ATFAQ046 – Q1 Do Alexa and Google Home record everything?Q2 Can people hack into Alexa and control your home? Q3 VoiceOver and Airpods Q4 Can you put contacts on a screen on your iPhone?Q5 What should I do with old AT? Q6 Can you recommend a low vision computing solution for my mother? Q7 What GPS smart phone apps do you rely on?

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ATFAQ046 – Q1 Do Alexa and Google Home record everything?Q2 Can people hack into Alexa and control your home? Q3 VoiceOver and Airpods Q4 Can you put contacts on a screen on your iPhone?Q5 What should I do with old AT? Q6 Can you recommend a low vision computing solution for my mother? Q7 What GPS smart phone apps do you rely on?

——-transcript follows ——

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 46. My name is Brian Norton and I’m the host of the show. I’m so excited to be here in the city with some of my colleagues today where we can get into the questions that you sent in. But before we do that, let’s go around and introduce the folks that are sitting with me. Belva?
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 46. My name is Brian Norton and I’m the host of the show. I’m so excited to be here in the city with some of my colleagues today where we can get into the questions that you sent in. But before we do that, let’s go around and introduce the folks that are sitting with me. Belva?
BELVA SMITH: Hey Brian. How excited are you?
BRIAN NORTON: I’m super excited today. Belva is our team lead on our vision team here at Easter Seals crossroads. Also joining us remotely is Josh Anderson.
JOSH ANDERSON: Hey everybody.
WADE WINGLER: Coming to you live outside a pawn shop in Kokomo Indiana.
JOSH ANDERSON: We will be giving away concert tickets later tonight.
WADE WINGLER: He set up with a Winnebago and card table wondering where his intern went with his coffee.
BRIAN NORTON: Love it. Josh is the manager of our clinical assistive technology department here. Also Wade Wingler.
WADE WINGLER: Happy new year. This is our first real show of 2017.
BRIAN NORTON: Lots of fun stuff to talk about in 2017. Just for those new listeners, I want to make sure you understand how the show works. The format we have is a question and answer format. We get questions that are sent in to us all throughout the week and we collect those and then we go through them and try to answer them as best we can. We also received lots of feedback as well and love to get feedback because, although we have what we think are good answers, we know you have great answers as well. If you listen to a question and have something that we didn’t mention or under the possibility to help whoever had that question out, please let us know and send that feedback in. We have a variety of different ways to do that. You can ask your questions or provide feedback through our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can give us a call on that line.
WADE WINGLER: You can.
BRIAN NORTON: Or send us an email at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. Or send us a tweet with hashtag ATFAQ. We monitor that for questions that might come across. Also if you are excited about the show after listening to it, you can tell your friends about it. You find us on iTunes, on our website at ATFAQshow.com, through stitcher, and the Google play store.
WADE WINGLER: Tune in radio is a new one we added not too long ago.
BRIAN NORTON: A variety of ways to find our show and chime in with questions and answers.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our first question today is, I hear that Alexa and Google home record everything you say. What happens to all that data?
WADE WINGLER: They become questions on ATFAQ.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s right.
BELVA SMITH: It’s sent straight to the FBI.
JOSH ANDERSON: NSA.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s an interesting question. I’ve seen lots of news articles about that. I think it’s a pretty popular – people are following along on a new story where they are trying to solve a crime and trying to get them to admit what Alexa has on memory into the record. It’s a timely question.
BELVA SMITH: It’s my understanding and interesting to me that this question as well as our next question, because one of the last shows we did for last year, Wade was talking about their new best friend Alexa. That was one of my questions, was aren’t you nervous. Alexa is now my new best friend at home, and I hope no one that is listening has one sitting nearby. If so I might wake them up. Maybe I’d better stop saying that word. I believe that it has to be listening to everything you’re saying so that it doesn’t know when to activate when it hears that we got word. But do I believe that Amazon or Google is storing the information? I’m not sure I do.
WADE WINGLER: I’ve done my research. My research is not scientific. It’s just based on literature review. Here’s what I’ve learned. It is always listening, but what is listening for is the word Alexa, echo, or dot. Those are the three keywords you can assign so that is the wake up word. It is constantly listening for those words. My understanding is because it is listening, it has to be recording. But it is also constantly dumping everything that is not that. It does keep the recording of the command you give after the wake word. If you say Alexa, what is the weather going to be tomorrow, it will keep the utterance but won’t keep anymore. It won’t send the non-Alexa stuff to Amazon because it can process whether or not it heard one of those keywords without sending it to the cloud. The processing of the command, what is the weather, the price of a popsicle or whatever, that has to go to the cloud because they do their processing there. I don’t know how long it is kept at that point because you can go back and scan the history of the commands and you can listen to them. The thing I heard about these subpoenas where the judges are trying to – or the police are trying to access information, not because they are going to hear a bag I come into the house doing bad guy things. They are trying to establish was this person in the residence at the time. Let’s say it’s a person who lives in the home and is accused of committing a crime. If they can show that he or she used Alexa to turn on music at 8 PM and they think the crime happened at 8:02 PM, they are trying to establish that that person was in the house, not so much that they are going to hear the bad guy doing the crime. That’s what I’ve heard so far. That’s also what I’m hearing in the media. That relies on the media to have true information about what Alexa is really doing. It sounds reasonable to me. It just doesn’t make sense that you could be uploading that much audio to the Internet all the time. There is not enough storage on the device to record 24/7/365 without having a rolling amount of recording that is being done and dumping the rest.
BELVA SMITH: I did find that if you have Alexa, you can go to Amazon.com/myex and choose to delete all of your stored voice commands. However, in doing that, you take the risk of Alexa networking as well because she is storing some of that because that is also her learning mechanism as to how you speak. I tried it just because I wanted to see what was going to happen. I chose not to do it because I don’t even know what I’m deleting. It doesn’t show you. It says are you sure you want to delete your files. I don’t know. Let me see what is there. I know I can go and look at the commands that have been set or used, but when you choose that the option, you don’t get to see it. For the Google home, it is myactivity.google.com.
WADE WINGLER: That is where you can clear the cache?
BELVA SMITH: Correct. Also, you can keep in mind that you can also mute it at any time.
WADE WINGLER: You can always unplug it.
BELVA SMITH: It doesn’t have to be on.
BRIAN NORTON: It amazes me the fascination with data. Everything records everything. You have hey Siri, for Cortana.
WADE WINGLER: Anything that is voice activated has to be listening.
BRIAN NORTON: Before that, your computer caches every website unless you turn it off. I search for something in the next thing I know it is in every page I go to as an ad. Everything records everything these days. It’s hard to get away from that.
WADE WINGLER: I’m just happy to know there is at least one thing in my house that listens to what I say all the time.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s only a one time fee.
WADE WINGLER: That’s right. So it’s worth it. But the point is $40.
JOSH ANDERSON: Is there a way you can turn that off to where you actually have to push a button in order for Alexa to work?
WADE WINGLER: That is a setting. I know because we had a coworker who had her set that way. She said Alexa all day long to it and it would work so she had to push a button. I assume then that if you change the setting that way, then it is probably not listening all the time.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s a timely topic about time the events that are happening now. Very interesting what happens to that information.
WADE WINGLER: True confession time. My family is in the process of buying a house right now. We’ve been looking at different houses in the area. There have been a couple where there was an Amazon echo in the house. I talked to it. Alexa, turn up the thermostat. Then I realized the person that owns that thing is going to see that I was the jerk talking to their Amazon echo while I was on the tour of their home.
BELVA SMITH: But you have to make sure it’s going to work, right?
WADE WINGLER: I don’t think it comes with the home.
JOSH ANDERSON: They probably take that with them.
BELVA SMITH: But if they have the correct thermostat, you want to make sure that when you move yours and it will work.
WADE WINGLER: Good logic.
BRIAN NORTON: Just kicking the tires a little bit.
***
BRIAN NORTON: As a follow-up question to that one, this is about Alexa security. Not necessarily are people able to get the data off of the machine, but as far as Alexa security, other people can hack and control your devices. There is some concern, or is that something that should or should not be a concern.
BELVA SMITH: I will say what I always say. If you connect to the Internet, the risk is there. But you are opening yourself up.
BELVA SMITH: I compare it— I really like my analogy now. I compare it to driving a car. Every time I get in the car, I can put my seatbelt on and obey the speed limit and be as safe as I can be. Is that any guarantee but I’m not going to get into an accident? It’s not. It’s the same thing with the Internet. You choose to use it or not to use it. I did have my questions about whether or not I wanted to have something in my home that was going to be hacked and that could be listening to me. I thought, half of the stuff in here that is electronic already is. Why not have something I can have fun with, which is Alexa. I enjoy having her, just getting her to give me silly facts and tell me the weather and all that stuff. Turn the office light on. All kinds of fun things. I think it’s one of those things where you have to decide whether it’s a risk that you want to take. I feel like if anybody is going to keep my stuff safe, it’s going to be Amazon. But do I believe that it’s not hackable? Not for a minute.
WADE WINGLER: I think when we think about Amazon echo and all the smart devices in our house and that stuff, I think it’s mostly just regular security practice rules. Amazon Alexa has an app, so it has a username and password associated with your Amazon account. You need a strong password on that. If you think about all of the smart lights and different devices, when you install one of those, you put it into a setup mode which makes it discoverable for just a little bit so that within Wi-Fi distance you can log into it. You have to be physically proximal to it. It has to be in its setup mode for you to get in there. I think that’s a limited time when you can hack into the bulb. After that, it has your Wi-Fi credentials so it can log in and be on your credentials. With the Amazon stuff, with the smart devices I have, there is an intermediary app. My lightbulbs connect to Casa. So there is another login with Casa so that if somebody wanted to log in and sit my lights on and off, and they hacked my Casa account, they could do that. Or if they hacked my Amazon account, they could sit my light on or off. With Amazon I suppose they could also order stuff from my Amazon account. But all of that is encrypted and protected with a username and password. My opinion is that I think the security risk is fairly low so long as you are using decent passwords and you are protecting those and you don’t leave things wide open. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being naïve. I’m not terribly worried about it.
BELVA SMITH: Recently within the last two weeks, the big news story was about the little six-year-old story – you guys probably heard it— who asked Alexa to get her a dollhouse, and can we get some cookies. It did it. She got a $170 dollhouse and four pounds of sugar cookies. Her mom said we will keep the cookies but the dollhouse is going back. Her mom went and looked and saw what exactly she had said to Alexa. But there are parental controls that can be turned on where you have to use a four digit code. If you have kids or someone else in your home that you might be afraid will place orders, put that on and don’t tell anyone your code. I agree with you, Wade. It’s about using your own personal safety and security. That’s all you can do.
WADE WINGLER: In my house, my five-year-old would’ve ordered every Lego in the world by now. When we set it up, it said something like do you want to put a pin on it. He’s tried it. “Alexa, I need some Legos please.” And then it says okay, what’s your passcode? He stuck at that point.
BRIAN NORTON: As far as passwords and things like that, I think we all think it’s not going to happen to me. Until it happens to you, you take your chances with using your street number as passwords or a family member and birthday.
WADE WINGLER: Rover 123.
BRIAN NORTON: QWERTY1234 is a universal password for everybody. If you don’t take those things seriously, we are just lazy when it comes to security. Then we complain what happens to us.
WADE WINGLER: I use last pass. One pass and last pass our automatic password generating things that make it easier to have long, tricky passwords.
BRIAN NORTON: It is a pain in the butt when you have to keep logging into it and do different things like that, but to get screwed over with someone hacking my stuff and taking my identity and of the kinds of things, it becomes a challenge.
BELVA SMITH: Was this person’s question, can Alexa be hacked? Was that the question? The answer to that is yes, absolutely it can. I feel sorry for the hacker that gets into mind because he’s not going to find much.
WADE WINGLER: Josh, you have to learn to be in the studio. We are steamrolling you.
JOSH ANDERSON: I’m sorry. Another thing that is important is to make sure your Wi-Fi is good and secure. I remember a few years ago people kept hacking into Wi-Fi enabled baby monitors.
WADE WINGLER: Cameras on your computers.
JOSH ANDERSON: It’s important to make sure your network is secure, your wife is secure. That is another layer of security.
BRIAN NORTON: Absolutely.
BELVA SMITH: Just because we are on the subject, I did find that I had to move my router. It is not any closer to Alexa than what it was, but it is in a straight line of view now rather than having a wall between it. It’s not that she wasn’t working, but when we were having her play music continuously, after so long she would lose connection. Now that we’ve got her in a straight line, it is working great.
BRIAN NORTON: So you don’t have buffering happening all the time. What kind of Internet connection do you need? Does it specify?
WADE WINGLER: It’s just like any streaming music. The higher speed and better secure connection you have, the better experience. We have a 70 megabits per second connection in our house so we rarely have trouble.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question came in the form of an email. It says, I live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC and am a big fan of ATFAQ. I’m visually impaired and am an advanced iPhone voice over user. I’m concerned about the switch to wireless Bluetooth earbuds and headphones with the new iPhone seven. Specifically Bluetooth has a tendency not to completely jive with voiceover in Siri. I’m wondering what you know about air pods or power beats, those Bluetooth wireless earpieces. I know iPhone seven comes of an adapter, but that just puts out the inevitable. I got the power beats as a gift and would like to know the accessibility point of view before I tried them out or return them. Keep up the good work and happy new year.
Essentially to pull that down, we know that air pods are out. Those of the Bluetooth earpieces for the iPhone seven. I think they just came out a couple of weeks ago. People are just getting their hands on them and playing with them. I know as far as Samsung is concerned and a couple of the other phone manufacturers, they’ve already had these wireless Bluetooth earbuds. The question is what about the accessibility point of view, that there sometimes seem to be lagging for voiceover in Siri as it tries to comedic it back and forth with the device. I’ll throw that out.
JOSH ANDERSON: I have had a few of my consumers complained when using Bluetooth headphones just as there is a lag in voiceover. If they are using swipes, by the time they do their double tap, they are already an app or two ahead of where they think they are. In order to fix it, we really just turned up Bluetooth, reconnected, and to fix the problem. It’s one of those things that there seems to be a lag, but after reconnecting, however the heck that fixes things, that seem to get rid of the problem. It’s not a new problem. I’ve heard of it before, especially when using any kind of Bluetooth headphones. They were the air pods because they weren’t out yet, but I know that this has been an issue before.
BELVA SMITH: The air pods are the ones made by Apple, correct?
BRIAN NORTON: Yes.
BELVA SMITH: I would hope that there would be little to no lag with those. I honestly have had absolutely no experience with it, nor have I had any consumers that have. Like Brian said, they’ve only been out for a couple of weeks. I think it was just shortly before the holiday or right after that they came out with them. This is one of those questions that would be good to put back to the audience and say, if there are any of you using voiceover that are using the new air pods, give us your feedback, let us know what your experience has been.
WADE WINGLER: I was thinking that when they originally started talking about the air pods that it was going to be using kind of a quasi-Bluetooth connection, Bluetooth with something else. My hope was that it would be a tighter, more proprietary connection like Belva said that would be more responsive and not have lag. I’m looking at the website and they are not saying anything other than Bluetooth connection which makes you wonder if it is going to be any better than other Bluetooth connections.
BELVA SMITH: The price is definitely higher than most of the other Bluetooth. You expect to get something for that.
JOSH ANDERSON: I’m just afraid I would lose them.
BRIAN NORTON: No kidding. I did some Internet research on this. A great place to turn if you are ever looking for Apple specific, forums. I was reading some things on AppleVis. They have some information on air pods. From personal experience and use, it sounds like they are not having any connection issues with them, that they are a little bit better than things that have had in the past. Again, it is an investment. It’s something I would definitely want to try.
BELVA SMITH: Whoever this person was, if you are anywhere near an Apple Store, I bet you if you go into a store, they will be more than willing to let you try them. I know my experience has always been once you get in there, you can spend the whole day if you want to. Try them out and see if you are experiencing the lag before you put up the money.
WADE WINGLER: I haven’t tried them yet. I have an LG headset that I’ve had for a couple of years that I really like. I haven’t had motivation to switch over. I’ll tell you one thing I did learn. The adapter that comes with the iPhone seven to adapt your lightning connection over to a standard audio headphone jack, it works, but then you can’t charge your phone. For me the adapter was the problem. I drive back and forth a lot and I want to be able to charge my phone while I’m in the car and also listen to podcasts because I like podcast, but I want to listen to those while I’m driving. If you’re using the adapter, you can’t charge and listen at the same time. That’s a different adapter that I’m not sure exists yet. When moving to the iPhone seven he got you do have to make the leap to Bluetooth audio connections if you’re going to be charging while doing it.
BRIAN NORTON: I’ve got an iPhone seven and I didn’t realize that. Now that I think about the things I have in my bag, you can’t do that. You can’t charge and listen.
BELVA SMITH: Both of you have the iPhone seven. I’m still using the iPhone 6S Plus. Why would I want an iPhone seven?
WADE WINGLER: Because the cool kids have them.
BELVA SMITH: That’s exactly what I thought.
BRIAN NORTON: One thing I’ve realized from moving from the six to the seventh is the funkiness of your life but goes away. It’s not a physical push. It’s a haptic interface. It vibrates. It’s not as confusing for me to get into my phone before as when I was using my six.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t have a funky experience with my button. I use my thumbprint. I just simply land my thumb. Buy them open straight to my home screen.
BRIAN NORTON: I have a funky thumb. My experience getting into my phone is not as problematic as it used to be.
BELVA SMITH: That’s really interesting because I have heard, especially the consumers that are using voiceover, they are not happy with the way the iPhone seven is unlocking with the voiceover. Interesting.
BRIAN NORTON: The other thing is it is a lot faster. There is a noticeable difference. If there are folks who are listening who have had a chance to play with the air pods, the new Apple Bluetooth headsets, and voiceover, let us know what your experience is. Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Let us know how it’s going for you. I would love to be able to make sure that person has some personal experience to draw from in trying to answer their question. It was a call. We would love to hear from you.
***
Our next question was a question someone left us on the phone. We’re going to go ahead and play that message now.
SPEAKER: This is Christian calling about frequently asked questions. I’m a regular listener of the frequently asked question show. I had a question about the iPhone. I may be getting an iPhone again in the future. I don’t know when. The question I need answered is, I was wondering if you can drag contacts to a certain screen. My question is can you drag contacts to the second screen or first screen or third screen or whatever screen you want to drive them to. The reason why I’m asking this is because I want to be able to set speed dials on the iPhone or figure out a way to do that or see if there is a way that you can drag contacts from your contacts list to a certain screen. If you can answer that on the next show, that would be very helpful. I am a regular listener and wanted to throw the question out there. Thanks.
WADE WINGLER: First of all, thank you.
BRIAN NORTON: Absolutely. The question I think they are getting at is wondering if you can drag contacts from the phone contacts app out on your main screen much like you can do with webpages. You can take a webpage or bookmark and stick it on your screen. I think they want to do the same thing with a contact so that when you open the phone call you just have to find it on the screen.
WADE WINGLER: I don’t think you can. I’m not even sure I would take that approach pure there are lots of different ways to do that. When you’re using the contacts app on your iOS device or iPhone, you can set up favorites. On mine, when I hit the phone app I have let people right there on my favorites list that I can scroll down to. If you’re using voiceover, you can drag your finger to the one you want, double tap on it and go. You might even dial it with Siri, especially if it is in your favorites. I’m not sure that I would take that approach.
BELVA SMITH: I could be wrong about this, but your contacts don’t exist on a screen. They exist within your phone app.
WADE WINGLER: Your contacts app.
BELVA SMITH: So you’re not going to be able to drag them from one screen to the other screen. I would just mirror what Wade said. Using Siri— I’ve had this experience where an individual couldn’t pronounce a person’s name well enough for Siri to get it or have difficulty getting the phone number out. Then you just use a nickname or shortcut for the phone number so that, instead of saying Siri dial a big number, you could say dial one as long as you give that person that nickname.
BRIAN NORTON: They used to be a way to double press the home button so that you can directly access your favorites. If you went to settings, you go to general to home button and do that. I haven’t tried that in 10.2, the new iOS. We used to be able to go to settings, general, home button and be able to have what the double price of your home button have contacts jump up there for you.
JOSH ANDERSON: On the other thing you can do that is easy is if you swipe right, you go to your widgets, you can have up next and all those. You can edit and add a favorites widget so that all you have to do is swipe right in your favorites will be there. You touch one and it calls right away.
BELVA SMITH: You can do the same thing with the emergency dial. I’ve never gotten to my favorites with that double-click, but it always done the swipe right on the home screen.
BRIAN NORTON: I will say there are some apps out there as well that allow for speed dally within the app. Really you’re just re-creating what is already there, what favorites will do within contacts and Siri. A couple of ones that had good reviews are Instacall and Speed Dial. They are a couple of free apps that have good reviews as far as being a speed dialing application for the iPhone. I think you are just re-creating what is already there.
WADE WINGLER: Unless speaking the name of the person and using Siri is a problem, that’s probably the fastest way to do that.
BELVA SMITH: And give the person a nickname if you need to. I recently had to do that.
WADE WINGLER: Call schmookie.
BRIAN NORTON: Totally lost my train of thought. I will say, one thing I think would be interesting about being able to put contacts on a main screen like that is just the simplicity of having a picture dial system or name dial system. If you have someone who has some challenges with intellectual or cognitive, having things on the phone directly in front of them much like a bookmark, or you can see it and press a button, would be helpful so you don’t have to navigate menus and know how to navigate the phone. I really don’t think that’s available at this point.
BELVA SMITH: I do have a consumer that someone has done that for her. How they did it I don’t know. They took a picture of grandma and put it on her own screen, and a picture of mom and put it on her own screen. She’s a 13-year-old girl with lots of challenges. To call mom or grandma, all she does is take their picture and automatically dials their number.
BRIAN NORTON: I did stumble across a couple of instructions about— if you bring up Safari and you can put in the address bar the phone number itself, and I think it’s .tel.qlnk.net or something like that. You can create those. However, I tried it several times and it did not work. I don’t know if it’s because of the new operating system or some new feature within Safari. It wasn’t letting me set it up like the pictures and the information suggested I would be able to. That may be how they did it and an older format.
BELVA SMITH: I know she is not using one of the new iPhones. She’s probably still using the 4 if I’m not mistaken, and I do believe that that’s one of the reasons why they haven’t tried to upgrade her phone. They don’t want to lose that ability.
WADE WINGLER: There is an HTML – I’m looking online and haven’t verified. It looks like you can use an hreftel: and number tag, HTML number tag which should kick off Safari or your default browser and kick off a telephone call. If you Google HTML link dial phone, you’ll find some articles that talk about doing that. I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t know if it works. It makes sense because I’ve clicked on many webpages on my phone the context the phone number on the webpage for a doctor’s office, and it would go ahead and dial it. Maybe what you’re doing is creating a bookmark with an HTML – maybe that’ll work. We need to follow up sometime.
BRIAN NORTON: Like I said, I tried a couple of those and couldn’t get it to work. What I’m looking at now basin what you said Wade is it’s different. I’ll play with that and maybe be able to provide on our next show about that.
***
Don’t forget, if you guys have a question or some feedback, please send us an email. You can send it at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. Our next question is what do I do with old assistive technology? I have a CCTV that is 12 years old and I want to get rid of it because I have a newer one now. Is there a place I could take it too? I hate to get rid of it because it still works.
BELVA SMITH: The first thing I want to say is thanks for asking the question because we would hope that anyone who has all the technology that may still be working but had the opportunity to get something new would look for opportunities to reuse it. If you’re here in Indiana, I would suggest you start out by contacting in data—
WADE WINGLER: Bring it here.
BELVA SMITH: Because that’s what they do, reuse and recycle assistive technology. Another good suggestion I could think of would be look for independent living centers that might be in your local area because I’m sure that they may be happy or know an individual that it could be given to. Speak to your friends and folks in our church. Almost everyone has a grandma or in-laws that is older and getting some macular or cataracts and could benefit from the use of the CCTV or any technology.
BRIAN NORTON: The INDATA Project, Indiana’s assistive technology act project, there are 56 of those across the country. In every state and territory there is an assistive technology act project. If you come to our website www.eastersealstech.com/states, it will bring you to a directory of all statewide assistive technology acts. I would say if you call them, they will let you know who can recycle, who can reuse that equal but no matter where you go.
WADE WINGLER: I can almost hear my friends in Georgia at the pass it on center jumping up and down saying wait, talk about us. At Georgia Tech there is a center called the pass it on Center. My dear friend Carolyn Phillips runs the program down there. They are the Mecca of assistive technology reuse. In addition to the link that Brian gave, www.eastersealstech.com/states that will take you to the AT act projects, the Pass It On Center has all those plus also some programs that do 80 reuse that might not be associated with the AT act. That’s a great resource for any of your assistance technology reuse, the utilization, recycling questions. Their website is PassItOnCenter.org.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question was an email that we received to Wade. Hello, Wade, hope all is well with you.
WADE WINGLER: It is.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t have this question.
WADE WINGLER: It came in late. I’m fine, thanks for calling.
BRIAN NORTON: The rest of the question goes like this: here is an assistive technology question for you. My mother has significant visual impairment and is no longer able to use her Mac desktop computer. Her primary computer use it for email and some Internet shopping. Can you please suggest a computer or vendor organization for someone in her situation? I guess as a follow-up question that I would probably need just a little bit more information on, you mentioned she is not able to use her Mac desktop computer anymore. I wonder if that is because her visual impairment or the computer itself. I would have that main question. I know on the computer itself you do have some magnification features under the settings menu. Zoom will allow you to zoom and make things larger. If the person’s visual impairment requires speech output, they also have voiceover which is a screen reading program on the computer. Of course in order to use those things, there is probably going to be training that is necessary seeking get good at it and navigate with it and use it. You are still able to use the computer at that point.
BELVA SMITH: It would have to be a really old Mac to not have both of those features included. Mac has always been fairly good at making sure that they include the ability to have the voiceover and the zoom. I think probably that might be a good place to start is to look into your mom’s current computer and find out if those features are there.
JOSH ANDERSON: If she’s just doing some basic things, there is a voiceover tutorial that pops up when you first turn it on. They may be able to give her some of the keystrokes and commands to let her check her email or do a couple of the things she needs to do on the computer without the need for full on training if she is just using it for a few smaller uses.
BELVA SMITH: Apple is very good, if you go into the Apple store hopefully there is one near you. Schedule an appointment to go in and sit down with one of the geniuses. They are very good about helping individuals learn how to use the voiceover and the zoom or whatever accessible features they had that might benefit an individual. You’re not going to make you an expert by any means but certainly your mom or family member will be able to leave after spending just a little bit of time with one of the geniuses, feeling more confident in how to use it.
WADE WINGLER: This is from a friend of mine. I went back and forth with her on this question. Belva, to your point, it looks like voiceover has been on Mac since Tiger which was 2005, so more than 10 years we’ve had voiceover on Mac. I’m not fully understanding of the issue that she can’t use it any longer is because her vision continues to change, or just the complexity of using voiceover on the Mac is an issue. I know that they are looking at voiceover tutorials and spending some time on that. I also know they are looking at potentially having some training and having somebody come out and spend time with her on using was over and/or resume. I also suggested that just because it is complicated and her vision is changing, she might want to look at changing to a new computer as an option. If they wanted to move over to Windows – I can’t believe I said that— something like the guide system would be a reasonable choice where it is a very simplified user interface, very specific to the things she’s talking about, email and web browsing. That might be another solution to consider.
BELVA SMITH: That’s it’s everywhere my train of thought was going. The guide software is very simple to use and gives you complete instructions for how to create an email, how to send an email, how to read email. Also possibly a tablet might be another good option where you could use the voiceover to have things read back to you but also use Siri to do things for you like sending an email or sending a text. I would love to sit down with this individual and figure out exactly what the correct approach would be.
BRIAN NORTON: Knowing a little bit more information on that, yeah, there are certainly ways they can be helpful in those situations. Depending on where this person was located, if you are looking for an organization or vendor that can provide that to you, again I would reach out to your local assistive technology act project and see who provides those services in your area and get hooked up with someone who is knowledgeable and can provide the training you’re looking for and help you dig and more on the situation.
BELVA SMITH: Often times the Independent living centers in your area will have some of the computer system is set up to where you can go in and see how it works. That might be another option to look into.
***
WADE WINGLER: And now it’s time for the wildcard question.
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question is the wildcard question. Wade, this is where we throw the mic at you — literally throw the mic at you.
WADE WINGLER: We have to think of a better name than the wildcard question, because they are not really that wild. We don’t get too much out of control. Maybe the surprise question— we’ll just stick with wildcard.
BRIAN NORTON: It has such a ring to it.
WADE WINGLER: Plus there is an effect that plays so we’ll leave that alone. Today, in honor of Josh being out on the road, we are getting into our busy time here at Easter Seals crossroads and our assistive technology program. Everybody is past the holidays, done with pitch ins, and now getting back to work. That means our road warriors are out on the road all the time. My question is, when I started this job doing clinical assistance technology work a million and a half years ago, I relied on an atlas and map. I was super excited when we moved into a printable MapQuest situation where I could print out my maps in advance.
BELVA SMITH: 25 pages later.
WADE WINGLER: Turn by turn directions, I love you. Then I got my first Garmin where you had this physical device that you mounted on your dash and looked like it was made of Legos. Now, we really don’t seem to do those things anymore. My question is, what are you guys using? Are you using maps ever? Are you using a traditional GPS? Or—and I’m guessing most of us are using smartphones with some sort of app — what are you using and why?
BRIAN NORTON: I’ll jump in. I use my smartphone and I kind of jump around between three different GPS apps. Google maps, I also use Apple maps, but probably my primary one especially when I am taking longer trips is the Waze app. They all have their different advantages. I think Google sometimes tends to be a little bit more accurate than the others. Apple maps is a lot nicer now with the newer operating system, in my opinion, so it does a good job as well. But what I really like is Waze simply because I have the social interaction going on. They alert me to accidents that are up the road, hazards, speed traps, other kinds of things. It helps me get from point A to point B a lot quicker. I’ve tested it out and really do feel like it does give me places faster. I simply use Waze. Although I do remember back in the day where you can get me someplace once, and I could get myself back there no matter what.
WADE WINGLER: Because you had to pay attention.
BRIAN NORTON: Exactly. You memorized landmarks. I turn at the big building on the right, or something like that. Now I wait for that pretty lady in the box to tell me where to go.
WADE WINGLER: [British accent] Hello, Brian, it’s time to turn to the right, sir.
BRIAN NORTON: I miss her if I don’t hear.
BELVA SMITH: Todd named our GPS Nicole, so everywhere we went he made her have an English accent, and everywhere we went Nicole had to go. She’s now in a big case in the cabinet. I couldn’t tell you the last time she was out. Josh, I already know you are laughing at this question. I still use MapQuest.
WADE WINGLER: Do you really? On your phone?
BELVA SMITH: I do.
WADE WINGLER: You don’t print out MapQuest?
BELVA SMITH: No, I still use MapQuest on my phone. One of our new employees was asking how to get somewhere. As Brian was trying to tell her, take the street to that street and turn left. I was like, wait a minute, have you not get your phone yet? Why are you asking directions? My phone gets me everywhere. But apparently she’s one of the folks that really likes to have a visual. I never have a visual. I just wait for MapQuest to tell me when to turn.
BRIAN NORTON: She said a backup system so that if her phone gives out, she’s not stuck.
WADE WINGLER: Are you using MapQuest.com and your browser on the phone, or do you have the MapQuest app?
BELVA SMITH: The MapQuest app.
WADE WINGLER: So at least it’s a MapQuest app.
BELVA SMITH: To be honest with you, it has gotten me some strange places a couple times.
WADE WINGLER: That’s not MapQuest.
BELVA SMITH: But I don’t think it’s MapQuest. I think it would’ve happened the matter what. I don’t know. It works for me.
BRIAN NORTON: Let’s be honest: we go some strange places.
BELVA SMITH: We do go some strange places.
BRIAN NORTON: Some uncharted territory.
BELVA SMITH: I once had to call an individual and say, do you live on the water? He said no, but let me guess you’re using MapQuest. I said, yeah. He said it took you the wrong way.
JOSH ANDERSON: I use the same things as Brian. What you brought up, Belva, was funny because I’ve had some consumers, when they give me their address, say use Google maps, not Apple maps, or it’ll take you to the wrong side of the river, and other things. I mostly go back and forth between Apple maps and Waze. Both have taken me weird places. Apple maps has taken me through a couple of cornfields. Waze has taken me through parking lot to give me to places, which I think at some time out. To tell on Belva more with the MapQuest, her daughter-in-law was nice enough to help my wife and I buy a house. One of the houses that we went to go look at she used MapQuest to find. It found the correct address and the totally wrong town.
BRIAN NORTON: Is it a family thing?
BELVA SMITH: That’s what Josh said. She goes, my mother-in-law is the one that told me to use MapQuest. She’s just like me. She hasn’t changed.
JOSH ANDERSON: She hasn’t quite moved on yet. I really do like Waze. It seemed to get you around traffic more. You know if you are driving into bad traffic, it tells you. The new Apple maps seems to be a little bit better. It finds faster routes as you go. If you change time zones, it adjusts for that. Waze does not adjust for the different time zones we drive through. They all have their good things. I do remember the good days of the atlas. Sometimes it was nice to get lost and find new places. That’s gone now.
BELVA SMITH: I will say the one thing I do find frustrating about MapQuest is if there is an accident or something that has closed the road I need to go on, it is not very good at getting me new directions with a new route so that I’m not needing to go that way. I don’t know if one of the other different apps might be better at it, but MapQuest is not very good at that.
WADE WINGLER: For me I use a couple of different things. I probably use Waze the most. We live in a place here in Indiana where we don’t rely on public transportation very much. We drive a lot. The motor capital world or whatever with racing. When I’m in DC or other places, Chicago, where I need to rely on public transportation, I switch from Waze to Google maps because their public transit maps are pretty good. Also there walking maps, so if I’m walking inside of a city, those work pretty well. Honestly because I drive a lot and we live in a place where that’s how we get around primarily, I use Waze a lot and have been for a couple of years now and really like it.
BELVA SMITH: This maps that on my phone, is that Google maps—
BRIAN NORTON: That’s Apple maps. I do on occasion, when MapQuest can’t find, especially with newer housing additions and stuff, when MapQuest can’t find the address I will go to that one and it does seem to always be able to find it.
BRIAN NORTON: You have to download Google maps to the phone. Same with Waze. If you guys have questions or have feedback about any of the questions we went through today, we have a variety of different ways for you to get a hold of us and let us know those things. You can give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Or email us at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. We certainly want your questions. In fact, without your questions we really don’t have a show, so definitely be a part of it. I want to take my colleagues in the room. Wade?
WADE WINGLER: Thanks everybody. Please let us know about the airports thing. I want to hear about those.
BRIAN NORTON: Josh?
JOSH ANDERSON: Thanks everybody.
BRIAN NORTON: And Belva?
BELVA SMITH: Before we leave, I’ve got just a little tidbit of news I want to share. Anyone who is close to me knows that I loved my TiVo. Just with the latest TiVo update, if you are visually impaired and you stayed away from TiVo, you don’t have to anymore. The latest update includes not only zoom but voiceover. It reads beautifully.
WADE WINGLER: We need to do a tech tip on that then.
BELVA SMITH: I can do that.
BRIAN NORTON: Very cool. Think everybody. Have a great couple weeks and we will see you later.
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***

en lots of news articles about that. I think it’s a pretty popular – people are following along on a new story where they are trying to solve a crime and trying to get them to admit what Alexa has on memory into the record. It’s a timely question.
BELVA SMITH: It’s my understanding and interesting to me that this question as well as our next question, because one of the last shows we did for last year, Wade was talking about their new best friend Alexa. That was one of my questions, was aren’t you nervous. Alexa is now my new best friend at home, and I hope no one that is listening has one sitting nearby. If so I might wake them up. Maybe I’d better stop saying that word. I believe that it has to be listening to everything you’re saying so that it doesn’t know when to activate when it hears that we got word. But do I believe that Amazon or Google is storing the information? I’m not sure I do.
WADE WINGLER: I’ve done my research. My research is not scientific. It’s just based on literature review. Here’s what I’ve learned. It is always listening, but what is listening for is the word Alexa, echo, or dot. Those are the three keywords you can assign so that is the wake up word. It is constantly listening for those words. My understanding is because it is listening, it has to be recording. But it is also constantly dumping everything that is not that. It does keep the recording of the command you give after the wake word. If you say Alexa, what is the weather going to be tomorrow, it will keep the utterance but won’t keep anymore. It won’t send the non-Alexa stuff to Amazon because it can process whether or not it heard one of those keywords without sending it to the cloud. The processing of the command, what is the weather, the price of a popsicle or whatever, that has to go to the cloud because they do their processing there. I don’t know how long it is kept at that point because you can go back and scan the history of the commands and you can listen to them. The thing I heard about these subpoenas where the judges are trying to – or the police are trying to access information, not because they are going to hear a bag I come into the house doing bad guy things. They are trying to establish was this person in the residence at the time. Let’s say it’s a person who lives in the home and is accused of committing a crime. If they can show that he or she used Alexa to turn on music at 8 PM and they think the crime happened at 8:02 PM, they are trying to establish that that person was in the house, not so much that they are going to hear the bad guy doing the crime. That’s what I’ve heard so far. That’s also what I’m hearing in the media. That relies on the media to have true information about what Alexa is really doing. It sounds reasonable to me. It just doesn’t make sense that you could be uploading that much audio to the Internet all the time. There is not enough storage on the device to record 24/7/365 without having a rolling amount of recording that is being done and dumping the rest.
BELVA SMITH: I did find that if you have Alexa, you can go to Amazon.com/myex and choose to delete all of your stored voice commands. However, in doing that, you take the risk of Alexa networking as well because she is storing some of that because that is also her learning mechanism as to how you speak. I tried it just because I wanted to see what was going to happen. I chose not to do it because I don’t even know what I’m deleting. It doesn’t show you. It says are you sure you want to delete your files. I don’t know. Let me see what is there. I know I can go and look at the commands that have been set or used, but when you choose that the option, you don’t get to see it. For the Google home, it is myactivity.google.com.
WADE WINGLER: That is where you can clear the cache?
BELVA SMITH: Correct. Also, you can keep in mind that you can also mute it at any time.
WADE WINGLER: You can always unplug it.
BELVA SMITH: It doesn’t have to be on.
BRIAN NORTON: It amazes me the fascination with data. Everything records everything. You have hey Siri, for Cortana.
WADE WINGLER: Anything that is voice activated has to be listening.
BRIAN NORTON: Before that, your computer caches every website unless you turn it off. I search for something in the next thing I know it is in every page I go to as an ad. Everything records everything these days. It’s hard to get away from that.
WADE WINGLER: I’m just happy to know there is at least one thing in my house that listens to what I say all the time.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s only a one time fee.
WADE WINGLER: That’s right. So it’s worth it. But the point is $40.
JOSH ANDERSON: Is there a way you can turn that off to where you actually have to push a button in order for Alexa to work?
WADE WINGLER: That is a setting. I know because we had a coworker who had her set that way. She said Alexa all day long to it and it would work so she had to push a button. I assume then that if you change the setting that way, then it is probably not listening all the time.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s a timely topic about time the events that are happening now. Very interesting what happens to that information.
WADE WINGLER: True confession time. My family is in the process of buying a house right now. We’ve been looking at different houses in the area. There have been a couple where there was an Amazon echo in the house. I talked to it. Alexa, turn up the thermostat. Then I realized the person that owns that thing is going to see that I was the jerk talking to their Amazon echo while I was on the tour of their home.
BELVA SMITH: But you have to make sure it’s going to work, right?
WADE WINGLER: I don’t think it comes with the home.
JOSH ANDERSON: They probably take that with them.
BELVA SMITH: But if they have the correct thermostat, you want to make sure that when you move yours and it will work.
WADE WINGLER: Good logic.
BRIAN NORTON: Just kicking the tires a little bit.
***
BRIAN NORTON: As a follow-up question to that one, this is about Alexa security. Not necessarily are people able to get the data off of the machine, but as far as Alexa security, other people can hack and control your devices. There is some concern, or is that something that should or should not be a concern.
BELVA SMITH: I will say what I always say. If you connect to the Internet, the risk is there. But you are opening yourself up.
BELVA SMITH: I compare it— I really like my analogy now. I compare it to driving a car. Every time I get in the car, I can put my seatbelt on and obey the speed limit and be as safe as I can be. Is that any guarantee but I’m not going to get into an accident? It’s not. It’s the same thing with the Internet. You choose to use it or not to use it. I did have my questions about whether or not I wanted to have something in my home that was going to be hacked and that could be listening to me. I thought, half of the stuff in here that is electronic already is. Why not have something I can have fun with, which is Alexa. I enjoy having her, just getting her to give me silly facts and tell me the weather and all that stuff. Turn the office light on. All kinds of fun things. I think it’s one of those things where you have to decide whether it’s a risk that you want to take. I feel like if anybody is going to keep my stuff safe, it’s going to be Amazon. But do I believe that it’s not hackable? Not for a minute.
WADE WINGLER: I think when we think about Amazon echo and all the smart devices in our house and that stuff, I think it’s mostly just regular security practice rules. Amazon Alexa has an app, so it has a username and password associated with your Amazon account. You need a strong password on that. If you think about all of the smart lights and different devices, when you install one of those, you put it into a setup mode which makes it discoverable for just a little bit so that within Wi-Fi distance you can log into it. You have to be physically proximal to it. It has to be in its setup mode for you to get in there. I think that’s a limited time when you can hack into the bulb. After that, it has your Wi-Fi credentials so it can log in and be on your credentials. With the Amazon stuff, with the smart devices I have, there is an intermediary app. My lightbulbs connect to Casa. So there is another login with Casa so that if somebody wanted to log in and sit my lights on and off, and they hacked my Casa account, they could do that. Or if they hacked my Amazon account, they could sit my light on or off. With Amazon I suppose they could also order stuff from my Amazon account. But all of that is encrypted and protected with a username and password. My opinion is that I think the security risk is fairly low so long as you are using decent passwords and you are protecting those and you don’t leave things wide open. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being naïve. I’m not terribly worried about it.
BELVA SMITH: Recently within the last two weeks, the big news story was about the little six-year-old story – you guys probably heard it— who asked Alexa to get her a dollhouse, and can we get some cookies. It did it. She got a $170 dollhouse and four pounds of sugar cookies. Her mom said we will keep the cookies but the dollhouse is going back. Her mom went and looked and saw what exactly she had said to Alexa. But there are parental controls that can be turned on where you have to use a four digit code. If you have kids or someone else in your home that you might be afraid will place orders, put that on and don’t tell anyone your code. I agree with you, Wade. It’s about using your own personal safety and security. That’s all you can do.
WADE WINGLER: In my house, my five-year-old would’ve ordered every Lego in the world by now. When we set it up, it said something like do you want to put a pin on it. He’s tried it. “Alexa, I need some Legos please.” And then it says okay, what’s your passcode? He stuck at that point.
BRIAN NORTON: As far as passwords and things like that, I think we all think it’s not going to happen to me. Until it happens to you, you take your chances with using your street number as passwords or a family member and birthday.
WADE WINGLER: Rover 123.
BRIAN NORTON: QWERTY1234 is a universal password for everybody. If you don’t take those things seriously, we are just lazy when it comes to security. Then we complain what happens to us.
WADE WINGLER: I use last pass. One pass and last pass our automatic password generating things that make it easier to have long, tricky passwords.
BRIAN NORTON: It is a pain in the butt when you have to keep logging into it and do different things like that, but to get screwed over with someone hacking my stuff and taking my identity and of the kinds of things, it becomes a challenge.
BELVA SMITH: Was this person’s question, can Alexa be hacked? Was that the question? The answer to that is yes, absolutely it can. I feel sorry for the hacker that gets into mind because he’s not going to find much.
WADE WINGLER: Josh, you have to learn to be in the studio. We are steamrolling you.
JOSH ANDERSON: I’m sorry. Another thing that is important is to make sure your Wi-Fi is good and secure. I remember a few years ago people kept hacking into Wi-Fi enabled baby monitors.
WADE WINGLER: Cameras on your computers.
JOSH ANDERSON: It’s important to make sure your network is secure, your wife is secure. That is another layer of security.
BRIAN NORTON: Absolutely.
BELVA SMITH: Just because we are on the subject, I did find that I had to move my router. It is not any closer to Alexa than what it was, but it is in a straight line of view now rather than having a wall between it. It’s not that she wasn’t working, but when we were having her play music continuously, after so long she would lose connection. Now that we’ve got her in a straight line, it is working great.
BRIAN NORTON: So you don’t have buffering happening all the time. What kind of Internet connection do you need? Does it specify?
WADE WINGLER: It’s just like any streaming music. The higher speed and better secure connection you have, the better experience. We have a 70 megabits per second connection in our house so we rarely have trouble.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question came in the form of an email. It says, I live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC and am a big fan of ATFAQ. I’m visually impaired and am an advanced iPhone voice over user. I’m concerned about the switch to wireless Bluetooth earbuds and headphones with the new iPhone seven. Specifically Bluetooth has a tendency not to completely jive with voiceover in Siri. I’m wondering what you know about air pods or power beats, those Bluetooth wireless earpieces. I know iPhone seven comes of an adapter, but that just puts out the inevitable. I got the power beats as a gift and would like to know the accessibility point of view before I tried them out or return them. Keep up the good work and happy new year.
Essentially to pull that down, we know that air pods are out. Those of the Bluetooth earpieces for the iPhone seven. I think they just came out a couple of weeks ago. People are just getting their hands on them and playing with them. I know as far as Samsung is concerned and a couple of the other phone manufacturers, they’ve already had these wireless Bluetooth earbuds. The question is what about the accessibility point of view, that there sometimes seem to be lagging for voiceover in Siri as it tries to comedic it back and forth with the device. I’ll throw that out.
JOSH ANDERSON: I have had a few of my consumers complained when using Bluetooth headphones just as there is a lag in voiceover. If they are using swipes, by the time they do their double tap, they are already an app or two ahead of where they think they are. In order to fix it, we really just turned up Bluetooth, reconnected, and to fix the problem. It’s one of those things that there seems to be a lag, but after reconnecting, however the heck that fixes things, that seem to get rid of the problem. It’s not a new problem. I’ve heard of it before, especially when using any kind of Bluetooth headphones. They were the air pods because they weren’t out yet, but I know that this has been an issue before.
BELVA SMITH: The air pods are the ones made by Apple, correct?
BRIAN NORTON: Yes.
BELVA SMITH: I would hope that there would be little to no lag with those. I honestly have had absolutely no experience with it, nor have I had any consumers that have. Like Brian said, they’ve only been out for a couple of weeks. I think it was just shortly before the holiday or right after that they came out with them. This is one of those questions that would be good to put back to the audience and say, if there are any of you using voiceover that are using the new air pods, give us your feedback, let us know what your experience has been.
WADE WINGLER: I was thinking that when they originally started talking about the air pods that it was going to be using kind of a quasi-Bluetooth connection, Bluetooth with something else. My hope was that it would be a tighter, more proprietary connection like Belva said that would be more responsive and not have lag. I’m looking at the website and they are not saying anything other than Bluetooth connection which makes you wonder if it is going to be any better than other Bluetooth connections.
BELVA SMITH: The price is definitely higher than most of the other Bluetooth. You expect to get something for that.
JOSH ANDERSON: I’m just afraid I would lose them.
BRIAN NORTON: No kidding. I did some Internet research on this. A great place to turn if you are ever looking for Apple specific, forums. I was reading some things on AppleVis. They have some information on air pods. From personal experience and use, it sounds like they are not having any connection issues with them, that they are a little bit better than things that have had in the past. Again, it is an investment. It’s something I would definitely want to try.
BELVA SMITH: Whoever this person was, if you are anywhere near an Apple Store, I bet you if you go into a store, they will be more than willing to let you try them. I know my experience has always been once you get in there, you can spend the whole day if you want to. Try them out and see if you are experiencing the lag before you put up the money.
WADE WINGLER: I haven’t tried them yet. I have an LG headset that I’ve had for a couple of years that I really like. I haven’t had motivation to switch over. I’ll tell you one thing I did learn. The adapter that comes with the iPhone seven to adapt your lightning connection over to a standard audio headphone jack, it works, but then you can’t charge your phone. For me the adapter was the problem. I drive back and forth a lot and I want to be able to charge my phone while I’m in the car and also listen to podcasts because I like podcast, but I want to listen to those while I’m driving. If you’re using the adapter, you can’t charge and listen at the same time. That’s a different adapter that I’m not sure exists yet. When moving to the iPhone seven he got you do have to make the leap to Bluetooth audio connections if you’re going to be charging while doing it.
BRIAN NORTON: I’ve got an iPhone seven and I didn’t realize that. Now that I think about the things I have in my bag, you can’t do that. You can’t charge and listen.
BELVA SMITH: Both of you have the iPhone seven. I’m still using the iPhone 6S Plus. Why would I want an iPhone seven?
WADE WINGLER: Because the cool kids have them.
BELVA SMITH: That’s exactly what I thought.
BRIAN NORTON: One thing I’ve realized from moving from the six to the seventh is the funkiness of your life but goes away. It’s not a physical push. It’s a haptic interface. It vibrates. It’s not as confusing for me to get into my phone before as when I was using my six.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t have a funky experience with my button. I use my thumbprint. I just simply land my thumb. Buy them open straight to my home screen.
BRIAN NORTON: I have a funky thumb. My experience getting into my phone is not as problematic as it used to be.
BELVA SMITH: That’s really interesting because I have heard, especially the consumers that are using voiceover, they are not happy with the way the iPhone seven is unlocking with the voiceover. Interesting.
BRIAN NORTON: The other thing is it is a lot faster. There is a noticeable difference. If there are folks who are listening who have had a chance to play with the air pods, the new Apple Bluetooth headsets, and voiceover, let us know what your experience is. Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Let us know how it’s going for you. I would love to be able to make sure that person has some personal experience to draw from in trying to answer their question. It was a call. We would love to hear from you.
***
Our next question was a question someone left us on the phone. We’re going to go ahead and play that message now.
SPEAKER: This is Christian calling about frequently asked questions. I’m a regular listener of the frequently asked question show. I had a question about the iPhone. I may be getting an iPhone again in the future. I don’t know when. The question I need answered is, I was wondering if you can drag contacts to a certain screen. My question is can you drag contacts to the second screen or first screen or third screen or whatever screen you want to drive them to. The reason why I’m asking this is because I want to be able to set speed dials on the iPhone or figure out a way to do that or see if there is a way that you can drag contacts from your contacts list to a certain screen. If you can answer that on the next show, that would be very helpful. I am a regular listener and wanted to throw the question out there. Thanks.
WADE WINGLER: First of all, thank you.
BRIAN NORTON: Absolutely. The question I think they are getting at is wondering if you can drag contacts from the phone contacts app out on your main screen much like you can do with webpages. You can take a webpage or bookmark and stick it on your screen. I think they want to do the same thing with a contact so that when you open the phone call you just have to find it on the screen.
WADE WINGLER: I don’t think you can. I’m not even sure I would take that approach pure there are lots of different ways to do that. When you’re using the contacts app on your iOS device or iPhone, you can set up favorites. On mine, when I hit the phone app I have let people right there on my favorites list that I can scroll down to. If you’re using voiceover, you can drag your finger to the one you want, double tap on it and go. You might even dial it with Siri, especially if it is in your favorites. I’m not sure that I would take that approach.
BELVA SMITH: I could be wrong about this, but your contacts don’t exist on a screen. They exist within your phone app.
WADE WINGLER: Your contacts app.
BELVA SMITH: So you’re not going to be able to drag them from one screen to the other screen. I would just mirror what Wade said. Using Siri— I’ve had this experience where an individual couldn’t pronounce a person’s name well enough for Siri to get it or have difficulty getting the phone number out. Then you just use a nickname or shortcut for the phone number so that, instead of saying Siri dial a big number, you could say dial one as long as you give that person that nickname.
BRIAN NORTON: They used to be a way to double press the home button so that you can directly access your favorites. If you went to settings, you go to general to home button and do that. I haven’t tried that in 10.2, the new iOS. We used to be able to go to settings, general, home button and be able to have what the double price of your home button have contacts jump up there for you.
JOSH ANDERSON: On the other thing you can do that is easy is if you swipe right, you go to your widgets, you can have up next and all those. You can edit and add a favorites widget so that all you have to do is swipe right in your favorites will be there. You touch one and it calls right away.
BELVA SMITH: You can do the same thing with the emergency dial. I’ve never gotten to my favorites with that double-click, but it always done the swipe right on the home screen.
BRIAN NORTON: I will say there are some apps out there as well that allow for speed dally within the app. Really you’re just re-creating what is already there, what favorites will do within contacts and Siri. A couple of ones that had good reviews are Instacall and Speed Dial. They are a couple of free apps that have good reviews as far as being a speed dialing application for the iPhone. I think you are just re-creating what is already there.
WADE WINGLER: Unless speaking the name of the person and using Siri is a problem, that’s probably the fastest way to do that.
BELVA SMITH: And give the person a nickname if you need to. I recently had to do that.
WADE WINGLER: Call schmookie.
BRIAN NORTON: Totally lost my train of thought. I will say, one thing I think would be interesting about being able to put contacts on a main screen like that is just the simplicity of having a picture dial system or name dial system. If you have someone who has some challenges with intellectual or cognitive, having things on the phone directly in front of them much like a bookmark, or you can see it and press a button, would be helpful so you don’t have to navigate menus and know how to navigate the phone. I really don’t think that’s available at this point.
BELVA SMITH: I do have a consumer that someone has done that for her. How they did it I don’t know. They took a picture of grandma and put it on her own screen, and a picture of mom and put it on her own screen. She’s a 13-year-old girl with lots of challenges. To call mom or grandma, all she does is take their picture and automatically dials their number.
BRIAN NORTON: I did stumble across a couple of instructions about— if you bring up Safari and you can put in the address bar the phone number itself, and I think it’s .tel.qlnk.net or something like that. You can create those. However, I tried it several times and it did not work. I don’t know if it’s because of the new operating system or some new feature within Safari. It wasn’t letting me set it up like the pictures and the information suggested I would be able to. That may be how they did it and an older format.
BELVA SMITH: I know she is not using one of the new iPhones. She’s probably still using the 4 if I’m not mistaken, and I do believe that that’s one of the reasons why they haven’t tried to upgrade her phone. They don’t want to lose that ability.
WADE WINGLER: There is an HTML – I’m looking online and haven’t verified. It looks like you can use an hreftel: and number tag, HTML number tag which should kick off Safari or your default browser and kick off a telephone call. If you Google HTML link dial phone, you’ll find some articles that talk about doing that. I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t know if it works. It makes sense because I’ve clicked on many webpages on my phone the context the phone number on the webpage for a doctor’s office, and it would go ahead and dial it. Maybe what you’re doing is creating a bookmark with an HTML – maybe that’ll work. We need to follow up sometime.
BRIAN NORTON: Like I said, I tried a couple of those and couldn’t get it to work. What I’m looking at now basin what you said Wade is it’s different. I’ll play with that and maybe be able to provide on our next show about that.
***
Don’t forget, if you guys have a question or some feedback, please send us an email. You can send it at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. Our next question is what do I do with old assistive technology? I have a CCTV that is 12 years old and I want to get rid of it because I have a newer one now. Is there a place I could take it too? I hate to get rid of it because it still works.
BELVA SMITH: The first thing I want to say is thanks for asking the question because we would hope that anyone who has all the technology that may still be working but had the opportunity to get something new would look for opportunities to reuse it. If you’re here in Indiana, I would suggest you start out by contacting in data—
WADE WINGLER: Bring it here.
BELVA SMITH: Because that’s what they do, reuse and recycle assistive technology. Another good suggestion I could think of would be look for independent living centers that might be in your local area because I’m sure that they may be happy or know an individual that it could be given to. Speak to your friends and folks in our church. Almost everyone has a grandma or in-laws that is older and getting some macular or cataracts and could benefit from the use of the CCTV or any technology.
BRIAN NORTON: The INDATA Project, Indiana’s assistive technology act project, there are 56 of those across the country. In every state and territory there is an assistive technology act project. If you come to our website www.eastersealstech.com/states, it will bring you to a directory of all statewide assistive technology acts. I would say if you call them, they will let you know who can recycle, who can reuse that equal but no matter where you go.
WADE WINGLER: I can almost hear my friends in Georgia at the pass it on center jumping up and down saying wait, talk about us. At Georgia Tech there is a center called the pass it on Center. My dear friend Carolyn Phillips runs the program down there. They are the Mecca of assistive technology reuse. In addition to the link that Brian gave, www.eastersealstech.com/states that will take you to the AT act projects, the Pass It On Center has all those plus also some programs that do 80 reuse that might not be associated with the AT act. That’s a great resource for any of your assistance technology reuse, the utilization, recycling questions. Their website is PassItOnCenter.org.
***
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question was an email that we received to Wade. Hello, Wade, hope all is well with you.
WADE WINGLER: It is.
BELVA SMITH: I don’t have this question.
WADE WINGLER: It came in late. I’m fine, thanks for calling.
BRIAN NORTON: The rest of the question goes like this: here is an assistive technology question for you. My mother has significant visual impairment and is no longer able to use her Mac desktop computer. Her primary computer use it for email and some Internet shopping. Can you please suggest a computer or vendor organization for someone in her situation? I guess as a follow-up question that I would probably need just a little bit more information on, you mentioned she is not able to use her Mac desktop computer anymore. I wonder if that is because her visual impairment or the computer itself. I would have that main question. I know on the computer itself you do have some magnification features under the settings menu. Zoom will allow you to zoom and make things larger. If the person’s visual impairment requires speech output, they also have voiceover which is a screen reading program on the computer. Of course in order to use those things, there is probably going to be training that is necessary seeking get good at it and navigate with it and use it. You are still able to use the computer at that point.
BELVA SMITH: It would have to be a really old Mac to not have both of those features included. Mac has always been fairly good at making sure that they include the ability to have the voiceover and the zoom. I think probably that might be a good place to start is to look into your mom’s current computer and find out if those features are there.
JOSH ANDERSON: If she’s just doing some basic things, there is a voiceover tutorial that pops up when you first turn it on. They may be able to give her some of the keystrokes and commands to let her check her email or do a couple of the things she needs to do on the computer without the need for full on training if she is just using it for a few smaller uses.
BELVA SMITH: Apple is very good, if you go into the Apple store hopefully there is one near you. Schedule an appointment to go in and sit down with one of the geniuses. They are very good about helping individuals learn how to use the voiceover and the zoom or whatever accessible features they had that might benefit an individual. You’re not going to make you an expert by any means but certainly your mom or family member will be able to leave after spending just a little bit of time with one of the geniuses, feeling more confident in how to use it.
WADE WINGLER: This is from a friend of mine. I went back and forth with her on this question. Belva, to your point, it looks like voiceover has been on Mac since Tiger which was 2005, so more than 10 years we’ve had voiceover on Mac. I’m not fully understanding of the issue that she can’t use it any longer is because her vision continues to change, or just the complexity of using voiceover on the Mac is an issue. I know that they are looking at voiceover tutorials and spending some time on that. I also know they are looking at potentially having some training and having somebody come out and spend time with her on using was over and/or resume. I also suggested that just because it is complicated and her vision is changing, she might want to look at changing to a new computer as an option. If they wanted to move over to Windows – I can’t believe I said that— something like the guide system would be a reasonable choice where it is a very simplified user interface, very specific to the things she’s talking about, email and web browsing. That might be another solution to consider.
BELVA SMITH: That’s it’s everywhere my train of thought was going. The guide software is very simple to use and gives you complete instructions for how to create an email, how to send an email, how to read email. Also possibly a tablet might be another good option where you could use the voiceover to have things read back to you but also use Siri to do things for you like sending an email or sending a text. I would love to sit down with this individual and figure out exactly what the correct approach would be.
BRIAN NORTON: Knowing a little bit more information on that, yeah, there are certainly ways they can be helpful in those situations. Depending on where this person was located, if you are looking for an organization or vendor that can provide that to you, again I would reach out to your local assistive technology act project and see who provides those services in your area and get hooked up with someone who is knowledgeable and can provide the training you’re looking for and help you dig and more on the situation.
BELVA SMITH: Often times the Independent living centers in your area will have some of the computer system is set up to where you can go in and see how it works. That might be another option to look into.
***
WADE WINGLER: And now it’s time for the wildcard question.
BRIAN NORTON: Our next question is the wildcard question. Wade, this is where we throw the mic at you — literally throw the mic at you.
WADE WINGLER: We have to think of a better name than the wildcard question, because they are not really that wild. We don’t get too much out of control. Maybe the surprise question— we’ll just stick with wildcard.
BRIAN NORTON: It has such a ring to it.
WADE WINGLER: Plus there is an effect that plays so we’ll leave that alone. Today, in honor of Josh being out on the road, we are getting into our busy time here at Easter Seals crossroads and our assistive technology program. Everybody is past the holidays, done with pitch ins, and now getting back to work. That means our road warriors are out on the road all the time. My question is, when I started this job doing clinical assistance technology work a million and a half years ago, I relied on an atlas and map. I was super excited when we moved into a printable MapQuest situation where I could print out my maps in advance.
BELVA SMITH: 25 pages later.
WADE WINGLER: Turn by turn directions, I love you. Then I got my first Garmin where you had this physical device that you mounted on your dash and looked like it was made of Legos. Now, we really don’t seem to do those things anymore. My question is, what are you guys using? Are you using maps ever? Are you using a traditional GPS? Or—and I’m guessing most of us are using smartphones with some sort of app — what are you using and why?
BRIAN NORTON: I’ll jump in. I use my smartphone and I kind of jump around between three different GPS apps. Google maps, I also use Apple maps, but probably my primary one especially when I am taking longer trips is the Waze app. They all have their different advantages. I think Google sometimes tends to be a little bit more accurate than the others. Apple maps is a lot nicer now with the newer operating system, in my opinion, so it does a good job as well. But what I really like is Waze simply because I have the social interaction going on. They alert me to accidents that are up the road, hazards, speed traps, other kinds of things. It helps me get from point A to point B a lot quicker. I’ve tested it out and really do feel like it does give me places faster. I simply use Waze. Although I do remember back in the day where you can get me someplace once, and I could get myself back there no matter what.
WADE WINGLER: Because you had to pay attention.
BRIAN NORTON: Exactly. You memorized landmarks. I turn at the big building on the right, or something like that. Now I wait for that pretty lady in the box to tell me where to go.
WADE WINGLER: [British accent] Hello, Brian, it’s time to turn to the right, sir.
BRIAN NORTON: I miss her if I don’t hear.
BELVA SMITH: Todd named our GPS Nicole, so everywhere we went he made her have an English accent, and everywhere we went Nicole had to go. She’s now in a big case in the cabinet. I couldn’t tell you the last time she was out. Josh, I already know you are laughing at this question. I still use MapQuest.
WADE WINGLER: Do you really? On your phone?
BELVA SMITH: I do.
WADE WINGLER: You don’t print out MapQuest?
BELVA SMITH: No, I still use MapQuest on my phone. One of our new employees was asking how to get somewhere. As Brian was trying to tell her, take the street to that street and turn left. I was like, wait a minute, have you not get your phone yet? Why are you asking directions? My phone gets me everywhere. But apparently she’s one of the folks that really likes to have a visual. I never have a visual. I just wait for MapQuest to tell me when to turn.
BRIAN NORTON: She said a backup system so that if her phone gives out, she’s not stuck.
WADE WINGLER: Are you using MapQuest.com and your browser on the phone, or do you have the MapQuest app?
BELVA SMITH: The MapQuest app.
WADE WINGLER: So at least it’s a MapQuest app.
BELVA SMITH: To be honest with you, it has gotten me some strange places a couple times.
WADE WINGLER: That’s not MapQuest.
BELVA SMITH: But I don’t think it’s MapQuest. I think it would’ve happened the matter what. I don’t know. It works for me.
BRIAN NORTON: Let’s be honest: we go some strange places.
BELVA SMITH: We do go some strange places.
BRIAN NORTON: Some uncharted territory.
BELVA SMITH: I once had to call an individual and say, do you live on the water? He said no, but let me guess you’re using MapQuest. I said, yeah. He said it took you the wrong way.
JOSH ANDERSON: I use the same things as Brian. What you brought up, Belva, was funny because I’ve had some consumers, when they give me their address, say use Google maps, not Apple maps, or it’ll take you to the wrong side of the river, and other things. I mostly go back and forth between Apple maps and Waze. Both have taken me weird places. Apple maps has taken me through a couple of cornfields. Waze has taken me through parking lot to give me to places, which I think at some time out. To tell on Belva more with the MapQuest, her daughter-in-law was nice enough to help my wife and I buy a house. One of the houses that we went to go look at she used MapQuest to find. It found the correct address and the totally wrong town.
BRIAN NORTON: Is it a family thing?
BELVA SMITH: That’s what Josh said. She goes, my mother-in-law is the one that told me to use MapQuest. She’s just like me. She hasn’t changed.
JOSH ANDERSON: She hasn’t quite moved on yet. I really do like Waze. It seemed to get you around traffic more. You know if you are driving into bad traffic, it tells you. The new Apple maps seems to be a little bit better. It finds faster routes as you go. If you change time zones, it adjusts for that. Waze does not adjust for the different time zones we drive through. They all have their good things. I do remember the good days of the atlas. Sometimes it was nice to get lost and find new places. That’s gone now.
BELVA SMITH: I will say the one thing I do find frustrating about MapQuest is if there is an accident or something that has closed the road I need to go on, it is not very good at getting me new directions with a new route so that I’m not needing to go that way. I don’t know if one of the other different apps might be better at it, but MapQuest is not very good at that.
WADE WINGLER: For me I use a couple of different things. I probably use Waze the most. We live in a place here in Indiana where we don’t rely on public transportation very much. We drive a lot. The motor capital world or whatever with racing. When I’m in DC or other places, Chicago, where I need to rely on public transportation, I switch from Waze to Google maps because their public transit maps are pretty good. Also there walking maps, so if I’m walking inside of a city, those work pretty well. Honestly because I drive a lot and we live in a place where that’s how we get around primarily, I use Waze a lot and have been for a couple of years now and really like it.
BELVA SMITH: This maps that on my phone, is that Google maps—
BRIAN NORTON: That’s Apple maps. I do on occasion, when MapQuest can’t find, especially with newer housing additions and stuff, when MapQuest can’t find the address I will go to that one and it does seem to always be able to find it.
BRIAN NORTON: You have to download Google maps to the phone. Same with Waze. If you guys have questions or have feedback about any of the questions we went through today, we have a variety of different ways for you to get a hold of us and let us know those things. You can give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Or email us at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. We certainly want your questions. In fact, without your questions we really don’t have a show, so definitely be a part of it. I want to take my colleagues in the room. Wade?
WADE WINGLER: Thanks everybody. Please let us know about the airports thing. I want to hear about those.
BRIAN NORTON: Josh?
JOSH ANDERSON: Thanks everybody.
BRIAN NORTON: And Belva?
BELVA SMITH: Before we leave, I’ve got just a little tidbit of news I want to share. Anyone who is close to me knows that I loved my TiVo. Just with the latest TiVo update, if you are visually impaired and you stayed away from TiVo, you don’t have to anymore. The latest update includes not only zoom but voiceover. It reads beautifully.
WADE WINGLER: We need to do a tech tip on that then.
BELVA SMITH: I can do that.
BRIAN NORTON: Very cool. Think everybody. Have a great couple weeks and we will see you later.
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***

BELVA SMITH:  Hey Brian. How excited are you?

BRIAN NORTON:  I’m super excited today. Belva is our team lead on our vision team here at Easter Seals crossroads. Also joining us remotely is Josh Anderson.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Hey everybody.

WADE WINGLER:  Coming to you live outside a pawn shop in Kokomo Indiana.

JOSH ANDERSON:  We will be giving away concert tickets later tonight.

WADE WINGLER:  He set up with a Winnebago and card table wondering where his intern went with his coffee.

BRIAN NORTON:  Love it. Josh is the manager of our clinical assistive technology department here. Also Wade Wingler.

WADE WINGLER:  Happy new year. This is our first real show of 2017.

BRIAN NORTON:  Lots of fun stuff to talk about in 2017. Just for those new listeners, I want to make sure you understand how the show works. The format we have is a question and answer format. We get questions that are sent in to us all throughout the week and we collect those and then we go through them and try to answer them as best we can. We also received lots of feedback as well and love to get feedback because, although we have what we think are good answers, we know you have great answers as well. If you listen to a question and have something that we didn’t mention or under the possibility to help whoever had that question out, please let us know and send that feedback in. We have a variety of different ways to do that. You can ask your questions or provide feedback through our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can give us a call on that line.

WADE WINGLER:  You can.

BRIAN NORTON:  Or send us an email at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. Or send us a tweet with hashtag ATFAQ. We monitor that for questions that might come across. Also if you are excited about the show after listening to it, you can tell your friends about it. You find us on iTunes, on our website at ATFAQshow.com, through stitcher, and the Google play store.

WADE WINGLER:  Tune in radio is a new one we added not too long ago.

BRIAN NORTON:  A variety of ways to find our show and chime in with questions and answers.

***

BRIAN NORTON:  Our first question today is, I hear that Alexa and Google home record everything you say. What happens to all that data?

WADE WINGLER:  They become questions on ATFAQ.

BRIAN NORTON:  That’s right.

BELVA SMITH:  It’s sent straight to the FBI.

JOSH ANDERSON:  NSA.

BRIAN NORTON:  That’s an interesting question. I’ve seen lots of news articles about that. I think it’s a pretty popular – people are following along on a new story where they are trying to solve a crime and trying to get them to admit what Alexa has on memory into the record. It’s a timely question.

BELVA SMITH:  It’s my understanding and interesting to me that this question as well as our next question, because one of the last shows we did for last year, Wade was talking about their new best friend Alexa. That was one of my questions, was aren’t you nervous. Alexa is now my new best friend at home, and I hope no one that is listening has one sitting nearby. If so I might wake them up. Maybe I’d better stop saying that word. I believe that it has to be listening to everything you’re saying so that it doesn’t know when to activate when it hears that we got word. But do I believe that Amazon or Google is storing the information?  I’m not sure I do.

WADE WINGLER:  I’ve done my research. My research is not scientific. It’s just based on literature review. Here’s what I’ve learned. It is always listening, but what is listening for is the word Alexa, echo, or dot. Those are the three keywords you can assign so that is the wake up word. It is constantly listening for those words. My understanding is because it is listening, it has to be recording. But it is also constantly dumping everything that is not that. It does keep the recording of the command you give after the wake word. If you say Alexa, what is the weather going to be tomorrow, it will keep the utterance but won’t keep anymore. It won’t send the non-Alexa stuff to Amazon because it can process whether or not it heard one of those keywords without sending it to the cloud. The processing of the command, what is the weather, the price of a popsicle or whatever, that has to go to the cloud because they do their processing there. I don’t know how long it is kept at that point because you can go back and scan the history of the commands and you can listen to them. The thing I heard about these subpoenas where the judges are trying to – or the police are trying to access information, not because they are going to hear a bag I come into the house doing bad guy things. They are trying to establish was this person in the residence at the time. Let’s say it’s a person who lives in the home and is accused of committing a crime. If they can show that he or she used Alexa to turn on music at 8 PM and they think the crime happened at 8:02 PM, they are trying to establish that that person was in the house, not so much that they are going to hear the bad guy doing the crime. That’s what I’ve heard so far. That’s also what I’m hearing in the media. That relies on the media to have true information about what Alexa is really doing. It sounds reasonable to me. It just doesn’t make sense that you could be uploading that much audio to the Internet all the time. There is not enough storage on the device to record 24/7/365 without having a rolling amount of recording that is being done and dumping the rest.

BELVA SMITH:  I did find that if you have Alexa, you can go to Amazon.com/myex and choose to delete all of your stored voice commands. However, in doing that, you take the risk of Alexa networking as well because she is storing some of that because that is also her learning mechanism as to how you speak. I tried it just because I wanted to see what was going to happen. I chose not to do it because I don’t even know what I’m deleting. It doesn’t show you. It says are you sure you want to delete your files. I don’t know. Let me see what is there. I know I can go and look at the commands that have been set or used, but when you choose that the option, you don’t get to see it. For the Google home, it is myactivity.google.com.

WADE WINGLER:  That is where you can clear the cache?

BELVA SMITH:  Correct. Also, you can keep in mind that you can also mute it at any time.

WADE WINGLER:  You can always unplug it.

BELVA SMITH:  It doesn’t have to be on.

BRIAN NORTON:  It amazes me the fascination with data. Everything records everything. You have hey Siri, for Cortana.

WADE WINGLER:  Anything that is voice activated has to be listening.

BRIAN NORTON:  Before that, your computer caches every website unless you turn it off. I search for something in the next thing I know it is in every page I go to as an ad. Everything records everything these days. It’s hard to get away from that.

WADE WINGLER:  I’m just happy to know there is at least one thing in my house that listens to what I say all the time.

BRIAN NORTON:  It’s only a one time fee.

WADE WINGLER:  That’s right. So it’s worth it. But the point is $40.

JOSH ANDERSON:  Is there a way you can turn that off to where you actually have to push a button in order for Alexa to work?

WADE WINGLER:  That is a setting. I know because we had a coworker who had her set that way. She said Alexa all day long to it and it would work so she had to push a button. I assume then that if you change the setting that way, then it is probably not listening all the time.

BRIAN NORTON:  It’s a timely topic about time the events that are happening now. Very interesting what happens to that information.

WADE WINGLER:  True confession time. My family is in the process of buying a house right now. We’ve been looking at different houses in the area. There have been a couple where there was an Amazon echo in the house. I talked to it. Alexa, turn up the thermostat. Then I realized the person that owns that thing is going to see that I was the jerk talking to their Amazon echo while I was on the tour of their home.

BELVA SMITH:  But you have to make sure it’s going to work, right?

WADE WINGLER:  I don’t think it comes with the home.

JOSH ANDERSON:  They probably take that with them.

BELVA SMITH:  But if they have the correct thermostat, you want to make sure that when you move yours and it will work.

WADE WINGLER:  Good logic.

BRIAN NORTON:  Just kicking the tires a little bit.

***

BRIAN NORTON:  As a follow-up question to that one, this is about Alexa security. Not necessarily are people able to get the data off of the machine, but as far as Alexa security, other people can hack and control your devices. There is some concern, or is that something that should or should not be a concern.

BELVA SMITH:  I will say what I always say. If you connect to the Internet, the risk is there. But you are opening yourself up.

BELVA SMITH:  I compare it— I really like my analogy now. I compare it to driving a car. Every time I get in the car, I can put my seatbelt on and obey the speed limit and be as safe as I can be. Is that any guarantee but I’m not going to get into an accident?  It’s not. It’s the same thing with the Internet. You choose to use it or not to use it. I did have my questions about whether or not I wanted to have something in my home that was going to be hacked and that could be listening to me. I thought, half of the stuff in here that is electronic already is. Why not have something I can have fun with, which is Alexa. I enjoy having her, just getting her to give me silly facts and tell me the weather and all that stuff. Turn the office light on. All kinds of fun things. I think it’s one of those things where you have to decide whether it’s a risk that you want to take. I feel like if anybody is going to keep my stuff safe, it’s going to be Amazon. But do I believe that it’s not hackable?  Not for a minute.

WADE WINGLER:  I think when we think about Amazon echo and all the smart devices in our house and that stuff, I think it’s mostly just regular security practice rules. Amazon Alexa has an app, so it has a username and password associated with your Amazon account. You need a strong password on that. If you think about all of the smart lights and different devices, when you install one of those, you put it into a setup mode which makes it discoverable for just a little bit so that within Wi-Fi distance you can log into it. You have to be physically proximal to it. It has to be in its setup mode for you to get in there. I think that’s a limited time when you can hack into the bulb. After that, it has your Wi-Fi credentials so it can log in and be on your credentials. With the Amazon stuff, with the smart devices I have, there is an intermediary app. My lightbulbs connect to Casa. So there is another login with Casa so that if somebody wanted to log in and sit my lights on and off, and they hacked my Casa account, they could do that. Or if they hacked my Amazon account, they could sit my light on or off. With Amazon I suppose they could also order stuff from my Amazon account. But all of that is encrypted and protected with a username and password. My opinion is that I think the security risk is fairly low so long as you are using decent passwords and you are protecting those and you don’t leave things wide open. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being naïve. I’m not terribly worried about it.

BELVA SMITH:  Recently within the last two weeks, the big news story was about the little six-year-old story – you guys probably heard it— who asked Alexa to get her a dollhouse, and can we get some cookies. It did it. She got a $170 dollhouse and four pounds of sugar cookies. Her mom said we will keep the cookies but the dollhouse is going back. Her mom went and looked and saw what exactly she had said to Alexa. But there are parental controls that can be turned on where you have to use a four digit code. If you have kids or someone else in your home that you might be afraid will place orders, put that on and don’t tell anyone your code. I agree with you, Wade. It’s about using your own personal safety and security. That’s all you can do.

WADE WINGLER:  In my house, my five-year-old would’ve ordered every Lego in the world by now. When we set it up, it said something like do you want to put a pin on it. He’s tried it. “Alexa, I need some Legos please.”  And then it says okay, what’s your passcode?  He stuck at that point.

BRIAN NORTON:  As far as passwords and things like that, I think we all think it’s not going to happen to me. Until it happens to you, you take your chances with using your street number as passwords or a family member and birthday.

WADE WINGLER:  Rover 123.

BRIAN NORTON:  QWERTY1234 is a universal password for everybody. If you don’t take those things seriously, we are just lazy when it comes to security. Then we complain what happens to us.

WADE WINGLER:  I use last pass. One pass and last pass our automatic password generating things that make it easier to have long, tricky passwords.

BRIAN NORTON:  It is a pain in the butt when you have to keep logging into it and do different things like that, but to get screwed over with someone hacking my stuff and taking my identity and of the kinds of things, it becomes a challenge.

BELVA SMITH:  Was this person’s question, can Alexa be hacked?  Was that the question?  The answer to that is yes, absolutely it can. I feel sorry for the hacker that gets into mind because he’s not going to find much.

WADE WINGLER:  Josh, you have to learn to be in the studio. We are steamrolling you.

JOSH ANDERSON:  I’m sorry. Another thing that is important is to make sure your Wi-Fi is good and secure. I remember a few years ago people kept hacking into Wi-Fi enabled baby monitors.

WADE WINGLER:  Cameras on your computers.

JOSH ANDERSON:  It’s important to make sure your network is secure, your wife is secure. That is another layer of security.

BRIAN NORTON:  Absolutely.

BELVA SMITH:  Just because we are on the subject, I did find that I had to move my router. It is not any closer to Alexa than what it was, but it is in a straight line of view now rather than having a wall between it. It’s not that she wasn’t working, but when we were having her play music continuously, after so long she would lose connection. Now that we’ve got her in a straight line, it is working great.

BRIAN NORTON:  So you don’t have buffering happening all the time. What kind of Internet connection do you need?  Does it specify?

WADE WINGLER:  It’s just like any streaming music. The higher speed and better secure connection you have, the better experience. We have a 70 megabits per second connection in our house so we rarely have trouble.

***

BRIAN NORTON:  Our next question came in the form of an email. It says, I live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington DC and am a big fan of ATFAQ. I’m visually impaired and am an advanced iPhone voice over user. I’m concerned about the switch to wireless Bluetooth earbuds and headphones with the new iPhone seven. Specifically Bluetooth has a tendency not to completely jive with voiceover in Siri. I’m wondering what you know about air pods or power beats, those Bluetooth wireless earpieces. I know iPhone seven comes of an adapter, but that just puts out the inevitable. I got the power beats as a gift and would like to know the accessibility point of view before I tried them out or return them. Keep up the good work and happy new year.

Essentially to pull that down, we know that air pods are out. Those of the Bluetooth earpieces for the iPhone seven. I think they just came out a couple of weeks ago. People are just getting their hands on them and playing with them. I know as far as Samsung is concerned and a couple of the other phone manufacturers, they’ve already had these wireless Bluetooth earbuds. The question is what about the accessibility point of view, that there sometimes seem to be lagging for voiceover in Siri as it tries to comedic it back and forth with the device. I’ll throw that out.

JOSH ANDERSON:  I have had a few of my consumers complained when using Bluetooth headphones just as there is a lag in voiceover. If they are using swipes, by the time they do their double tap, they are already an app or two ahead of where they think they are. In order to fix it, we really just turned up Bluetooth, reconnected, and to fix the problem. It’s one of those things that there seems to be a lag, but after reconnecting, however the heck that fixes things, that seem to get rid of the problem. It’s not a new problem. I’ve heard of it before, especially when using any kind of Bluetooth headphones. They were the air pods because they weren’t out yet, but I know that this has been an issue before.

BELVA SMITH:  The air pods are the ones made by Apple, correct?

BRIAN NORTON:  Yes.

BELVA SMITH:  I would hope that there would be little to no lag with those. I honestly have had absolutely no experience with it, nor have I had any consumers that have. Like Brian said, they’ve only been out for a couple of weeks. I think it was just shortly before the holiday or right after that they came out with them. This is one of those questions that would be good to put back to the audience and say, if there are any of you using voiceover that are using the new air pods, give us your feedback, let us know what your experience has been.

WADE WINGLER:  I was thinking that when they originally started talking about the air pods that it was going to be using kind of a quasi-Bluetooth connection, Bluetooth with something else. My hope was that it would be a tighter, more proprietary connection like Belva said that would be more responsive and not have lag. I’m looking at the website and they are not saying anything other than Bluetooth connection which makes you wonder if it is going to be any better than other Bluetooth connections.

BELVA SMITH:  The price is definitely higher than most of the other Bluetooth. You expect to get something for that.

JOSH ANDERSON:  I’m just afraid I would lose them.

BRIAN NORTON:  No kidding. I did some Internet research on this. A great place to turn if you are ever looking for Apple specific, forums. I was reading some things on AppleVis. They have some information on air pods. From personal experience and use, it sounds like they are not having any connection issues with them, that they are a little bit better than things that have had in the past. Again, it is an investment. It’s something I would definitely want to try.

BELVA SMITH:  Whoever this person was, if you are anywhere near an Apple Store, I bet you if you go into a store, they will be more than willing to let you try them. I know my experience has always been once you get in there, you can spend the whole day if you want to. Try them out and see if you are experiencing the lag before you put up the money.

WADE WINGLER:  I haven’t tried them yet. I have an LG headset that I’ve had for a couple of years that I really like. I haven’t had motivation to switch over. I’ll tell you one thing I did learn. The adapter that comes with the iPhone seven to adapt your lightning connection over to a standard audio headphone jack, it works, but then you can’t charge your phone. For me the adapter was the problem. I drive back and forth a lot and I want to be able to charge my phone while I’m in the car and also listen to podcasts because I like podcast, but I want to listen to those while I’m driving. If you’re using the adapter, you can’t charge and listen at the same time. That’s a different adapter that I’m not sure exists yet. When moving to the iPhone seven he got you do have to make the leap to Bluetooth audio connections if you’re going to be charging while doing it.

BRIAN NORTON:  I’ve got an iPhone seven and I didn’t realize that. Now that I think about the things I have in my bag, you can’t do that. You can’t charge and listen.

BELVA SMITH:  Both of you have the iPhone seven. I’m still using the iPhone 6S Plus. Why would I want an iPhone seven?

WADE WINGLER:  Because the cool kids have them.

BELVA SMITH:  That’s exactly what I thought.

BRIAN NORTON:  One thing I’ve realized from moving from the six to the seventh is the funkiness of your life but goes away. It’s not a physical push. It’s a haptic interface. It vibrates. It’s not as confusing for me to get into my phone before as when I was using my six.

BELVA SMITH:  I don’t have a funky experience with my button. I use my thumbprint. I just simply land my thumb. Buy them open straight to my home screen.

BRIAN NORTON:  I have a funky thumb. My experience getting into my phone is not as problematic as it used to be.

BELVA SMITH:  That’s really interesting because I have heard, especially the consumers that are using voiceover, they are not happy with the way the iPhone seven is unlocking with the voiceover. Interesting.

BRIAN NORTON:  The other thing is it is a lot faster. There is a noticeable difference. If there are folks who are listening who have had a chance to play with the air pods, the new Apple Bluetooth headsets, and voiceover, let us know what your experience is. Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Let us know how it’s going for you. I would love to be able to make sure that person has some personal experience to draw from in trying to answer their question. It was a call. We would love to hear from you.

***

Our next question was a question someone left us on the phone. We’re going to go ahead and play that message now.

SPEAKER:  This is Christian calling about frequently asked questions. I’m a regular listener of the frequently asked question show. I had a question about the iPhone. I may be getting an iPhone again in the future. I don’t know when.  The question I need answered is, I was wondering if you can drag contacts to a certain screen. My question is can you drag contacts to the second screen or first screen or third screen or whatever screen you want to drive them to.  The reason why I’m asking this is because I want to be able to set speed dials on the iPhone or figure out a way to do that or see if there is a way that you can drag contacts from your contacts list to a certain screen. If you can answer that on the next show, that would be very helpful. I am a regular listener and wanted to throw the question out there. Thanks.

WADE WINGLER:  First of all, thank you.

BRIAN NORTON:  Absolutely.  The question I think they are getting at is wondering if you can drag contacts from the phone contacts app out on your main screen much like you can do with webpages. You can take a webpage or bookmark and stick it on your screen. I think they want to do the same thing with a contact so that when you open the phone call you just have to find it on the screen.

WADE WINGLER:  I don’t think you can. I’m not even sure I would take that approach pure there are lots of different ways to do that. When you’re using the contacts app on your iOS device or iPhone, you can set up favorites. On mine, when I hit the phone app I have let people right there on my favorites list that I can scroll down to. If you’re using voiceover, you can drag your finger to the one you want, double tap on it and go.  You might even dial it with Siri, especially if it is in your favorites. I’m not sure that I would take that approach.

BELVA SMITH:  I could be wrong about this, but your contacts don’t exist on a screen. They exist within your phone app.

WADE WINGLER:  Your contacts app.

BELVA SMITH:  So you’re not going to be able to drag them from one screen to the other screen.  I would just mirror what Wade said. Using Siri— I’ve had this experience where an individual couldn’t pronounce a person’s name well enough for Siri to get it or have difficulty getting the phone number out. Then you just use a nickname or shortcut for the phone number so that, instead of saying Siri dial a big number, you could say dial one as long as you give that person that nickname.

BRIAN NORTON:  They used to be a way to double press the home button so that you can directly access your favorites. If you went to settings, you go to general to home button and do that. I haven’t tried that in 10.2, the new iOS. We used to be able to go to settings, general, home button and be able to have what the double price of your home button have contacts jump up there for you.

JOSH ANDERSON:  On the other thing you can do that is easy is if you swipe right, you go to your widgets, you can have up next and all those. You can edit and add a favorites widget so that all you have to do is swipe right in your favorites will be there. You touch one and it calls right away.

BELVA SMITH:  You can do the same thing with the emergency dial.  I’ve never gotten to my favorites with that double-click, but it always done the swipe right on the home screen.

BRIAN NORTON:  I will say there are some apps out there as well that allow for speed dally within the app. Really you’re just re-creating what is already there, what favorites will do within contacts and Siri.  A couple of ones that had good reviews are Instacall and Speed Dial. They are a couple of free apps that have good reviews as far as being a speed dialing application for the iPhone. I think you are just re-creating what is already there.

WADE WINGLER:  Unless speaking the name of the person and using Siri is a problem, that’s probably the fastest way to do that.

BELVA SMITH:  And give the person a nickname if you need to. I recently had to do that.

WADE WINGLER:  Call schmookie.

BRIAN NORTON:  Totally lost my train of thought. I will say, one thing I think would be interesting about being able to put contacts on a main screen like that is just the simplicity of having a picture dial system or name dial system. If you have someone who has some challenges with intellectual or cognitive, having things on the phone directly in front of them much like a bookmark, or you can see it and press a button, would be helpful so you don’t have to navigate menus and know how to navigate the phone. I really don’t think that’s available at this point.

BELVA SMITH:  I do have a consumer that someone has done that for her. How they did it I don’t know. They took a picture of grandma and put it on her own screen, and a picture of mom and put it on her own screen. She’s a 13-year-old girl with lots of challenges. To call mom or grandma, all she does is take their picture and automatically dials their number.

BRIAN NORTON:  I did stumble across a couple of instructions about— if you bring up Safari and you can put in the address bar the phone number itself, and I think it’s .tel.qlnk.net or something like that. You can create those. However, I tried it several times and it did not work. I don’t know if it’s because of the new operating system or some new feature within Safari. It wasn’t letting me set it up like the pictures and the information suggested I would be able to. That may be how they did it and an older format.

BELVA SMITH:  I know she is not using one of the new iPhones. She’s probably still using the 4 if I’m not mistaken, and I do believe that that’s one of the reasons why they haven’t tried to upgrade her phone. They don’t want to lose that ability.

WADE WINGLER:  There is an HTML – I’m looking online and haven’t verified. It looks like you can use an hreftel: and number tag, HTML number tag which should kick off Safari or your default browser and kick off a telephone call. If you Google HTML link dial phone, you’ll find some articles that talk about doing that. I haven’t tried it yet. I don’t know if it works. It makes sense because I’ve clicked on many webpages on my phone the context the phone number on the webpage for a doctor’s office, and it would go ahead and dial it. Maybe what you’re doing is creating a bookmark with an HTML – maybe that’ll work. We need to follow up sometime.

BRIAN NORTON:  Like I said, I tried a couple of those and couldn’t get it to work. What I’m looking at now basin what you said Wade is it’s different. I’ll play with that and maybe be able to provide on our next show about that.

***

Don’t forget, if you guys have a question or some feedback, please send us an email. You can send it at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. Our next question is what do I do with old assistive technology?  I have a CCTV that is 12 years old and I want to get rid of it because I have a newer one now. Is there a place I could take it too?  I hate to get rid of it because it still works.

BELVA SMITH:  The first thing I want to say is thanks for asking the question because we would hope that anyone who has all the technology that may still be working but had the opportunity to get something new would look for opportunities to reuse it. If you’re here in Indiana, I would suggest you start out by contacting in data—

WADE WINGLER:  Bring it here.

BELVA SMITH:  Because that’s what they do, reuse and recycle assistive technology. Another good suggestion I could think of would be look for independent living centers that might be in your local area because I’m sure that they may be happy or know an individual that it could be given to. Speak to your friends and folks in our church. Almost everyone has a grandma or in-laws that is older and getting some macular or cataracts and could benefit from the use of the CCTV or any technology.

BRIAN NORTON:  The INDATA Project, Indiana’s assistive technology act project, there are 56 of those across the country. In every state and territory there is an assistive technology act project. If you come to our website www.eastersealstech.com/states, it will bring you to a directory of all statewide assistive technology acts. I would say if you call them, they will let you know who can recycle, who can reuse that equal but no matter where you go.

WADE WINGLER:  I can almost hear my friends in Georgia at the pass it on center jumping up and down saying wait, talk about us. At Georgia Tech there is a center called the pass it on Center. My dear friend Carolyn Phillips runs the program down there. They are the Mecca of assistive technology reuse. In addition to the link that Brian gave, www.eastersealstech.com/states that will take you to the AT act projects, the Pass It On Center has all those plus also some programs that do 80 reuse that might not be associated with the AT act. That’s a great resource for any of your assistance technology reuse, the utilization, recycling questions. Their website is PassItOnCenter.org.

***

BRIAN NORTON:  Our next question was an email that we received to Wade. Hello, Wade, hope all is well with you.

WADE WINGLER:  It is.

BELVA SMITH:  I don’t have this question.

WADE WINGLER:  It came in late. I’m fine, thanks for calling.

BRIAN NORTON:  The rest of the question goes like this:  here is an assistive technology question for you. My mother has significant visual impairment and is no longer able to use her Mac desktop computer. Her primary computer use it for email and some Internet shopping. Can you please suggest a computer or vendor organization for someone in her situation?  I guess as a follow-up question that I would probably need just a little bit more information on, you mentioned she is not able to use her Mac desktop computer anymore. I wonder if that is because her visual impairment or the computer itself. I would have that main question. I know on the computer itself you do have some magnification features under the settings menu. Zoom will allow you to zoom and make things larger. If the person’s visual impairment requires speech output, they also have voiceover which is a screen reading program on the computer. Of course in order to use those things, there is probably going to be training that is necessary seeking get good at it and navigate with it and use it. You are still able to use the computer at that point.

BELVA SMITH:  It would have to be a really old Mac to not have both of those features included. Mac has always been fairly good at making sure that they include the ability to have the voiceover and the zoom. I think probably that might be a good place to start is to look into your mom’s current computer and find out if those features are there.

JOSH ANDERSON:  If she’s just doing some basic things, there is a voiceover tutorial that pops up when you first turn it on. They may be able to give her some of the keystrokes and commands to let her check her email or do a couple of the things she needs to do on the computer without the need for full on training if she is just using it for a few smaller uses.

BELVA SMITH:  Apple is very good, if you go into the Apple store hopefully there is one near you. Schedule an appointment to go in and sit down with one of the geniuses. They are very good about helping individuals learn how to use the voiceover and the zoom or whatever accessible features they had that might benefit an individual. You’re not going to make you an expert by any means but certainly your mom or family member will be able to leave after spending just a little bit of time with one of the geniuses, feeling more confident in how to use it.

WADE WINGLER:  This is from a friend of mine. I went back and forth with her on this question. Belva, to your point, it looks like voiceover has been on Mac since Tiger which was 2005, so more than 10 years we’ve had voiceover on Mac. I’m not fully understanding of the issue that she can’t use it any longer is because her vision continues to change, or just the complexity of using voiceover on the Mac is an issue. I know that they are looking at voiceover tutorials and spending some time on that. I also know they are looking at potentially having some training and having somebody come out and spend time with her on using was over and/or resume. I also suggested that just because it is complicated and her vision is changing, she might want to look at changing to a new computer as an option. If they wanted to move over to Windows – I can’t believe I said that— something like the guide system would be a reasonable choice where it is a very simplified user interface, very specific to the things she’s talking about, email and web browsing. That might be another solution to consider.

BELVA SMITH:  That’s it’s everywhere my train of thought was going. The guide software is very simple to use and gives you complete instructions for how to create an email, how to send an email, how to read email. Also possibly a tablet might be another good option where you could use the voiceover to have things read back to you but also use Siri to do things for you like sending an email or sending a text. I would love to sit down with this individual and figure out exactly what the correct approach would be.

BRIAN NORTON:  Knowing a little bit more information on that, yeah, there are certainly ways they can be helpful in those situations. Depending on where this person was located, if you are looking for an organization or vendor that can provide that to you, again I would reach out to your local assistive technology act project and see who provides those services in your area and get hooked up with someone who is knowledgeable and can provide the training you’re looking for and help you dig and more on the situation.

BELVA SMITH:  Often times the Independent living centers in your area will have some of the computer system is set up to where you can go in and see how it works. That might be another option to look into.

***

WADE WINGLER:  And now it’s time for the wildcard question.

BRIAN NORTON:  Our next question is the wildcard question. Wade, this is where we throw the mic at you — literally throw the mic at you.

WADE WINGLER:  We have to think of a better name than the wildcard question, because they are not really that wild. We don’t get too much out of control. Maybe the surprise question— we’ll just stick with wildcard.

BRIAN NORTON:  It has such a ring to it.

WADE WINGLER:  Plus there is an effect that plays so we’ll leave that alone. Today, in honor of Josh being out on the road, we are getting into our busy time here at Easter Seals crossroads and our assistive technology program. Everybody is past the holidays, done with pitch ins, and now getting back to work. That means our road warriors are out on the road all the time. My question is, when I started this job doing clinical assistance technology work a million and a half years ago, I relied on an atlas and map. I was super excited when we moved into a printable MapQuest situation where I could print out my maps in advance.

BELVA SMITH:  25 pages later.

WADE WINGLER:  Turn by turn directions, I love you. Then I got my first Garmin where you had this physical device that you mounted on your dash and looked like it was made of Legos. Now, we really don’t seem to do those things anymore. My question is, what are you guys using?  Are you using maps ever?  Are you using a traditional GPS?  Or—and I’m guessing most of us are using smartphones with some sort of app — what are you using and why?

BRIAN NORTON:  I’ll jump in. I use my smartphone and I kind of jump around between three different GPS apps. Google maps, I also use Apple maps, but probably my primary one especially when I am taking longer trips is the Waze app. They all have their different advantages. I think Google sometimes tends to be a little bit more accurate than the others. Apple maps is a lot nicer now with the newer operating system, in my opinion, so it does a good job as well. But what I really like is Waze simply because I have the social interaction going on. They alert me to accidents that are up the road, hazards, speed traps, other kinds of things. It helps me get from point A to point B a lot quicker. I’ve tested it out and really do feel like it does give me places faster. I simply use Waze. Although I do remember back in the day where you can get me someplace once, and I could get myself back there no matter what.

WADE WINGLER:  Because you had to pay attention.

BRIAN NORTON:  Exactly. You memorized landmarks. I turn at the big building on the right, or something like that. Now I wait for that pretty lady in the box to tell me where to go.

WADE WINGLER:  [British accent] Hello, Brian, it’s time to turn to the right, sir.

BRIAN NORTON:  I miss her if I don’t hear.

BELVA SMITH:  Todd named our GPS Nicole, so everywhere we went he made her have an English accent, and everywhere we went Nicole had to go. She’s now in a big case in the cabinet. I couldn’t tell you the last time she was out. Josh, I already know you are laughing at this question. I still use MapQuest.

WADE WINGLER:  Do you really?  On your phone?

BELVA SMITH:  I do.

WADE WINGLER:  You don’t print out MapQuest?

BELVA SMITH:  No, I still use MapQuest on my phone. One of our new employees was asking how to get somewhere. As Brian was trying to tell her, take the street to that street and turn left. I was like, wait a minute, have you not get your phone yet?  Why are you asking directions?  My phone gets me everywhere. But apparently she’s one of the folks that really likes to have a visual. I never have a visual. I just wait for MapQuest to tell me when to turn.

BRIAN NORTON:  She said a backup system so that if her phone gives out, she’s not stuck.

WADE WINGLER:  Are you using MapQuest.com and your browser on the phone, or do you have the MapQuest app?

BELVA SMITH:  The MapQuest app.

WADE WINGLER:  So at least it’s a MapQuest app.

BELVA SMITH:  To be honest with you, it has gotten me some strange places a couple times.

WADE WINGLER:  That’s not MapQuest.

BELVA SMITH:  But I don’t think it’s MapQuest. I think it would’ve happened the matter what. I don’t know. It works for me.

BRIAN NORTON:  Let’s be honest:  we go some strange places.

BELVA SMITH:  We do go some strange places.

BRIAN NORTON:  Some uncharted territory.

BELVA SMITH:  I once had to call an individual and say, do you live on the water?  He said no, but let me guess you’re using MapQuest. I said, yeah. He said it took you the wrong way.

JOSH ANDERSON:  I use the same things as Brian. What you brought up, Belva, was funny because I’ve had some consumers, when they give me their address, say use Google maps, not Apple maps, or it’ll take you to the wrong side of the river, and other things. I mostly go back and forth between Apple maps and Waze. Both have taken me weird places. Apple maps has taken me through a couple of cornfields. Waze has taken me through parking lot to give me to places, which I think at some time out. To tell on Belva more with the MapQuest, her daughter-in-law was nice enough to help my wife and I buy a house. One of the houses that we went to go look at she used MapQuest to find. It found the correct address and the totally wrong town.

BRIAN NORTON:  Is it a family thing?

BELVA SMITH:  That’s what Josh said. She goes, my mother-in-law is the one that told me to use MapQuest. She’s just like me. She hasn’t changed.

JOSH ANDERSON:  She hasn’t quite moved on yet. I really do like Waze. It seemed to get you around traffic more. You know if you are driving into bad traffic, it tells you. The new Apple maps seems to be a little bit better. It finds faster routes as you go. If you change time zones, it adjusts for that. Waze does not adjust for the different time zones we drive through. They all have their good things. I do remember the good days of the atlas. Sometimes it was nice to get lost and find new places. That’s gone now.

BELVA SMITH:  I will say the one thing I do find frustrating about MapQuest is if there is an accident or something that has closed the road I need to go on, it is not very good at getting me new directions with a new route so that I’m not needing to go that way. I don’t know if one of the other different apps might be better at it, but MapQuest is not very good at that.

WADE WINGLER:  For me I use a couple of different things. I probably use Waze the most. We live in a place here in Indiana where we don’t rely on public transportation very much. We drive a lot. The motor capital world or whatever with racing. When I’m in DC or other places, Chicago, where I need to rely on public transportation, I switch from Waze to Google maps because their public transit maps are pretty good. Also there walking maps, so if I’m walking inside of a city, those work pretty well. Honestly because I drive a lot and we live in a place where that’s how we get around primarily, I use Waze a lot and have been for a couple of years now and really like it.

BELVA SMITH:  This maps that on my phone, is that Google maps—

BRIAN NORTON:  That’s Apple maps. I do on occasion, when MapQuest can’t find, especially with newer housing additions and stuff, when MapQuest can’t find the address I will go to that one and it does seem to always be able to find it.

BRIAN NORTON:  You have to download Google maps to the phone. Same with Waze. If you guys have questions or have feedback about any of the questions we went through today, we have a variety of different ways for you to get a hold of us and let us know those things. You can give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can send us a tweet with the hashtag ATFAQ. Or email us at tech@EasterSealsCrossroads.org. We certainly want your questions. In fact, without your questions we really don’t have a show, so definitely be a part of it. I want to take my colleagues in the room. Wade?

WADE WINGLER:  Thanks everybody. Please let us know about the airports thing. I want to hear about those.

BRIAN NORTON:  Josh?

JOSH ANDERSON:  Thanks everybody.

BRIAN NORTON:  And Belva?

BELVA SMITH:  Before we leave, I’ve got just a little tidbit of news I want to share. Anyone who is close to me knows that I loved my TiVo. Just with the latest TiVo update, if you are visually impaired and you stayed away from TiVo, you don’t have to anymore. The latest update includes not only zoom but voiceover. It reads beautifully.

WADE WINGLER:  We need to do a tech tip on that then.

BELVA SMITH:  I can do that.

BRIAN NORTON:  Very cool. Think everybody. Have a great couple weeks and we will see you later.

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***