Dear AccessWorld readers,

At AccessWorld, July is the time of year when we think "Back to School.” A new school year is on the horizon, bringing new classes, instructors, class projects, presentations, tests, and people. This year you might even be starting at a new school or moving away to college.

The thought of all of these transitions and challenges might bring about a feeling of uncertainty. But that's not necessarily a bad thing! Expanding your comfort zone, learning new ways to accomplish tasks, finding and using new resources to your best advantage, upping your interpersonal communication and orientation and mobility skills, and taking it upon yourself to become more independent and responsible can all be very rewarding. This is true now, when you're a student, and will remain true throughout your life.

This time of year can be exciting, too, especially if you prepare in advance. Pursuing an education can be difficult under the best of circumstances and doing so as a person with vision loss can increase the challenge. In our current pandemic, the uncertainty of in-person versus virtual learning can also create challenges with accessibility, on many fronts, as many of you experienced this past school year when you were thrust into virtual learning situations for which most teachers and students alike were not prepared.

For all of the students in our readership, we urge you to take personal responsibility for your education, and be your own advocate. It is very important to prepare in advance, speak to your instructors, and tell those you'll be working with exactly what types of accommodations, both in-person and virtual, will best meet your needs. Your education will have a tremendous impact on every aspect of your life, so it's crucial that you do everything you can to get the most out of your studies.

Acquiring and learning to use the mainstream and access technology that best suits your situation, registering as early as possible for classes, obtaining reading lists, and searching out accessible formats should all be done as soon as you can. You will also want to contact the student services office at your school to find out what types of support or resources may be available to you. Waiting until the last minute is a recipe for disaster.

With our annual Back to School issue, the AccessWorld team once again focuses on providing valuable information and resources for students, parents, teachers, and professionals in the vision loss field to help make educational pursuits less stressful and more enjoyable. We are excited to bring you the information in this issue, and we sincerely hope you will find it useful.

Transition is a part of life. Transitioning from grade to grade, from high school to college, and from college to work. The same is true for transitioning from one career path to another. I say this as transition is happening for me as well. It is after much thoughtful deliberation that I have decided to begin a new career path myself, and I am announcing to you, the AccessWorld readership, that I have decided to pursue a career opportunity with another blindness organization. This will be my final issue as Editor-in-Chief of AccessWorld.

The July 2010 “Back to School” issue of AccessWorld was the first issue where I wrote my name at the bottom of the Editor’s Page, exactly 10 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Technology has certainly changed and allowed those of us who experience vision loss to accomplish more than we ever thought possible at that time. Just as technology has evolved and changed, AccessWorld has evolved and changed as well.

Soon after becoming Editor-in-Chief, I was tasked with expanding the magazine’s content and moving AccessWorld from a publication schedule of once every two months to once a month. That meant twice as much content published twice as often. Every two months was just not often enough to keep up with the rapid pace of change in our field. Today, it's moving faster still.

In 2010, AccessWorld had about 1,500 subscribers; today over 8,500 subscribe to AccessWorld Alerts, and well over 100,000 people visit the site every quarter. Site visitors are made up of people with vision loss, their friends and family, teachers, rehabilitation professionals, and mainstream and access technology developers—our visitors are people of all ages and interests, and from all countries around the world that have access to the Internet. Providing the best technology information we can to our readers, with the best of intention, is a responsibility that I and the authors have taken very seriously. I often remind the team that the work we produce reaches around the world and impacts the lives of those who read our words.

If there is one thread that runs through every issue of AccessWorld, it's that technology is the key. Technology is the empowering force that will allow you to live your best life, whatever that means for you. Technology, in whatever form you prefer, whether it be magnification, speech, refreshable braille, or a combination, can provide you access to information, education, employment, independence, and leisure. It can provide you the latest COVID-19 information, access to a history textbook, the ability to compose a resume and submit it online, summon a ride share car and access audio description on your favorite movie streaming service. In other words, technology offers you access to the world.

I have said it many times before, and I will leave you all with this challenge: stay current with technology. Do not allow yourself to fall into the trap of relying on old or outdated technology. When people do, and are then forced to move up, the learning curve can be daunting. I’ve been there; I know. Stay current and keep looking for the next best thing. Technology is always moving, and you must move with it.

In closing, I want to thank my AFB colleagues who have supported the publication of AccessWorld each month, all the talented authors I have worked with, our fantastic copy editor, our advertisers and donors, and most certainly you, our readers. Being the Editor-in-Chief of AccessWorld for the past decade has been a privilege.

In the next month or two, a new AccessWorld website will be revealed. It has been in process for a good while, and I hope you will like the new functionality. Also, moving forward, my AFB colleague and AccessWorld right-hand man, Aaron Preece, will assume the role of Acting Editor. I am certain he will do a fantastic job and continue to grow the publication.

Best wishes to all!

Sincerely,

Lee Huffman

AccessWorld Editor-in-Chief

American Foundation for the Blind

July Table of Contents

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the July 2010 issue of AccessWorld. Because it provides valuable evergreen information, we have republished it here with updates to reflect the significant changes in available technology since the original publication. Due to the considerable disruption in education because of the COVID-19 pandemic, additional resources related to this topic have also been included. Note that the Information and Referral department referenced in this article is now housed at the American Printing House for the Blind.

The American Foundation for the Blind Information and Referral Center receives over 250 inquiries every month related to vision loss. Tara Annis, AFB information and referral specialist, answers these inquiries, which come from people with visual impairments, their family and friends, teachers, social workers, medical and rehabilitation professionals, employers, high school and college students conducting research, and the general public.

The questions cover a broad range of topics, including locating services for people who are blind or visually impaired, assistive technology and daily living products, assisting parents of visually impaired children, books in alternative formats, and assisting seniors who are losing vision as they age.

Tara has a wealth of experience in the field of vision loss, due in part to the fact she has been legally blind her entire life. When she was younger, her visual acuity was around 20/200 to 20/400, and she was considered to have low vision. At that time, she used her limited vision and magnification aids to accomplish tasks. As her vision decreased during high school, she learned non-visual techniques, such as braille and how to use a screen reader.

Tara graduated from Marshall University in 2006 with a Bachelor of Science degree in biology. During her college years, she was employed by the Department of Chemistry's Computing Center as an online course designer and traveled for a summer internship at the University of Rochester to work in a genomics lab, studying how diabetes affected the activity of specific genes.

Since her hiring by AFB, Tara has learned even more about assistive technology and has aided AccessWorld authors by helping to test the accessibility of cell phones, notetakers, and GPS software for cell phones.

Because of her broad knowledge and experience, I asked Tara to pull together a list of her most frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to the pursuit of higher education. She agreed, saying, "I would love to share my expertise and knowledge of available resources with as many visually impaired students as possible in the hope they can learn how to adapt their education to meet their unique situation."

FAQs from the Desk of the AFB Information and Referral Specialist

Question: What should I tell my instructors about my visual impairment?

Answer: It is important to speak with an instructor as soon as you know you are going to be in their class. Many students with vision loss fear speaking to their instructors, worrying that, due to ignorance about the capabilities of people with vision loss, the instructor will not believe that the student will be able to complete the course work.

Try to schedule meetings with all of your instructors as soon as possible. It's best if you talk about your vision loss openly and honestly. Instructors may fear asking questions, not wanting to offend you. As a student, you have to be proactive, explaining how you accomplish tasks. It may be beneficial to bring your assistive technology and adaptive products to this meeting, explaining how these devices will help you. For example, you could say something to the effect of, "This is my laptop with screen-magnification software, and this is an electronic magnifier. When I place the textbook under the camera, all of the material is enlarged. I have some usable vision, so I am able to read the textbook, complete written work, and view the syllabus using this equipment. Using my laptop's screen magnification software, I am able to write term papers and use the Internet to conduct research. I wanted to show you this equipment in order to assure you I can handle the material in this class and that I'm serious about doing well."

You could also direct your instructor to the AFB website and other websites on vision loss if they would like further information. You should then ask for an overview of the class structure. Will they write on the board or use a projector? Will they use PowerPoint slides or hand out a good deal of printed material? Will there be in-class assignments or pop quizzes? What is the structure of tests? Will there be off-campus field trips? Will an online learning platform such as BlackBoard be used? Knowing answers to these types of questions will help you to better prepare for the class.

Question: What types of services does a Disabled Student Services (DSS) office offer?

Answer: Most colleges have a DSS office, which can vary from school to school in the scope of services offered. The DSS office may offer people who can assist with taking notes in class, be personal readers or proctors for tests, or who can assist you in a science lab. However, personal assistants are sometimes in short supply or are not skilled in the material covered in your particular class. This is especially true for subjects such as music, science, math, and higher levels of every subject, where technical terms are commonplace.

The DSS office may also have some assistive technology for loan, such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR) equipment or video magnifiers. The DSS office can also assist with legal matters, such as if a student is experiencing discrimination. They may also be able to transcribe textbooks into large print braille or accessible digital formats, and make tactile diagrams.

In addition to the DSS office, many college departments have hired graduate or teaching assistants who offer student support as part of their job description. You may also want to check with your school's tutoring center. Many tutors are willing to serve as a reader rather than as an actual tutor.

You may choose to find someone on your own and pay for their services. Sometimes the vocational rehabilitation department in your state will give you a stipend for readers. You can advertise for help in the school newspaper, at the career services center, and on bulletin boards in dorms and other places on campus. If your institution has a student-specific social media platform, group, or hashtag, you may also be able to seek a reader using those avenues. You may also want to seek help from volunteer groups, such as local places of worship, the local Lion's Club, women's groups, and campus service fraternities.

Question: Where can I get textbooks in alternate formats?

Answer: The American Printing House for the Blind offers the Louis Database, where you can search for agencies that carry your textbooks in alternate formats. Learning Ally offers textbooks from preschool to the doctoral level. Books are offered in digital audio format and can be played on traditional computers, tablets, or smartphones as well as specialized players.

The Bookshare website offers textbooks for primary, secondary, undergraduate, and post-graduate study. Recently, Bookshare began offering students with documented legal blindness free access to its collection, waiving the usual fee. Bookshare books can be obtained in a variety of digital formats that can be read on computers, tablets, smartphones, and Chromebooks, as well as on specialized digital book players.

It is now possible to access Amazon Kindle content on most mainstream digital devices. In addition, Amazon has added support for alt text for images and the ability to read math equations using a combination of the NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) screen reader and the Kindle for PC software.

Project Gutenberg offers a smaller collection of books, mostly classics, which could come in handy for students taking literature or classics classes.

Many works of literature, especially classic short stories and poems, can be found using a search engine. While in college, I was able to locate online versions of pieces such as "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, and "To Build a Fire" by Jack London.

The Library of Congress' National Library Service is another great place to search for novels and poetry for your English classes. You can find braille-ready electronic files and digital audio versions of the works you need.

You can also purchase the print copy of a textbook, and scan it yourself using optical character recognition software such as Openbook or Kurzweil. If you can't locate a particular textbook, check for earlier editions. Changes from edition to edition are frequently minimal.

You can even order a completely different textbook on the same subject. I have done this for Physics classes as most general physics books cover the same topics. Using the accessible textbook I found, I could look up something like "calculating velocity" and learn the same material as my classmates. I have even searched the Internet for topics covered in my textbooks, such as locating boiling and melting points for chemical compounds.

You can also contact the book's publisher and request an electronic version, which, by law, the publisher should send to you. The publisher might require that you verify your disability, which can be a time consuming process, so try to find the names of textbooks you will be using during the upcoming school term as early as possible.

Question: How do I take notes in class?

Answer: Several methods may be employed. You may choose to use a personal notetaker employed by the DSS office or ask a classmate to take notes for you. You could also use a laptop, smartphone, tablet, or electronic notetaker. If you use character echo with your screen reader, you may wish to turn this feature off when taking notes so that the screen reader audio does not drown out the instructor's voice. Students with low vision can use a portable video magnifier. You can use 20/20 pens, which create a bold line or try using bold- or raised-line paper. Another method is using an audio recorder, either a separate piece of hardware, or one that is built into your laptop, electronic notetaker, smartphone, or tablet.

Question: How do I complete in-class work, such as pop quizzes or worksheets?

Answer: You can handle in-class work in several ways. If the assignment or quiz is short, you can stay after class and have the instructor read it to you. The instructor may allow you to use an electronic version on your device of choice. Be sure to bring your portable video magnifier to class if you have enough usable vision to take assignments and quizzes in this manner. Some people with vision loss, even though they can't read print, learn the print alphabet, allowing them to use raised-line paper for short assignments. I've done this for short multiple-choice quizzes. If the DSS office provides in-class human notetakers, having the notetaker read the assignment and act as scribe can be helpful.

Question: How do I handle taking tests?

Answer: You can contact the DSS office and use one of the office's personal readers. Some DSS offices will transcribe tests into braille, convert them to electronic format, or reproduce them in large print. Another option is using a video magnifier if you have enough usable vision. Many low-vision students have difficulty reading Scantron sheets, and choose to write directly on the test itself or on a separate sheet of paper. Some instructors will give a visually impaired student the test on a USB drive or via e-mail, allowing the student to use their device of choice to answer the questions. This is especially handy for essay questions, which can be difficult to answer by dictating to a proctor or writing under a video magnifier.

Question: What about classes of a more visual nature, such as those in the fields of science, engineering, and math?

Answer: Several agencies have created adapted products for the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, including braille and large-print periodic tables of the elements; raised-line drawings of the human body systems; talking and large-font calculators; raised- and bold-line graphing paper; large-print and braille rulers, yardsticks, and tape measures; braille protractors, 3-D representations of shapes for geometry, and raised-line drawing kits.

The color video magnifier is great for viewing specimens, such as the veins on leaves, the wings of insects, and details on rocks and shells. You can label lab equipment, such as measurement marks on beakers and test tubes, with large-print or tactile labels, allowing you to perform lab experiments using this glassware independently. Some lab work may not have a logical way to be performed independently. For these circumstances, students who are visually impaired may choose to use a lab assistant. The instructor knows the student with vision loss is responsible for telling the assistant what to do, such as stating the amount and type of compound to pour into a beaker. The assistant may also describe color changes, temperature readings on the thermometer, and weights on the balance scale.

The lab assistant does not write lab reports, take tests, or do any of the written work submitted for the course. These are the responsibility of the student.

Some adaptive lab equipment is also available, such as talking thermometers, voltmeters, micrometers, color identifiers, and balance scales. The Talking LabQuest 2 is a possible option. Some microscopes have the ability to connect to a monitor, displaying specimens under the microscope lens onto the monitor's screen. This allows for much larger magnification and eliminates the need for the student with low vision to focus the microscope lens by looking through the lens, which can be quite an eye strain.

The Aira service connects individuals with vision loss with trained professionals to provide visual assistance for a range of tasks. Calls under 5 minutes are now free making Aira a possible option for navigating visual assignments. If you are unfamiliar with the Aira program, you can learn more in our two-part series: Part 1, Part 2.

Question: What if I do not have the funds to purchase assistive technology?

Answer: The vocational rehabilitation department in your state may purchase assistive technology, such as video magnifiers, electronic notetakers, or laptops. Your school or a local public library may have an assistive technology room for visually impaired students to use. Check with local agencies for the blind or teachers of the visually impaired to see if you can borrow equipment.

Community groups, such as the Lions Club, may offer grants. The Association of Blind Citizens (ABC) offers an assistive technology fund.

The organization Computers for the Blind offers laptop and desktop computers with assistive software preinstalled at a reduced cost. The Used Low Vision Store offers assistive technology for a reduced cost.

Each state also has an assistive technology project. These organizations often have low-interest loans available and if not, may be able to direct you to other sources. To find the organization for your state, visit the National Assistive Technology Act Technical Assistance and Training (AT3) Center website.

Question: Where should I look for scholarships?

Answer: There are a vast number of scholarships for college students, and some are geared specifically for people with vision loss. Check with local and national agencies for the blind, such as the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and the American Council of the Blind (ACB) chapters. Both of these organizations offer national scholarships but most state affiliates also offer scholarships. Local organizations will offer scholarships in some cases, such as the Lighthouse Guild. Another organization that offers scholarships for those with vision loss is Learning Ally.

Question: Where can I find useful information about college-related issues?

Answer: You can find helpful information on the FamilyConnect website, which has a section specific to college students on the "transition to independence" page. Here you can read articles such as You’re Not Alone: Starting College When You Are Blind or Visually Impairedand "College Life Begins."

The Perkins E-Learning site also has many resources related to education and transition. Examples include 10 Tech Skills Every College Student Needs and 10 Questions to Ask when Choosing a College. Other blindness-related organizations and websites have college related information as well, such as this article from the NFB and this article from the ACB.

Question: COVID-19 has drastically changed how education is conducted; where can I find resources to assist with this situation?

Answer: At this year's virtual AFB Leadership Conference, Dr. Rachael Sessler Trinkowsky presented on the topic of remote instruction for students with vision loss. There are additional remote instruction resources available on the AFB website.

AFB also has pulled together a series of resources on accessible education for people with visual impairments and AFB continuously publishes blogs related to education.

If you are a teacher of students with vision loss seeking methods for distance learning of blindness specific topics such as braille or orientation and mobility, the educational games produced by Objective Ed may be helpful.

If you are expected to use the Zoom conferencing platform in your education, Jonathan Mosen has released his audio book on Zoom for free. If you will be using an audio/video conferencing system during your education, seeking accessibility information about the platform will be helpful. For example, you can find accessibility information regarding Google Meet here. In addition, pressing "?" when using the application on a desktop platform will launch a list of keyboard shortcuts for the app, something of particular use to someone with a visual impairment.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

Comment on this article.

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July Table of Contents

Janet Ingber

Apple held its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 22, 2020. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the conference was, for the first time, entirely virtual. Many new operating systems and their new features were introduced during the keynote address.

Tim Cook, Apple CEO, began the address by announcing the company's Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. , "Starting with the United States and expanding over time this initiative will challenge systemic barriers that limit opportunity for communities of color in the areas of education, economic equality, and criminal justice," Cook said. Apple is committing $100 million to the initiative. Cook announced a new Developer Entrepreneur Camp for Black developers. He added, "We want to do everything we can foster the brightest and best ideas. At Apple, our mission has always been to make the world a better place and we're committed to being a force for change."

Cook stated, "Our world is also battling a virus that is affecting the daily lives of billions of people. We want to thank the dedicated people everywhere, especially our health care workers, who have made tremendous sacrifices to take care of those in need."

iOS 14

The next operating system for the iPhone is iOS 14. If you currently can run iOS 13, you will be able to upgrade. Updates and new features in this version of the operating system are discussed below.

Mail and Safari

With iOS 14, iPad OS 14, and macOS 12 Big Sur, it will be possible to use a different email app and a different browser as defaults instead of Apple Mail and Safari. The change will appear on all devices.

Home Screen

iOS 14 allows for more customization and the Home Screen is getting a makeover. You will be able to place Widgets there and Widgets can be different sizes. In addition, the Smart Stack feature can organize Widgets based on your activities or schedule.

Apps

In iOS 14, you can hide infrequently used apps. The new app library will automatically organize all the apps installed on your device. At the top of the library you will find a search box. There will also be a list of apps you might need and a list of most recently added apps. Apps will be sorted alphabetically and by category.

Siri

If you ask Siri for information, the results will appear at the top of the screen like a notification. Siri's actions will appear at the bottom of the screen. Siri's knowledge base continues to increase.

Audio messages can be sent with Siri in iOS 14. The Siri dictation feature will be able to run completely on the device. Finally, Siri's translate feature will offer more languages.

Calls

When a phone call or FaceTime call comes in, relevant information will appear at the top of the screen like a notification. This feature is also available on the iPad. So far, no information has been given on how this will work with VoiceOver.

Translate

Translate is a new app that allows for conversation with people who do not speak the same language. It's not a foreign language dictionary, but meant for use in conversation. When you speak, your words are translated automatically into the desired language.

Messages

One of the main new features in the Messages app is the ability to control group texts. For example, you can choose to receive a notification only when you are mentioned. There are more Memoji options and you can pin the most important message at the top of the messages list. The new Messages features will also be available on the iPad and Mac.

Maps

The Maps app will have many updates, including features for bicyclists and users of electric cars. There will also be weather information, and guides that include places to eat and explore for some cities around the world. Apple Maps will also show green zones and areas of congestion.

App Clips

iOS 14 will include app clips, which give very quick access to the features of an app. The clip gives specific information that you need at that moment. For example, if you are looking for somewhere to eat, there is an app clip just for that. App clips may be used immediately or stored in the app library. App clips can be found through bar codes, NFC codes, and links in Safari or Messages. If you prefer, the full app still may be downloaded from the App Store.

iPad OS 14

In addition to new features in iOS 14 for both the iPhone and iPad, there are new features in iPad OS 14 that are only for the iPad. The following iPads can use iPad OS 14:

• iPad Air 2 and later
• iPad Pro (all models)
• iPad 5th generation and later
• iPad mini 4 and later

Apps such as Photos, Files, and Notes will have a sidebar. Toolbars have been redesigned. The screen in the Music app will display controls, artwork, and lyrics simultaneously. The search feature has been redesigned, allowing the user to perform a search anywhere including over an app. Information such as websites and contacts can be easily accessed. Scribble with the Apple Pencil will be available in iPad OS 14. This feature allows you to use the Apple Pencil to write text anywhere you can enter it and it will be converted to typed text for you.

AirPods

AirPods automatically detectwhich device you are using. When you start using a different device, they will change to that new device. In addition, AirPods Pro will have Spatial Audio. This will simulate the sound of being in a movie theater and will not be affected by movement.

Watch OS 7

This new operating system will work on Apple Watch Series 3 and later. New features and updates are discussed below.

Complications

With this update to the operating system, Complications will have the ability to display more information. Additional faces will also be added and a Siri Shortcut can be added. You can get faces with complications already added. You will also be able to share a Watch face. App developers will be able to offer pre-configured Watch faces.

Maps

This year, one main update for maps on the Apple Watch was announced: information for cyclers will be included.

Fitness

New fitness categories will be added including functional training, core workouts, and dance. The iPhone's Activity app will be renamed to Fitness. The app will be redesigned to give quicker access to information.

Sleep Tracker

Your Apple Watch can be used as a sleep tracker. There are different features you can set prior to going to bed to help you get into a sleep routine. You will be able to have your watch remind you to charge it. The watch can track features such as movement while you were asleep and how long you were asleep.

Siri

Siri will be able to do language translation directly on the watch, which will speed up the process.

Hand Washing

In this time of COVID-19, your Apple watch can remind you to wash your hands. When washing hands, the watch can let you know if you have washed long enough. Also, Siri can remind you to wash your hands when you get home.

Privacy

You will be able to use Sign In With Apple even when you already created an account with your own email and password. If you wish, you can share only your approximate location with apps. If an app is using your microphone or camera, it will be noted in the status bar. Apps will need to get permission to track you on apps and websites owned by other companies. For each app, in all App Stores, there will be highlights of their privacy policy.

HomeKit

Apple formed an alliance with Amazon, Google, and other manufacturers to define an interoperability standard for Smart homes. All Apple HomeKit home devices work with this new standard. With iOS 14, after you add a home device, the Home app will give automation suggestions. If you tagged people in your photos, cameras can recognize their face. HomePod will announce the person' s name as well. Activity zones can be created for your cameras so they only detect motion outside the zones.

tvOS 14

With this update, Apple TV will have multi-user support for gaming. Xbox Elite 2 and Xbox Adaptive Controllers will also be supported. Picture-in-picture also will be available.

Mac

The new Mac operating system is macOS 12 Big Sur. To determine if your Mac will support this update, visit the Big Sur preview page.

The Dock has been redesigned, app icons will have a new look, and Finder has had a makeover. Native apps such as Mail and Photos have been redesigned for easier access through sidebars and toolbars. The menu bar has been updated and the Mac will be getting its own Control Center. The Notification Center will have notifications and widgets on the same screen. Related notifications will be grouped together. There have been improvements to Catalyst, which is used to create a Mac app from an iOS app. Developers will have new tools to create their apps. Safari will have enhanced privacy options. More extensions will be added. You will be able to customize your Safari start page. Translation can be done from within Safari. Familiar Mac sounds, including the startup chime, will be part of macOS Big Sur. Although there was a way to enable the chime with Terminal, that will not be necessary with Big Sur.

New Mac Processors

Apple will begin using their own processors for the Mac instead of buying them from Intel, as they did for many years. Apple already uses their own processors for other products such as iPad and iPhone. According to Apple, this will improve speed, battery life, and will give off less heat. Apple will give developers new tools to convert their apps for this new processor. Macs with the Apple chip should begin shipping at the end of 2020 and transition to the new chip will take approximately two years. Apple will continue to support Macs with the Intel chip.

Public betas for the new operating systems will be available in July. Final releases will be available in the fall.

Accessibility

Unfortunately, there was no audio description provided for the visual information presented during the keynote, such as demonstrations of operating system features.

VoiceOver and accessibility were not mentioned during the WWDC keynote, but there were accessibility sessions during the conference. Though it wasn't mentioned during the keynote, Apple has shown their commitment to accessibility. I anticipate that this trend will continue. Once the new operating systems are released, I will be back with information on how to use them.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

Comment on this article.

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• ATIA 2020 Wrap-Up: What's New and Noteworthy at the Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference by Aaron Preece

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July Table of Contents

Jamie Pauls

If there is anything a busy student doesn't have a lot of, it's extra time. Whether in high school or college, students are constantly juggling work, family, and play in a way that allows them to learn as much as possible in a short amount of time. For the blind student, it's especially important to complete tasks in as efficient a manner as possible. Most visually impaired students will use a variety of assistive technology tools to accomplish learning tasks, including a variety of screen reading solutions. Scripts can make JAWS for Windows, a screen reader developed by Vispero, work more effectively. The JAWS scripting language is quite powerful, often allowing you to accomplish tasks that might otherwise be considered outside the box when it comes to the use of assistive technology.

One JAWS script developer who has pushed the envelope for years is Brian Hartgen of Hartgen Consultancy. Among the various scripts written by Hartgen is a product called Leasey. Leasey is short for "Learn, Enable, Advance - So Easy!" Leasey can rightly be considered a tool for the most basic computer user. It can be configured to provide a menu of most commonly performed tasks such as word processing and Internet browsing, and launch programs associated with those tasks without the user needing to know a lot about using their computer. That said, Leasey is flexible enough to be of benefit to more advanced users as well. Since the product is comprised of a series of JAWS scripts, it runs constantly when JAWS is loaded. Leasey is smart enough to never get in your way when you don't need it, but is always instantly available when you do.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the features of Leasey that might be of particular interest to students.

Getting Up and Running with Leasey

While not a free program, Leasey is available at a very reasonable price. The advanced version of Leasey that I discuss in this article can be obtained for $61. The Leasey Total Package costs about $80 and contains more tools and documentation for the novice computer user. Both versions of the product are very similar in what they do.

Hartgen walks you through the process of configuring your program to get he most out of Leasey with some of the best documentation around. In fact, every feature of Leasey is thoroughly documented with both written and audio demonstrations available. It's quite easy to get a list of keystrokes for any task that you wish to perform with Leasey. I won't go into a lot of detail about how to perform all the tasks discussed in this article, but most commands are carried out by first pressing the Grave Accent key, which I'll refer to as the "Leasey Key," just to the left of number 1 on your keyboard, followed by the relevant command. I will sprinkle some examples of keystrokes used throughout the rest of this discussion.

Performing Searches with Leasey

The student who frequently needs to look up information from various sources will find LeaseySearch to be a most valuable resource. Press the Leasey Key and then Control + Shift + S to bring up a list of all the various services that can be searched. If you are in the middle of typing a term paper, simply invoke LeaseySearch and choose, say, Google. You will then be presented with an edit box where you can type your search term. Press the Enter key and your default Web browser will load the Google site. Leasey will even take you to the first available search result. From there, use all of the standard Web navigation commands available in JAWS to ensure that your paper is accurate. Besides Google, you can perform searches on sites such as Amazon, Audible, Wikipedia, and GoodReads, just to name a few.

One of the search options is News. From there, you can get a nicely formatted list of stories from a variety of news sources including The Associated Press, ESPN, and Entertainment Weekly. There are news sources from outside the United States as well, so you can cover an important story from a number of angles.

While you are working on that lengthy term paper, you can tell Leasey to always remember your place in the document and come back to it when you open it back up if that is your preference.

Sticky Notes Aren't Just for Sighted People Anymore

As a blind person, have you ever come across those little pieces of paper with adhesive on the back that sighted people are so fond of? They put them everywhere?on the cabinet door, in books, you name it. Unfortunately, those little scraps of paper aren't of much use to blind people?unless, that is, you happen to be using Leasey. Using our term paper as an example, maybe there is a passage that you want to elaborate on further, or perhaps you want to double-check a fact later. You can set a LeaseySticky note to remind you. Just move to the place in the document where you want the note to be inserted, press the Leasey Key followed by the letter S, type your note, and then press Enter. Next time you Arrow to the line of text containing the note, Leasey will play a sound, read the line of text in question, and then read your note.

I am forever saving emails that I want to refer to later. One example is the weekly newsletter Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday. Each issue contains a number of topics of interest. There are always a couple of articles mentioned that I want to go back and read later. The only problem is that after I have collected half a dozen issues, I don't have the slightest idea why I kept them. I must read through each entry in a particular issue and hope I can recall what caught my interest enough to make me save the issue for later reading. Fortunately, I can add a LeaseySticky note to emails as well. I can make a quick note to myself that I want to read the article containing handy Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts. This makes it much easier for me to skim to the content of interest rather than laboriously moving through each entry.

This also applies to files on your computer or removable storage devices. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out how handy Leasey's sticky notes feature can be.

Getting Where You Want to Go with Leasey

One of the features of Leasey that I use more often than any other is LeaseyCuts. Leasey can point to a folder, file, or webpage and present you with a list of LeaseyCuts to choose from. I do a fair amount of audio editing, and I have elements such as music beds and sound effects stored in numerous locations. It's nice to be able to press the Leasey Key, then Control + L to view a list of folders and files I have asked Leasey to point to. When saving documents or audio files, I can also ask Leasey to insert the path to a particular folder before I type the filename. This saves me having to browse several folders deep in order to save the file where I want it. The Leasey Key then Control + Semicolon brings up a list of webpages that I have saved as well. I can even use different Web browsers to open specific websites if I wish, and the LeaseyCut I have assigned is smart enough to use the correct browser when I press Enter on the name of that particular LeaseyCut.

Busy students will find this particular feature most helpful in keeping their work nice and tidy. If you no longer need a LeaseyCut, you can of course delete it.

Turbocharge Text Input with Leasey

Are there times when you need to type a string of text over and over again? Maybe it's something very short, or perhaps it spans several lines. LeaseyClips and LeaseyText can help. Suppose I am writing an article for AccessWorld and I would like to quote specs for the particular piece of hardware I am reviewing. I can easily visit the manufacturer's website, find the information, copy that information to the clipboard, and save it as a LeaseyText, which I can then insert into my article. I might want to share the specs on an email list of which I am a member, so I can easily recall the information at any time, even after I have completed the article.

Let's say that I am entering information into a spreadsheet and a certain piece of information needs to be added many times. I can create a LeaseyClip, which I could save for later use. LeaseyClips are stored by copying the relevant information to the clipboard, pressing the Leasey Key, and then storing the clip using F1 through F12 on the keyboard. Leasey Key and Shift + F1 through F12 inserts the LeaseyClip where I want it. I use LeaseyText for larger blocks of text such as email signatures, and LeaseyClips for small bits of text that I want to quickly insert without needing to view a list of stored items. It's surprising how much Leasey's ability to store and quickly insert text can speed up your workflow and reduce repetitive typing.

Let Leasey Entertain You

Leasey enhances the usability of services such as Spotify and iTunes. Whether it's simply making a task easier to accomplish or truly improving the accessibility of the service, Leasey is there to help. I especially find this true when using YouTube on my computer. There are keystrokes to turn the volume of audio up and down, move quickly through YouTube files, and skip those annoying ads! Spotify also benefits from Leasey's fine touches in ways too numerous to mention here.

Facebook and Twitter are constantly being updated, and increasingly accessibility is being built into those services, but Leasey is still there to assist if needed. Whether it's listening to music for your music appreciation class or simply taking some time off work to relax and have a little fun, Leasey is a great asset.

Playing Tag with Leasey

Anyone who has used Windows for any length of time knows it is possible to select multiple files that are close together with Shift and either the Up or Down Arrow keys. It is also possible to select files that aren't next to one another by holding down the Control key while moving through a list of files and pressing Space on the file you want to select. Anyone who has done this very many times has undoubtedly experienced the frustration of accidentally letting go of either the Shift or Control keys, thereby undoing all the selecting you have tediously done. Leasey allows you to tag files by simply pressing Control + Shift + Space when you find a file you want to select. No holding down any other keys while moving through your list of files. Leasey even plays a sound for you when you move back over a file that has been previously tagged. You can find out how many files are tagged, and even hear the filenames spoken if you wish. It's possible to tag files from multiple folders and perform actions on all of them at once. All the files that you wish to move to your removable storage device can be transferred all at once with no hassle thanks to LeaseyTags. Now you have no excuse for not taking that homework with you when you visit your parents over the weekend!

Design Webpages with Leasey

One feature of Leasey that I have not played with personally but find most fascinating is the HTML assistant. If you've ever hand coded HTML for a webpage, you know how easy it is to forget an element and end up with part of your page being garbled rather than displaying a nice hyperlinked document. Leasey helps you design well formatted pages by allowing you to specify what type of content you are creating?headings, links, etc.?and inserting the appropriate code as needed. This could be most helpful to any student who needs to design web-based content.

The Bottom Line

If you are a busy student who uses JAWS as one of your screen reading solutions, you might just find that Leasey from Hartgen Consultancy is a tool you won't want to be without. In fact, if you are using another screen reader for any reason, you may find yourself switching back to JAWS just so you can use Leasey's tools. Those who choose to use the Leasey Total package in basic mode will find that Leasey speaks many of its messages with a very pleasant human female voice. Leasey Advanced users will receive all prompts using the voice configured in JAWS. There are also resources available to Leasey Total users including basic audio instruction for learning to use a computer that are not available to advanced users. Those who use the Leasey Total package are able to switch to the more advanced mode if they choose to do so.

As someone who has used a computer for many years, I find myself using Leasey enough that I almost never use another Windows screen reader because I don't want to give up Leasey functionality. Because Leasey takes advantage of the JAWS scripting language, it is not able to work with other screen readers such as NVDA or Windows Narrator.

If you are a student looking to simplify your workflow, or maybe you are already in the workforce full time and just need to simplify your computing life a bit, I would encourage you to try a demo of Leasey. You can use the product for two hours at a time in demonstration mode before you have to restart JAWS. You can restart JAWS up to 15 times before you must either purchase Leasey or uninstall it. Keep in mind that if you restart JAWS after only a few minutes of use, you lose one restart so it's possible to get much less than 30 hours of demo.

It's possible to join an email list where you can interact with other users of Leasey. Hartgen is quite responsive to user requests for new product features. Major updates to Leasey require a small fee, but there are numerous smaller upgrades that are free. Collectively, these upgrades add a ton of new functionality at no extra charge.

Be sure to leave a comment and let us know how you are currently using Leasey. We here at AccessWorld, as well as Leasey's developer, would love to hear from you.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

Comment on this article.

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July Table of Contents

Deborah Kendrick

For many, the brand name Bose is synonymous with magnificence in audio. A Bose headset that promised not only excellent sound delivery when paired with up to eight Bluetooth devices, but also enabled the wearer to customize tuning in and tuning out to the immediate sound environment, struck me as innovative and unique. I wanted to find out if there was anything to this technology Bose calls "conversation enhancing," so ordered a pair of these exceedingly pricey headphones to see for myself.

Out of the Box

The headset itself is a thin yoke that rests behind your neck. Mine is black, but it comes in a few other colors. Extending from each side of the yoke, below your ears, is a short wire that ends in a securely fitting ear bud. Connected to each ear bud is a curved piece, something like a closed capital C, that nests in the bowl of your ear to anchor the actual ear bud. On the right-hand wire, halfway between ear and neck, are the controls on a 1.5-inch rectangle similar to those found on many headsets. On one flat surface of this piece are the switches for operating a paired Bluetooth device; on another, narrower surface are controls for World Volume mode. We'll talk about controls later.

Inside the yoke, against your neck, on the right-hand side, is the power switch. It's flat, probably to avoid irritating your neck, but once identified, is easily located by touch. Traveling another inch to the left, you will find the tiny rubber flap (Bose calls it a "hinged door") covering the micro USB port used for charging the device. Charging for about 3 hours will provide power for 8 to 10 hours.

Also in the box is a sleek, hard shell zippered case. The case is made to perfectly fit the headset, and has an additional internal pocket. Finally, there is a micro USB cable for charging the unit, and two additional pairs of tips for the ear buds. Bose ships the Hearphones with the medium tips already affixed to the ear buds, with a pair each of small and large tips in the box. Each size is a different color, and each tip is marked for left or right. The internal pocket in the hard shell case holds the charging cable and additional tips nicely, thus making it convenient to keep all components of the product together in one place.

Pairing with an iPhone

Bose Hearphones can be paired with Android and iOS devices. Bose instructions (available online) suggest downloading the Bose app and pairing from there. I tried this repeatedly with two iPhones, and failed each time. By going into the phone's Bluetooth settings, however, the pairing process went exactly as it should. Best of all, even when the Hearphones are neglected for weeks, the connection with an already paired device is instant upon powering on. A pleasant female voice talks you through the pairing process. Later, whenever the headset is turned on, the voice announces battery status and nearby paired devices.

The Bluetooth controls, found on one edge of the rectangular piece in the wire leading to the right ear are easily identified by touch. Controls include a square button at either end for up and down volume and a longer rectangular button between them that serves multiple purposes. When using Hearphones with an iPhone, you can summon Siri, initiate calls, answer or end calls, and control music or other audio content. Audio quality is as superb as Bose lovers expect it to be.

World Volume

Bose uses its noise-canceling technology to customize the way sounds around you are delivered to your ears. Even if you don't have a hearing loss yet, being blind or low vision can add difficulty to hearing specific sounds in noisy environments. You are in the midst of a crowded party and the din of so many voices is drowning out the conversation you are trying to have with the friend who is standing right in front of you. You are in a restaurant and the music is so loud that you can only hear the person beside you and you can't hear your friend at the end of the table.

You are using your computer while other people in your house are playing the television; you want to hear one and not the other.

Bose Hearphones enable you to zero in on a specific field of sound the way some devices help you isolate and magnify an image or specific block of print.

Focus

There are three options for focusing sound in the World Volume mode: Narrow, Front, and Everywhere. If you want to hear the computer or other sound source directly in front of you and not the party in the dorm room next door or TV in the family room around the corner, the Narrow mode will do just that. Your sound field will be focused in a short field, tuning in on the sound immediately in front of you and eliminating all others.

Front gives you more of a half circle of sound – that sound which is directly in front of you as well as to left and right. Everywhere picks up sound from 360 degrees around you.

At a restaurant with ten people, the narrowest focus enabled me to hear the person directly across from me clearly while reducing all other sound to a minor murmur. Front mode made it possible for me to hear almost everyone at the table without much background sound. Everywhere cranked up all sound in the restaurant equally, so that the din from other tables, the music from speakers, and the kitchen were as loud as the people on either side of me, rendering conversation impossible.

The controls for World Volume are two buttons on one narrow edge of the piece in the wire leading to the right ear. (Bose refers to this as an "inline remote.") Individually, the buttons are for increasing and decreasing the World Volume. So, pressing the two buttons simultaneously moves from Narrow to Front to Everywhere, with each emitting its own assigned tone. If you want to hear the person across from you in a noisy environment, you can set the mode to Narrow and increase volume until it is comfortable. Noise-canceling will shut out other ambient sounds while bringing in the single sound source with clarity.

The Bose Hear App

The Bose Hear app makes it possible to fine-tune the delivery of ambient sound even more than the controls on the headset itself. With the app, you can adjust the two sides separately, muting one ear, for example, if you want one ear to pick up sound naturally. You can adjust volume from 0 to 100 on either ear, balance the ears, adjust treble and bass, adjust the World Volume mode, and save up to ten additional custom modes for later retrieval.

The app did not work for me for either pairing attempt, but performs beautifully (and accessibly) for making adjustments on the fly to World Volume.

Caveats and Observations

The Bose Hearphones are not hearing aids. If, however, you have only a mild hearing loss and are not yet a candidate for hearing aids, these could certainly act as a personalized sound amplification product (PSAP). Even with normal hearing, the World Volume mode can serve as a wonderful tool for amplifying certain sounds while diminishing others. Setting the sound to Narrow or Front, for example, can tune you in to one or two people in a group, or to your TV or computer while tuning out the hammering down the hall.

For someone with a visual impairment, using World Volume while navigating outdoors or any unfamiliar area can be unsafe. When World Volume mode is invoked, especially if you are using the Everywhere mode, it's difficult or impossible to localize sounds. With every ambient sound in your environment cranked up, determining exactly where that person shouting at you is located can be a serious challenge. And if you have the headset on and the World Volume turned extremely low, the headset will block ambient sounds altogether.

Used in controlled situations, however, the Bose Hearphones can generate genuine amazement. With Everywhere turned on, I heard sounds in my house that I never knew were here. With Front mode turned on while sitting in front of my Bose Wave System, music sounded more pure to me than it had in a long while. For me, a person who has worn hearing aids for decades, wearing the Bose Hearphones meant taking out my hearing aids, which creates a different kind of sound and required a bit of adjustment. For phone calls and listening to audio content on the iPhone, it's an excellent device.

No product from Bose is sold at bargain prices. Hearphones are $500 from Bose.com, and $400 if purchased from Amazon. Both sources allow a 30-day trial, after which headsets can be returned for a full refund. For me, they were well worth keeping as one more valuable tool in my technology toolbox.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

Comment on this article.

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July Table of Contents

Steve Kelley

This year, going back to school is liable to look very different as we all adjust to a new normal due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For someone with recent vision loss, returning to school may also require learning new adapted skills for school, work, and leisure.

Getting back to the computer or learning computer skills for the first time can be a challenge, combining the learning curve of new technology with that of any new accessibility skills. Many older adults may not be aware that, with screen magnification, text-to-speech, and braille displays, computers, tablets, and smart phones are often very accessible to users of all abilities. When I was a vision rehab therapist it was not uncommon to hear an older adult report, "I stopped using the computer because I couldn't see the screen anymore."

Last month, AccessWorld introduced Dolphin's GuideConnect, a computer program specifically designed for computer users with visual impairments. GuideConnect runs on a Windows 10 computer or from a set top box connected to a TV. It provides a computer interface with both magnification and speech that is easier to use than many traditional Windows-based programs. GuideConnect can be run right from Windows startup or from the Windows desktop and uses a consistent navigational menu throughout. Users can interact with applications on GuideConnect using a few basic keyboard commands?with or without the mouse?or using the Dolphin remote. For more information on GuideConnect basics see the article linked above.

Although GuideConnect offers a simplified user interface, it includes most of the applications you will want to use: email, word processor, Web browser, etc. It also includes some terrific accessibility software that would have to be otherwise downloaded separately to use with a standard Windows 10 computer. For example, GuideConnect comes with a DAISY book reader, National Library Service (NLS) Talking Books, NFB Newsline for reading newspapers, built-in OCR to work with either a camera or scanner, and more. The real advantage to an interface like GuideConnect is that it may enable you to get started more quickly with a computer, or get back to using the computer with accessibility features like magnification and text-to-speech.

The productivity applications?Email, Web Browser, and Letters and Documents, offer simplified versions of these types of programs. The greatest advantage of the simplified features is the reduced learning curve needed for a user to begin writing a document, sending and receiving emails, or surfing the web. The trade off is that they may not be a good fit for workplaces or some educational settings that rely heavily on more standard office applications.

Word Processing with Letters and Documents

GuideConnect's word processing application, Letters and Documents, is available from the Main menu. In Letters and Documents, you will find many of the basic features needed to create, edit, and save documents. The big difference is that the menu is so much easier to use than what might be found in MS Word, Apple Pages, or Google Docs. GuideConnect's submenu contains only four options: Recent Documents, My Documents, New Document, and New Letter. Click on New Document to get started. You'll find the cursor blinking at the top of the screen beneath the title area. Text can be entered using the keyboard or dictation. Dictation is available from a button in the upper right corner of the screen, the keyboard shortcut F6, or the microphone button on the remote. There is also an on-screen keyboard that can be navigated with the arrow keys on the remote. Dictation is accurate and punctuation can also be added by voice. There is about a 3- or 4-second delay between speaking and the text appearing, and a short pause in speaking ended the dictation. All of these methods for entering text will work in every application.

For context sensitive help, pressing the button labeled "I" in the top right corner of the screen, or pressing F1, opens a help file and the first line is automatically read. Like any other text in GuideConnect, text can be read line-by-line using the Down and Up Arrows, or F5 for continuous reading. An automatic spell check is on by default and if a word is misspelled, you will hear a "klunk" sound.

For more options, the Action menu opens with the F2 keyboard shortcut or the A button on the Dolphin remote and contains Spell Check for the entire document, as well as Save, Look Up Word, Print, and Print Labels. Look Up Word is a handy dictionary; just type in a word and press Enter to get the definition. The Print Labels option makes printing out a mailing label from several standard sizes quick and easy.

Documents are saved in a GuideConnect folder by default, although this can be changed so that documents are saved in a Windows folder. Files are saved in Rich Text Format (RTF), so they are compatible with most other word processing applications.

Reading with Books and News

In addition to the productivity applications, GuideConnect contains some of the most powerful features to get students of any age connected or reconnected to reading newspapers, books, and online media like podcasts and Internet radio. To get started with books and newspapers, select Books and News from the Main menu. Three options are available in the sub-menu: Continue Reading (the most recently opened book or newspaper), Books, and Newspapers & Magazines.

From the Books sub-menu, there are an additional three options: My Books, Find a New Book, and Read From Device. My Books is your library of saved books. Find A New Book connects you to five online libraries that appear as options in the sub-menu: Bookshare, CELA Library, epubBooks, Project Gutenberg, and NLS BARD. You will need to enter your login information for CELA, Bookshare, and NLS BARD. If you don't have a subscription to CELA, NLS, or Bookshare, epubBooks and Project Gutenberg do not require login or proof of disability to subscribe. Books can be immediately downloaded from both and there is a wide selection available.

Downloading a book is slightly different for each library, but all are straightforward using the GuideConnect menus. Even BARD, which has a search interface and download sequence that can be a bit challenging for a new user, was much easier in GuideConnect!

Regardless of whether the book is text-based or audio, the commands are similar for getting around. The Action menu, F2 on the keyboard or the A button on the remote, opens the navigational elements in the book. The Right or Down Arrow on either the keyboard or Dolphin remote moves forward incrementally in an audio book, or by line in a text book, Left or Up Arrow moves back incrementally in an audio book and by line in a text book, and pressing Enter on the keyboard or OK on the remote plays or pauses the book. There are few of the other features that might be found on other book reader apps or devices, like a timer or bookmarks, but the overall ease of use for finding books and getting started reading them seems worth the trade-off.

Like the Books option, Newspapers & Magazines uses the same reader, so navigation is straightforward, although the downloads are all text-based. The sub-menu for Newspapers & Magazines includes My Newspapers and Magazines and Search for a Newspaper or Magazine. The first option contains editions previously downloaded. Each edition, like each book, will open to where you left off. You will need a login for either NFB Newsline or Bookshare, because these are the two sources currently available for periodicals. The newspaper downloaded from NFB Newsline was easy to read. Navigation using the Action menu took some experimentation because the headings for sections and articles changed as reading was advanced using the forward Arrows. For example, the only thing showing in the Action menu when the paper first opened was the edition. Scrolling forward, the heading for Obits and several individual obits were added to the Action menu. It wasn't until scrolling through the obits that the Action menu showed other sections like Business, Arts, etc. Nonetheless, this low vision reader actually found the GuideConnect reading interface much better than that of the NFB Newsline app. Unlike the iOS Newsline app, in GuideConnect the font changed to the default set in GuideConnect, and the text wrapped within the reader as the magnification increased or decreased.

Internet Radio and Podcasts

Internet radio and the wide world of podcasts both offer incredible opportunities for education and entertainment. The Radio and Podcast options are available from the Entertainment option on the Main menu. Entertainment also contains a third menu item, Music and CD Player, which will play music from a CD if the computer has a CD player, or audio files from a flash drive.

The Radio option contains a terrific selection of Internet radio stations categorized by state. Just select a state and pick a radio station from the many listed. Although many of the stations listed the music genre?classical, talk radio, gospel, etc.?in their description, it wasn't possible to select categories of music. It was also disappointing not to find a category for the many Radio Reading Services that broadcast on the Internet. In the Favorites menu option, however, there is an option to Add Custom Station if you know the URL for the broadcast stream of one of these stations.

Podcasts are another incredible source of information because there are podcasts on virtually any subject. The Podcasts menu contains four options: Continue Playing (which will play your most recently listened to podcast from where it was left off), Favorites, Play a New Podcast, and My Downloaded Podcast Episodes. Selecting Play a New Podcast opens a selection of 19 podcasts that offers a cross section of some popular podcasts like This American Life, Main Menu, etc. If you're new to computers, the tutorials provided by Mystic Access may be an immediate favorite because of their comprehensiveness. There are 120 short, well-labeled episodes, so it's easy to run down the list and find a specific help topic.

Anyone interested in podcasts is going to want to add to the existing list of available podcasts. This can be done by selecting Favorites from the Podcast menu, then opening the Action menu to select Add a Custom Podcast. You'll need the URL for the podcast feed, which is not always easy to find. Add a name for the custom podcast and then enter the feed's URL and the podcast will be available in the list of Favorites. An alternative to adding a custom podcast is to play episodes that have been saved to a thumb drive from another source, using the option, Music and CD Player > Play From a CD or Device. This selection will look for any audio files available on an attached device or CD. No matter how the podcast is played?from the Favorites, the list provided, or from an external device? they're easy to play. The player uses the same commands used for the audio books, so it's easy to listen using Enter or OK and forwarding or rewinding with the Arrow keys.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) with Scanner and Camera

Another application that will prove to be a real gem for a user trying to access printed material from a book, magazine, or assigned reading from an adult ed course, is the Scanner and Camera menu. There are four options available from this menu item: Scanner, Camera, My Scanned Documents, and My Pictures. Both the Scanner and Camera options can capture an image of text from a printed page and convert it into electronic text on the screen, which can be read by GuideConnect. For example, when Camera is selected, the computer camera or one connected by USB is enabled. Place a document in front of the camera and press Enter or OK to take the picture. From the Action menu, select Scan for Text from the submenu, and the text appears shortly on the screen formatted in the familiar book reader. The camera might also be used as a video magnifier for some tasks. Put whatever needs to be magnified in front of the camera and zoom in or out on the image using the F12 or F11 keys, or the zoom toggle on the Dolphin Remote. Both the images and text can be saved for later reference.

Tools and More Training

These are by no means all of the applications available on GuideConnect, just some of the highlights to demonstrate how easy it can be to get started using the computer. Other features include the Address Book and Calendar, and Dictionary and Calculator found in the Tools option on the Main menu.

Also, in Tools is the Training menu, which contains a Getting Started Wizard, Shortcut Keys, and Typing Tutor. The Getting Started Wizard has several quick-start videos. These are brief and can get you up and running with the basics.

The Bottom Line

The terms "easy-to-use," "simple," and "basic," sometimes have negative connotations in the world of tech, as if whatever they are being used to describe may not have all the latest features. For people who are getting used to assistive technology, however, extra features may just be clutter that gets in the way of getting the job done, or may contribute to a steeper learning curve. Dolphin's GuideConnect does a really good job of making the computer a more useful device for the new user, or for someone who doesn't need all the bells and whistles. For anyone wondering if there is an easier way to learn to use a computer or to get back to it with assistive technology, GuideConnect is well worth a look.

A free 30-day trial can be downloaded from the Dolphin website. There are several ways to purchase GuideConnect. Retail is $895, and this includes both the Dolphin remote and a 1-year service agreement (3-years if purchased through the VA). A subscription is available for $49/month, and this includes all support and upgrades. Owners of previous versions of Guide can upgrade for $250. The GuideConnect TV box is available through retailers for $1,295, and comes with a USB keyboard and mouse and a Dolphin remote.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

Comment on this article.

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July Table of Contents

Jamie Pauls

I have played a fair number of games since I got my first PC back in the early 90s. Many titles have come and gone, mostly by different developers. Occasionally, however, one game developer produces a number of titles. Sometimes they are related, and other times they are not. One company that has produced a number of games for the blind is GMA Games. In this article, we will take a look at three games developed by David Greenwood, founder of GMA Games, that fit into a category I call "war games." Each game has a distinct appeal, but all three share common elements that have drawn me back time and again over the years.

Lone Wolf is a World War II adventure where you are in command of a WWII submarine. You must complete a series of missions with specific objectives. In addition, the game provides experienced players with the tools to create missions of their own, which they then can share with the gaming community. Mission objectives include destroying oil drums and, of course, killing the enemy to name just a couple examples.

In GMA Tank Commander, you drive a tank across beaches, into wooded areas, and through towns. As in Lone Wolf, you must complete missions that are assigned to you, such as destroying intelligence bases, neutralizing the enemy, and even disabling a speeding train. Don't forget to collect ammunition along the way.

Perhaps the most ambitious of the three war games offered by GMA Games is Time of Conflict. In this game, you control a number of different military units including infantry, war ships, destroyers, and submarines. You can discover new lands, manufacture units on your new property, and fight against an enemy that comes at you from the opposite side of the game board. Between the custom designed and computer-generated maps, the game play possibilities are virtually limitless.

Common Elements of Game Play

There are a number of things that set these three games apart from many other games that you may have played in the past. The action in all three games takes place independent of what you do. Enemies will sneak up on you and most likely attack if you do nothing but sit still for a few minutes. If you don't pause game play before you walk to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, chances are you will have lost the game or you will be in serious trouble by the time you return. Game play is suspended when you need to take a look at your screen to determine information such as where your enemy is in relation to yourself, and, in some cases, when you need to make decisions about what your next move should be or what weapons you will use to destroy the enemy. Don't worry, though. There are plenty of times when you must make split-second decisions that will make or break you when it comes to successfully completing a game mission.

The musical score in all of these games is top-notch. I have never found the music in these games to be intrusive in any way. Of course, you can adjust the volume of music and sounds to your liking, or get rid of the music altogether if that is your preference.

All sounds in the games are of top quality as well. You will find yourself immersed in the sounds of battle as you play. The only voice acting in these games is in the form of radio transmissions that you receive alerting you to trouble and spelling out your mission objectives. Game action is synchronized with the voice of your screen reader in a way that I have seldom experienced. Many vintage games by other developers are self-voicing, requiring you to turn off your screen reader of choice. Not so with the three games covered here.

Each game has an extensive amount of documentation accompanying it. I would like to see the user manuals available from the main menu of these games; that is not currently the case. However, text versions of the user manuals are not hard to find from within the folder where the game is installed. The help system in these games involves using the right and left arrow keys to expand and collapse a tree view of sorts. You expand topics with right arrow and tab to the relevant section of the user guide you wish to read. This didn't always work for me as well as I would have liked, but it is still a good way to read up on game play topics of interest.

Unique Aspects of Game Play

Lone Wolf is the oldest of the three GMA war games reviewed here. The game features a mix of edge-of-your-seat action with moments of almost hypnotic calm. After completing the tutorial mission where you can get the hang of targeting and destroying approaching enemy ships, you plot your course to accomplish your next mission. It takes time to arrive at your destination, and the sound of your ship gliding through the ocean is quite calming. Don't get too relaxed, though, because you may find yourself executing an emergency dive to evade enemy torpedoes and depth charges. The movement of your submarine in the water is quite realistic. Be prepared to deal with ocean currents and drift when you perform maneuvers such as turning your vessel or coming to a stop before colliding with an oil drum. You can speed up the game play clock to make time pass faster, but you increase the risk that an enemy or an obstacle will catch you unawares if you do this. Once you encounter an enemy in the game, the clock returns to normal time.

There is no time for quiet reflection when playing GMA Tank Commander. The enemy is all around you, and your tank is on the move. You must receive your orders, orient yourself to your surroundings, drive your tank across various types of terrain, and destroy the enemy or be killed yourself. Even though there aren't as many missions to complete in Tank Commander as there are in Lone Wolf, you will still find yourself spending many hours engrossed in this game. The music is fast-paced and driving, and the battle sounds are stellar. The radio in your tank not only gives you your mission objectives, but tells you when the enemy is approaching and when you are taking serious damage. This is the only game for the blind where I actually felt as though I was driving a vehicle. The sound of your tank colliding with a bridge is almost as electrifying as missiles being fired at you from a helicopter flying overhead.

While not giving you the adrenaline rush provided by the first two games discussed here, Time of Conflict involves the most planning. Do you wish to fight a battle based on a WWII scenario, a Star Wars plot, or a battle scene of your own making? Would you rather fight mostly on land, on the water, or a combination? Do you want to have an equal advantage as that of your enemy, or would you rather have a more lopsided battle? Will you manufacture infantry, engineers, tanks, ships, or bridges? How many transport vessels and how much equipment will you deploy in order to explore new lands? It takes time to build your defenses, and you never know when the enemy will show up, so don't expect a lot of fast-paced action with this game. Having said that, I have probably spent more hours playing Time of Conflict than Lone Wolf and GMA Tank Commander combined. I'm not the best strategist around, and I get defeated a lot, but I enjoy trying. As with the other games mentioned, sounds and music are of excellent quality and the action takes place in real time, although this game is more turn-based so you do have a bit more control over when things will happen. Time of Conflict is a "fog of war" game. This means that you don't immediately know everything about your surroundings. You gain knowledge as you explore.

The Bottom Line

I do not currently have a favorite pick of the three games reviewed in this article. I enjoy playing them all, and I move from one to the other frequently. If you step away from Time of Conflict for a while, you may find that you need to delete a saved game and start over simply because you don't recall the details of the current game configuration. Another option is to make some notes to yourself as you develop your strategy.

Lone Wolf costs $30. GMA Tank Commander and Time of Conflict cost $35 each. You can upgrade from version 1.0 of Time of Conflict to version 2.0 for $9.95.

You must have a free account with GMA Games to order games. You can also download a demo of the games so you can try them out before you decide to buy.

Although these games involve killing the enemy, I would not consider the depictions of violence to be graphic considering the nature of the subject matter.

Stay tuned for one more title from GMA Games in a future article. Happy gaming!

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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July Table of Contents

Deborah Kendrick

If there is an individual who personifies the message of the Employment Matters series, it might well be Carl McCoy. McCoy retired from a 40-year career some 28 years ago, and is still working. He can't imagine what life would be like, he says, without some meaningful work to do. It never occurred to him not to work and, in his role as director of the Florida Division of Blind Services, he enjoyed a long and successful career focused on the gainful employment of thousands of blind and low vision individuals. At 93, he jokes that he is becoming famous for being old. Actually, he is so charming, so intelligent, humble, and entertaining, that his age seems more or less irrelevant when you are listening to his recounting of an episode from his own career journey or declaring his view on the significance of employment for blind people.

The Game That Changed His Life

When Carl was in the third grade he was playing a game with other kids that involved pulling the string on a wooden top, aiming for another top in the center of a circle. One day, Carl's top connected successfully with one that had been outfitted with a spring. The result was a flying wooden top with a nail that punctured his eye. It was 1936. The McCoys lived on a farm near Tallahassee where, as he describes it, there was a little bit of everything: chickens, cows, pigs, horses, and plenty of peas and corn and other growing things. The only doctor was miles away and might come days after he was needed. Within a month, the infection that had begun in the injured eye spread to the other, and Carl was totally blind.

He is thankful for the wisdom his parents displayed by sending him to the School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine the following September. Putting a nine-year-old on a train to travel 200 miles alone seems startling today, but Carl was the middle of seven children, and his parents had a farm to run. Kids from throughout Florida were traveling similarly alone, all arriving in Jacksonville for the final trek to the school. He still fondly remembers the kind teenager who took him under her wing, like a big sister, assuring him that everything was going to be all right.

He had to begin third grade again at the school for the blind and was learning to read all over again. Initially, expecting a braille A, B, or C to feel like its print equivalent, reading confused him, but eventually he mastered braille and it would forever remain one of the sturdiest pieces in his toolbox for success.

At the school for deaf and blind children, they did not plan for future careers. Mornings were spent on academics and afternoons on shop. He learned to make doormats, brooms, and mattresses. The deaf kids learned to cut hair, and practiced on all the blind kids. Legendary musician Ray Charles actually went to the same school at the same time, but Carl and Ray never shared a meal or a class. This was the segregated South of the 1930s and 1940s. Even though most students couldn't see color, the institution was divided into a white school and a Black school.

When Carl McCoy graduated in 1946, he had no idea what he could do, but knew he needed to go to college. A scholarship and funding from the agency that he would one day direct, then called the Florida Council for the Blind, added up to enough money to pay his tuition, his room and board, and his readers.

Time to Work

When Carl McCoy earned his bachelor's in economics from the University of Florida, he was eager to get to work. For the next year, he applied and interviewed, and applied and interviewed some more. This was the 1950s. Equal treatment for blind job seekers was not guaranteed by law. Technology that could serve as evidence of a blind person's capability did not exist. McCoy had his intelligence and his amiable manner. And he wasn't getting a job.

"I think a number of those people would have hired me," he says, "if I could have convinced them I could do the job. But I couldn't even convince myself."

Choosing not to work was never in Carl McCoy's lexicon of possibilities. His ego and self-respect would never have considered it. The challenge was finding the job that fit. He worked making box springs?tying the springs in a prescribed manner, and then fastening them to the metal frame. "I wasn't really any good at it," he laughs. So he tried working in a vending stand for a few months. He sold advertising for a radio station.

And then, as suddenly as a Florida rainstorm, he was offered a position at the agency that was helping him look for a job. The Florida Council needed an instructor, and Carl McCoy was soon teaching braille, mobility, and daily living skills to other blind people.

His mobility, he recalls, was always good. It was easy for him to orient himself to new spaces, and to travel from one spot to another without sight. At the school for the blind, kids were not allowed to use canes. As strange as it sounds to our 2020 way of thinking about orientation and mobility, the cane in Carl McCoy's childhood was seen as an insult, a tool for the aged and decrepit.

Fortunately, with so many World War II veterans returning home as young blind men, the power of the cane as a way-finding tool gained recognition. Just before college, Carl and a few other classmates were introduced to this tool, which enhanced his already solid sense of orientation. Now, in his first, job, he was sharing the skills he had honed so well to put his own blindness in perspective: braille, orientation, and personal independence. More importantly, he was on the first rung of his ideal career ladder. Not long afterward, in 1956, he was hired to direct a blind rehabilitation agency in Topeka, Kansas, and reflects that he learned more doing that job for the next nine years than he had learned anywhere else.

When a new facility was opening in Daytona, he returned to Florida to apply. There were two serious candidates. They would be called in alternately for segments of the interview and then return to wait in the same room. Not the way an interview would be done today, but listening to Carl tell the tale, it is easy to imagine the energy and determination that vibrated in that waiting room.

Carl had only a bachelor's degree compared with his competitor's doctorate, but he got the job!

A Career Well Spent

From 1965 to 1978, Carl McCoy was the director of the Florida Council for the Blind, which provided training leading to independence and sometimes employment for blind people. Then, in 1978, he landed the job as director of the Florida Division of Blind Services, the vocational rehabilitation agency whose counselors in 12 offices throughout the state were charged with the responsibility of providing the tools and training necessary to enable blind people to go to work.

While he doesn't remember exact numbers, he says at least a few hundred blind and low vision people joined the ranks of the successfully employed each year. That adds up to thousands during his tenure from 1978–1992, thousands of blind people going to work. When he retired in 1992, the Division of Blind Services celebrated the highest number of successful placements to date.

Formula for Success

He says a Perkins braille writer and a telephone were his primary tools on the job. His secretary and a volunteer spent hours reading aloud to him. He dictated correspondence.

Once or twice a year, he hosted gatherings of all his staff statewide for a few days of meetings and, of course, traveled frequently, by plane or car, to visit the statewide offices for which he was responsible.

Although his agency began purchasing computers for blind job seekers in the 1980s, he himself did not own a computer until he purchased one after retirement in 1992. Today, he uses an iPhone for all his email and messaging needs, and a landline that he uses to satisfy his habit of listening to newspapers and magazines some three to four hours daily on NFB NEWSLINE.

When he attends a convention or other large gathering, it's the slate and stylus that comes out of his pocket when he needs to take a note.

Looking back at his career, he says he felt lucky to have a job that he loved, that he looked forward to doing every day. Besides travel directly related to interacting and supervising staff, he loved his work in advocacy, meetings with legislators both in Florida and in the nation's capitol. He played a role in the passage of numerous laws improving the quality of life for blind Americans, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the inclusion of highway facilities for the Randolph-Shepard program, and the fine-tuning of rules regarding Social Security for people with disabilities.

He expresses some regret about the way Social Security Disability Income evolved. Too many people, he says, chose to work only long enough to accumulate benefits, and then elected not to work.

The Power of Work

"It always bothered me," McCoy says, "to find a blind person who was capable and who wasn't interested in working." And it still troubles him today. I asked him what advice he would have for a person who is blind or is losing sight regarding the challenge of finding employment. "You're not enjoying life as much as you could," he answered. "Work is good even if it's hard. It gets you out and gives you something to be proud of. It gives you a hell of a lot more dignity."

At 93, Carl McCoy has been officially retired since 1992, longer than some people reading this article have been alive! And yet, he is still working. Since 1969, he has had a side business of owning and managing rental properties. He is still involved with that work today. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic he was quarantined in his apartment in an independent living facility when we spoke, but he was able to allow his bookkeeper and others relevant to his business in through his patio entrance. He still goes to the area in his building where the exercise equipment is located to put in his 30 minutes a day on the stationary bicycle. He spends three to four hours daily on NEWSLINE, and reads plenty of braille books and magazines as well.

Like most of us, his participation in Zoom meetings and conference calls has accelerated during the pandemic, which he enjoys immensely. The pleasure he derives from interacting with others has served him well throughout his career and beyond and has benefited those lucky enough to cross his path.

Employment, his own and that of the thousands of people he has assisted directly and indirectly?has always mattered to Carl McCoy. His example is a shimmering one for the rest of us.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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July Table of Contents

Scott Davert

When I purchased my first iPhone in 2011, one of the first apps I bought was the Looktel Money reader for $9.99. It was an app I felt confident I would get plenty of use from. I was right: this app was unequivocally a top performer. In 2016, Looktel Money Reader was purchased by NantMobile Health, which changed the app to a subscription model. At that time, Looktel Money Reader still worked fine for me, so I never bothered to purchase the new application. Recently, I set up a new iPhone SE 2020 model, which I restored from a backup. Sadly, the app I purchased in 2011 was no longer available, prompting the search for a new solution. I simply typed “money reader” into the App Store, and chose the first four options that appeared. My research into this long-unexamined landscape is what follows. I tested four applications: EyeNote, MCT Money Reader, Cash Reader, and the currency recognition channel in Seeing AI. The latest version of each app was used on an iPhone SE 2020 running iOS 13.5.1. All apps were tested using the same bills under the same lighting conditions. To work, all of these apps require access to the iOS camera and the user must allow this permission to use the app.

EyeNote

Designed by the US Department of Engraving and Printing, this free app will only recognize US currency. The interface of the app is very simple as there is nothing detected by VoiceOver unless a bill is in view of the camera. The Money Reader app used to indicate that it was at least ready by saying "Money Reader Running," which this app does not do.

All US bills were identified within a second of being placed within view of the rear-facing camera. Results were read in the Samantha voice, even though Alex is my default voice. The result also flashed up on my braille display, indicating whether it was the front or back of the bill. I had to either use both hands, one to move the bill around and the other to read the result on my braille display, or press Spacebar + N to review a list of previous VoiceOver announcements. The app does not require an Internet connection.

Seeing AI

Another free option for recognizing money is the Currency channel within the free Microsoft Seeing AI app. It recognizes the following currency: US dollars, Indian rupees, British pounds, Canadian dollars, Euros, and the Japanese yen. To get to the Currency Recognition channel, you must select it with the VoiceOver Rotor. Once selected, flick left to choose the currency you wish to recognize. It's not possible to identify more than one type of cash at a time.

As long as the correct type of money is selected, Seeing AI does a good job of recognizing any denomination of bill. I tested both Euros and US Dollars. I understand that the Euro paper money has different sizes for different denominations, but it was the only other form of currency I had available that Seeing AI would recognize. Unlike the EyeNote app, Seeing AI does not specify the side of the bill being captured. All bills were identified correctly. Identification took approximately 2 seconds. The minor time difference may be a reasonable tradeoff, especially if you're making use of the app's other features and wanting to keep things simple. Note that to use any aspect of Seeing AI, you must have an active Internet connection.

MCT Money Reader

MCT Money Reader is an app that requires a subscription. You can get a three-day trial, but the cost for using the app is $0.99 monthly, or you can purchase a lifetime subscription for $14.99. Be aware, though, that it appears this application is not updated frequently. The App Store indicates it was last updated a year ago. MCT Money Reader can identify a range of currencies from the US dollar to the Iranian rial. To see the list, visit the app page in the App Store, linked at the end of this article.

I was able to get a single bill recognized, and then was immediately taken to the page where you must pay to continue. Although the app will continue scanning upon launch, you will not get the results of the recognition. After activating the three-day trial, I returned to the app and was able to use it to recognize bills.

Upon first launching this app, you will be taken to information about how the app will work to identify the currency you throw at it. All info is accessible in both braille and speech, and after pressing the Next button " a couple of times, you will be sent to the subscription area. Pressing the Back button returns you to the main screen of the app. When you launch the app, it will begin scanning. There is no indication of this in braille, but it's safe to assume that is what is happening. When moving the phone over the bank note you wish to recognize, various tones are emitted to assist you with bringing the bill in focus. Though it recognized currency in around 3 seconds, speech would prematurely get cut off. It will say "1 U", for example, when identifying a US dollar bill, so as long as you know what country your banknote is from you will know the denomination. The interrupted speech also happened on my iPhone XR running iOS 12.4.1, so it doesn't seem to be an iOS version issue, nor is it specific to one device. The identification result is also presented in braille without interruption, and through the VoiceOver announcement feature. Whether I chose a 5€ banknote or a US $20 bill, Money Reader was able to successfully identify whatever was in front of the camera.

There are some settings that may be of interest on this application. If you do not wish to use the audio feedback, for example, it can be turned off. This doesn't fix the issue documented above concerning the speech being interrupted. There is also a setting that allows you to manually start scanning. When this mode is active, VoiceOver will speak "start scanning," but it appears in braille as an unlabeled button. The identification process is the same as it is with continuous scan , complete with the interrupted speech. Finally, there is a money counter feature that can keep track of the amount of money it has recognized.

Cash Reader

Cash Reader is available as a 14-day trial upon subscription, and then costs $0.99 a month, $5.99 annually, or $17.99 for a lifetime subscription. It continues to receive updates, with the last one being six days prior to the writing of this article. This is reassuring, as new types of banknotes get released from time to time. Since Cash Reader supports the identification of nearly 100 currencies, it would seem updates would be vital. Due to the fact that so many types of money are recognized, it's not practical to list them all. You can find a complete list in the app, or by visiting the App page in the iOS App Store.

Upon first launch, you will be taken to a Getting Started area that allows you to set up the app as you wish. This includes granting access to the camera and selecting what currency you would like to recognize. You can also set up shortcuts using the Getting Started section so that you can tell Siri from anywhere to use the app to recognize the currency of your choice. It is even possible to set up multiple shortcuts. If you have the need to recognize multiple types of cash, you can set up a shortcut for more than one type of currency. After either creating a shortcut or simply pressing the Continue button, you must agree to the terms and you can then start recognizing money.

When you next launch the app, you will read what currency is presently being identified. If you flick right, you will find a Settings button that will give you many options that may be worth exploring. Most of these options aren't part of the setup process, but one exception is the type of currency being recognized. If you want, for example, the app to recognize all the currencies it can, you must download another file from their server. The app will tell you that it is trying to recognize 1 of over 568 banknotes, so it's important to be sure to get more of the bill in the camera's focus.

The next setting allows you to decide whether you wish to also have haptic feedback from the app communicate the denomination of the banknote. Next to this setting, you will find the option to learn what each series of vibrations means when a bill is recognized. The next heading allows you to record a Siri shortcut for the recognition of each form of currency.

Beyond that are several low vision settings to adjust contrast. The next heading allows the user to automatically enable the flashlight when your device determines it's in a dark environment. Following these settings, the user can configure the option to disable the beeps that will let you know the app is actively scanning. A muted phone, in this case, means a muted app. Next you have the option to speak either the denomination of the bill or both denomination and type of currency. You can also choose between the front and back facing cameras. Silent mode will simply send a vibration and not speak the denomination of currency. You can also set this to respect your mute switch. There are also options to send a link to a friend to download the app, the ability to view their various social media accounts, the option to add a button to the main screen that will allow you to your friend a picture of what you want to identify if something goes wrong, and the ability to re-run the tutorial, which is the first setup screen I discussed.

This app performed very well. Like all of the other apps, when a single type of currency is selected, recognition takes less than two seconds for each bill. Unlike the other three apps covered here, Cash Reader allows me to find out what denomination of bill I have without having to reach for my braille display, doesn't require me to hear VoiceOver, and allows me to discretely recognize money as needed.

With the recognition set to "all currencies," there was a slightly longer delay than the 1.2 seconds it took on average to recognize a specific currency. Typically, it took about five seconds to identify a note while using this mode. That said, it was able to recognize and correctly tell the difference between the Euro, US dollar, and Danish kroner.

Conclusion

In the US, the EyeNote app is a free, offline, and dedicated option for currency identification. Those residing in nations with supported currency have an affordable and feature-loaded contender in Seeing AI. For currencies that aren't supported by Seeing AI, Cash Reader will likely be there when you need it. This is also true if you prefer to receive the information tactilely, whether you use a braille display or not. Lack of updates and interrupted speech are just two reasons I can't recommend the MCT Money Reader. One positive note about all four applications is that every bill was identified correctly.

Product Information

EyeNote

Cost: free

Seeing AI

Cost: free

MCT Money Reader

Cost: $0.99 monthly, or $14.99 for a Life Time Subscription

Cash Reader.

Cost: $0.99 monthly, $5.99 annually, or $17.99 for a Life Time subscription.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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July Table of Contents

Bill Holton

Back in my grad school days—so long ago, Statistics class calculations required pencil and paper—one of my class assignments was to interview and profile a disability specialist. My professor was surprised that I didn't focus on someone in the blindness field but instead profiled the director of the Vocational-Rehab Department in charge of the disability I personally most feared: deafness.

Apparently, I am both out of the crowd and part of it. At least according to Deborah Kendrick, fellow AccessWorld contributor and author of the new book, When Your Ears Can't Help You See: Strategies for Blind or Low Vision Individuals with Hearing Loss.. She writes, "Americans are terrified of blindness...Poll after poll, decade after decade, the fear of blindness has ranked on par with or higher than loss of hearing, speech, memory, a limb, or a diagnosis of HIV or cancer."

According to Kendrick, the experience of losing hearing as well as the response to it is not the same for someone with sight as it is for someone who is blind or low vision. Many of the strategies used by the hearing impaired?lip reading, closed captioning, flashing light alerts and the like?involve vision. Just as someone with a visual impairment relies on sound cues and. increasingly, voice response devices, for access and accommodations, those who have both visual and hearing impairments are forced to either Make do with limited and/or fading vision or hearing to help compensate for the other lost sense; or develop and maintain new strategies that involve touch and/or technologies with an even smaller market than devices for blindness or deafness alone and which are, consequently, limited in availability and unlimited in pricing.

The above explains why I am not a part of the crowd when it comes to which disability I fear the most. But I am part of another crowd, one with at least one member. Writes Kendrick, "A quote often attributed to Helen Keller who, of course, had absolutely no sight or hearing after the age of 19 months, is that blindness separates us from things, while deafness separates us from people."

The Journey

Every personal story is different, but I suspect those who have both visual and hearing impairments will find a lot to identify with as Kendrick shares the story of her loss of both things and people.

Her story will be equally familiar to those of us who experience gradual sight loss exclusively, or anyone else with a major loss, because it follows the same trajectory. Denial. "My college roommate mumbled a lot." Scoffing at high school hearing test results that indicated she needed to see a doctor. Bluffing friends, and herself, through gatherings when she couldn't follow the conversation.

The day I was riding my bike full speed down a bike lane and slowed because I couldn't see into a shadow from an overhanging tree, and that shadow turned out to be a moving van, was the day I put away my bike. For Kendrick the acknowledgement came the day she realized everyone else could hear her babies from the front porch, but she could not.

Of course that day when Kendrick, as she calls it, "came out," as hearing impaired wasn't the conclusion of her journey, it was the beginning.

One of the first hurdles she faced was making a good match with an audiologist. Sadly, this took some time. Most were not familiar with the unique challenges of the dually impaired. Others simply made light of it.

Kendrick shares the strategies she has developed over the years to help make better use of the hearing she does have. People with only a visual impairment can also benefit from many of these. For example, as she writes in her "Party Planning" section: "At a party, if you can't hear what others are saying, you can nod and smile for a while, but the effort can be absolutely draining. If you don't have the supporting cast of sight to follow even the tone of the conversation, you can easily wind up as the human bump or lump in the midst of animation." Sound familiar? Or perhaps you've never found yourself at a party responding to someone's question only to realize he or she was not speaking to you?

When in "Decorating for Sound" Kendrick mentions the subtle but nonetheless distracting echo that wood floors can cause in your house I was reminded of a relative's house I disliked visiting because it had no rugs or carpets, which made it difficult to know where I was or to locate voices. Consequently, when my wife wanted to replace our carpeting with hardwood I resisted for several years. We finally compromised, spent more money and selected an engineered wood flooring that featured different width and length planks and a lot of texture, which leaves them as echoless as thick carpeting. So even if your hearing is perfect, as a sound-cue-reliant blind person you will benefit from many of these suggestions.

The Technology

Now we come to the very heart of Kendrick's book: a beginners guide to assistive technologies for those with hearing impairments. These technologies range from relatively inexpensive, plug-into-your-ear-and-play, seen-on-TV amplifiers, to cutting-edge hearing aids that cost thousands of dollars. She does an excellent job of explaining the different types of aids and how they work. She discusses the six primary manufacturers of digital hearing aids: Phonak, Signia, Widex, ReSound, Oticon, and Starkey, the only one of the big six located in the US. And who knew hearing aids came with a full catalog of accessories? Some of these include microphone devices you can set out on a conference table and that pipe the sound directly to your hearing aids; devices that do the same for TV or theater audio; and special cables that can connect the output jacks of other sound players directly into your hearing aids. She goes on to discuss her own journey through the years using increasingly advanced hearing devices. One thing I wish Kendrick had focused on is a more complete description of how this improving technology improved what she could hear. She mentions being able to hear her footsteps on the stairs and the swish of her long hair when she first ?uses a hearing aid. But I did not get the sense of exactly how her ability to participate in the world of sound has benefited from 20 years of technological advances.

One important arena where When Your Ears Can't Help You See shines is the lengthy discussion of specific issues faced by someone with a visual impairment when they seek out an audiologist to be fitted with hearing aids. These include occlusion, the feeling of your ear being plugged, creating an additional barrier between you and the world. Localization is the loss of the ability to pinpoint the direction from which a sound emanates. Imagine standing in the middle of a busy intersection with nothing but a pair of monaural headphones to guide you?

There's also the matter of echolocation, which most blind people use to one degree or another and which can be impossible if you have the wrong hearing aids. Also, these days hearing aid manufacturers are increasingly using mobile apps to enable the user to adjust the settings of their devices to suit their changing needs, such as a quiet night at home versus in the bleachers at a NASCAR event. Many of these app developers assume the user's only disability will be aural, leading to more than a few speech accessibility issues. Happily, Kendrick has discovered that many of these issues can be overcome with a bit of memorization and/or physical button alternatives.

Considering the author states, "My own most recent acquisition, for two Oticon OPN S Rite hearing aids, a Direct Audio Input cable, a ConnectClip remote mic, and a TV Adapter was about $7,500," it would be unreasonable for the reader to expect her to be hands-on familiar with more than a very few devices and accessories. Kendrick had to spend a lot of time educating her audiologist on the additional needs of the visually impaired. If you have both hearing and vision loss and are even considering consulting an audiologist, you will benefit greatly from reading about her experiences.

And speaking of high costs, sadly, only a very few insurance programs cover the full costs of professionally prescribed hearing aids. Kendrick does include sources of financial assistance, but let's face it: with the aging population there are going to be more and more people who require hearing access tech and can't afford the many thousands of dollars these devices can cost. Many of these seniors will turn to inexpensive mass-market devices, which can be analogous to using a pair of dime store reading glasses to help deal with profound astigmatism.

Recently, we have witnessed the emergence of a number of direct-to-consumer companies developing and marketing in-house versions of everything from high-tech mattresses to eyeglasses and selling them without so much as a storefront. A new healthcare startup called Audicus is attempting to do the same for hearing aids, offering high tech devices, testing, and support for considerably less than the usual prices.

One of the arguments against purchasing hearing aids online is that only a professional in a clinical setting can properly diagnose the cause of a hearing loss and detect any conditions that may lead to additional damage. This is true. It's likely also true for a visit to the eye doctor. But these are separate activities. After all, when is the last time you bought a pair of glasses from your ophthalmologist? And considering there may be millions of people who could benefit from a hearing device but who cannot afford them, should the choice really be between using nothing or a mass-produced, one-size-fits-all amplifier?

Recommendations

According to Kendrick the chances are good that eventually you will join the ranks of the hearing impaired. She backs this up with an AARP study that found 39 percent of those ages 60–69 have some hearing loss, and one in every two people over 75 are in the club. So if you think this book does not apply to your situation, think again.

Product Information

When Your Ears Can't Help You See, by Deborah Kendrick, is available from the National Braille Press in Braille, Daisy download, eBraille, Large Print, and MS Word formats for $18. Add $2.50 to purchase one of the digital formats preloaded onto a USB drive.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

Comment on this article.

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• Ramona Rice: Using Her Abilities to Help Others by Janet Ingber
• Book Review: Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law, by Haben Girma

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• Review: Get Cracking with Chrome for Windows, by Dean Martineau
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July Table of Contents

Software Developers Create Application to Help People with Visual Impairments Access RME Interfaces

Can Kirca, a visually impaired musician and avid user of RME's Babyface Pro, was tired of working with audio interfaces that weren't accessible with his screen reader. A professional software developer and former Apple employee, Kirca, who currently works in IT at Turkey's National Ministry of Education, teamed up with Alexey Zhelezov of Heidelberg University in Germany to create AZS OSC (open sound control) for Windows, a software application that makes RME interfaces accessible to visually impaired and blind users by connecting to their screen readers.

"Unfortunately, most audio interfaces are not accessible with screen readers," Kirca explained. "I had just bought an RME UFX+ audio interface and it has some buttons on it, but it's not possible to read the screen or use a magnifier because the screen and text size is very small."

In addition to the UFX+, TotalMix FX — RME' proprietary mixing software that comes with all of its interfaces — was found to also be inaccessible for Kirca.

"When I went to use TotalMix FX, it was not possible to root channels, enable phantom power, control volume and such because it is a completely graphical interface," Kirca explained.

So he and his sighted colleague Zhelezov teamed up to change that. They discovered that RME products were compatible with OSC (open sound control), a protocol that allows users to connect and manage devices via the network.

"A user is able to manage their device by typing demands instead of clicking them," Kirca said. "For example, when you type '/vol,' it allows you to set a value for volume. You don't need to use a mouse for any graphical interface."

Kirca reached out to RME to receive the full command list, which consisted of about 300 commands.

"We have developed a new application which consists of three views — buttons, sliders and faders," Kirca explained. "It's about 100KB, and it's completely free and completely screen reader-compatible because all the buttons are labeled, and all sliders are labeled. You can use your computer keyboard to navigate between options."

Now, people with visual impairments can manage all controls on RME devices with the AZS OSC application.

"I can now complete my headphone output, my microphones, my monitors and enable phantom power," Kirca said. "All these options are finally available for blind users."

Since the release of AZS OSC, Kirca said blind musicians from across the world have been gravitating towards RME's interfaces.

"Finally, a really quality audio interface has been made accessible," he said, adding that he helps blind users set up their interface via Skype no matter where they are in the world. "Now, blind users can use RME devices to create podcasts or to record, mix and master their music."

"There are so many blind musicians in the world who are making great recordings," Kirca continued. "We are changing the approach for the professional interface and showed the world that you can make it accessible if you want. I hope this will be an example for other companies. They can make their products accessible using the method that we used and, believe me, this is a very easy process. It's important to be connected and help others."

"There are also visually impaired musicians among the world's leading mix and mastering engineers," Kirca continued. "For a lot of these professionals, their only need is finding an accessible way to work with software and hardware."

The application is currently available free here.

VisionCare, Inc. Names Thomas Ruggia as New Chief Executive Officer

VisionCare, Inc. a developer of advanced visual prosthetic devices for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), announced that Thomas Ruggia has been appointed as the company's new Chief Executive Officer, effective July 6, 2020. Mr. Ruggia leaves a Fortune 50 company to lead VisionCare into a new era where a broader population of older adults living with forms of blindness have increased access to their technology and the only FDA approved surgical treatment for macular degeneration, the telescope implant and CentraSight treatment program.

"We're thrilled to welcome Tom to VisionCare. His nearly 20 years of ophthalmology business experience means he has a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the health care environment in the United States and abroad, as well as significant experience in the development and commercialization of vision products with differing regulatory and pricing structures," said Richard Powers, Executive Vice President. "Tom brings new energy to VisionCare at a pivotal time when we are poised to expand the reach and appeal of the CentraSight treatment program."

Before joining VisionCare, Mr. Ruggia spent five years at Johnson & Johnson, working at Johnson & Johnson Vision and The Janssen Pharma Co, respectively. Most recently at Johnson & Johnson Vision, he was the Vice President WW Customer Experience and Ocular Surface Disease, responsible for two global commercial teams working in customer strategy, customer service, and field technical service. At Janssen, he was the commercial strategy leader in ophthalmology assigned to an asset in development for AMD. Previously, Mr. Ruggia spent fourteen years at Alcon, a division of Novartis, working in a variety of ophthalmology sales and marketing roles with escalating responsibility. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science from The College of New Jersey in 1998.

"For nearly two decades, I've been fortunate through my work to witness the direct impact of introducing vision-enhancing technologies, devices, and therapies on the quality of life of people with low vision around the world," said Mr. Ruggia. "The opportunity to lead and grow VisionCare to serve a broader patient candidate pool is one that I embrace. I look forward to communicating more about our plans to further develop our novel technology and introduce an enhanced delivery system that will improve the patient and provider's surgical experience."

Able Artist Foundation Announces the 2020 Music Contest For Musicians With Disabilities

Any musician with a verifiable disability is welcome to submit two songs to be reviewed by AAF board members and other participating judges to win sample libraries/software from contest-participating AAF partners. There will be three winners, one grand prize winner, and two runner-ups.

Eligibility requirements are as follows:

• Applicants need to verify their disability via medical documentation.
• Must be the primary songwriter/composer
• Each song submitted must be in mp3 format and should be no more than 5 minutes and no less than 2 minutes.
• Must own all the rights to their music.
• Open to all ages and all countries.

(Note: the contest is intended for early-to-mid-career musicians.)

Additional Information

• Music can be in any genre, song, trailer, or cue.
• Music should?but doesn't have to be?nicely mixed. (Pro-mixing isn't necessary.)
• We are evaluating content/substance/songwriting/cue-writing ability, not mixing ability.

Important Dates

May 7, 2020: Contest Launch August 1, 2020: Submission Deadline September 15, 2020: Winners Announced

All three winners will have their music reviewed for possible sync-licensing opportunities for advertising, film, and TV by Hitlist Music.

Carroll Center for the Blind Announces New Virtual and Day Summer Programs for Youth with Visual Impairments

Every summer, the Carroll Center for the Blind offers specialized youth summer programs for children, teens and young adults between the ages of 8 to 21. This year the center will offer a mix of both remote and day programs that provide students the opportunity to connect with their peers, develop independent skills in the home and for school, and continue to grow their independence. Additionally, individualized instruction in all areas (technology, braille, daily living skills, O&M, etc.) is also available for all ages.

Programs for all ages and interests, include:

• Computing for College
• Teen Job Readiness
• Introduction to Careers in Music
• Optimize Your College Success!
• Youth in Transition
• Youth Learning Day Program
• Ready, Tech, Go! (Ages 8 to 12)
• Ready, Tech, Go! (Ages 12 to 15)
• Cooking with Christy
• Easy Healthy Cooking
• Oh, the Places You'll Go with Maps!
• Map it Out!

New programs are being added every day so be sure to check the youth summer program page often.

If you are interested in attending one of the virtual or day youth summer programs, or would like to inquire about an individualized program, the admissions team is ready to answer any questions you may have. Please contact the center at 617-969-6200, extension 216, toll free at 800-852-3131 or by email at kathy.felt@carroll.org.