Blind Abilities Podcast

Serina, Callie and jeff dig into some news and tech tidbits that have been getting a lot of attention. Callie delves into the Guide Dog dream and is mobility going to be the ice breaker? How about Blind Pride, hmmm, to each at their own time probably, We got a lot of topics through out this episode and some really good tips on copying text and arranging your rotor actions for efficiency. Here are just some of the topics and links from this Tech Abilities episode: Apple products trade in drops as the new line-up of iPhones, macs  and more new release approaches. Jennine Stanley came onto Blind Abilities to talk about Aira announcements. The BlindShell Accessible Cell Phone Apple Watch Series 8 will reportedly be able to detect if you have a fever How to use App Library on your iPhone and iPad Humanware announces the all new Stellar Trek.   Web Site we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093 Thanks for listening!

Our guest today on Blind Abilities is Ricky McKinnie. Ricky is a longtime member of the iconic gospel singing group, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Winners of five Grammy awards and the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award. They have also been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and performed at the White House for three different presidents   The Blind Boys of Alabama have the rare distinction of being recognized around the world as both living legends and modern-day innovators.   .  Since the original members first sang together as kids at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in the late 1930s, the band has persevered through seven decades to become one of the most recognized and decorated roots music groups in the world. Read More   we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093 Thanks for Listening!

Aira Director of Communications, Jenine Stanley, joined Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio and hits us up with some news breaking announcements. Aira Everywhere starts out with Aira for the Desktop. Now Aira will be available on the Mac, PC and on the iPad as a web based app where you can be hands free and use Team Viewer, Google Remote and much more. This will be open to a limited Public Beta at the end of July and you can sign up now on the web at Aira.io/choice. Be part of the Aira Beta Team and help break down barriers to access together. Aira on ArxHeadset: With a camera and bone-conduction speakers, the ArxHeadset will now have Aira loaded up and ready to explore.  Look for this around the end of July. The BlindShell Classic 2 Accessible Cell Phone: A limited beta will be out at the end of July and soon Aira will be an option on the BlindShell Classic 2 Accessible Cell Phone. Aira on the Envision Glasses: Hands free and this may become a reality later this summer around August. Talks are on-goi

Serina, Callie and Jeff, dive deep into the pool of news stemming from Uber, Lyft, Microsoft, and you can check out the links and topics below. The TA Team take a journey into their Vocational Rehab experience and explain how VR impacted their destiny and how it is differed a bit for each of us. When an iPhone drops into an outhouse or even a toilet, there seems to be an urgency beyond our reach. Wow, where we ended up was a gas! Join the Tech Abilities Crew and keep up with the latest news and Tech Tidbits from around the globe and always with a Blindness perspective. Everyone has a perspective, and we know we are not always seeing things the same way, so, let us know your perspective and give us a call at 612-367-6093, we would love to hear from you.   Links and topics from the show: Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093  

Jeff Thompson is joined  in the studio by Brandon Biggs, inclusive designer and Engineer with The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKI), the foremost organization for vision research in the U. s. and Christopher Toth, an Applications Engineer. Audiom is the solution for “glancability” of a map to give an idea of location of objects, places and relationships to each other as a map does for a sighted person. Using audio soundscapes, stereo location design along with map coordinates , one will be able to mind map out a venue, park, mall through audio maps. Christopher Toth was hired on to build the application and you can find demos and give the application a try on the web at www.Audiom.net. Brandon Biggs and Christopher Toth talk about the development process and where they see Audiom in the future. Be sure to give the Beta a try and how your feedback can help make maps more accessible to us all. Read more Web Site we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a

Do you get that feeling of urgency to upgrade to a new iPhone every time a new one comes along? I have and I am finally coming to terms with waiting and making the best out of what I already have, own and utilize perfectly well. I have upgraded on the Apple Upgrade Plan, did the 2 year upgrade cycle, and today I am going to keep my iPhone 12 Pro Max another year and I will tell you why and how I am going to keep my iPhone in peak performance for the next year. I will also demo the Battery Health, Peak Performance and Optimize Battery Charging. Hope you enjoy. Web Site we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Tech Abilities: Pump It Up! iOS16 Beta Surprises or I Thought We Had That? Amazoning, Intersection Crossing, Pop Culture, Tech Tidbits and News with a Blindness Perspective   Serina, Callie and Jeff kind of sorta in a way talk about that WWDC event from Apple, but same as it ever was, same as it ever was, these Talking Heads jump the tracks and yes, they do find there way back through the weeds and negotiating intersections from mobility, movie going, Amazoning and many perspectives on interpreting the newly announced upcoming iOS 16 for the iPhone and the Mac OS Ventura. A bit on the Watch OS but for times sake, we actually fartleked through this episode. Yes, Fartlek is like interval training, so we did some of this and then some of that and back to this and that. Nice. You can find out all about the Apple WWDC event at www.Apple.com and let us know what you think of all the latest coming from the Apple tree, give us a call at 612-367-6093 or email us at info@BlindAbilities.com - we would love to hear from

Christine Malec, co-host of the Talk Description to Me podcast, returns to the Blind Abilities Studio to bring us the news about the Luminato Festival Toronto Access Hub, The Chandra X-Ray Observatory Sonifications and descriptions from images from deep within our Universe and highlights some of the Star Trek and other topics from the over 106 Talk Description to Me episodes. Learn about how STEM possibilities are being made in science and how you can tune into some amazing art creatives attending the Luminato Festival Toronto from June 9th to June 19. With 6 hours of Worldwide broadcasting every day of the Festival from the Access Hub, there is something for everyone.   Here are some helpful links: Talk Description to Me podcast https://talkdescriptiontome.buzzsprout.com/   Chandra X-Ray Observatory text and visual descriptions of Chandra images https://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/podcasts/description_audio.html   Luminato Festival Access Hub https://luminatofestival.com/access-hub/ Read more we would lov

Marty Shultz from Objective Ed joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to talk about all the new developments happening at Objective Ed. ObjectiveEd’s mission is to provide students with disabilities, and the parents and professionals dedicated to their education, digital curriculum and integrated performance monitoring and reporting tools that will help the students achieve their best educational outcomes. ObjectiveEd has achieved recognition by winning the Louis Braille Touch of Genius award from the National Braille Press, the American Council of the Blind Annual Award and the Florida Association for Education and Rehabilitation for Innovator of the Year. Through interactive games and innovative software programs, teachers can teach and students can learn skills, retain skills and all in a fun way through Objective Ed’s program. You can learn more about Objective Ed on the web at: https://www.objectiveed.com Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or

Two is company as Callie takes a break from the Blind Abilities Studio this week and Serina and Jeff pick up the tech tidbits and news. From accessibility to losing sight, they dash through the latest and bring a perspective of experience and usability. Join the 2 out of 3 ain’t bad crew and check out the list of topics listed below. But, believe us, there is a lot between the lines!   List of topics from the episode:   Home pod mini update   Precipitation alerts on the weather app   How to block text on iPhone in a few taps.   Apple employees get surprise pay raise as union pressure grows   iPhone SOS, here is how to set  it up.   FCC fines Twitter 150 million for deceptive ad targeting   Way Map app guides the VIP through the Washington subway systems.   We own the City  with audio description   Clipboard and saving the clips in a list using JAWS   Thanks for listening! we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

This quick yet handy demonstration can be useful in many applications. If you need to use a password elsewhere and the password is a jumble of characters, numbers and symbols, then this method will do you well. Go to settings, swipe down to Passwords and then to the particular password you want to grab. Expose the bullets and an option to copy pops up and boom, you can paste wherever you want. This will also show you the actual characters of the password as well. Check it out and then check out all of the QuickBytes and iPhone101 demonstrations in the iPhone101/QuickByte series.   Web Site   we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Tony Gebhard returns to the Blind Abilities Studio and third time is a charm! Tony has just dropped his 2nd album of 2022 and is making change a constant as he keeps growing in his pursuit of improving towards his highest potential. Tony has always worn his heart on his record sleeve and Guided, his latest album, is a refreshing look at Tony’s outlook at life and his happiness in the choices he has made. From teaching assistive technology and coordinating the Transition Program for the Alaska Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Tony is reaching for more as he will also be part timing with Tech Vision and striving to become a Life Coach as well. Tony has graduated from World Services for the Blind and has settled in Anchorage Alaska and is now engaged as he shares his life with the one who stole his heart. Learn about Tony’s teaching, his music and how he is taking control of his destiny and absolutely loves what he is doing. You can find out more about Tony Gebhard on the web at www.TonyGebhard.com an

In this QuickByte demo, previously published in the Tech Abilities episode, Jeff takes us through the process of hiding and unhiding a Screen page on the iPhone. When you have a lot of apps and widgets filling screen pages and want to clean up the experience, you can hide the pages and still be able to access the apps through the Library, the Library search and with the Siri assistant. Just double tap and hold on the page number and then select the page you want to hide or unhide and single finger double tap. And lastly, Tap on Done and there you go! Web page we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Serina, Callie and Jeff roll through the toughest of weather situations to bring you the latest Tech Tidbits and News from around the Tech World with that special Blindness perspective that they bring to every show. Check out the 2 demos, Hiding Screen Pages on your Apple device and Putting a Widget into place, and so much more from the Tech Abilities Crew! Here are links to some of the topics from the episode: Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Author and Advocate, Stephanie Duesing joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to share her journey into Cerebral/Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) - The Leading cause of Blindness in the Developed World. Her son Sebastian was finally diagnosed at age 15 after numerous Doctors from across the States offered no explanation for her son’s condition. Learn about their journey and how CVI is now the leading cause of Blindness in the developed world, yet probably the least understood, Read more Full Transcript   we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

I wanted to grab some text from a document and decided to use 3 of my favorite OCR apps on my iPhone. The 3 apps I chose were: Seeing AI Envision AI Voice Dream Scanner What I found was that all 3 apps gave me really good OCR and I could copy the text and paste into an editor of choice. I chose Notes on my iPhone. The two apps that stood out for me were Seeing AI and Voice Dream Scanner with the ability to use the Text Selection feature in my rotor to grab the exact text I wanted, thus in Envision AI I selected all and used Text Selection in the Notes app. This is not a game breaker as the end result was successful with all 3 apps. Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Dr. M. Leona Godin talks about her new book, There Plant Eyes: A Personal and Cultural History of Blindness. Gives advice to new writers and talks about her personal journey through Blindness and how her book and people’s actions today can begin to change the perception that the sighted have for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Read more Full Transcript we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Serina, Callie and Jeff share some tech tidbits and news from around the World and on this Wellness Month we dig into lost independence just a bit. Here are some links from this episode of Tech Abilities, Hope you enjoy. Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093

Wellness Wednesday is a positive movement to help people through their journey, the week, day  or moment. Take from it what you want, what you need and share the positivity with your family, friends and acquaintances.  Today Wellness Wednesday’s message comes from Robin Ennis, a licensed Social Worker in Colorado. Hope you enjoy! we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leave us some feedback at 612-367-6093 www.BlindAbilities.com 

Joining Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane in the Blind Abilities studio once again today is Dan Parker. This is Dan's third visit to the Blind Abilities studio, this time to share his ultimate achievement: winning the Guinness world land-speed record for a car with a blind folded driver. Dan tells his most recent, remarkable story about how he designed and built a state of the art race car which he took to Spaceport America, in southern New Mexico, at the end of March and proceeded to drive the vehicle at a World record speed averaging 211 mph.  Dan speaks of his numerous grueling hours, days and months raising attention, funding, and practicing for this event, learning to use a sophisticated audio guidance system to help him stay on track along the runway, his... Read more Check out Dan Parker's web site: www.TheBlindMachinist.com.