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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Show Notes:
NFB Newsline with Scott White | www.nfbnewsline.org
RESNA Research Committee collaborates on AT Outcomes Day at ATIA | Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America http://buff.ly/1AEZt6Y
On the Hill with Audrey Busch | www.ataporg.org
Special Segment: AT of Christmas’ Future! Startup Campaigns that may become AT in the future
WHILL : World’s Most Advanced Personal Mobility Device by WHILL — Kickstarter http://buff.ly/1AiYn0M
Nimble, Zero Lag & High Accuracy Gesture Control. | Indiegogo http://buff.ly/1A6GVhP
RogerVoice Phone App http://buff.ly/1AiYSYI
Notti: A More Beautiful Smart Light by Witti Inc — Kickstarter http://buff.ly/1AiYYQi
AMPY: Power your devices from your motion by AMPY — Kickstarter http://buff.ly/1A6Hokh
NFB-NEWSLINE is a free audio information service for blind or print disabled US residents. It provides access to over 400 publications including National, State and International Newspapers, Breaking News, magazines, emergency weather alerts, job listings, and TV listings. You can access these publications via a touchtone telephone, the internet, OnDemand email, portable players or IOS Devices such as an iPhone, iPod or iPad. For more information or to learn how to sign up for this free service, call 866-504-7300 or visit www.nfbnewsline.org.
Indiana’s local resources for NFB Newsline
NFB Newsline Indiana
Indiana Talking Book & Braille Library
lbph@library.IN.gov
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——-transcript follows ——-
SCOTT WHITE: Hi, I’m Scott White, the director of sponsored technology programs for the National Federation of the Blind, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.
WADE WINGLER: Hi, this is Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana with your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Welcome to the 186th episode of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on December 19 of 2014.
You might notice that I barely have a voice today. I’m getting over a bout of laryngitis, and although I feel just fine, I just sound kind of rough. Because of that, I’m going to alter our show format just a little bit today. I’m excited to have Scott White from NFB Newsline on to talk about what amazing service they are offering there from the NFB to increase access to information.
We’ve got a segment from Audrey Busch talking about what’s happening on the hill and the federal government as it relates to assistive technology.
And then I’m going to drop in a prerecorded segment about AT Christmas future, a bunch of Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that I found that I think might result in assistive technology devices in the future. It was recorded as part of our holiday segment and didn’t make the edit for the first two episodes, but I drug that piece back out because I thought it was a lot of fun and also I’m just having a hard time talking today. You’re going to hear one story with me reading and then you’re going to hear some other prerecorded stuff, and hopefully next week I’ll be back in good voice and we will pick up our regular format.
So check out our website at eastersealstech.com, shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project, or call our listener line, 317-721-7124.
On Thursday, January 29, at the ATIA conference in Orlando, there’s going to be an AT Outcomes day. This is a joint project by RESNA and the ATIA research committees, and a day re trying to figure out what evidence-based practice looks like in the field of assistive technology. Obviously the medical field in general is paying a whole lot of attention to outcomes and cost containment, and the AT industry is going to try to address those things in three sessions during a special portion of the ATIA conference. One of the panels will be on industry perspectives on data collection and the educational technology area; another one will be on data collection in augmentative and alternative communication; and then another meeting will be about models for data collection. So I’m going to pop a link in the show notes over to the RESNA website where you can read more about this AT Outcomes day at ATIA and learn a little bit more about this initiative. I’m fascinated and look for to see what happens with this as we move into the future.
In the past couple of years, I’ve seen a whole lot of Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns that are dealing with assistive technology. So I wanted to do a quick segment here on kind of the gifts of Christmas future. These are things that aren’t available right now but they are going to be. These are things that either on Kickstarter or Indigogo and are campaigns that promise future technology for folks with disabilities.
The first one I want to talk about is the WHILL. It’s a Kickstarter campaign that’s a personal mobility device. I actually had a chance to see this at the RESNA conference earlier in 2014 and to try it out. What they’re saying is it’s not a wheelchair. When you look at it, it does look and act like a wheelchair, but instead of going through the FDA approval process and having disapproved as a medical device, they are treating it more like a toy or a personal recreation device. But has a lot of the functionality of a wheelchair. I’ll pop a link in the show notes to the Kickstarter campaign so you can see them, but that’s an interesting mobility device that, if fully funded on the Kickstarter campaign, will be available.
Here’s another one that’s called TAP. It’s an app, on Kickstarter as well, that is designed to help people who have a hearing impairment to communicate with each other. So instead of a complicated, fancy device, each person carries a little box around with them. When they tap on it, it makes the other one vibrate. If you think about it at the holidays, maybe grandma is in one bedroom on one end the house wrapping Christmas gifts, and grandpa is out carrying in firewood, and one of the two of those communication partners is hard of hearing. With this device, you would simply punch the button on grandpa’s pocket and it would make the one buzz in the other room with grandma so that they would know that they’re trying to talk to each other and communicate in that way.
Another one that we have is on Indiegogo and is called Nimble. In fact, Laura, you did an article on this on our blog not too long ago. So if you go back to eastersealstech.com and punch the word Nimble in, you’ll see what you wrote about this. It’s a zero lag, high accuracy gesture control. Imagine you want to control a video game or your cable box or something like this. This is a device that you slip over the tip of your finger and it has some receptors on your TV that will then let you control it with finger motions. You point out what you want and move your cursor control around or character on a game around. The thing about this one is this technology has been around for a while, but it tends to lag. It’s not to be very accurate and by the time you move your head across the screen, it catches up later and the effect is that it’s good. This one is called Nimble and is an Indiegogo campaign and is supposed to do a much better job.
We also have one called RogerVoice. This is a Kickstarter campaign. It’s an app that will provide a transcribed telephone conversation. This one is related to hearing impairment. But if you call somebody on your mobile phone and they are using this future RogerVoice app, you will be able to see a transcript of the conversation right there live on the phone. Instead of using an operator, somebody in the intermediary who is kind of doing the translation, it’s all computer-based. So it’s a private, secure conversation where a hearing person and a hard of hearing person communicate and that person who is hard of hearing can read the live transcript of the conversation happening there right there on their phone.
I’ve got a couple more here. One is called Notti. It’s called a more beautiful smart light. The thing about this is that a little white cube that you sit on your desk and it’s tied into your smart phone so that if you’re smart phone rings or buzzes or gives you some sort of indicator that you have an incoming communication, Notti flashes. You can set it up so that it flashes different colors for text messages or different individuals who are calling. It has 16 million customizable colors on it. It uses LEDs so the lights are very bright and very powerful. You can also do something to help wake up in the morning so that it will flash to help wake you up. And you can make it go with music so that you can get a visual representation of what’s happening with music on your smart phone. Again, it’s called Notti, and it would be really helpful for folks who have a hard time with the audio indicators on their smartphones and have something more visual to let them know that that’s happening.
The last one I have here is called AMPY. This one is also a Kickstarter campaign. It’s very simple and would help lots of folks with all kinds of disabilities. It’s a thing that you put on your arm and it charges your smart phone. We all move around throughout the day whether we are walking or whether we’re using a wheelchair and her arms are moving, doing different things most of the time throughout the day. This device just basically captures that arm movement throughout the day, converts it into electricity, and allows you to charge your smart phones so that you’re taking that body movement and converting it into something that would charge your smart phone.
That’s just four or five different campaigns that are happening on Kickstarter at the time of the recording. We’re going to put links in the show notes so that you can check them out. Most of them are active while we are a recording and you can check back to see if they were funded or not and also learn more about when these things might hit the market.
It’s time for On the Hill with Audrey. Audrey Busch is the director of policy and advocacy for the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs. In her update, she lets us know how the power of politics is impacting people with disabilities and their use of the technology. Learn more about Audrey and her work at ATAPorg.org.
AUDREY BUSCH: This is Audrey Bush, policy director for the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs, coming to you with your monthly Washington update.
This week marks the final one for congresses 113th legislative session. Congress is going out with a bang. In typical fashion, at the 11th hour, Congress is scrambling to ensure the government is funded before their speedy departure back home to begin the celebration of the holiday season. On Tuesday night, House Republicans filed a 1600 page, $1.1 trillion year-end spending bill that reveals weeks of negotiations between both chambers and parties. While this bill is being touted as a bicameral, bipartisan effort, news outlets are calling the bill a demonstration of the GOP’s new muscle. Generally the bill flatlines the domestic budget while providing modest increases for things like scientific research. The bill also adds significant dollars overseas to address the Ebola outbreak and also the situation in the Middle East with ISIS.
And while the administration did have some wins in this heavy-handed negotiation, they did not come without a price. The Obama administration’s signature education program, Race to the Top, was defunded, and other key education programs for the administration were cut. As for the Assistive Technology Act, the program was treated like many of the other programs, which is level funded at $33 million.
Overall, it’s basically a continuation of last year’s funding scenario in many ways. But there are still several marquee differences. For instance, one that relates the Affordable Care Act. While the law is still funded, there is no new money for the Internal Revenue Service and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the two agencies most responsible for implementing the law.
Of course, the passage of this funding bill also has not been without any drama. After several days of whipping votes, even the White House had to jump in, in an attempt to get more Democrats on board to vote for the funding measures so that it would pass. Finally it did with two hours to spare before the current continuing resolution that’s been keeping the government funded was set to expire. The measure is expected to be passed by the Senate easily, however, before they actually adjourn officially before the holiday.
Finally, last Friday marked Sen. Tom Harkin, a stalwart advocate for people with disabilities over a 40 year career, took to the Senate floor to provide his final remarks. Saddened to leave the Senate, he ended his remarks teaching the crowd sign language, specifically for the word America. He noted how the sign is representative of the circle of inclusion where no one is left out. With that, he said goodbye to the Senate.
Happy holiday to you and yours, and I look forward to my next update in the new year.
WADE WINGLER: We live in a world where access to information is important for everybody, and using technology to access information is something that a lot of folks do. I have on the phone today — well, via Skype, I guess — Scott White who is the director of sponsored technology programs for the National Federation of the Blind. We’re going to talk about a service where the NFB helps with just that issue: NFB Newsline.
First of all, Scott, thank you so much for joining us today.
SCOTT WHITE: Thank you, Wade, and thank you for having me on the show today.
WADE WINGLER: We are excited to have you. I have heard a little bit about NFB Newsline from a couple of colleagues that we have in common. But I have to confess I don’t know a lot about it. So can we start off with just some basics. Tell me little bit about NFB Newsline and why it’s important.
SCOTT WHITE: I describe NFB Newsline as an audio information service. On NFB Newsline, we have nearly 400 publications. The publications that we have on there are comprised of newspapers and magazines, and in past years we started to go beyond that. We have TV listings. We have job listing for persons that are looking for a job or just want to use it as a tool to see what’s in the marketplace. We have retail ads from Target, a corporation which we are going to be working with next year to get more ads on the service as well from them. That’s sort of in a nutshell what offerings are on NFB Newsline.
Now, there is a variety of different ways that individuals can access this type of information. We try to do ways that will fit in to a lot of different person’s lifestyles. Not everybody is familiar and up-to-date with the most recent technology, things like the iPhone and so forth, so we have methods. We are available on a standard touchtone telephone, so a person can call up using their telephone in their home on a cell phone and access our readings. They can also go ahead and read them using their iPhones with voiceover. And also if they are used to really looking at stuff on the computer, we have a secure website that they can go ahead and look at our content as well. We also have some download options. Probably the most popular download option we have is we recently worked with Humanware to provide an interface where you can directly download our newspapers and publications directly to the reader’s stream.
As for as why is information important? Well, I guess that’s a general question that really would go for anybody. Really having access to information really makes you connected to your community. As a blind person, when I would be out going looking for a job prior to working here for the National Federation of the Blind, if I was able to go on a job interview, and if I was able to carry on a conversation with the prospective employer and do small talk and things like that, and then somebody else came in that really couldn’t do those types of things, all other aspects are equal. Who do you think they’re going to hire? They’re going to hire the person that really knows and is connected to the community.
NFB Newsline allows a person to stay connected to the family. For me personally, when my stepson was living with us, and of course being a teenager he was into video games and things like that, which was not really something I was into. But I read about it on NFB Newsline and several different newspapers and then I could carry on an intelligent conversation with him about that. So that’s really helpful to be able to connect your family that way.
I’ve heard of the stories, most recently from somebody. Rolling Stone is one of the magazines that we have on NFB Newsline. She said my son and my husband who are sighted read the publication, and they would be discussing the article, and I really felt left out. So now she can read the articles and she can join in on the conversation. So there’s a lot of variety of reasons, anything from vocational to connecting to your family, friends. It’s just a great thing to be able to access all this information. We like to say that access equals success. That success can be vocational, can be with your family, just in your general life. NFB Newsline really helps you to live the life you want.
WADE WINGLER: I think that’s an excellent point you make about inclusion and community. I think those things are important everybody so I’m glad that this service helps to contribute to that. So tell me a little bit — I’m making some assumptions here because I’m talking to a representative of the NFB, and I think a lot of my audience understands that this is largely used by folks who are blind. Tell me a little bit about who is eligible to use the service.
SCOTT WHITE: Persons that are eligible to use the service are blind persons, persons that have low vision. We also cover what’s broadly called persons with print disabilities. That would be persons that have mobility impairments that prevent them from turning a printed page conveniently. Basically if you are eligible for the National Library Service, then you are automatically qualified for Newsline. There are some forms of dyslexia and so forth that are also covered, but if you’re not a member of the National Library Service, certainly contact us and we can definitely see if you’re eligible as well.
Let me go ahead and briefly get some contact information here. We have a customer service number where you can call and learn more about the service. That’s 866-504-7300. Our website is nfbnewsline.org. On that particular website, you will have an application that you can fill out online there for the service.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. When somebody applies, how long does it take to find out if you’re eligible? Is that a fairly quick process?
SCOTT WHITE: The most expedient way as if you’re a member of the National Library Service, then we can quickly determine if you’re eligible. If you’re not a member of any of the type of services that we normally work in collaboration with, and we may require you to have a doctor’s note, things like that. Obviously if we require more documentation, that’s going to take a little bit of a longer process. But I would say in general terms, probably about a week.
WADE WINGLER: That makes a ton of sense. And that’s fast. That the great turnaround. What about the cost to participate or to take avenge of this?
SCOTT WHITE: It’s one of the great things in life. It’s the best price: zero. All of the services on NFB Newsline are at no cost to the individual. The way the NSB — you could say well, somebody has to pay for it. That’s true. There is no such thing as a free lunch. But the way the NFB Newsline is paid for, in different states it’s different, but we get a state sponsorship from every state. Currently we are not in all 50 states, but we are in 46 of those 50 states.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. That’s a wide reach. This is a technology focused show. Why don’t we talk a little bit about the technology that’s involved in accessing it. You talked a little bit about some of the different access methods. But what kind of technology is under the hood to make the NFB Newsline go?
SCOTT WHITE: We have two data centers, one up here in Baltimore, Maryland, the other one in South Florida. All our calls for the phone service and other parts of our service come out of those two data centers. The way that we receive the publication content, be it from a magazine or newspaper or the TV listings, we get those from different sources. We parse through that information, import it into our database and then the individual can go ahead and access it. All of these systems that we use were created by the national Federation of the Blind. Everything is done in-house.
WADE WINGLER: Okay. I know there’s a lot of technology used to create the content. Tell me a little bit about the content itself. You mentioned a few things that are out there but I would love to hear who’s creating it and what kind of things you can find when you go there to access the Newsline.
SCOTT WHITE: The majority of the content is all created by the publisher. One excellent feature that we have with the service is the individual. It’s all about the choice for the individual. I’ll carry on with my example for the Rolling Stone. We have a variety of different magazines and so forth, but let’s say that you want to read Rolling Stone. What we do is for magazines, we have a current issue and the last issue on the system. So an individual goes into Rolling Stone and then they go ahead and pick the section they want and all the articles are listed there. So you have the selection of all the articles. If you’re reading one and you simply don’t like that one, you simply have a different — of course, it changes from different access method to different access method how you do this, but you have the ability to quickly go to the next article. So the system can be accessed 24/7, 365 days, and it’s really excellent to me that I can go ahead and pick the material that I want to read that’s important to me. The entire publication is there so I really have the same access as a sighted individual.
WADE WINGLER: I guess one of the things that I’m still a little unclear about, the content when it’s on the system, is it synthesized, computerized speech, or is it more recorded digitized speech, or are there options?
SCOTT WHITE: Each access method is a little bit different. When we talk about the telephone, you call up and you’re going to hear probably 99.8% of everything read by synthetic voice. Most of the audience is probably familiar with JAWS from Freedom Scientific. One of the voices that we use is the eloquence voice. That’s one of the older voices that we use. We now have, in the past couple years, added more human quality voices. So we still find that probably a lot of people still like the eloquence voice or graduate into the eloquence voice. Sometimes a lot of the seniors or people that are new to blindness and are just getting started with using voices, and they would use the more human quality voices.
As far as accessing the content, obviously if you’re doing it on the iPhone, it’s using the voiceover voice, or whatever voice you use on your iPhone is what that will access. When you’re on the computer, whatever voice over you are using a computer, it will be able to access the text. So you’re still going to need a screen reader to be able to access it using the website. Some of the download options are using our voices, but like on the Victor Reader screen, second generation, that’s going to use the voices that are built into the Victor.
As far as our content, we have national publications. For example, one of my favorites is the New York Times, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor. We also have the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, things like that. On NFB Newsline, we do have a number of international publications. We have ones from the UK. We have ones from Canada. We have one from Greece, one from South Africa, several different parts of the world. When I first put this on a system, I knew it was going to be popular, but the subscribers just really responded and said we want a lot of this content. By reading other publications from around the world, you get different perspectives from different countries. Our subscribers really like that. I love to hear from subscribers of what kind of content that they want to hear on the system because that’s what we are here for, is to provide a service to them.
As far as your question regarding local content, each state sponsor will have at least two state newspapers. Many have more than that. But they’re at least going to have two state newspapers. When it comes to actual local content, there is a facility. We call it the state specific channel or local channel that the individual state sponsor can go ahead and upload information that is unique to the state. Some states have done things like job ads. Of course we have the job listings, but things that are unique to their agency, job ads, bus schedules, anything that is of interest to the blind community or the print disabled community for the particular state.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. Scott, I’m going to ask you to look into the future a little bit and tell me what you see coming down the road for NFB Newsline. For example, I heard something about an iPhone app.
SCOTT WHITE: Yes. We came out with the iPhone app a few years ago, and we are continuing to improve upon it. We have a new version coming out that’s going to have some additional features. One of the features that people really love on NFB Newsline, for your listeners that are blind or visually impaired, they could be watching TV and hear the alert beep tone on the TV. Of course, if you are unable to see the scroll at the bottom, you are sort of clueless as to what is going on. Now you can immediately go and call into NFB Newsline and, due to a collaboration with AccuWeather, you can go ahead and actually hear what that weather alert is. That’s one thing. Now, the weather alerts were always in the app, but were going to make it in a more streamlined approach where people can get to the information quicker.
We’ve had on the service for a while where people can go to nearly the 400 publications that we have. On the telephone, there is a way that you can search all those publications for a key text phrase. So we are going to bring that to the iPhone app. We are going to bring the retail ads that were available on the phone. So the iPhone app is basically having a lot of features that are on NFB Newsline in other places, and we’re just going to be able to catch up and bring the iPhone to have those sorts of features.
One other thing I want to mention is we were talking about the NFB Newsline as a service of the national Federation of the blind. That is true. We are the creators of the service. But it is not just for our members. It is for all blind persons in the US. All persons that are eligible for it are more than welcome to go ahead and use a service. So if you’re a member of the NFB, that’s fantastic. If you’re a member of some other organization, you’re certainly welcome to go ahead and apply and use the service as well.
WADE WINGLER: Excellent. It sounds like there’s a ton of great information there and increasing ways to access it all the time appeared before we finish up the interview here, give us the contact information one more time to estimate he wants to get started, where should they start?
SCOTT WHITE: You can go ahead and call our toll-free number. That’s 866-504-7300. Our website is www.nfbnewsline.org. If you are interested in online access methods, you can certainly find information on nfbnewsline.org, but we have a special website for that. That’s nfbnewslineonline.org.
WADE WINGLER: Scott White is the director of sponsor technology programs for the national Federation of the blind and has been our guest today. Scott, thank you so much for being with us.
SCOTT WHITE: Thank you, Wade.
WADE WINGLER: Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? Call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Looking for show notes from today’s show? Head on over to EasterSealstech.com. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject, or check us out on Facebook. That was your Assistance Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.