Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start [ Music ] [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Welcome (in multiple languages0 [ Title: ] Technology for Orientation and Mobility Chris Tabb: Good morning, everyone. I'm hoping it's okay to begin. Otherwise somebody can jump in and interrupt me. Thank you for joining in again. I hope everybody is enjoying the process with the online symposium, and thanks to Kassy and TSBVI and everyone else involved to make this happen. We're going to be sharing some things starting with the PowerPoint, and we have technical assistance arriving. Luckily I have a whole crew of a media team to help me. We've already had some interesting things to begin with so I have some screenshots of the iPhone rather than sharing the iPhone. So we have all kinds of changes, sound changes and lighting changes and we'll try to have some fun. What we're going to do is I'm going to ask when Andy has a chance he can put up a pod that will have a poll and the first poll question will be do you use iPhone, Android or both? And just to get a sense of how many are using either the iOS system, the Android system or if you've worked with both. And that will give us a chance to understand a little bit. We'll be talking about both and there will be resources available for both, but that's kind of where we're going to start from. So we'll give a moment or two on the question. It looks like so far we've got about 60 plus% with an iPhone. About 20% with Android and about 20% with both. So it's very similar to what we see here at Texas School for the Blind and across Texas. Many more students seem to be using the iPhone, but we also have folks who enjoy using the Android and some people who like both. There are certainly apps for both, things like our bluetooth headphones, the Aftershokz headphones will work for both and how that will change moving forward into the years of technology here. So I'm going to go ahead and jump, if I can find the right and we'll run the rest of this if we can from my computer. At the moment my stop sharing button is not allowing me to do anything. So I'm going to see if I can request technical assistance from Andy so that I can ‑‑ there we go. I guess we just had to wrap up with the pod. Sorry. So I'm going to share my screen and what we're going to do is we're going to start by doing the PowerPoint here. And ‑‑ okay. So hopefully you will see the PowerPoint in that first pod there. And we're going to be talking today about the technology options for O&M. We've got electronic travel aids, apps, adaptive equipment and devices, and I'm going to be asking Andy for help throughout the presentation. At the moment the PowerPoint is filling my screen, which is being shared, and then I'll jump back and forth every once in awhile to see if there are questions in the chat. If you do feel questions feel free to add them to the chat and Andy has been kind enough to let me know that he will jump in to share some of the questions as those come up. So the ETA's, the apps and adaptive equipment and devices. We have some inexpensive solutions like the QR Codes or quick response codes you can use those for scavenger hunts with clues embedded into the QR Codes. Basically your QR Code will have that in that pattern of dots and the phone will be able to pick up that information. On an Android you can use an app on the iPhone if you have the most recent operating system. The actual camera app will pick up the QR Code and so all you have to do is open your camera and point it in the direction of the barcode or the QR Code and it will recognize the code and give you the website to be able to launch from there. And it does work as well with the voiceover. So if you're working with a client or a student, I'm going to try to use the word learner, if you're working with a learner who has an iPhone, all they have to do is open that camera app and it will automatically jump up. It will travel to the website. That website might have things that you've already planned in there. It could be a description of an area. It could be a clue to get to another place, all sorts of things. And basically at that point it's just free. Because you can get QR Code creation from the Internet by just typing in create QR Code and then you can add whatever you would like to it. Oh, I thought I heard Andy for a second there. Control Room: You do have to explain what a QR Code is. Chris Tabb: Okay. I'll jump to a picture of one real quick. A QR Code is basically like a barcode, but somehow the pattern of squares that are either darkened or light allow information to be transmitted to a to a QR reader and that works through the camera of your iPad or your iPhone or your Android phone or smartphone. And I will jump back to that previous slide for just a second. So basically the electronic device, your smartphone or the tablet, that's connected to the Wi‑Fi, will pick up that code and it will give you some information. This code has text embedded in it so basically I'm just going to ‑‑ hopefully you can see this. All I have to do is hold my phone up in front of that and launch the camera app. This is on an iPhone. And it would automatically find that QR Code and then it would launch that. So this is just the contents that you will see if you scan that with your smart device is this is an example of text embedded in a QR Code. So this one isn't taking you to a website. This one is just giving you the actual words that are stored somehow in that dot pattern. It isn't tactile, although what you could do when placing these in different areas is that you could make a tactile border either using something like a clear overlay or if you happen to have available a fuser or tactile image enhancer you could run the swell paper through there, make a tactile representation kind of like a picture frame that would be a border around that. In order for someone to consistently find that just like we would hope that people would be able to find Braille signage, having it in one place ‑‑ let's say you're putting these clues or other things around a college campus, if you always put them just below the room name on the placard with the Braille, if it always goes just below then someone knows when they find the placard for the door they know they look just below it to find the QR Code. It could also be used in lots of different ways for leaving other types of messages. Even a professor could leave messages for students at that point. So this is just an easy solution because now regardless of the platform, whether you're using PC, Mac, Android or otherwise, all you have to do is go online, ask for a QR generator and you can either put in text or you can put in a website. And if it were a website it would launch that website. If it's text it will read the text that's embedded there. And when we get to the end I'll share my contact information. If anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask. I enjoy this very much and I always learn something new. So fun to discover together. So other inexpensive suggestions, you can create shared routes. Just some examples, Apple notes app within the otherwise system, all iPhones will have the notes app built into it. So at that point you don't have to have a learner having to download an app they don't have on their phone or tablet yet. Basically it will be built in and either you or the learner could create the note and share it with the other person. Now you both have the same document that you are working on so if you create a route and someone travels and they find that there's a change, they can make the change and you would automatically see it. You could send a route to a learner and ask them to carry out that route. You can compare those things. It is just another way of collaborating with the learner even remotely. Dropbox is another solution that is helpful to a point as well as Google Docs. And as we get into screenshots later I will show you what that would look like as you're creating those so you would have some idea if you were using an app on a phone how that would look. Video recordings, just amazing what we can do now with smartphone or a tablet and the addition of the Internet. You can record lessons and share it with a family to be able to demonstrate to a family or to a perspective employer what someone is able to do so that they can kind of have that realistic idea of what this traveler is capable of doing. And we've already seen this with the recordings of intersections through the online symposium already. You can have the family send updates on progress. There's topics that come up in orientation mobility about ‑‑ I'm going to try not to on open a can of worms although I guess I've already done that, some telepractice. Basically if you were curious how an individual is traveling or if you're working with a guide dog, what's happening with a guide dog, being able to have that recording of a particular crossing, an area of concern, relaying that back to an individual who can then provide some feedback about it or just to make a determination if we need to make this the actual one to one visit for or is this something we can just handle over the phone? You can share student abilities with receiving teams so if a student is going from an elementary school to a middle school, having some information about how that student is traveling, they'll have a realistic idea of what to expect when that student arrives. Other inexpensive solutions. You can use some location specifics. So there's some apps like blind square, for instance, a GPS app, that allow you to enter the latitude and longitude. You can also do this if you're working with a learner who has a BrailleNote and they're using the Sendero maps on their BrailleNote they can enter latitude and longitude. That's another example. They can build campus maps of colleges. They can even do this from home because once you search the Internet for the latitude and longitude of a particular college or a building at that university campus you can just zoom right into the front porch and those landmarks can be added either to an app such as blind square or to a device such as the BrailleNote using Sendero maps. At the moment I don't know that we can add that to something like the Victor Reader Trek. I suppose that's possible in a future update, although the latitude and longitude would not be available in that product from Humanware at the moment. There's another product called what3words. You can Google that and basically instead of using latitude and longitude which can be confusing for some people because you have some ‑‑ some notated in decimal format, some in hours, minutes, seconds, depending on the format that can be very confusing and certainly difficult to remember because of the string of numbers. If it were just three words that appear to be random words there's this company that's basically mapped the entire globe and given every area that would have a latitude and longitude a combination of three words. So all you have to do is remember the three words. This is tied in to some apps through owe if one company releases an API that allows that app information to be used by another developer then they can collaborate together. So companies again like blind square would allow you to use what3words, instead of having the latitude and longitude you could just relay those three particular words. There are virtual exploration options. There are some that run on a computer. I think at the moment the only one I know of is on the PC that's through APH or Sendero that allow you to navigate through maps. There's also some app versions. Most of the GPS apps that are accessible allow you to do some look around features virtually so you can place yourself in any particular area. Let's say it's a favorite restaurant in another state, in another city, or just down the block. And wherever you would point your device you could basically know what's around you if you were standing right in front of that restaurant. There's an app, nearby explorer, which actually lets you visit a distant city or right where you are, and then travel north, south, east or west by a finger press on a particular button within the app. And that allows you to actually travel within that space. So instead of just looking around, you are able to travel around those blocks. So just as an example, you're working with a high school student who is trying to develop some orientation around their home, but you wouldn't be able to travel there for various reasons, you could virtually travel there and the student could explore their home area to know what different places were around. So this QR Code that's on the screen at the moment is a link to a website and there's also a link below it. I'm going to break wherever rule and just read the screen here. It's http://bit.ly/omtechnology. It's all in lower case. Has to be in lower case to be able to be able to get to the correct website. If you used upper case it wouldn't take you to the correct website. So this you can either use a QR code or the link and it will take you to a LiveBinder which we're going to get to. The LiveBinder has a lot of the resources that we're talking about and some others, and so again this is just another way that you could use a QR code to help someone navigate to a particular place. If you happen to know how to do some coding you can do all sorts of things with web pages as well. And so I'm going to jump away from this slide for just a moment so that we can stick with our original topic here, and I'm going to jump over to the LiveBinders at the moment. Okay. So this is a LiveBinder for technology options for orientation and mobility. And on the left‑hand side of your screen you have basically a list of the tabs that we're going to be working through. We have our table of contents, electronic travel aids or ETA's, do it yourself ETA's because some of these can be very expensive, adaptive equipment, apps, beacon resources, and other resources. And just in case anyone doesn't know what a beacon is, this is an example of an Estimote beacon. This is about the size of let's say an egg, and within that are pieces of microchips, equipment, I can't really tell you what they are, but there's a battery and electronic equipment that allows this device to transmit a signal that's then picked up by your smartphone that can then give you additional information about proximity, which is the distance between your smart device and that beacon. Different than a GPS signal. A GPS signal is working with a satellite where a beacon is just working with your Internet connection to get information that the beacon is providing that link to. So we're going to go through some of these real quick. These are just electronic travel aids. Some of these are extraordinarily expensive. Some people have lots of funds. For those of us that do not or are not independently wealthy, we've got the do it yourself section and we'll get to that afterward. So we're just going to start by going through these. I'm just going to share the screen here so that y'all can see what happens. Now, within LiveBinders the reason it's called live is because it brings in the current version of that website to the binder itself. If the page doesn't load you can click on the URL or the universal resource locator, basically that website would launch from there. So you can either click on the link and go to the page itself or you can just allow it to load in the page within the binder. So a Navibelt, this is basic a belt worn about your body and allows you to, quote, unquote, feel space. So basically we're working with sensory substitution, different than what grace mentioned yesterday in her presentation. This is basically like ‑‑ for those of you who are familiar with the Apple watch, we have what's called a haptic engine that provides haptic feedback. So if I'm driving I can get information about where I'm turning. It will vibrate as well as have an auditory clue. But the vibration, the haptic information, allows me to know whether to turn right or turn left. Imagine that you have that haptic information all around your midsection, so from your stomach to your back. And let's say for instance you always wanted to know where north was, you could have that vibration somewhere around your body, 360 dregs around your body, always vibrating where north is, so if you ever wanted to turn north all you have to do is keep turning until the vibration is directly in front of your belly button. There's lots of different ways that you could use something like this. It could vibrate on your left side to tell you to turn left, on your right side to tell you to turn right. This is a technology that's developed in lots of different ways. Many of the things that we're going to be talking about started in kickstarter projects or IndieGoGo. We have so many available crowdfunding options now that people who have an idea can begin just from scratch using things like ‑‑ well, we'll talk about when we get to the do it yourself. So I'm going to jump to the next one. This slide binder, by the way, will live in LiveBinders all the time so you're welcome to go there wherever. You can share it, you can direct people to it, however you would like to do that, but you can come back and look at these at your leisure. Some of these you all may have seen before, some of these might be new for folks. This is the ultra cane. There's lots of different options that you have for the cane in terms of it previewing not only on the ground with a tip, but at head level and beyond where the cane tip would be looking. Again, we're providing information in a different channel. I should pause for a moment as sometimes people are curious, well, who would this work for? Certainly you have to have enough money to be able to provide the product. Sometimes you have to be able to provide justification to a funding group. We also are thinking about a traveler who can interpret additional information because the sonic information, which is then translated into haptic information or auditory information, isn't going to replace what's on the ground, which would be the cane tip. It's supplementary, complementary and is not meant to substitute or replace what that cane tip is providing or the dog, if you're working with a guide dog traveler. There are only a select group, just a small percentage of people who can interpret correctly that additional information and still attend to the primary information from the cane. If an individual forgets that they need to be paying attention to the cane tip and only paying attention to the vibration or auditory feedback then they will miss certain dangers such as dropoffs. So it's important that before an individual runs out to buy one of these that that learner understand that they have to be able to still take in information from the cane tip that has to come first. Many times individuals want a quick fix. They want a solution that I'll pay the thousand dollars, just make it so that it all works perfectly. That isn't something that we can do. So helping people to have that realistic understanding that there's only so much that a device can do and that it still comes back to the traveler themselves being responsible for their own safety. And there's lots of disclaimers that each product has. Kassey Maloney: Chris, we've gotten some questions. It's Kassy. I was just wondering when ‑‑ Chris Tabb: Now is great. Kassey Maloney: When you wanted us to ask them. Chris Tabb: Any time that you want to jump in is fine. Kassey Maloney: Okay, great. I just don't want to interrupt you. You're saying so many wonderful things. One of the questions was I've had some problems with apps for QR codes not being accessible for Talkover and Talkback. Do you have recommendations for accessible QR reader apps? Chris Tabb: One of the things we'll get to is I have a web page that has apps that are accessible, but I would encourage everyone to ‑‑ and this is also in another LiveBinder, which I'll be sharing with you. There's another website which is Applevis.com, I believe. I can't remember if it's dot‑com or dot‑org at the moment. But it will let you know which apps are accessible. The entire website are based on individuals who are blind or visually impaired and apps that are usable by people who are blind or visually impaired. In terms of Android, I have some solutions that are available on both platforms. Sometimes what you really have to do is download the app and try it because I could tell someone today that an app works and by this afternoon the app could update and it no longer works because developers, if an app is not specifically developed for a person who are is blind and visually impaired, that may not be something that they remember to include. One of the nice things that the Applevis group does is advocate with developers to help them to be able to develop their apps in an accessible way. Sometimes it's as easy as sending a developer a note to say by the way on your last update the functionality that allowed voiceover to be used disappeared. Would you pleas add that back in? They were usually more than happy to do that, they just didn't think of it. So reminding people when something changes, because we live in a world of Senate updates, those things you could prepare for a lesson with a learner, everything is going great, you get there, something updated in between and now you're working with an entirely different app. So those are the things that are beyond our control. We just have to be flexible. Luckily with the ‑‑ I don't remember how many hundreds of thousands of apps we have now. On my phone I have just over 800. So in the app store it's just ‑‑ it's mind boggling. We have lots of options, many of which are free, many of which are very low cost, and so typically there's at least one that's going to work for you. If you are looking for something specific please email me. And again I'll provide my contact information at the end. Kassy, was there another question? Kassey Maloney: Yeah. There are actually a couple more. Some that I think you will get to so I think I will wait until the very end, but there are two specifically that I'm not ‑‑ you haven't alluded to the fact that you might be getting to this. One is what technology would you recommend for people to navigate through malls. And the other question is is the Ultra Cane still on the market? Chris Tabb: As far as I know ‑‑ I'm going to work backwards ‑‑ the ultra cane is still on the market. The website again is available here. And up at the top if you click on that it will actually take you to the Ultra Cane website. And so if you wanted to buy an Ultra Cane, this is again how you could get through this process. Sometimes things will be available in Europe. You might have to pay for additional shipping, you might have to do ‑‑ this is going to be the currency exchange. I don't know where the question came from. That might be perfect for you because you might already be in the UK. So there's lots of different ways to get things. The one thing that I've found that has disappeared that I have no idea how to get anymore is what I would call a simple Braille compass. The Brunton Company that was producing those has discontinued production. And at least today I still don't know of another manufacturer who has picked that up. So if anyone has a connection to someone in the industry and wants to pick that up, that would be super because it's nice to have options for people. And the question before that ‑‑ I'm going to try to remember. Kassy, could you remind me one more time what that question was? Kassey Maloney: Yes, of course. It was what technology would you recommend to help consumers navigate through malls? Chris Tabb: Thank you, Kassy. So within the mall there are lots of different technologies that you could use. Beacons are one that are becoming very common. The challenge is that for many apps that are proprietary and the app and the beacon worked together, but if you don't have that app accessing that beacon, then the information it provides can be very challenging. There are some folks who are trying to work on an open standard. Wayfinder, Nearby Explorer, for instance, is now allowing you to do things through open street maps so that hopefully this information would be available to anyone at any time. So all of that is occurring in the present day. It's the cutting edge, the bleeding edge, however you want to put that. There are other technologies, depending on what someone needs for travel information that can be utilized in a mall. And if that individual has a smartphone or a tablet to be able to connect to and relay that information. Some of this we'll be getting to as we move through. Just as an example, there are some things that trace your steps or trace someone else's steps so you can receive that information on your phone. These are again crowdsourced information that you're relying on other people to be able to provide the information that then your learner is accessing. So there's different things. Sometimes we're ‑‑ for lack of a better way to put this, we're at the mercy of another user. So four square can provide some excellent information, but four square needs its information put in by people who are traveling in that area. Sorry. I'll jump back over to live binders and hopefully I'll get back into more of the indoor mall travel. But if I don't please feel free to email me as well. Smart walk. This is another device, I'm going to scroll down a little bit. I'm not going to play all the videos because of time. These are things that you can explore on your own, but again we're talking about another sensor‑based piece of information. As it says on the screen this is an add on to the traditional White cane empowering users for additional mobility. So smart walk is going to provide supplemental or complimentary information that your cane would. Wayband, this is something that some of you may have read an article recently about it, a runner in the New York marathon, I believe, who wore something that ‑‑ he was attempting to run the New York marathon without having additional input from someone who would be a running partner. So he wanted to be able to be able to run independently. On the screen is an example of just like the haptic engine in the Apple watch, this is a wristband that would be worn to provide the information where there would be another device that's worn to have the sensor input. So they talk to each other. One picks up the information, one relays it to your body. So there are things to get in here to see some additional information about this product is still in beta testing, but to be able to learn what this can do. At the time moment it's being developed for people who are very active, who want to be able to pursue physical activity and recreation types of activities. The walk pro ‑‑ I'll jump over here because it will be a little bit faster. This is a ring. And this ring will provide you with information about what's around you, will provide you with information about obstacles. I'm not going to get into too many details. Unfortunately I don't have an example of that so I haven't tried it. One of the things that I encourage everyone to be careful of is sometimes people will say that ‑‑ not to say that this is coming from this product, but different products might advertise as being able to replace the cane. If you have this device you no longer need the cane, you no longer need the dog. I have yet to find a device that adequately provides information about the environment at a level that would allow a traveler to not need the cane or the guide dog for things like dropoffs. It can be terrific supplementary or complimentary information, but not one that would substitute for the cane. Chris Tabb: I don't know if I'm pronouncing any of these correctly, Sunu. This is another bracelet. For those of you who have used something like the product from APH, the mini guide that provides vibration. The concept is the same as far as getting sonar information and relaying it back to you through vibration. Now we're just getting into what's called a wearable. So this is something that ‑‑ let's see if I can ‑‑ basically it's going to be another way of getting information from your wrist, wherever that sensor would pick up things, it would relay it to you through the vibration you would be able to interpret the distance as well as the presence of an obstacle. This next product is now available I think ‑‑ it said at the bottom of the screen, Amazon and best buy. This is what's seen on the screen are inserts for shoes. They are also now have the ability to put them on top of the shoe so that you don't have to use the insert. The bottom of the insole has a pocket or a small place where you can place a pod and the pod is basically connected through bluetooth with your device, your smartphone, and would link to provide vibration information to your feet. For some people they imagine that like fingers going down a chalkboard. It really isn't that strong of a vibration so that it wouldn't cause you discomfort. Some people might laugh I guess initially because they might be very ticklish. You can actually adjust the amount of vibration within the app. There's a tutorial for the app to idea how that vibration pattern can tell you about a 90‑degree turn or a sharper turn, whether to go straight, whether to go left, whether to go right. One of the nice things about this technology is that you actually have two pods that you're working with. One goes on your left foot, one on your right foot. So if your left foot is vibrating at that point it much more intuitive to know to go left. Or if your right foot vibrates to go right. With the other sensory substitution devices we've talked about the traveler has a new cognitive load. They have to interpret what does the vibration pattern indicate that I'm supposed to do. So you have to speak the language of the device, not very different than when we worked with an individual to speak the language of a cane to understand when at an escalator, for instance, if a cane is out in front and it drops down, what does that tell me about which way the escalator is traveling. So with these vibration patterns, it could be one series of vibrations, let's say three quick vibrations indicates one thing, three long vibrations indicates another thing. If it's just one represented on your left foot, one on your right, there's less to figure out. So another vibration device, this is from a company called immersive. This is the buzz clip and basically this can be worn on your shirt, it could be worn anywhere, I suppose, and it will give you information about the proximity of things in your environment. For people who are deafblind this could be as simple as knowing that someone is in front of you. One of the biggest frustrations I hear from people who are blind and visually impaired is that they go to some social type of activity or maybe networking at a business function and they think they're talking with someone and that person leaves and they're still talking to the air. This would allow you to know whether someone came into your space and left your space or whether they were still standing there. So there's lots of different ways that these tools can be used. This is another body worn Sonic device, and this ‑‑ I'm not going to go into all the detail, but you can find the whole history here. This was developed by a student. The Talking Compass, this is something that's commercially been available for awhile. It's still technology. It's $75. Much less than many of the other things that we've talked about. Brain port, this is something that takes information from a sensor and places that sensory substitution on to your tongue. So rather than vibration you are having a representation of that image on your tongue through refreshable pins. And so basically let's say that I had ‑‑ if we were playing tick tack tow, you could feel the pattern of an O or an X on your tongue or the grid for the tick tack tow. Even if it were something as simple as knowing there was an open doorway or a closed doorway, again you can have that information represented on your tongue. Different places that we receive information, we have some areas of our body that are much more sensitive than others. That's something that psychology has researched significantly and now is coming in ‑‑ I shouldn't say now, but much more frequently now is coming into the field of blindness and visual impairment for where we represent that information. Just as another example, this is seeing with sound. Again, it's still of the idea of sensory substitution. We're taking that image that's perceived through the camera, from the device that's worn, and putting it into another part, in this case the ears. All right. So for those that are on a tighter budget, we have some do it yourself things. This is a sonic device that replicates some of what we've seen before, and basically this is a do it yourself hacking project and it gives you the required materials, it gives you some of the details about the ultrasonic sensor. Again, I'm sorry if I'm not saying this correctly, but the Arduano UNO, you're basically getting the board and plugging in. You have a motor on silent mode and utilize that so now we have that tactile feedback. Lots of different things people have done to inexpensively create something. They use PVC to use their cane. Obviously you could use a white cane would be much more effective. This is a video that describes how to make your own sonar device. The parts included, basically for $50 or under you can make the same thing that you would be spending several hundred dollars from a company that has made it for you. There are all sorts of other things that you can do in the do it yourself field. Hopefully we'll get this page to come up shortly. This is from MIT. And if this one doesn't load we'll jump back. Kassey Maloney: Hey, Chris, not to interrupt you but while that is loading I had two other questions come up about something you just mentioned. Can I ask? Chris Tabb: Please. Kassey Maloney: Okay, great. JoAnne wanted to know, I'm guessing all these cool sensory apps make the iGlasses from Ambutech obsolete. What's your opinion? Chris Tabb: They do not make the iGlasses obsolete. The iGlasses can be helpful in certain situations. One of the areas that I've heard described that would be beneficial is picture someone who is deafblind waiting for a bus. When the bus arrives you would have vibrotactile feedback on the glasses to let you know the bus has pulled up. When it pulls you to find the door you can wait until the vibration pattern changed or disappeared because when the opening was there wouldn't be anything to create the vibration sending back the signal. So basically the way that sonic information happens is it travels out and comes back. It's just like throwing a ball at a wall. If the ball comes back you know there's something there to reflect it. What that would allow that deafblind traveler to do is to know when the bus is arriving, when the bus has departed or if the bus arrives, where the opening is. Using that type of device in an indoor environment, especially one that is head mounted and different than in your hand can be very challenging because it picks up just about everything. Outdoors you would have much better success with that. Something like the mini guide or the K sonar which can be held in the hand and pointed to the sound allows you to walk forward looking with the head direction, let's say, either auditorially and/or visually, attending to what your direction of travel is while you're hand is turned to one side or the other so you can pick up where the open doorways are or where the intersecting hallways are. When they are mounted to your head you would have to turn your head each time or walk forward with your head turned to the side, which would probably cause you to walk in a giant circle. So again, because that sensor is mounted and head borne, it makes that very challenging to align your travel. Is there another question, Kassy? Kassey Maloney: We had one quick other question, and it was does the foot vibrators working in freezing and raining conditions? Chris Tabb: As long as it is inside your foot, it would be working. So I shouldn't say inside your foot, sorry. Inside your shoe. So if you've got your boots ‑‑ this is basically sealed. I don't know if it's touted as being waterproof. So in other words, if you were using water shoes and trying to travel through streams, I don't know what would happen. If it's worn inside your shoe, if you have waterproof boots, basically your boots at that point when you're hiking are going to be providing you protection with that, but it should work in all of those conditions. And Kassy, please feel free to jump in with any questions. This is an example of the tactile belt, which is a tactile feedback compass belt. You could again through these parts create your own and save yourself $700 or so. There's a haptic ankle compass. And let's see... Again, you could use parts that can be ordered, at least in the United States. I don't think you can travel to a Radio Shack to pick some of these things up anymore, but there are lots of online retailers you can order these parts to be able to build it yourself. And here's one where someone created a proprioceptive map bag. Basically all of the information is included in the bag, and if you're wearing that messenger bag then you have that vibrotactile feedback. Hands free while you're on a bike, walking, using your cane, walking your dog. Adaptive equipment, many people have probably heard of ‑‑ let's see if we can get the page to load here Aira. I'll play a quick portion of the video. Chris Tabb: Aira offers a personalized service for blind and low vision people to help them gain independence, self sufficiency and assurance. Ben has confidently learned how to navigate the streets of San Francisco with the streets with his cane. Although he manages quite well there are certain unexpected situations where he can get into trouble. Fortunate approximately he's wearing his Aira smart glasses and when he either senses that he's in terrain that he's unfamiliar with or his cane tells him information that he can't discern he simply activates the glasses with his finger and instantly Aira sees what he's about to confront and tells him. [ Video start: ] Hi Ben, this is Chloe. She has a mission control style dashboard where she can see what Ben is looking at, where he is located on GoogleMaps and any potential obstructions in his pathway. Hi, Chloe, it's nice to hear your voice. It's good to hear your voice too, Ben. How can I help you? I need some help in my directions. I'm meeting a friend of mine, Bob McCarthy this restaurant for lunch and my usual route is block so can you help me get there on time. Sure. But can you help me get situated to make sure you are in a safe spot. Can you look around so I can get a thorough view of your surroundings. Since Chloe can see exactly where Ben is by way of his smart Dallas she can help Ben orient on what's going on around him. You're actually pretty close. I think the fastest way is by taking the NTS. You can jump on the train at the little Italy station and take that to the convention center. So turn back around and walk towards Pacific highway and then I'll be happy to give you some more information. Okay. Let's go for it. [ Video end: ] Chris Tabb: So I'm going to pause the video there. You can come back to this Aira website at any point and watch that video. Basically we've got science fiction that's become reality yet again so that you don't have to be Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. That's something that you can get through this service. The service is not free. This is not crowdsourced such as an app like Be My Eyes. This is something that there's a subscription fee for or you buy a block of minutes. So just as an example, this is the pricing sheet for Aira, where all plans include the glasses and the data. You have to have your own smart device, but the monthly for 100 minutes is $89. All the way up to a premium where it's unlimited for $329. So basically how often someone uses this is going to indicate how expensive it's going to be. You can imagine how quickly 100 minutes might disappear. If you use that very frugally I'm sure it could be stretched for a long period of time. It could be that someone just wants to be able to independently go to the grocery store and pick out either Campbell's chicken noodle soup or Campbell's tomato soup so they speak with a representative for just a minute or two to be able to do that. This is something that's been very well received by those as I listen to feedback from people about using devices, it allows them to be independent in ways that they used to have to access friends, family, to do those things. Certainly anyone could pick up their phone, use Facetime to ask the same question although they are still having to ask someone, a friend, loved one, for assistance. And so this is a way that someone doesn't have to tap into that favor pool, for lack of a better way to put that, and allows them to be independent. We live in an interdependent world, just like I may take my car to have the oil changed because it's efficient or there are certain things that I may not know how to do, this is something that would allow that traveler to be able to get the information without having to access favors. Orcam, this is not connected to an individual so you would not be in conversation. Control Room: Good morning. Chris Tabb: Thank you, thank you. We have our 10 minute warning. I'll just jump through these kind of quickly now and make sure we get to everything. Orcam will give you information basically provided on what the camera sees to give you details about what that is. After shocks bone conduction headphone this is a version called the Aftershokz Trek, and basically these go ‑‑ instead of going into the ear they go just in front of the ear on the temple basically and the bone conduction transmits that information to the auditory canal or auditory system, and allows you through the ‑‑ I guess the mastoid bone at that point to know what the auditory information is. So you have your ear canal open so if I'm sitting on a bus I could have my GPS running telling me where I am and also hear the announcement from the driver. If I've been getting directory information and I'm getting ready to cross the street I can still hear traffic. I know what street I'm at because the GPS gave me that information, but I have full open ear access say to cars arriving or departing from wherever I'm standing listening for the surge, cross traffic, so on and so forth. The Humanware Victor Reader Trek that was shared yesterday, this is again an example of that. For those of you who used the Trekker Breeze or Trekker Breeze plus, same thing on the inside. What will take adjusting is getting used to the format. For those familiar with the Victor Reader Stream it will be relatively easy. If you are used to having the Trekker Breeze display you will have to then learn what the numbers represent here on this device for getting access to that directory information, for entering addresses. It just ‑‑ there's a little bit of a learning curve. But it does allow bluetooth, which the Trekker Breeze plus did not. It allows better battery life, it allows improved accuracy and connection with the satellites. It's certainly not inexpensive. By the way, if you are still using a Trekker Breeze plus or Trekker Breeze, there are ‑‑ as well as the Victor Trek has the SD card slot so that you're able to basically remove the card. If you're working with one device and sharing that between multiple learners, what's really helpful is to ‑‑ you can get a small holder for the SD cards which basically you can get for just a few dollars each. You can make one SD card for each of the learners that you're working with and that way they have their own landmarks that are in their own voice so that they don't have to sift through every other learner's landmark that's sharing the device. That just allows when you get to that lesson you pop in their SD card or they keep it themselves and now you're ready to go with their own information that you picked up on the previous lesson. The dot watch ‑‑ Kassey Maloney: Chris, just to let you know ‑‑ sorry, we have six other questions. Do you want me to just hold them until the end. Chris Tabb: If can you tell me what they are, I'll see if I'm going to cover them. Kassey Maloney: Okay. People are still a little confused about the QR codes. Would we be able to code our own beacons? And somebody wanted to know if mini guides are still available. And somebody was also curious about how to use a QR code with Android. And then somebody else wanted to know if there's a place to find your reviews of each electronic device. Chris Tabb: I'll try to work my way backwards. I may have to ask you to repeat some of those. Thank you, Kassy. The only device that I have quote, unquote, reviewed, would be the Latrell shoes, but that's on a website which I'll show you. Most of the information I'm going to jump real quick to the ‑‑ back to the PowerPoint. This is again a QR code. A QR code, any app ‑‑ you can just go into the Google Play store or into the iTunes app store and type in QR code, and there are simple ones like there's one called scan. And scan is basically going to be very easy for a learner. Let's say that we're working with a learn whore is totally non‑visual. They're going to basically be about, let's say they can start with maybe half of an arm's reach away, moving that camera slowly it should beep to indicate that the QR code has been found and then would display either auditorily if they're using voiceover with an iPhone or talk back on an Android device what that information is giving you a request do you want to launch the app or the website or do you want to ‑‑ or it will just read what's there. This QR code is a link to all the LiveBinders. I apologize when I click on that link there's going to be a lot of information. Some people that can be ‑‑ it's overwhelming for me to see all of that at once, but this is a place where you can miss access to a lot of information. Basically the link is http://bitly/LiveBinder where the L and B are capitalized. And OM is capitalized at the end. So basically from there if you use that link or the QR code it will take you to all the LiveBinders. This particular one that we're working on is included, which is the technology. We also have within these LiveBinders some that are specifically for apps. Oops, sorry. This one is iOS binders for live and visually impaired. There are all sorts of resources in these binders. Feel free to access, share. Oops, sorry. I'm going to jump to something real quick. This is also available in the LiveBinders. There's ‑‑ somebody asked about the reviews. These are not exactly reviews. This link is available in the LiveBinders. These are apps for users who are blind and visually impaired. And within these apps each one has a link for where it's available. There are some that are only available on the iOS store, some that are just Android, some that are both. Just as an example, this is seeing AI, a terrific app from Microsoft that is free, does lots of things. This would be the link that would take you directly to where you could download that from the Apple store. Jumping back again, KNFBreader, if you want to get that from the Google Play store, you click on the link ‑‑ let's see if I can find another one here. It's got me registered in a different country at the moment, sorry. These are based on the United States, and depending on where you're at, you would hopefully be able to load those, but you can always do a search for the app name in that store wherever you're based and it would allow you to load them. So there's lots of apps here. These are in categories. The categories are accessibility, navigation and GPS, transportation and route planning and weather. The weather app I think is there's just a couple of them there, but they are accessible through voiceover and would basically tell you what the weather is going to be like in the next area where you are so that if you're heading out for a lesson you will know in the next hour if you should be bringing your umbrella. Okay. I'm just going to do a quick little ‑‑ again, this LiveBinder is available. You can go in and check it out. There are some apps here that list seeing AI, Nearby Explorer, blind square, some beacon resources. One of the questions was can you program your own beacon? I have one minute. Through Nearby Explorer that is available in Nearby Explorer to be able to now program your own beacon. It's the only app that I know of that allows you to do that without some special permissions. But if you check out Nearby Explorer you can go to ‑‑ do a search for Nearby Explorer and it will give you the information in the user guide. And then in some other resources here there's ‑‑ this is just an online visual simulator if you want to share with a family or you're doing a presentation what does it look like from whatever, it will use the camera from your phone or from your computer to show you what it would look like for different types of diagnoses. And then there is a special project from MIT if I can get this one to load and I think I just hit the end so I should say thank you everyone. I'm sorry I didn't get to everything. [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Thank you [ Music ] Fade to black.