i'm going to be getting started in just a little bit okay i'm admitting everyone i would like just to take a moment and welcome everyone to today's tech tuesday training we will be getting started and maybe just two minutes we can give some folks uh some time to trickle into the meeting or the presentation thank you for joining us today for those joining on facebook please know that we won't be readily available to view the live facebook we have put the link to register for the zoom meeting in the facebook event so if you'd like to access cart captioning and asl interpreting you can do so by joining the zoom registration link and join us here in zoom and give it maybe just two more minutes okay we'll just give it another minute um we have someone joining from the uk welcome and thank you for joining in it is absolutely okay all right i'll go ahead and get started and uh asiany if you want to keep an eye on the waiting room and what's happening in chat that would be super so i'd like to start with welcoming everyone to this tech tuesday training on this july 12th this is at for low vision and i am your presenter for today kelly blackwell i'm co-director of the michigan assistive technology program i'm also an avid user of assistive technology the image on this slide is an abstract artistic image of i think it's a three three eyeballs so i am a person with a vision impairment and use a screen reader so if i pause periodically throughout the presentation it's likely because i have my screen reader giving me some direction whether i want it or not in my ear all right so as i mentioned i'm kelly blackwell co-director of the michigan assistive technology program i will be your main presenter for today my pronouns are she her and hers and i identify as a white woman and i am as i mentioned a person with a vision impairment and use a screen reader so many of the devices and strategies and things that we are going to be talking about today i use on a regular basis uh and almost all if not all of the items that we are going to be discussing today we have available in our inventory for our lending library and i have got a chat moderator today with me asian a thomas and i will let asianae introduce herself hello everyone thank you for joining today um my name is aj thomas and i am the youth assistant technology specialist um at michigan disability rights coalition and um today i am wearing a purple blouse um i have glasses and i am a person of color with black braids my hair thanks kelly yeah i forgot to describe i'm wearing uh what i believe to be your hope to be a black and white top i hope i didn't use my color identifier today so hopefully i'm looking all right and the image on the slide is an image of three light bulbs in the logo mdrc thank you all right so we all are probably very used to this zoom uh song and dance with uh sort of the housekeeping of virtual space uh so we've just got some ways for you to participate today if you'd like you are absolutely welcome to use the chat as folks have been doing uh if you'd like to raise your hand you can do so virtually you can also unmute your microphone and we do ask that if you are not speaking that you please do have your microphone muted so there's uh the least amount of interruption for the presentation if you are an adaptive software user you can use the key commands alt h to access the chat and alt h will then get you back out of the chat it's what's known as a toggle alt y is the virtual raise your hand feature and then alt a is for mute and unmute and then if you'd like to share your video screen it's alt v as in victor um so those are just some basic housekeeping uh we do have cart captioning available today and to access that the captioner has put a link in the chat but if you want to interact or get those working for you cart captioning is available by pressing the cc option and visually i can't describe that so maybe asian a if you want to just describe that and i'm hoping that our asl interpreter has been able to join but we do have that available as well currently our asl interpreter has not been able to join um but to turn on your closed captioning at the bottom of the screen um there is a box that says cc in it and it has a live transcript and then there's an arrow on the right of that area and you can turn on on the closed captioning setting thank you all right so hopefully we'll get those um asl interpreter on soon and when the asl interpreter does join they will be pinned to the screen so all right we'll go ahead and move forward to the next slide uh this slide has our mission uh and the our mission is something that we are very proud of as an agency so mdrc is the larger organization that the michigan assistive technology program is a part of and mdrc cultivates disability pride and strengthens the disability movement by recognizing disability as a natural and beautiful part of sorry by recognizing disability as a beautiful part beautiful and natural part of diversity sorry and i'm stumbling through this because listening to my screen reader while collaborating to dismantle all forms of oppression and at the top right of the screen is an outline of the state of michigan which is what we cover the entire state and our local michigan disability rights coalition on top and at the bottom it says michigan assistive technology program thank you aj all right so a basic overview of what assistive technology is so assistive technology is basically any device piece of equipment software program it's going to help make things possible for folks with disabilities to be able to do the things that they want to be able to do and what we often say in the program is that technology so if you think of using your smartphone just as a phone or using your computer that's technology so technology can often make things easier for most people however assistive technology opens up possibilities for individuals with disabilities as well as older adults and then the images on this slide are of a daily pill organizer that is a multi-color product and then there's an older individual who is using their walker walking outside on what appears to be a sunny day and then a doorknob gripping device and these i would say are more simplified basic items for a t and so what the assistive technology program does first of all as asia mentioned we serve the entire state of michigan we are a federally funded program and each state as well as a handful of territories has an assistive technology program and the basic idea behind these programs are to increase access to and knowledge of assistive technology options so we welcome you after today's training to give us a call contact us ask your questions about assistive technology we'd love to provide a demonstration for you so if you see something of interest today or if you simply have questions about other types of assistive technology chances are we have you know we have quite a bit of things in our inventory so um the demonstrations there is no charge to participate we can conduct demonstrations both virtually as well as in person folks are more than welcome to come to our main hub in east lansing or we will come to you as long as you are in the state of michigan as it was briefly discovered at the start of this webinar we actually have someone joining from the uk we so appreciate your participation but unfortunately you are not able to travel to the uk to provide a demonstration but i'd be more than happy to get you connected to resources in your area so um we do trainings like we are doing today we bring awareness and we do some technical assistance for folks too so if you have any questions about the program don't hesitate to type them in the chat unmute your microphone or send us an email all right i'm going to move on to the next slide all right so what to expect for today's tech tuesday we're going to talk very briefly about some common vision issues some very basic at types of magnification options that are available making sure that you choose the best option for what your needs are we're going to talk about some adaptive software options what you might find on your tablets smartphones and through different apps and we're going to talk about at4 identification purposes and there will be time to ask questions as well as different resources and ways to find information and then the image on this slide is of a notebook that has writing that says today one two three and four all right i'm gonna move to the next slide all right so here are just some common vision issues um and i'll just say that here at mdrc and the at program we're not focused on the medical model of disability so um i'm not going to talk in great length about vision conditions medically speaking so for example i technically have retinitis pigmentosa but i'm not so concerned about the technical terms for vision [Music] issues so we have here some things that folks can experience are colorblindness central vision loss and that could be a total loss of central vision or if things simply look a little more blurry from central vision peripheral vision loss which means um the outer edges of your vision uh you might experience challenges with uh and night blindness uh you might experience or know of folks who experience that it i think tends to come up with night driving folks seem to recognize that pretty often i would say and then just overall blurry vision uh and then the image on this slide is of an artistic view of an eye the image colors include dark blue red orange and white i believe that's what it said so i'm going to go ahead and move to the next well actually before i move to the next slide and aj is going to put a question in the chat and before we move into specific types of at i'm curious to know what types of at have you already heard of as it relates to low vision or if you so feel inclined what types of at do you yourself use for low vision and what are your favorite types of at so i'll just give folks a moment to interact if you don't feel comfortable interacting with chat jaws and zoom okay those are two uh screen um and i said screen but i meant to say software those are two software programs and usually i'm gonna be quiet and let you read these um dawn said high contrast pictures low tech and ipad 10 uses 80 tracks for video aaron uses audiobooks and siri awesome some great ideas thank you everyone for sharing uh so we certainly have mary mentioned um that they've mentioned to clients scanners electronic viewers jaws zoom or is it is that zoom or is it yeah okay um and jordan um i have a client who uses the my eyes app and uses the services of a local chapter of bureau of services for blind persons for training they come to a school sometimes too great thanks man yeah and samantha the seeing ai yes we're gonna talk about that uh so some great mentions here we're going to start out slow and work our way up to what i say is kind of some more high-tech um fancier option another um another suggestion or thing that they've heard of maryland google maps to walk around a new city do you use that maryland or you've just heard of that and charles um says nice to me okay marilyn uses the google maps to walk around it's cool um charles uh says nice to meet you all virtually i'm an expert in digital accessibility if anyone would like to connect thanks charles thank you charles all right so i'm going to go ahead and move on to the next slide and as i said we're going to start out kind of slow and basic and move our way up to what i refer to as the fancier options i love to point out to folks that you don't always need the fancier options to get some really good use out of a tea if you're new to vision loss or you know someone that's new to vision loss bump dots are a great introductory piece of at these are tactile dots that come in many shapes sizes and colors that have a sticky back to them so what i typically do is wipe down the surface so if you think of a microwave that's flat panel or a dishwasher that has a flat panel because it seems as though all of the newer digital options have all flat panel surfaces um so then the bump dot depending on the shape size and color the individual chooses can give a tactile way for that individual to then interact with that flat panel surface so before i had my fancier microwave i used bump dots on my microwave and i placed the bump dot on the quick start option i also have them on my washer and dryer and those don't even actually technically have to be bump dots and i like to share this story and for those of you that know me have probably heard this story but uh when i first moved into my newer home i've been there for almost two years now i couldn't find where i packed my bump dots and i really needed to do laundry and my sister just happened to have she's very crafty and had these glittery bling kind of um things that she uses for like scrapbooking and things so she so i have actually rhinestone like blingy glittery bump dots on my washer and dryer and it works perfectly so if you're into crafting that's another use of some crafting materials large print can be an uh somewhat easier low tech fix for someone with low vision bold writer pens that's essentially a sharpie that doesn't bleed through the paper um lighting can make all the difference so um you know is it led is it a desk lamp is it a reading lamp is it natural light those are all things that you can explore that are easily things that are a little more readily available i should say talking clocks and watches some more basic at so a lot of us probably carry our cell phones around with us and have access to getting the time and things and i will talk about the built-in features for those things but if you don't want to be carrying your cell phone around or don't have access to that kind of technology just yet basic clocks and watches are a great way to get some introductory access to a team and then medication reminders and organizers there's ways that you can organize have large print different colors if you don't experience color blindness have a talking system that is used so those are just some basic at options and i forgot to ask the question i'll go ahead oh i was just gonna say the image um the image on the screen is a clock um that is yellow and gray and it is a verbalized clock um and it has the time and the temperature at the top and the date awesome thank you uh and then aj if you could go ahead and put in the chat if you haven't done so already i forgot to ask the question is there anything that folks would want for me to go over today before i go any further um are there questions that you have about specific a t different things so if you want to just keep that coming in the chat i'll go ahead and move on to the next slide all right i wanted to take just a moment to go over the differences between a functional assessment that one might get from an eye doctor or a vision rehab teacher versus a demonstration because they're going to be quite different [Music] so also under the at act um we do demonstrations not assessments a functional assessment is something a little more formal sometimes a lot more formal um that can include a vision test by an eye doctor and they might go over visual field information uh near and distance testing and lighting and glare testing and as i mentioned it might include a type of exam from a vision rehab teacher which is typically a master's level degree that someone holds and is able to provide vision rehab teaching under that degree and then the graphic on this slide is of an a person participating in a vision exam from an eye doctor and move on to the next slide all right so a demonstration differs in that it's not going to be an assessment and it's typically uh you are going to be the one that decides okay this works for me and not to say that you can't do that in an assessment but it's just a less formal environment and as demonstrators we will provide suggestions on everyday ways on how to use the item we don't necessarily or not necessarily we don't promote one product over another um we can provide information on how to locate different eye doctors and different resources if someone is having difficulty with that and then we provide information on different funding sources on how to cover the cost of different devices and then what the person likes best is always considered in the image and this slide is a very large magnifier that's a hands-free magnifier that's positioned over an open book i'm going to go ahead and move on all right so um just like anything else it seems there are many considerations to think about when looking at different magnification so there's probably even more than what i've listed here on this slide but some examples of different styles of magnification are handheld and stand magnifiers so when i think of handheld i sort of think of that image of sherlock holmes in the detective like holding up a magnifier whereas a stand magnifier is going to be similar but to get the effective use out of a stand magnifier that magnification is intended to stay flat on the surface in which you're trying to magnify so if you had a flyer in front of you for an example you wouldn't hold that stand magnifier off the page because the image would then look distorted it's meant to stay flat on the surface and then you have bar magnifiers and page size magnifiers again with the bar magnifiers they typically go flat on the surface otherwise you're going to notice some distortion so with bar magnifiers it typically um magnifies one line at a time and then the page magnifiers magnify one entire page at a time and page magnifiers are typically something that you could even pick up at a bookstore you generally don't get a lot of magnification and we're going to talk about why that is here in just a little bit but with page size magnifiers it's just going to give you a little bit of a boost with magnification and then video magnification is another option and with video magnifiers you can have both handheld and desktop and what that means is if you have a handheld it's kind of the size of a digital camera or a smartphone a little bit thicker um and then with the desktop it's not really intended to be portable although they do make portable versions but you get more of a computer size monitor size viewing area and the handheld is something that you can throw in a backpack or a purse or something like that and video magnifiers have more features so you can change color contrast you can make the magnification larger or smaller so going back to the handheld and stand magnifier options you generally only have one size magnification so it could be a three times magnifier four five six and so on with the video magnifier you have the ability to change magnification for example the handheld video magnifier we have available for loan is two times to 20 times magnification um and there's obviously a difference in cost when you're talking about a handheld versus a video magnifier and it's quite significant however if you want a few more bells and whistles or if you know that your vision is not stable and you're not going to know what size magnification you're going to need at some point it might be worthwhile to get a video magnifier and then these options also come with or without lighted options and then there are magnification software and apps which we'll talk a little bit more as we go along and then uh the images on this side are of a bar magnifier that has a light built-in a handheld page magnifier and then the um magnification settings on an iphone all right i am going to pause for just a moment and see if there are any questions and i'm gonna get a sip of water here the asl interpreter has joined and i added um elizabeth as a spotlight awesome thank you so much all right we'll go ahead and move on hearing no questions all right so speaking specifically about magnification you may have seen um or heard folks talk about diopter and i'm probably saying that incorrectly or you might see 4d as illustrated on the slide the diopter is the amount of curvature in a lens and typically the more curvature the more magnification and the less viewing area it's probably one of the most asked questions i get is well i need a lot of magnification and i want a larger viewing area typically with handheld options the more magnification you need the smaller viewing area you're going to have so you may consider at that point moving to talking products or looking at a video magnification option so and then i give examples on this slide so 4d for diaper is one times magnified and 20d equals 5 times magnified and then the image on this side is of curved lines 0 to 15. 0 shows no curve and 15 shows a high amount of curve all right so i'm moving on to the next slide and it's important to figure out for you what you feel will work best for you so here are some things to consider when making those decisions what do you need it for is it going to be something that needs to be portable or something that's going to remain at home so is it something that you're going to want to throw in your backpack or your purse or your pocket do i need to have something at home is magnification the best or do i need to move to maybe some talking options uh that was a little bit of a hard transition for me um when i moved from using magnification to using audio interestingly i am someone that would describe themselves as a visual learner so going through that transition of really learning to listen to that audio and have my brain respond in a way that really made sense for me it was definitely a transition but for me i found that i was getting things done more quickly having less eye strain thus leading to less headaches so for me that was a decision that i made that worked well for me um and then other things to think about is do i need it for my computer what is the cost um it's always something very important to keep in mind and then the images on this slide are of a card site like a credit card size magnifier that's illuminated all right we'll go ahead and move on to the next slide all right so now we're going to talk about adaptive software there are many choices just like with anything else um you have magnification and screen reading software and those options come with built-in or open source open source or purchase and then we have optical character recognition or ocr and then i threw apps under software um just because the next slide is going to talk about apps but there are definitely certain or certainly thousands of apps to choose from and many that address low vision but i want to talk about screen magnification and screen reading options uh so screen magnification you have built-ins whether you're a windows pc user or a mac user or you're accessing [Music] websites and things from your device whether it be a smartphone tablet what have you um the other option would be a chromebook so all of these options now come with accessibility features right out of the box you just have to know where to go to find them so for purchasing um software and i think somebody's in the waiting room aj sorry for purchasing software um it's going to be sort of the bigger companies or products are going to be jaws in zoom text and then another big one is nvda which is a screen reading software that's open source um and then you have your built-in [Music] microsoft narrator or um if it's apple products you have voice over and then with your chromebook you've got chromebox built in so there's all these different ways to access both screen magnification and screen reading technology ocr i want to talk about for just a moment there are apps that have ocr that we're going to talk about but essentially what that is is it recognizes text as an image if you will and then it reads the text out loud um and i use probably bad they're not bad but not so great of words to describe that because sometimes when images are recognized as images ocr will not read it so it has to have a base to recognize the text and then it will speak it out loud for example jaws the screen reader that i use if i get an email let's say it has a pdf that is not made accessible right out of the gate i can then use the built-in ocr technology for jaws and go through and have jaws then read that for me with ocr technology it's not always going to be 100 accurate but it often comes very close and we're going to be talking quite a bit about ocr and the slides moving forward so there any questions before we move on okay i'll go ahead and move to the next slide all right so i've titled this slide my app for that i certainly have a lot of apps that i use but a lot of them actually have come built in to my device so i am an ios user i am also familiar with android but definitely my preferred access is through ios so there are excuse me there are built-in features already for your ios and android devices so you find those typically in your settings and then under accessibility so there are magnifi magnification options and in the resource sheet that is linked and asian a will throw that in the chat if it hasn't already been done but there are many videos and links to on how to find this information that i'm referencing uh but for example the ios already out of the box it comes with a magnifier option not only to magnify your screen but also as a magnifier so it uses the camera on your device and turns it into a magnifier so that you can then view larger images like you would using a magnifier using the screen of your device um using voice assistants like hey siri and hey google um i use siri all the time um and it often does a lot of what i need and sometimes it is frustrating but it is a learning curve and you just kind of have to laugh it off sometimes [Music] it's saying somebody needs access to the resource guide um i'll have to figure out why the resource guide is um change the access settings thank you for letting me know tracy um and then there's built-in features such as speak selection uh so if you are just new to or maybe not new to but don't prefer to listen to screen reading technology all the time you can use features of speak selection and highlight specific text that you want read out loud maybe it's a longer email or website and you're starting to feel the fatigue with your vision [Music] and then you can just highlight that text and have it read out loud instead of having it read the whole thing like voiceover might um some of my favorite apps here i have listed bard mobile uh i jokingly so um many or not many i shouldn't just assume that that was awful some of you may have known that i've presented before at libraries without walls and at the technology club meetings that happen once a month through the local library here the braille and talking book library but i was joking with scott norris who's now the manager there that when bard first came out a handful of years ago that i was going to need to join readers anonymous because i certainly read audiobooks prior to the release of bard but i certainly now that i have it in an app on my phone um i go a little wild with audio books so i can even tell you the last time i turned on my tv i much prefer an audio book and i typically access those through bard mobile and that's a free service through the national library service as long as you are signed up for the service and then i have a list of the voice stream suite of apps that are listed here voice dream reader writer and scanner voice stream reader is the first one that i was introduced to as i was revisiting college decided to get my master's degree at michigan state and the resource center for persons with disabilities is who introduced me to this app it was a way for me to get all of my accessible textbooks in an app on my phone and it was phenomenal um it's one of my favorites and it's not that expensive of an app so and then some of the others i'm going to talk about in the slides coming up but another one that makes an appearance in the presentation is seeing ai and that's probably hands down my favorite app of all time so are there any other apps that folks use mary um says in the uk i use this resource from manchester charity henshaws um looks like a document that has a list of different resources and no worries dawn dawn asks do you prefer ios because it has better apps and access or because you already preferred mac or apple over pc android when i first joined the smartphone world at that time even though i have people that are um acquaintances of mine that would probably jokingly or not so jokingly argue otherwise but at the time i joined and gosh it's been [Music] about 10 years that i've been an iphone user and i would say when i first joined so my first iphone was the 4s and um and that's when they came out with siri and at that time i would say in my opinion that ios had better access for low vision and blind users and in my experience they tend to have a greater number of apps that are accessible that's not to say that android is not accessible and they have come in my opinion leaps and bounds in the 10 years that i've been an iphone user android certainly has a lot of great accessibility features as well and what i love about android is that the price point for their devices are typically quite a bit less not with all cases not if you get the fancier phones and things but [Music] they do have some great access as well um are there any other questions and actually next month um i'll do a shameless plug our next tech tuesday happening in august will be a look into android verse ios so i would recommend that you all take a look at that too so next month our next tech tuesday is android verse ios we shall see who comes out the winner of that and that's not going to be just for low vision stuff that will be for all things access for devices so and in the chat don um said that makes sense and matches what i've seen in special education apps and device services as well yes and mary um thank you for that resource i just took a quick glance at um the different things on the list and it looks like it will be really helpful thank you thank you all right i'm gonna move to the next slide all right now here comes the fancy fancy stuff sort of we're almost there um ways to identify and this slide just has the bullet points and then i'm going to go into detail about each of these so we have methods and strategies standalone devices and apps and like i said i'll go into each of these in the next slides all right so ways to identify using methods and strategies um i like to ask and i i think i did i hope i did at the beginning of this what are some folks favorite a.t um what are some low-tech things that you use that you found to be helpful and someone reminded me that rubber bands can actually be used as a form of a t and so i have it highlighted here so rubber bands sharpies and index cards are a great way if you experience low vision to identify things so for example if you use just a rubber band let's say you have a rubber band just one rubber band around your green beans and then you place two rubber bands around corn and maybe you have three rubber bands and i'm not going to suggest going more than three but maybe you have three rubber bands around mixed vegetables that's just a very simplified example um but that's just one way that you can use rubber bands as a way to identify furthermore if you add the sharpie in the index card you can then write with a sharpie larger than the can might be and then use the rubber band to secure the index card on that food item just as an example really low tech solutions here um and then we're going to talk a little bit more about using rfid or radio frequency id in the next slide but there's another way that you can use rubber bands and index cards using a pen friend as an example i'm using organizational totes and having specific spaces and places for things and i am terrible at this i say that i am organized not by design but by necessity uh so it seems like the couple of things that i'm always losing and asking my 13 year old son for is have you seen my black shoes or you know whatever i have gotten better but i am certainly this is a judgment-free zone i am not good at keeping track of where i put my shoes you think i would be by now but i'm not and then um my keys i actually moved to a keyless entry system for my home because i was constantly losing my house key so um and then my phone but um if you are more organized person um totes can be a great way to organize things so for example if you have that stack of mail pile up and you have low vision um what to do with it all so if you have somebody coming over just for a moment what i used to do before i use the current methods that i use is i had a drawer that i had sectioned off into three sections so having bills as an example that were just received that i need to keep and then bills that were just paid as another section and then like coupons and other things that were valuable but um didn't need my immediate attention um so that's what i mean by organization and having totes and things and then safety pins and fabric paint so using a safety pin method you can color code your clothing let's say that you have one safety pin on your tag or wherever you choose to put it for items that are black two safety pins that are for items that are blue and so on and so forth you can use your own method or you can use the 3d fabric paint to work out a method that works for you as well so those are just some basic examples and i'm going to move on to the next slide so here are some standalone devices and these we have in our inventory the colorino being one of them that's a color identifier um available for demonstration and loan this is a device that you hold next to your clothing and it will tell you the color it's pretty accurate it's not 100 accurate but it comes pretty close and then the other function of that is actually it helps identify a light source so if someone is totally blind and they don't have light perception there's a feature on it that helps with identifying the light source and then we have the pen friend which is basically you put a sticker an rfid sticker on an item and then you can record a digital recording of what that item is so you might need cited assistance for that but then once it's recorded you bring the pen back to that sticker and then it will read that recording out loud and then we have the orcam we just got this in our lending library and i have a video on that so i'm not going to talk much about it but it's a way for folks to identify things okay so here is the final way that i have to identify things and this is through apps so someone mentioned be my eyes this is an app that uses volunteers and it uses your device with the use of your camera so you can go into the app request a volunteer and then you hold your camera up and you ask what so if you're looking at mail if you're in a grocery store what have you the volunteer can help you with that process seeing ai or google lookout would be the equivalent that has many different channels they call them so you can read text with that you can identify paper money um a document reader a bar code scanner has many features and that's just another way and those are free apps by the way ira a-i-r-a that is an app that you can do a subscription service or they do have um five minutes of free interaction per day um but this uses trained visual interpreters so it's different than a volunteer um and again i have a video on that so i'm not gonna explain too much but it's another way to get visual feedback from your device and then i have on here as an app even though it's technically called a skill when you're talking about alexa is the alexa show and tell so if you have an alexa show you can and that's an alexa that has a screen and a camera built in and you can hold a device up to your show so for example i have an alexa show in my kitchen and if i don't have my phone readily available or other identifying methods readily available i'll hold it up and say alexa what am i holding and this isn't my preferred method but it does work and it will give you feedback on what it is you're holding all right so i am gonna have i'm gonna stop screen share and i'm gonna have aj play two videos um and aj if you wanna first maybe play the ira video and then we'll move into or cam oops and we might go about five minutes over ira artificial intelligence remote assistance we provide access to visual information through a smartphone app available on ios or android connecting people with professional visual interpreters let's take a look at how it works you've entered an ira access network first-time explorers can begin using the service by downloading the official ira app on any smartphone download ira app at just the touch of a button explorers are connected to remotely located highly trained agents by using information in an explorer's environment agents are immersed in an explorer's world and can see what they see thanks for calling ira this is emily how can i help you well i'm at target and the only grocery i never needed was cream cheese i'm looking for and onion salmon or jalapeno so this one is strawberry but chive and onion is directly above it on the shelf that's chai right there hi jennifer i'm here at target and i'm currently making an exchange do you mind just describing what you see happening in front of me in front of you there seems to be a light blue box associates on either side of you but they seem to be talking to other customers do you mind directing me to the food area okay sure your path is clear you're just passing a bunch of uh cashiers on your left-hand side all right marissa we're at target we're shopping for halloween decorations and i was looking actually looking to see if you got any of those like special party bulbs these ones all seem to be more christmas light style go ahead and look to the right just a little bit i'll check the other half so it's a bulb that projects images what about this here now that one has actual individual skulls so they're like school lights i don't do like these lights they are it is ten dollars for one victor hi i'm at a self-checkout line and i'd like your help trying to read it yeah absolutely so yeah it looks like you're gonna stage your items on the left ring them up and then drop them into the bagging area if you flip it over and the back yeah that one right there we got it you got it all right i think we should be good thank you okay i'm at target i want to know what color this bag is right here that's a nice bag uh it's got white yeah the textured leather on the ends and then the center of the body uh the lower part of the body of the bag is a very light pink my hands are kind of full so i was gonna see if i could find a hand basket that way i can put this stuff in it you're gonna turn right now and now you're back in front of the store if you turn to your left two feet in front of you there's a stack of hand baskets perfect this unlocks a world that is not always accessible for all people social distancing is expected in many places and many of the social distancing cues are based on visual indicators and this presents a potential challenge for millions of individuals who are blind or low vision ira is a tool that can provide the information needed to follow good social distancing and other safety practices you're about to experience what it's like to work with an ira agent to maintain social distance these people are moving through public spaces some are using canes while others work with guide dogs thanks for calling ira this is emily what you like to do today we are here at the grocery store there i am with my mask there's a man yes the store about 10 feet in front of you on the right is there a bunch of people in line in front of you there's a gentleman six feet in front of you talking to a bank teller it looks like he's finishing up and then it'll be your turn i'd like to go into walgreens and find some tylenol for arthritis can you help me do that i sure can at the end of this aisle the line starts sticking thank you and then we can go into the last video and i'd like to welcome folks to stay on if they have any questions so this next video will be describing orcam introducing allcam my eye the most advanced wearable ai for vision impairment the tiny device magnetically snaps onto the side of glasses and instantly reads text to you from any surface all you have to do is point white chocolate cookies orcam's innovative smart reading feature works instantly and discreetly start smart reading [Music] read me the headlines found two headlines first result or can my i2 name to times list one second result genesis prize foundation read me first article or cam my eye too an israeli-made system or cam my eye can also assist with your orientation what's in front of me one door to your left and one door to your right identifying objects and helping with your mobility what's in front of me one person is in front of you one empty chair to your right seamlessly recognize faces mad yazoo money notes fifty dollars products and more all in real time without the need for an internet connection lightweight intuitive operation in a device the size of a finger [Music] orcam my eye is used by tens of thousands of people in 25 languages and 50 countries helping them to live more independently and improving their quality of life [Music] orcam my eye personal ai technology with a life-changing impact all right thank you um just a few things while we wrap it up um there was an issue with the resource guide link so we'll go ahead and send that out in an email if you've registered thank you and you'll get access to that resource guide and then we also will have this recording available as well [Music] and if folks have to go i i thank you for your time today but i also welcome if you have time and you want to stay on and you have questions um i am available to uh answer questions so i did add the updated link um i've heard to click on that that's outside of our organization so let me to make sure that that works um for you all and then i'm also going to enter a link to our survey if you could please fill that out give us some feedback let us know how today went um if you have suggestions for future um tech tuesdays with us or other devices that you would like to see and learn more about um i will put that link in the chat as well and then the resource guide also has emails and contact information for myself um kelly and the at team and there is the link to our survey thank you everyone for joining today thanks angela thank you angela [Music] well brian did have a question i'm not sure if they're still on oh yep okay so is there a t that could help when attending a live theater performance very good question unable to find url for survey one second our links are just working so well today um in terms of live theater performances uh i'm not sure brian where you're located i will speak highly of our wharton center that's local here to east lansing they do have audio described live theater performances um they just are at specific times and you have to check to see when those are um i would say maybe i don't know if anyone has experience using be my eyes or ira um so i know that so there's typically a cost with ira a subscription um but many places have opted to cover the cost of that for people visiting so if you go to a conference for example that conference might sponsor ira so you can open up the app and it will recognize that you're at that conference and they won't charge a fee for you to use the service so i would imagine that it would be very beneficial for theaters and you know different businesses to subscribe to ira and then the visual interpreter would be able to describe that as it was happening perhaps um [Music] did you mean next month yes okay yep mary so i was put in the chat as well um the link to our next tech tuesday um and mary you're from the uk right so um feel free to choose a county and then we'll update that information once we see your registration and the tech tuesday for next month august 9th is the android versus ios apple tech tuesday and the link is now in the chat oh great we have two folks from oh great thanks samantha for joining okay great thanks aaron aaron um said the links are working out thank you [Music] thanks so much excellent training i learned a lot of valuable information thank you tim you are both welcome great job thank you i'll be seeing you next month too yes i just really really looking forward to that too kelly we're still working on our other self-advocate but i think i think we've got somebody here from one of our provide one of our providers but we'll catch up with you um definitely ahead of time and give you like some idea you know what to expect too but great job today um my my colleague shane who will also be with us um got sidetracked was gonna jump on today but um what is the one you're doing what's the next one you guys are doing android verse ios okay let me take a look at that yeah cool it'll be fun we'll we'll have some banter going back and forth i imagine about which one's better oh yeah i mean my my son's a big android me and my daughter are both ios you know there's it'll be interesting to see how you have it outlined or how you know like just how you framed it so yeah all right well wow dinner time samantha enjoy have a good evening all right i am going to stop the recording
2022-08-13