Blind Bargains

#CSUN15 Audio: Nemeth Braille Tutorial, TI-84 Plus and More With APH


Larry Skutchan, director of Technology Product Research, joins us to talk about a number of products of interest available from APH. Most recently, APH has released a free, cross-platform Nemeth tutorial for use by students and teachers interested in learning Nemeth code. Additionally, Larry talks a bit about other products such as the accessible TI-84 Plus calculator, Nearby Explorer and more. You can learn about these, plus a wealth of other technology and information on offer from APH by visiting the APH website.

Be sure to check our audio page for more exhibit hall coverage, and check out our new weekly podcast for news and features about technology and beyond. Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2015 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind. Enjoy our Podcasts? You can help us out by taking this very short survey.

Transcript

We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.

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Transcribed by Kayde Rieken

Welcome to BlindBargains.com coverage of CSUN 2015 — the biggest names, provocative interviews, and wall-to-wall exhibit hall coverage — brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.

On the American Foundation for the Blind website, you'll find everything you need to know about blindness and visual impairment. Search our national job bank, discover the history of Helen Keller, read our blog on current issues, find professional resources, and even more. Our site is completely accessible. Check it out at www.afb.org.

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Now, here's J.J. Meddaugh.

J.J. Meddaugh: We're here with Larry Skutchan. He's the Director of Technology Product Research for the American Printing House for the Blind, and here to talk about a new Nemeth tutorial. Welcome back, Larry, to Blind Bargains.

Larry Skutchan: Thanks, J.J. it's always a pleasure.

JM: So this app came out a couple months ago. Why don't you tell us what we've got here.

LS: Well, what we've got is a — a new universally-designed Nemeth tutorial that's web-based. So let me give you a little bit of background about it before I tell you exactly what it is.

JM: Okay.

LS: So Dr. Gaylen Kapperman, back in the '90s, had developed a tutorial, mainly for teachers of the visually impaired, to help them learn Nemeth. It was an interactive tutorial. So you have lessons that give you the concept; then you have exercises, three different kinds of exercises. And they wrote it to run on a PC. Unfortunately, it was not accessible. It was — it was for sighted teachers.

JM: Sure.

LS: And the — the way that it was written, it was never able to be ported forward from XP. So later — probably five or ten years later — this same tutorial came out on the PacMate and on the Humanware devices; and they were selling it for, I believe, several hundred dollars. It, unfortunately, was not accessible to sighted people. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs)

LS: So this — what we've done is taken that same contents, the same exercises — we actually rearranged them a little bit to correspond more with — you know, as the educational standards changed — to align them with what grades each person's learning — each student's learning these things.

JM: Right. The math concepts that —

LS: Yeah.

JM: Right, that match up.

LS: So what we've done is taken that — that core concept and coded it in HTML5 with ARIA so that it looks beautiful to the sighted person and works great with access technology. And it runs on any device that runs a modern web browser, including your iPhone, Android. Works great with Mac and the PC.

JM: So in these tutorials, are there lessons — are — are they designed still for teachers or are they designed also for students or —

LS: They're designed for both. It's — the — the intent is to learn Nemeth. So whether you're a teacher or someone that just has their own interest in learning it, it just takes you through step by step.

JM: How is it conveyed Braille-wise? Is there some Braille display compatibility with the —

LS: Absolutely. So — so let me give you the visual way first.

JM: Okay.

LS: So we — we actually are using unicode to represent the Braille, so you don't have to download any fonts or anything that look great on the screen. We also — there's a little check box on the home — on the main page for six-key input; so if you're sighted, you're going to want to check that. Or if you're blind and using a Braille display without a keyboard, you'd check that as well. And what that lets you do is — is use your QWERTY keyboard, the S, D, F and the J, K, L for your six Braille entry keys for doing the exercises with. So — and then, if you're blind, you know, the — the accessibility features just make it show up on your Braille display just like you would expect, and you would interact, if you have a keyboard on your Braille display, with it that way.

JM: How extensive is the tutorial? How many lessons, and does it cover everything with Nemeth, or —

LS: So the — I believe it — well, there — I wouldn't say —

JM: There are lots and lots of obscure math symbols.

LS: Yeah.

JM: Yeah.

LS: I — I don't know that it covers everything, but it goes through advanced concepts. There's 11 separate lessons, all the way through geometry and calculus symbols, and —

JM: How are the lessons presented? So it — the tutorial — is it just — is it interactive? Is there practice? Is there games? Or what is the — what's the format?

LS: Right. So what it is is a — there — there's an explanation section first that tells you about what the rules are for using that particular symbol or set of symbols. And then there are three sort of interactive exercises. So one of them is just answering — asking a question, you type in the answer. The other one is proofreading, so that it shows it to you with a mistake in it and you have to correct it. And again, this is so nice with ARIA because, as you're typing along, you know, it'll — as soon as you hit an incorrect dot pattern, it'll — it'll say, "Incorrect." And you can back up and correct it. These — this tutorial is also free, which is probably one of the more interesting parts. (Laughs)

JM: That was — yeah, I was just going to ask. Yeah, it's — yeah, definitely.

LS: And let me give you the URL for it.

JM: Absolutely.

LS: It's tech.aph.org/nemeth. So it's tech.aph.org/nemeth.

JM: So that — and that's available now.

LS: Yes. Uh-huh.

JM: How does that all jive with — with UEB and some of the other things? Are — are you going to do any other types of tutorials based on the success of this one, or —

LS: You know, as far as I can tell, it looks like there's a lot of people working on UEB tutorials, so we've sort of stepped back from that and — you know, just sort of see what comes out there. Now, in relationship to Nemeth with UEB, though, we're probably going to go ahead — we hadn't done it yet, but we're probably going to add the — the symbols to switch from UEB to Nemeth. Those are not in there yet. They were actually just finalized here a month or two ago.

JM: Right. So people want — right. And there is a way, and that's what allows people to do Nemeth entry — if — if they're comfortable with Nemeth — and still do that with UEB. So it —

LS: Exactly. Plus, it — it provides the —

JM: — doesn't become outdated.


LS: Yeah. And it — it provides the screen readers with a way to make a — a perfect, round-trip translation, too, from forward and back, if you know that you're dealing with Nemeth. You know, it's so difficult — when you're dealing with just straight ASCII text, you know, you don't know whether a star is — is a sort of an emphasis symbol or a multiplication symbol. But when things are encoded — like, with MathML — you know you can go directly to Nemeth without any ambiguity at all. And — and we are doing that. One of the other — you know, several of the screen readers now are starting to support MathML.

JM: Yes.

LS: So there's a check box on the homepage as well, that if your browser and your screen reader support it, it — it really kind of does two things. It — it makes it pretty for the sighted people so, you know, you could see the quadratic equation in all its glory instead of just the text version; and, you know, if your screen reader supports it, you've got a direct translation. So it's very nice.

JM: That's really cool, and sounds like there's been a lot of thought put into this. And free, of course, is a — no reason not to check it out. (Laughs)

LS: Now, one of the — one of the other things that we're considering doing with it is turning it into an EPUB as well. And the main reason for that — we'd — we'd probably have to end up charging for that. We hadn't made any decisions on that yet.

JM: Right.

LS: But I think one of the main things that would benefit for people is just the pure discoverability of it. So if you're in the iBooks Store or looking for an EPUB with a — you know, with Nemeth as a — as a search term, this thing would pop up. And it — you know, it's so — it's so nice. It's not just a regular ebook; it's an interactive ebook. So we — we're actually using EPUB 3. Now, that's — that part's not out yet.

JM: Right.

LS: But the web —

JM: Sure. But the website is there now.

LS: The web is, yeah.


JM: Again, tech.aph.org/nemeth.

LS: And if I — I could just mention another product?

JM: Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

LS: We just came out with an EPUB version of a — a book we're using for cortical visual impairment training — not to — not to train to be visually impaired, but to help people with cortical —

JM: I was going to ask — what does that mean? I have no idea what that means.

LS: It's a condition that — where your eyes are actually normal, but there's some kind of cognitive functionality that's preventing you from using your vision effectively.

JM: Okay.

LS: And, traditionally, the version of this — the printed version of these exercises consist of a set of 80 cards, 10 cards of 8 different sequences. And what — what they do is, the first one is — well, like, the first example is a huge yellow duck in the middle of the card. And, you know, the — the student has to identify that. And then they increasingly make the background more complex and obscure the duck into different parts of the scene. So — you know, and the idea is — is to be able to isolate it out of all the clutter in the background — sort of like Waldo, except a little simpler. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs)

LS: But what — what we've done now is made an interactive EPUB of that as well that you can run on your iPad so that the student can touch the — the object in — in whatever the background sequence is and have it give a — a verbal reaction.

JM: A yes or no.

LS: Or — or actually, we're doing a little more clever — we're making the duck quack and — (Laughs) — that kind of thing.

JM: (Laughs)

LS: So it's kind of fun.

JM: Cool. And that's available, or —

LS: Yes, it is. It's available for — I believe it's $9.95 — less than $10, anyway, which is a great savings because the printed version of that is much higher than that. I — I don't recall the price off the top of my head, but it's a — it's a great book written by Christine Roman, who is sort of the guru of CVI.

Alan Lovell: The CVI EPUB?

LS: Yeah.

AL: It's 9 bucks even.

LS: Oh, is it 9 even? Okay.

AL: Yeah. We — we send you the link via email.

LS: Right. What's the — what's the price of the print version, Al?

AL: Oh, that I — that's a good one.

LS: It's — I'm thinking it's 59 or 89, something like that.

AL: Yeah. Yeah, I — I don't have it on the top of my head.

LS: Okay.

AL: But it's — yeah, you can bet on it being more.

JM: (Laughs)

LS: So that was Alan Lovell in — in the recording there.

JM: There you go.

LS: He's at our customer service department.

JM: He came in with some timely information there, yeah.

LS: Yes, he did. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs)

LS: So as far as what else is new, we're doing an upgrade to the TI-84.

JM: Oh, good.

LS: We're adding the ability to detect the inequalities, scatter plots — some of the more esoteric types of things you do with a calculator.

JM: Some of the other — I know there was a — I'm — I'm trying to remember now back to the — which features have been added and which ones haven't as far as being able to — to Braille out graphs and doing some of the other interface stuff?

LS: Oh, I'm — I'm sorry. Well, we've always been able to Braille them out. You connect the calculator to a PC —

JM: Right.

LS: — and send the graph over there. What we have added is Braille support in this version 2. Now, version 2's not out yet, but it'll be out — I believe this summer.

JM: Okay.

LS: So it — it supports both UEB and Nemeth. You select which one you want for your output. It does not do graphing, though. There's not really an electronic display that'll show graphs yet.

JM: No. People keep talking about all these crazy full-page displays, but —

LS: Yeah.

JM: — nothing yet.

LS: Yeah. I — I've got a feeling we're going to see something within the next 24 months, though.

JM: Cool. So later this summer. Is it out in the beta channel yet, or —

LS: It's going into beta next week, actually. Do you have a calculator already?

JM: Not yet.

LS: You know, let me — let me give people information to sign up with the beta —

JM: Let's do that.

LS: — if they do have a calculator.

JM: Yeah, absolutely.

LS: So there's a — a couple of different ways to do it. One would be to send an email to Ken Perry at APH, and his address is kperry@aph.org. And just let him know that you have a calculator, you're interested in beta testing the new features, and he'll get you signed up on the list and get the software out to you. It's upgradable out in the field, so we can send the beta via email.

JM: Sure. And you said there's a couple different ways, or is that — that is the preferred —

LS: That probably, actually, would be the best way, yeah, especially since I don't remember the list address for the beta. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs)

LS: Anything new on the other products — the Braille Plus, Nearby, things like that?

LS: We're constantly upgrading Nearby, as you know since you're a nearby user.

JM: Nearby Explorer, the GPS for Android.

LS: Yep. One of the — we've — we've gone through all the — the cities that are — cities sort of come and go from their — their Google data feeds, and we — unfortunately, I think you had been interested in Lansing, and we — we really looked into it; and it's not — Lansing isn't going to be one of those we can do at the moment. But if a city has a — a GFS feed —

JM: Right. GTFS.

LS: GTFS. Sorry. (Laughs)

JM: General transit — yeah. And now it's general transit feed specification. Yep.

LS: Yep.
xxx
JM: They're the feeds that — that, pretty much, a bus systems or transit system would put out, which has all the bus stops and routes and things like that. That's what you're —

LS: And the times there as well. Yeah.

JM: And the times, yep. Mm-hmm.

LS: So we've gone through and, you know, made sure that all the current ones are — are still relevant and valid and added any cities that are adding feeds. So if you're in a city that doesn't have a feed like that, we — you know, we've sort of made the decision that we're not really — we — we want them to be open feeds. So if you have to sign all kinds of agreements that — you know, this is not ever going to be more than a week old or any kind of crazy thing like that, we're probably not going to deal with it at the moment. But if you've — if you're in a sort of more progressive city that has open data policies, we're — we're certainly going to try to import that into the application. I think we've got probably about — a little over 30 cities in there right now.

JM: Sure.

LS: We're — we're also updating all the time, trying to improve the map view. I — I think you've probably already seen the show — this is hard to say — show/hide feature —

JM: Right.

LS: — on the main screen, where you can have the main screen just show you the information that you're most interested in. You could still have it speak, even if it's not on the screen.


JM: Oh, good point. Right.

LS: Yeah.

JM: iPhone version?

LS: Is that something of interest? I — I keep getting asked about it, but, you know, there's already a good one out there. It's — and it's —

JM: Well, so we did a — or we posted — because, of course, there was — in the annual report, there was a mention of — of looking into it. And some people — there was two reactions that we got. One was, I'd really love to see it on iPhone. I can't wait for it to come over. The other is, How does it — or people maybe who haven't even used it say, How — how does this differ from what's already out there?

LS: Right.

JM: And then, obviously, there are some differences. So that — you're kind of — it's still, like, in that kind of exploration phase at this point? Trying to decide —

LS: Exactly, yeah.

JM: Trying to decide if it's worthwhile or whatever. So —

LS: Yeah. It's — it's not like — you know, if it was a 10-minute job, it'd be a no-brainer; but it's a pretty significant developer effort. Even though we've got — we've got the hardest part done — a good design. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs)

LS: And, you know, we've even been toying around with the idea of doing sort of an HTML-based version so that it would run on Windows phones as well, but really still exploring all the possibilities along with that. Another thing we added to Nearby that's kind of interesting — this isn't for everybody, but we've had a few cases where people wanted to be able to actually download the maps over their cell data. And I'm — I'm telling you right up-front: This is going to eat up your month's allotment right — right then and there. But, you know, if you don't have access to —

JM: Yeah. I went over. (Laughs)

LS: Yeah.

JM: There was a time when I think there was a bug that allowed for that, or somehow it happened.


LS: Oh, is there? (Laughs)

JM: Well, I started on Wi-Fi and then came over — and then — and then turned off Wi-Fi, wasn't thinking. Next thing I know — you get the data alert. You're right — it's a few gigs.

LS: Yeah — oh, yeah. It's about 3.5, I think, actually. So there — but we've had a few customers ask to be able to do that, so we — we warn you appropriately —

JM: Some people have unlimited plans or really high plans, you know.

LS: Yeah, yeah. It takes a little longer on the cell, but it works.

JM: The power of choice is — is always good.

LS: Yep. Exactly.

JM: And if people want to get that, of course, that's on — on Google Play.

LS: It is, yep.

JM: For 99 bucks, and —

LS: Just — just search for Nearby Explorer — probably throw in GPS as a term there, too, because —

JM: All right.

LS: I know, when you search for Nearby Explorer, it's not the first thing that pops up, oddly enough.

JM: Awesome. Of course, aph.org is the website for — I mean, can't cover every single product that you have here in one podcast. That would go on for about three days.

LS: Yeah, don't want to dominate J.J.'s show here. (Laughs)

JM: (Laughs) Thank you so much, Larry. We appreciate you coming on.

LS: My pleasure.

JM: If people want to get ahold of you, what's the best way to do that?

LS: My email address is lskutchan@aph.org, which is lskutchan@aph.org.

JM: Right. Thanks, Larry.

LS: Thank you, J.J.

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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.


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