As I allow myself to reflect on my experiences with Braille, certain memories come to the forefront of my thoughts–writing lines of Braille cells across a page as a first-grader; the bewilderment I felt the first time I came across a page of Braille with lines of text that were not separated by blank lines; the smell of Braille books, both new and old.  When I was in middle school, I received a four-volume atlas of the United States as a companion to the social studies textbook our class was using.  I studied every map in that atlas over and over again for hours on end, tracing rivers and pretending they were roads.  I was ecstatic to find my home town, small as it was, listed on the map of Missouri.  Most of what I know about the geography of the United States today came from that set of maps.  I think back on the excitement of running to the mailbox and carting back box after box of Braille books and then hunting through the boxes for the first volume of the latest book I was about to devour.

These days, what with the portability and low cost of ebooks, it seems that Braille is struggling to keep its place in the lives of the blind.  The high cost of Braille displays compounds the problem, making it easier to simply abandon Braille, or perhaps relegate it to infrequent use.  Does it really matter if Braille becomes a medium that exists only in museums and the memories of older blind people? Is it time to move on to more modern and cost-effective ways of communicating the written word, or should we fight to bring Braille back to the forefront of our collective consciousness? Why is Braille still relevant today?

I believe Braille is essential for good writing.  I would not be the proficient speller I am today if I had not read hundreds of thousands of Braille words over the course of my life.  While any decent screen reader provides the ability to spell words and review lines of text character by character, it is virtually impossible to catch all formatting and spelling errors in a document with speech alone.  Anyone who uses text-to-speech software at all knows all too well the frustration of deciphering b’s from d’s, and sorting out all of the words that sound alike but are spelled differently such as there and their.

As I type these words, I wonder how many readers are listening to my thoughts at 600 words per minute? Is it really possible to absorb and digest a piece of writing such as this one when listening to speech at supersonic speeds? Don’t get me wrong—I skim through familiar and reoccurring text on a daily basis and would not consider using a speech synthesizer that I couldn’t speed up at will.  That being said, when I really need to digest something I am reading, I will slow my speech rate down or transfer the content to an sd card for later reading on my Braille display.  I am constantly amazed at the number of errors I find in documents I am reading in Braille that I did not catch with speech alone.

Finally, reading a book, poem, or blog post in Braille permits me to become part of the experience in a way that speech never allows.  I create voices for characters, hear a friend’s voice in my head as I read their written thoughts, and most importantly, slow down and really pay attention to what I am reading.

Would I want to go back to the days before I had my iPhone and portable book reader? No way.  Am I as likely to use a slate and stylus today as I was 20 years ago? Probably not.  Can I imagine what my life would be like if I never again read another line of text in Braille? I don’t even want to dwell on the thought.

And now that I am finished writing this blog post, I plan to do something I haven’t done in quite a while.  I intend to order a novel in Braille from my local lending library and–gasp–wait for it to arrive in the mail.  I will once again rush to the mailbox, collect those bulky boxes that have been sitting in the hot sun all day, retire to my room, open the first box, and enjoy the smell of a Braille book.  More importantly, I will once again rediscover the joy of reading Braille!

Despite various Internet woes, Jamie Pauls, Ricky Enger and Joe Steinkamp manage to discuss this week’s news stories.

Smartphones

RIM unveils BlackBerry Screen Reader for people with visual impairments

HumanWare Announces Changes to Non-Visual Access Software for BlackBerry Smartphones with discontinuation of Oratio for BlackBerry

Skype killing Windows Phone: Nokia responds

How the Blind Are Reinventing the iPhone

Apple

Apple may launch $799 MacBook Air this year, claims report

Who wants an iPad Mini? About one buyer in two

Apple HDTV rumor roundup

Apple releases iOS 5.1.1

General Tech

Microsoft SkyDrive vs. Apple iCloud and the folly of cloud poaching

Microsoft developing Kinect-like controller that uses sound waves

4 Ways Your Business Can Avoid Being a Menace on Twitter

Social Security Administration starts providing online statements

For anyone in the US, tell me will be discontinued on 1st June of this year.

AT

Important notice of future SPL Studio script development         

AccessTalk has a new RSS feed (as of podcast 5)

Victor Reader Stream updated to version 3.5

Mailbag

Both of the Directv IOS apps are completely accessible.

That means completely. No funny workarounds etc.

The iPhone app allows you to program a dvr from anywhere (very useful when halfway around the world or closer) and the iPad app allows that plus direct control over networked boxes plus even some live playback.

I wonder where Joe heard the DTV apps weren’t accessible?

Then we hear iReports from Veronica and Randy Shelton.

Roundabout

After the news, stay tuned for an interview about the Cisco Academy for the Visually Impaired. Jamie Pauls talks with Joshua Loya and Kerry Hoath.

Once again, Jamie Pauls, Ricky Enger and Joe Steinkamp settle in for a discussion of what was by all accounts a slow news week. Never fear, though. The gang found plenty to talk about, anyway. The topics discussed in this week’s podcast include the following:

Tablet Computing

An Accessibility Review of the Amazon Kindle 3 by Ricky Enger

For Windows 8 tablets, a weak forecast

Target will yank Kindles–why?

20 improvements I’d like to see in iOS 6

Smartphones

BlackBerry 10: Best feature nobody’s talking about

Samsung leapfrogs Apple as top smartphone vendor worldwide

iPhone 5 launching with 4-inch screen, new Dock connector?

Security

iTunes users griping about Apple’s security questions

General Tech

Hulu’s possible future: A playground for cable subscribers

AT

Skype 4.0 released and claims improved accessibility

EyeRing: Wearable Camera That Detects Objects For The Visually Impaired

Robot sensing and smartphones help blind navigate                                                      

Mushroom Escape – For the Best in Radio Drama and Comedy

Take the WebAIM screen reader user survey

Technology for Blind & Visually Impaired Viewers Debuts in UK

Mailbag

Roundabout

 ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Rick Harmon manages various email lists related to blindness and technology. He also runs the Blind Geek Zone website and Podcast. Since their launch in 2006, the site and podcast have served as portals to hundreds of free tutorials and demonstrations for  the blind community. While he did the majority of these, he has selected high-quality submissions by others for inclusion as well. In 2007, Rick began offering paid training and support services, both in person in his local area, and by phone.

Pratik Patel is the President and CEO of EZFire, a firm dedicated to promoting usability and accessibility to devices, web sites, software, and other electronic material. He is the current chair of the Information Access committee for the American Council of the Blind and serves as the President of ACB’s New York affiliate. His background includes legislation, access to assistive technologies, accessible books and other instructional material as well as many different forms of new devices. His Recent efforts include the implementation of the 21^st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which includes accessibility to videos, interfaces to televisions, DVR’s, and other mobile software and devices.

Randy Rusnak is probably best known in the community for his work on the Accessible Devices Website and Podcast. He is the producer of that podcast, and is one of four co-hosts. Randy works as a tech trainer at the Lighthouse Center for Blind and Low vision in Duluth, MN, and Enjoys communicating – with people, his five dogs, and parrots. Other hobbies include playing with all manner of Tech devices. And old and new time radio

KIDS

Twitter gets an A+ in kindergarten classroom

Meet the Fifth-Grader Who Made a Video Game for His Blind Grandmother

COMMUNITY

Are Internet Friends Real Friends?

APPLE

New iPad ranked top tablet by Consumer Reports

AT&T’s iPhones: Free at last

Getting Started with the iPhone and iOs5 for Blind Users

Top 10 iPhone Apps for the Visually Impaired

Next iPhone said to ditch glass for Liquidmetal, arrive in June

SECURITY

What the Cloud Means for Data Security

 Does Your Password Pass the Test?

With 600,000 Macs Worldwide Reportedly Infected by Flashback Trojan, here’s how to check if your machine is one of them

WINDOWS

 Computer Maintenance Tools Available In Windows 7

Windows 8 Release Preview to Become Available First Week of June

Accessibility

American Cancer Society Continues Information Accessibility Initiative

Publishers Call for Industry Cohesion on Accessible e-Books

With Ricky Enger enjoying a well-deserved week’s vacation, Lisa Salinger joins Jamie Pauls and Joe Steinkamp as they explore the top news stories of the week.

Privacy and Security

Living in Public: What Happens When You Throw Privacy Out the Window

Microsoft Security Essentials 4.0

Windows 8 Release Preview in June

Cloud Storage

How to use Google Drive with keyboard shortcuts

Dropbox Sharing Gets Easier with Direct Links to Anything in Your Dropbox Folders

General Tech

Stage set for Windows 8 hybrid, iPad showdown

Apple

Tim Cook Prefers Settling To Suing and Has a Huge Quarter

 Apple may unveil new MacBook hybrid this year, says analyst

Why we shouldn’t get too excited about a ‘Liquidmetal’ iPhone 5

AT

Top 10 iPhone Apps for the Visually Impaired

Braille Reference

Formerly Recording for the Blind, Serving Veterans Since 1948

Introducing DBT 11.1sr4

Braille Formats: Principles of Print-to-Braille Transcription, 2011.

Feature Writer Alena Roberts – Paying For a Taxi in New York Just Became More Accessible

Descriptive Camera, 2012

Mailbag

Oh yeah, I remember those Talking Book records in the boxes with straps.

They had a unique smell too, musty library basement, but somehow really comforting.

And I thought I was hot stuff at age 7 when I could replace a record player needle with the new one they sent me from the Cleveland Public Library.

Ok, down the old tech road, does anyone remember the Type and Talk external synthesizer? It was one of the first external synths and the fun thing about it was that you could turn the little speed wheel to the point where you could hear each little electronic blip it made to make one sound.

As for the whole employer checking you out on Facebook thread, it should scare some people. I know I pay more attention to my Facebook posts and tweets but also make sure my grammar and spelling are as good as I can make them.

From my Old Fogey side, I read some posts from blind people on Facebook who also say, there and in other forums, that they are seeking jobs, and I just shake my head. Horrific grammar, bad spelling, which I’m as guilty of as anyone, but with bad grammar it’s a double whammy, inane feuds with other people on Facebook and generally immature posts add up to someone I wouldn’t hire, blind or sighted.

I got unfriended by someone at work because she had trouble posting personal stuff to her Facebook page then those of us from work she’d friended calling her on some of it. I felt badly because I like her and enjoy some of her non-work stuff, but whew, she’

S young enough to be my daughter, which is depressing in and of itself, but she also doesn’t have many boundaries.

The other weird thing about Facebook is that people are starting to use it like email and I doubt they realize that everything, even their emails to each other that land on Facebook pages, is archived, by the Library of Congress no less.

My husband was involved with a non-profit organization for rare diseases. It was for one specific condition and much talk had moved from its email list to its Facebook pages. He tried a Facebook account and freaked at the public nature of it and what people posted about their medical conditions. Being a good conspiracy theorist, he said he bet the insurance companies just loved it.

He said this loudly and often to the organization executive director, seeing it as irresponsible to promote the sharing of pretty sensitive medical info in an open forum like that. Things have shifted a bit since he’s been complaining but still …

Sadly too I see it with guide dog handlers. They’ll put out on Facebook that they have this or that issue with their dogs, never contact the school for help or anything. I know sometimes people have issues with their guide dog schools, but we can’t help you if we don’t know you’re having problems and we won’t know that probably because we don’t friend every grad or ask them to friend us. Whew.

Great show as always. Keep it up!

Jenine Stanley

From the blog:

Tim Sniffen writes:

As promised, here is a link to the Main Menu show featuring a demonstration of SkyDrive.

Roundabout

Replay the Accessible Event archive of the program

 ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS:

Dr. Robert Carter is a 56-year-old psychologist at Texas A&M University. Before coming to Texas in 1989, he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Florida.

As a graduate assistant, Dr. Carter ran an accessible computer lab where he taught blind people to use the Apple II. In his doctoral dissertation, he studied the decision making process that rehabilitation counselors go through when they select access technology for their clients.

Since 1975, Dr. Carter has been involved in the testing and development of dozens of access technology products. He frequently speaks publicly about access technology.

At present, Dr. Carter is the host of “The Tech Doctor” podcast where he helps his listeners make sense of the ever-changing and complex landscape of accessible technology. You can keep up with him by following him on Twitter.

Erin Edgar is a lawyer working for a non-profit legal aid organization in North Carolina. She and her husband co-host a podcast called Tech Access Weekly, in which they discuss the latest developments in mainstream and assistive technology. Additionally, she also co-hosts a podcast called Book Hoarders Annonymous, which is dedicated to book-related discussion of all kinds. She can also be reached on Twitter.

Darrell Shandrow is a blind accessibility evangelist, Internet radio

broadcaster, assistive technology instructor, and technical writer living

in Tempe, Arizona. As the publisher of the Blind Access Journal blog and

podcast, he is part of a team of advocates, assistive technology

instructors, and reporters including Karen Shandrow, Allison Hilliker,

Jeff Bishop, and special guest contributors exploring accessibility and demonstrating revolutionary new technologies for the blind.

He also co-hosts the Desert Cafe radio show on ACB Radio

Interactive every Sunday at 10:00 a.m. Arizona and Pacific Time, where all

listeners may enjoy good music and great conversation with friends.

Keep up with the latest happenings by following him on Twitter.

IN THE COMMUNITY

CSUN12 Window-Eyes and Windows 8 Presentation now available online.

HumanWare Brailliant Braille Display now supported with iOS 5.1

A T Guys has released a free iOS app for BlindBargains. An Android app is also out. Early eBook Pioneer Bookshare Marks Decade of Innovations k

ON THE NET

AOL KILLS Off AIM

Privacy

Thank you, Facebook: A way to demote annoying ‘friends’ on the sly

ACLU: Employers demanding Facebook passwords is privacy invasion

What Happens to My Gmail Account When I Die

GOOGLE

Five ways Google’s unified privacy policy affects you

APPLE

iPad 3: What we didn’t get

Apple iOS 5.1: First Take

iOS 5.1 Battery Life is Significantly Improved

Apple TV’s new user interface: Hands-on

MICROSOFT

Windows 8 Release Candidate rumored for June, retail release in October

Thank you for joining us for SeroSpectives. If you’d like to continue the discussion of this topic, please join us in the SAMNet Tech Chat Room. If you are not a member, you can obtain a free, seven-day trial by visiting http://www.satogo.com.

SeroSpectives is made possible through technology from Serotek Corporation.

Visit the SeroTalk.com Blog and Podcast for the Latest Access Technology Information

Email Resources@SeroTalk.com Your Comments, Suggestions, and Ideas for Future Podcast Segments

Download iBlink Radio, Free App for Android and the iPhone, with Radio Stations and Podcasts Created by

the blind, Radio Information Service and audio Tutorials!

DocuScan Plus Afordable and Powerful OCR Solution

Serotek Corporation – System Access Screen reader, SAMNet, docuScan Plus, Remote Incident

Manager, iBlink for the iPhone, and Accessible Event

Try a Free Fully Functional Seven Day Trial of System Access and SAMNet Today by going to

www.satogo.com

AccessibleEvent Makes Meetings and Webinars Accessible to the blind, Deaf, and Deaf-Blind

© 2012 Serotek Corporation – All Rights Reserved.

This week, while Ricky and Joe are off to CSUN, Jamie Pauls, Buddy Brannan and Lisa Salinger discuss the news of the week. Here are the stories they discuss:

Privacy

Five ways Google’s unified privacy policy affects you

iPad Rumor Roundup

iPad 3 rumor roundup

Apple iPad 3: What to expect

The curious case of the missing iPad 3 home button

iPad 3: Apple’s Biggest Test

AT

Window-Eyes and Windows 8 Presentation now available online

Listen to SPN coverage and Blind Bargains coverage on iBlink Radio.

App will help blind, visually impaired navigate streets

Blind Bargains: IPPLEX Rleases LookTel Recognizer Ap for iOS

Blind Bargains: Code Factory Announces Braille Support for Android with Mobile Accessibility V1.9

Blind Bargains: Free Mobile Accessibility App Now Available for Sprint, Boost, Virgin Mobile

Introducing ChromeVox (with audio description) – YouTube

Just Another Checkbox by Mike Calvo

Windows 8 Roundup

Windows 8 beta folds in 100,000 code changes (live blog)

Windows 8 Beta: Hands-on with Microsoft’s tablet-friendly OS

Is Microsoft hoping for the best but preparing for the worst with Windows 8?

Is Windows too expensive?

Apple

General Tech

Roundabout

Blind attorney teaches self-defense and overcomes fear

Playing Video Games Can Help Improve Your Vision

As with all good things, CSUN 2012 has come to an end—except that it doesn’t really have to end quite yet. Perhaps you attended this year’s CSUN conference and didn’t get to do quite everything you wanted, or maybe you didn’t get to go at all and would like to experience some of the excitement from the comfort of your own home. With over three hours of interviews conducted by Joe Steinkamp and Ricky Enger now available on SPN Radio, you can immerse yourself into the world of CSUN 2012 any time you like. Feel free to write to us at resources@serotalk.com and give us your thoughts on this year’s convention.

On this week’s podcast, Mike Calvo joins Jamie Pauls, Joe Steinkamp and Ricky Enger live from the Road To CSUN.

Be sure and listen to all of our CSUN coverage on SPN Radio.

You can also listen to Triple Click Home Episode 4: Beefed Up Book Reader Thing and an upcoming episode of That Android Show coming very soon.

After their visit with Mike, Jamie, Joe and Ricky tackle the news of the week.

AT

Extra Extra Read All About It: Exciting Sendero Announcements

Blind Bargains: Ask the Readers: What Would You Pay for a Truly Accessible Phone-based GPS System

@ariadneGPS: Version 2.0 is on the store. Podcast on the web site at http://www.ariadnegps.eu

Georgia Tech’s BrailleTouch is a Braille writer for iPhone

Apple

Apple’s latest sandboxing deadline delay signals moving goalpost for devs

Rumor Mill

Smaller iPad in ‘testing stage,’ says research firm

Don’t discount Apple’s interest in a smaller iPad, says analyst

iPhone 5 rumoured for autumn, not summer

iPhone and Android apps now required to have privacy policies

Mailbag

Round About

@AccessSanDiego: San Diego Zoo has an Accessibility Guide in Braille! Get it at Guest Relations.

Is Skype a social network? Microsoft’s dark horse has legs…

‘Smart cows’ can text owners when mooood strikes

Contact The Show

Follow the SeroTalk Podcast on Twitter