Blind Bargains

Blind Bargains Qast 178: Smart Beagle


Time for some spring cleaning as the BBQ Crew sweeps out the cobwebs from the studio for an actual, gasp! in-studio recording of a podcast. Karthik Kannan drops by to pull back the studio curtains to shed some light in here, and on what's happening with Envision AI. A tip, "Sound Off" and a non-food-related "Last Word" round out the episode. Don't get too comfortable or we'll ask you to grab a dust pan and join us in cleaning up the place on BBQ 178.

In The News:

The Orbit Reader is Still Available, if You are Willing to Pay a Bit More

Scan documents with Voice Dream Scanner, available now on the iTunes App Store

NVDA 2019.1 sees another update and more from the latest In Process blog post

Hulu has begun some initial testing of Audio Description support for the web version of their service

Detecting Accessibility Events: Apple Wants Websites to Know I m a Screen Reader User, but How About Asking Me First

Apple Shares Information on its New Accessibility Events Feature; Most Notably that it's not Enabled by Default

Interview: Karthik Kannan Envision AI

Karthik Kannan, Cofounder and Chief Engineer of Envision AI, sat down with J.J. to give us an update on what has changed since the 2018 holiday season. First up, the Android app is out of beta and pricing plans are now available. Tune in to learn more, or visit the EnVision AI app
on Google Play, to enjoy a discount during the month of April in celebration of the app exiting beta. The pair also discuss the new features for iOS including a revamped Scan and Find. And you won't want to miss the conversations about free OCR apps in the marketplace or that bit about smart glasses testing. Keep up with everything on now two mobile platforms by visiting the EnVision AI website

Tip: Remove Internet Explorer 11 From Windows

Alas IE, your days are numbered. The classic web browser is reaching the end of its support life cycle. Which means, sadly, keeping it around could be a security risk. You can uninstall it though by following the steps outlined in this article

Sound Off:

Stan Littrell writes in with some Orbit Reader thoughts.

"I listened to your most recent podcast early this morning before I
went off to breakfast. You folks would have enjoyed the cinnamon roll
that I had. The topic that I wish to address is the situation
surrounding the orbit reader and APH. I know that they have taken the
device out of their catalog. I know that Orbit Research is still
selling the unit. I know that there is a dispute with the Transforming
Braille Group. Orbit Research is selling the orbit reader a little
over 100 dollars higher than APH was selling it. I have a feeling
that nobody was quite prepared for the troubles surrounding the
introduction surrounding the unit's introduction. For the record, I
still am enjoying my orbit reader. I don't find the refresh sound
annoying at all. It sort of reminds me of the old teletype sound that
is never heard anymore. A while back Joe was mentioning his problems
with his ID mate. I had a problem whereby mine wouldn't connect to my
WI-FI no matter how I tried. I took my unit to another place to use
another WI-FI set up and got the same results. I know other friends
that have had the same problems. After several hours on the phone
with tech support and pondering the situation I managed to convince
the company that there was a real problem. They ended up handling the
problem even though the unit was out of warranty. I purchased one of
their portable wi-fi routers that made no difference. The bottom line
is that they addressed the problem to my satisfaction and now I'm a
happy galaxy user once again."

Twitter also gave us a few chuckles recently and here are two we mentioned on the show.

"JesseTregarthen: It felt odd to hear @RangerStation reminisce about A and W because up here in Canada we're used to it and often hearing about places you have that we don't."

"ChangelingMx: As a blind person, I haven't known where to pee for 31 years. Thanks to Peeing Eye GPS, this is no longer an issue, and I know where not to set my braille toothbrush."

Last Word:

Aliens and Apples are everywhere in this week's weird wide web offerings
Seth Rogen Was Delighted To Make A Cameo In A Re-Edited Star Wars Trailer
No Software Updates Will Fix Apple's Worst Bug

During the month of April we posted our 700th piece of audio content and celebrated more than 100,000 downloads of that content in less than 90 days. From everyone at the BBQ... we would like to express our thanks for listening, sharing and helping us reach these tremendous milestones!

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File size: 59.1MB
Length: 57:53

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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.


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