SeroTalk Podcast 144: Words Mean Things

Listen to SeroTalk Podcast 144: Words Mean Things

While Ricky and Joe were scurrying around at this year’s CSUN conference, gathering excellent interviews for your listening pleasure, Jamie, Lisa and Buddy sat down together and did the podcast thing. We trust that you will enjoy the results of our musings.

CSUN: It Won’t be Hard to Access BARD with the Upcoming iOS App from NLS

Ananse Productions Gets Fancy with Letter Clever for iOS and Android

LookTel VoiceOver Tutorial

Making Zombies, Run! 2 accessible

Netflix Agrees to Caption All Videos by 2014

Solo-DX

What Will Sequestration Mean for People with Disabilities?

Microsoft’s Office 365: Business users’ top questions (and answers)

Amazon launches Cloud Player app for iPad, iPad Mini

As sink Nook sales, so slumps B&N’s fiscal health

Google’s Andy Rubin: ‘No plans’ to open Android stores

iPad Mini to bury 9.7-inch iPad in 2013, says DisplaySearch

iCloud nearly back to normal after early morning outage

Tim Cook doesn’t like Apple’s falling share price, either

iTunes U crosses 1 billion downloads—have you used it?

Prepaid Carrier Could Be Stuck With $100 Million Worth of Unsold iPhones

Bloody well time, Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7

Mailbag

From Robert Carter:

Hi,

In podcast 143, Rodny said that 1password did not allow passwords to be stored in the cloud. This is incorrect. 1password uses Dropbox to store an ncrypted database of your passwords. This allows one to access passwords across platForms and from multiple devices.

I have been working with the developers of 1password to make it fully VoiceOver compatible.

Robert Carter

Typed with BrailleTouch

Sent from my iPhone

From Chelsea Cook

Hi Serotalk Team,

Once again, another great, thought-provoking,  and funny podcast! I listen to SPN every week.

I had some general comments about this week’s show. Regarding the rats seeing in different spectrums, I think that is super cool. As a physics and astronomy student, I get asked all the time how I can do astronomy when blind. What people don’t realize is that optical observations account for very little these days; major things happening in the universe  are usually always in spectrums the human eye cannot process anyway. Once viewed from this perspective, people seem to think it is the coolest thing ever. But imagine if I could look into the night sky and see in a different spectrum than my sighted peers? What do you mean, you can’t see that X-ray binary?

I think fingerprinting the human voice would make dictation a lot more accurate than it already is. At least for me, the conversations with Siri break down when I am tired.

Technology keeps changing. Like Joe, I really, really want an Apple watch. Imagine breadcrumbing your place in a crowded room with your bag, iPhone neatly tucked away inside? then, when you wanted to come back to your spot, you could tell the watch to locate the phone and play the hot and cold game until both devices had found each other and subsequently your seat? Vibrations? Bluetooth? NFC? These are the reasons I write realistic science fiction; wouldn’t it be cool to see ideas come to life that fifty years ago were just dreams? And still no hover car as of yet. Darn!

Regards,

Chelsea

PS. You guys should start a “shownotes book list.” I can never remember all your recommendations 🙁

From Michael

Dear SeroTalk land,

I am an avid listener who hails from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Regarding Podcast 142 on what Ricky mentioned; I find it fascinating how Apple once used unreliable voiceprint technology in Mac OS 9.2 as an account login option, than compared to the technology now days being used for Dictation and Siri.

Alos, I don’t know if people are aware of the iOS app called “Braille Pad” (student or pro). Even though I haven’t had the opportunity to try it myself, I believe it allows six key entry via keyboard and I’m not sure about touch input. I encourage other visually impaired/blind iOS users to give it a try.

However, I am familiar with the Mac version of it, which is called “Braille Writer” (student or pro). Braille Writer Pro makes a descent substitution for Perky Duck on a Mac, but found it currently incompatible with VoiceOver navigation.

Anyways, that is all I wanted to say and hope this is somewhat interesting.

Great job with the podcasting and am looking forward to hearing next week’s episode.

From Michael

————————-

P.S.    I tried to leave an iReport from my iPad, but couldn’t find an Info button, or any other button to create and submit a report, otherwise I would have loved to talk about what I wrote.

Michael’s World

Visually Impaired Student

www.mts.net/~wefour

From James Mannion

Hi everyone,

I really enjoy many of the podcasts on SPN including both That Android show and Triple Click Home. I listened to Serotalk 143 and really appreciated Mike’s comments concerning the horrable inconsiderate selfish Samsung suit. I completely agreed with Mike’s assessment, but find myself looking for anything if there is truly something to go on at this point that gives us reason to be confident that they are not going to have success either there and then here in the US or launch the same thing in the US with or without their success in Germany. Yes it is wrong on every moral and technical level when you consider that the end result they are asking for is for Apple not to be allowed to provide us access and possibly for no one to be able to. Do we necessarily have confidence that judges care about that though. I use my phone for a lot every day and it makes me sick to think that maybe just around the cornor Samsung is going to be taking that away from me in their own selfish inconsiderate persuit of more billions of dollars. I also understand that they are just using us as a pon in that persuit as well. I find myself quite concerned about it wishing I had reason to be confident it is dead and put in its rightful place.

Jim

Another email from James Mannion

Hi,

I have a speaker recommendation for Mike Calvo to check out and review. They are the Vanatoo Transparent one speakers. They are sold on amazon and on their own site, http://www.vanatoo.com I have been using them for a while now as computer speakers and I also have an airport express hooked up to them as well for airplay streaming. I would give them a 9 out of 10 for sound for sure. They have numerous connectivity options that prove very convenient. They look fantastic. I sold my Bose Companion 20 speakers after coming across these in a store and buying them that day. The Bose sounded pretty good some of the time, other than when something was playing that hit on that 60 hz bass hump they had and if you could ignore their constant club echo sound. Yes the bose companion 20 sounded amazing for their size, but I didn’t care they were smaller than they could have been and those sound characteristics took something away from them. You might want to check out these Vanatoo speakers. They are pretty cool.

Roundabout

Why Did Bach Go Blind?

Virtual boy teaches autistic children social skills

Blindness not stopping ex-cop

Recommended Reading

As promised, here is a link to the excellent book Beethoven’s Hair by Russell Martin that Jamie mentioned during our Roundabout segment.

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