ATU616 – 4Blind with Anastasia Ryazanova and Alyona Markova

Hi, my name is Alyona and I’m key account manager at 4Blind.

Hi, my name is Anastasia. I am also the Key account manager of 4Blind, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to 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 individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 616 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on March 17th, 2023.

On today’s show, we’re super excited to welcome some of the folks from 4Blind on. They’re going to tell us about the HaptiBraille communicator and the USB note, as well as some other solutions available from 4Blind. Please listeners, don’t forget, if you ever have a question, a comment, or grabs a suggestion for someone we should have on the show, please reach out. You can always call our listener line at (317) 721-7124 or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org.

Also, if you’re looking for a transcript of today’s show, it’s available at eastersealstech.com. Our transcripts are generously sponsored by InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at indianarelay.com. But now, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Maybe you’re looking for some new podcast to listen to. Well make sure to check out our sister podcast, Accessibility Minute and ATFAQ or Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions. If you’re super busy and don’t have time to listen to a full podcast, be sure to check out Accessibility Minute, our one-minute long podcast that gives you just a little taste of something assistive technology based, so that you’re able to get your assistive technology fixed without taking up the whole day. Hosted by Tracy Castillo, the show comes out weekly. Our other show is Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, or ATFAQ. On Assistive Technology frequently Asked Questions. Brian Norton leads our panel of experts, including myself, Belva Smith, and our own Tracy Castillo as we try to answer your assistive technology questions.

This show does rely on you, so we’re always looking for new questions, comments, or even your answers on assistive technology questions. So remember, if you’re looking for more Assistive Technology podcast to check out, you can check out our sister shows Accessibility Minute and ATFAQ, wherever you get your podcasts, now including Spotify and Amazon Music.

Listeners, I’d like to invite you all to our web accessibility webinar for developers on May 10th, 2023, renowned web accessibility professional Dennis Lembree covers an array of topics for developing accessible websites. The training begins with disability and assistive technology basics, and an overview of guidelines and laws. Main topics include content structure, images, forms, tables, video, CSS, and ARIA. Techniques on writing for accessibility and testing for accessibility are also covered. If you’re interested in registering for this free training on web accessibility for developers, please click on the link down in the show notes or visit eastersealstech.com.

Listeners at ATIA few months ago, we were lucky enough to stumble upon 4Blind and some of the really cool solutions for individuals with visual impairments and individuals who are deaf-blind. Well, we’re super excited to welcome some of the folks for 4Blind to the show today, and they’re going to tell us all about some of those solutions. Welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you for having us.

Yes, hello. Thank you.

Yes, I am really excited to get into talking about 4Blind and about these really cool solutions. But before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourselves?

So frankly, all my responsibilities come down to promoting assistive technology devices for blind and deaf-blind people. Throughout my career, I always seek out positions that would give me a sense of purpose, and I’m really happy to be with 4Blind now. I feel really lucky to be working with a team of like-minded professionals, striving to make this world a better and a more welcoming place for people with visual disabilities.

That’s awesome. Anastasia, what about you?

Yes, hello everyone. My name is Anastasia. I am the key account manager at 4Blind and all in all, I’ve been working with international customers for almost nine years, and now I’m here at 4Blind and I have a possibility to support blind and deaf-blind communities with our assistive technologist.

Awesome. Well, thank you again for coming on the show and let’s start with the big picture. Can you tell us about 4Blind the company, maybe when it was started and why and maybe what the mission is?

Yes, of course. So 4Blind is an engineering company. We’ve been around for about four years. Yes, last November we actually celebrated our four years and well, like Alyona said, we are a team of like-minded people and we conduct research, we develop, create, and produce our own innovative assistive solutions for blind and deaf-blind people.

Awesome, and we’ve got you on the show today to talk about a couple of those. So, let’s go ahead and start with the USB Note. Now, what is that?

Okay, well I’ll start a bit from afar. So, do you have any blind friends? Surely they use some devices and they need to charge them? For charging their phones, for example, they can use voiceover, but have you ever thought about how blind people charge other devices like earbuds, toys, watches? They can ask someone else for help, or they can just simply remove the device from charging after some time, hoping that it’s charged but not knowing for sure.

So, imagine that you think you have charged your power bank, for example, and you went on with your day and when you wanted to use it, you found out that it wasn’t charged because you plugged it the wrong way. How frustrating that must be. Don’t you think it would be great if there was a gadget that could tell you the status of charging of any device? This is exactly what our smart-charging adapter, the USB Note was developed for. It has three types of notifications, sound, light and vibration. It’s actually a very simple and compact device with a rectangular shaped body and it has a small square button on the front, so you can switch notification notes and check the current charging status of your devices.

Oh, nice. And this works with pretty much anything that uses a USB charger.

Yeah, so if your device has a USB-A slot, you can connect it directly to the USB Note. And if you use USB type C, we will give you an adapter for it. So, you will also connect it to the USB Note.

Nice. And can you tell me, you said that I can get different kinds of feedback, so how does that work, if it gives me the vibration feedback or the haptic feedback or the voice feedback? What does that sound like and what kinds of different information can it relay?

Great question. So, what kinds of information it can tell you. First of all, it can tell you if the socket is working properly, when your device starts charging, when the device is fully charged, if someone removes your device from charging and even if the charging process was interrupted by a power outage.

So, it can do this in three different ways. So just with voice, which is obvious, it’ll tell you what’s going on. And you can also pick vibration notifications. So, for different situations it will vibrate in different ways. For example, if the socket is working properly, it’ll vibrate two times, or if you pick light signals, it’ll just light up in different ways for different situations.

Nice. Very nice. So, I can see it can give you a lot of information and that can definitely help because, and I never really thought about it because you think of your cell phone as the main thing and it gives you that information. And again, you can get that relayed back by voice, but I never thought about all the other stuff. When is it charged? Is it ever charged? Because even as a sighted individual, sometimes it’s not easy to see the little lights that light up. So, that can definitely give you some peace of mind so you’re not leaving the house with half charged devices all of the time.

Yeah, for sure. I can also tell you that it isn’t some huge technology. Yes, helps you a little day by day and your life is long and how you spend your days is important. So, if you have a chance to make them even a bit better, I think you should take it. So, this is what our USB Note is for, to make your life a bit better.

And anything that helps on the daily grind, especially trying to just make sure that all the things that you use on a daily basis to help you get around and help you do things, any help is definitely appreciated and warranted. And we’ll get back to some user stories, maybe towards the end and everything. But I wanted to move on for just a second. Anastasia, you were going to tell us about the HaptiBraille communicator. What is that?

Well, this is, as it actually can be found in the name, this is a communicator, communicator for totally deaf-blind people. So, do you know how totally deaf-blind people communicate nowadays? Or what is also important, how do people who are cited and can talk with ordinary speech communicate with deaf-blind people?

Of course there are, nowadays 21st century, there are quite a lot of different solutions. And of course, the most common ones we can use the interpreter, their own alphabet, et cetera, et cetera. But another way is to use the HaptiBraille communicator. It allows the deaf-blind person who only needs to know braille, to speak with a synthesized voice and to hear the interlocutor. And on the other hand, it also allows the interlocutor who doesn’t have any special skills, to communicate with a total deaf blind person who actually have HaptiBraille.

Nice. So, I’m going to have to really dig into how that all works. But let’s start by, can you describe what the device looks like, feels like and maybe what those buttons are? I know that’s a big question.

Yeah, sure. So, the device itself is very small and compact. Well, in regards of sizing, I can compare it with my palm, so it is really very small. Or you can also compare it to the old model of iPhone, if you remember the [inaudible 00:12:21]. So, it is really small in compact and it weighs only about five ounce.

Oh wow.

And it is very portable and convenient to carry around. So actually, it is actually in the form of your smartphone. And as you mentioned, yes, on the front panel we have six keys, well, let’s call it a keyboard. Those are main keys which actually represent six braille dots. You guys know that braille alphabet or letters consists of a dot. And actually this is, well, the main keyboard which will allow the user to type using the keyboard. And also to read from this keyboard.

On top of the device, there are two buttons which will help user to switch between two modes because as I said, it allows the deaf-blind person to hear and to speak. So, if you want to say something, you press one button, you type word, a sentence, anything with the help of the keyboard. Then you confirm it and it is voiceover, so you are heard. And in the second mode, the interlocutor says something, HaptiBraille recognizes what has been said and then it is converted into braille vibrations and placing your fingers on the keyboard, you just read from this keyboard and understand what has been said.

Oh wow.

Yes. In addition to these main functions, there are some additional settings for the device, so that each user can adjust it to the special needs. So for example, you can change the speed of transaction from slow to fast. So, this is how actually you can control the speed of communication. Yes, if you need more time to understand to read from the keyboard, you can just put the speed to the lowest, slowest, sorry.

Also, you can also adjust the strength of vibration, which is also very convenient because we all have different sensitivity in our fingers. And for a lot of people, as I know, it can be a little bit challenging to read from the paper materials for example, but as the vibrations can be adjusted, it is easier for the user to understand, to recognize the vibrations of the keyboard.

And also, you can even change the language of communication. Right now, HaptiBraille supports 12 languages such like English, Spanish, German. So you can again adjust and communicate in the way that is more convenient for you. So, you can speak with one person in Spanish, for example, and then switch back to English. And you can do the same with your interface language for the HaptiBraille application, I mean. And the important thing, which I didn’t mention in the beginning is in order to use HaptiBraille, you need the device itself and your cell phone. You will need to install the special free application, connect your cell phone to the communicator, and you are all set and ready to speak, to talk, to communicate with anyone in almost any situation.

Oh, very cool. And talking about the app, I know that the individual who’s deaf-blind and kind of using the tap to braille needs to have the app. Does the person speaking with them have to have the app on their phone as well?

No, it’s actually only the user who has a HaptiBraille. So, you just install it on your smartphone and you connect it for the first time. You just give some permissions to your phone, like Bluetooth connection, picture recognition, et cetera. And from that first time, actually, you don’t really need the application. I mean, yes, you need to turn it on every time you use HaptiBraille, but you just use the communicator itself to go from one mode to another, yes, from speaking to hearing mode, et cetera, et cetera. So, the application is not fully involved in the process of using the communicator.

Oh, cool. Very cool. Well, I know you brought up, because we do a lot of work through some of our programs with individuals who are deaf-blind, and communication is of course a huge challenge. And finding even interpreters that can interpret isn’t always the easiest. So, this is an amazing solution and I know a lot of folks who are deaf-blind especially need to talk to the doctor or other things. So, tell me about privacy and personal information and how that’s relayed with the device.

Yes, of course. Absolutely, HaptiBraille actually expands the possibility for your privacy actually, because you’re absolutely correct. There are a lot of situations in our everyday life when we actually want to stay private. And you mentioned the great example, for example, as you said, doctor appointment. Yes, of course you can take the interpreter, or probably one of your assistant family member, or anyone who can interpret for you, but in case you would like to be alone with the person you are speaking to, you can just use the HaptiBraille because in this case you do not need any assistance, from the third person, just the communicator, your cell phone, and you can speak in privacy. That’s very important.

Oh, that’s really important. I can’t wait to try these out and everything. What’s the learning curve look like for an individual? Because I know it does the vibration on the buttons to do the braille. Does that seem to take users a little bit of time to get used to, or is it just a pretty quick learning curve and maybe just getting used to feeling that feedback?

Well, another great question, and you are correct of course, for those who only start using communicator, or for example, hold it in their hands for the first time, it will take some time. Of course, it depends on a lot of things actually. Yes, a lot of users are used to horizontally layout, for example, yes, if we’re talking about braille display.

So of course, it can take time just to adjust, but I think it can be the same with a lot of new devices that will use in our lives. When we switch from one to another, there are some common things, but other things still differ. So, of course, yes. But as experience shows, that you only need to use it maybe for a couple of hours just to get used to read from it and then there is no problem after that.

Nice, nice. Very cool. Well, this question’s for both of you I guess, and both of you to chime in. But can you tell me a story about someone using these solutions, what their experience was like and how it made a positive impact in their lives?

Yeah, I can start with one of my recent customers, actually. He’s a young man in his 20s and he just recently lost his hearing completely. And for him, this device just became a great way to communicate with his family. And this story that his mom actually told me, one of the examples where they use, it is not only to communicate somewhere in public places here, or the doctor appointment, they for example, use it in the car because when they are driving somewhere and mom was sitting in the front of the car, he’s sitting in the back and they just have a great chance to communicate while driving. So, just this simple story.

No, but I think that says it all because there’s so much that … I mean, we’re all talking via Zoom, via voice, across … we could be on other sides of the world and it wouldn’t matter, but we really take for granted, especially those little things because yeah, even if you know how to sign and know how to communicate, there’s a lot of situations that don’t lend themselves to that, like you mentioned in the car. And I think that’s a great example, of something that unless you are in that situation you would never think of.

Yes, that’s correct.

So, speaking about the USB Note, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s a device for daily use. It helps you a bit day by day. So, I actually don’t have a grand story for you about someone whose life was completely changed by this device in one moment, but it helps many people on everyday basis. It does it bit by bit. And that’s also important some devices should do this work.

Everything does not have to be completely life-changing in one thing. Anything that can help along the day for individuals is important. So yeah, definitely don’t feel bad if there’s not that giant life-changing thing, like you said. It just needs to change little bit by little bit because as we make things more accessible and easier for folks, it can make a gigantic difference.

Yeah, for sure.

Now, we’ve talked about some amazing solutions here, but we’ve really only scratched the surface of everything that 4Blind offers. Is there any way that you could give us just a little taste of some of the other solutions that 4Blind has available for individuals?

Well, yeah. Right now we are working on tactile tablet, which is called Braille PAD. It is not available yet, hopefully will be later this year, but still, you can already get an idea of this device. Of course, probably it’s understandable that it is a tactile tablet, which will allow blind users to view images, read texts, work with graphics, et cetera, et cetera. And you can find some more details on our website.

And another solution, which I would like to mention today is our Easy Braille Course. It is not actually a device, it’s just an educational program and it is for sighted people, but for those who would like to learn braille, it can be parents of blind kids, it can be friends of blind people, or anyone who just interested to get a better idea or just to learn something new. It is an online course, it is available. So for free, you can also find a link on our website, but actually it’s just easybraille.org. And this course allows to, well, to learn to read braille just in 30 minutes. Well, it’s short and funny. It is based on mnemonic systems, so we use some stories, some pictures, so everything that will ease the process of memorizing braille letters. So, you can also check from our website.

Oh, that’s awesome. And that’s something I’ve, I’ve never really, for lack of better term seen before, just because I know as a sighted individual, it’s not always easy to learn braille just because, well, you’re so used to just looking at the darn things, I guess is the way. So, that’s great. And that’s great for, like you said, parents, friends, partners, pretty much anybody who maybe works with individuals who are blind or visually impaired and just be able to, I don’t know, work with them a little bit better or understand. That’s really, really awesome. If our listeners do want to find out more about the things we talked, about the other solutions, about the braille course and everything, what is the best way for them to do that?

Well, the best way of course is to go to our website 4Blind is just 4blind.com. And in the solutions folder, you can find all the information. And also, you can check our page on YouTube because we have some videos about, by the way HaptiBraille, if you just want to see how it actually works, how two people communicate using this device, just visit our page on YouTube as well.

Awesome. We will put links to those down in the show notes. Well, I cannot thank you both enough for coming on the show and telling us. Again, we saw at ATAI, some members of my team and myself got to see some of the great solutions and we’re just really, really amazed. I love the things that you’re doing. I must admit that even with the folks that we’ve worked with who are deaf-blind and have that, I think this is a great solution, especially for oh, just that day-to-day conversation. I think that the HaptiBraille communicator is definitely a huge help for them. And then the USB Note is just a wonderful for as you said, just charging those things that don’t give you that voice feedback and just knowing where you are in that process and just those little things day to day that so many of us take for granted. So thank you both so much again for coming on the show and telling us about all the great things that 4Blind offers.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for inviting us. It was a pleasure.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC @relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule.

Today’s show was produced, produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.