Podcasts about cctvs

While surveillance & action have increased since CCTVs were installed last year, the problem of recreational hunting of migratory birds has been a challenge for years. https://theprint.in/environment/winter-birds-are-back-at-wular-lake-so-is-poaching-jk-authorities-step-up-vigil-at-ramsar-site/2409752/

How Singapore intends to settle noise disputes more effectively. Synopsis: Every second Monday of the month, The Straits Times takes a hard look at Singapore's social issues of the day with guests. Settling noise disputes will be easier with mandatory mediation as the Community Disputes Management Framework (CDMF) is enhanced, under the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill.  Involved with how the framework can be enhanced is grassroots leader Raymond Poh. In this episode, Lynda Hong and co-host Christie Chiu speak with him to hear about his 14 years of experience in dealing with noise disputes, and how mediation has been effective in resolving disputes between neighbours (with an 80 per cent success rate with voluntary mediation cases). Mr Poh also shares how the Community Advisory Panel's (CAP) recommendations, along with the proposed CDMF enhancements, may help neighbours better understand one another and find middle ground.  The authorities also intend to allow the Housing Board to consider compulsory acquisition of flats as a deterrent and “the absolute last resort for severe, recalcitrant nuisance-making”. This measure will be considered only when all other levers have failed, and acquisition is needed to protect the interests of other residents, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of Law and Ministry of National Development said in a joint statement in August, adding that this will be similar to how HDB can consider compulsory acquisition of flats for those convicted of throwing killer litter under the Penal Code. This podcast is brought to you by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY): https://www.mccy.gov.sg Highlights (click/tap above): 1:25 CCTVs, noise sensors and detective work - a memorable dispute that Mr Poh had mediated  7:38 Different forms of mediation 8:19 The difference between the Community Mediation Centre (CMC) and the Community Disputes Resolution Tribunals (CDRT) 10:09 What are the new proposed enhancements to the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill?  11:23 More noise complaints with population growth in Singapore 12:26 Proposed enhancements to the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill More on the Community Disputes Management Framework: https://go.gov.sg/cdmf-enhancements Read ST's Opinion section: https://str.sg/w7sH Read Christie Chiu's articles: https://str.sg/3ESxU Hosts: Lynda Hong (lyndahong@sph.com.sg) and Christie Chiu (christiec@sph.com.sg) Produced and edited by: Amirul Karim Executive producer: Ernest Luis Follow In Your Opinion Podcast here and get notified for new episode drops: Channel: https://str.sg/w7Qt Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/wukb Spotify: https://str.sg/w7sV Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg --- Follow more ST podcast channels: All-in-one ST Podcasts channel: https://str.sg/wvz7 ST Podcast website: http://str.sg/stpodcasts ST Podcasts YouTube: https://str.sg/4Vwsa --- Get The Straits Times' app, which has a dedicated podcast player section: The App Store: https://str.sg/icyB Google Play: https://str.sg/icyX --- #inyouropinionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How Singapore intends to settle noise disputes more effectively. Synopsis: Every second Monday of the month, The Straits Times takes a hard look at Singapore's social issues of the day with guests. Settling noise disputes will be easier with mandatory mediation as the Community Disputes Management Framework (CDMF) is enhanced, under the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill.  Involved with how the framework can be enhanced is grassroots leader Raymond Poh. In this episode, Lynda Hong and co-host Christie Chiu speak with him to hear about his 14 years of experience in dealing with noise disputes, and how mediation has been effective in resolving disputes between neighbours (with an 80 per cent success rate with voluntary mediation cases). Mr Poh also shares how the Community Advisory Panel's (CAP) recommendations, along with the proposed CDMF enhancements, may help neighbours better understand one another and find middle ground.  The authorities also intend to allow the Housing Board to consider compulsory acquisition of flats as a deterrent and “the absolute last resort for severe, recalcitrant nuisance-making”. This measure will be considered only when all other levers have failed, and acquisition is needed to protect the interests of other residents, the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of Law and Ministry of National Development said in a joint statement in August, adding that this will be similar to how HDB can consider compulsory acquisition of flats for those convicted of throwing killer litter under the Penal Code. This podcast is brought to you by the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY): https://www.mccy.gov.sg Highlights (click/tap above): 1:25 CCTVs, noise sensors and detective work - a memorable dispute that Mr Poh had mediated  7:38 Different forms of mediation 8:19 The difference between the Community Mediation Centre (CMC) and the Community Disputes Resolution Tribunals (CDRT) 10:09 What are the new proposed enhancements to the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill?  11:23 More noise complaints with population growth in Singapore 12:26 Proposed enhancements to the Community Disputes Resolution (Amendment) Bill More on the Community Disputes Management Framework: https://go.gov.sg/cdmf-enhancements Read ST's Opinion section: https://str.sg/w7sH Read Christie Chiu's articles: https://str.sg/3ESxU Hosts: Lynda Hong (lyndahong@sph.com.sg) and Christie Chiu (christiec@sph.com.sg) Produced and edited by: Amirul Karim Executive producer: Ernest Luis Follow In Your Opinion Podcast here and get notified for new episode drops: Channel: https://str.sg/w7Qt Apple Podcasts: https://str.sg/wukb Spotify: https://str.sg/w7sV Feedback to: podcast@sph.com.sg --- Follow more ST podcast channels: All-in-one ST Podcasts channel: https://str.sg/wvz7 ST Podcast website: http://str.sg/stpodcasts ST Podcasts YouTube: https://str.sg/4Vwsa --- Get The Straits Times' app, which has a dedicated podcast player section: The App Store: https://str.sg/icyB Google Play: https://str.sg/icyX --- #inyouropinionSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was the first Halloween that the streets would be open in Seoul, South Korea, since the start of the COVID pandemic, and young people in the city couldn't wait to go celebrate in the vibrant Itaewon neighborhood. Many of them wouldn't make it home. Videos: Paramount+: Crush [Video] Special police unit reveals CCTVs of Itaewon tragedy The results of 74-day probe into Itaewon tragedy Kieran Porey: Itaewon Halloween 2022 video Seoul Halloween crowd crush, the stories of survivors | Undercover Korea Articles and books: ‘Reminders everywhere': Halloween crush haunts survivors one year after Itaewon crowd disaster Chronology of major stampedes in S. Korea Fact-checking some of the claims about Itaewon disaster "How long has it been since the Itaewon tragedy?"-Knetz reacts as local fire department shuts down Boiler Room concert amid reported crowd congestion Seoul's Itaewon Nightlife District Was Built for Tragedy A Vibrant Refuge in Seoul Goes Quiet After Deadly Crowd Crush It was chaos': how my Halloween night out in Itaewon went from fun to horror Four factors behind the tragic Itaewon crowd surge They Completely Failed': The Fatal Mistakes That Led to South Korea's Halloween Tragedy Families of Seoul crowd-crush victims want more justice amid probes South Korean minister impeached over Itaewon crowd crush

It was the first Halloween that the streets would be open in Seoul, South Korea, since the start of the COVID pandemic, and young people in the city couldn't wait to go celebrate in the vibrant Itaewon neighborhood. Many of them wouldn't make it home. Videos: Paramount+: Crush [Video] Special police unit reveals CCTVs of Itaewon tragedy The results of 74-day probe into Itaewon tragedy Kieran Porey: Itaewon Halloween 2022 video Seoul Halloween crowd crush, the stories of survivors | Undercover Korea Articles and books: ‘Reminders everywhere': Halloween crush haunts survivors one year after Itaewon crowd disaster Chronology of major stampedes in S. Korea Fact-checking some of the claims about Itaewon disaster "How long has it been since the Itaewon tragedy?"-Knetz reacts as local fire department shuts down Boiler Room concert amid reported crowd congestion Seoul's Itaewon Nightlife District Was Built for Tragedy A Vibrant Refuge in Seoul Goes Quiet After Deadly Crowd Crush It was chaos': how my Halloween night out in Itaewon went from fun to horror Four factors behind the tragic Itaewon crowd surge They Completely Failed': The Fatal Mistakes That Led to South Korea's Halloween Tragedy Families of Seoul crowd-crush victims want more justice amid probes South Korean minister impeached over Itaewon crowd crush

Are you okay with having CCTVs record what you're doing in the Airbnbs you stay at while on your travels?  Airbnb recently announced that they're putting a worldwide ban on all security cameras inside rental properties using their services, and that takes effect by the end of this month (April).  On this episode of Morning Shot, Xavier Lim, Associate Director at Yeo & Associates LLC delves into the legalities behind Airbnb's latest move and the challenges of successful implementation. Presented by: Emaad Akhtar & Audrey Siek Produced & Edited by: Yeo Kai Ting (ykaiting@sph.com.sg) Photo/graphics credits: pixabay & its talented community of contributors See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a conversation you would want to listen to especially if you have an elderly family member at home.  Started as a R&D team consisting of a group of engineers from the Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Soundeye is a social enterprise that uses sound recognition and radar sensors to detect abnormal events such as when an elderly member gets up out of bed or stands up from a wheelchair.  More notably, the startup aims to detect falls and calls for help without the use of CCTVs to ensure privacy.  The firm currently serves clients within and out of the elderly market, including the Thye Hua Kwan Nursing Home, the Bishan Home, the Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore, and even the Changi Airport Group.  It recently completed a number of projects related to surveillance and bed exit monitoring in a nursing home in Japan. Meanwhile, Soundeye is part of the Sustainable Impact Accelerator Programme by raiSE and Quest Ventures. It also works closely with government agencies here in Singapore, and has secured subsidies for up to 80% of its projects as of last May, based on a report by Krasia. But what is the strategic value of working with this group of players and how does the firm intend to rapidly scale up its business? On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway's finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Yeow Kee Tan, Chief Executive Officer, Soundeye.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Step out into the corridors of your HDB flats and you'll notice something watching over you: bulb-like cameras, quietly embedded in the walls.  These are no ordinary CCTVs — but PolCams (Police Cameras) that were rolled out to monitor public spaces like HDB corridors, car parks, and hawker centres.  To mark the upcoming International Women's Day on March 8, we speak with Rina Khoo, Chief Solutions Officer of Evvo Labs, the woman who changed crime solving for the SPF.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Coughlin was born in 1947 and had what most people would say is a somewhat normal childhood. I would agree, but it is relevant to say that Mike was diagnosed in the second grade with youth related Macular Degeneration. While he did not lose all his eyesight, he lost enough that reading, especially out loud in school, was not doable for him. In fact, his eye specialists did not even tell him that he was what we classify today as legally blind. Michael did not learn the true extent of his eye condition until he was in his twenties. He was not given access to what we call today assistive technology. Even so, he survived and flourished. He is an Eagle Scout and has achieved the highest rank in the Boy Scouts Order of the Arrow society. Mike secured a college degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Master's degree in Ocean Engineering from the University of Miami. Later he earned a second Master's degree in systems management (MSSM) from the University of Southern California's continuing education program. He worked for General Dynamics for seven years. Then he went with his boss to work for 20 years at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc in acoustics. He then worked, again as an underwater acoustical engineer, for 20 years at Boeing. Michael is clearly unstoppable. He will discuss the various technologies he began to use although somewhat later in life. He also will discuss just how he accomplished so much and, as you will see, it is all about attitude. About the Guest: Until early in my second-grade year at St. John the Baptist Catholic grammar school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, no-one knew my eyes were changing. It was the eye screening they provided that singled me out as having a problem. My wonderful parents, Joseph and Dorothy Coughlin, transplants to Fort Wayne from New York City, started trying to find out what was wrong. Eventually they learned it was Macular Degermation, something rarely found in young people. My earliest years were spent on a farm outside of Fort Wayne as my parents had moved from New York to Fort Wayne due to a transfer by the General Electric Company, where my father was an engineer. The transfer included a move to a rural rental farmhouse on a 40-acre farm and the birth of myself in 1947 and my brother two years later. My mother, with a master's degree in education from Columbia University, was raising my brother and I and teaching English at the local rural high school. During those four years my father took up hunting and growing a large garden, a big step for a kid from New York, and I learned about rural life with the ability to play on farm equipment and see many types of farm animals. Early on I wanted to be a farmer. Once I reached school age, we moved into Fort Wayne for the schools. Fort Wayne is a middle sized Mid-west city of about 250,000 people. It was like so many Mid-western cities of that day. We lived outside the center of the city and my schools, both grammar and high school, were made up of middle-class children. As my sight degraded, I was taken to several ophthalmologists and to the University of Indiana Medical Center, but learned little helpful information other than the details of my situation. My teachers accommodated me by letting me sit in front of class and because my outload reading skills where poor did not call on me to read aloud. Interestingly, I seemed to be able to hold things close to my eyes and comprehend the text I saw silently. Because I passed all written tests and my classes with satisfactory grades, they gave me. OK grades and passed me. My shining moments during my grade school years came in my achievement as a Boy Scout. I attained the rank of Eagle Scout with a Bronze Palm and was selected for all three steps in the Order of the Arrow. I also was the senior patrol leader for our troop. My years at Bishop Luers High School, a co-institutional Catholic school, were another matter. I succeeded from the start, earning high honors grades and selection as president of both the Junior and Senior National Honor Societies. I was a member of the yearbook staff and was given a leading part in the senior play. Although I am sure a number of the girls in my class had the higher grades, due to the non-mixing of most classes, class rankings were separated. So, I was 3rd in my class. of about 150 boys. I was also awarded the Indiana State Catholic Youth Leadership Award by the Knights of Columbus. I still had not been given information on my actual visual status nor information about assistive aides for the blind. Everything I did was by holding written materials close to my face, listening very attentively and not driving. I took the SAT and other tests such as an engineering aptitude test, I wanted to be like my father, an electrical engineer. I scored adequately on the SAT and highly on the aptitude test. I applied to four mid-western colleges and was accepted in all and chose to attend the University of Notre Dame in south Bend, Indiana, which I thought would be fairly near home. The summer after high school, I was an exchange student to France, where I lived with a French family for seven weeks and my counterpart lived with our family for seven. It was a great experience, but while in France, I learned my father had taken a job in Philadelphia. On my return, together with my family and my French counterpart, Francise, we moved to Strafford, PA, outside of Philadelphia. The move took me to a new part of the country and my summers in Philly were full of excitement with the exploration of a big city and learning about the Jersey Shore. During those summers, I worked for General Electric as an engineering aide. College went very well too. Nort Dame was a good experience. It was competitive but their Electrical Engineering Department was staffed with excellent professors who helped me through every step, but not as a person with a visual disability because I rarely mentioned it to anyone. Honestly, I am not sure why, but I tried to be as normal seeming as possible. I learned to take notes from verbal descriptions of what was being written on the blackboard and if a professor did not verbalize the writing, I asked him to do so, and he did. If I missed something, I left a blank in my notebook and obtained the missing information from a friend. I completed all my course work and had a 3.5 grade average at graduation and was selected to the Eta-Kappa-Nu honorary Electrical Engineering Fraternity. ND won the football national championship my sophomore year and that was a real highlight. During my senior year, it became obvious that due to a crash in the space program, jobs would be hard to find. I decided to go to graduate school and took the GRE and GMAT, again with no assistive help. One path I investigated was to get an MBA, and I had also heard from a friend, about Ocean Engineering. My advisor suggested I stay in engineer, because he felt my talents were best suited for it. Although I applied to several MBA programs, I also applied to the University of Miami in Ocean Engineering (OE). In addition to the advice I received to stay in engineering, it is possible the choice of Miami was because my brother was a sophomore there. I was accepted and given money at Miami, and the next year started my graduate studies in OE. Two years flew by during which I was married to my first wife Judi and I left Miami with an MS in OE. One course of suey in OE is underwater sound. It is focused on SONAR and is quite mathematical, just what an electrical engineer likes. During the summer of those two years, I was married to my first wife, Judi. The job market was still tight, but I interviewed and was hired into the Sound and Vibration group at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics (GDEB) due to my studies in underwater sound. Once in Connecticut, I found a very good ophthalmologist, Dr. Kaplan, and for the very first time, was told I was legally blind and what that meant. We had some long discussions after which he voiced some displeasure on how little information I had been given on my situation. He said he had to register me with the state and set me up with a low vision specialist. Those steps led me to getting a Closed-Circuit TV (CCTV) magnifier and access to the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (LBPH) and their Talking Book program. Both the CCTV and Talking Books opened my world to general reading and technical literature which I generally avoided due to the increasing strain of both the MD and the onset of myopia or age reeled eye changes. During seven years at GDEB I moved from engineer to supervisor and had the opportunity to earn a second master's degree in systems management (MSSM) from the University of Southern California's continuing education program offered at many military installations. For me it was at the submarine base in Groton CT. My wife and I bought a house and had our daughter, Laura. In 1978, my boss at EB opened an opportunity for me by interacting with associates at Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. (bbn), at the time, the foremost acoustics firm in the world. He opened a local, New London, CT, office of the firm and hired three of us to staff it. We continued working for the Navy, but as consultants. I stayed with bbn for twenty years and participated in many projects around the world. For the last ten years I was manager of a group of about 40 engineers and scientists, many ay of whom had Ph.D. or master's degrees. bbn provided me with several CCTVs and a Xerox/Kurz well scanner-reader. bbn was an early adopter of Ap-le Macintosh computers. One of my associates immediately found that all Mac's had magnification and text to speech features. This opened the computing world to me. (I had been able to deal with punch cards, but the computer screen with small letter left me out.) During these years, I was able to travel to Hawaii, Japan, and many cities in the US. My LBPH recorded books were constant companions. During this time, my daughter Laura was married and gave us a grandchild, Chloe. Throughout my working life, I have had the opportunity to give something back to several communities. I was on the advisory board for the Connecticut Stat Library for the Blind, on the Board of directors for CHRIS Radio, and on the Board of Directors for the Waterford Education Foundation I was president of a a Macular Support Group in Waterford, CT and am now on the Board of Directors for the Southeastern Connecticut Center of the Blind, where I conduct a support group for those with Macular on how to use digital technology. Shifts in the Department of Defense (DOD) business world produced some big layoffs at bbn. Thus, in 2000, I was searching for a job and with the help of a friend, connected with a group at the Boeing Company that worked in the undersea world, as opposed to most of the company which did airborne things. They were looking for someone who lived on the east coast who had a background like their work. The group was in Anaheim, CA, and then in Huntington Beach, CA. I fit the profile and after an interview was offered a. job as an off-site Technical Representative. Since I had no other solid offers, I accepted feeling the job would last at least a few years. The relationship lasted over 20 and provided a very rewarding end to my career. Boeing, like bbn was totally accommodating to my assistive needs. Although they computer usage was based on Windows PC's s, they provided me with special software which was now available on those platforms and with CCTV equipment as I needed. Someone was always available to assist in getting special software up and running. By the time I started with Boeing, LBPH cassette readers were small and made traveling with them quite easy. I also had a laptop with screen magnifier'/reader software and internet connectivity anywhere I needed ii. While at Boeing, family matters took some good and bad turns. My daughter and her husband had my second grandchild, Evan. The bad part is my long-time wife and partner, Judi, died of cancer. After the grieving time, where things seemed s unsteady. it all turned around, when I met and married my current wife, Karen. I am again on firm footing and life has not been better. As I grew nearer retirement and brought up the subject with my supervisor, she had other ideas. She wanted me to keep working, however, I was able to reduce my work week to four and then three days. Finally, when I found a good replacement, she agreed to let me go. I had to stay in a two day a week consulting role for a year or so. I worked for Triad Systems Inc., a firm that provided part time support to aerospace firms on the west coast. On the home front , life proceeded without mishap. I am now fully retired and working as a volunteer for the southeastern Connecticut Center of the Blind. God things have again arrived as Karen's daughter, Kate, and her husband brought us another grandchild, Esme. Although most of the events above were very good, I am now happy in retirement and ready to do what I can to support others and to enjoy my family. Ways to connect with Mike: mjcoughl@aol.com About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes **Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. **Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hello, once again. I'm Mike Hingson. Your host Welcome to unstoppable mindset. And today we get to interview Michael Coughlin. Who's Michael Coghlan? Well, that's what we're going to find out in the course of the day. But I'm going to start a little bit different Lee than I have in the past. Let me tell you how I met Michael. He wrote me an email a few months ago, and talked about the fact that he read my book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man's guide dog in the triumphant trust. And we had discussions about that Michael happens to be a person who was blind. And he talked about his engineering background and other such things. And me being a person with a physics background and also in sales, but also doing a lot of engineering and tech stuff. It just seemed like the thing to do was to have Michael come on to the podcast. So we can find out all the scandalous and non scandalous things that we want to know about him. And just give us a chance to dialogue. And I thought it'd be kind of fun if all of you get to hear it. And that's how we, we discovered each other, we finally were able to get a time where we could get together and chat. So here we are. And Michael, welcome to unstoppable mindset. **Michael Coughlin ** 02:34 Thank you. I'm glad to be here. **Michael Hingson ** 02:37 Well, we'll really appreciate you being here. Why don't we start by you may be talking about the the younger early, Michael and tell us a little bit about you. And we'll go from there. Sure. **Michael Coughlin ** 02:48 And as you said, I had emailed you because of reading the book, which was powerful. There were in addition to my low vision blindness, were a few other parallels that caught my eye and maybe we'll cover those as we go through this feel free start. I was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, another midwesterner and I was born on a farm, as was my brother. My mother and father were New Yorkers at birth, and in their early years, they moved to Indiana, because my father was an engineer working for General Electric, and he was transferred to Fort Wayne. When they arrived in Fort Wayne, they decided to look at the Midwest, there's different sets of eyes and they rented a farmhouse on a 40 acre farm. And my father even became a hunter and raised a large garden and it was something pretty adventurous for a New York kid. But they were loving it. And I grew up for the first five years of my life on that farm, exposed a farm animals farm equipment. And I think at that time, I had been wanting to be a farmer. But quickly, they moved me into the city because of the school system. My mother had been a was a school teacher by trade and that taught in a rural schools and they felt the city schools would just be stronger. So at five years old, we moved in to Fort Wayne, and I started school at St. John the Baptist Catholic school and began my early years. In second grade. When they were doing I skipped screening for students. They immediately picked up on the fact that I couldn't see very well. And it was a bit of a shock to everybody I was getting by okay, but my parents were told that I had high problems and they immediately contacted a friend who was not the mala just to look at me, sent me to quote the best ophthalmologist in the city and I started going to him, he examined me and examined me and sent me to the University of Indiana Medical Center. And they all pretty quickly decided that I had macular degeneration. As a juvenile, um, it's very unusual in those days to come up with juvenile macular degeneration. **Michael Hingson ** 05:21 So What year was this? This would **Michael Coughlin ** 05:24 have been about 1953 or 54. Yeah. So, I mean, I was in second grade. And I was obviously starting to have visual difficulties. One of the things I didn't do very well was read aloud, because I was having trouble seeing the print even though I held it close I, I just never could read things out loud. But the school accommodated that well enough. They sat me in front of the class, when the work was going around, and each kid was asked to read a paragraph, they just skipped me. However, I was able to hold things close, read silently, figure out what was on the page, do my homework, pass my tests, and get reasonably good grades, I was probably an average to a little better than average student. So as I progressed, through grammar school, I was just given a little leeway on reading out loud, and everything else seemed to work fine. So they said average student, but if I had something to brag about in those years, it was my Boy Scout work. We had a wonderful Troop at my school. And in the years that I was a boy scout, I earned the rank of Eagle Scout with a bronze POM. I was awarded all three steps in the Order of the Arrow. And by eighth grade, was the senior patrol leader for our troop. Though I had managed through scouting, to excel in something, and then I moved on to high school. At this point, of course, I'd gone through all through grammar school, I'd been seeing ophthalmologists, I knew I had macular degeneration. But I had not been given one piece of information regarding assistive technology, such as talking books, large print, learning Braille, or anything else. I can only attribute that to the fact that I kind of saw things. I didn't run into anything, because I did have a low vision, but I could see. And so they just treated me like everybody else. And just acted like everybody else as best I could. When I got in high school. And I went yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Alright, went to Bishop lures High School, called institutional Catholic High School where the boys were sort of separated from the girls in most classes, because that's what was done in those days. I really got it, my grades markedly improved. I made high honors or honors at every grade point, every grade session all the way through high school. I was elected president of the Junior National Honor Society and the senior national honor society. I was in senior play with the lead one of the lead roles. I was on a yearbook staff. I just participated in everything I could, and the only thing I could not do was drive. And I had a lot of friends. And back then, at 16, not only could you drive, you could drive with a friend. So I was always able to get rides, and I just went right through high school. Still not using anything in the way of assistive technology, assistive technology. But I prospered. And at the end of my senior year, I was awarded the Catholic, the Catholic Leadership Award for the state of Indiana by the Knights of Columbus. And I decided that it was time to think about college. So there I was, and I was starting to fill that application. And so I took the graduate or the SATs test, it took another test in engineering aptitude. I scored reasonably well on the LSAT, again, with no help, no large print, no extra time holding it close. But I got through it did pretty well on that engineering aptitude test applied to four colleges in the Midwest and were accepted to all of them. I think a lot because my high school teachers liked me and gave me good recommendations. Anyway I have the four selected the University of Notre Dame, which was a good school, good Catholic school, had electrical engineering, which was where I had applied to get in and was ready to head off to college. My senior year at the end of my senior year, in high school, my parents, I was an exchange student in France, where I went there for seven weeks and lived to the French family. The correspondent, French student, Francis came back in the US for seven weeks. And right in the middle of that, my father took a job in Philadelphia, and we moved to Philadelphia. So I was transplanted into the east coast into a big city, and had a whole nother set of experiences that were great. I enjoyed it, I explored that city for the four years I was in college, even though I went back to Notre Dame, went to the Jersey Shore and saw what that was about. And went off to college, where they put me on an airplane in Philadelphia, I flew out and began my career at Notre Dame in electrical engineering, again, doing everything everybody else did, I didn't go out of my way to tell people that I couldn't see very well, I just played the role of a student. And for four years, managed to get by with pretty good grades, I had a 3.5 GPA at the end of my four years. And I had a degree in electrical engineering, and was ready to move on again to the next stage in life when the space program collapsed, and engineering jobs virtually disappeared. And so I said, Well, maybe grad school would be something one might think about for a little while longer. And I started looking into MBA programs, which I don't know we're getting popular. But my one of my engineering advisors suggests that I might want to stay in engineering because he thought I was a good engineer. I had done well in all my classes, all my labs, working with computers. So I thought about it. And somebody mentioned that there was a kind of a new field opening up called Ocean Engineering. And at the University of Miami had a program. While at the time my brother is a sophomore at Miami. And it seemed like wow, wouldn't it be kind of interesting to put out there and maybe room with my brother and, and whatever. And so I applied in ocean engineering, as well as a few MBA programs. I was accepted to Miami, they gave me money to go to school, paid my tuition gave me a stipend. And so I went, I went off to the University of Miami for a to attain that graduate degree, which I did in two years. In the middle of those two years, married my first wife, Judy, we moved she moved down to Florida. And there we were, for a couple years earning a graduate degree in ocean engineering. One of the curricula within ocean engineering is underwater acoustics. And that was very interesting to me because it was pretty mathematical. And guy double E's love math. And so I spent my courses in acoustics. And when some job interviews on campus came around, one of the companies looking for people with odd degrees were was electric boat Division of General Dynamics, because noise and submarines go together, or at least the lack of noise. They want you to be quiet. Yeah. So they gave me a job offer. And I took it, and we moved to Connecticut. And the came up here and one of the things I did during that first year, besides getting started with my job was to find an ophthalmologist because since I didn't see very well and I didn't want it to get too much worse. It was probably a good idea. And I found a fella Dr. Kaplan in Mystic and got an appointment and walked in and for the first time in my life had been I was told I was legally blind. I had no idea what that meant. And I was surprised because up until that point, I was getting by. I was enjoying what I was doing. I wasn't failing in anything, and like seem good. But anyway, he gave me a good overview on it. He said yeah, he was pretty disappointed. At the fact that I had been involved in everything to that point and never been told I was legally blind, nor had been told that there was any assistive technologies available to make it easier for me. So wait, you're mistaken. That would have been 1971. **Michael Coughlin ** 15:19 Okay. He did a few things, he registered me with the state of Connecticut. They actually have people in the state that come out and try to help you with things. He, they then sign me up for the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. They stay State Library. And, lo and behold, they provided me with a talking book reader and talking books. For the first time ever, I was able to listen to books. All the ones I wanted, anything I wanted, was there available to me. And it was eye opening at that point. i From that time on, even though the device they had for as a player was pretty bulky. I carried that around everywhere. I went and was always listening to books, in addition, **Michael Hingson ** 16:11 is that records or cassettes? That **Michael Coughlin ** 16:15 at that point, they were both that's and I got records. Okay. They gave me a record player. Mostly those were the periodicals on what were then throwaway discs and, and the cassette, but I had to carry a second briefcase anywhere I went to bring that recorder because it was pretty big beast. Yes, **Michael Hingson ** 16:36 I remember those ranking was a General Electric manufacturing machine might **Michael Coughlin ** 16:42 have been but it was a great believe me went from nothing to that it **Michael Hingson ** 16:46 was large, but still Yeah. **Michael Coughlin ** 16:50 In addition, through Kaplan, I met another low vision specialist. And what he showed me was a closed circuit TV magnifier. And at that time, that beast was bigger than the tape recorder, believe me, oh, yes, full size, black and white television with a separate camera. But all of a sudden, I could see things I couldn't see because there were magnified. And so instantly, on arrival in Connecticut or close to it. I had two pieces of technology that just opened up the world. And it allowed me through that CCTV to get a second master's degree in systems management from University of Southern California. They ran that program on military bases. And they gave it I went to the submarine base in Groton and took that for two years and earned a master's second master's, I had access to closed circuit television for that I had my library books on or talking books on tape, and I was pretty happy in my career at General Dynamics was going well. I went, I went from an engineer, through senior to specialist and was an engineering supervisor in about seven years. And anyway, so we were good, but my boss at the time was struggling a bit with his advancement in life. And we had been doing a lot of work underwater acoustics on submarines with with a consulting firm that worked for the Navy called Bolt Beranek and Newman while the BBN was a diverse company, because not only were they the leading acoustics company in the world, but they also had some people that were working on something through DARPA called the ARPANET. So here we go, he gets an offer to start a local, then in New London, which is across the river from Groton, a local office of BBN recruits myself and a couple of other engineers and I am now a consultant working for the Navy Department. At that point in time, BBN was extremely interested in helping me out. So they provided me with a closed circuit was actually a portable closed circuit TV magnifier as well as the desktop version. And a few years later, I Xerox kurz wild text to speech reader. So now I had a little more technology that I could use to get printed books into text format, or speech format. And soon thereafter, one of my good friends who I still play golf with Doug Hannah, came across the fact that a Macintosh computer could magnify the screen and had text to speech. And that was from the all Most of the beginning of the Mac, those features were built into their operating system. Did **Michael Hingson ** 20:06 you ever get to spend much time up at BBN in Cambridge? **Michael Coughlin ** 20:10 Oh, yes. Lots of time at BBN in Cambridge. **Michael Hingson ** 20:14 Did you ever get to meet a guy up there named Dick Durbin sign? **Michael Coughlin ** 20:19 No, but I'll bet he was in a speech synthesis group. **Michael Hingson ** 20:24 I don't know that. He was there. He, he and I went to UC Irvine together. And I actually saw him. I actually saw him at BBN later, and we worked on some projects together, but I suppose there's a large place. So it **Michael Coughlin ** 20:41 was it was large and, and for the most part, my work was done with the acoustic side of things. Although as the internet grew, the computer side of BBN, when I started was about 5050 grew huge and dominated the company and, and all. I mean, they were very early adopters in, in speech recognition, right? They had a voice recognition or a voice sort of dialer feature in their phones from years before they were they were very much into that sort of thing. I **Michael Hingson ** 21:20 remember once when I visited BBN, he Dick told me about a transducer they had that actually would simulate the sound of a jet engine. I believe that yes, he said it was like the size of an ashtray that like the typical floor ashtray in a hotel but he said you didn't want to be anywhere near it when they fired it up because it really was just like a jet engine and it had all the the audio capabilities and all the features. So it really sounded like a jet engine. So you didn't want to be anywhere near Munich fire to an **Michael Coughlin ** 21:57 an aircraft acoustics was a huge part of the work that was done there. And air airport acoustics and they were just in a lot of acoustics but our little group was in submarine acoustics and, and kept us busy. Working at BBN was great in that they were a Mac House, everybody used maps. They put a Macintosh on my desk. It had the ability to magnify what I wanted to see and do text to speech. Even though it's a bit cumbersome, in that you had to copy things paste and whatever. But But I got good at that. I was able to use that computer to do word I could do Excel spreadsheets. I could do graph view graphs. I could do program planning, you name it. All of a sudden the world of the PC was opened to me, thanks to the Mac. And my career at BBN span 20 years. It was it was a great place. They were very early adopters in a lot of technology exposed to a lot of it early emails. They were one of the first companies to to use email. In fact, the fella that put the at sign in email name worked at BBN Ray Tomlinson, so that that was the place but after 20 years, because they were a true consulting firm and fairly expensive rates. And the government was competing on a cost basis. And so eventually I was in a situation where I was looking for a job. And friend of mine at BBN suggested a fella he knew at Boeing might want to buy mica job. And that led to a situation where they their group who was doing work and underwater vehicles, were located on the west coast, wanted somebody on the East Coast who did similar work. And so I was hired as a tech rep, where I would represent the group on the west coast, but I would interact with their Prime customers on the East Coast, one of whom was General Dynamics electric boat, and so my location in Groton was, was great. So what I thought would be about a four three or four year experiment with Boeing ended up as a 20 plus year career with Boeing. And I, they too, were a great employer. They provided me with up to date, closed circuit TVs, they made sure that I my laptop had the best software it turned out by that time. In the PC world. There were software there were things like Jaws and zoom texts. And so I they had Zoom Text on my machine. I was stopped into the internet anywhere I went. And I had closed circuit TVs, both at their facility in California and at my house. And by that time, you could put the library of the blind cassettes into Walkman size machines. So it was easy to carry that along on my travels. And for what was what 20 plus years I had a great career with them as as a tech rep. I was no longer now you had mentioned sales. My father and brother are sales people he was a sales engineer, my brother was a salesman and so is light all his career. My case not so much being in Myers Brigg ISTJ, which stands for introvert a bit. Sales was always a pressure job to me. And as a manager, by that time at BBN have have managed managed the Department of 40 engineers and scientists, the whole job was get more work sales. That was a pressure position for me, when I switched to BBN and I was nothing but a an engineer in the field with no sales pressure and work at all times. I loved it just lower pay less pressure, but I prospered. i I'm sure I was a huge help to them. Because every year my contract or the thought of me coming on for another year came up. Different supervisors wanted me and I just stayed in I was there for over 20 years. And it was it was kind of career where I was traveling a lot. And I enjoyed traveling. And I could get by in airports with little monoculars and asking questions and remembering the Airport layout. So I didn't get lost. And I just got by. Great. And as that careers continued through 20 plus years, and I was getting older, the subject of retirement began to crop in. I talked to my supervisor, you know, I'm at an age where retirement is something I might want to think about. Nope, nope. Well, I went from five day weeks to 40 weeks to three day weeks always saying I want to get out now. And finally they said, Well, if you can find a replacement, then we'll talk about it. So I was fortunate and able to find somebody I thought was good at it as today. And so then they put me on as a consultant for another year and a half on Tuesday weeks. And finally I was able to retire. What year was that? He retired? Yes. And that's where I am today. **Michael Hingson ** 27:42 But what year did you retire? **Michael Coughlin ** 27:45 Okay. During my time at Boeing, which I thought the career itself was fantastic. There were some times good and bad. I, my, my daughter and her husband gave us two grandchildren, Chloe and Evan. However, after many, many years, my first wife Judy succumbed to cancer. And that was tough. And when you are seeing some of that now, I'm sure, but in any case, after that, there's some low points and whatever I met Karen, my current wife, we, we went out for a few years and eventually we're married and, and everything has just turned back around the way it was. I'm happy. I'm retired. Her daughter has given us a grandchild ESMI who's now two and a half, almost three. And we are enjoying life. **Michael Hingson ** 28:42 So how long have you guys been married? **Michael Coughlin ** 28:45 This will be it was just 10 years we were we were married in 2012. Newlyweds? **Michael Hingson ** 28:50 Almost. Yeah. Well, I'm curious. What. So you, you clearly had a rich life you'd have the life that you enjoyed. But what do you think about the fact that early on? They did not that that no one the ophthalmologists and others didn't give you any access to assistive technology didn't give you more access to understanding about blindness and so on. And I don't ask that to say what a horrible thing but rather just what do you think about it? Now looking back on hindsight is always a wonderful thing. Looking back, **Michael Coughlin ** 29:34 I almost angry. At the time, I thought everything was fine. But when you look back, I believe. Number one, I think a lot of eye doctors are great if they can help you but if they can't help you, they tend to push you off to the side. And I think that was a little of it. And it maybe was just the fact that in the URL The days even though I had macular and I couldn't see printed and everything I saw well enough to get by. And I'm just thinking they figured, well, he's doing okay, whatever they should have done way more. And maybe even my parents should have done more. But But I don't I even looking back feel that in some sense the fact that I had to hold things up here to read was almost embarrassing to them, they they didn't grasp the concept of a young person not saying well, it just didn't grasp it. And unfortunately, since we were in the middle of Indiana, and there really weren't Apparently, people with very much knowledge of the subject. It just happened. And I just hope today, that way more attention is paid to people, the few juveniles that are limited sight, because I'm sure I could have had a fuller experience in life, if I at least had been exposed to talking books at a younger age. **Michael Hingson ** 31:14 Here are a lot of us who believe that it is so unfortunate that more of us also did not get the opportunity to learn braille, because right is outcomes, the basic means of reading and writing. **Michael Coughlin ** 31:30 I understand I agree completely. And so here I am having to sit here with my closed circuit TV, off to the right with about 40 power magnification in order to be able to see my notes, hey, I have a fellow in our, at the center of the blind Kevin, who is a braille reader and, and he's totally blind, but he has the Braille and he can sit at a meeting and read what he needs by reading it in Braille, when I'm at those meetings, I can't read anything. You can't, I cannot see any print, I just always have to rely on what I hear or ask questions. **Michael Hingson ** 32:13 So you're seeing reality, the advantage that we had was being blind people than if we do read braille, and so on, for not the advantages that we can look at meetings from a different perspective, which I love to talk about which, namely, is, if people are doing meetings truly the right way, they would provide everyone the information in advance of the meeting, so that people could read this stuff with the idea, then you can prepare and then you go to the meeting, and you can discuss it rather than spending half the meeting reading the information. Yep, well, they **Michael Coughlin ** 32:50 do that fortunately, times. Case of the center, I gather all of the information they're going to pass out as Word documents earlier, and I do go through them. **Michael Hingson ** 33:02 But what I'm saying is they should really do that for everyone, rather than passing out information at the meeting. People should get it in advance so that nobody has to read it at the meeting, rather use the meeting to be more efficient. So that's a lesson we could teach them which, which a lot of people really haven't caught on to yet understood. It does make life a little bit of a challenge. But I'm glad that that your your work at the Center will tell me a little bit about your work at the center and how you got involved in what the center is all about. **Michael Coughlin ** 33:34 Right? Well, it's my second time involved being involved with the center of the Blind in New London. First, the first interaction came about in in probably the late mid mid to late 90s, when we had a macular degeneration support group in Waterford, that that was started by a fellow's a friend Duncan Smith since passed. And, and I ended up as president of the group. And it was it was a pretty active group for about 10 years. And we brought people in that had macular and tried to provide him with information. And as part of that the center of the blind was one of the participants and their lead person helped us get speakers and so there's sort of a three to four person group as the lead and and that center lead person was one of those. I can tell you what her name was, but I forgotten it is too many years ago. So when I retired and I'm trying to think of giving back and doing things that what what can I do also I should have mentioned that not only they work with a senator I also at one point in time was a reader On the advisory group for the State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, where I'd attend meetings and from a reader point of view, try to help them with their services. And I was on the board of directors for Chris radio, which is a radio service that reads newspapers and periodicals to people. So I've done a few of those kinds of things as well. But now I'm retired, I say, I want to be able to give back to some degree and, and so I thought of the Senator and gave them a call. They looked up their webpage, and there's a phone number I gave a call, talk to the Executive Director, Wendy Lusk. And she said, we'd love to have you come down and talk so. So I did, Karen and I went down. And we sat and talked to Wendy and, and Tammy, the assistant and said, well, might I be able to do. And after a little discussion, the concept of a support group for macular degeneration came up. And they didn't have such a thing. And they thought that would be a worthwhile project that they should put into their calendar. And that's what we've done. So I, every first Wednesday of the month, get together with others who are interested in. And the primary focus is learning how to use cell phones, because the new cell phones or smartphones and iPhones and also that others are pretty hard for people who are beginning to lose their sight. And they don't have an understanding of some of the assistive aids that are in the phone. So that's what we do. We spend a couple hours just answering questions and presenting information that I pick up over the web on things their smartphone can do for them. And as as that went and started gaining traction, Wendy asked me if I wanted to be on the board. And I said I'd be glad to do that and was elected to the board a couple of months back. So I'm on the board of directors as well as running that support group. **Michael Hingson ** 37:17 Do you think that let's deal with the pathological world? Do you think that attitudes have changed very much in terms of how I doctors handled blindness and blind people today over, say 40 years ago? **Michael Coughlin ** 37:35 Well, a little better. I mean, I have a fella now Dr. Parker I've been seeing for when, when Kaplan sold his practice, Dr. Parker took it over, I go to see him. He, he tries to keep me appraised of any new emerging things in the way of AI specialists, and what they may be doing for people with low vision. But, but they're more on the scientific side, and he really doesn't have any, any of the low vision aids, you have to go to a separate guy for that. And I've gone through those things so many times. That? I don't know, right? I would say better, but not great. Yeah, **Michael Hingson ** 38:29 what, what I have found and having significant conversations with people is that still all too often, if you go to an ophthalmologist, and it's discovered that for whatever reason, you're losing eyesight, and they can't do anything about it. They consider it a failure. And they just walk out sorry, there's nothing we can do and that we haven't seen enough of an awareness raising in the eye care world, where people recognize that just because you can't see it's not the end of the world and you can still be just as productive as you otherwise might have been accepted when you use different techniques. And, and a lot of state rehabilitation agencies are somewhat in the same sort of boat, they don't really ultimately do the things that they could do to better prepare people for having a positive attitude about blindness when they're losing their son. **Michael Coughlin ** 39:31 Yeah, I think that's true, although Connecticut, their agency is called WSB. The Bureau for the education of the blind and and they're pretty good. I just actually had a SB fella come to my house to give me a how do you use a cane training? I've never used a cane. And it's part part of our macular sport group. Discussion. One of the fellas in They're mentioned the, what he called his ID cane. And that was a term I'd never heard him. And what do you mean by that? And he said, Well, he said, because he has macular like me, said, I still see well enough to get around. But I'm tired of explaining to people they don't see very well. And so I got an I A cane, white cane, which you're legally able to use. And he said, the one I have is a little shorter, because I don't really need it as two more people with less vision. And it helps people understand that I don't see very well **Michael Hingson ** 40:37 in the answers. And the answer is even with an ID cane, that works until it doesn't. I know, I know, a guy who lived in I think it was Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and will take the train to Philadelphia every day, when he was losing his eyesight and the New Jersey Commission gave him a cane. But they also continued to emphasize eyesight a lot. And they didn't really convey to him the true importance of learning to use a cane as he's losing his eyesight. So one day, he was walking along the side of the New Jersey Transit train to go into the car to find a seat and involved process to Philadelphia. And key he turned in where the where he saw the openings for the car, and promptly fell between two cars. And then the train started to move and they got stopped and got him out. If he had been using his cane that would never have happened. And he became an avid cane user after that. Right. **Michael Coughlin ** 41:48 Great. And I completely understand that. And and I'm using it more and more. No doubt. **Michael Hingson ** 41:56 Yeah, there's and the problem is that people just all too often think it's a horrible thing and makes you look weird. Well, you know, there are a lot of things that all sorts of people use that make them look different than other people, that doesn't mean that they're less people. **Michael Coughlin ** 42:12 I actually had an experience a while back, which made the use of the cane even more, it highlighted it a little more is a number we were going back and forth to the Caribbean for a few years at on vacation at the Sandals Resort, and we got to the airport in Antigua getting ready to fly home. And since I don't see very well, I always will go up to the attendant at the ticket counter and say, you know, I'm visually disabled, can't see I really need early boarding we could cause legs, feet and other things trip me and I I'd like to get into a seat before the crowd arrives. And the first thing she did is looked at me and said, You're not blind, you know. And, and I was stunned. But but said yes, I am I cannot see. And they let me show. All right. All right. So after that in airports, I started at least wearing dark glasses. That helped a little bit with a cane. It's even at least then you have a claim to your claim, having to pull out the piece of paper from the state that says I'm legally blind. I have one of those, but that's kind of going a little too far. So I do find it a little bit more helpful. **Michael Hingson ** 43:39 Well, of course, what you discovered, the more you use a cane is the better traveler you are. And that helps you get around. Yes. Now as you know, I happen to use a guide dog. In fact, I didn't use either a cane or a guide. Well Mark cane or guide until I was 14 when I got the guideline. I never learned to use a cane until I was 18. But I discovered that I could teach anyone to use a cane in five minutes, but teaching people to have the competence to use a cane takes months because one is just a technique which you can learn easily the other is developing an attitude and developing the true awareness of that you know where you are and what's around you and how to recover from getting lost and and other such things like that along the way. That's a whole different animal entirely. Absolutely. But nevertheless, it's it's doable. So I still mostly use guide dog but there are some times that I'll leave the puppy dog at home or if I'm just stepping out a little bit leave the dog tied down and I'll use a cane but that doesn't happen very often. And certainly when I travel Alamo who is not a current guide dog comes with ready to go so We just returned from a weekend Israel doing work and all that, and he needed fine. And even on the long airplane flight to and from Israel, He did really well. Excellent. You know, it's, it is a matter of learning to use the skills that that we have. That **Michael Coughlin ** 45:19 is That is true. And in my case technology has been my savior. Sure, closer to TVs, the books on tape, and the fact that computers now have text to speech and magnification. Without it without those. I would not have had an engineering career I don't believe. So **Michael Hingson ** 45:44 what do you use to read books today? **Michael Coughlin ** 45:48 I do. I use my iPad. I have the bard application, which is the current app that's put out by the library. handicapper, I think they changed their name recently, but it's the same thing. And so I download books through them, and use the iPad, to read the books to me, I don't have to use a recorder anymore. It's and I can do the same thing on my iPhone. So. **Michael Hingson ** 46:23 So now of course, you have the ability to navigate through those books a whole lot more than you used to. **Michael Coughlin ** 46:28 Yes, because the again, I'm an apple person, but on my iPad, I can magnify the screen very easily. So downloading books is a little cumbersome, but not bad. And then I can pick whatever book I want to listen to and with Bluetooth headphones, or what I air pods or whatever they call them and listen to those without bothering anybody else. **Michael Hingson ** 46:53 Yeah. And again, the other neat thing is that you can skip around in a book, which is something that you couldn't do before, right now with the advantage of the DAISY format and so on you can which is a format, which is kind of an ePub environment. But you can literally skip around the book by chapter or any number of levels. Yep. **Michael Coughlin ** 47:15 And, and not only do I use that app, but I also have downloaded books on audible. Occasionally, if I can't find where I wanted, or, or iBooks it's now called something else. But and so some of the books he can't get it the library right away, you can you can go on and pay for him. And but mostly, it's through the the Library for the Blind. Certainly, that's where I found the underdog. So **Michael Hingson ** 47:45 what do you think overall has been the biggest obstacle you've had to overcome? **Michael Coughlin ** 47:49 If you go back and look, to me, the biggest obstacle was the invent the advent of the PC, and getting to use a PC. When, when I was moving along in my career, and early on, I did a lot of software engineering. But I was back in the earliest days, it was key punches. And all of that I got by then as they started using terminals, but simple terminals, I could have the software printed out, I could use the CCTV to see it, I could make changes to the software and have others enter it. It was everything was slow back then. But when the PC came along, it became an individual tool that everybody used, you had to be able to use it and and as I said it was Doug, Hannah and my good golfing buddy now who, who figured out how to use that with text to speech and magnification. And that just opened up the whole world of the personal computer, which which is today I mean MATLAB and other pieces of software you have to use. It made it available to me, had I not been able to make that jump into the PC world, I think I would have really been hampered on my ability to continue as an engineer or an engineering manager. **Michael Hingson ** 49:20 So you're not too bothered by the fact that there was a time that Bill Gates said that 640 K is all you'd ever need. And we have Emory. **Michael Coughlin ** 49:29 Well, you know, I remember using before Yeah. And I remember when the very first Mac's came out, they only had two floppy drives and no hard drives. So I had **Michael Hingson ** 49:45 a my first computer that I really use it all was Xerox sigma seven. We also had an OS born from my wife even before that, but it had the Xerox had two eight inch floppies no hard drive 64k and What was it? Yeah, you know, but amazing. I **Michael Coughlin ** 50:03 mean, the technology has just moved so fast. And, and the fast moving technology is great. And it's frustrating. Because a lot of the people that develop it's because now they can write software that does everything. The concept and of course you work for a company that that's very attuned to that fact, is that much of the stuff they throw out there now is very hard to use. If you're visually disabled, **Michael Hingson ** 50:34 you'd have visual issues there. The awareness has not grown like it needs to to make sure that all that stuff is inclusive. Absolutely. **Michael Coughlin ** 50:42 And it as fast as the technology is moving it. The accessibility features of software, to me are falling further and further behind. Even though there's more and more people that seemed to work in the field of accessibility. I think they're still not moving fast enough. And it is frustrating I had, I mentioned that one of the other obstacles that are countered, over the years when I was working at Boeing. Computer Training was becoming easy. And everybody had to take seven or eight computers, courses through the year and be qualified in things like obstacle don't leave obstacles and jet engines in called FOD and foreign object detection and on and on. And, and those courses were originally written by the various divisions and by people who got told make a course. And so they might dig up a course making pieces of software, whatever. And when they would finish it and put it out to everybody. Many of them wouldn't work with screen readers. And not only Weren't they work with screen readers, and they didn't redo the text, they'd have little tests you had to pass. And those certainly didn't work for the screen reader. And they were very, very frustrating. And I ran across to fellow at Boeing corporate, who became a friend and his father who had macular and he was really sensitive to that fact. And between the two of us we, we fought tooth and nail to get a standard a corporate standard on for courses put in place that included the fact that you had to be able to access the course with a screen reader took about five years for for that standard to finally be propagated throughout Boeing. And even when they did, I ran across the fire protection course where it wasn't in place. And I couldn't do that test and this. So you have to fight for that stuff. There's no doubt about it. **Michael Hingson ** 52:55 There are times that you do things to draw the line and say, look, you've got to make this inclusive. **Michael Coughlin ** 53:01 Great. Absolutely. It's getting better. I mean, I mean, at least if you stand up and squawk about it, there are people who will listen more than they used to. **Michael Hingson ** 53:13 Yeah, well and I think we're slowly raising awareness and it's a it's a challenge. consumer organizations are helping and we're we're we're now getting people to recognize it more much less that it really is part of the law the Americans with Disabilities Act really is more comprehensive than people want it sometimes to get credit for. And sometimes we have sites where it is still happening. **Michael Coughlin ** 53:40 Oh yeah. And and sometimes it just happens when you don't think about it we had when I was at the Boeing facility in California and they had been California it's always beautiful as you know. And and so stairways for buildings are often outside and inside stairways and we had a nice building and an out big, big wide outside stairway and they came in and put in new a new surface on the top step of the third floor landing so you wouldn't slip and a just as they did it, they covered up that yellow stripe that marked the top step and that next day I almost stepped right off into an clobbered down a flight of stairs, got my supervisor and said hey, help me an appointment and we she took me right over to the safety people within this was in Huntington Beach and today a day later they had a yellow stripe on the top **Michael Hingson ** 54:40 of that step car alternative that is which you didn't really have access to at the time was 30 Days came back. Which is another story of course I agree. But at **Michael Coughlin ** 54:51 that time, I was not. Right. Right. Look for yellow stripes, because I could see that much But anyhow. **Michael Hingson ** 55:02 So what what do you do for extra curricular activities in such out of work like sports and so on? Yeah, **Michael Coughlin ** 55:09 I, I love sports. When I was younger, I could play other few others like I never could be a baseball player with a little ball moving real fast, or a tennis player. But But I did like to play football because I was big enough to be a blocker and part of that team. And I played basketball, because basketball is pretty big. I played that least through college but but I was very fortunate in that my father, as an engineer had a medium kind of income and belonged to we belong to a country club in Fort Wayne. And the golf pro, there was a big advocate of teaching young kids how to play golf. So I started learning golf when I was about eight years old, and have always played golf. It got harder when I couldn't see the golf ball very well. I became eventually became a member of the US blind Golfers Association. I still am a member, they have a well, it was at the time a DVD. Now I think it's an online thing. It's a course for coaches of blind golfers. And they adopted the term coach, but I don't know helper to whatever the sighted person is about the blind golfer. And I show my friends that and, and pretty quickly, they figured out well, let's see, we've got to help him line the ball up in the middle of his clubface and point out where the hole is. And, and then there's these new range finders, the one I have talked. And so I push a button, it says your 180 yards. And so between a friend Nirn learning how to be a coach, and that I'm still an avid golfer, I play that a couple times a week. And if I have a good round, and I play from the senior tees, because I'm definitely senior, I still can once in a while break at which is a very, I think a very good score. And then I love to swim. And we had a swim team at that club and I from about age eight to 15 or something I was into competitive swimming. And now we have a pool and I swim every day in the summer. So **Michael Hingson ** 57:23 So is is Karen a golfer? **Michael Coughlin ** 57:27 No. It was the last week. We thought about that once but it didn't go over too. **Michael Hingson ** 57:33 Well. You try Yeah. Now you have, **Michael Coughlin ** 57:36 of course also love sports on television where I have a big TV and sit close my my passion of course is Notre Dame football. And for the people that see a video, the back screen of my my video is a picture I took of the Notre Dame Stadium football field when I was back at my 50th college reunion. **Michael Hingson ** 58:01 So Oh, go ahead. **Michael Coughlin ** 58:04 Well, I was gonna say they improve the stadium immensely since I was there. And there's a big area up at the top where you they have banquets and and you entertain and and so our class that was where we had our 50th anniversary dinner. And so he couldn't be looking over the stadium and I took a picture and put it in my Zoom background. So so they **Michael Hingson ** 58:28 still talk to you. They still talk to you even though you've got some advanced degree work from USC, and Miami and Miami, USC even more than Miami. But yeah, **Michael Coughlin ** 58:40 well there was a time Miami and Notre Dame went like that. Now it's not but USC Of course. And I tell people that but I I have never had bad vibes over the fact I have advanced degrees from **Michael Hingson ** 58:55 C See, I love to tell the story that when my wife and I got married, the church didn't fill up until 12 minutes after the wedding was supposed to start, I suppose started for and and for 12 crowds came in and Only later did we learned that everyone was still sitting out in your pliers waiting for the end of the USC Notre Dame game. Of course. Again, I want to point out that my wife, of course, is an SE grad she did her master's work there. And of course I have to point out that we won, which proves that God was really on our side that day. Just say sometimes, **Michael Coughlin ** 59:30 you know the story of one of the Notre Dame Miami games where they had the great dinner or breakfast before the game and and when they the University of Miami Chaplain got up and said that well, you all know that God is not doesn't take sides in football. And so we'll both pray and see who the better team wins and Lou Holtz, then the coach Scott up and said, Yeah, you're completely right. God is not involved. But his mother is. **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:08 Good answer. Yeah, only Luke could do that. That's the neat thing about good college football rivalries. Absolutely. Always find that. That's **Michael Coughlin ** 1:00:19 kind of my sports, fat, passion for, for television, and then golf and swimming or my dad, **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:26 I grew up listening to the Dodgers. And of course, we're spoiled. We have been Skelly who I still know them. Yes, yes. The best announcer that ever is when was and probably will be in. So I learned baseball from him. There's a lot of fun listening to him. And **Michael Coughlin ** 1:00:43 posters where Claire and I are now. I've been converted. She's from Boston. So we're Red Sox fans. So this weekend, they're playing each other. Well, **Michael Hingson ** 1:00:53 and then in days gone by in basketball. We had Chick Hearn, and of course, Boston had Johnny most. **Michael Coughlin ** 1:00:59 Oh, yes. Oh, yes. **Michael Hingson ** 1:01:03 Johnny is, Johnny was certainly a character. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to do this today. It was was fun to do. I'm glad that we got a chance to really chat and do

First, a witness to the incident, Indian Express' Liz Matthew joins us to share what went down at the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, amid a security breach when two men opened smoke canisters inside the Parliament.Second, Indian Express' Harish Damodaran talks about how the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution directed all mills and distilleries not to use sugarcane juice/syrup for making any ethanol. (14:37)Lastly, we talk about the installation of high-focus CCTV cameras in Jammu and Kashmir's Kishtwar district that have an integrated facial recognition system powered by artificial intelligence.(21:50)Hosted by Rahel PhiliposeWritten and produced by Utsa Sarmin, Rahel Philipose, and Niharika NandaEdited and mixed by Suresh Pawar

The past week, a slew of videos and images of alleged child abuse at childcare centres operated by Kinderland were leaked online, prompting outrage among the general public. The chorus of indignation got even louder when it was discovered that ECDA, the preschool regulator, had failed to immediately remove the accused teacher from classroom duties while investigating the complaints against her. Is enough being done to protect our children in preschool centres? Elsewhere, Ho Ching lambasted cheaters who abscond before paying for their food at restaurants, and even called for them to be caned. Is her outrage justified? Why?(After) Life Support Click here to listen & follow the show on Spotify  We've been working on this new horror-comedy podcast series alongside Jo Tan for a while now, and we're super excited to finally unveil it to YLB listeners! It would mean the world to us if you could hit “Follow” on Spotify, so that the algo will show it to more people! Cheers! Find us here! YLB Subreddit  YLB TikTok  YLB IG YLB YouTube  Kinderland and ECDA Address Alleged Child Abuse Kinderland Woodlands abuse cases: Operator fined S$5,000; ECDA admits it should have removed teacher earlier 'ECDA should have done better': Agency apologises for not getting Kinderland to remove teacher under investigation Kinderland: 2 teachers present when videos of alleged rough handling recorded, but other teacher didn't admit to taking or posting clips CCTV cameras required at all preschools by July 2024; parents may request footage within 'reasonable grounds' Preschool teachers welcome mandatory CCTVs in class but some fear excessive scrutiny, parents abusing system SAF general Tan Chee Wee, 47, chosen to lead Early Childhood Development Agency Ho Ching Suggests Caning Diners Who CheatHo Ching Suggests Caning Diners Who Allegedly Left Outram Restaurant Without Paying S$245 BillOne Shiok Comment Comment by vhalia on YLB433 Comment by OriginalGoat1 One Shiok Thing ANATOLY Gym Pranks  on YouTube 'World champion of what?' Noah Lyles takes swipe at NBA players Mics and Headphones from @shureChairs from @ergotunechairDesk from @castlerysgPlants from @thenursery.sg*****EXCLUSIVE to YLB listeners: get 15% off plants from @thenursery.sg online store. Use thepromo code "YLB15"*****Edited and mixed by Tristen Yeak

Recently, American publication Washington Post accused Singapore's Lianhe Zaobao of deferring to “Beijing narratives”. This prompted a rebuke from the Chinese newspaper, and now Singapore's ambassador to the US has also spoken out against it. Is our local newspaper really taking sides in the US-China divide? Elsewhere, HDB's approval will no longer be required for CCTVs that face corridors of HDB flats. Why the change, and does it mean we will become a surveillance state?Find us here! YLB Subreddit  YLB TikTok  YLB IG YLB YouTube FolkloryIf you're looking for a meaningful gift, we'd love to help you create a personal podcast for a loved one. Get started at Folklory.com!Washington Post Accuses Lianhe Zaobao of Pro-China Slant S'pore Ambassador to US Lui Tuck Yew rejects Washington Post's critique of Lianhe Zaobao, says S'pore doesn't pick sides Singapore's Chinese-language newspaper increasingly echoes China's message Washington Post claims Lianhe Zaobao sometimes defers to 'Beijing narratives', ZB says it is 'committed to neutrality' Zaobao's Response Washington Post article made biased comments & unfair statements: Lianhe Zaobao Tweet by Shibani Mahtani, the author CCTVs Now Allowed For HDB CorridorsHDB approval no longer needed for corridor-facing CCTVs in flats; demand for devices upOne Shiok Comment Comment by rosegold_cat Comment on YLB 421 by ericchionh9766 One Shiok Thing Zombieverse | Official Teaser | Netflix Stephen A. reacts to the Balloon World Cup Edited and mixed by Tristen Yeak

A survey of nearly 10,000 people carried out for the Status of Policing in India Report 2023 suggests a high level of support for certain forms of government surveillance but reveals a lack of public awareness regarding critical issues such as the Pegasus spying scandal. The report, prepared by the NGO Common Cause and Lokniti, CSDS, finds that three out of four people believe CCTVs can help monitor and reduce crime. The poor, Adivasis, Dalits and Muslims are the least trusting of the police. Interestingly, 44 per cent of those surveyed across 12 states and union territories believe that the police should not have the freedom to check people's phones without a warrant.  So, what is the bigger picture from the survey? Why choose this theme at this time? How does surveillance impact dissent? 

Over one million Chinese made CCTVs installed in Indian government set-ups can be tapped by Beijing for spying, and now pose a serious national security threat! Tune in!

Highlights:     “The social credit system leverages ‘Big Data' that monitors the geolocation, purchasing history, social media content usage, and footage from CCTVs that are equipped with facial recognition technology. It is, according to Foreign Policy, the closest thing we have seen to the actualization of an Orwellian system controlling virtually every aspect of human life!” “The really scary part in all of this is not simply that such a system actually exists in a specific country, the scary part, as Jordan Peterson is warning, is that it has lots of fans all over the world.” “The WEF is not about finding solutions to problems in their own spheres of influence. They're not about blaming governments or corporations for all the problems in our world. No. They're all about shifting responsibility for all of that over to you. You are the problem!” “You're not the problem. You're the solution! We, together are going to make sure that such a social credit system never comes anywhere near us, and in so doing, we'll make sure to defend and secure the blessings of faith, family, and freedom, for generations to come!” Timestamps:        [01:11] Jordan Peterson's ominous warning of the coming of a social credit system  [06:49] What role the World Economic Forum has in implementing such a system [10:21] How we can stop this social credit system in its tracks Resources:  SAVE OVER 25% OFF your 1-Month Emergency Food Supply Kit here! SAVE OVER 25% OFF your 1-Month Emergency Food Supply Kit here! Http://GetReadyWithSteve.com Get Over 66% OFF All of Mike Lindell's Products using code TURLEY: https://www.mypillow.com/turley Download my Most Incredible FREE Gift Ever for Patriots including my personal research resources at https://insidersclub.turleytalks.com/ 1266 Jordan Peterson Leaves Piers Morgan SPEECHLESS on Trump!!! Learn how to protect your life savings from inflation and an irresponsible government, with Gold and Silver. Go to http://www.turleytalkslikesgold.com/ Download Dr. Steve's personal research sources and his list of woke alternatives for FREE at https://www.drsteveblueprints.com Get 25% off Patriotic Coffee and ALL ITEMS with Code TURLEY at https://mystore.com/turley Get Your Brand-New PATRIOT T-Shirts and Merch Here: https://store.turleytalks.com/ It's time to CHANGE AMERICA and Here's YOUR OPPORTUNITY To Do Just That! https://change.turleytalks.com/ Fight Back Against Big Tech Censorship! Sign-up here to discover Dr. Steve's different social media options …. but without censorship! https://www.turleytalks.com/en/alternative-media.com Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review. Do you want to be a part of the podcast and be our sponsor? Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture! If you would like to get lots of articles on conservative trends make sure to sign-up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts.

To make local train journeys safer in the city and to keep an eye on untoward incidents such as stone-pelting, the Central Railway and Western Railway are set to install upgraded Closed Circuit Televisions inside and outside the motorman cabin of the local trains. The cameras will record the footage of the local trains during their operation to monitor incidents like rail fracture, derailment, stone-pelting, etc. which can be later used by the Railway Protection Force for investigation. Tune in with RJ Rohini and Sachin Kalbag- executive editor of the Hindustan Times to know more!

Fact Checker-Traffic cam CCTVs have been showing unusual locations to hide the fact that Yoon's commute will create traffic congestion?-How the plagiarism inspection works, and whether a low plagiarism percentage always means it's someone's original work-Kim Seong-hoe, the presidential secretary for religion and multiculturalism degraded multiculturalism?-The criminal procedure act was amended to take away investigative rights from prosecution. Could it put more children in danger?-대통령 출퇴근 때, 체증 감추려 CCTV 통제한다?-'표절률' 낮으면 표절 아니다?-다문화 비하하는 다문화 비서관, 해명도 거짓-형사소송법 개정으로 아동학대 수사 부실해진다고?Guest: Taehee Lee, Reporter, Korea JoongAng DailySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

VetStaff does more than flick job seekers' CV onto vet clinics like their competitors - who then leave the job seeker to negotiate everything for themselves. VetStaff helps clinics with reputation misinformation - for example the false rumour of CCTVs in restrooms!Case Study #16-month new grad looking for her second jobVetStaff were given five days to organise a job interviewin four days they had three interviews job offer was signed within a week$21kpa increase on what she was earningClinic didn't realise job offers could be made up the way this one wasCase Study #2Locum vet who wanted a permanent positionWas being pressured to sign an offer the vet had arranged themselvesVetStaff organised two job offers over a long weekend - both at $30kpa more than the original offerCase Study #3Vet wanted to negotiate a pay increase at her annual reviewdidn't know what she was worth or where to startJulie sent her away with 'homework' which she didrole played through different negotiation scenariosVet walked out with $20kpa increaseCase Study #4Vet Nurse wanted to negotiate pay increase at her annual reviewdidn't know what she was worth or where to startJulie sent her away with 'homework' - which she didrole played through different negotiation scenariosVN walked out with a $5ph pay increase.In this episode Julie talks about:information you need to know to successfully negotiate a pay increasewhy you need to start planning months in advancewhy it's important you know your 'numbers' before you start negotiatingVetStaff leading veterinary sector recruitment in New Zealand | veterinarians | locums | nurses

Kunal Kislay, Co-Founder and CEO, Integration Wizards Solutions, shares his entrepreneurial journey with sensing visual data with Artificial Intelligence (AI) under Integration Wizards Solutions (IWiz). Integration Wizards, under their flagship product, Iris, help enterprises generate, organise, and manage visual data more meaningfully. We try to cut short the margin error by catering to monitoring and meticulous programming. With the advent of the company and the team's hard work, Integration Wizards is available in 16 countries in 6 different languages. Listen to know more about Kunal's business mindset to widen your Dhandho Ni Soch.

Today's show is about overexposure on the internet; as companies provide more business, those services offered make them easier to find and exploit. As a result, malicious agents can scrape the internet and companies' networks to learn more about them than they would often like to be known. Combatting overexposure is a massive undertaking, and companies always find higher priorities; thus, the picture worsens. Our host says that business growth through M&A is a significant culprit leading to unknown configurations and massive infrastructure risks. The Guest uses an example of 22,000 open CCTVs found in a network scan to drive his point home. Next, hear some unique suggestions about resolving the problems from the ground up. Finally, they discuss the potential to start making a better future by first leaving past weaknesses and focusing on new products. Though this seems rather neglectful, it may lead to a better future.  Visit our sponsors: BlockFrame Inc. SecureSet Academy Murray Security Services  

Michael Hingson, shares his Keynote speech created on October 3 2019 at an event sponsored by San Joaquin County Office of Education, CEDR Systems help in Monte Ray, CA. There were nearly 1,000 people in attendance at this keynote address delivered by Mr. Hingson to kick off the 2019 Inclusion Collaborative conference. In this presentation, Mike Hingson discussed his life experiences as a student who happened to be blind. He discussed some of the challenges he faced as well as how he prepared to overcome them. As a major part of this talk and our inaugural podcast episode, Mike tells his story of emergency preparation and how he was able to use his knowledge and his unstoppable mindset to survive the terrorist attack on Tower One of the World Trade Center. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit: https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast we're inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson 01:19 I really am honored to be here. I am, I guess in a sense, a product of special education in California. Let me tell you a little bit about me. In all seriousness, I was born in 1950, February 24 1950. You can do the math. Yes, I'm 69. People say I don't sound it. So I'm very happy about that. And I hope that that continues for a long time. But I was born sighted. But I was born two months premature. And the result of that was that I was put in an incubator with a pure oxygen environment. You've probably heard something about what today is called retinopathy of prematurity, which back in the day, I don't where that expression came from, but it was called retro dentro fibro pleasure. It was something that was discovered and named by Dr. Arnold Patz at the Wilmer Eye Institute. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago before he passed, and we discussed what was originally called rlf, which is now our LP, but the bottom line is, is I was put in an incubator, the retina malformed and I became blind after about two days. We didn't know that for a while. I certainly didn't know it, but my parents didn't know it. About four months after I was born, an aunt said to my mother, you know, he's not really reacting to sunlight. I wonder if there's something wrong with his eyes? Well, sure enough, we went to the hospital and the doctors eventually came out and said, PSC is blind, you can't see. And you should send him to a home because you shouldn't keep him with you. If you do, he will not be good for your family. He'll certainly make it harder for your older son who can see who was two years old, you should send him to home. My father had an eighth grade education. My mother had a high school diploma and they told the learning Medical Society in Chicago nuts, too, you were taking him home. The doctor said he'll never be able to contribute to society and they said sure he will. It doesn't matter if he's blind or not. What matters is what he learns. These people who certainly didn't have the the vast knowledge of the learned medical profession in Chicago, bucked the system, I did go home. I was born on the south side of Chicago. Michael Hingson 03:47 If we if we take geraldo rivera into account two blocks from Al Capone's private vault, but I was born in Chicago, I grew up there for five years, went to the candy store when I was old enough to do it with my brother and cousins, who lived next door every day and walked around the neighborhood and so on and did it just like anyone else. I never even thought about it because my parents didn't think about it. They were risk takers, although I'm sure they didn't think of it that way. But they were they let me go outside and be a part of the rest of the kids in the neighborhood and growing up. They although I didn't know it early on, were a part of a group of parents who fought for special education classes for blind kids see, there were a number of premature births. During the baby boomer era, it actually brought the average age of blind people down from 67 to 65. Because there were so many, but there were enough in Chicago, my parents fought with other parents for special education classes. Well, kindergarten starts at age of four in Chicago. And so at four years old, I went to Korea In the garden in a special class with a teacher who was going to teach me and a bunch of other blind kids something about school, I actually began to learn Braille in kindergarten. I remember I wish I still had it. I remember, she, in teaching me Braille said, the best way for you to learn Braille is to write something. I'm going to read you a story about nasturtiums. Anybody know how to spell illustrations, I don't remember. But I had to write the story down that was in what was called grade one or uncontracted Braille. I had learned grade two yet, but I learned the Braille alphabet in kindergarten, hello. And then my father was offered a job in Southern California and we moved to California, Palmdale, California. And the problem with moving to Palmdale, California was that there were no provisions at all for blind or any other kinds of kids with what we call today's disabilities, or special needs, or whatever you politically want to call it. I'm not really a great fan of political correctness. So let me be real blunt, I am blind, I'm not vision impaired, I don't have a visual handicap, I am blind. By the way, I am trying to help start a movement, what I am not is visually impaired. The last time I checked, being blind didn't have any effect on how you looked. So visually impaired really doesn't count. If you're going to do it, vision impaired is more accurate than visually impaired because I really probably would look the same. If I am blind or sighted. We'll deal with the glasses later. I normally don't wear glasses, but that's another story and we'll get to it. vision impaired I understand visually impaired really is ridiculous. But it's the term that people have used. So you need to help us change the habit. But in reality, I am blind. Let me define blind. A person is blind when they lose enough of their eyesight that they have to use. Let me rephrase that, that they will use alternative techniques to eyesight in order to accomplish tasks, whether it be reading or whatever, yes, you can get very thick lens glasses or CCTVs, and so on, to help a person use their eyesight to read, but they're blind by any standard of intelligence. If you think about it, they are blind, not that they don't have any eyesight, but they have to use alternative techniques. And they don't have to use eyesight. I have been in environments I've been involved in projects as an adult, where I've been in special education, schools where we've been discussing how to teach Braille reading and so on. And I've had teachers who would come up to me and talk about the fact that they have kids who are blind and kids who have some eyesight. They're legally blind, but not totally blind. Sally has some eyesight Johnny doesn't have any Sally gets to reprint Johnny has to read Braille. Michael Hingson 08:05 That attitude is so backward, or it should be considered backward. The problem is Sally may get to reprint, but she's going to have headaches, she's going to read very slow. And if Johnny gets to truly learn Braille, he's going to be reading at several 100 words a minute, while Sally is kind of poking along, and having headaches and not doing very well. I have no problem with children or adults using their eyes. If they have eyesight, I do have a problem with them not also having the opportunity to learn the techniques that blind people use. Because if they learn those techniques, then you they can use both worlds to live much more productive lives. And so for those of you who are special ed teachers, even if your children have some eyesight, and even if the parents resist, try to push back, they need to learn Braille. A lot of special education teachers have said to me well, but blind people don't need Braille anymore. It's passe. You can listen to books and so on. You've got recordings we've now got Of course, files and you can use synthetic speech to hear the books read. Yeah, listen to one of those books with synthetic speech and see how much you enjoy it. But But yes, it's available. But my question to any of those people is tell me why you still teach sighted kids to read print? My they could watch cartoons, they could watch TV? Why do they need to learn to read print? The bottom line is blindness isn't the problem that I face. The problem I face consists truly of the attitudes and misconceptions that people have about blindness and it still comes back down to the fact that in reality people think That blind people can't truly be as productive in society as people who can see. Ah, and I wanted to do something before we go on how many heroes special ed teachers? Let me just see. Alright, how many are HR people? All right, a few of you get it. So I'm going to stop right now and say for those of you who didn't clap, how many of you think it's bright when a lecturer asks you a question and they're blind that you raise your hands? And you prove my point. So the bottom line is blindness isn't the problem. There are so many people in the world who are blind who have accomplished every bit as much if not more than most people in society, because they've learned that eyesight isn't really the gating factor. The gating factor are our attitudes about blindness. Jacob Salatin was a cardiologist who didn't live a long life. I think he died at 36. He was in the early he lived in the early 1900s. He was blind. And he was one of the most famous heart doctors in the Chicago area. There's a book about him called the good doctor, you gotta try to find it and read it. It's fascinating read. There are so many others. Jacobus tenbroek, was the founder of the National Federation of the Blind. He was born in Canada, but lost his eyesight at the age of seven lived most of his life in the United States. Dr. Tim Brooke, was taught by Dr. Newell Perry in in Albany at the School for the Blind at that time, and learned that in fact, he could do whatever he chose to do blindness was the problem. Dr. Tim Brooke went through the standard education courses and eventually had I had taken lectureships in at the University of California at Berkeley, did his undergraduate work there, he wanted to go into law. But when he graduated, and expressed that interest, the school said, No, you can't because a blind person can't do that. You could get a degree in psychology, you can get your PhD in psychology. But you can't get a law degree because blind people can't do that way too much reading way too complicated. So Dr. Tim Britt bowed to the pressure and got his degree in psychology, and then was hired to teach at UC Berkeley. Michael Hingson 12:29 I don't remember the exact year but somewhere along the line, he was asked to chair the speech department at the University of California at Berkeley. Now Dr. Tim Brooke, who was by then married to his wife, Hazel was pretty bright guy and kind of guy. Dr. Hambrick, accepted the position and said to the entire university, I want faculty members to join my speech department. But if you're going to join this department, what you need to understand is that you have to undertake a discipline, different from your discipline of education. So if you're a physicist, for example, and you want to join my department, you got to do research on something other than physics, you can tie it back to physics, but you have to do something other than physics is your main effort of work in our department. Well, Dr. Turmeric was one of these guys who believed in practicing what he preached, what do you think that he decided to do his discipline on? Dr. temperate became one of the foremost constitutional law scholars of the 20th century. There are still many cases that use his treatise is on tort law. And many examples of his works on discrimination and so on, are used today. In 1940, he formed with others, the National Federation of the Blind, the largest organization of blind people, consumers in the United States. And we don't have time to go into a lot of his work. But the point is, it didn't matter that he was buying, he did get to law. And he did it in a roundabout way. But he did it in a way that the university had to accept. And they loved him for it, in fact that Dr. Tim Burke was one of the few people in California who has ever been asked by both political parties to run for the United States Senate. And that happened after senator Claire angle, had a stroke and and he obviously could not continue as a senator and passed away. Dr. Tamarack was asked by both parties to run and he refused. Because he was enjoying his work with the National Federation of the Blind. He was involved in forming the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley and so on and doing so much constitutional law work. He knew that's what he needed to do. blindness isn't the problem. And so the question that all of you need to consider is are you going to hold people back? Or are you going to truly embrace a positive philosophy That says bind people bind students can do whatever they choose. And we're going to challenge them just like we would challenge any other student. And we're going to challenge them to do the best that they can truly do. And we're going to help teach them what they need. And sometimes that's going to mean you need to do as much work to educate parents. Because parents are frightened. They don't know. They're victims. I won't say products. They're victims of the same society that has negative attitudes about blindness. And I know there's only so much you can do, but you can set the tone. All of you here, not just in special education, but all of you here can set the tone. To give you an example of the kinds of attitudes that I faced. We moved to Victorville California in 2014. Where do you live in Victorville? Where do you live? Okay, we live in Spring Valley lake. Yeah. Other side. We chose property and build a house on it. My wife happens to be in a wheelchair and it's been in a chair her whole life. So we, we knew that if you buy a house and modify it, it costs a lot of money. If you build a house, it doesn't cost anything to build in the accessibility. And we found a piece of property very close to the Victorville Spring Valley Lake Country Club. So we get to walk to breakfast, or to go to dinner when we want to go out to eat, which is great. Anyway, before we moved to Victorville, in 2013, my wife and I were in an IKEA store with a couple of other people. And this young 13 year old boy comes up to me and he says, I'm sorry. And I stood there for a second. I said, Well, what are you sorry about? Well, because you can't see. I didn't know this kid. But that was his attitude. And I probably didn't answer in the best way that I could. But I said, Well, I'm sorry that you can because you don't get what I get. Michael Hingson 17:05 And by that time, his mother saw that he was tying this blanket and called him away and told him that not bothered the blind man. But you know, the bottom line is, we're no different than anyone else. We don't have the disability that all of you house. You know, in the 1800s, Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb. Why did he do that? Because as we now understand, with the Americans with Disabilities Act, it was a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people who can't function in the dark. Michael Hingson 17:39 You light dependent people I know there are more of you than there are of me. But we're gonna get you in a dark alley one night, and we'll see if we can read. You know, again, it isn't. It isn't a blindness issue. I did go to college, I graduated I had several jobs that eventually led me to be in the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. I was there as the Mid Atlantic region sales manager for quantum Corporation, which was a fortune 500 computer company. I had been hired two years before to open an office for quantum in New York City. I was living back there because I had been transferred by another company from California to sell in New York City because I had been doing it by phone. And I made the case for the fact that we needed to do it on site. So I was asked to open an office because I had been recruited by quantum to do that. We opened the office on the 78th floor of tower one of the World Trade Center. The 78th floor is what's called a skylounge a sky lobby. That meant that elevators would go straight from floor one to 78 without stopping the World Trade Center. The way it was structured was that you could take elevators to go from floor one up to some number of floors but there were also direct elevators to floor 44 and floor 78. The 44th floor was where the cafeteria was the Port Authority cafeteria that everyone use 78 was the next jumping off point. You would then go to other elevators to go to other floors are you take the stairs, or in our case we were fortunate to have our office right on the 78th floor and on September 11 we were going to be holding some sales seminars to teach some of our resellers how to teach how to sell our products. I Arctic con they are excuse me quantum the company that worked for then artic con move me to the east coast but quantum work through a two tier distribution and sales model. So typically most of our products were sold to a few very large distributors and they in turn sign the smaller resellers and the major distributor we worked with Ingram micro wanted to make sure that their resellers knew how to sell our products. So they asked if we do the seminar and we set it up for of course September 11. By that time, I Had my fifth guide dog Roselle was that was a yellow lab. Roselle was also a dog with a great sense of humor, she loved to steal socks. She wouldn't eat them, she hid them. And I was warned by her puppy raisers that she'd like to do that. And she did. She stole my wife slippers once and hid them. And we had to find them. So in any case, we we in, Roselle and I were matched in 1999. And in 2001, she was very used to working in the World Trade Center with me, I had spent a lot of time when we started the office and started preparing to open the office, I had spent a great deal of time learning where everything in the World Trade Center was that I could possibly want to know about, I knew what was on most every floor, especially that would be a place where we might want to reach out and, and try to sell. I knew how to get around. I spent a lot of time studying emergency evacuation procedures. And almost every day when I went into the office, I remember thinking, if there's an emergency today, how am I going to get out? What am I going to do? And I made sure I knew the answers to those things. Because many times I would be in the office alone, nobody else would be there. Because I had a staff working for me great sales guys. And their job was to go out and sell and support their manager, right. So that was me. And my job was to be inside supporting them going on sales calls with them from time to time. But a lot of times I would be in the office alone, fielding their questions, helping them in any way that I could, working to make sure that I knew everything that they might need to know so that I could enhance them out in the field. In fact, every salesperson I ever hired, I said, Look, I know you're working for me. But I want you to understand that I view myself as a second person on your sales team. And what you and I need to do is to learn how we work together so I can add value to you and enhance what you do. My favorite example of that was with a guy named Kevin, who I hired. Michael Hingson 22:14 I really liked Kevin, because when we were doing the interview, I said to him like I did to everyone, tell me what you're going to be selling for us and how you're going to do it. Now the typical answer for most people was, well, you're selling tape drives, we're going to be selling the tape drives, I'm going to learn all about those. And I'm going to go off and tell people how to do it. And what what they need to know so that they can buy it. That's the typical answer. Kevin's answer was the only person who ever gave it and it was the answer I wanted to hear. The only thing I have to sell is me and my reputation. And I need your support. I won't do anything without telling you. But when we agree on something, I'm going to go sell me and through them will and through that we'll sell the products. But if they don't believe me, they're not going to be interested in our products. And I have to rely on you. What an answer. But it was the right answer truly. So one day Kevin comes into my office and he says, Hey, we have sales opportunity at Salomon Brothers. I said, Okay. He said, they want me to come out and talk about our products for a project they have, I'm not sure that our products will really be what they want. But they want us to come and talk about it. And they wanted me to bring my manager along a decision maker. I said, Okay, he said, so they don't know you. So I didn't tell him you're blind. Michael Hingson 23:51 So we got to the meeting. We entered the building right at 10 o'clock. We I wanted to arrive a minute or so late. I knew what Kevin meant. When he said I didn't tell him you're blind. Because we were going to hit him right between the eyes with that. So about 1001 we're walking down the hallway here, a bunch of people talking a few and we're going where are these quantum people in all that we walk in the door and the room goes totally silent. We stand there for a moment. And I turned to Kevin, I said, So where are we going to do this? He says all right up here in the front. So we went up to the front I had a laptop projector in hand on my laptop also opened up the cases took things out and says where do we plug this stuff in? And he says I'll take it and he plugs it in. And meanwhile, I'm standing there facing this audience. And so I turn to my left. And I said to the person sitting right in the front row on the corner who I heard as we walked by, I said, Hi my name is Mike Kingston, who are you? Nothing. Really, who are you? Nothing. So I kind of walk over near him and I'm looking straight at him. And I said I heard you when I walked by, who are you? So finally he said, Oh, my name is Joe. I said, Good, glad to meet you. And when I shook his hand, I said, you know, doesn't matter whether I'm blind beside, I know you're there. I don't know a lot about you yet, but I'm gonna learn about you. So tell me, Joe, why are you interested in our tape drives? I didn't ask if he was interested. I asked him why? Because I knew from my Dale Carnegie sales course you don't answer ask yes or no questions unless you really know the answer. But you don't ask yes or no questions. That doesn't give you a lot of information. So Joe, kind of hemmed and hawed and finally gave me an answer to that. And then I said, So tell me a little bit more about the project, if you will. And he did. And then I went to the next person, and I went around the room. And I talked to those people, learning a lot, including our product wasn't gonna do anything to help these people. But we were there. So we did the presentation. I did the presentation, I had a script, I did the PowerPoint show. And on my script was in incredible detail. And it said, everything that I needed to know including even on the screen, what picture appeared where so I could point over my shoulder and say, on the left side of your screen, you'll see the A TLP 3000, which holds 16 tape drives and 326 tape cartridges, we use a special technology called prism technology, our system is very modular, we can actually connect five of those drives together five of those libraries together, so that you could have a total of 80, tape drives, and 16 120. Tape cartridges, all in one big library. And on the right side of your screen, you can see the ATL p 1000, which is a small single drive library with 30, tape drives, and some things like that, and talk on and on and on. And we went off and we talked and all that, and we did the whole show. And then I said at the end, and as you can see our product won't do what you want. But I wanted you to know about it, because I want you to understand what different systems can do. Now let me tell you a little bit about who has a product that will help you. My bosses would shoot me if they heard me say that. But it's the ethical thing to do. And so we talked about that a little bit. And then we ended the day and people will come up to me and we chatted some and a couple came up and they said we're really angry at you. And I said Why? He said Well, usually when people come in, they do these presentations, we just kind of fall asleep and vege out, you know, because they just keep talking and talking. But you never looked away and looked at the screen. You kept looking at us, we forgot you were blind. We didn't dare fall asleep. And I said, Well, you could have fallen asleep. The dog was down here. You may think he's asleep, but he's taken notes. Anyway, we ended and we went out and Kevin said, How can you know so much about our products? And and you knew some of these later things that I don't know. And I said, Well, did you read the product bulletin that came out last week? Well, no, I really didn't have time. I said, there you go. message received and understood. But about two weeks later, the Solomon people called back and they said, We really do appreciate all that you did and coming out and talking with us. And we have something to tell you. And that is that there's another project. Because of everything that you taught us, we know that your product is perfect for it, we're not even putting it out for bid, just give us a price. That's the ethics of it. That's the way to sell. Michael Hingson 28:31 And that's what we did. So, in any case, I spent a lot of time learning what to do in the case of an emergency, so that I could get out when necessary, because I knew that people like Kevin and the rest of our sales and support staff would be out working a lot of times. And so I knew everything that I could possibly know about what to do in any kind of an unusual situation. On September 10, I went home as usual, I took my laptop, which is what I used in the office, I backed up my data at home. I'm a good Scout, I know how to be prepared, and sometimes I would work at home. So I always made sure I had my data backed up at home as well as on the job. By the way, speaking of scouts as long as I'm bragging, I happen to be an Eagle Scout with two palms and vigil in the order of the arrow. blindness isn't the issue. Michael Hingson 29:33 A lot of fun. I had some great scout leaders who accepted me for who I was and that made all the difference. In any case. I backed up my data later that night we went to bed and about 1230 Roselle started nudging me. Now Roselle was afraid of thunder. And of course we had rain storms in New Jersey. We lived in Westfield, great town. Again there we build our house that was a two story house. We put an elevator in So we could go to the two stories and the basement. So we had this nice elevator and nice house. But Roselle now was bugging me at 1230. And I knew that there must be a storm coming. She usually gave us about a half hour warning because she could sense it, as we know because the static charge would build up on her for as well as the fact that she probably heard the thunder before we do and so Rosa was shaking and shivering and panting and so I took Roselle Karen, my wife was awake by that time and we both agree there must be a storm coming. So we went downstairs to my basement to our basement. I put Roselle under my desk and I sat down and decided to try to do a little bit of work that I was going to do the next day before our sales seminars began. I turned on the stereos and had a pretty loud hopefully masking some of the thunder sounds. But God has a sense of humor. I guess. The storm literally came right over our house. It sounds like bombs going off outside and pours it Roselle was just shaking. At least she didn't see the lightning because she was under the desk. We were there until about two o'clock. Then the storm left. And so I went back up and we got three more hours asleep and then got up to go into the office. I didn't think it was a bad sign of things to come. Some people have said well, didn't you get the warning? No. So we got to the office at 740. And there was a guy there he just pulled up with a cart. He was from the Port Authority cafeteria, he was bringing the breakfast that we ordered for the early arrivals. And for the first group of seminar people we had 50 people scheduled during the day to come to one of four seminars. by eight o'clock. Some of our distribution people from Ingram micro arrived along with David Frank from our corporate office, David was in charge of the distribution sales, then he was there to help the Ingram micro people talk about pricing. I was there because of course I'm the technical contact the guy who would be on site in New York all the time. David was from New York, but he transplanted to California. And so so he was there and I was there we were the two quantum people, the Ingram micro people were there for about five Ingram micro people, six, actually, I guess. And then one of them decided about quarter after eight or 830, to go downstairs and to wait in the lobby, and a score our distribution people to where they needed to go. The last thing we needed to do before the seminars or to start was to create a list of all the people who would be attending that day, if you wanted to go to the World Trade Center and go up and see anyone at that time, because of the bombing in 1993, you either had to have your name on a previously prepared list that was created on stationery from the company where you were going. So they could check your name off after looking at your ID, or they would have to call us and say is so and so allowed to come up. We didn't want to have 50 phone calls. So it was easier to create the list. David and I finished the list and at 845 in the morning I was reaching for stationery to create the list and print it out when suddenly we felt a muffled thump. And the building sort of shuttered a little a minor kind of explosion not overly loud. And then the building began to tip. As I'm tipping my hand and it just kept tipping and tipping and tipping. We actually moved about 20 feet. Michael Hingson 33:37 The building kept tipping. David said What's going on? I said I don't know what do you think? I said do you think it was an explosion? You said it didn't sound like it? He said was it an earthquake? I said no. Because the building's not shaking from side to side or anything it's going in one direction. Now I knew that building the towers were made to buffet and winds although I wasn't really thinking about that at the time. But the building kept tipping and hey I grew up in Palmdale right building musco Santa doorway, so I went and stood in the doorway to my office. Yeah, a lot of good that's really going to do your 78 floors up but hey, there I was. David was just holding on to my desk. Roselle was asleep under my desk. And finally, David, I say goodbye to each other because we thought we were about to take a 78 floor punch to the street. Then the building slowed down and it stopped. And it came back the other way. And I remember as soon as the building started to move back, I let out my breath. I didn't even realize I was holding it. The building eventually got to be vertical again. As soon as it did, I went into my office and I met my guide dog Roselle coming out from under my desk. I took her leash and told her to heal, which meant to come around on my left side just like Alamo did good boy, he gets a reward for sitting and Roselle came and sat and was just wagging your tail And about that time, the building Straight down about six feet. Because as we know, the expansion joints went back to their normal configuration. We didn't really think about that at the time, but that's what they were doing. As soon as that occurred, David let go of the desk, turned around and looked around outside and said, Oh my god, Mike, there's fire and smoke above us. There are millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside the window. We got to get out of here right now. We can't stay here. I said. Are you sure? Yeah, I can see the fire above us. And there millions of pieces of burning paper falling outside our windows. I heard stuff, brushing the windows, but I didn't know what it was. Now I did. And our guests began to scream the ones that were in eating breakfast, waiting for the seminar to start, they started moving toward our exit and I kept saying slow down, David. No, we got to get out of here right now. The buildings on fire. Slow down. David will get out. Just be patient. No, we got to get out of here right now. We can't stay here. For me, emergency preparedness training kicked in. Because I, as you know, kept thinking What do I do? Emergency Well, here it was. Then David said the big line Mike, we got to get out of here. And I said slow down. He says no, you don't understand you can't see it. The problem wasn't what I wasn't seeing. The problem was what David wasn't seeing when I tell you about Rozelle with thunderstorms. She wasn't doing any of that she was wagging her tail and Jani and going, who woke me up. She wasn't giving any fear indication at all. And so I knew that whatever was occurring, we weren't imminently immediately threatened. So I finally got David to focus and say, get our guests to the stairs and start them down. And he did. While he was doing that, I called Karen, my wife and said, there's been an emergency and something happened. We're going to be evacuating, I'll let you know later What's going on? And she said, what's, what is what is going on? I said, Oh, no. The airplane hit 18 floors above us on the other side of the building. Afterward, when reporters started interviewing me. They said, Well, of course you didn't know what happened because you couldn't see it. I said, Wait a minute, helped me understand. The plane hit on the 96th floor roughly. On the other side of the building from us the last time I heard there really wasn't such a thing as x ray vision. None of us knew blindness had nothing to do with you can't justify that. None of us knew. And on the stairs, none of us knew. And we were with a whole bunch of people on the stairs. Anyway, David came back. I just disconnected with Karen. We swept the offices to make sure we didn't miss anyone. We tried to power down some equipment, didn't really have time to do a lot of that and we just left a went to the stairs and started down. Almost immediately I began smelling an odor and it took me a little while to recognize that what I was smelling was burning jet fuel. I traveled a lot through airports about 100,000 miles a year. So I knew that smell but I didn't associate it with the World Trade Center. Now suddenly, I smelled it and I recognize it finally after about four floors, and I observed it to others who said yeah, that's what it is. You're right. Michael Hingson 38:12 So we kept walking down the stairs. Got down about 10 floors and then from above us we heard Brian victim coming through move to the side let us by the stairs were wide enough that you could walk like two or three abreast but we moved to the outer wall stood facing in and a group of people passed us and David described how they were surrounding a woman who is very badly burned over the upper part of her body, probably from the little vapor droplets that can busted as she was standing in front of an elevator. We then started walking again and then we heard it again burned record coming through moving to the side, let us buy and another group pass us with someone who is burn. As David said even worse, we knew it had to be pretty bad above us. We kept walking down some conversation. We got to about the 50th floor David wasn't talking very much. And suddenly he said Mike we're gonna die. We're not going to make it out of here. And I just said stop it David if Roselle and I can go down the stairs. So can you see I took that secret teacher course that that all of you as teachers have never told anybody about because you're sworn to secrecy, right? voice 101 where you learn to yell at students, right? And so I literally very deliberately spoke very harshly to David. And he told me that that brought him out of his funk. But then David made a decision, which I think is still one of the most profound and incredible decisions and follow throughs that I experienced that day. David said, You know, I got to keep my mind on it on what's going on. But I don't I don't want to think about this. I want to think about something else. So I'm going to walk the floor below you and shout up to you everything that I see on the stairs, okay. And I said Sure, go ahead. Did I need David to do that? No. Right, you're going down the stairs, what can you do, but it was okay. And I'm glad to have more information. I love information. And so I thought it was fine. But the reason that I thought that what David did was so incredible will come up in a moment. So suddenly I'm on the 49th floor when I walked down the floor and David walked ahead of us and suddenly, Hey, Mike, I'm on the 48th floor, everything is good here going on down. I'm on 49 go into 48 get to 48 David 47th floor all clear. What David was doing, although he was shouting up to me, he was providing information that hundreds or 1000s of people on the stairwell could hear. He gave everyone a focus point. Anyone who could hear him knew that somewhere above them or below them on the stairs, someone was okay. And that it was clear and they could keep going. He gave everyone something to focus on. And I think that that was the one thing more than anything else. That had to keep more people from possibly panicking like he started to do on the stairs. We didn't have any other incidents that that after David started shouting 46 floor all clear. Hey, I'm on 45 everything is good here. 44th floor This is where the Port Authority cafeteria is not stopping going on down. Michael Hingson 41:31 And we continue down the stairs. We eventually got to the 30th floor. And when we did actually David did and I was at 31 he said I see I see firefighters coming up the stairs. We're going to have to let them by everybody moved to the side while I went down to where he was and they hadn't got there yet. I said what do you see? And he said, Well I just see him coming up the stairs they got heavy backpacks on and they're carrying shovels oxygen cylinders by our axes the first guy gets to us and he stops right in front of me and when let me bike goes hey buddy you okay? You know that's how you sound in New York right? Hey buddy. Yo, in New Jersey, it's yo and I said yeah I'm fine well that's really nice we're gonna send somebody down the stairs which should make sure you get out and I said you don't need to do that I'm good. What's really nice we're gonna send somebody which anyway I said Look, I just came down from the 78th floor here we are at 30 I came down 48 floors I'm really good. Wow, it's really nice. We're gonna send somebody down the stairs which I said Look, I got my guide dog Roselle here and and everything is good. We're doing fine. Now what a nice dog and he reaches out and he starts petting Roselle. It wasn't the time to give him a lecture don't pet a guide dog and harness. But I'll give you the lecture dump had a guide dog and harness, dog and harness do not come up Don't say name don't interact with even don't make eye contact dog in harness is working harness is symbol of work. Don't distract dog. If you do, I will first correct the dog before I deal with you. Because rose Alamo should know better. He is still a puppy though. And dogs love to interact. And so when you start trying to talk with them, they're going to talk to you, they're going to try and then I have to bring him back and focus him. I don't want to do that. So don't deal with a guide dog and harness. Now as I said before, when we're out selling books later harness will come off, and you're welcome to visit with him all you want. Of course, I'd love you to buy books too. And take business cards because if any of you know anyone who needs a public speaker, whether it's in your district or or their organizations, I would love you to to let me know or let them know, because this is what I do. And I really would love your help to do more of this to educate people. We can talk more about that later. Any case wasn't the time to give them that lecture and it wasn't the time to say to the fire person. blindness isn't the problem. It's your attitude, you know, so I finally just played the card. Look, I got my friend David over here David can see we're working together okay. And he turns to David here with him. David goes yeah, leave him alone. He's good. He says okay, and he goes, then he pets Roselle a few more times. She gives him a few more kisses. And he goes on up the stairs. Probably just having received the last unconditional love he ever gotten his life. Michael Hingson 44:21 And I remember that. Every time I say it. I don't know I never heard whether they survived or not. But don't know that he did. But he was gone. Other firefighters were coming up 50 men and women pastors going up the stairs to fight that fire. Several of us on one or more occasions said can we help you guys and they just said no Your job is to go down and get out ours is to go deal with this. We got it. David we assumed a scouting position and we kept going down the stairs. Finally David said well at about the 26th floor by the way Somebody started passing up water bottles. Roselle was panting I was getting pretty warm with all the the massive human bodies. So we we gave Roselle some water somebody passed up bottles and David brought one up and he took some drinks I took some drinks we gave Roselle some we made our hands into kind of cups and so everybody got some water and then we continued and finally he got to the first floor. I was on four second floor two and he said hey Mike, the water sprinklers are on here you're going to have to run through a curtain and water to get out of the stairwell. And the water was running to create a barrier so fire wouldn't get in or out depending on if it ever broke out. He was gone. I got to the first floor picked up the harness results forward hopper speed up, which is the command to give. we raced through this torrential downpour of water and came out the other end soaking. But we were in the lobby of tower one. Normally a very quiet building and quiet lobby office type environment. But now people were shouting dunk on that way. Don't go outside go this way. megaphones don't go over their gun this way. Go to the doors into the rain, main part of the complex don't go outside. They didn't want anyone going out because that would have put them right below where people were jumping. We didn't know that at the time. So this guy comes up to David and me. And he says, Hey, I'm with the FBI. I'll get you where you need to go. And I'm sitting there going the FBI. What did I do? I didn't do it. sighs I'm not talking to anybody about McGarrett from five Oh, I didn't think that. Anyway, I said What's going on? He said no time to tell you just come with us. So he ran us through the whole complex and out a door after going up an escalator by borders, books as far away from the towers as we could be. And we made it outside. And we were told to leave the area. But David looked around and said, Mike, I see fire in tower two. I said what? Yeah, there's fire in the second tower. Sure. Yeah. And I went, what's going on? We had no idea where that came from. We didn't feel thing in our building when we were going down the stairs. So we thought perhaps it was just fire that jumped across from our building when the building tipped it was mashing pointed toward tower to we didn't know. So we left the area we walked over to Broadway, we walk north on Broadway and eventually we got to Vesey street where we stopped because David says see the fire and tower to really well. We're only 100 yards away. I want to take pictures. So we stopped. He got out his camera. I got out my phone. I tried to call Karen. I couldn't get through the circuits were busy because as we now know everyone was everyone was saying goodbye to loved ones. But I couldn't get through to Karen. I had just put my phone away and David was putting his camera away when a police officer to get out of here it's coming down and we heard this rumble that quickly became this deafening roar I described the sound is kind of a combination of a freight train and a waterfall. You could hear glass tinkling and breaking metal clattering in is white noise sound as tower to collapse it pancake straight down. David turned and ran. He was gone. Everyone was running different directions. I bodily lifted, Roselle turned 180 degrees and started running back the way we came. Come on was I'll keep going good girl keep going. We ran got to Fulton Street, turned right onto Fulton Street. And now we're going west. At least we had a building between us and the towers. I ran about maybe 100 feet or so. And suddenly there was David. It turns out we had both run in the same direction. And then he realized that he had just left me he was going to come back and try to find me. But I found him first and he started apologizing. I said David, don't worry about the buildings coming down. Let's keep going and we started to run. And then we were engulfed in the dust cloud all the dirt and debris in the fine particles of tower two that were collapsing that we're that we're coming down. And so David and I were now engulfed in this cloud. He said he couldn't see his hand six inches in front of his face. I could feel with every breath I took stuff going through my mouth and through my nose into my throat and settling in my lungs. That's how thick it was. I could feel it settling in my lungs. Michael Hingson 49:19 So we kept running and we knew we had to get out of that. So I started telling Roselle right? Right with hand signals and voice I don't know whether she could hear me and because of the dust. I don't even know if she could see me. Right? Roselle right? But I was listening for an opening on my right and the first opening I heard I was gonna go into it. And obviously Roselle didn't know what I want because when that first opening appeared, I heard it but she immediately turned right she took one step and she stopped and she wouldn't move. Connor was I'll keep going, she wouldn't move. And I realized there must be a reason. So I stuck a handle on a wall and stuck out a foot and realized and discovered that we were at the top of a flight of stairs. She had done her job perfectly. We walked down two flights of stairs and found ourselves in little arcade, a lobby of a subway station. We continued to well, we just stayed there for a while. And then this guy comes up. He introduced himself as Lou, an employee of the subway system. And he took us down to the lower levels of the subway station to an employee locker room. And when we got to the locker room, there were benches there were about eight or nine of us who were in the lobby at that point, that little arcade, there were other people that he had already escorted down. So we were all in this employee locker room, there was a water fountain, there were benches, there was a fan. We were all hacking and trying to get rid of stuff from our lungs, and not saying much what the heck was going on. None of us knew. We were there for a few minutes. And then a police officer came and he said, the air is clear up above you're gonna have to, to leave and and go out of here right now. So we followed him up the stairs, he went to that little arcade lobby where we had been, and then he went on up the stairs. He said the air is a little bit better up there. And we just followed him. And finally we went outside after getting to the top. David looked around, and he said, Oh my god, Mike. There's no tower to anymore. And I said, What do you see? And he said, All I see are pillars of smoke where the tower was it's gone. Pretty sure. Yeah, it's gone. We stood there for a moment. And then we just turn and continue to walk west on Fulton Street. We walked for about maybe a quarter of a mile. And we were in this little Plaza area. Just still trying to figure out what was happening when suddenly we heard that freight train waterfall sound again, and we knew it was tower one collapsing, David looked back and saw it. And he saw a dust cloud coming toward us again, it was still pretty concentrated. So we kind of ran to the side to get out of most of it hunkered down behind a wall and just waited until everything passes by and the wind subsided, the noise stop. And then we stood up. Turn, David looked around and said, Oh my god, Mike. There's no World Trade Center anymore. I said what do you see? And he said, fingers of fire and flame hundreds of feet tall and pillars of smoke, the towers are gone. We're gone in three hours before less than three hours before just to do our job. But now in the blink of an eye, it was gone. No clue why we stood there for a moment. And then I decided I better try to call Karen and this time I got through. And after some tears on both sides of the phone, she told us how to aircraft had been crashed into the towers went into the Pentagon and a fourth was still missing over Pennsylvania. We walked up toward Midtown and eventually got near Midtown Manhattan to the subway station and the train station at 33rd and sixth and seventh Avenue. And David and I set parted and went different ways. I wanted to get back home to Westfield he wanted to get up to the Upper East Side to his sister's house, which is where he was staying when I was back in New York. And so we went our separate ways. Michael Hingson 53:42 And never, never thinking that that was the end. And a lot of ways. We did try to reopen the office elsewhere, but didn't get a lot of support from the company and decided that, for me, it was time to do something different. The reason I decided that was that the day after September 11, the 12th. Karen said you want to call the folks from Guide Dogs for the Blind. That's where you've gotten all your guide dogs got to let them know that you were in the trade center and got out because eventually they would remember it a number of them had visited us in our office, because it's such a cool view. I don't know how to tell you about the view so much other than to say we were so high up that on the Fourth of July, people would go to our office to look down on the fireworks displays. So I called them and talked to a number of people including their public information officer, Joanne Ritter, who wanted to do a story and I said sure, and she said, You know, you're probably going to get request to be on TV. What TV show Do you want to start with? So yeah, I'm not really thinking about that sort of stuff, right? kind of still in shock. So I just said Larry King Live. Two days later on the 14th. We had the first of five interviews with Larry King. And so we started doing that and eventually Guide Dogs asked me to come and be a public spoke serve their public spokesperson. And I was being asked by that time to travel and speak and tell my story. And people said, we want to hire you. Being a sales guy, I'm sitting there going, you want to hire me just to come and talk. That sounds a whole lot more fun than working for quantum. And we wanted to move back to California anyway. So I accepted Guide Dogs position, and I've been speaking ever since. Other things have happened along the way very quickly, including I was asked in 2015, by a startup company, AIRA, a IRA to join their advisory board and AIRA makes a product called a visual interpreter. It consists of an app on a smartphone. And it may also include smart glasses with a high resolution video camera. And what I wrote allows me to do is to contact an agent who has been hired and vetted and trained to describe whatever the camera sees, and whatever information I need so they can help with an accessible websites. They helped me put together products when the instructions were all visual pictures, the Chinese have learned from IKEA, and in so many other ways that literally now, any visual information becomes available with AIRA. I just really want to quickly show you like hierro and we can we can talk more about AIRA this afternoon in the the session at 345. I want you to see what AIRA does. So hopefully AIRA 56:37 connecting to agent Kenyon starting video we're gonna wait. Oh, Michael, thanks for calling. I read this is Kenyon. What would you like to do today? Michael Hingson 56:48 I'd like you to tell me what you see. AIRA 56:50 I see a very large crowd, right? Michael Hingson 56:54 Yeah, what else? AIRA 56:56 podium to mic. And it looks like a very large auditorium, see some doors toward the back exit signs, and very captive crowds. Michael Hingson 57:09 Here's the real question. Do they look like they're awake? AIRA 57:16 They are now. So we're good. Michael Hingson 57:21 So tell them what you do. AIRA 57:26 I assist those who are sight challenged with independence on a daily basis. We allow them to be more independent in their daily lives to get around with minimal help. And we basically help them to see Michael Hingson 57:41 how do you do that? What do you do? 57:44 We use descriptives we use, we call in as we did now. And we ask them, What would you like to do and we assist them with whatever their task may be for that day, whether it be for reading, navigation, calling an Ubers, travel, descriptives, you name it, we can do it. We do that through either, believe you're using the glasses right now. We have horizon glasses we use and then or through technology in the phones, we use remote cameras, to help them to see the world around them and describe it to them. And to help them navigate through Michael Hingson 58:17 it to real quick stories. One, one IRA agent helped someone once while they were on an African safari to describe what was going on. But my favorite IRA story is that a father once wanted to find out if his daughter was really doing her homework. So he activated IRA. And he went in with the agent and said, How are things going? And she said, Oh great. I'm almost done with my homework. And the Irish said Irish and said, No, she's playing a game on her iPhone. AIRA 58:48 Yes, we also bust children whenever we need to. Michael Hingson 58:54 Kenny, I appreciate your time. I'm going to go ahead and finish chatting with these folks. But appreciate you taking the time to chat today. AIRA 59:02 You bet. Thanks for calling AIRA. Michael, we'll talk to you again soon. Michael Hingson 59:04 Thank you, sir. Bye. And that's what and that's what I read is all about. The whole the whole point is that I get access to all the information I otherwise don't have access to. Because ironically, in our modern technological world, sometimes it's actually becoming harder for me to get access to information. Too many websites are inaccessible and shouldn't be too many books may be scanned, but they're not put in a textual form that I have access to. There have been lawsuits over that. But the bottom line is that IRA creates access, or I should say it creates inclusion it gives me access to the information that I otherwise wouldn't have access to. So be glad to show that to any of you What I'd like to do is to end this now, with some words from Dr. Tim Brooke, that the person I mentioned earlier, this is part of a speech that he gave at the 1956 convention of the National Federation of the Blind in San Francisco. So it is a convention of blind people. But what I'm reading to you now could just as easily apply to any group. And I'm sure that Dr. Tim Burke intended it that way. And this is what he wrote. In the 16th century, john Bradford made a famous remark, which has ever since been held up to us as a model of Christian humility, and correct charity, and which you saw reflected in the agency quotations I presented earlier, seeing a beggar in his rags creeping along a wall through a flash of lightning in a stormy night, Bradford said, but for the grace of God, there go I compassion was shown. Pity was shown, charity was shown. Humility was shown. There was even an acknowledgment that the relative positions of the two could and might have been switched. Yet, despite the compassion, despite the pity, despite the charity, despite the humility, how insufferably arrogant there was still an unbridgeable gulf between Bradford and the beggar. They were not one but two, whatever might have been, Bradford thought himself Bradford, and the beggar a beggar one high, the other low one Why's the other misguided, one strong, the other weak, one virtuous, the other depraved. We do not and cannot take the Bradford approach. It is not just that beggary is the badge of our past, and is still all too often the present symbol of social attitudes toward us, although that is at least a part of it. But in the broader sense, we are that bigger, and he is, each of us, we are made in the same image. And out of the same ingredients, we have the same weaknesses and strengths, the same feelings, emotions, and drives. And we are the product of the same social, economic and other environmental forces. How much more constant with the facts of individual and social life, how much more a part of a true humanity to say, instead, there within the grace of God, do go I. And I want to leave you with that, because I think that sums it up as well as I can possibly do. We're all on the same world together. And you have the awesome responsibility to help children. And perhaps their parents grow, and truly become more included in society. So this afternoon, I'll be talking about the concept of moving from diversity to inclusion, and I'll tell you why choose that title. And I'll tell you now, when you watch television, you hear all about diversity. How often do you ever hear disabilities mentioned? You don't? Hollywood doesn't mention us. The candidates aren't mentioning us in all the political debates. Michael Hingson 1:03:46 Even though 20% of the population has some sort of a disability, not concluding politicians who have their own disabilities, but we want to go we need to demand and we ask your help to create a true inclusive society. I challenge you to do that. I hope we get to chat later. Come to the presentation this afternoon and come and see us. We'll be selling Thunder dog books, and you can visit with Alamo. And also again, if you know anyone else who needs a speaker, it's what I do, as you can tell, did you all feel you'll learn something today? vendors and everyone like Thanks very much, and I hope we get to chat some more. Thank you. Michael Hingson 1:04:43 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

On the show this week we discuss the role technology can play in making the workplace a more inclusive environment for people with sight loss. What are some of the challenges faced when seeking or in employment, and what grants are available to fund the equipment needed? Joining us on Meet the Team to help answer these questions and more is Maura Barry who works with the Employment and Vocation Service in NCBI.We explore a range of CCTVs (closed circuit televisions) that enable many people with low vision to read printed materials. What are some of the key considerations when buying a CCTV? What other functions can they offer besides magnification? We reveal all on the show.Ahead of Apple's ‘California Streaming' event later today and Microsoft's ‘Surface' event next Wednesday, we find out what new devices we can look forward to being unveiled by these two tech giants.Finally, we provide tips on how to control and manage your cookie settings in the Chrome browser.Support the show (https://www.ncbi.ie/supporting-us/donate-now/)

It's here. On our streets and in our neighborhoods. From traffic control to CCTVs to water-monitoring systems, artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies are already among us. But, as the song goes, you ain't seen nothing yet. Many argue that smart technology is making our cities safer from crime, with facial detection able to spot and locate wanted criminals and those who violate public health restrictions. Others believe the enormous scale of CCTV cameras on the streets of many modern cities, from London to Beijing, amounts to intrusion on a massive scale. Either way, the role played by AI in shaping our urban environments is only going to grow and spread. In today's Daily Dose, we look at global cities that are offering us an early glimpse of what that future might look like.

A 76-year old bank robber is denied his loot, because the cashier could not read his ransom note. And you thought handwriting didn't matter! Next, the lads must speculate about the ‘kidnapping' of a cop by 3 drunk guys. But first the story of a large corporation that wants to install CCTVs in the homes of call centre employees. Press 1 for agree, 2 for no agree. Link to bank robber's band handwriting ransom note - + Music credit – Simon D'Souza + Write to us – hello@farfromfact.in + Follow us https://www.instagram.com/farfromfact/ Instamojo https://www.instamojo.com/@thelads_farfromfact Paypal paypal.me/farfromfact

Summary: The green iguanas were introduced to the Taiwan's pet market ten years ago. Later, due to their large size, many iguanas were abandoned in the wild. Since then, iguanas have thrived and grown in numbers. Last year local government has started a program to remove non-native species that came under fire by animal right groups. 原跟讀文章: https://www.15mins.today/blog/ep-k073-attacks-on-taiwan-s-invasive?categoryId=89454   Vocabulary and Sample Sentences:   Abandon v.- stop looking after / support - Pet iguanas were often abandoned because of their large size. - Children who are abandoned would be send to orphanages.   Invasive adj. – intrude on other people privacy or land - Iguanas are not an indigenous species of Taiwan, they are considered invasive species. - My building's invasive setup of CCTVs everywhere is really annoying.   Conservation n. – prevention the wasteful use of a resource - Nature conservation is an important topic in reduction of global warming. - In areas where water is a valuable resource, concepts of water conservation is taught at a young age.   更多Podcast單元: 每日英語跟讀Podcast，就在http://www.15mins.today/daily-shadowing 精選詞彙 VOCAB Podcast，就在https://www.15mins.today/vocab 語音直播 15mins Live Podcast, 就在https://www.15mins.today/15mins-live-podcast 文法練習 In-TENSE Podcast，就在https://www.15mins.today/in-tense 用email訂閱就可以收到通勤學英語節目更新通知。   老師互動信箱: ask15mins@gmail.com 商業合作洽詢: 15minstoday@gmail.com

Social Puzzles -Controversy surrounding mandatory COVID-19 testing for foreigners residing in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province -Hate crimes against Asian-Americans in the US following Atlanta spa shooting and Kpop star Eric Nam's Times article contribution -Baby passes away as due to surgery complications by a doctor under the influence raises debate of installing CCTVs in surgery rooms -서울시와 경기도 외국인 코로나19 검사 행정명령에 대한 반발 논의 -아시아계를 겨냥한 증오범죄에 대한 미국 애틀란타 출신 에릭남의 타임지 기고 -음주 수술로 열달 품은 아이를 잃은 부모의 청와대 청원과 수술실 CCTV 설치에 관한 찬반 의견 Guest: Steven Borowiec, Journalist based in Seoul

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/larno.itTwitter: @arno_it1) BOTH GRANDPA AND THE MOTHER OF A DISABLED CHILD VACCINATED2) ENTERTAINMENT COLLAPSE, ONLY HOPE AN OPEN SUMMER3) MASSIVE FINE TO FISH POACHERS IN LEGHORN4) 10000 EUROS IN CASH STOLEN FROM PARKED CAR5) LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT AT 93, SEPARATES FROM HIS WIFEBACKGROUND MUSICTitle: Children of the SonAuthor: Pipe Choir RecordsLicense: Creative Commons AttributionLinks: https://soundcloud.com/pipe-choir-2/pc-one-children-of-the-son-creative-commons-instrumentalLINKS TO ARTICLEShttps://www.lanazione.it/massa-carrara/cronaca/vaccino-genitori-disabile-e-novantunenne-generoso-1.6088799https://www.lanazione.it/massa-carrara/cronaca/il-nonno-che-vuol-donare-alla-madre-di-disabile-il-suo-vaccino-ministro-mi-autorizzi-1.6083277https://firenze.repubblica.it/tempo-libero/articoli/musica/2021/03/03/news/covid_musica_concerti_toscana_appello_speranza-290118148/?rsshttps://iltirreno.gelocal.it/regione/toscana/2021/03/03/news/per-non-licenziare-svendo-l-attrezzatura-1.39977350https://www.quilivorno.it/news/cronaca/pesca-illegale-di-cee-maxi-multa-e-due-denunce/https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/livorno/cronaca/2021/03/03/news/pescano-le-anguille-di-notte-in-due-multati-per-undicimila-euro-1.39977072https://iltirreno.gelocal.it/livorno/cronaca/2021/03/03/news/denunciano-un-maxi-furto-ci-hanno-rubato-centomila-euro-dalla-panda-1.39978527https://firenze.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/03/03/news/arezzo_lui_93_anni_si_separa_dalla_moglie_ho_un_altra_voglio_rifarmi_una_vita_-290122418/?rssSCRIPTGood morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be, however you might be listening, welcome to another episode of What's Up Tuscany, the daily podcast from L'Arno where you will find the best news of today, Thursday March 4th 2021, as selected by our journalists. If you like what we do, please subscribe, share on social media and let us know your thoughts on the Arno Facebook page or on Twitter. Links here below in the description.Let's start with an update of a story we reported a few days ago. As we read on La Nazione, the battle of Giancarlo, 91 year old from Carrara who offered to donate his vaccine dose to Cinzia, mother of a disabled child, had a positive ending. This morning, at the appointment to get the first dose of the vaccine, both Giancarlo and the parents of the disabled child will get the shot. They were included in the list of extremely vulnerable people, whose vaccination starts today. Governor Giani said he's satisfied with this solution but there are many parents of disabled children, who act as their medics and nurses, not included in the official lists. It is a weird situation, derived from the decision of choosing who gets the vaccine based on their job. Elsewhere, for example in England, to avoid discrimination they are proceeding based only on age. We will see which solution will be most effective.Talking again about the pandemic, Wednesday evening we read an article on La Repubblica talking about the serious crisis that could wipe out the entire entertainment industry. To voice their concern this time are concert promoters, who are fed up with the meager public subsidies and just want to know when they'll be able to get back to work. If in Israel the success of the vaccination campaign has allowed to schedule live concerts, in Tuscany even the planned reopening of theaters at vastly reduced capacity looks like a joke. Promoters say that the only way to avoid the collapse of their industry is to be able to organize live open air concerts with a maximum of 1000 people starting from the summer. The crisis is hitting the sector really hard. In an article we read on Il Tirreno the owner of an event planning company in Florence has been forced to liquidate most assets in order to avoid firing her employees. Federica Rotundo worked last time in February 2020 and has just sold the company van, stages, audio and video equipment just to be able to pay something to her eight employees. Despite what seems a desperate situation, Federica keeps on working and stays positive. Quote “we have to think about the future, this emergency will end sooner or later” end quote. We wish we shared her optimism. The situation looks really dire for many industries.Let's move now to a story we read wednesday afternoon on QuiLivorno, a massive fine from the Guardia di Finanza against a group of fish poachers. One of the traditional staples of Pisan and Leghornese cuisine are the so-called “cee”, newborn eels, fry. As the specific race of eels is protected, it is illegal to fish them, to help the population recover. There are plenty of aficionados that still love this dish and less scrupulous fishermen are very willing to indulge them. After a series of high tech stakeouts, the Leghorn finanzieri arrested two 45 year old fishermen near a dam on the Scolmatore channel. Their boat was immediately impounded and 350 fries were freed. On top of that, a massive 11000 Euros fine. There is in fact a 20 Euros fine for every baby eel caught alive, double if dead. So what could have been a very productive evening turned into a financial disaster. Gourmets of discerning taste will probably have to forget their favourite “cee alla livornese”...Another story from Leghorn we read on Il Tirreno, that of a suspiciously lucky break for some thieves. Wednesday afternoon two women showed up at the police station in Leghorn to denounce that two suitcases had been stolen from their car, parked at Il Romito, a panoramic road just outside town. Nothing strange here, the ladies had decided to take a walk and enjoy the scenery and the great weather. After a few minutes they noticed that the glass had been shattered and that the suitcases in their boot had been stolen. The agents were surprised when informed of their content: 10000 Euros in cash. Apparently, one of the ladies, a 43 year old woman from Sassari, has just moved to Leghorn and decided to bring with her some pocket money. The investigation seems complicated, as in the area there are no CCTVs but there are many doubts on the event. How could the thieves know what was inside the suitcases? Such a lucky break seems highly improbable. We will let you know of the developments in the coming episodes, obviously.Let's close today with a curious story we read wednesday evening on La Repubblica, a love story from Arezzo that defies age. He's 93 years old, his wife 86, they've been married forever, they have children, nephews, a comfortable life. Then, out of the blue, love at first sight. The husband meets a single lady at a social club, they get closer and fall desperately in love. In a few months, here comes the separation request. The wife is understandably upset and, together with the rest of the family, denies his request. The man doesn't take no for an answer. Quote “I want my freedom, I want to build a new life with her” end quote. So, the couple ended up in front of a judge for what looked like an acrimonious legal battle. The judge proposes a solution and, after a bit of back and forth, the husband agrees. Anything to be able to live with his new love. In six months he'll be able to file for divorce and start a new life with his new companion. What to say? Congratulations for your optimism and best of luck to the new couple! That was all for today, I'm your host Luca Bocci and I'll see you tomorrow for another episode of What's Up Tuscany, the daily podcast from L'Arno where you will find the news that, according to us, are well worth a second look. Thanks for listening and goodbye.

Night Enrollment, “Polygamy is beautiful” and other Stories. Membership Enrollment at night. Why joining a political party under the cover of darkness reminds us of Mark 8. CCTV People are ridiculing the idea of CCTVs for Nigeria’s highways. It’s a moment to be reminded of Matt. 7. “Polygamy is beautiful” … says the son of a polygamist, the Governor of Kaduna State. Here’s the Bible’s definition of beauty. A FAKE LENT A US lawmaker embarks on a ‘fake’ Lent. We point out why.

Introduction In the present case of Paramvir Singh Saini v. Baljit Singh & Others, SLP (Criminal) No. 3543/2020, vide Judgment dated 02.12.2020, it was directed that State Level Oversight Committees and District Level Oversight Committees should be setup to look after the installation of CCTV Cameras in the Police Cameras, its budgetary allocation, continuous monitoring, inspection, grievance redressal and review CCTV footage to check for any human rights violation that may have occurred but not reported.  Backdrop In the judgment of Shafhi Mohammad v. State of Himachal Pradesh, (2018) 5 SCC 311, it was directed that a Central Oversight Body (COB) be setup by the Ministry of Home Affairs to implement the plan of action with respect to the use of videography in the crime scene during the investigation.  Later on, the Court issued notice to the Union of India on the question of audio-video recordings of Section 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (in short, “CrPC”) and installation of CCTV Cameras in Police Stations.  It has also been held in the Paramvir Singh Saini (supra) Judgment that the duty for the working, maintenance and recording of CCTVs shall vest with the SHO of the police station concerned and he shall coordinate with the District Level Oversight Committees in this regard. Such CCTVs are to be installed at: - 1. All entry and exit points of the Police Station; 2. Main gate of the Police Station;  3. All lock-ups, corridors, lobby/reception, verandas and outhouses; 4. Inspector, sub-inspector and duty officer's room and areas outside the lock-up room; 5. Station Hall, in front of the Police Station Compound, outside washroom and toilets and back part of the Police Station. The Court further directed that the CCTVs must have night vision, audio-video recording, continuous electricity supply and internet connections. Such recording is to be preserved for a period of 18 months and in any case, not below one year. Taking a step further, it has also been directed that in case, there is complaint of force being used at the Police Stations resulting into serious injury or custodial death, then the persons are free to complaint for redressal of the same. In this regard, the Court also directed the state to setup Human Rights Court in each and every district of the country so that such Court can immediately summon CCTV footage as and when required. Further all the above-stated directions shall also be made applicable to the offices of: - (i) Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)(ii) National Investigation Agency (NIA)(iii) Enforcement Directorate (ED)(iv) Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)(v) Department of Revenue Intelligence (DRI)(vi) Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO)(vii) Any other agency which carries out interrogations and has the power of arrest. Further, the Court also directed that all the police stations and the investigating agencies shall prominently display at the entrance and inside their campus about the coverage of the concerned premises by CCTV and also mention that a person has right to complain about human rights violations. The same has to be done by large posters in English, Hindi and Vernacular language. Concluding Remarks I think that it is one of the most important judgments of this decade by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. Its importance cannot be overstated since flagrant abuse of rights of the people is very common in the Police Stations across India. Mandatory installation of CCTVs would ensure that the errant Police Officials are not able to get away without any consequences. What remains to be seen is the actual implementation of this Judgment by the concerned states and the Union of India. A common plea that is taken in such matters by the State is that there are not enough funds to carry on such an exercise and implementation is something that cannot be done by the Courts. It is purely the domain of the executive/state. Nevertheless, such directions would increase the pressure upon the states and the Union to carry on this exercise as expeditiously as possible. Further, this Judgment will have long term consequences in protecting the rights of the people as since this judgment has been pronounced by the Court, it is only a matter of time that it will be implemented. The State cannot get away for too long. During the time of Covid-19, we have seen countless uses of disproportionate force being used by the Police on the people of this country. With such directions in place, I hope that use of force at Police Stations will stop in the times to come.

States have to install cameras with audio recording equipment at interrogation rooms, lock-ups, entries and exits of every police station — that's what the Supreme Court said in a landmark judgment on 2 December. And not just police stations, but also in offices of central agencies, including the CBI, the National Investigation Agency, the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Enforcement Directorate. The footage recorded using these cameras, the SC bench said, could be requested by courts and the Human Rights Commissions while dealing with complaints against the police relating to custodial torture and custodial deaths. This, the court said was in keeping with Article 21 of the constitution on the fundamental right to protection of life and personal liberty. But will this judgment actually help checking human rights abuses in custody? What does the current data on custodial torture show, and what does this mean for any attempts like this move with the CCTVs? Tune in to The Big Story!Producer and Host: Shorbori PurkayasthaGuest: Vikram Singh, Former DGP of UP Editor: Shelly Walia Music: Big Bang FuzzListen to The Big Story podcast on: Apple: https://apple.co/2AYdLIl Saavn: http://bit.ly/2oix78C Google Podcasts: http://bit.ly/2ntMV7S Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2IyLAUQ Deezer: http://bit.ly/2Vrf5Ng

When they said 'manmade', they meant it. We talked to Swati Janu - founder of the Social Design Collaborative and architect, writer and community artist in Delhi about why the city can give you anxiety, low self-esteem and a certain rage. Whether it's the size of your kitchen, safety measures leaning to CCTVs rather than a thriving community, the casteist politics of gated communities, going to a club in a wheelchair, or valuing light and aesthetics on par with per sq ft rates... it's a man's world and it shows. We found out that when a woman is in the kitchen AND on the urban planning committee - everybody wins. Find us. Talk to us. https://twitter.com/BitchesThursday https://www.instagram.com/thursday_bitches/

कानपुर स्मार्ट न्यूज़ के इस एपिसोड में सुनिए: 658 कैंमरों से रक्खी जाएगी शहर भर में निगरानी। प्रदूषण के बावजूद एप्स ने बताया हवाओं को साफ़। कोरोना की दूसरी लहर से लड़ाई की तैयारी पूरी।

Incidental Melacha (CCTVs & Motion Sensors) - Document for Daf 107 by Simon Wolf

Incidental Melacha (CCTVs & Motion Sensors) - Document for Daf 107 by Simon Wolf

The Backbone of a Smart City lies in its smart use of technology; to develop its ability to understand what is going on, in real time, and respond to events & incidents in the most effective way. CCTVs, and Camera are some of these technologies. Our guest today is Bob Carter which works at Genetec, the leader in software for IP video surveillance, Access Control; and other security systems, most notably Security Centers. We talk with Bob about some of these use cases. Bob share some learnings and recommendations he gathered from the Smart Cities he engages with. If you want to contribute to this podcast, you can send us a note at: pierre.mirlesse@partner360.net --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/pierremirlesse/message

Today we follow our nose to figure out a smelly mystery and then we investigate the Cameraheads!   Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/user?u=18482113   MERCH STORE!!! https://www.redbubble.com/people/deadrabbitradio/works/35749420-dead-rabbit-radio?asc=u   Help Promote Dead Rabbit! Dual Flyer https://i.imgur.com/OhuoI2v.jpg "As Above" Flyer  https://i.imgur.com/yobMtUp.jpg   Links:   Unholy s**t https://news.thevoicebw.com/unholy-st/   Cameraheads https://obscurban-legend.fandom.com/wiki/Cameraheads   Limitless Possibilities https://www.vertigo22.com/   The Things (Cameramen) https://everymanhybrid.fandom.com/wiki/The_Things_(Cameramen)   EverymanHYBRID #1 - Introduction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS7GZhNb7eM&list=PL1-VZZ6QMhCeUfM5quyYhv23HjwEuZVkf   Conspiracy theory teir summaries https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/20945983/#20949118   Conspiracy /x/ https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/20834430/#20836901   A Lost Obscure Creepypasta Named "Camerahead" https://www.reddit.com/r/creepypasta/comments/c3x987/a_lost_obscure_creepypasta_named_camerahead/   Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth | ‘That’s a Wrap!’ (HD) – Terry Farrell, Doug Bradley | Miramax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOFFrDPo9Y4   Camerahead https://cenobite.fandom.com/wiki/Camerahead   [4chan] The time the paranormal board of 4chan,/x/, started a wiki discussing the paranormal that faded away. https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/dxvhj3/4chan_the_time_the_paranormal_board_of_4chanx/   Cameraheads in Seattle protest CCTVs in public places https://boingboing.net/2008/07/24/cameraheads-in-seatt.html   Listen to the daily podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts! ------------------------------------------------ Logo Art By Ash Black   "As Above" Art By Grant Scott   Dead Rabbit Skull By John from the SCAR Group   Dead Rabbit Exposed By Smashers_25 (Instagram)   Halloween Monster By Finn   Opening Song: "Atlantis Attacks" Closing Song: "Bella Royale" Reptilian Strip Song EP 374: “Empty Beds” Music By Dr. Huxxxtable Rabbitron 3000 created by Eerbud Thanks to Chris K, Founder Of The Golden Rabbit Brigade   http://www.DeadRabbit.com Email: DeadRabbitRadio@gmail.com Twitter: @DeadRabbitRadio Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DeadRabbitRadio   Paranormal, Conspiracy, and True Crime news as it happens! Jason Carpenter breaks the stories they'll be talking about tomorrow, assuming the world doesn't end today.   All Contents Of This Podcast Copyright Jason Carpenter 2018 - 2019  

A tournament is watched by dozens of wealthy men betting on which one of the 30 assassins will survive the next 24 hours "kill or die" and claim the USD10,000,000 prize. It takes place in an English town with plenty of CCTVs.

In this week’s episode, host Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by Madhu Trehan, Anand Vardhan, Raman Kirpal and journalist and author Vivek Kaul.The podcast kicks off with a discussion on the 2019 Cricket World Cup and Team India’s loss in the semi-finals. According to Anand, “it was a bubble waiting to burst”. The panel talks about their personal reactions and the country’s response to the loss. Abhinandan says: “I felt really bad because I really like Dhoni.”Discussing the crisis in the Congress in both Goa and Karnataka, Abhinandan comments, “It’s collapsing everywhere, kuch toh sharam karlo.” Raman notes that there's a "churning" going on within the party. They talk about the lack of leadership in the Congress and its consequences, as well as the history and legacy of the anti-defection law. Moving to the 2019 Union Budget, Vivek feels it was "much ado about nothing". He notes the Budget's lack of numbers and any detail on revenue and expenditure as well as other problems. The discussion shifts to the nature of business and the black economy in India.Next up is the installation of CCTV cameras in Delhi schools and the concerns raised by the public regarding privacy and surveillance. Anand says he “does not believe in privacy as an absolute right” while Madhu feels this move is absolutely all right. The panel also discusses the flying banner over the India-New Zealand match in England and the privatisation of railways in India.For this and much more, tune in! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

On this episode of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast, Clark Rachfal is joined by Matt Ater to answer the question everyone is asking: “Who is Vispero?” Matt explains that ACB members most certainly know Vispero through their products and services offered by: Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec, and the Paciello Group. Clark and Matt conclude the conversation by teasing some, but not all, of the special announcements and promotions that Vispero will have at the ACB 58th annual convention in Rochester, NY. To learn more about Vispero, visit: www.vispero.com. To register for the ACB annual convention, visit: www.acbconvention.org. And, please share your ideas for future podcasts with us at: advocacy@acb.org. Transcript of the Advocacy Update Podcast: Automated: 00:02 You are listening to the ACB Advocacy Update. Clark Rachfal: 00:12 Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the ACB Advocacy Update Podcast. My name is Clark Rachfal. I'm the Director of Advocacy in Governmental Affairs for the American Council of the Blind, and today it's just me. Clair is out in San Rafael, California at Guide Dogs for the Blind, training with her new potential guide dog. If you'd like to learn more about what it's like going to a guide dog school and training with a dog, you can check out the Facebook Live video that Claire just did and that is on the American Council of the Blind Facebook page. Today we are joined by a friend of ACB who works in the accessible technology space, and that is Matt Ater, with Vispero. Say hello, Matt. Matt Ater: 01:14 Well, good afternoon, Clark. How are you doing today? Clark Rachfal: 01:17 Doing well. And yourself? Matt Ater: 01:19 I am doing wonderful. It's a beautiful day outside. Of course when people listen to us, you never know what the weather's going to be like, but life is good. Clark Rachfal: 01:28 That's great. I know a lot of our listeners are excited for the role that Vispero's going to play at the ACB Annual Convention in Rochester, and we'll certainly get to those activities here in a bit but, Matt, why don't you share with the listeners a little bit about yourself and your background? Matt Ater: 01:49 Sure. So I've been in the, I'll start with kind of the assistive technology field, prior to accessibility, but assistive technology field since I guess 25 years now. I've graduated from the University of Alabama with broadcasting degree and came back up to the DC area and decided that I wanted to go into more of the training and consulting field and spent a few years training federal employees around the country on how to use screen readers at jobs, teaching them how to use braille displays. I think government agencies, video magnifiers, large-print software, things of that nature. Matt Ater: 02:36 I did that for a couple of years, then went to go work for a nonprofit in Washington DC running the assistive technology department where we did a lot of training of end users, again, across the United States, so that was five years of my career. I did that. And then in early 2000s I did a little bit of a stint in working with the product lines and then eventually jumped into running government contracts for... I did about six years of running a project for the Social Security Administration, running their assistive technology support services. Which included installing equipment, training the users, configuring the software, deploying the software, providing a help desk, full-level support for any of the employees within that agency. Matt Ater: 03:41 And I jumped out of assistive technology for a few years to just kind of learn IT services and then landed into accessibility for four years. I joined Vispero, at that time Freedom Scientific, and I'll give a little background on who Vispero is in a few. But I joined Freedom Scientific in 2014 to start a consulting division for Freedom Scientific. They found that they had a lot of customers who were in corporate environments needing support and training and configuration and customization and scripting and all of these kinds of things so basically we started a group to support those larger customers to make sure that software was working right when people went to work. Matt Ater: 04:34 Eventually, after a year, I started getting more into the accessibility side of it and a started with two employees and grew to about 25 employees and then later we acquired another company which added another 40 employees and then another year bought another company that had another 10 employees and got to a point where I said, "Well, it's time to change again." So I'm still with Vispero but I moved back, not running the consulting practice now and more helping large enterprises look at the total package when it comes to all of our product lines and brands within the Vispero family of brands. So that's kind of the last 25 years wrapped up into a few minutes. Clark Rachfal: 05:29 That's fascinating, Matt. Do you have a history as an assistive technology user, especially at your time at the University of Alabama and throughout your career? Matt Ater: 05:40 Boy, it's a flashback when you think about going to college, pre-Windows. I was born with a condition called hydrocephalus, water on the brain, and when I was six years old the water pressure cut off blood supply to the optic nerves so I've lost most of my vision in my left eye and my right eye is about 26/100 tunnel vision. So I am a screen reader user today. It's funny, I've always told people my vision didn't get worse as time went on, technology just got better to the point that I became lazy and wanted to listen instead of see the screen. Matt Ater: 06:24 I can use large print but it takes a lot of time to read it and it's tiring on the eyes and so I use screen readers and braille at this point. I carry a handheld magnifier in my bag and I carry a braille display with me everywhere I go to type into my phone. And I have large-print software on the computer as well as a screen reader but from the day-to-day I would rather listen to the computer than I would try to see it with my eyes. Clark Rachfal: 06:56 Yeah. I think a lot of people that have low vision or deteriorating vision probably have a similar story. So for me, personally, I have Leber's congenital amaurosis and I started out with large print and magnifiers, then moved to CCTVs. My introduction to accessibility software was ZoomText and then ZoomText Level 2 with speech and now JAWS. So I'm very familiar with those products in the Freedom Scientific portfolio. But that's only one aspect of the work that Vispero is doing now. I think a lot of our listeners are probably familiar with Freedom Scientific but is there anything new going on with Freedom Scientific, whether that's JAWS, Fusion, ZoomText or anything else? Matt Ater: 07:48 Yeah. I definitely can dive into that. I think it would be great for me to kind of break down what Vispero is because a couple of years ago we were sold and then acquired and merged with Optelec and then eventually some other companies and I'll go through all of them. So I think everybody's probably been confused with all the name changes. Clark Rachfal: 08:13 Sure. Matt Ater: 08:17 Think of Vispero as more of a holding company. It's somewhere that deals with our dealer channels and things of that nature. But most customers we have have relationships with our actual companies and brands. And you just said that most people are familiar with Freedom Scientific because of JAWS and ZoomText and Focus Braille Displays and RUBY handheld magnifiers and lots of other stuff with Fusion and so on. And I think with every person, they have their preference in terms of what brand they feel comfortable with. Matt Ater: 08:56 So in this family of companies we have the four brands of Freedom Scientific, which we just ran through the majority of those products. Then Optelec, which is primarily video magnification. They do have a standalone scan-and-read system and they have traditional handheld magnifiers, as they call them, professional products that are mostly sold through the doctor channels. And then primarily you're talking about things like the ClearView. I'll talk about the ClearView GO in a little bit. Compact handheld magnifiers, the Compact 6 and so on. Matt Ater: 09:42 And then the other hardware company that's part of this family is called Enhanced Vision. They're based in Huntington Beach, California. They're, again, worldwide and the product lines are things like Merlin, Jordy. They, of course, have the Pebble handheld and some other things like that. When you look at all of the products, they're very similar in nature but have a different maybe look and feel. And probably like going to try on different shirts, and you find a shirt that fits you. This technology is very personal to people. Matt Ater: 10:27 As we know with braille cells and we know with large-print devices, and even with screen readers with voices, I'm perfectly fine using Eloquence, like you are, but the next person wants to use Vocalizer because it's more soothing to them listening to it. And so if you look at those three brands, and I'll get to the fourth in a minute, what you're talking about is three companies who make very similar hardware. The buttons are slightly different in each product. The features are primarily the same. But the buttons are different, the color may be slightly different. The shape and size of the screen may be slightly different. Matt Ater: 11:09 And we'll continue to keep those brands because they're very unique to the markets they fit. The distribution channel that is across Vispero family of companies is unmatched in this space. A dealer in Texas covers certain products and the guy in Minneapolis covers different products and there may be a different dealer, but they may hit different customer bases. And that's why they can still be multiple brands within a family of products is because they have different customers. And when you think about the number of people who are buying direct from us, it's small in numbers compared to the numbers of people who are buying from the local channels. Matt Ater: 12:00 The fourth company is called the Paciello Group and this is the one I mentioned that a couple of years ago we acquired and it was really to boost the accessibility services that Freedom Scientific was doing and then later we also acquired a company called Interactive Accessibility and so the three companies consulting practices are all merged into one called the Paciello Group and we can shorten that and just call it TPG. Let's just keep it simple because it's easier, right? Matt Ater: 12:38 The neat thing about this is that it's very complementary to selling software. Because we have customers all around the world who are challenged with accessibility issues and sometimes people say, "Well, it's because JAWS doesn't do something right." And there's always a chance that that can happen. But at the same time, it's a lot to do with whether or not people code things correctly. So this is why it's very complementary to the software side is because we get to, now, when people have concerns or issues and whether it's a website you're trying to buy shoes on or a kiosk you're trying to access and work with, obviously you may be using JAWS on that or ZoomText or some other product. But now we have the consultants who actually can work with those companies to solve their problems. Clark Rachfal: 13:36 So, Matt, what makes TPG, or the Paciello Group, different from other accessibility consultants for websites, whether that's web accessibility standards or 508 compliance within the government? There's a lot of companies that say that they can do accessibility but it seems like very few actually can. So how does the Paciello Group go about it? Matt Ater: 14:04 So, there's a couple of things. It's a mix of products and people. I think we have some of the smartest people in the field. The folks that are working at TPG have been in this quite a long time, they've helped write a lot of the standards. They understand stuff. Additionally, we have a very strong what we call a user experience background. A lot of people refer to it as UX. I've always said that we're so focused on compliance rather than usability and at some point don't we need to be focused on whether or not people can perform tasks rather than compliance? Matt Ater: 14:43 Compliance is checking a box. But can actually people use your product? That's different. And I think that's what TPG gets right is that we're not just about compliance, we're also making sure that people can use what they built. It's interesting, TPG, companies worldwide, folks in several countries, the majority of the work is in the US and some in Europe and some in Canada. But the kinds of people we bring in, it's about the people and that's really what it comes down to is people make up consulting. And really good consultants, it's amazing, not amazing because I know these folks, but it's great to hear from customers about how great the services have been. Matt Ater: 15:43 There's a company we've been working with recently who people come to us a lot of times because we own JAWS and ZoomText and so they assume that we can fix it because of that rather than helping them fix the code. And what I love the most is watching the large number of employers working with us not for necessarily just working in external websites where people can buy goods, but they're concerned about whether or not their applications can work so that a person who's blind or low vision or any other disability could actually work at that company. Matt Ater: 16:27 And I think that's the most powerful thing that we can bring to the table is that if an employer needs something to work on the job, what better company than the one who makes the screen reader, and the large-print software, to be able to tap into that resources. And even though Freedom Scientific and TPG are separate companies, we still have reach back into them to solve problems. And this other company, they had 50 low vision and blind employees who were being impacted by inaccessible applications so we're in there installing JAWS and ZoomText and things like that and training the users. But we recognized we needed accessibility help and we brought that in from TPG to solve the problems. And that's when it's powerful. Clark Rachfal: 17:13 Yeah. That's great that employers are able to invest in their employees and make sure that they not only have the productivity tools that they need to be successful but that they optimize the work setting for those tools so that their employees can be highly productive and succeed at their work. One of the other companies that you mentioned, I'd like you to talk a little bit more about, and that's Optelec. Can you talk a little bit about the product offerings within that portfolio? Matt Ater: 17:48 Yes. So the three main products right now, one's called ClearView. That's a desktop magnifier, obviously. You mentioned you've used them before. They called then CCTVs back when you and I were younger, right? Clark Rachfal: 18:03 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt Ater: 18:05 Back in the day when they were wood-paneled and things like that. Yeah. Today the ClearView C with speech, it's pretty cool because it does both the magnification but if your eyes get tired during the day or you just need a little help, you can touch the screen in the bottom corner and it actually becomes an OCR product, Optical Character Recognition. So it can take a picture of something and read it back to you. Clark Rachfal: 18:36 Oh, wow. Matt Ater: 18:36 It can do it in large print, change the color, change the font, whatever you need to do to make it easier to read it. And of course that's the kind of Cadillac, it's the highest end, it's the biggest unit, it's big screen, that kind of stuff. And you'll see it in VAs today, you'll it in libraries, different places like that, and of course end users as well. Matt Ater: 19:03 The ClearView GO is a brand-new product which we'll have at the ACB Convention this summer. It's a foldable CCTV or video magnifier that you can carry with you. I'm not sure the weight. I guess I should probably know all the stats, but just go to the table and ask them. It folds up and so it's great for schools. It has a distance camera so a student could sit at a desk and go to read the chalkboard or the blackboard or the whiteboard or the smart board or whatever board they're using today. I said I would want to use it. I'm not even in school any more. I don't plan to go back to school. But just the fact that it's a transportable product; it's pretty cool that I can actually carry it around. Matt Ater: 19:59 There is a ClearView speech device that does OCR, and it's kind of like a small... I'm trying to think of what would be a good example of the shape or size. It's not much bigger than a shoebox on its end. And of course it can take a picture of something and read it to you. Traditional kind of OCR with different voices and such. Matt Ater: 20:26 And then the Compact 6 is a touch screen, six inch, handheld camera that you can carry around and be able to read print, that also does OCR. So, once again, I think it's not uncommon for people with low vision is their eyes get tired during the day to want to have something read it to you. So you can just touch the screen, hit a button, and then it just reads the document to you, whatever it sees in its camera. Clark Rachfal: 20:58 That's great. Thanks, Matt. I know that these are products that a lot of ACB members, whether they already have or are losing their vision due to diabetes and diabetic retinopathy or, for our older members, if they're losing their vision due to macular degeneration or some other either age-related or degenerative condition, these low-vision devices provide a lot of services. One of the main benefits of them is that with the video capabilities and the OCR capabilities, even as your vision deteriorates, this is equipment that will remain useful over time. Ever since 2013, ACB's been working to introduce legislation that would provide for Medicare and Medicaid coverage for low-vision devices such as these. Matt Ater: 21:55 I think it's amazing to me that we're the last country in the world that won't pay for things out of insurance or some other form. This type of technology for blind and low vision. They do it with other disabilities but just not blind and low vision. Clark Rachfal: 22:11 Yeah. And it was only recently that white canes became classified as durable medical equipment. So hopefully we can make progress here on this issue so that low-vision devices and remove the eyeglass exclusion that's in place at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services so that these devices as well as eyeglasses and contacts can be classified as durable medical equipment. Clark Rachfal: 22:41 So you highlighted for us a lot of companies, brands, and products that are under the umbrella of Vispero. And I know that here in two weeks or so you'll be involved with the M-Enabling Summit, which our listeners are familiar with because we had a guest, not from Aerosmith but from Leonard Cheshire, Steve Tyler, come on and talk about... ICT and the M-Enabling Summit. What role will Vispero be playing at M-Enabling? Matt Ater: 23:19 We're going to have people attending the show this year and kind of exploring the different sessions. We have different relationships throughout the industry because of obviously our product lines and our accessibility, so we'll obviously be there as well to visit with our customers, talk about some of the accessibility things they're going through today. Obviously show some of the new tech that we have coming out, as well. I think that it's been nice to have a conference that's in the DC area. I think it's good to bring government into things, which is one of the things that happens here at this conference, as well. Clark Rachfal: 24:12 I agree. It's great to have a conference here in front of companies and policy makers and it sounds like it'll be a great turnout for the M-Enabling Summit. But I'm glad that you're saving all of the big guns for the ACB Annual Convention, which is in Rochester, New York, this summer, July 5th through 12th. And also thanks to Vispero for being a diamond-level sponsor of the ACB convention. And you guys are hosting an event and will be giving a presentation at the convention. Can you talk a little bit about the session that your colleague will be hosting, I believe, the morning of July 7th? Matt Ater: 24:56 Yeah. I actually think show's the 6th. It's on Saturday. Whatever day Saturday is. I'm off on my days. So that would be the 6th, I think. Clark Rachfal: 25:09 Yeah, you're correct. Matt Ater: 25:10 Yeah, Douglas Gerry's going to do a presentation on our software and, by the way, the first 50 people who attend it... Let's see what it says here. They'll have a 50% discount on our home software licenses and for those people who don't know about the home software licenses, this was a big deal that we did this year. We put in some new technology that allowed us to sell licenses online and basically if you're going to use it for home use, you can get JAWS I think it's for $90 and ZoomText for $80. And it lasts for one year. So it's a subscription-based license, it's not a perpetual license. But at the same time it's less than what you would pay for an SMA if you were paying for an SMA every two years. Matt Ater: 26:04 So this is to make sure that more people at home get access to JAWS and ZoomText and so, once again, when Douglas does his presentation, the first 50 people who come will get a coupon for it that will allow them to get 50% off, and they have to use it before the end of September. I'm not sure the exact date but it'll be on the document. So just make sure that if you get one of those, don't let it expire because it's worth a savings of $45 or $40. Matt Ater: 26:39 So what is Douglas going to show? So I would say that one of the neat features is a new feature came out with JAWS that's part of JAWS and Fusion called Picture Smart. And this allows you to take any picture that's in your photo library on your computer or on the web or in a document and actually have JAWS figure out what it is and describe it to you. Very similar to what you may get on Facebook or you may get on your iPhone, or you may use another products like Seeing AI to determine what a picture is. Matt Ater: 27:14 Well, now it's built into your Windows PC with JAWS. So if you need to figure out what a picture is, you can just do a application's key, which is Shift+F10 as well as another key for it, when you're highlighted on the picture in the folder on your computer, and then, say, recognize with Picture Smart. I think there's also a keystroke for it. But if anybody can remember all the keystrokes, it's not going to be me. Clark Rachfal: 27:43 Yeah. And I hope Doug doesn't steal all your thunder because then you will be presenting in front of the general session at the ACB Convention as well. Matt Ater: 27:53 Yeah, exactly. I'm excited about that. I think it's Tuesday morning that I get to come and talk and so I'm very excited about it. I'll obviously talk about new things that are happening with the company, probably, again, go a little bit over who Vispero is. Half the people don't even know how do you spell it, how do you pronounce it? There's probably lots of ways to do that. But just so everybody knows, it's www.vispero.com. In fact, if you want to know more about what we're doing, one of the things we also did is we released a video recently and it's on the Vispero homepage and it has audio description as well as captioning and you can sit down and watch a good video on some of our user stories. So it's pretty cool. Clark Rachfal: 28:45 Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. I know that you and Vispero will be very popular at the ACB Convention, especially in the Exhibit Hall. I'm sure you'll get a lot of people coming up to you asking you about products, they'll want demonstrations, hands-on testing and all that good stuff, so thank you so much for your time. Matt Ater: 29:07 Yeah. And if I can, I'll just give you two more specials at the show just so people know. There'll be 20% off of the home licenses at the booth, so if you don't get those 50% off licenses, you can get the 20% off. And then we're going to have 20% off all hardware. So if you need a new braille display, a new video magnifier or a handheld, any of the technology we build that's hardware of any of our brands, then you can get those as well at a 20% discount. So definitely come by and see us. Clark Rachfal: 29:42 That's fabulous. Thank you for doing that for the ACB members and those in attendance at the Annual Convention. Everyone just remember that the early registration for the ACB Convention runs through June 23rd and you can register at acbconvention.org. That's www.acbconvention.org. So, again, Matt, thank you so much for joining us on the Advocacy Update Podcast. We look forward to seeing you in Rochester. Matt Ater: 30:14 Take care.

Radio Sweden brings you a roundup of the main news in Sweden on May 2nd 2019. Presenter: Liv Lewitschnik Producer: Frank Radosevich

Show #436   Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Sunday 7th April 2019. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through every EV story I could find today, and picked out the best ones to save you time.   Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.   Hello to new Patreon Producer supporter GAVIN HULME.   MERCEDES-BENZ CARS LAYS FOUNDATION FOR A BATTERY FACTORY AT THE UNTERTÜRKHEIM SITE "At the site of the Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim plant in Germany, the construction of the battery factory at the Brühl sub-plant has begun with the symbolic foundation-laying ceremony. By the end of the decade, Mercedes-Benz Cars will produce high-efficiency traction batteries for future Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles of the EQ product and technology brand on 12,000 m2 in a newly erected and carbon-neutral battery factory at Brühl." says Green Car Congress: "The new battery factory is an important component in the global battery production network within the production network of Mercedes-Benz Cars comprising nine battery factories at seven locations on three continents. Mercedes-Benz Cars is investing more than one billion euros in a global battery production network within the worldwide Mercedes-Benz Cars production network. Local battery production will be a major success factor in the electric initiative of Mercedes-Benz Cars, and the crucial component when it comes to meeting the worldwide demand for electric vehicles flexibly and efficiently, the company said."   https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/04/20190405-mb.html   VW SEALS 10-YEAR LITHIUM DEAL FOR ELECTRIC CARS VW said yesterday it had secured 10 years worth of lithium for electric car batteries from Chinese manufcturer Ganfeng. "The two firms "signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on long-term lithium supplies for battery cells," VW said in a statement, although it did not reveal the financial terms of the deal. "Volkswagen is thus already securing a significant share of its lithium requirement," the Wolfsburg-based group added." says TheLocal.de: "With harsh EU emissions limits set to bite from next year and toughen further by 2030, the sprawling 12-brand company plans some 70 new electric models by 2028. As it emerges from the shadow of its painful "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal, VW aims to sell around 22 million electric cars over the coming decade to escape fines from Brussels. Each smartphone battery contains three grammes of lithium, a laptop around 30 grammes and an electric car battery more than 20 kilogrammes"   https://www.thelocal.de/20190406/vw-seals-10-year-lithium-deal-for-electric-cars   ELON MUSK, SEC TOLD TO MEET ABOUT TESLA CEO’S TWEETS A federal judge in New York has ordered Bay Area-based Tesla CEO Elon Musk and U.S. securities regulators to meet for at least an hour to try and settle a dispute over Musk’s tweets. Judge Alison Nathan also told both sides Friday to send her a letter by April 18 saying whether they have reached a deal. If they don’t, Nathan will decide on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion to find Musk in contempt." reports CBS.   com said: "The regulator weeks ago asked Nathan to hold Musk in contempt over a February tweet that misstated, and then clarified, a 2019 production forecast for Tesla vehicles. The agency argued that the tweets demonstrated that no one at Tesla was really keeping watch on Musk's communications as was mandated by a 2018 settlement with the agency. Musk's attorneys countered that the standard for what tweets must be reviewed wasn't clear enough to charge Musk with contempt. Jim Cramer said that he considers the hearing a "win" for Tesla, because he believes that the judge "punted."   https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/04/05/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-sec-told-to-meet-about-tweets/   https://www.thestreet.com/video/cramer-elon-musk-court-date-win-tesla-14918413   TESLA MODEL 3 JUMPS TO #1 IN THE NETHERLANDS, AMONG ALL CARS "The Dutch plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) market had another sales surge last month, with 4,721 plug-in registrations, up 252% year over year" according to CleanTechnica: "This good market performance was mainly due to the Tesla Model 3, which had 2,195 deliveries in March, a new record for any Tesla in the Netherlands, also allowing the Tesla sedan to last month’s best seller in the country, all fuel categories included, with an advantage of more than 1,000 units over the #2 Ford Focus (1,187 units)."   https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/05/tesla-model-3-jumps-to-1-in-the-netherlands-among-all-cars-cleantechnica-ev-sales-report/   TOYOTA OFFERS TO SHARE ELECTRIFIED TECH WITH RIVAL FIRMS "Toyota will offer other car firms royalty-free use of nearly 24,000 patents it holds for electrified vehicle technology, in a bid to accelerate the development of such machines." says James Atwood for Autocar: "The royalty-free technology licences relate to systems including electric motors, power control systems and system controls. While the bulk have been developed for Toyota’s hybrid technology, the firm says they can also be applied to plug-in hybrid and fuel cell vehicles. Toyota will also offer fee-based technical support to firms producing electrified vehicles that feature Toyota motors, batteries, power and electric control systems. It says the guidance will allow firms to “achieve high levels of vehicle performance.”   https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/toyota-offers-share-electrified-tech-rival-firms   TESLA FLEXES ITS SOFTWARE PROWESS IN LATEST OVER-THE-AIR UPDATE "Earlier this week, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced another software update for its vehicles. The update, which brought Tesla vehicles a step closer to autonomous driving, highlighted how rapidly the automaker can deploy a significant new feature -- all through a seamless over-the-air update." reports Daniel Sparks for Motley Fool: "Based on another announcement from Tesla last week, there's apparently much more to come on this front. The company announced it is unveiling its in-house-developed full self-driving (FSD) computer at an event in Palo Alto, California, on April 22. At the event, Tesla executives will discuss the computer and give test-drives to experience features that are "under active development.""   https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/04/06/tesla-flexes-its-software-prowess-in-latest-over-t.aspx   QUESTION OF THE WEEK RAJEEV NARAYAN With respect to the question of the week; I feel that I my data and location are already tracked in so many ways- my phone, Smart TV, CCTVs, credit card usage, such that the incremental  risk of tracking my “smart” cars location/ driving habits is minimal, but the advantages in terms of allowing better software upgrades, etc... is greater than the risks. Also this sort of tracking is already present in many ICE cars now - for example most GM cars here in the U.S. have Onstar which tracks your location if you pay for the service or not.   However for the vast majority of us, it’s totally irrelevant. Who doesn’t have a smart phone?  That gives away far more information to anyone who can get access to the data than a connected car ever will. (I’m not going to lose sleep over it as I have nothing to hide. In fact it would be pretty boring if it was accessed AND identified by anyone. Most of this sort of data is normally totally de-identified.) David Nye   Simon Clark With reference to your question on connected cars and privacy, this matter came up about 12 months or so ago on LinkedIn with specific reference to GDPR.  There wasn’t a clear cut answer, but it’s not just connected cars.  Most modern cars record telemetry in their engine management system which is then downloaded when the car is serviced.  Different cars record different things, but all of that data is ultimately available to the manufacturer.  However you don’t need an EV to be connected.  A number of cars, including my Peugeot 3008 are ‘online’ either directly or via my mobile phone.   JOSHUA PRITT Privacy in connected cars? What about privacy on smartphones? If you have a smartphone already then you're not really giving up any more privacy than you already have. Only now both Google and the car company can track you. It is worth it though since you can track your car if it's stolen and automatically call for help in a crash. In fact I even pay a monthly fee for this to OnStar. Having the cameras inside will help figure out who messed up your car if you ever loan it out. You can always cover it up with tape or something if you're paranoid. Like those that cover their laptop camera with a sticker or tape. I myself am not bothered one bit. I even have an Amazon Echo in almost every room of my house so I can turn lights on and off and set the temperature from wherever I am.   ANDREW JACOBS Connectivity to cars is great. There are so many advantages such as being ably to remotely control the car, over the air updates  and mobile internet connectivity. However information collected by companies should always be in the control of the customer. They must be able to turn off or on ANY information that is sent, even if it sacrifices the functionality of the car.   JOHN FRUHWIRTH The question of privacy versus convenience is old and stale. That train has left the station. That ship has sailed, The jury is in.   In general, society only works when there is a certain level of trust.  We have already voted in favour of convenience over privacy. Here is my evidence: We routinely hand over our ID for "security" checks. We conduct business with credit cards, Transactions that can be tracked. We allow pre-authorized payments from our bank accounts  for our regular bills. We share our intimate lives freely on social media. etc. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.   MIA OPPELSTRUP For me, whether my EV is connected or not is not just a tradeoff between my own convenience or privacy, but also the greater good. If sharing my driving data helps make EVs the best self-driving cars, helps make them safer, or helps companies better plan charging networks based on where EV drivers actually travel, I'm all in. However I do believe that each person should have full control of their own data and EV drivers should have the ability to opt out of tracking, should they wish to do so. Thanks kindly for all you do to support EVs. Congrats on being the #1 auto show in the UK! I'll continue to spread the word here in the US.     COMMUNITY And thanks to MYEV.com they’ve set us another Question Of The Week. Keep your comments coming in on email and YouTube…   Would you buy a very high mileage EV?   I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the 210 patrons of this podcast whose generosity means I get to keep making this show, which aims to entertain and inform thousands of listeners every day about a brighter future. 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At The Coffeeshop DIck Thambi and Pak Satay talk about CCTVs. What did Dick Thambi get up to when he was younger? Today we also held Glenn's Court. What was our take on the maid abuse case. What does Glenn want to have done.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Show Summary: (Full Transcript Below) Screen readers, Refreshable Braille, Magnification, Audio Books, Computers and Smart Devices are just a few of the Tools for Success that are available to the Blind/Visually Impaired community. From education to the workplace, Assistive Technology enables people with a visual impairment to do just about anything they want to and apply for the jobs and the careers that they want. State Services for the Blind has a technology Unit that makes assessments and help clients determine what assistive technology would best suit their needs as they set their educational and career goals. Jesse Anderson is an Assistive Technology Specialist at State Services for the Blind (SSB) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In this podcast, Jesse will take you through the assessment process and how assistive technology choices are made and individualized for each person and their educational and career goals.  Jesse admits he is a nerd and loves technology. Jesse loves Accessible Gaming and Advocates for accessibility in the gaming industry. You can find out more about Jesse and accessible gaming on his YouTube Channel, Illegally Sighted. If you want to find out more about State Services for the Blind. You can call (651) 539-2300 Find them on the web. Outside of Minnesota, search for your state agency/Vocational Rehabilitation Services in your state and find out what they can do for you.   Contact: Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Full Transcript Full Transcription: Jeff Thompson: Be sure to check out the blind ability scill on your Amazon device. Just say, "Enable Blind Abilities." {Music} Jesse Anderson: We're not just looking at, okay, how can we get you through your classes that you're currently in. We're actually looking at more of a long-term goal. Jeff Thompson: Meet Jesse Anderson. Jesse Anderson: They use Windows PC's typically in many office environments. Jeff Thompson: Assistive Technology Specialist from State Services for the Blind in Minnesota. Jesse Anderson: Mac is in a lot of the more artistic areas, so maybe audio, video production, maybe some web design. It's good for people to learn that experience as well, to kind of know how to find ways to fix problems. If you are low vision, how would you do that? If you are blind, how would you do that? Well, I might take my phone and use it as a magnifier. Or if I am blind, I might take my phone or my laptop, and snap a picture of it and have it read aloud with my Bluetooth headphones. Jeff Thompson: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I am Jeff Thompson. Today we're going to be talking about assistive technology. About the tools for success. The tools that will help you level the playing field in the job market, in employment, and in education. We'll be talking about the services that your state agency can provide to you, and how your participation is vitally important towards your success. So be sure to check out your state agency, your voc rehab, your state's services for the blind and see what they can do for you. Jesse Anderson: Have the technology skills and knowing those skills well I think is just a really good thing to do, no matter what you are going to be doing in your employment or education. If you are low vision, you may be a Zoom text user, but you know what? It might be a great idea to learn Windows Magnifier, because a. It's free, b. It's built into Windows. Jeff Thompson: If you wanna find more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com, and check out our extensive library. From job insights, TVI Toolbox, iPhone 101, and our tech show, Tech Abilities, where we cover the latest developments, the latest innovations and the technologies that will enhance your opportunities for success. Jesse Anderson: I am into a little bit of everything but I am definitely still a nerd. Jeff Thompson: Please welcome assistive technology specialist, Jessie Anderson. We hope you enjoy. Jeff Thompson: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I am Jeff Thompson and today I am at State Services for the Blind in St. Paul, Minnesota, and I'm talking to assistive technology specialist, Jessie Anderson. Jessie, how are you doing? Jesse Anderson: I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for having me on today. Jeff Thompson: Great. Jessie, I wanna thank you for taking the time out of your day to come on the Blind Abilities and share with our listeners the services that you provide here at State Services for the Blind as an assistive technology specialist. Jesse Anderson: Yeah, there are actually five assistive technology specialists at SSB and we all work out of the St. Paul office. How it works is we are assigned to specific counselors who cover specific areas of the state. For instance, I do cover the [inaudible] Cato area, and then you have all the other tech specialists covering the different other parts of the state. And the last couple years, my role has changed a little bit because I am starting to work a lot more with transition age students, and that's a little bit more statewide. So I do a lot of metro, but I am traveling around the state a fair bit as well. So I will do assistive technology assessments. Meet with students in the schools or at SSB or wherever we need to. And there's a lot of stuff going on with the transition program. Jeff Thompson: Well that's a good age, 14 to 21. Students that are transitioning from high school to college where they really wanna hone in on some accessible technology to gain employment. Jesse Anderson: Yeah. During one of the ... when I meet with a students, it could be anyone between eighth grade on up in school, and like I said, if they are in the area, sometimes they'll meet here at SSB and if they are local, that is really helpful because we do have quite a few more types of devices in our technology lab or our resource center here. But I do go on the road a lot especially to greater Minnesota. So a lot of times, we'll set up a meeting to meet in the student school during some time that they can meet either during study hall or something, like that. And when I meet with people, some of the things we look at ... we're not just looking at, okay, how can we get you through your classes that you are currently in? We're actually looking at more of a long-term goal. So even if you're eighth, ninth grade, we're still going to kind of be looking at, well maybe you want a summer job. Maybe you want to work a little bit after school, or maybe you are participating in some transition related activities through SSB or other organization. Jesse Anderson: And then moving onto maybe what are you thinking after graduating high school? Are you going to go to college? You kind of maybe have an idea what type of degree. Maybe you wanna work with computers or people or animals. Maybe you don't wanna go to college and maybe you just wanna look for work right away. So those are the kind of things that we look at and then what types of technology would kind of best work to meet those types of education or employment goals based on their vision. Jeff Thompson: Covers a wide spectrum of low vision to totally blind from whether it's their braille, or if they are going to be using a lot of brail, to if they are using more audio. You do a full assessment of what would probably work best for those type of goals that they are seeking. Jesse Anderson: Absolutely. We work with people who are blind, who are low vision, who are deaf-blind, and I have met with people of all those groups. Blind, deaf-blind, and low-vision. And it could also be an accommodation thing. You may have a low-vision user who has some usability vision but honestly, it's much more affective for them to primarily listen to audio and maybe they even know braille. So, instead of maybe you have a very, very limited field of view or very, very low-vision and so visual is just not practical. So we may still look at brail displays. We still may look at a lot of audio. Yeah, it could be anywhere from computer software to smartphones, tablets, braille displays, note takers, portable devices, CCTVs. Any kind of number of things. Jesse Anderson: And so when we get a referrals from the counselor and just kind of get an idea of the person's vision and kind of what they are thinking of doing, then we can kind of help them identify what would work best for them. Jeff Thompson: And that's great because people are coming in. They're probably trying to set up an employment program. And so they are working with counselor and then you have a transition team, and your part of this is when it comes to technology. So what is an assessment? When someone does in come for that assessment, how long do you spend with them? And where do you start? Jesse Anderson: Well, when we do an assessment, usually I tell people that I kind of schedule things for, I would say, between an hour and a half to two hours. I usually block off a two hour block of time, and then even have a little bit of extra time after, if needed. Because I always let people know that if we go through things quickly and end early, or if we go a little bit longer, that's totally fine. My main thing is, I don't want to rush people through everything. We're going to cover a lot of different topics. A lot of different types of technology during that assessment as it is, and so I wanna give people enough time to ask questions, try out some of the technology and not rush through everything. We'll have the information from the counselor's referral and I'll just kind of ask some general questions. What is your vision? Is it stable? Because we also wanna look at, maybe your vision is like this, but oh, maybe it was a little bit better six months ago. And is it stable or is it expected to deteriorate over time? Jesse Anderson: And so we want to look at if that is the case, you may be able to use some large print now, but you may also kind of want to look at using more speech or gradually, especially if someone is not used to it, getting used to using more audio and maybe braille or something like that. Because as their vision changes, they'll need to do that. We look at what their needs are. How they like to best process information. Are they a visual learner? Do they have to physically read it either visually or tactilely through braille? Or do they prefer audio? What's most efficient? If we're looking at employment, we're looking at even things like, yes, okay, I might be able to read visually, but it's not really that fast and if I was in a fast-paced work setting where I had to get my job done quickly, maybe I am talking with customers on the phone. I need to access client information at a customer service job, maybe print isn't the fastest and you do have to look at audio because you also have to look at level of productivity that makes sense. Jeff Thompson: My experience out in the work force and businesses and corporations and all that, it seems like a lot of companies are PC based or they are Microsoft based through their databases. I see a higher percentage of people using JAWS or NVDA on their computers that are in the workforce. I mean, Apple is good with voiceover and your phone. A lot of people use that, and the Androids. But predominately in the workforce, I see Microsoft based computers. Jesse Anderson: Yeah. That's actually what we see a lot too. It's actually really interesting in education because in high schools and stuff right now, we have a pretty good mixture. I'll meet with some students and some schools will use iPads a lot, especially for special education. You'll see some schools that try to use Chromebooks which, they do have accessibility built into them. I don't have a lot of experience with it. I really need to get my hands on a modern Chromebook to play with that a little bit more. But, a lot of people do find even though they do have accessibility built in, they find it a little bit more restrictive. So they would like to either use more of a PC or a Mac, but you have some schools, it'll have PC. Some will use Mac. Some will use iPads. And it's just a wide variety of things. Jesse Anderson: And then when you get To college, it's kind of a free for all, because everybody has their own way to take notes or write reports. You can use your Mac. You can use your PC. But like you said, in the work world, and this is even if somebody is in high school and if they are like, "Oh, I wanna be a psychologist", or, "I wanna work in an office", or, "I wanna work in some type of setting like that", I do let them know that, like you said, they use Windows PC's typically in many office environments. The main place where I would see Mac is in a lot of the artistic areas. So maybe audio, video production. Maybe some web design. But that could go either way. Jesse Anderson: So I mean, we do recommend some Mac packages. Or if somebody is maybe you do have a technical position but maybe somebody is wanting to ... they are a programmer and they need to develop for Mac or iOS. You have to pretty much have a Mac to do that. So there are cases where we do recommend, but yes. In a lot of business settings, I would say, I can probably count the number of actual office settings on one hand that would use a Mac, as it's all been pretty much Windows. Jeff Thompson: Yeah. Well that's the unique thing about what you do here at State Services for the Blind, is you develop programs for individual for their needs. What works best for them to succeed. Jesse Anderson: Correct. Jeff Thompson: So Jessie, say someone does acquire a piece of equipment and it's working for them, but they wanna learn a little bit more about it. What do you suggest to them to do at that point? Jesse Anderson: Well, when we meet with people during the original assessment, we'll kind of also look at what their computer skills are. Not just computer skills, but how well they use the computer. If they are using an iPhone or an iPad, Android device, or whatever technology that is that they need or are currently using, and we'll let them know that we do have a couple of on-staff trainers that can work with them for some tasks and then we also have some certified contracted trainers that we work with throughout the state who can meet individually, one-on-one, with people for technology training. And that can happen at SSB. That can happen at the client's home. That can happen at the job site. Like I said, in addition to assessments, we will also go ... let's say somebody gets a job offer, and the company says we're using this software. Is this going to work with JAWS, Zoom Text or NVDA? Something like that. Jesse Anderson: And so we can work with the user and we can work with the business and we can set up a time to go to that business and get the demo of JAWS, or Zoom Text, let's say, installed on those machines, and have somebody at the job who knows what that position requires, and then they'll walk us through kind of what that person would be required to do, and then we can test how that assistive technology works with their software. Are there any problems? And if there are, what kind of things can we do to get around them or fix them? Yeah, there's a lot involved. With training, or with assessing job sites. All kinds of different things. Jeff Thompson: So they are not alone. Jesse Anderson: No, no. And if somebody has ... we got some equipment for them, or they have equipment already. Like I said, there is a training part of it, and then let's say somebody gets ... receives some technology with the assistance of SSB. We give them an assistive technology resource guide, and that's kind of a long document that has all kinds of helpful information. It'll have all of their device information. Their serial numbers of their devices. It'll have some common tips for different things. A lot of times we have a few cheat sheets for some programs like using some of the built in accessibility features of Mac and Windows. And then there's also in this resource guide, we also provide contact information for a lot of the common types of devices that we recommend. So be it a computer, a brail display, Zoom Text or JAWS. Something like that. Jesse Anderson: And we do encourage them. Yes, we are definitely there to help but we also do encourage them to contact ... let's say they have a computer program. Their computer just died, or they have a weird JAWS behavior problem or they have whatever issue. To also encourage them to learn how to contact some of the manufacturers and get some of their technical support too, because some of the really strange bugs, maybe some things that even we can't quite figure out. Or maybe there's a hardware issue, where they will have to kind of send it in. And so it's good for people to learn that experience as well to kind of know how to find ways to fix problems. Jeff Thompson: Oh yeah. And that's a life-long skill because all the way down to your job, career, whatever you are doing, you're going to come across problems and develop advocating for assistance, help, maintenance, whatever it is, pays off in the long run. So, Jessie, you've talked about going to college but employment seems to be the big thing. For people who are looking for employment, what suggestions would you have for them in regards to technology and maybe an employer not understanding what AT, assistive technology, is? Jesse Anderson: There are a few things that I will kind of tell people are as we are discussing things during the assessment or as we we're meeting in general. When we're talking about transition, the common sort of issues is that, well, this assistive technology is cool, but I don't really wanna look different. Like okay, I've got this CCTV or I've got this brail display and people are like what the heck is that? And we all know. I mean, I went through it. You went through it. Kids can be mean. When you're in high school, junior high, high school, kids can do some really mean things. And so they are kind of worried about looking different or standing out. And we just try to encourage them to ... if this makes your life a lot easier, like if you are really struggling to read that assignment, if you are really struggling to see the white board at the front of the room or to write that report or whatever it is for school, yeah, you might look a little bit different. But everybody uses technology in the room now. I mean, you've got people using their smartphones and tablets and laptops and things. Jesse Anderson: So you might have a few little bit different things, but if it's going to make your life a lot easier and more efficient, speed up what you're doing, and spend half an hour instead of three hours on an assignment, don't worry about it. And when you get to college, not only will people not care, but that's actually a really interesting conversation starter, because then people go, "Oh, dude, what's that?" And then you can show them stuff. Then they also get more of a positive impression of, "Oh, okay. You are going to college. You are going to look for work." Kind of gives them more of a positive impression on blindness or low-vision as well. Jesse Anderson: One of the other things that I would talk about is that when you are at that employment stage, I think it's just really important to treat the job search as a full-time job in itself. You know, I mean, a lot of people might kind of expect, "Oh, well SSB is here and they are going to help, or they are going to find me a job. Oh, they are going to get a job for me." No, we're definitely here to help you, but you definitely have to do your part as well. I'm speaking from experience, I got my undergrad degree and after that, I was unemployed for three and a half years. But that wasn't for lack of trying. I basically set aside anywhere between six, eight hours a day on weekdays, and sometimes weekends if I found a good job lead. And I would apply for jobs. I would look for jobs. Jesse Anderson: I had a whole jobs folder where I would have several types of templates for resumes and cover letters, where maybe I am applying for help desk jobs. Maybe I am applying for a web design job or a customer ... Any type of job, so I could just quickly get those out there. And then I would even have Excel workbooks, because I was applying for so many jobs, it's so hard to keep track. And so I would put, okay, I applied for this business, this position. I applied for it on that date. Did I get a response? Did I get an interview? What are the things [inaudible], because otherwise, I was not going to remember it. In that three and a half period, I got so many rejection letters, I jokingly would tell people that I could wallpaper my apartment with them. So it's just you really do have to put in the work and treat the job search as pretty much a full-time job to really get good results. You really gotta put in, especially since we have to prove ourselves. Hey, we're blind or vision impaired, or deaf-blind, but we can do things too. Jesse Anderson: The other thing that I would ... I kind of recommend as far as technology goes that can be really helpful is, okay, so you get an interview, and I didn't do this right away but what I found to be helpful as I started doing later on, was I would bring some ... not everything, but I would bring a couple of commonly used items with me to that interview. It could be my laptop in a laptop bag. It could be my ... now it would be my iPhone and you'll be doing the interview, and by that time, they will probably know that you have a vision impairment and they may ... employers will have concerns. "Oh can you do this part of the job?" Or, "How would you do this part of the job? Can you do it quickly enough?" And not only bringing the technology to the interview, but even having some documents on your laptop ready or some tasks in mind that you could do, so someone says, "Okay, we're in a meeting and we need to hand out these memos that we want people to read and we're going to discuss. Okay if you're low-vision, how would you do that? If you're blind, how would you do that?" Jesse Anderson: Well, I might take my phone and use it as a magnifier. Or if I am blind, I might take my phone or my laptop and snap a picture of it and have it read aloud with my Bluetooth headphones. How do I access the Internet? Well, let me bring up my phone or let me bring up my laptop and go to a website that you know, go to something fairly complex so that they can see that you are using the sites that everybody does. Go to Amazon. That's a pretty complex. There's a lot of information there. Pretty complex site. And just kind of showing them some of those things, offer to kind of show them so that way they think, "Oh, okay. Not only can you do it, but you can do it well." And know your assistive technology. That's the other thing. Know your assistive technology. Jeff Thompson: That's a good point. Because sometimes you may get the equipment, but you don't know how to use it and that takes a lot of time to get familiar with it so you can use it efficiently. And that's a great point when you're at a job interview because that person there, their internal monologue is wondering, can they do this? They're not saying it, but their thought bubbles are, I don't know if they can access a computer. So you're actually breaking that ice and it's showing them and just opening the door for the possibilities like, wow I didn't know that. Because a lot of people don't know what we can do with assistive technology. Jesse Anderson: Absolutely. And I would say that a lot of people really underestimate. That's one thing that I see in education. That's one thing that I see in employment. Just kind of everywhere. A lot of it isn't the ... as long as we're doing everything that we can, we're capable. But there's a lot of low expectations or just people just don't know that, oh ... I've had people ask me, actually it was very recently. I was getting my, I think I was getting mail and somebody at my apartment complex was like, "Oh so do you work?" And I'm like, "Yeah." "Oh, okay. That's interesting." I said, "Yeah. Not only do I work, I work full-time and I do this and I do that." It's just kind of even people that kind of see me around, they're like, I didn't know really what you could do. So yeah, we encounter that a lot. It's just a lot of low expectations. But something like that can help a lot. It's just being prepared. Jeff Thompson: That's the great thing about state services for the blind, because when you're in the predicament, maybe you just lost some eyesight or maybe you've been blind and you are looking towards transitioning to college to the work place, you can come here, get a counselor and you'll meet up with someone like Jessie, an assistive technology specialist, to find the tools for success that'll help you level the playing field basically. Put you on an even keel with everyone else. And like Jessie mentioned, employment. They have employment specialists as well that can help you look for jobs, teach you how to look for jobs, teach you some skills of resume building. Jesse Anderson: Mock interviews as well. Jeff Thompson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). There are so many services here that you can get at state services for the blind. Your state agency, your vocational rehab, wherever you are, check them out and Jessie what advice would you give to someone who is transitioning from college to high school to the workplace? Jesse Anderson: Really, it's just kind of a matter of look at what you wanna do. I've had people come in and say, "Well, what are some blind jobs I could get?" And yeah, there are certain things. I'm not going to become an airline pilot or a driver or something like that, but if you wanna work on mechanics, if you want to work in an office, if you wanna do ... work in education, there's probably ... especially with all of the services and all of the technology and different things, there's probably a way to make it happen. So don't pigeon hole yourself into necessarily like, oh, these are ... I can do customer service, or I can do tuning pianos or I don't know if that's even a thing anymore, but you know? And like I said, knowing your technology. Learning those technology skills as early as possible I think is really helpful because not only just for employment but I mean, for independence, I mean, just being able to look things up on the Internet. I mean, Amazon Prime is wonderful and evil at the same time, because it's so easy to buy things but I can research products and shop. Jesse Anderson: I can pay my bills. I can do all kinds of things with my phone or my computer. Whatever. So just having the technology skills and knowing those skills well, I think is just a really good thing to do no matter what you are going to be doing in employment or education. Jeff Thompson: Great. Jessie, on a daily basis, what tools do you utilize? Jesse Anderson: In my job, I use a lot of different tools myself, because I am indeed legally blind. I have some vision, but I am legally blind. So, I actually use a combination of magnification and speech. I find myself using Windows Magnifier actually, quite a bit. Especially in Windows 10. Windows 10 has Windows Magnifier built in. It also has some high contrast features that I've been ... especially in the latest October update. They've really fixed some things and added some things so it's worked better. But I'll use Zoom Text from time to time. But honestly, I use a screen reader. I use speech a lot. I use NVDA a lot. I do still use JAWS sometimes. But NVDA and even System Access, I really like the way System Access works on the Internet. So NVDA, System Access, JAWS, those are things I use all the time. I also use my phone. Jesse Anderson: I have an iPhone and I use the built in magnifier to read short little documents or serial numbers. Things like that. I use other magnification apps. I will use things like Seeing AI, or Prismo, or KNFB Reader to OCR a document really quick. I use Voice Dream Reader and BookShare books, and BARD, and I mean just reading books for recreation or even part as my job, I wanna keep up on technology and things like that. So I read a lot of technology related books and information. So there's all kinds of apps I use on my phone, but that's probably one of my most used tools is my phone. Jeff Thompson: And in the world out there, especially in the job market and having more tools in your tool box, [inaudible] that's a catchall phrase, but having different angles of attacking at certain solution problem is a screen doesn't read to have a couple things that you could draw from is probably a good skill to have. Jesse Anderson: I'm really glad you brought that up because I totally forgot about that. That is absolutely what we recommend as well. So if you are low-vision, you may be a Zoom Text user but you know what? It might be a great idea to learn Windows Magnifier because a. It's free, b. It's built into Windows. It doesn't cost anything, but you're not always using your computer. Maybe you go to a library, a computer lab, a friend or family's place and they don't have Zoom Text installed. You can still have magnification if you are a speech user, you may be a JAWS user, but guess what? NVDA is free. It runs on a thumb drive. You can use that. You might be able to get by with using Windows Narrator and of course Apple has its voice over for a screen reader. You have Zoom built into the Mac and iOS both. Yes, knowing more than one screen ... I regularly, professionally, I regularly switch between multiple tools. Like if one OCR app doesn't work, I'll use a different one. I might visit a website with JAWS and it doesn't work, and so I use NVDA or NVDA doesn't read something and JAWS does. So absolutely knowing more than one tool, especially nowadays with the way things move so quickly. Absolutely important. Jesse Anderson: It's really interesting being an assistive technology specialist right now, because things move just so much faster. Back in the day we had, maybe you had Magic and Zoom Text or you had JAWS and WindowEyes and now you've got the Windows stuff. You've got Mac. You've got iOS. Android. And then that's not even getting into people ask about smart appliances like Google Home and Alexa or the Amazon Echo. There's so many different platforms and they all can have good uses for them, but there's a lot to keep track of. Even we can't keep up with it all. I mean, I try to. I am a nerd, and I'm into that kind of stuff, but I can't even learn everything. Jeff Thompson: Especially, I'll go on my wife's PC and I'll hit the VO keys. Well there are no VO keys on that, the PC laptop, so it's kind of fun that ... going back and forth, for me, I can do it but I have to think about it for a little bit and staying up to date with stuff. So I'll use a Mac. I can use the PC. I can use a couple of other things and that's an asset that I do. But, it does take a little bit of work to get my brain wrapped around it again. Jesse Anderson: Yeah. Definitely. I want to say, especially if you are totally blind or if you are a speech user, magnification, you can kinda figure things out because the interface might be a little bit different, but you can kind of, oh I can click around and stuff. But me being a long time PC user and just learning Mac a few years ago, I'm still not a great Mac user, I'll admit it. But I know enough to kind of get around and do some damage. Yeah. The way that you would think of navigating a Windows screen reader is kind of a bit different with voice over and that took me a lot of time to kind of get used to. So people go, "Well I wanna use a Mac because I've heard it's good for blind people." Or, "I'm using a Mac and maybe I gotta learn [inaudible] a PC", and some people might have the mistake and impression, oh, well they are both speech. You just learn a few commands and you go. Yeah. Some can take a little more time to transition because some of the way you navigate and stuff can be a bit different. Jeff Thompson: Now in your position, a lot of us out here, we have friends in the community and stuff. We get to sample things once in a while. Try and kick it around the block a little bit here and there. Now, in your position, you probably go to conferences or events where they are displaying stuff or people want to show you stuff. Vendors and all sorts of stuff, so you probably get a whole onslaught of different tools and accessible devices to sample. Jesse Anderson: We do work with quite a few of our vendors. We do have vendors who come into SSB and show the tech specialists news devices or updates to new devises, but we also do periodically have events that are opened to the public where you'll have a vendor come by and they'll show their devices and device demonstrations and we've had people come in to do that. People come in to watch that as well. We also do, if we can, we will sometimes try to get down to the CSUN conference in California. Usually it's in March and that is kind of the premier assistive technology conference. You do have things like closing the gap in ATI, but those don't really focus on blindness as much, I think as they used to. I've gone to CSUN now twice and absolutely love it. They are actually going to be in a new hotel or a new venue this year. So that'll be interesting. I'm not going to be going to that unfortunately this year, but it's a fantastic conference if you're into assistive technology. If you're a tech specialist. If you're a user. Whatever. It is pretty fun. It's pretty informative. Jeff Thompson: So Jessie, this is your day time job. What are some of your hobbies that you do? And what's your interest in? Jesse Anderson: Well, I'm into a little bit of everything, but I'm definitely still a nerd. Like I said, I still do some technology stuff at home. Technology, gaming, I like music. I'm trying to teach myself the drums. Mess around with the guitar a little bit, that kind of a thing. But I do, like I said, I still do some technology and even game accessibility stuff in my spare time. For the past several years, I do run a YouTube channel called Illegally Sighted, and that's going pretty well. And I'm really trying to advocate, like I said, everything ... my day job is all about work, but there's more to life than just work and especially video games and VR. Virtual reality, augmented reality. Those things are all becoming quite popular in the mainstream world, and blind and low-vision users would like to be included in some of that, too, and so as I've been doing the YouTube channel, it's kind of turned into this ... I've really started working more with advocating for game accessibility and I have a VR headset at home. Jesse Anderson: So I've been trying to use that as a way to like hey, approach developers. We don't have standards yet for virtual reality officially, because everyone is still trying to figure it out. So if we can get someone in there to say, "Hey, you're trying to figure things out. Let's get accessibility as just one of those standards from the beginning because it's much easier to do it from the beginning than it is to bolt it on later." So I've been trying to advocate for that and as part of that, I did a presentation in fall of 2017 that's archived on my channel. I did a presentation for #id24, Inclusive Design 24, on VR accessibility for low-vision users, and in March of this year, I was actually invited to be a presenter, part of a panel, at the third annual game accessibility conference. GACon, as it's kind of referred to online and on Twitter. And you can go to gaconf.com and it's a one day conference that's held in San Francisco and I was able to get things lined up and working so I am going to be going down to that conference for the first time this year and be a panel speaker, and hopefully I'll be able to meet some developers, and a lot of the people that I have been kind of socializing with on social media, on Twitter and things like that. Jesse Anderson: So I'm really looking forward to it, and hopefully it can result in just getting another voice out there and making more developers and stuff realize, hey, it may not be as difficult as you think it is, but blind people, low-vision people are a market too, and we do have money to spend and we wanna do, we wanna participate in games and such as well. So, that should be really fun to see how that goes. Jeff Thompson: Jessie, thank you for being an advocate for everyone, because I know a lot of people out there that want to hang onto that or have the possibilities of playing games. It's a big market out there, and thank you for doing what you are doing. Jesse Anderson: Sure. No problem. Jeff Thompson: Great, well Jessie Anderson, I wanna thank you very much for coming on to Blind Abilities. Taking the time out here at SSB. That's State Services for the Blind of Minnesota. Thank you very much. Jesse Anderson: All right. Thank you. Jeff Thompson: Be sure to check out your state services, your state agency, your vocational rehab, and see what they can do for you. And be sure to check out the Blind Abilities scale on your Amazon device. Just say, enable Blind Abilities. And you can listen to the Blind Abilities on the Victor Stream. Just go to their favorites list and find Blind Abilities. There you go. You can search for Blind Abilities in any of your favorite PodCatchers. Just type in, Blind Abilities. That's too words. Blind abilities. And you can always download the free blind abilities app from the Apple store, or the Google Play store. And like I said, it's two words. Blind abilities. Jeff Thompson: I want to thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed and until next time. Bye-bye. [Music]  [Transition noise]  -When we share -What we see -Through each other's eyes... [Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence] ...We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities. Jeff Thompson: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective: Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities Download our app from the App store:  'Blind Abilities'; that's two words. Or send us an e-mail at: info@blindabilities.com Thanks for listening. Contact: Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store.

This week The Bearded Vegans are discussing a number of news stories that have caught their interest. Topics include a ruling that almond milk can officially be called “milk”, CCTVs […]

As encryption and other privacy-enhancing tech is increasingly used, government agencies are seeking new ways to access communications & other data that is also being increasingly generated by new computing devices, apps and websites. Methods currently used include government hacking & vulnerabilities exploitation, and pursuing access through such legal paths as Title III & the USA Patriot Act. • What actually is government hacking & what tools are used? • What are the risks for putting backdoors in encryption that governments around the world are still pursuing? • What is US Title III as it relates to government surveillance? • How are data from CCTVs, license plate readers, phone and smart devices being accessed by government agencies? Tune in to hear Michelle Richardson, Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Privacy and Data Project, discuss these & many more related topics with Rebecca. #Privacy #Surveillance #PatriotAct #TitleIII #Government #Hacking

An Interview With David Bradburn of Zoomax – Low-Vision Products Expert Blind Abilities was out on the Exhibit Hall floor at the 2018 national convention of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB). Pete Lane was able to grab an interview with David Bradburn to chat about his company, zoomax, makers of a wide variety of CCTVs and similar devices, as well as a brand new AI headset which promises to be helpful for low vision individuals. Have a listen to David as he aptly describes the devices and prices of the various Zoomax products. You can find more about Zoomax and a complete list of their products and prices at: www.ZoomaxUSA.com And you can reach out and contact David Bradburn via email at:  DBradburn@ZoomaxUSA.com   Or call:  866-296-8388   About Zoomax Since 2011, Zoomax has been committed to developing assistive technology for people with vision impairments. Today, with a full line of low vision products including handheld, portable and desktop video magnifiers, Zoomax worldwide sales and service network have covered 60 countries. At Zoomax, user experience is the most important aspect guiding new project development. We listen to voice and request from users and involve user’s suggestion in new product definition. Thanks to the valuable opinions from users and partners, the principles of open collaboration for ongoing innovation have been our steady belief from the very start.   If you want to know more about Aira and the services they provide, check them out on the web and become an Aira Explorer today! www.Aira.io Image of the Aira Logo Your Life, Your Schedule, Right Now. Using augmented reality, Aira connects people who are blind or low vision to a trained professional agent who is dedicated to further enhancing their everyday experience – completely hands-free assistance at the touch of a button. You can learn more about the National Federation of the Blind on the web at www.NFB.org Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Store. Get the Free blind Abilities App on the Google Play Store

Our Journey Through Assistive Tech and Making Old Tech New Again. Meet Derek Daniel Blind Abilities presents a discussion on the subject of assistive technology: not only what we are seeing and using now in 2018, but what we encountered throughout our sight-loss journeys. Jeff and Pete are joined by Derek Daniel, host of his own podcast entitled: Life After sight Loss, and his own YouTube channel by the same name. They discuss the technology they encountered early-on, such as Pete using magnifying glasses and lenses during the 1960s and 1970s, which evolved into CCTVs and screen-enlargement software during the 80s and 90s. Derek and Jeff enjoyed some more advanced technology during the early 2000s as they attended college.   Clearly, the technology we used throughout our journeys through blindness were dependent upon our specific visual conditions, as well as the age in which we experienced it. Regardless of the nature of your blindness and when you transitioned into your current situation, this chat will give you some interesting insight into what technology has been around, and what’s out there now. As usual, this podcast will also give you some of the sounds of that old and new technology, as blind Abilities continues to present high-quality "audio canvasses" for your listening enjoyment!    Additionally, what do you do with your old technology Is it sitting in a drawer, the attic or a closet collecting dust?? Well we have a couple of nonprofit organizations who will gladly accept these old devices and spruce them up for folks who can use them now. think about donating old adaptive equipment to: Eye-Link.org, located in Minnesota and North Dakota area.   EastersealsCrossRoads.orgin Indiana.   Your old assistive tech may be just the ticket for someone who is newly blind! Sit back and relax, and join Jeff, Pete and their guest, Derek Daniel for this 28 minute podcast.   You can find Derek’s podcast and Youtube videos at: www.LifeAfterSightLoss.com

This week's show starts with a technology update from Chase Crispin, and then Jeremy Curry from GW Micro brings us a demonstration of two talking CCTV systems. David Tanner then interviews Jeremy, and they continue with a discussion of talking CCTVs and their features. Thanks to Seroteck and the Serotalk Podcast Network www.serotalk.com we are rebroadcasting two interviews from CSUN 2012 with Ai Squared, and a representative from Looktel, a company making a number of outstanding apps for IOS devices. Finally, thanks to Vision Australia we hear a demonstration from David Woodbridge of how to do speed calls from your iPhone. Its' all on MainMenu this week on acbradio's Mainstream! Main Menu can be first heard on Fridays at 9:00 pm Eastern time. It airs throughout Saturday on ACB Radio Mainstream. http://www.acbradio.org/mainstream It is also available in the iTunes store, in the iBlink Radio app for IOS and Android devices, and is available to Radio Reading Services around the world. Subscribe to the Main Menu podcast feed at: http://mainmenu.acbradio.org/rss.php Follow MainMenu on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/mainmenu Subscribe to a list where you can interact with other Main Menu listeners and the Main Menu staff by sending a blank email message to: mm-friends-subscribe at acbradio.org

--{ I Can Hear the Drumming of New System Coming: "Corporate Takeover of Nations Already Startin', Look at Acquisitions of Lockheed Martin, They Run Canada's National Census and CCTVs, Military Nuclear Bases to Bring World to its Knees, We've ConAgra, Monsanto, ADM and Others, Whose Modified Crops Make Cows Lose Udders, Private Banks Rule Our Lives, Lend to Nations, Bankrupt a Few, End Employed Occupations, A New System's in Works to Be Implemented, Called Slavery Inc., Ruled by the Demented" © Alan Watt }-- Public-Private Partnerships - CEO Overlords in New Feudalism - End of Nations, Rise of City-States - Lockheed Martin gets Contracts for Nuclear Bases, National Censuses and Air Traffic - "Rollerball" movie, Corporate Wars, Public Taught "Teamwork". Rapid Depopulation - Poison Food - Genetically-Modified Rice - Natural Seed Arks for Future. Thousands of Websites Hacked in Australia - Internet ID - Facebook for Data Collection. Eugenicist David Suzuki - Former Bank of Canada, Printing of Debt-Free Money - "Oh Canada" video - Fractional Gold Reserves - Age of Austerity and Inflation, Decreasing Purchasing Power - Jacques Cousteau - Power in Hands of Private Bankers in Money System - The Numbers Con Game - Society Made Divisive and Fragmented - Public are Farmed - CFR's Pre-Selected Politicians - Democracy, Voting in Dictators. (See http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com for article links.) *Title/Poem and Dialogue Copyrighted Alan Watt - June 21, 2011 (Exempting Music, Literary Quotes, and Callers' Comments)