J.J. becomes the Keymaster in this interview. Okay, "Ghostbusters" movie references aside, J.J. did find that some retro names in A.T. have been updated in some cool new ways. He spoke to Jarek Urbanski, CEO of Harpo, about the soon to be released Mountbatten Tutor and gets an overview of the device's menus and feature set. And if that wasn't old school enough, the duo discuss the return of the Jot a Dot. For those listening to the audio, and not reading the transcript below, J.J. did capture the sounds of both on the quieter than normal CSUN Exhibit Hall floor. To learn more about these products, including the BraillePen Slim, visit the Harpo website
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Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed By Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Anaheim, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 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 J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: CSUN 2020, towards the end of the first day of the Exhibit Hall. I’m here with Jarek Urbanski, CEO of Harpo. I hope I got your name at least close to correct. But they got a couple new products here. Actually, a new product and an old product.
Jarek, welcome to the podcast.
JAREK URBANSKI: Yeah. You got my name just perfect.
JM: Awesome. Great. Great. So there’s been many iterations of the Mountbatten over the years, and this new one is called the Mountbatten Tutor. Tell me about what’s in front of me here.
JU: Yeah. It basically does what all Mountbatten did, but now, it’s internet-enabled, and it has its own display, so it can do all in one piece. However, it’s in two pieces because it has a detachable wireless keyboard. So –
JM: Right. So I think the one previous, did it also have a detachable keyboard or – this definitely seems newer and quieter than what I looked at before.
JU: The previous was Whisperer.
JM: Yeah.
JU: But even if that doesn’t name, and it doesn’t say anything about whispering, it’s even quieter.
JM: This thing is quieter.
JU: Yeah.
JM: Is it on, currently here?
JU: Yeah. Try it.
JM: What’s this? I’m doing this with one hand, so –
JU: Uh-huh. What you’re hearing now is the first letter got deleted, so –
JM: Oh, okay.
JU: -- different style.
JM: Okay, so it actually will delete letters.
JU: Yeah.
JM: Oh, okay.
JU: The old ones could do this too.
JM: Yeah. Sure.
JU: This one can do it even better, and, as mentioned, it speaks. And it speaks with voice that is -- a synthetic voice, so it can read words and sentences.
JM: Can we hear the voice?
JU: Yeah.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: (A garbled word.)
JM: Okay. That’s not a real word. That’s whatever I typed with one hand and –
JU: Yes.
JM: So don’t blame the voice, blame me for that one. The detachable keyboard in the front -- we’ll described that -- has an array of buttons that has an eight-dot Braille keyboard, so kind of four on the left and four on the right with a spacebar in the front, two additional keys in the top left corner that are kind of rectangular. What do those do?
JU: They do the same as the PC keyboard keys, which is the escape and tab --
JM: Okay.
JU: -- on the left. And there are two similar keys on the right, which is the backspace and enter.
JM: Okay. And then –
JU: So, you –
JM: Under that, I see a dial.
JU: The dial is for menu navigation. It’s -- whenever you press the middle key for longer -- for longer than a second, then you will get into a menu. And then you will be able to dial or press up and down, left and right.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Main menu. File, menu.
JM: Ah. There you go.
JU: Yeah.
JM: So now, we’re in the menu.
JU: So now, the new Mountbatten has the menu too. The old Mountbatten was only of commands. And you could use commands that you needed to know.
JM: Sure.
JU: The menu does the same without knowing the commands. Of course, the commands in the menu are repeated as they were. So the old users can just use the same things that they did with the old Mountbatten.
JM: Great. So what are some of the features that make this into a Tutor, or what kind of features are included on this unit?
JU: The most important is that it’s internet-enabled. What it gives is that a teacher can control a student remotely, that the student can play with other students remotely or in the same room on a network that can be local or remote network. It also has games, and these games can be downloaded from our server whenever they show on our server. So there will be lots of them in future.
JM: What kind of games?
JU: The first game that’s available here is Key Master. It’s a program of learning Braille letters starting from dots, then starting with the first ten letters, then second ten letters, then words that use only the first ten letters, and then all letters, et cetera.
JM: It’s a typing tutor, but for Braille.
JU: Typing tutor plus quiz –
JM: Yeah.
JU: -- plus possibility to interact with your friends by playing with them plus who will be typing better --
JM: That’s very cool.
JU: -- more accurate, et cetera, et cetera.
JM: Okay. The Tutor, the Mountbatten Tutor. When is it going to be released, and what’s the cost going to be?
JU: The cost is going to be same as the previous model, Mountbatten Brailler Whisperer Learning System.
JM: Uh-huh.
JU: So the full-feature Mountbatten Brailler. We weren’t going to change – I’m not going to give you the numbers because it depends on the market and –
JM: Okay.
JU: -- it’s – but they basically expect the same prices.
JM: Do you know roughly the U.S. cost or –
JU: I believe it’s 3400 or something like this.
JM: Okay. Okay.
JU: And don’t ask me for details, if it’s including all these things or not.
JM: That’s fine. No problem. And when’s it going to be released?
JU: It will be released soon, and I’m a little afraid of telling you exact date because –
JM: I understand.
JU: -- because I made it early once, and I missed it.
JM: I understand.
JU: That should happen in a month, not later.
JM: Who is distributing this in the U.S.?
JU: It’s Humanware.
JM: That’s what I thought. Okay. That’s great. One more thing before the show closings and we wrap up today. A bit of a throwback.
This is not an April Fools’ thing. You brought back something old that’s now new again.
JU: Yes. It’s Jot-a-Dot.
JM: Oh yeah.
JU: That looks basically same, but it’s different colors now. We improved a little the construction, but basically, it’s the same thing that it used to be.
JM: Explain what that is for people who might be new.
JU: This is a purely mechanical device for typing, little similar to a slate for typing – for writing Braille. But then you use normal six -- Perkins type -- six-dot Braille keyboard.
JM: It’s almost like a mini Perkins; right? Because you feed the paper in. It uses paper that’s that little bit narrower than Braille paper; correct?
JU: Yeah. It’s like a six or –
JM: Okay.
JU: -- a multiple – a six.
JM: I’m sure you can find it at like – like at an office supply store or –
JU: Yes. Or you can just cut it out of any letter – copy paper you have at home.
JM: Right. So if you feed it in like a Perkins Brailler, but it’s narrower; right? Am I representing this correctly or –
JU: Yes. It’s narrower. It can be shorter or the same length as – anything you have.
JM: Yeah.
JU: Basically, we provide some set of paper that’s good for that. And it’s –
JM: Where is it sitting here?
JU: -- quite a lot.
JM: Okay. So it’s about – what is it? Four or five inches? Maybe four inches? Three and a half, four inches wide? You can put in Index cards in this thing; right? I would think.
JU: Yeah.
JM: Yeah. That would fit in there. Could you put that in – can we type on that for a second so that our listeners can hear what it sounds like?
JU: Yeah. So I have it already in, so we can type.
JM: Okay. Go for it.
JU: Let me. Let me move over it. Okay. Just a second. Okay. Now it’s –
JM: All right.
JU: Let me type on the table.
JM: Yeah. It sounds very similar to a Perkins, but it’s smaller. Compared to a Perkins, it’s a lot smaller, more portable. You can kind of carry it around. And it’s cheaper too, so --
JU: And you can read it from underneath whenever you finish a line.
JM: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. So what was behind the decision to bring back a product like this?
JU: We got a good deal with the owner, previous owner of Jot-a-Dot which is Quantech from Australia.
JM: Uh-huh.
JU: And we used to sell it, resell it for a long time. And we found it interesting product. Not very high yield or high volume, but still giving us some edge in the Braille world, so we wanted to keep it.
JM: Very cool. Is Humanware going to sell that here in the U.S. as well, do you know?
JU: Not yet agreed, but –
JM: Okay.
JU: -- I hope so.
JM: Awesome. Well, great. And how much is that going to cost about?
JU: Three nighty-nine dollars.
JM: All right. If people want to get more information about Harpo, what’s the best way to contact you?
JU: Harpo is available at the webpage, www.int.harpo.com.pl.
JM: And Harpo is H-A-R-P-O for anyone –
JU: That’s correct.
JM: -- who might not be familiar.
All right. Thank you so much for coming on then. Really appreciate it.
JU: Thanks a lot.
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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.
