Listen to the audio of SeroSpectives: This Month in Tech for March, 2014 Replay the Accessible Event archive of SeroSpectives: This Month in Tech for March, 2014
About Our Presenters
Shelly Brisbin is a writer, editor, podcaster, and cocktail enthusiast. Her current project is iOS Access for All, a comprehensive guide to accessibility for Apple’s iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Shelly’s career in tech journalism spans 25 years, 12 books, hundreds of articles and blog posts for leading tech publications, and several stints on the editorial staffs of leading trade publications and Web sites. She served as editor-in-chief of Blogger & Podcaster Magazine, networking editor for MacUser Magazine, and online editor for online learning company, Powered, Inc. and Hoover’s Web sites. Her podcasts include the award-winning Shelly’s Podcast, and App Store Pundit, an iOS app review show. Her cocktail writing appears on this blog, and at the sadly departed The Spirit World. When she’s not working, Shelly spends time with her husband and cats in Austin, Texas, watches ancient movies, and reads books. You can follow Shelly on Twitter, or get updates about her book.
Liam Erven is best known for the computer games he produces for blind users. Games are released via his company, LWorks. His latest endeavor, Audio Archery, is now free for Android and iOS. Follow Liam or LWorks on Twitter for the latest updates.
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. Follow Rick on Twitter.
In The Community
A closer look at iOS 7.1’s accessibility changes
Getting Started with the iPhone and iOS 7: An Introduction for Blind Users
Battery drain problems in iOS 7.1, and how to fix them
Announcing the release of Sendero GPS 2014 products!
Solo DX Announces That They’re Closing Their Doors
Speaking of CSUN
New Tech Doctor Podcast: CSUN 2014
The Great Big List from the 2014 CSUN Conference.
Audio coverage from CSUN by BlindBargains
Mainstream Tech
Amazon ups Prime fee to $99 from $79: Customers likely to absorb it
Finally, Microsoft brings Office to the iPad
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
The Blaze by HIMS does sound like an interesting daisy player. For $695.00, I
don’t think many people will be able to afford it. Here are my comments on
what I know about it vs my Ipad mini.
The ipad mini has dual-channel 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi.
The blaze has 2.4 GHZ 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi.
The Ipad mini has Bluetooth 4.0.
The Blaze has bluetooth 3.0
Both the Ipad mini and Blaze have two speakers.
The Blaze has no telephone style keybad. This means you won’t be able to
enter a search string to search for books to download or internet radio stations.
With the following apps, I can do everything the Blaze does and more minus
the ocr.
Bard mobile: I can read nls books on it. Books can be directly
downloaded to the ipad mini.
Audible: I can read books from audible. Books can be directly
downloaded to the ipad mini.
Kindle: I can read Kindle books from Amazon.
Learning Ally: I can read books from Learning Ally. I can directly download
books to my Ipad mini.
Boice dream reader: I can read books from bookshare, unprotected epub. Supported File Formats
PDF, EPUB (DRM free), DAISY 3.0 text-based eBooks, DAISY 2.02 audiobooks,
Zipped MP3 files, such as LibriVox, Plain Text, Rich Text Format (RTF),
Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Pages, Apple Keynote, HTML,
What’s nice about voice dream reader, you can download books from both bookshare
and Project Gutenberg directly to the ipad mini. Voice dream reader is
supplied with Acapela Heather. You have the optionof using Neospeech or Ivona.
Personally, I like Neospeech better than Acapela. I haven’t tried Ivona as
of yet.
LibriVox audio books pro: I can stream or download books from
LibriVox or a large selection of old time radio shows. The thing I like
about this app, it will resume playback when streaming content.
Downcast: I can download podcasts directly to the ipad mini. I
can subscribe and unsubscribe to podcasts on the Ipad mini.
Tune in radio pro: TuneIn lets you listen to and record the world’s radio with
sports, news, talk and music streaming from every continent. Enjoy 100,000
live radio stations and 2 million podcasts, concerts or shows on your iPhone, iPad and
iPod. Record your favorite stream.
ooTunes: Radio – Recording and Alarm Clock! INFINITE Tunes, Talk, Sports, and
Entertainment Radio. over 36,000 web radio stations.
My Ipad mini is my most used device!