit two keys, hear less verbiage, boom, we’re done. When they see that – because they may not realize that – then they start to notice that, hey, I can be more productive if I tried to do it this way and other than that way.
BRIAN NORTON: I guess another question pops into my mind. How about from the evaluation perspective, as you guys meet with folks and are deciding, is it a screen magnifier or screen reader for this individual, how do you go about deciding what product you’re going to recommend?
JOSH ANDERSON: Some of it is and trying it out with them. What are their goals? What is it they have to accomplish? What do they need to use it for? Are they going to be excessively using this computer every day? Do we need to save that usable vision? Is the condition they have degenerative? Is it going to get worse and we are going to have to move to a screen reader eventually. I start training on it now so you don’t lose that productivity when you get there. There are so many factors that it’s hard to say in general when you should.
BELVA SMITH: I think you had to listen to the individual and see. Even if they have a degenerative vision loss, and you know that the end result is going to be – unless there is a deadline which rarely there is. Even if you know that it’s going to end in total loss of vision, to take someone who still has a good amount of vision and say to them we are going to use a screen reader, they are going to reject all the way. That’s where the birth of fusion was made for that person.
BRIAN NORTON: Zoom text fusion?
BELVA SMITH: Right. So they can have the best of both worlds.
BRIAN NORTON: I guess the whole personal preference part of the evaluation process. If someone doesn’t like something, they are never going to use it. Interesting.
WADE WINGLER: I haven’t done AT eval’s in a while, but when we are getting beyond that 4 to 5 times magnification and we anticipate that there is going to be additional changes in vision coming up, I’m starting to encourage people to look at screen readers at that level.
BELVA SMITH: I used to say that. I used to say if you can’t see it at five, then I don’t see how you could possibly be productive. But I do have an older veteran who is against all my advice, using a 65 inch TV and seven times modification with no speech. I worked with him on and off throughout the last three or four years. There is no changing the way he is using his computer. He’s used to it working that way, and he’s at home, not trying to be very productive, doesn’t care if it takes him all day. That worked for him.
BRIAN NORTON: Just for those folks were listening and haven’t had the experience with a screen magnifier or screen reader, screen magnifiers as you pop up in levels of modification, you are on a fixed size monitor, the more modification you use, the less information you see on the screen. You get less productive as the day goes on or as screen space allows. As you bump up in levels of edification, you see less information on the screen so it take you longer to navigate to know where to go to find information. That is where the loss in productivity happens. With a screen reader, there are still productivity issues because you are asking this piece of software to reach out and find information on the screen. Sometimes the information isn’t readily available, but you can get that screen reader to different areas of the screen quickly with keystrokes and other kinds of things that can happen. Sometimes by doing that, you can speed up the person’s productivity because they are not searching for it visually anymore when you see such a small part of the screen.
BELVA SMITH: It’s so easy to overlook a checkbox or something like that when you’re using any magnification, but especially larger levels of edification.
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BRIAN NORTON: Don’t forget, if you guys have questions, as we’ve been going over these question today, you can give us a call on our listener line. That’s 317-721-7124. Or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Or tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ.
Our next question goes a little bit along the lines of working with folks with visual impairments. It says, should Dragon be introduced to persons with visual impairments. I’m wondering whether this is needed, helpful, commonly used, and what our thoughts are on that stuff.
BELVA SMITH: I have a lot of inquiries about, and visually impaired; I want to learn to use Dragon. I always discourage it. If you can’t see where the computer’s focus is that, using Dragon can be really confusing, because you have to give Dragon such specific commands and sometimes it doesn’t respond to those commands. It’s sitting with the focus on an edit box and you’re never going to know that. Now, can a person who is using a screen reader use Dragon? Absolutely. In fact, we have an upcoming client that we are going to be doing this with, with using a third-party software called J Say. What it does is it marries together JAWS and Dragon and allows the computer to then the only give you the auditory feedback for where you are but in allows you to also give the computer commands to perform different tasks. It’s a very intense training to become proficient with this. There are limitations to what you can do.
BRIAN NORTON: And its expensive, right?
BELVA SMITH: It is expensive. You have to have specific versions of everything, specific builds of your screen reader, and it has to be JAWS.
BRIAN NORTON: And that’s about $895 –
JOSH ANDERSON: About $1100. You have to have professional.
BELVA SMITH: And then you have to have a specific version and build of Dragon.
BRIAN NORTON: Which is Dragon Professional which is about $600.
JOSH ANDERSON: But not the newest. The brand new version will not work with J Say, at least at the moment.
BELVA SMITH: And then you have to have J say. And you have to have a computer that meets all of the specific hardware requirements. First of all, I have not tried this and years, but if you try to install a screen reader and Dragon on the same computer without using J say, you’re going to have one big mess, I think, and probably not going to get any success with it. When you do have the three proper software’s installed on the proper hardware, you can do things like create a word document, surf the web, create an email, do an attachment, that kind of thing. Could you use that kind of set up and work environment where you may be trying to use a third-party database of some sort or billing system? Probably not going to happen. I know you can use Dragon in a work environment and you can use JAWS in a work environment, but throwing J say and trying to get them to work together with third-party program is probably not going to ever happen.
JOSH ANDERSON: It’s important to note that the individual Belva is talking about — even when we use J say, it’s because the person can’t access the computer physically. It’s not just a visual impairment that you’re dealing with. I’ve used Dragon a few times with screen magnification software such as soon text.
BELVA SMITH: I’ve done that too and I’ve had problems.
JOSH ANDERSON: Usually I tell the person to use them text to get where you want to be, then turn it off before you turn on Dragon.
BRIAN NORTON: Is it the tracking issues?
BELVA SMITH: It’s the tracking issue because you can never see where you really are on the screen. They don’t stay together obviously.
JOSH ANDERSON: Also both of those are pulling so much RAM at a time. Even with a gaming computer, you are pulling a lot of memory. They cause each other to crash and slow down the computer.
BELVA SMITH: And it’s very frustrating for the end-user.
BRIAN NORTON: They used to be Magni-talk, I think is similar to J say, and that it would sit between your magnification program and Dragon and make them play nicely in the same sandbox. I’ve never used it but I think I read about it.
BELVA SMITH: We did read about it because I had a computer that we were going to try it with, but we ended up not following through with it. We primarily ended up doing exactly what Josh just said. It was on and off with one of them all the time, using want to do one thing and want to do another, get where you need to be, turn this on, turn this off. The funding source didn’t want to go through. That’s largely a reoccurrence with the J say situation. Oftentimes the funding source doesn’t want to invest all of the money that it takes. Plus, the set up time to set up the J say.
BRIAN NORTON: Every t has to be crossed; every i has to be dotted.
BELVA SMITH: They’ve got a three ring binder of every step that you have to do. If you miss one of them, you are just starting over again.
JOSH ANDERSON: If someone out there is interested in J say, I believe you have to contact the company and give them the serial numbers of your products, so they make sure they get you the right to build, the right version, and everything else. They also can answer questions. Certain headsets work better, things like that. All that information you can usually find online.
BELVA SMITH: Who is the company? I can’t think of it right now. They’ve got great tech support. J say is the name of the software that’s necessary.
BRIAN NORTON: I’m wondering, for me, if you want to try it, instead of using Dragon, use the voice recognition software that’s built in. Go to Control Panel, you will find a microphone that says speech recognition. Try it there. I think you can get a little bit of an experience of what you’re going to find in Dragon. Now, they are completely different types of programs. I find Dragon to be more intuitive than the built-in stuff. At least you’ll get an example of the tracking issues that we’re talking about here; you will probably expanse that a bit. I believe that’s where it becomes a problem, as you get down to the base, what’s the issue: it’s the tracking stuff. Things are happening off the screen. You can’t verify what you said is what it recognized and that it’s doing what you think it should be doing. If you don’t look and are not continually monitoring that stuff, then you get a bunch of wacky stuff on your screen and you have to go back and fix it. Maybe try the built-in stuff. It’s been around since Windows 7. You can find that under the ease of access center or directly under your control panel.
BELVA SMITH: I will say, if you can get by, if the individual can get by with the Windows magnifier and window speech recognition, you can make those things work together fairly well. I’ve not tried it with a Mac but I’m guessing that you can probably get those to work together fairly well with no expense.
BRIAN NORTON: On Mac, Dragon worked a little different it’s not Dragon; it’s their dictation software. It doesn’t do command macros where you can control the computer. It is designed for text input.
JOSH ANDERSON: What if you are running Dragon for Mac? They do make it. I haven’t had much experience using it.
BRIAN NORTON: Dragon for Mac will allow you to do a few things but I think folks need to understand that Dragon for Mac and Dragon for Windows is very different.
BELVA SMITH: Same thing for Zoom text. Some text for Mac is different for Windows PC.
BRIAN NORTON: What they need to realize is people have been developing Dragon for Windows for a long time. They’ve gone it to be a pretty hands-free access system for folks. On Mac it is designed for dictation, not for controlling the computer, that for navigating. You can do that but it is not necessarily designed for that. It’s more for dictation purposes. You’re going to find if you use on a Windows machine and you go to a Mac, you’re going to be disappointed probably in what it can and can’t do. It just hasn’t been around as long and the development that’s been behind Windows for a long time to be a total hands-free solution for them.
BELVA SMITH: Just as we wrap up on this one, for this particular caller or listener, I would suggest if you really need to have the screen reader as well as want the ability or have to have the ability to give commands and do dictated emails or letters, perhaps you want to think about a tablet instead of a PC because you can use voiceover and Siri together to command and here and dictate emails and letters and stuff like that, if that’s a possibility. If not, then I would say if the individual can physically type, I would always encourage physically typing. Even if you are a one finger typist, that’s okay. The more you type, the better you’re going to get.
WADE WINGLER: Just less complicated.
BELVA SMITH: Right.
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BRIAN NORTON: Don’t forget, if you have a question, send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.
Our next question is I have a client who has a visual impairment and a physical impairment (cerebral palsy) and is looking for a smart voice recognition computer software similar to the functions of Alexa, something smart where you can ask a question and it gives you feedback. He’d like to do things like turning on and off the computer, watching a movie, navigate the master computer itself. Any suggestions? As I was looking at that question, we’ve been talking about Dragon. Dragon was in the previous question. Dragon is a fairly hands-free computer access system for the computer. It’s not smart: and asked have very specific commands to do specific things on the computer. Windows 10 now comes with Cortana, which is a little bit of a voice assistant. With Cortana, you can ask a question like what’s the weather like today. It gives you that smart component that is missing from Dragon. I would think looking at Dragon or even that built-in Windows speech recognition software. If you go under control panel, you’ll find an old looking radio microphone. You can set voice recognition there as well and try either the third-party stuff, Dragon, or you can try the built-in stuff, along with Cortana on the Windows 10 computers. Then you may have a good smart voice recognition application for the computer.
BELVA SMITH: The only thing is they are asking to be able to turn the computer on. I don’t know of anything that will turn the computer on.
BRIAN NORTON: Dragon will turn your computer off but it will not turn it on.
BELVA SMITH: Because you actually have to physically move that button to get it to come on. I have worked with individuals that have had someone — smarter than me — set their computer up so that they could use a switch, in light switch to get it turned on. Then they would shut it down in the proper manner. I don’t know of any voice activated – wait a minute. What if you plug your computer in to one of those Wi-Fi — I’m looking at Wade — one of the Wi-Fi —
WADE WINGLER: Like a WeMo outlet? You can do that and do a lot of things to make a power strip or switch go off and on. The problem is most computers when you plug them in, just by supplying power to them they don’t turn on. You do have to physically push the button. I’m not sure turning them on is a big deal. What you need to be, in most situations, is to tell it to restart. You can tell a computer going to power save mode and can wake it up with voice commands or you can let the computer run. It’s when you need to restart it and reboot it. Sometimes that’s going to require a physical motion no matter what. It’s either going to require a control-alt-delete on the keyboard or it’s going to require somebody to hold down that power button for five seconds or whatever to get it forced off. I’m not sure that you are ever going to get the turn on/turn off thing on a modern computer working hands-free. The other thing that concerns me: the question says the person has a cortical vision impairment. Depending on what level of vision impairment we are talking about, using something like Dragon or Windows speech recognition might be a challenge if they have a vision impairment such that they are relying on a screen reader. It could get back to our previous question about using Dragon with a vision impairment, depending on what the level of impairment is in this situation.
I also think, Belva, persuasion about using tablets that have those built in things is a pretty good one in a lot of situations. That gives you lots of flexibility.
JOSH ANDERSON: Especially for what they are asking, to be able to open up an email or watch a movie. You can easily ask Siri on your tablet to do those things for you and it will come out.
BELVA SMITH: Absolutely. Depending upon their situation, if they are in a better wheelchair, you can get mounts and stands to get it in the right position for viewing. That might be a better option. And it’s going to be a cheaper option, that’s for sure.
WADE WINGLER: You might consider looking at something like an iPad for those things and try to borrow one from one of your local assistive technology act projects. We are the one in Indiana, and we have a lending library of over 2000 items which include iPads and stuff like that. If you’re looking for a lending library in your area — assuming this listener is in the US — if you go to our website www.eastersealstech.com/states, it will take you to a list of all 56 assistive technology act projects. You can probably find a lending library and to play around with these things.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t know if you’ll find a J say computer set up because even if it’s all been set up perfectly, you can’t just open it and start using.
BRIAN NORTON: It takes a lot of training.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t think you’ll find those in the lending library. Tablets and stands and mounts? Absolutely.
WADE WINGLER: More often you are seeing stuff like Amazon echo and low libraries as well. They are a pretty low price point to try out.
BRIAN NORTON: Google home and Echo Dot. They are getting less expensive all the time.
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WADE WINGLER: And now it’s time for the wildcard question.
BRIAN NORTON: So our next question is the wildcard question.
WADE WINGLER: We are recording this show right before things giving. It’s scheduled to be released on what we call Cyber Monday in the US. We had black Friday which is the day after things giving, and then we have Small Business Saturday where you’re supposed to go down to the corner store and buy something in your small town, and then cyber Monday happens on Monday at the word. That’s where you’re supposed to go online and buy all the stuff. Frankly, while we were sitting here recording the show, I’ve got an email from Amazon saying black Friday deals and they want me to buy a yoga mat, a remote control battle tank stunt car, a couple of bangles to wear on my wrist, some happy valley —
BRIAN NORTON: Bangles?
WADE WINGLER: Yeah, bracelets. Even natural book dog treats, and a Bluetooth ear bud. My question for you guys is, do you do any of the door buster savings? Do you get up early and go shopping on Black Friday? How does technology figure into that? Do you guys have technology things you’re looking for for the holiday season and you’re looking for that good price? What have you gotten to the point, like I have, we can get a lot of those deals anyway around the year without getting up at 2 o’clock in the morning on things giving day or whatever. I’m wondering where you guys are when it comes to technology in some of these black Friday sales and things. By the way, before you answer the question: on black Friday, the assistive technology update holiday shopping show will come out. A lot of folks in the studio are part of that show this year. If you’re interested in assistive technology holiday shopping ideas, listen to assistive technology update on black Friday and also the Friday after where we go through not only what we are doing for the holidays but some really cool assistive technology holiday gift ideas. Squeezing that plug in there. What are you doing about black Friday?
BELVA SMITH: November 21 was the release of the Nintendo Classic.
WADE WINGLER: I want that.
BELVA SMITH: I was in line at Meijer. They had three.
BRIAN NORTON: You took those three days off to get in line?
JOSH ANDERSON: You told me you were working.
BELVA SMITH: The person in front of me felt bad because she was getting the last one. She said, hey, Gamestop is going to post on their door how many do have tomorrow. When I finally gave up – because I stayed in line before they passed out the three an empty the box to prove to me there was not a fourth — I was in line at game stop at 445 in the morning. They don’t open until 10. If someone were to tell me that I could get a Nintendo classic if I got there and guideline, I would be there. The one I bought is for my grandkids. Both of my boys are sick that they didn’t get one. I would love to be able to get them one. I’m not a black for shopper. I Black Friday shopped one time. Once I got my great deals and realized I was saving $12. I’m going to go up and down every aisle and Toys “R” Us to save $12, put the stuff down and walked out. When I worked at CompUSA which was a big electronics store, I worked black Friday. I enjoyed that immensely. That was amazing. I would probably choose to work a black Friday rather than choppy black Friday.
JOSH ANDERSON: I do the look around online thing. I stood in line wants to buy a computer monitor that was gone well before I got to it. I remember the old days of standing in line for concert tickets. I feel like that’s much better and much cooler than camping out outside the Ticketmaster. I’ll fish around online. I usually have a mom over for dinner on black Friday, and hang out and let everybody else do their craziness. I’ll usually get up and while I am cooking I’ll be on Amazon and seat was up and everything. If it is something I was going to buy anyway and save $12 and get free shipping, okay, then I’ll do that. I don’t make a big thing to go out and do it. I would like one of those Nintendo’s.
BRIAN NORTON: I don’t do black Friday shopping, but my wife and our kids, my mom, my dad, they all do. We are going down there for Thanksgiving to their house for Thanksgiving this year. It’s a big fun deal for them to go out and do this black Friday shopping. I don’t like to shop anyway, and to have hundreds of people running into places, I just don’t like crowds. I like to go into the store, pick something up and leave. With electronics, I don’t know. I don’t really like to shop. There are neat gadgets I want to look for. It’s just throughout the year I look for things.
BELVA SMITH: Men don’t like to shop. They hunt. They know what they want, go in, and get it and get out.
JOSH ANDERSON: Generalizing, Belva.
BELVA SMITH: But you know, with all the stores now starting their black Friday at 3 o’clock Thanksgiving day, I really have a problem with that.
WADE WINGLER: Or midnight Wednesday night before Thanksgiving.
BELVA SMITH: We are supposed to be spending time with our families. The people that are working are supposed to be able to spend time with their family. I heard two or three places are starting their black Friday sales at 3 PM on Thanksgiving day.
WADE WINGLER: I do not like to do that, and normally I am the guy who stays home with the kids so the ladies in my family can do that thing. I just learned yesterday that my wife has made arrangements for my kids to stay with her folks on Thanksgiving evening and Friday as well.
BRIAN NORTON: You get an evening at home.
BELVA SMITH: I think you’re going black Friday shopping.
WADE WINGLER: We are looking for a thing called a Dyson Animal V6, which is a $400 vacuum. Is a good?
BELVA SMITH: It’s awesome.
JOSH ANDERSON: If you have animals, they are incredible.
WADE WINGLER: We don’t have animals.
JOSH ANDERSON: You have children, so that’s close.
WADE WINGLER: And there’s me and I’m like an animal.
BRIAN NORTON: A $400 vacuum
BELVA SMITH: Exactly $600. If you get it on sale, you get it for $400, or maybe the price has come down.
WADE WINGLER: It’s going to be $299.
JOSH ANDERSON: They use to be $600.
BELVA SMITH: I got mine on sale for $399. I got it last year.
WADE WINGLER: I don’t know when we are going to have to get up on black Friday to do that. I just don’t like to do black Friday but I think I’m going to.
JOSH ANDERSON: Make sure you look online.
WADE WINGLER: We’ve looked.
JOSH ANDERSON: Home Depot online had something like that on sale.
WADE WINGLER: I did the thing where I sent her the screenshot just like you said and said, here, look, it’s $299 right now. She goes, that is not the Animal.
BELVA SMITH: It’s got to be the animal.
BRIAN NORTON: What’s it do that’s different?
BELVA SMITH: It has special tools that help pick up the animal hair. It digs deep. I don’t have to change attachments to go from the carpet to the hardwood. It just does it.
JOSH ANDERSON: This portion of the show is brought to you by the Dyson Animal.
BELVA SMITH: Dyson has a hairdryer out this year. Have you seen it? It’s $400. For a hairdryer!
JOSH ANDERSON: Have you use their hand dryers in public restrooms?
BELVA SMITH: I love them.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s built into the sinks, right? Those are awesome.
BELVA SMITH: They should be everywhere.
BRIAN NORTON: I would love one in my house.
WADE WINGLER: I think Dyson is German for “expensive but worth it”. As I think about technology and getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning, for people who rely on public transportation and things like that, is not going to happen. I guess I will say that may be cyber Monday is lemons and lemonade. If getting out at ungodly hours in the morning to stand in line for hours which might be a problem if you have some sort of a disability that makes getting around trouble, at least you can log in on cyber Monday or other times and do your shopping that way.
For listeners who have that with black Friday or cyber Monday, I hope you get the deal you’re looking for. It’s clear here that if you find any extra Nintendo classics or Dyson animals, let us know. We are buyers. It’s a sellers market.
BRIAN NORTON: Again, for those who want to be able to find our show, you can search assistance technology questions on iTunes or look for us on stitcher, or visit us on our website at ATFAQshow.com. Also, please send us your questions. You can do that by calling our listener line at 317-721-7124, by sending us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ, or emailing us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.
We want your questions. In fact, without your questions, we really don’t have a show. Definitely be a part of it. I’m looking forward to talking with you guys in a couple of weeks. Take care.
BELVA SMITH: Bye.
WADE WINGLER: Happy holidays.
JOSH ANDERSON: Happy Thanksgiving.
WADE WINGLER: Information provided on Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions does not constitute a product endorsement. Our comments are not intended as recommendations, nor is our show evaluative in nature. Assistive Technology FAQ is hosted by Brian Norton; gets editorial support from Mark Stewart and Belva Smith; is produced by me, Wade Wingler; and receives support from Easter Seals Crossroads and the INDATA project. ATFAQ is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. Find more of our shows at www.accessibilitychannel.com.
***Transcript provided by TJ Cortopassi. For requests and inquiries, contact tjcortopassi@gmail.com***