Neal Kuniansky, Director of marketing and Sales for Duxbury Systems, is no stranger to the BBQ Exhibit Hall microphones. Moreover, he might be slightly infamous for his aid in a past April's Fool podcast. But this interview is about Duxbury's future and J.J. gets the low down on the new features in 12.6 for Windows and Mac OS. Tune in, or read the transcript below, to get some insights on EBRF and multi-line braille display support as well. To learn more about 12.6, which has been released since the time we recorded this, or to purchase an upgrade to an existing product, visit the Duxbury Systems website
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Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
Directly, and actually in person, from Anaheim, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2022. 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 online technology magazine. Www.afb.org/aw.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: Blind Bargains CSUN 2022. You know, it wouldn’t be a CSUN without a conversation with Neal Kuniansky, director of sales and marketing for Duxbury. It’s almost like a tradition. We got to sit down and talk about the latest with Duxbury.
Welcome back to the podcast one more time.
NEAL KUNIANSKY: Well, thank you very much. I’m going to use my A.M. voice just for a second to see if you’re actually listening. I apologize for those of you –
JM: You remember – you remember when we –
*NK: -- who threw things?
JM: -- did the April Fools’ thing the one year, and you were talking about the Duxbury from the ‘90s as if it were new?
NK: Yes. I got a couple of calls on that actually.
JM: That’s awesome.
NK: It was fun.
JM: Well, that’s old. This is new. 12-point – I’m always mixing up on these numbers. Where are you at? You’re at twelve five –
NK: Okay.
JM: -- so you just released something.
NK: Yeah.
JM: -- in the –
NK: *Twelve five sure is released. Four is our current shipping version.
JM: Okay.
NK: And hopefully in -- I will say two to six weeks, but don’t hold me to that time line – we’ll be shipping 12.6.
JM: All right. So what are some of the – you know, it’s been a little while. So what are some of the features that have been added recently?
NK: We have done an amazing amount of language table improvements, both print-to-Braille and Braille-to-print. So we’re roughly at about 206 to 210 language variants now.
JM: Wow.
NK: I know. It’s scary. And if we had a couple of hours, I would read off the list. I don’t know them anywhere near by heart. But all of the major – 11 major South African languages have all been improved. There have been a lot of UEB table corrections and amplifications and including several new formatting issues that BANA has decided to change, fix.
JM: Okay.
NK: Then – I’m not going to go through the other languages, but there’s a ton of them -- Asian, African, European -- that have had major changes, as well as some smaller changes in French, the various Englishes, as it were. There have been a lot of embosser changes, both with new embossers since the last version came out and amplifications and improvements to some of these embossers. This particularly applies to people using some of the bigger Braillo production machines --
JM: Sure.
NK: -- and some of the other manufacturers’ big production machines with improved paper handling, formatting, and flexibility with those. Then a lot of improvements with the DBT editor, including a few recently discovered bugs, if I can use that word --
JM: Hmm?
NK: -- we were – we have now squashed and gotten rid of.
JM: All right.
NK: New JAWS script files are coming down the line as well. And a lot of these are just constantly evolving. So if you have a problem with your Duxbury, please don’t beat your head against the wall. Whatever you do, don’t throw your computer out the window. Give us a call or Email, and if we can’t fix it, if you’ve discovered a bug, that’s great, but usually, tech support can get you straightened out very quickly.
JM: I do have to say, I have gone through tech support a couple of times, and it is some of the most topnotch support that you can get. People really know -- you have longtime staff that know their stuff, and you could probably ask about some esoteric embosser from, like, the ‘90s and get an answer for it.
NK: If you can find a Cranmer Brailler and figure out how to cable it to a computer, we can still drive it.
JM: Sure. That’s old.
There’s a lot of new multiline displays and tablets and things coming out. How do you fit that into the world of translation and embossers?
NK: Ah. Thank you. You reminded me of something else that’s new.
JM: All right.
NK: In 12.5 SR4, that is going to be improved in *twelve six. With some of the multiline displays. I’ll talk particularly about the Canute 360 because it’s in the top of my memory right now.
JM: Right.
NK: We’re – essentially, you can drive your Duxbury and tell it that Canute is an embosser, and it’ll be listed under embossers, and download your file to the Canute. And then you can treat it the way you would any other files. So it’s loaded into that memory, you can annotate it, you can read it, you can scroll, you can search, you can do all the features that it can do. And this is also going on with other multiline refreshable – I’m calling them refreshable Braille Displays. I don’t even know if that’s –
JM: Right.
NK: -- an appropriate term –
JM: Depending on what they are.
NK: -- for these devices.
JM: Yeah.
NK: There’s been a lot of work with notetakers as well. And so that’s also – there’s been – it’s just a huge improvement with the ability. Pretty soon, you’ll be noticing some new changes with JAWS that will help you very much with reading math, and I’ll leave that there.
JM: All right.
NK: But there’s been some great collaboration work that’s gone on that I think is going to make a big difference to people with that. Bringing in math ML files to Duxbury for creating Braille math. That will be – I can’t remember if that was actually turned on in 12.5 SR4 or if it was still considered experimental, but that will also be coming to *twelve six when it comes out.
JM: So you mentioned your work with the Canute, which is, of course, the nine-line, 40 cells per line display. Regular Braille lines, so maybe the more traditional BRF works there. And then you have other things that are more these multigrid array tablets and a lot of work being done on the EBRF formats. Do you have involvement in those areas as well?
NK: Yes. We’ve been asked to collaborate with that and the guys who actually understand this much better than I do. We’ve had a lot of communication with APH which is currently the home –
JM: Right.
NK: -- for EBRF. And it’s still definitely – it’s in its gestation period. It’s not settled yet, but they’ve been looking for comments from numerous people, organizations that are considered sort of authorities around the world. And – to give feedback on the specs, to try to define it and move it much closer to reality.
JM: Very well. So if people want to get more information about Duxbury, let them know how much it costs, and where they can get it.
NK: Yup. You can get it from our website, from your local accessibility dealer, or from us directly. Our website is very tricky, tricky. Www.duxburyystems.com, and that’s D as in delta – oh. I can’t do the letters. Sorry. D-u-x-b-u-r-y S-y-s-t-e-m-s.com. Or you can call us here in the U.S. at (978) 692-3000, 9 to 4:30 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday. You can Email us at – I would go to orders@duxsys.com. That’s orders, plural, at D-u-x-s-y-s.com. Upgrades are anything from free to $445 –
JM: Okay.
NK: -- depending on the age, and a brand new license is $695. And the pricing is same for our two main consumer products, of course, the DBT Win and DBT Mac. Also coming out in the not distant future will be a new version of NimPro, which is used for publisher files and textbook production.
JM: Okay.
NK: And NimPro’s an add-on to DBT, and the new NimPro -will be handling EPUB3 files --
JM: Nice.
NK: -- as well as other huge improvements to it.
JM: Great. Thank you so much for sharing. It’s always good to have you on the podcast. Thank you once again.
NK: Thank you and all the listeners, and come on out to see us sometime.
JM: Good to be back in person, isn’t it?
NK: It is. It definitely is.
JM: All right. Thanks.
NK: Thank you.
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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.
