Video Magnifiers have been adding more options and features as they adopt off the shelf technology in their design. But imagine Joe's surprise when John Palmer, President of Patriot Vision Industries, informed him that you could use Alexa with a Video Magnifier. In this interview the pair discuss the new features of the Patriot Pro including voice control. The interview also provides and overview of the new Edge Mode feature that came to the Patriot Viewpoint last year. Lastly, John gives a sneak peek at a product coming to CSUNATC 2020. To learn more about the products mentioned in this interview, visit the Patriot Vision Industries website
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Transcript
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Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
From beautiful, and sunny, cloudy Orlando, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of ATIA 2020, brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology; book reviews; and mobile apps and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free monthly online technology magazine. www.AFB.org/AW.
Now, here’s Joe Steincamp.
JOE STEINCAMP: Here on the floor of ATIA, and I’m here with John Palmer of Patriot Vision. I heard something talk over here. Wait a minute, video magnifiers don’t talk. Tell me about this, John. What’s going on?
JP: Hey, Joe. Absolutely, they do, here at Patriot Vision Industries, in our booth, number 903 here at ATIA 20, our video magnifiers don’t just talk, but they listen.
JS: Oh. Really?
JP: Oh yeah.
JS: Tell me more.
JP: Well, you can interact with them. Because with our video magnifying machine, we’re the world’s only one built around something called an iPad Pro.
JS: Oh, yeah. I know that.
JP: Yeah. We’ve heard of that name; right?
JS: Yeah. Uh-huh.
JP: So what we did was we partnered by approaching – getting our software--
JS: Uh-huh.
JP: -- put onto this iPad Pro.
JS: Okay.
JP: We built a custom stand, and it’s called the patriot pro. So it’s a product that will listen to you when you want to ask Siri something, or you want to just simply put any app you want on it –
JS: Right.
JP: -- like Alexa, for instance.
JS: Oh yeah.
JP: Or you could command it with our wake-up order, just "Patriot." "Patriot, make bigger. Patriot, make smaller. Patriot, change color. Patriot, you know, take picture, read to me."
And, you know, we utilize the technology because we know that it’s mainstream, and it’s only going to get better and better. And it gets updated automatically at no extra cost. We update our software and apps at no extra cost, allowing someone today with the -- basically, having it all in one device. It weighs under 2 pounds, and, quite frankly, they can use for everything else.
JS: That is what a lot of people have talked about in the freeing of being locked into a traditional monitor. You know, in the old days, we’d just get a Samsung or a Sony, and we’d be kind of stuck at that point because it was a dumb monitor. But now, with iPads and what have you, you have the option to do so much more, and that can carry over into other parts of it.
So can you copy things out of the app into other places? Can you grab that text, interact with it, or is it really just a magnification situation?
JP: Okay. So, yeah. In fact, it is magnification in realtime so that you can fill in forms and sign checks and –
JS: Got you.
JP: -- other things like that.
JS: Okay.
JP: But it also captures the image to do the text-to-speech and allow you to save the image. And it puts it in a cache of files in your hard drive there in your tablet –
JS: Right.
JP: And you can elect not to have it save --
JS: Sure.
JP: -- but why –
JS: And with the Files app, you could actually export that if you wanted to. Yeah.
JP: Exactly. Exactly. You can. And you can use all the applications available to do whatever you want to do that you would do on your iPad anyway.
JS: Uh-huh.
JP: If you have an iPhone, for instance, of course, your account, having it on your device is just –
JS: Yeah.
JP: -- a nice way of having it sync.
JS: Right.
JP: And then using a Cloud service there. It’s just – it’s been phenomenal --
JS: Yeah.
JP: -- for not only students, which, you know, are in school --
JS: Right.
JP: -- but the adults, and even the seniors. In fact, we had a 92-year-old lady that said, oh, my goodness. This is exactly what I want. I don’t want big, chunky machines.
JS: Right.
JP: I want this.
JS: Right. Something that looks attractive, something that –
JP: Yeah.
JS: -- fits her lifestyle, and even is fashion conscious. You know, because it really –
JP: Oh, yeah.
JS: -- really matters to 9 or 92, you know, in the classroom.
JP: Absolutely.
JS: Right.
JP: Yeah.
JS: And so it’s using speech. Which speech – that sounded like –
JP: So the speech engine is what’s built into the iPad.
JS: IPad. Okay.
JP: It’s typically -- Nuance is one of the big companies that creates speech for the –
JS: Uh-huh.
JP: -- for the technology.
JS: Okay.
JP: But you could select all the voices that you would select within the iPad’s battery of voices.
JS: Okay.
JP: There’s, like, literally –
JS: Okay.
JP: -- lots of choices.
JS: So it’s not really using VoiceOver, but it’s using the same kind of –
JP: Oh.
JS: -- TTS that you would find?
JP: Correct. Correct.
JS: Okay.
JP: Beauty thing about VoiceOver I wanted to make mention, and about our product, is all of it’s compatible. They wouldn’t have been certified by Apple if it wasn’t.
JS: Right.
JP: So if you invoke VoiceOver at any moment while using our applications and our device, they’ll change a little bit to make sure that you could still do what you need to do using VoiceOver.
JS: Right.
JP: And that’s a big deal that –
JS: Especially for people who are transitioning, maybe –
JP: Yeah.
JS: -- going from low-vision to no vision or from somebody in a tech center that may have to demonstrate it with somebody with low vision having no vision themselves.
JP: Right. We had a young child actually, might have been 12 years old, I guess, write us a letter about the product after he acquired it through the school. And he was just – fascinating – when he wrote in his letter, this is cool. This is cool. This is cool. And what I think he was – basically, what I interpret is, you know, being in an institute for 33 years, I can put something in front of someone in a public classroom and all the other students, really and truly, it doesn’t say anything other than this is cool, meaning it’s normal, you know –
JS: Uh-huh.
JP: -- it’s not something that’s – it says, oh. This is a specialized piece of equipment –
JS: Right.
JP: -- that has to be, you know, lugged around in a cart, you know.
JS: Yeah.
JP: And that’s what he was saying, you know. And in a way, he was saying is I so much enjoy using this. And all his friends think it’s the coolest thing ever, so, you know.
JS: Right. So updates that have recently happened is some of that?
JP: Oh. Yeah. I’m glad you mentioned. The edge mode. We’ve introduced it now into our Patriot Viewpoint, the wearable.
JS: Uh-huh.
JP: The world-class flagship product that we have had. So we can outline edges of the environment. So it’d be like looking at an illustrated drawing of the environment.
JS: Right.
JP: And that has helped in RP, especially white on black background. You could do red, green, blue; white and black; and doing the edge mode –
JS: So if I look at Tony Stark, I could actually see, like, he was a comic book with edges. That’d be nice.
JP: Including how many eyebrow lashes he might have on his eyebrows. Yeah. An RP client said to us, a fellow named Adam –
JS: Yeah.
JP: -- he goes, you know, I counted the number of ice cubes in my glass.
JS: Wow.
JP: And I’m like, okay. Now, that’s really important to do; right?
JS: Wow. Yeah.
JP: And he said, well, no. But I could look at a distance and see how many stairs are in the Library of Congress.
JS: Hey. Sure.
JP: And I’m like, wow. I can’t do that because they’re all white concrete and the edges are not demarcated.
JS: Well, if you’re in a hotel bar –
JP: Yeah. Yeah.
JS: -- it’s nice to know how much ice cubes you’d –
JP: Heck yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that’s where he was at, as a matter of fact.
JS: Yeah. There you go.
JP: So I was like, oh. I was fascinated with how -- people – just – that’s what stokes us. That’s what really drives us is our clients.
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: You guys come out, you sit there, and you tell us what you’re doing it for.
JS: The unique use cases. Yeah. Exactly.
JP: Oh yeah. And I’m like, oh man. Can I use that as a story? Can I use that as a story? And they’re like, go – be welcome to it --
JS: Yeah.
JP: -- because they’re so happy.
JS: Yeah.
JP: And that’s what’s important. We service everything that we sell, we support it, and I mean, it’s just been phenomenal.
JS: So edge enhancement. I cut you off. So what else? Right.
JP: Oh. So we added lower magnification, which is the antithesis you would think –
JS: Hmm.
JP: -- but we go .8, .6, .5, .4.
JS: Right.
JP: So with RP, retinitis pigmentosa --
JS: Right.
JP: -- that restrictive field of view is condensed. So the square gets smaller, and the screen gets smaller. It’s pretty neat.
JS: And even just a point can make a big difference.
JP: Yes. And that’s what they requested. We added higher brightness, which is another thing that was requested.
JS: Right.
JP: So we had limited, or governed the –
JS: Right.
JP: -- amount of brightness.
JS: Yeah.
JP: But now, we’ve tweaked it so that with RP, once again, more brightness is better, 7 o’clock at night could look at 3 o’clock in the afternoon –
JS: Sure. Sure.
JP: -- they’re going to be able to navigate –
JS: Sure.
JP: -- outside concerts, theater, venues like live entertainment –
JS: Sure.
JP: -- all that.
JS: Or even just coming in out of the –
JP: Oh.
JS: -- for this Exhibit Hall. You’ve got –
JP: That’s true.
JS: -- natural lighting in the hallway. And so by the time somebody comes in there, they’re already doing that kind of motion where they’re waiting for their eyes to adjust.
JP: Exactly. With our disease, we know that it delays that sort of adjustment.
JS: Uh-uh huh.
JP: But anything we can do to improve and cocoon their eyesight, which we do on Patriot Viewpoint, that’s great.
We’ve added the wake up word, Patriot. Now, that’s important because no false recognition. So if you say, Patriot, then you could give it commands like make bigger, make smaller, change color --
JS: Right. Right.
JP: -- take picture. So –
JS: And it’s not a word that’s going to come up every day in the conversation.
JP: Correct. Right.
JS: Yeah.
JP: And, you know, Alexa’s got Alexa –
JS: Yeah.
JP: -- and that could turn on something that you didn’t even know had – like a thermostat in your wall. It’s like, you know –
JS: There you go. Exactly.
JP: Whereas this one, Patriot is unique. So it’s our brand too.
JS: Okay. Cool. Did we hit on the high points?
JP: Yeah.
JS: All right.
JP: I do. I believe we really did.
JS: Okay. So if people want to learn more about Patriot Vision and the units that we talked about in this particular interview, where should they go?
JP: Okay. Patriotvisionindustries.com will give you a – really, the most comprehensive website to go to. Certainly, you could see the videos and listen to them and the photo gallery. There’s demonstration videos. By the way, my son, Charles –
JS: Uh-huh.
JP: -- he took off today from Orlando to go to Dubai.
JS: Oh wow. Okay.
JP: So we’re going kind of far away, but hey, that’s what we have to do.
JS: Yeah.
JP: And that’s what we want to do to reach more people.
JS: Sure.
JP: So he’s on a website doing that. And then, our Lisa, who’s with me here today, our Lisa Reyes–
JS: Yeah. Yeah.
JP: She is in a video there explaining ATIA from last year. And then, we’ll be soon posting a video from this year, which I think is great. So people can gather around that website, patriotvisionindustries.com. Or they could dial 1800-364-1608.
JS: Perfect. Thank you so much for your time, John. I really appreciate it, and I look forward to what’s coming out. Anything new – teasing before CSUN? Should we come back by?
JP: Oh. Well, there’s a stand-alone reader that a lot of clients enjoyed all those years that I had supplied the previous products. Well, this stand-alone reader -- it’s going to be called Patriot Voice EZ -- is unique. It’s just three rotary knobs.
JS: Oh.
JP: And that’s really cool.
JS: Ease of use. Okay.
JP: Yes. Yes. Yeah.
JS: So we’ll have to come back by in Anaheim. All right.
JP: That’s right.
JS: Sounds good.
JP: All right.
JS: That’s called the teas of the podcast industry, ladies and gentlemen. John, thank you again for your time.
JP: Yeah. You’re welcome.
JS: From the floor of ATIA, this is Joe Steincamp for Blind Bargains. Stay tuned for more interviews as they come up in the feed, and as we mentioned earlier, we’ll have CSUN coverage in just a few months.
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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.
