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WADE WINGLER: Welcome to ATFAQ, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions with your host Brian Norton, Director of Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads. This is a show in which we address your questions about assistive technology, the hardware, software, tools and gadgets that help people with disabilities lead more independent and fulfilling lives. Have a question you’d like answered on our show? Send a tweet with the hashtag #ATFAQ, call our listener line at 317-721-7124, or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. The world of assistive technology has questions, and we have answers. And now here’s your host, Brian Norton.
BRIAN NORTON: Hello, and welcome to ATFAQ episode 16. I want to welcome everybody here, especially here in the studio. Today we have Belva Smith. Belva, how are you?
BELVA SMITH: Hi.
BRIAN NORTON: Mark Stewart is also here.
MARK STEWART: Hey, Brian. Hey, everybody.
BRIAN NORTON: And we have Wade Wingler.
WADE WINGLER: Hey, everybody. Sweet 16, huh?
BRIAN NORTON: Nice.
WADE WINGLER: 16 episodes in. I didn’t think we were going to do this many.
BRIAN NORTON: And of course I’m Brian Norton, host of the show. For those that are new listeners that that are here listening to us today, I just want to give you a quick background on the show. How the show works can’t it’s a question and answer show format. Essentially we ask people if they have questions, send us your questions. You can do that in a variety of different ways. You can call our listener line at 317-721-7124. You can email us at tech@EasterSealscrossroads.org, or you can send us a tweet with the hashtag #ATFAQ. All of those come to the central location where we can grab those and put them into future shows. Please, if you have questions, go ahead and take the opportunity throughout the show today to send us one. We love to get those and be able to enter those on the show. If you’re looking for the show, for those that are listening, you’ve already found it. But you can also find us in different ways. You can find us on iTunes. You can go to our website at ATFAQshow.com. You can find us on Stitcher or at www.eastersealstech.com. That’s our agency website..
Without further ado, we’ll jump in to questions today.
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The first question is, where do you get a smoke detector system for persons who are deaf and hard of hearing?
BELVA SMITH: Where do you get it?
BRIAN NORTON: Yes.
BELVA SMITH: I had the answer as to what to get. You can get it — go ahead.
BRIAN NORTON: I was going to say, yeah, you can answer both. Where and what.
BELVA SMITH: Harriscomm.com. They have a large selection of different alert devices that are available and recommended for folks that are hearing impaired. The one that I have — actually had experience with is the Silent Call Signature Series. It’s a fire alarm. It uses a strobe receiver, so it can flash to notify you in the event of a fire or smoke.
BRIAN NORTON: Great. I think the thing that kind of distinguishes those particular fire alarms, first of all, they come with a big, very large loud auditory alarm, so maybe it’s pretty amplified a lot so you get very large amounts of dB out of that particular — the sound of the alarm. But most of them have strobes. There are lots of variety of different aids for daily living places to go, www.lssproducts.com, and other places that I’ve gone to. MaxiAids.com is another place. There’s a whole variety of different types of alarm systems for folks who need it.
WADE WINGLER: I think one of the reasons this question comes up a lot is FEMA, here in the US, the Federal Emergency Management Administration, every once in a while they do grants and give away these smoke detectors for people who are deaf or hard of hearing or have other sensory needs. The grants are usually given to local fire department or local emergency organizations, and they’ll do a big community fire — smoke detector, fire alarm kind of giveaway day. I think some of those grants are not targeted to people who have disabilities. They’re just kind of hey, go to your local fire house and go get a free smoke detector kind of thing. But I think they also include some times where they do those with the adaptive ones. In fact, I’m looking on the web now under USFA.Fema.gov/grants, there’s a whole list of grant cycle things that happen here. They talk about assistance to firefighter grants, staffing for adequate fire and emergency response grants, and then this one is fire prevention and safety grants. I think that’s where those grants happen. The last ones were given in 2014, and the grant application period is currently closed. I assume those will be opening up again. I have always found that at local fire department levels is where you see an ad or a press release saying, whatever, Phoenix fire department is giving away these smoke detectors for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, come get them, and everything. I think that’s where the question comes from. I’m not aware of any currently open grants like that, and it looks based on the FEMA website that they aren’t doing that at the moment. I think that’s where the question comes from. I hear that a lot where you can get them for free in those situations.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s probably available nationwide, when they are available.
WADE WINGLER: Yeah, it’s a federal grant. But I think local fire agencies apply for them. I was using Phoenix as an example today. The Phoenix fire Department would apply for that federal grant and then give them away in Arizona.
BELVA SMITH: So if you were — if you knew someone who is in need of one or you looking for one, would you start by contacting your local fire department?
WADE WINGLER: I probably would, but I don’t think those things happen all the time. I think they are probably fairly unique when they do. I would definitely contact your local fire department, see if they know anything. Otherwise I think you’re probably looking to buy one of these on your own from an organization like Harris Communication or LS&S.
BRIAN NORTON: They don’t look terribly expensive. Anywhere from $50-$100 depending on the system you want to get, whether it’s a wired one or a battery operated. They come in all different formats.
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BRIAN NORTON: If you have a question, don’t forget to give us a call on our listener line. That listener line is 317-721-7124. Our next question is from a vocational rehabilitation friend of mine. He’s a counselor. The question that he has as he has a student that relies on cart at a local university, and the campus Wi-Fi is apparently weak and spotty. His question is do you know of a device or something VR could provide that would help? He recognizes that on our VR level — this is a friend of ours in the state of Indiana — that they use air cards for their work. One of the limitations with VR funding is they can’t pay for monthly subscriptions, so having an air card wouldn’t work in this particular situation because they couldn’t provide that because of the multi-subscription. They are asking us if we had any ideas of what they might be able to do.
BELVA SMITH: I would probably start by trying to talk with the IT department and find out if there is something — first of all, how many different classrooms is this individual trying to connect using the cart service. But is there a way that the IT department could boost the Wi-Fi connectivity for that room by maybe adding some sort of a booster in that room?
BRIAN NORTON: Like a Wi-Fi extender?
BELVA SMITH: You can even get the Wi-Fi extenders for the computer that’s being used. For example, if she or he is taking a laptop from room to room with them, I believe you can get extenders that are USB that you can connect to the laptop to help boost the signal.
BRIAN NORTON: I would also — to follow it up, IT department would be one place to go. The other place I would do is maybe disability services. Obviously this is probably something — and arrangement that’s probably been put in place by disability services at whatever university the student’s going to, and talking to them about, it’s really not working, or is not working well enough, and figuring out with them can they do anything to advocate on their part, maybe even with IT or the organization that’s providing the CART services to see if there’s a different way to provide that accessible content for the person.
BELVA SMITH: It can be done using a telephone line, right? I’m pretty sure that it can be provided through a telephone line, if they can put a landline —
WADE WINGLER: Well, the outgoing audio can be, but you still have to have that data connection coming back so that the student can see the transcript. For folks in the audience who aren’t familiar with the situation, when we talk about CART in a college classroom, it’s a deal where there’s some sort of a phone line or an Internet connection going to a transcriptionist, a CART writer who’s out side of the classroom. Somebody sitting at a CART machine like a stenography mission is listening to the audio in the classroom, because it’s coming across a phone or something like a Skype connection, that CART writer then types in, phonetically, the words into the CART machine and it gets sent back as a datastream to the person who is deaf or hard of hearing who can see the text in front of them. That usually, we often use the service here called Stream Text which is just a URL opened up for that particular conversation, and then you can get the text. You have to have voice going out of the classroom and you have to have data coming back in. I think Wi-Fi gets used a lot for that because that connection will do both. But it’s a really good question about the spotty nature of that. I’m guessing if it’s a problem for the deaf or hard of hearing student, it’s probably a problem for any student trying to use anything that requires Wi-Fi in the classroom.
BELVA SMITH: Right. I also found an app called Connectify. I’ve not had any experience with it, but supposedly — it’s like $60 — it helps boost the computers Wi-Fi capability. Maybe that app being installed on the individual computer or the computer that the services are being provided on could help.
BRIAN NORTON: I’m also even thinking, again, it’s an ongoing cost, but maybe this would be incurred by the user themselves, maybe if they have a wireless hotspot on the phone.
BELVA SMITH: I thought about that too.
BRIAN NORTON: Or other kinds of things. Maybe they can tap into the 4G or LTE or whatever cellular signal they have around to be able to push the information through one of those.
BELVA SMITH: There’s a good possibility that the individual is probably already using some sort of a smartphone. They may have the ability to use their own hotspot.
WADE WINGLER: Again, we talk about equal access and rights under the ADA. That’s something that the university really does need to provide if they’re doing it as a reasonable accommodation.
BELVA SMITH: Yeah.
WADE WINGLER: I think it also relates to some of this ongoing issue of the pay by the month, paid by the service, as opposed to hardware solutions. We are seeing this more and more where, in the past, you might have had a piece of hardware in a piece of software that didn’t have a monthly cost or an ongoing cost, and you relied on wired connections or reliable Wi-Fi connections. More and more, there is this VR doesn’t cover the monthly cost of services that we are running into. I kind of get it, because programs like vocational rehabilitation are designed to get an employee up and going and running so sufficiently. With a college student, that’s a little bit different. While the student’s in college, the assumption isn’t that they are working on independent employment at that moment and can buy their own stuff as one of their work supplies. They are a college student. I’m running into this more and more, and I don’t know gently what the answer is. Software is moving to subscription based as opposed to buy it once and be done. It’s kind of an ongoing issue.
BELVA SMITH: I wonder too what the possibilities are. Again, this is why I would start with the IT folks with the university. What’s the possibility of doing a wired connection, again, especially if it’s in — but it’s not going to be in one room. Chances are we are talking —
BRIAN NORTON: I’m sure they go class to class.
BELVA SMITH: Several different rooms.
WADE WINGLER: But if there is a wired connection in there, maybe there’s a wireless hotspot that could be added to that, because all Wi-Fi adapters eventually connect to a wired connection. Maybe that is a solution. Can that particular student be assigned a Wi-Fi hotspot, a Wi-Fi access point that they take with them and plug into the wired jack when they are in the classroom? There’s back end networking stuff that needs to be worked out on that. Maybe that’s the booster. It’s not some software or some dongle to put on your computer. You carry your own Wi-Fi access point with you and plug it into the wall.
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BRIAN NORTON: So if you haven’t already, go ahead and send us your questions if you have them. You can email us your questions at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. We’ll look forward to receiving those. Our next question of the day would be, I have a client who has trouble accessing the keyboard and mouse, specifically with targeting keys and the duration limit for pressing keys. Are you able to provide a rundown on the built-in accessibility features found in Windows and Mac that may help me improve my input speed?
I kind of did dig in a little bit to the Windows accessibility features. If you go under the control panel of your Windows computer. It doesn’t matter what version of Windows you operate. It could be Windows 7, older than that. On the computer, you will find the control panel. Under the control panel, if you’ve got an older version of Windows, way old, you’ll see a little guy in agriculture or a blue wheelchair depending on the color scheme that you got operating at the moment. Or you’ll find something called the Ease of Access center. Under there you’ll find lots of built-in tools and accessibility for folks in the Windows environment. On the Mac environment, if you go under systems preference pane, you’ll be able to go down and also find a variety of different tools to be able to make some changes.
Much of them are pretty similar to Windows and Mac, particularly some things like sticky keys. Sticky keys is a great feature for folks who may have targeting issues, or I guess refer to duration limit in the question. For folks who can’t get their fingers off the key in time and have the instance where they get their finger on a key and they put in 10 letters instead of the one that they wanted. They just couldn’t get it off of the key in time. Sticky keys will allow you to operate and do keystroke combinations. If you’re trying to make a capital “A”, the Shift plus the A, or the keystroke combinations like Control-O for Open, Control-S for Save, and those kinds of things. Sticky keys helps you with that. Filter keys helps you ignore repeated keystrokes.
BELVA SMITH: That’s what I thought you were leaning at, was the filter key.
BRIAN NORTON: And then toggle keys is another one. Toggle keys will allow you to get an auditory tone, I believe, for when you press the scroll, num-lock —
WADE WINGLER: Those keys that get stuck in that toggle on or toggle off state, just let you know that they are on.
MARK STEWART: Filter keys is what I was thinking you can do. With regards to how long until a single letter is typed, that can be set. And then also how long do you have to remove your finger from that letter before it repeats typing. That can be changed as well. Most of these things can be adjusted from a software standpoint. If you have more of a tremor type of a situation, you can make things more forgiving. For example, if you have a tremor situation where you hit multiple keys, but then you finally can’t find the key, you can set things where none of the keys activate for a second or two or about as long as you want. If you have a tremor type of a situation where you can target the individual key pretty accurately, but you let your finger off, hit it again, left your finger off, hit it again. You can control that. You can dampen that down with some software settings as well. Brian was taking you to. They are all collective and together. Since Vista, I guess, they changed the language in the accessibility center towards — for example, it’s actually called ease of access center. They tried to use common terminology that represents the issue that you are having. So that the common consumer can more easily just go in and say that’s pretty much like my problem. Let me take a look at that. Then they now get into the technical answer.
WADE WINGLER: There was also a marketing push from Microsoft to address aging. A lot of these issues that are addressed by ease of access or accessibility things aren’t disability things. They relate to an aging population as well. As Microsoft tries to hang onto market share, they want to say aging too. That’s one of the reasons they did that.
MARK STEWART: One of the ways — I’ll enter this. Once you get there and you find your right overall topic, you’ll be pretty pleasantly surprised at what is actually just embedded in Windows Ease of Access Center. Not that I know all the keystroke combinations like others in this room, but one that I do know, for some reason I keep reminding folks about and feel proud about, is Windows and the U. It takes you right to the Ease of Access Center. Windows and you gets you right there. I think I know, Brian, you were kind of getting ready to head this direction as well. That’s a software approach. But then of course this person is going to be interested in specifics about the size of the keys, the spread of the keys, whether they would be interested in the key card, the hardware type solutions to add to this as well. They might be really surprised how fine-tuned and detailed they get with regards to different key types. There was all kinds of high-tech data on the strength that it takes to push a certain key down versus other keyboards. Most off-the-shelf keyboards are pretty generic and you’re not sure what you’re getting and things like that. But if you really need to get into those particulars, you can find the keyboards that have all different kinds of feel and spread. Again, there are many different hardware solutions to the as well.
BELVA SMITH: That’s where I was going to come in. I was just going to say trying a different — try different keyboards, because there are some low-cost Windows and Mac keyboards that have larger keys. Targeting a specific key would be easier. And then before we finish up this question, we also want to mention the fact that both Windows and Mac have the speech recognition as part of the operating system, so if typing becomes a real problem, then you might want to look at using the built-in speech recognition. Chances are if you’re using a laptop, you also got a built-in mic, so if you’re in a quiet environment, you can probably get by with exactly what’s included with your laptop.
WADE WINGLER: We talked about this a little bit. I had somebody recently ask me about using speech and put in a similar situation. They happen to have a Mac and that particular situation. They said what do I need? I said you need to turn it on. My experience with the Mac speech recognition is that the built-in mic on a MacBook or MacBook air is pretty darn good, this built-in speech is pretty good. How are you guys come along on Windows these days with speech recognition, the built-in stuff versus Dragon or the other commercial products. I’ve been a fan of it all. I’m for most situations. There are some that require the Dragon, but I’ve been a fan of the window speech with built in mic’s for a couple of years now. I would say the Windows speech recognition, very specifically, because I worked with that a little bit with some of my clients, is really voiced dependent. It depends on how well you can speak, do you have issues with breath and voice volume and all those kinds of things. It’s not as forgiving as maybe you Dragon naturally speaking and other kinds of things. It’s not as forgiving. My two cents are, since Vista, the speech engines, have been pretty strong, this is Brian described. But if voice control is not an issue at all you probably can get some pretty good accuracy with the right microphone. I always think of — and free is great. I think of robustness. I keep using that term with regards to window speech recognition or even Mac versus Dragon NaturallySpeaking or the paid program. It depends on what you need it for. If you’re in a vocational setting may need some of the extra features, then you may want to go with, for example, Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
WADE WINGLER: I’ve been given the advice frequently for people who want to toe with it is to start with the free stuff and see if that moves you in the right direction. But then also say, if you are struggling, know that the more the better, but a lot of times I’m getting people starting with the built-in stuff and they move on into something more robust.
BRIAN NORTON: What you started this with, Wade, is interesting with regards to smartphones on the MacBook Pro. What are you using, Wade?
WADE WINGLER: This one is a new MacBook, the brand-new — it’s like a MacBook air but smaller. It’s the fancy one.
MARK STEWART: Great components in the Mac including the onboard microphone. Five years ago, you would just by default be going to an external microphone. Now, no, the onboard on the new laptop or external monitor is not as good as a microphone, but it is really fun how close it’s getting to being enough. Again, if you just have some specific speech issue or specific vocational need where you need that extra push, if you have, on the Windows side, an ultrabook, and that quality of microphone, or if you have a Mac product, boy, it’s fun how will the microphones are working.
WADE WINGLER: I find myself, as somebody who is able body and types really pretty quickly, I’m starting to dictate more and more at times throughout the day on the Mac. I just find myself saying I’m a little tired. This in the umpteenth email this hour, and I’ll just pop the function key twice and the keyboard and start dictating.
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BRIAN NORTON: All right, everybody. If you just want to take a moment and send us a tweet with your question. If you’re on Twitter, you can send us a tweet at hashtag #ATFAQ. We’d love to get your question. Next one for this day is, is the talking cane available in the market? If yes, who is selling it and for how much? This is something new to me. I did not know there was a talking cane, but it did some research on it. There are, what they are referring to as the talking walking sticks for the blind. I did a little bit of research on that, found a couple of different stories on it. I do not believe they are readily available at this time. Just knowing product development and all those kinds of things, it may be a while before they are available because I’m sure there are safety concerns and other kinds of things that come up when you start talking about mainstreaming something like this technology. I find it very interesting.
BELVA SMITH: Yeah, I think the development of these, I won’t say started, but became talked about and known about in early 2000, mid-2000. The idea behind it was the cane and a Wi-Fi phone or something was going to communicate. I haven’t heard anything about it in years. As I started trying to look for them today, I couldn’t find that it’s available anywhere. It’s talked about in 2008 and 2011, but nothing more current.
WADE WINGLER: I have to be cynical here. I’m going to ask my blind friends to call me out if I’m being a jerk here. I see this is one of those products that sighted people invent for blind people —
BELVA SMITH: That doesn’t really work.
WADE WINGLER: But they don’t get it. Somebody who doesn’t — the cane is all about feeling the immediate environment and knowing what’s in front of you, knowing whether you’re safe or not. A cane and a navigation system are different things. The cane is for what’s in front of me now, not what block am I coming up on our house or how soon do I need to turn farther away than just a few feet in front of me. I see a lot of products that are invented by very well-meaning, good people, who are engineers and say, I’m going to build a better mousetrap. Let’s make braille do something new and different. Let’s make a cane to something different. When I think those are separate problems that people are trying to solve. I know that there are laser cannons that are supposed to expand the reach of the vessel came out a little bit. I have some canes that sort of have some bells and whistles built and that are kind of fun and get to the kinds of things. But I’m not sure that’s a problem that really needs to be solved. I don’t think you necessarily need your GPS built into your mobility cane. Why? Your phone does that already. There’s other technology that will do that more efficiently. I don’t know. Again, please, audience members, my friends were blind, let me know if I’m wrong. I think that is a sighted guide fixing a problem for blind people.
BELVA SMITH: The one I was looking at, I think was called blind spot. I watched a little video on how it’s supposed to help me recognize or become aware that Brian may be within 50 feet of me and that I should turn left and take 25 steps to locate Brian. But behind that, for that to work, I think I would have to have you in my contacts, and then I get to press about the my cane to say call Brian or direct me to Brian.
WADE WINGLER: Or is that the one that this face recognition that’s supposed to be taking pictures of faces in your immediate environment and let you know that that guy right there is probably Mark, because I’ve seen him before and taken his picture?
BELVA SMITH: I don’t know if this one does that are not. What the video I watched was, it basically, if he’s in my contacts, it will notify me that he’s in the area, and I press a button to say what I want to do. And then it beeps.
WADE WINGLER: Kind of like Foursquare for your cane.
BELVA SMITH: It actually is using the app similar to that. And then it beeps to let me know if there’s a pole in front of me. Well, I’m supposed to be able to feel that pole in front of me or find that pole in front of me.
BRIAN NORTON: I remember years ago, here in our lab, we had somebody bring by this little handheld infrared thing. It was using solar technology and would vibrate in your hand. I think the closer you were to something, it would vibrate even more. It was supposed to help you. We kind of tested it out for those folks for a little while and played around with it, and it just wasn’t something that we ever that would be successful to be able to solve problems like this.
WADE WINGLER: I do some work with the overseas around here, and I know there are tons of design and engineering grad students who need student projects and are working on these, but a lot of these things seem to me like engineering project that may not be rooted in problem-solving that came from a person who is blind or the blind community. I think a lot of a student project level sort of things. Maybe I’m just grouchy today.
BRIAN NORTON: I don’t know the history of this, but right. If the idea started just eight years ago, they may not have been thinking about the capabilities of a smartphone at all, so they were thinking about brilliant ideas to get some technology in the cane itself, and now obsolete.
BELVA SMITH: And the blind spot again, again, it depends on the partnership of the smartphone.
BRIAN NORTON: It’s not a standalone device.
BELVA SMITH: Right.
WADE WINGLER: It’s like an Apple Watch on your cane, right?
BELVA SMITH: Exactly.
BRIAN NORTON: Interesting.
WADE WINGLER: Brian keeps looking at his Apple Watch right now.
BELVA SMITH: So I think the answer that we found is that it’s not available for purchase in the United States, and in fact, I can’t find it available for purchase anywhere. I think it’s still in somebody’s garage being developed.
BRIAN NORTON: that’s still on the table.
WADE WINGLER: I’m going to jump in, Brian, before we leave this question. You’ve been wearing the Apple Watch for a week or two. What do you think?
BRIAN NORTON: I like it. I think it’s a very cool thing, but practicality? When it becomes practical used and how to use it? It’s a really cool watch. And that’s about it.
BELVA SMITH: Have you used it for a GPS at all yet?
BRIAN NORTON: I have not.
BELVA SMITH: Can you?
BRIAN NORTON: Yeah. Again, it relies on the partnership of the phone. I usually have my phone on my dash with the GPS, instead of having my wrist buzz for me every time I need to get to a corner or holding my arm up.
WADE WINGLER: It buzzes once for left and twice for right, right?
BRIAN NORTON: Yeah. It’s a useful, fun gadget, but not really practical for day in and day out use. That’s my opinion.
BELVA SMITH: So if I’m a person who’s got my cane, and my smartphone, and my Apple Watch, I can put in the directions to get to my girlfriend’s house and take out my cane and hit the streets and just feel for the buzzes to know when I need to turn left and when I need to turn right?
WADE WINGLER: I think so.
BRIAN NORTON: You can. It doesn’t auditorily tell you where you are.
BELVA SMITH: Right, but it’s buzzing to let me know.
BRIAN NORTON: But it’s going to buzz my wrist, yeah.
BELVA SMITH: So you don’t need your talking cane? You just need your cane and your watch.
WADE WINGLER: Just your Apple Watch.
BELVA SMITH: Which is not very attractive. I have looked at it on your arm since you’ve been wearing it. I’ve got to tell you. I am not jealous that you’re the one wearing it.
BRIAN NORTON: I just have to choose the watch face. Let me go ahead and do that and it’ll look a lot better.
MARK STEWART: It looks pretty Batman to me. I kind of like it.
WADE WINGLER: I think I wore it for an hour before I said no, I don’t like this.
BRIAN NORTON: I just use my phone. I’d rather just look at my phone.
BELVA SMITH: It just isn’t attractive. I can’t imagine a woman wanting to wear it.
WADE WINGLER: For $100,000 it can be very attractive.
BELVA SMITH: I can see a man wearing it. I just don’t see a woman wanting to wear it.
BRIAN NORTON: Coming from the field that we are in and assistive technology and things like that, I think there are assistive technology applications for it. But for every day companion to your cell phone, and a watch is really the core of what it is. It’s a watch with all these added bells and whistles. I don’t think it’s all that practical. But if I got down to the root of some of the folks that I serve and for folks that maybe have short-term memory issues and other kinds of things, it does connect with my calendar. It is vibrate and give me feedback when an appointment is coming up.
BELVA SMITH: Is the vibration pretty —
BRIAN NORTON: You can make the vibration jostle you. I think in those instances, it’s a good solution. It has some validity in those particular situations. But then again, you get into all these other issues that we’ve talked about, not only today a little bit but in past shows. It is a phone companion. There’s ongoing costs, and you’re going to have to continue to pay for it. It becomes a challenge for a consumer.
BELVA SMITH: Well, you’re not continuing to pay for it because you are already paying for your phone. So there’s no additional cost in wearing your watch. My next question would be, again, same scenario. I’ve got my cane, my phone, and my watch, but I’ve got on my winter coat. Is that going to affect the communication? It still should happen?
BRIAN NORTON: I can actually leave my phone in my kitchen, walk in to my family room or anywhere around the house and it’s still connected.
BELVA SMITH: So I can see it’s got some uses. Whether or not they’re going to be a vocational or educational related, I don’t know.
BRIAN NORTON: Exactly.
WADE WINGLER: So here’s my shameless plug. Back in June, I interviewed Dave Woodbridge from Australia who is well known in the community. He’s somebody who is blind. We did a whole show on Apple Watch. If anybody’s interested in knowing more about Apple Watch, especially for folks who are blind or visually impaired, check out episode 212 of Assistive Technology Update.
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BRIAN NORTON: If you haven’t already, please take a moment and send us your questions. You can give us a call on our listener line at 317-721-7124. Next question for today is, I am looking for a pen-like stylus for my iPad. Any suggestions?
BELVA SMITH: Mark just sat up in his seat. He’s ready to run.
BRIAN NORTON: He’s got some answers.
WADE WINGLER: All I’ve got to say is the church that we go to gives away ink pens, and we just realized that the pushbutton on our ink pens work on your iPhone. It’s a little rubberized pushbutton on the end of the ink pen, and it’s a stylus. It works on the iPhone. I may or may not have taken a couple extra pens from church.
MARK STEWART: So the sitting up in your seat — the old man version of that is my back hurts a little bit. I guess when I was younger I was ready to go. I just want to introduce the concept of the digitizer pen that the Surface line of tablets are using and the capacitive line that, for example, Wacom is a popular, kind of pricey, stylus. If we play off of the concepts of artists and people, writers care, but if you’re going to be sketching or painting or changing functions, or if you’re an artist trying to transfer — will I use paper and paintbrushes and expensive sketch pencils and things like that? Old-school wise or can I actually go to a tablet? I think that’s a pretty high bar on this question. Of course, as we are all more in tune with, when can we really get rid of pen and paper and everybody’s comfortable on a tablet, from a writing standpoint? I guess I’m just impressed with the artist example.
A little bit of experience in watching some YouTube videos — actually not just prepping for this but over the last year or so, trying to stay current with it. This digitizer pen for the Surface Pro is really getting high marks. You can really do a lot with it. I think others are — Wade may come in with some verbiage on the specifics of the technology. The power is actually coming from the pen, which allows a little more control and a little more responsiveness, critics are saying, artists are saying, than the Wacom pen. But it’s an argument. There’s a lot of really good work out there with the capacitive Wacom pens and certainly those are not obsolete. A lot of people really like those.
WADE WINGLER: Mark, can I take you on some image or have you check me on some terminology here? I think I understand the nature of the differences between these things. Let’s see if I’m getting it right. In general, when you’re using stylus or your finger on a touch surface, you have to create a connection, right? You are doing a circuit between your finger and the iPad as a capacitive interface. That’s because the electrochemical features of your finger — people are conductors — you touch that and it’s the electrical nature of your finger that makes a capacitive interface on something like an iPad, right?
MARK STEWART: Yep.
WADE WINGLER: So than a resistive interface is more like an Amazon Kindle, where there are layers of either glass or plastic or whatever, and when you push down on them, you are actually kind of switching layers together, and it’s the resistance of those layers that gets squished and they make the connection. That’s a resistance interface, right?
MARK STEWART: Right.
WADE WINGLER: And then a digitized interface doesn’t work with your finger unless you have something in your hand and something on the tablet. The interface is looking for a very specific electromechanical device, so a stylus that has its own power source like a battery or something built in. That’s more like your Wacom stylus, right? It’s going to have a digitizer.
MARK STEWART: The last one is the digitizer.
WADE WINGLER: So that’s the digitized one. That’s where you have anything in your hand has a power source and it responds to the touch interface, and those are the three major kinds. Because the nature of the electrophysiology stuff from your finger isn’t as precise and the layers being squished as precise, a digitized interface, or a stylus, is going to be more accurate.
MARK STEWART: And it’s my understanding too that the Wacom — sorry.
WADE WINGLER: Brian and Belva are going to tease me for nerding out here.
BELVA SMITH: No, you did a very good job explaining that.
BRIAN NORTON: I think my head just exploded.
BELVA SMITH: I just want to know, can I buy one pen that will work on any tablet?
WADE WINGLER: No.
BRIAN NORTON: No, I do know that.
BELVA SMITH: Okay.
WADE WINGLER: But maybe the one from my church would.
BELVA SMITH: And I knew that too, but I wanted to make sure that our listeners knew that.
MARK STEWART: And with an apology ahead of time, and please call in and check me on this, I’m thinking here that the digitizer pen is patented by Surface Pro, or it seems like they are proprietary to that currently, that approach, and the Wacom — I keep using brand-name because it’s okay. It’s great stuff. They get great reviews. I know I said that people seem to be leaning more towards the digitizer pen in a lot of respects.
BELVA SMITH: But the digitizer pen will only work on the Surface Pro?
MARK STEWART: That’s absolutely correct. Thank you. To finish the phrase, but the Wacom Type Pen — and it’s not the only one — uses the capacitive approach that Wade was talking about, not just with the pen. Now you have a much more fine tuned tip, and you can manipulate a lot of different things.
BELVA SMITH: So was this person looking for it for the iPad, or did they get specific?
BRIAN NORTON: They specifically mentioned the iPad, but I think it’s a helpful discussion for all of the different platforms, all of the different — because touchscreens are really where things have moved and will likely probably continue to move.
MARK STEWART: This is a great current topic with regards to assistive technology, because if we kind of come away from the arts, we get to when will paper and pen totally disappear, because there’s absolutely no need for it anymore? For example, even people, from a learning curve standpoint, just absolutely have to say, man, I was used paper and pen and liked it, but I can’t use anymore because it’s so much better on the tablet with the stylist. We are not there yet, but we are really close, and that’s the nature of the conversation we’re having here.
WADE WINGLER: I would agree. The other thing I guess I would throw in there, because when we are doing styli in assistive technology, sometimes we are looking for unusual ones. I think it’s important to understand the kind of stylus that you’re working for, whether it’s capacitive, resistive, digitized or whatever. There’s a ton of good stuff there.
BELVA SMITH: So if I’m just the average person who’s buying my iPad, and I want to get a good stylus, what’s the best stylus for me to get? Because I don’t know. Do I need a digitizer or do I need sanitizer? Or an ink pen?
MARK STEWART: This is my save about continually talking about the digitizer pen on the Surface Pro trumping Wacom from what I see, the answer to that question, I believe, is, for example, the Wacom pen or some other — a little bit pricey, but specialized styli that will work with the iPad and will work quite well. Why are we geeking out on this so much? I guess one reason is, if you want to write and have a nice experience on the iPad, if you just go and buy, even a $15 stylus, you’re not going to have a good — where’s my paper and pen?
BELVA SMITH: Exactly. I have one of those styluses. It’s as fat as my finger on the bottom and I can’t write using that thing.
BRIAN NORTON: I believe for those they have to be that big so that there is enough —
WADE WINGLER: Of a power supply there. There’s batteries in there. I’ve got a Jot stylist that cost me $100 or so and I still don’t like it. It’s not precise enough.
BRIAN NORTON: Belva, the one you’re talking about or the old ones that have the little rubber tips to them and they are big, thick, and clumsy to be able to write with. They have to have that size to be able to create enough electricity or conductivity.
WADE WINGLER: They’ve got power in them. They have batteries. Jot styluses, they have a power source, and their tip is much smaller, and that’s why they have the power source, because the tip is much smaller. You don’t have as much surface space to be interacted with. Those are really great styli. I recommend those a lot for folks.
MARK STEWART: And they will work on the iPad?
BRIAN NORTON: They work on the iPad. They have one specifically for all the other devices as well. They are really useful. Another one I’ll throw out there, this was something I found at the RESNA conference several months back. It was something called the Tap Tool. The Tap Tool is a little fitting that goes around your finger, and it allows you to use your finger as the stylus, but it actually focuses where you are actually pressing on the screen, so it actually turns your finger into a stylus and can focus your point. I saw that at the RESNA conference several months ago, maybe even a year ago. It was pretty interesting. It was a Kickstarter campaign back there. I’m not sure if it still in Kickstarter or not, but I believe you can buy them now.
***
WADE WINGLER: And now it’s time for the wildcard question.
BRIAN NORTON: So if you haven’t done so already, you can email us your questions at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Feel free to go ahead and do that while we jump into our last question of the day. The question is the wildcard question of the week. This is where Wade springs a question on us and we have to be able to answer it. We haven’t had prior knowledge of what that one is. I’m interested.
WADE WINGLER: This one is either horrible or fun. We’ll see how it goes. Hypothetically, and I’m going to ask each of you to answer this question based on your area of expertise. Mark, you are the team lead for our mobility and cognition team. Belva, you are the team lead for sensory, low vision, and hearing. Brian, I am putting you in the category of being an expert on intellectual development of disabilities today, because you kind of have expertise in all of them. Here we go. If you are stuck on a desert island, with a group of people who fell into this area of specialty, what one piece of assistive technology which you want to have with you? I’m going to start with you, Belva.
BELVA SMITH: Oh, no!
WADE WINGLER: If you are stuck on a desert island, and you had to adjust the topic of low vision, you could only take one piece of assistive —
BELVA SMITH: iPad.
WADE WINGLER: Hold on. This question is not going to take very long. You can only have one. We’re not talking about being stuck on an island with someone, but what I’m trying to get at is, is there a tool in your area of practice, your area of specialty, that is the one tool that kind of takes the cake among all them, kind of is more applicable than anything else, which is why the stranded on a desert island joke scenario came up. iPad, really?
BELVA SMITH: I would take the iPad, because I can address or accommodate — I won’t say address — I can accommodate many different visual needs with the iPad. I can get access to lots of information for a person who can’t see the information. So, yes, I would want my iPad. Of course, I need Wi-Fi. If I don’t have Wi-Fi, half of my apps don’t work.
WADE WINGLER: So what kind of apps though? If you had to pick an app or two to go along with that?
BELVA SMITH: KNFB Reader would be for sure. Do we have money on this island?
WADE WINGLER: You can buy some apps.
BELVA SMITH: So we need iNote. I don’t know. I think those would be — as long as I had the KNFB reader app, I could probably do most anything on that island.
WADE WINGLER: You are assuming zoom and a voice over and stuff like that.
BELVA SMITH: Yeah, because I’m going to have all of the built-in features.
WADE WINGLER: You think you could download a CCTV app and hold it in the sun and hold that against a leaf and make a fire?
BRIAN NORTON: I hope it’s fully charged when you get it because you’re going to run out of power quickly.
BELVA SMITH: I got power in one of those palm trees.
WADE WINGLER: Mark, you are next in line. You are in a situation where you only can choose one piece of ergo mobility style kind of equipment to solve lots and lots of problems. What are you going to pick?
MARK STEWART: I’m going back to your original question. Swiss Army knife. Or a match. One of those two.
BRIAN NORTON: I was going to say motorboat.
MARK STEWART: Telephone.
WADE WINGLER: Helicopter.
MARK STEWART: Team lead, mobility and cognition team. So I’m going to pick voice recognition, because that helps a lot of folks in both of those categories.
BELVA SMITH: But you have to have two devices with your voice recognition. Because you have to have a computer to power the voice recognition.
WADE WINGLER: Mark is picking a concept.
BRIAN NORTON: A computer with built-in speech recognition.
BELVA SMITH: Oh, okay.
BRIAN NORTON: I got you.
MARK STEWART: I was trying to play along. I was going to say computer, then is going to ask a question, as the computer understood? I should just assume it is. So I said voice recognition. I’ll answer with voice recognition. We’ll miss some folks there unfortunately. Some of the folks with physical challenges who can’t speak perhaps, but again, that’s a tool that I use in both categories quite a lot. That’s why I picked that one.
WADE WINGLER: This is hypothetical. I’m going to get to the issue of what is a tool that works across the board or at least in a lot of situations. Brian, I’m putting you with a group of people who have intellectual development of disabilities. Maybe they are struggling with task management or personal organization or those kinds of things. What are you going to pick? Belva already took the iPad.
BRIAN NORTON: So I’ll do the iPod.
BELVA SMITH: iPod touch, right?
BRIAN NORTON: That’s exactly where I was going to go with it, because if I’m stuck there with people, I’m a very — I like things to be orderly and done in a certain way and fashion. I want to get all of those folks on his schedule to be able to prompt them and cue them to do certain things throughout the day when I want them to do it. So some sort of device like the Apple Watch or the iPod or my iPhone or something they can carry around to keep them on task all day long. So I get them to do what I want them to do.
BELVA SMITH: And that’s our boss.
BRIAN NORTON: I was going to say motorboat because then we can get off the island, and may be adaptive skis so we can go skiing.
WADE WINGLER: And Ohio State app?
BRIAN NORTON: There we go.
BELVA SMITH: And I’m thinking with the iPad, we can get information about the weather. We can get news about what’s going on on the other islands. There are so many things that we can do with the iPad.
BRIAN NORTON: That’s the unique thing about that particular platform. There are so many apps that allow you to do. It may not be the best tool. It may not be the best thing for somebody, the perfect thing for somebody, but it allows you to do enough of just about everything to be able to get by.
BELVA SMITH: In all the time that I’ve been doing this, and I know both of you guys have been doing this a lot longer than I have, before the iPad, I can’t think — and somebody may be able to, but I can’t think of one device that I felt like open so many doors or covered so many areas before the iPad. In two or three or four or five or ten devices, yes, but not in one device.
WADE WINGLER: And if I think back, especially in the world of blindness and visual impairment, if we were saying low vision, I would have said a CCTV. If we were talking about blindness, I would say screen reader. That kind of cuts across. But if you run an iPad with some apps, does both.
BELVA SMITH: You got it.
BRIAN NORTON: Great. Great question. Nice job.
WADE WINGLER: Then why did you throw stuff at me when I asked it?
BRIAN NORTON: I love these wildcard questions. Thanks everyone. I appreciate once and put today. Again, here’s how to find our show. You can search as assisted larger questions on iTunes. You can look for us on stitcher. Or visit our website at ATFAQshow.com. You can also send us your questions. We really do want your questions. You can send them to us over the listener line, which is 317-721-7124. You can send us a tweet at hashtag #ATFAQ. Or email us at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Without your questions, we really don’t have a show. So please send those to us. We appreciate everybody who’s participated so far. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Mark; thanks, Belva; things, Wade. You guys got anything to say?
BELVA SMITH: Thanks, Brian. Can I just throw this out here really quickly. I know we are done. What if we ask our listeners that sense that the question? What if we ask our listeners that are using assistive technology if they were going to get stranded on an island, what one device would they take with them?
WADE WINGLER: They better say a podcasting device with episodes of Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions.
BELVA SMITH: Let us know what would be your one tool.
BRIAN NORTON: That would be a great supplement to our show for sure.
WADE WINGLER: We’ll stick them in. Call our listener line. Brian, what’s the number again?
BRIAN NORTON: 317-721-7124.
WADE WINGLER: Give us some feedback. That’s a voicemail. Leave it on there and will put you on the show.
BRIAN NORTON: Excellent.
MARK STEWART: If you are a listener and you own a deserted island and you are a resort hotel, call into me directly.
BRIAN NORTON: I know four people in the room that would like to be on a deserted island at some point. Thanks, everybody.
BELVA SMITH: Thanks.
MARK STEWART: See you next time.
WADE WINGLER: See you later.
BRIAN NORTON: Bye bye.
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 steward 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.