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See Things Differently podcast.

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Welcome everybody to See Things
Differently.

Episode 10.

We've made it into double digits.

I don't know how that happened,
but we are here and I am so excited because this is a
very, very special episode.

We are changing the format a little bit, and I have with me, of course, David

Woodbridge and our esteemed product manager of all the Braille products,
Andrew Flatres and a couple of guests,

Chris Cooke, Scott
Erichsen and Allison Meloy.

And we are going to take over the airwaves
and talk a lot about Monarch and how these three amazing folks purchased it and what their stories are, and we're just going to have a discussion.

And I've been really, really excited to sit down with these guys and hear
what they have to say about Monarch.

So friends and neighbors
and everyone welcome, Andrew.

I'm passing the mic over to you.

Thanks very much.

And this is the first time
I've been allowed on the show.

So it's a privilege.

So yeah.

Welcome, everyone. My name is Andrew

Flatres I'm the braille product manager at HumanWare, where I've been with HumanWare
for over 20 years.

It's like part of the furniture.

Been to many different roles within HumanWare, from technician- even worked at the old headquarters
back in New Zealand, when we were formerly known
as Pulse Data.

So some of you may have known the Pulse
Data kind of days.

And now, of course,
being product manager, looking after all the braille products.

And of course, speaking of the braille
products, Monarch is certainly one of the elite products
that we have launched and, it's great to, it's great to be here
with, some of the people that have purchased the,
the Monarch themselves.

And I would very much like
to hear some stories about what you've, what you've been doing with the Monarchs.

So, I'd like to ask Scott,
first of all, like what?

What's been your kind of,
perception of the Monarch?

What have you been using?

Is there a typical use case
that you always use your Monarch for?

What do you reckon, Scott?

Yeah.

Look, I, I guess I first,

I remember when I first saw the Monarch,
you showed it to me, and I had a glass of wine in
my hand, and you took it away and said, no, no, no.

The membrane doesn't support that

And yet,
I think for me consumption, that's why.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So it was at CSU in 2023.

I first saw it, and, right
then I knew, in my head, I was like,

I want this, I want this, like, now,
but I couldn't take it home.

So I, I got one in October of 2024, and,

I, I started off,
I guess, sort of using it for, you know, reading, mainly reading
because it was just, you know, back then, we didn't have the, the screen reader
support for JAWS and stuff, but, so, just but just be able to read, multiline and, on, on, on display
was just game changing for me.

And, I'm, I'm a musician.

I'm also a, Well, I'm not a lawyer yet.

Yes, but I'm working on it.

And, to

I, did my, practical legal
training, this year, which is essentially what you have to do before you can apply
for admission as a solicitor.

And obviously,
you have to read a lot of material and, it was so empowering to turn up
to my class, turn up with the Monarch and, all these people like, oh, my God,
what is that?

And then when I showed it to them
all, they were all really impressed.

But we, we had group working
peers, and, and I ended up

I worked with, someone who literally 30 seconds
before we were due to present.

He modified something in a document,
gave me the document on a memory stick, and I just shoved it in the Monarch and opened it, and,
I was able to just read it. And, you know, in
the old days, you would have kind of said, oh, you have to wait ten minutes
while I emboss it, or you have to read.

I mean, let's be honest, single line
displays are still very important.

You know, they still have they have
a huge place and we can't forget them.

But the revolution of being able
to read electronic braille on multiline display is just huge.

And for me, sitting up
in front of everyone, presenting, with an electronic device, reading,
you know, electronic braille in multiline was yeah,
it's still to this day, just, you know, I still think
how lucky we are to be able to do that.

I mean, we'll get into graphics, I'm sure, later
in the, in the session, but yeah, it was, it was really an eye opener, and I use it
to read a bit of music as well.

I went to the turn with that,
but that's sort of my main example.

I've used it to read, the music.

Not at the same, not at the same time.

I haven't tried turning a piece for it
yet, but that's on the radar.

So I'm, I'm a piano player as well as a,
as well as attempting to be a lawyer.

And I work in,
the Australian government, so,

I'm looking forward to
when the government, eventually allow us to have JAWS with the multiline support,
and then I can use it to work.

Well, let's, ask the same question,
to Chris.

Hi, Chris. How are you? Hi.

I'm doing great.

Thanks so much.

So same question really, in Scotland

Yeah.

So be interested to hear about your kind
of initial thoughts on the Monarch.

What are you using? Sure.

So I received the Monarch
through the APH RISE project.

And those initials are always a bit
of a conundrum what the RISE for.

But basically it's resources, inclusion
something and employment.

Anyway, it's a great, program that
provides grants, to receive, Monarch.

And so there I'm
in a cohort of professionals.

I work for an agency that serves, people who are blind
or visually impaired adult learners.

And I am very excited.

I take the Monarch in its special bag
every day to work, and I just love it.

So one of the things I love about using the Monarch is its ability
to show the graphics and there's a wonderful graphics library,
and it has really proved helpful for me.

I work with adult learners
and several of them, do not have English
as their first language, so it's been a really a wonderful addition
to my workflow with them.

So one day I had a gentleman
who was working with me.

I was determining his knowledge of music
notation, and I didn't have an interpreter, and

I wasn't sure how to explain what I meant
by the various lines on the staff.

The note values, the shape of the notes, what exactly
he knew about printed notation.

So I got the Monarch out.

I went to the graphics library
and I showed him the various note values and also the various, staff lines,
and he immediately recognize them.

I could tell that he understood
what I was communicating.

I was asking for his body of knowledge,
and he was, just great with that.

And he loved filling the various pictures.

But had
I not had that example to show him, then I wouldn't be able to get my question
across.

As to his previous knowledge,
I've also used it with folks in finding out
their understanding of fractions, and that has been really awesome.

And so it's really proved
so helpful for me with my ESL students.

I also, of course, personally
just love reading on it.

I love reading books in the library.

NFB Newsline here in the States,
and I also, you know, enjoy reading music on it too.

And finally yesterday
I was, experimenting with the split

Braille view, so I got a chance
to see what that looks like to, have a different couple
different things on my screen.

And check out what that has to offer.

So I'm very excited
about all the possibilities.

I know that the tactile graphics excite me exceedingly, and so I'm going
to keep playing with those, but I just

I just love what it does for
my workflow with my students.

Fantastic! So it sounds like, Chris, that
you really use a lot of the applicant, the onboard applications,
on the Monarch, I do now experimenting with the new addition
of Braille terminal, right.

With JAWS

Split braille that you is referring to.

So yeah, that's definitely
that's definitely going to be interesting.

I think going forward when we when we look at multi-line braille
now that split braille enhancement that was introduced in JAWS, which I think
was last year, I think, yes.

And of course that was introduced
to single line displays, which was basically splitting
your display in half.

So you have an 80 cell.
Then of course you'd have.

I think it was something like 39 cells
either way.

Or either side.

And now with multi-line, I really think
that does open up new possibilities.

And I'd be interested to talk a bit
more about that I think, later on.

But let's, let's jump on to Allison.
Hi, Allison. How are you?

Hi, Andrew. I'm so glad to be here.

I am probably the newest member of the Monarch family.

I've only had mine for a couple of weeks.

I had been hearing about it, obviously,
since it came out.

I know some folks who have one.

I, do some podcasting with David, and,

Rachel and I are, old friends
from back in California.

So I've talked with her a lot about it.

And, you know, the closer
we got to having that, terminal support,

I knew that I needed this in my workflow
for a couple of different reasons.

And so I actually, was kind of intrepid and bought it before I saw it.

I ordered it the-

Yeah, the day before I had a demo.

And luckily I loved the demo that I got, and have had it now, like I said, for a couple of weeks
and the things that I have done so far, are- one of the things
that has just really given me a lot of joy is being able
to read a Braille book for pleasure again,
I can't tell you how long it's been, since I've done that.

And just being able to read,
you know, a paragraph or sometimes two before I have to pan,
it just makes the experience so very nice.

And I've just I've been reading,
some books off of Bookshare and just really enjoying myself there.

I'm a worship leader at my church,
so I've been using it, for reading lyrics when I lead the congregation, and also for
just following along with the service.

And, I managed vision services
for a state agency, and now I finally have,
the version of JAWS that will allow me to use terminal mode
on my work PC.

And I'm actually looking forward to
tomorrow taking the Monarch to work and, and trying that out.

I've got it hooked up and working
beautifully on my home PC, and I've just really started
to scratch the surface of what I can do.

With Multi-line and Jaws.

And it's just, it's
so cool to be able to see the layout of the desktop and to see how,
the various parts of the screen, like the system tray
and everything, relate to one another.

That to me has been just a huge moment.

Tactile graphics for me.

I'm realizing that I kind of have to
go back to, go back to school, almost.

In terms of learning
and working with tactile graphics, because I have probably not used, tactile
graphics.

Since I was 18
and that was over 20 years ago.

So I, I really,

I think what I would really like to do
is try to like, get some very basic tactile graphics,
and get a picture of what they are, have something like Be My AI
or some other eye tool, describe it to me so that I can get an idea of, okay,
this is what I'm looking at on the left side
of the of the display here.

And this is what this means,
because I have to admit, I, I have a dog.

I looked at the picture of the dog on the on the Monarch and I was like,
this doesn't look like a dog to me.

Why is this so?

I know that I have to kind of, regain that literacy,
if you will, of, of tactile graphics.

But it's a challenge
that I am really looking forward to.

And like I said, I only had it
for a couple of weeks, but I have already.

It has just changed my workflow.

I lead a lot of meetings.

I see this being really revolutionary for,
being able to go through my, bullet points for my meeting notes
and stay on, on track.

And it's just I'm so excited
that I was able to secure the funding, to be able to get this.

And I'm very grateful
to my very understanding husband.

Well, fantastic.

Well, as a newbie
then, Allison, I'd be interested to hear about your initial kind of reactions
to reading on the Monarch.

You know, this being probably one of your first multi devices
experience on a refreshable device.

I mean, how does it compare to reading it
versus Braille paper?

Obviously there's you've got the,
the membrane the so there's like a small membrane
that comes over the dots.

And that's something
that people have questioned about.

I know from previous lists
that I've been reading on that there's some people
that didn't initially like it, and then all of a sudden it's like,
oh, no, actually, I'll get used to it.

So I'd like to hear
all of your opinions about when was that moment when to use like,
okay, it's not a problem for me.

Or there was a reaction
that this feels different and how would you compare it
to Braille paper? Because of the membrane?

It does feel
just a, just a hair different.

But I never even from the very beginning
of first touching the demo unit,

I never found the membrane
to be, a barrier, if you will, to, to my being able to, to access the Braille.

It feels obviously,
you know, because of the membrane for me.

Just a tad different from paper Braille, but it very much still feels like Braille.

And as you go along and are reading
something like a long paragraph of text, the more I, I had myself do that
over the first couple of days that that I had this I it just
it never really got in my way.

Like I never I never was like, oh,
I wish this membrane wasn't here.

In fact, I'm really glad that it's there.

It, it, you know,
it protects all of those, amazing dots.

So, it's never it's
never hindered me any, any in any way.

There wasn't ever a time where it
was like, oh, okay, I get it.

The membrane
isn't an issue because for me, truly.

And I realize that isn't
everybody's experience, but for me, it was just never
it was never a hindrance.

Okay.

And then Scott and,
what about yourself for being a long

One of the longer

I guess user of the Monarch.

You had one of the first ones
out the doors.

Scott, right?

So interested to hear your thoughts
when you initially received it.

Talk to your experience.

Now, I never had an issue
with the membrane.

I kind of think of it
like reading thermal form.

If any of you guys remember
reading Thermoformed paper, back in the day,
you know, I, I don't see an issue with it.

I know I never had any trouble reading it.

Obviously,
it might have been a bit slower.

So now I'm looks a little faster,
but I think that's like anything in practice that the more you do
it, the easier it gets.

Yes, exactly.

And that's, that's some of the feedback that I received when,
when we actually started this project over five years ago.

There's me with the initial kind of demo, demo
kind of pad going around the USA, actually showing, Braille readers
this kind of technology.

And, and a lot of the feedback
that I received was it feels a bit like thermal paper
or thermal forms from a sheet, and with the Braille spacing,
because the braille dots are equal distance.

Right.

It's not the same size
standard as a single line display, because we're using equidistant dots to not only display braille,
but also tactile graphics.

There was that initial, initial kind of,

I guess, thoughts that when you're
reading it, it feels a bit bigger.

But again, I think after time people, were kind of used to that, you know,
it was definitely acceptable.

It's closest to that Braille standard
as possible, given the fact that we're also going for,
tactile graphics as well.

So again, same question to you.

So, Chris, and how did you find that that membrane,
when you first receive the Monarch.

Yeah.

So I didn't have any problem
with the membrane at all.

Just didn't bother me a bit.

Probably
the little bit about the spacing.

It didn't bother me, but I, it
occurs to me every once in again like, oh yeah, the spacing is different
just because of the equidistant dots, as you said.

But no, the membrane
never gave me a moment's, worry at all.

I was it just fine with me?

And it does
remind me of Thermoformed paper too.

I read a lot of that
when I was a kid. Good.

And has it have.

And if you had to replace
the membrane yet.

No, no no no.

Good. Okay. That's good to hear.

I mean, obviously we're saying average about six months,
but I think, you know, it's longer than that.

If you if you look at the advice, of course,
I don't think I've replaced mine at all since I had my Monarch,
which has been over a year and a half.

So, it's certainly takes
a beating to get, to get any damage
to that membrane for sure.

Okay.

Well,
let's talk about, tactile graphics.

That's a bit a big, big subject.

I mean, a lot of people, when it comes
to tactile graphics, you can you can access the TGIL,
which is a library from, from a page that you're able
to download tactile graphics, or you can actually open up graphics
from the samples folder.

There's a samples folder that's in the, in
the Monarch or just from your USB stick.

So interested to hear from you about what
tactile graphics you've attempted to open.

Obviously there are, times where

I think you mentioned there, Alison,
that it feels like you're back to school and you're now going from a 3D image
to kind of a 2D image, which is different.

But what kind
of graphics have you been experimenting?

So let's ask the question to, to Chris.

First of all. I, really love the tactile
graphics, and I started with the simple ones,
like there was a baseball helmet there, and I was visiting
with my brother and, and some friends, and I couldn't
figure out that it was pointed.

We were looking at a side view,
and so the and the friend took off his hat and brought it over to me and placed it in
my hands and said, this is where it is.

Oh yeah, okay, we got a side view.

So it's fun.

You can actually rotate the images and turn them side to side and upside down
and right side up.

And it's really fun.

And so I started out with simple things
and went on to the more, challenging ones.

But what I did want to say about,
things is that

I've also asked, ChatGPT to create a logo
for me, a couple of different logos, and I asked it to do a line drawing, and, it did that, and I determined
that it got the Braille dots wrong.

And in the logo I asked it to create.

And so that was pretty fun.

So, so that was using the browser.

So use the, the
internet browser to, to do ChatGPT?

No, I actually use my computer
because I have the website bookmarked on my computer.

So I just saved the image to a USB stick
and plugged it in.

And I'm just ask it to do line drawings.

And it's been really fun.

A couple of minutes later to just feel
the logo that I just had it create.

I guess that's a really good way
of learning as well, right?

I mean, if you kind of asked
for a particular object and a line line drawing
and then try to open that up, you can kind of then understand what you're already trying to look at,
I guess, you know, and compare that to the 2D.

And that's really important
when you're trying to certainly starting to understand tactile graphics.

It's definitely a skill to acquire
because you could be fitting anything in it if you don't know the context behind that,
you just it's just guessing.

Right.

So I think it's really important
when it comes to tactile graphics, a way of learning.

And I think that's a really good method
using ChatGPT to learn, like reading tactile graphics.

What I've used in the past
is I've always just use four basic shapes, and perhaps
this may be something we need to look at.

Adding as a, as a default,
graphic is we've got four different shapes or five different shapes
triangle arrows, square circles of a star.

And we separate them in top left, top
right, middle bottom left and bottom right.

So it's just gives you a clear understanding with the shapes
that you're feeling, the braille labels, but then also the orientation
of the page as well.

So how can you navigate
to the top left in the top right of your, of your kind of tactile graphic in a way.

So it's interesting to experiment
how to learn tactile graphics.

And I think ChatGPT is a good way.

Interesting!

Okay.

Well, Allison,
what about yourself, Allison with chat.

So graphics.

Well, the one thing
I've really been looking at a lot is, the map of the U.S, because it's
something with which I'm familiar, living in the U.S and having gone through,
geography class and having had, tactile maps in the past, it's really, just allowed me to take the time
and kind of reacquaint myself with the different shapes of the states
and how, how every state is connected.

And,
I was able to find Ohio where I am now.

So, that's been a good, a good learning tool for me because it's something
with which I'm already familiar.

So I found that to be very helpful, too.

And I love your idea,
Chris, of line drawings.

I'm going to I'm going to do that
this weekend.

And then Scott, what about yourself?

I know you've been using your mind
up for reading Braille arts and music.

What about the tactile
graphic side of things?

I, I have a lot of fun actually,
with the TGIL because back, you know, in January
when I talk, when I, when I talked
about the example earlier of having to, you know,
being able to talk with the Monarch and just being able to read multi-line
in front of the group of people.

Afterwards in the break,
everyone came up to me and said, well, that's really fascinating for us.

What can it do?

And I said, oh, it can do text,
but it can also do tactile graphics.

And then more people came over the
oh my gosh, can we see some graphics?

So I had to think about what
picture to look up.

So I used the TGIL and looked up.

Well, a pretty deep one
at the Sydney Opera House because I thought
you probably familiar with it.

So I look that up.

And then I looked up the Eiffel Tower
and a few other things.

But for me personally, I've been,

I mean,
I think the categories are great too.

You can look for all sorts of things,
like your music values.

You got maths for those who pursue it.

Maths people I'm not,
but you can look at, you know, there's just so many options.

I to love the idea, that you were saying,
of just having a really basic graphic and it's simply to say people, okay,
he is, you know, here's how it works.

I've noticed some of the graphics,
it would be nice if they had labels.

And that's essentially just to, I guess,
be sure of what you're looking at, because I know I've opened the old graphic
and gone wow what is this?

It's it's it's this,
but it doesn't look anything like it.

But again,
that could be 2D to 3D graphics and, I think, you know, again, I,
I haven't looked at graphics since I was at school either,
you know, but it, it is still a really interesting
way of doing it.

ChatGPT is fun too I have used that
to create some, some drawings.

It would be really interesting.

Because I know you can put,
you know, JPG and PDF files in there.

It'd be really interesting to,

I'm assuming if you give it a photo,
it won't, you know, you know, people do some strange things,
but I haven't tried it, so that would be an interesting thing
to try as a couple of things
you touched base on there.

She's got I mean, the, the,
the images that come from TGIL, the main purpose of TGIL was to provide
kind of the foundations of everything.

That was the initial kind of visual
objective of TGIL from APH, which then allows other people to add their additional, add
additional context, you know, so labels and maybe
add some changes to the tactile graphic.

But then when we now look
at having that direct access, that does open
it doors to allowing you to download and try to view as many graphics
as you want.

But of course, you know,
the context is what it still lacks.

Now, I think from TGIL
and that that's something

I think
APH are looking to work on there, that'd be making some improvements
actually on the TGIL.

And I think they'll extend
that and added more context, but tactile graphics as a, as a whole,
you know, we're looking now to

AI had this massive talks
about converting the images to line graphics,
but I think we could go one step further.

And this is something that I,
I'm kind of visionary is imagine with the touch surface because we on
the Monarch has the ability to read where your fingers are with the touch
sensors, but imagine touching in areas on your graphic to get additional context.

So I think it was,

I think it was Alison that you mentioned
about a dog.

Right.

So, you know, imagine
if you was feeding that to the dog image and maybe you'll come up towards the tail.

You know, there's a way that you could
maybe double tap or something on there, and it gives you a bit of more information
about where your where your fingers located, what,
what area you actually touch it.

I think that's really key.

So that that's something
that would definitely, definitely envision in the future
when it comes to tats or graphics.

And I think that will happen.

You know, I think there's a big piece
about AI at the moment when it comes to graphics,
and I think you could do, you know, an okay job.

I think Chris gave a great use
case of learning graphics.

Turn it into line drawings.

But we want to go that one step further
because I think it's really important for, you know, for user to have more context.

And that is possible I know it's possible.

So let's hope I'm, I'm sure
it will happen in the near future to have.

So I guess any other questions from
from Rachel and David.

Is there any other questions
that you would like to ask the guests?

I have one, so has anybody played
with the Wing It up because this is the app that you run on your iPhone
or your iPad with your Apple Pencil, which I really like doing,
and you can do very quick drawing.

So, for example, the first thing I did
when I started using Wing It app was

I wanted to see
what my signature look like, because I've always imagined that it's
going to be a lot nicer than I thought it was.

So first thing.

So I drew it up
and I thought, yeah, with the D's.

Not too bad.

The J is not too bad for John, but the W.

I have never seen a worse W in my life.

It's sort of like a I don't know,
it was sort of like a sine wave or it was.

It was very weird.

It wasn't what I mentioned
the real W to look like.

So that's the first thing I tried.

But then I did.

I, when I've said lose my vision
a long time ago, the last thing I can remember seeing
was an elephant for some odd reason.

Which reminds me of sort of the old, you know, the blind, the blind men
and the elephant type story.

But I was- I drew an elephant.

So I went back to all my childhood
drawings, and I was able to draw them on the Wing It app.

So that was actually really fun.

So I'm just wondering
if anybody's actually played using the Wing It app on their iPhone.

I'll probably pick on Scott first.
Okay. Yeah.

So as someone who has had no vision, it was really interesting to play with
because, you know, I have an idea.

The only drawings I know how to draw, what I've either been taught or remember
from looking at graphics.

So, but again, I did the signature thing
and, didn't realize I, you know, I need to,
it's always the same.

It's always the wrong size. But,
you know, that's okay.

You know,
they always say to you, oh, drawing right in this little space here,
and it's pretty big.

Yeah, that's not going to happen,
but I think look, I have played with it.

I haven't played with it
as much as I'd like.

You reminded me I'm
going to play with it again this weekend.

But, the Apple
Pencil was an interesting way of doing it.

I think that's great.

I, I haven't tried drawing
without the Apple Pencil.

Be kind of nice.
If you could use your finger as well.

I haven't tried that.

Yeah, I mean, you can,
but what I've found with the with your finger
is that you can't get a definite precise. precise angle.

So, because I've got lots
and lots of different Apple products here.

I've got the tip of my head.
When I was on.

There isn't that far behind,
you know. You're not.

Oh, no, it's over.

Isn't So. Yeah. So.

But that I found what I did.

I could do more accuracy
because I wanted to do, you know, some other stuff to do with like,
F1 racing cars and all that sort of stuff.

So that's actually been really good.

So let's see who can I pick on next?

Alison, have you played with
Wing It app yet?

I have downloaded it.

I have not, drawn anything with it.

I, I know how I, how I do when I have to
sign with my finger on any touch surface.

So I think I'm going to invest
in an Apple Pencil, because I think it will help with my mind
to look what you did.

Yeah. Yeah, I know I've made a point.

Alison does not need any encouragement
to buy technology.

No. She makes- I need discouragement.

So. So, Chris, by your by your estimation,
I'm assuming you've done, like, you've got into art galleries and done
demonstrations of tactile drawing.

I'm just joking.

Have you actually played with the
Wing It app yet?

I have, and, I did get an Apple Pencil, and I, I,

I haven't done a lot,
but I found something frustrating that I,

I believe I wrote to you about on Mastodon
and I said, it thinks I'm done before I'm actually finished, and I lift my finger
or my pen, the, you know, the pencil and it and it
it doesn't keep on going.

Like, I'd like to be able to have it
remain active.

Me to be drawing on the screen,
doing whatever.

And then when I'm done,
maybe I double tap something, you know, because I want to signal it.
Hey, I'm not done yet, buddy.

So, you know, I just that's the thing
I found frustrating is that I.

I didn't want to feel the screen too much
because I didn't want to add a finger to the pencil, but also,
I wanted it to wait for me to be finished.

So that was
that was my only frustration with it.

Yeah. And looked like it.

And we think too is I mean, everything's you know, everything
changes a lot of software because software never changes
the way it is.

And yes, I did notice that too,
when you even when you pause or you have a bit of a
think about which way you want to go next or what you want to do
next, it does time out on, you know, and you know, as with HumanWare, whereas with APH,
I mean, people love getting feedback from.

Right, you know, people
that actually use the product.

So I'll give it some feedback as well,
because, you know, sometimes you sort of want to ponder your next squiggly line
in your masterpiece.

So but yeah, that's just to me.

How about you miss Rachel?

What have you done with your Wing It app?

I have used doing it
obviously try lines and circles.

I've also used it to try and improve
my print letters.

I tell everybody when I write it looks like a five year
old did it because they're angled in, they're crooked and they're my,
you know, circle with what the R is.

It's all curved
and it's just it looks silly.

So I've tried
to use it to kind of help me, you know, make the letters maybe
look a little bit smaller and maybe more precise.

I just I love the instant feedback
that it gives me.

I mean, I can draw I haven't used an Apple
Pencil, so I don't know the differences.

I just use, you know,
just my finger on the iPhone screen.

And it's so, so cool.

To be able to, to look at things
and in that way to jump to kind of the other end,
we talked about this beginning and as we've had such a great discussion,
I want to ask, all three of you,
four of you and five of you, because Andrew's done
some, some work with Monarch and JAWS.

But for those of you who have used it,
I guess what is your favorite part?

I have too many favorite parts.

I love looking at Excel.

I so much easier to grasp the concept of,
oh, that's where all of my columns are.

Or if I put a formula in Excel,
it shows up at the bottom of the display and I can see if, oh,
there's a reference that I need to change.

But I think one of my fast becoming, favorite features is the split Braille.

I was using it the other day.

I was reading a webpage in the buffered
text view, and I was taking notes in another document, and I just thought
it made so much sense to me.

Now, how say did folks and Andrew please
chime in on this?

You a lot of people have, multiple
monitors.

And I thought,
why would you need two screens?

Isn't one enough?

But it's so you can glance at information
and then go back to your main screen and look at things.

And so just I guess from an overarching perspective,
I love how Monarch allows me to relate more to the visual world
that we all inhabit.

Right?

And I think that's so important
to be able to understand, where a text is
and what it looks like, and then how we can grasp
that kind of like tactile graphics.

So I guess I'll start with Allison.

Allison, if you've had a chance to play
with JAWS, what is your favorite feature?

Well, I have it is just generally super amazing to be able to just read for me.

Whether it's an email or a document,
to be able to just read it in Braille fluidly without having to push a button
every few seconds.

But, I did
get to check out a little bit of Excel.

Now that I've got the ability
to use the Monarch at work,

I'm really looking forward
to diving into that more because I look at a lot of data, both in Excel form
and in word tables.

So that is going to really kind of change my workflow for the better.

That that probably for me
is the most exciting.

I'm interested in trying split view.

I have to admit,
I never tried it on single line.

I can see the,
the appeal on multi-line though, so I have a feeling that once
I try it for a couple of things, that's going to kind of
become a go to for me as well.

I mean, using the Monarch with PowerPoint,
that's another really.

Yeah.
I'm going to say it powerful feature.

I have not yet, but I can see that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just being able to glance at your
full slide and not having to scroll, so much,
especially if there's pictures and, and things you have to kind of scroll
through them to get to the text.

So if anyone uses PowerPoint and that's, that's a really fun way
to use Monarch and JAWS.

Chris, tell me, tell us all.

What are your thoughts about JAWS and Monarch
if you've had a chance to play with it?

I have, and I would.

I was so thrilled to download the update
that first night.

I think it was midnight or something.

I was upstairs downloading.

I was so excited.

I love like you've all mentioned,

I love reading
just the multi lines in a document.

I have checked out the spreadsheet.

It's really fun
to have the little column dividers and the formula at the bottom,
as you mentioned

Rachel.

And I'm just got introduced to the split rail yesterday and so I'm still wrapping my head around,
okay.

If my cursor is here,
then the buffered thing is over here.

And anyway,
I needed a more of a tutorial on that.

I feel like some more information
would be great.

There's a great, episode recently
on that from APH, but I need more details.

So, anyway, no,
I'm really excited about that.

About, being able to access
two parts of the screen at the same time without flipping back and forth with,
my keyboard, you know?

And so, yeah, it's all just great.

I, I'm loving it. Fantastic!

Scott, we have come to you
in this lovely roundtable discussion.

I know you've played with it.
What do you think?

But I haven't played with it for a while,
actually.

It's really innovative.

I mean, it's split braille.

I've been using for a while because I have the luxury,
I guess, of having 80 cells.

So to split the cells sort of halfway,
you can do it with the 40 as well, 20
with the 80 into 60 and 20.

Or you can split different ways.

But the Monarch split view
is another level.

Again, it's just amazing.

I think what's really unique
about the multi line support for JAWS
is the fact that we have specific modes.

We have, you know, the crop mode and the,
the wrapped mode.

I think from memory the name is.

Yeah.

And I think it's really nice
to have those dedicated modes because you can
just if you want to read text, you can just read the text with no,
you know, no issues at all.

And, you know, no blank lines
or any is great.

And with, crop mode, it's just excellent because you can read, like spreadsheets,
as you said, Excel.

And, and it's amazing to look at,
no one's mentioned the web.

And I've used it quite a bit on the web,
you know, looking at web pages and it's really interesting
to look at a really big table.

And, and to look at how that looks, you know, on the Monarch
and looks correct.

I guess you could say, well,
hopefully correct in a multiline sense.

I can't wait to be able to use it
for work.

But, given the slowness of,
any government in the world, you have to wait.

But, you know, I can use it at home.

And, you know, it's wonderful
to be able to use the different features.

I like you, Rachel.

Have used PowerPoint a little bit
just to see what it was like.

You know, I haven't sort of used it extensively,
but I have used it, a bit.

Excel and Word of great Outlook
is really interesting as well.

Like we said,
it's nice to look in message list of mail and then sort of go,
okay, with it.

And if particularly to just rate the email
and I find as well and I'm sure all of you would as well.

Like I find you know, when I often
when I read with the browser single line browser by JAWS,
sometimes I will just not always not ignore the display I guess.

But when you're reading
like for efficiency, sometimes you don't use it every second of your,
you know, your workflow.

You just like,

I'll just read this some speech
and then I'll go back to display what I need to check proofreading.

But with the Monarch,
I find that I'm reading a lot more.

You know, using the Braille more,
which is a great thing for any, any of us.

I mean, hey,
we all spent a lot of money, on the Monarch, you know, but yeah, I think that's
just something about multiline for me.

I'm spending more time with my hands
on the Monarch itself, rather than flicking
between the Monarch and the keyboard.

And I think that so
I think that's a, that's a positive too.

Scott, I've got a question regarding that.

Do you find yourself
reading quickly or faster?

Yes, yes I do actually.

I think because if the, if the,
when I, I'm a bit of a strange man,

I should have mentioned this early, but,
I kind of wish that we could, customize the, panning buttons.

So, in other words, have the zoom buttons,
I guess because they're easier to reach.

Yeah, I have them as an option for the panning.

Because obviously your little finger
can reach out and go tap and you can move to the next stop,
whereas you have to physically move your hand at the moment
to get to the.

And that's, that's whether you use it in the Monarch itself
or the using the screen reader.

But I no, I think that would
potentially speed up how it flow.

So that's one of your,
your wishlist

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get to that later.

But yeah, yeah that
that that is certainly one thing.

Yeah.

And just to hear what, Allison and Chris would very much like to see
next on the on the Monarch.

If you got a wish list, what you would
like to, to have on the Monarch,

I would like, I would like to be able
to play more games.

I'm really looking forward to tackling
chess.

I haven't played chess
in probably 30 years, but,

I'm looking forward to trying that.

But I would like to be able
to play more games, maybe even some, some, fantasy games where you have to, explore on a map,
and find different things, maybe even like,
I know that there is accessibility.

I, I'm, in the process of trying
to download a bunch of accessibility mods for the Java version of Minecraft,
and the first thing I'm going to do when I get it all working
is I'm going to hook up my Monarch and see if it'll show me anything.

Because I like- that would be awesome.

That would be because I'd like to
to be able to just look at on the, on the display and say, oh, okay,
that's what a tree looks like.

If I go over there, I can interact with it
and I can get logs and start building things.

You know, just like those kinds of things,
I, I love games.

And so anything that would make,
the more visual aspects of, of more complex gaming,
more accessible is just right up my alley.

And I know that on the game side
of things, there's more to come.

So what's the space on that?

I know that on the chess side of things,
there has been talks about potentially making that an online game
so you could end up playing playing against someone online
on the chess, other things.

So, yeah, exciting times on that.

Right? Okay.

Well then same question to Chris.

What's on your wish list.

What would you like to see
next on the Monarch?

Well, I'm glad that Alison mentioned games
because I was trying to think of what I'm wishing for because I'm
so busy learning what is here. So, but, I want to put a plug in for something that I suggested
and got the ball rolling on.

Accessible

Sudoku boards?

And so, someone on the multi-line

Braille users group
list, is seeing hands .org

They created 250 accessible Sudoku.

Boards, and those are available
in BRF format on their website.

And I love playing Sudoku.

And so if you know the numbers one through
nine have to, you know, occur in each row and each column
without repeats.

And so I suggested, okay, just,
put two hyphens in where you want a blank and then put upper cell number with the number sign in the number
where the set up is of the puzzle.

And then put your own numbers as Nemeth
numbers, load, you know, drop two numbers with the number sign.

Anyway, it's really fun,
and I've played it at lunch and I've got other people interested
in it, and, games are great.

I think word games would be awesome.

Crossword puzzles?

Just any any anagrams, just,
you know, anything like that would be really, really fun.

So just saying, putting it out there
that you want something.

Within five minutes,
this person had returned this amazing said

Sudoku puzzles. And I'm like, really?

How did you do this
with a computer program that's so fast?

It's awesome, I love it.

I think someone else has created
some kind of baseball game.

I'm not sure.

I've not tried it myself, but there's
also a baseball game that's been created.

I'll be interested to find out
that how that plays on the Monarch.

One thing that I would like,
I guess, is to be able to be able to draw on the Monarch itself.

So at the moment with the Wing It app,
you're going from the, you know, the in front of the iPad to the Monarch, whereas
I'd love to be able to just as I draw.

I'm sure this would be fixed
in the way that but, as you draw on the Monarch, I'd love to see the fact
that you're actually drawing the line as you're actually
dragging your finger around.

So that's number one.

But number two, part of that would be an
I don't know if I'm dating myself here, but a long, long time ago in the beginning
of time, like about 25 more years ago, there was a device called the Nomad,
which I'm sure Scott probably remembers.

And what it was was
you'd have a tactile diagram, and then you could tap
on different parts of the diagram and then it would pop up
a little audio segment, and we could certainly do it
in High Fidelity braille on the Monarch, but that would give you more information
about that particular item.

So let's say for example, you were touching a wing of an aircraft
and you touched the flaps.

Then you could double tap on the
on the flap, and that would give you more information
about the angle of the flap and how it's adjusted for takeoff and landing
and all that sort of cool stuff.

So I'd like to see that sort of extra
level of, information.

So it sort of brings
the actual diagram more alive for it.

It was a huge part of my schooling.

And it was and now it's gone.

I'd love to see it on the Monarch
because.

And Andrew kind of alluded to it earlier,
he kind of hinted that that, that we could do it.

So, you know, get those developers, you know, give them some more money
and they'll keep them busy.

Well, they are certainly busy.

There's they're busy working on the
the next version, of course.

Which, which will be exciting.

I think there's some good enhancements
coming on the next build, with an next version
which will be out very, very soon.

Oh, can I mention
one thing I forgot about?

The wish list?

I know one of my colleagues
also has a Monarch as a part of the RISE project, and I believe she was mentioning,
access to Google Docs and Google stuff because so many students are kind
of required to use the Google platform in the classroom.

And so have you been having a sneak
peek of Version 1.4?

That's nice, but not that I, you know, so maybe so you could you could certainly you could certainly say that,
that is coming very, very soon.

Awesome.

That's great.

I guess my wishlist item
would be I'd love to see.

And this is kind of far out.

We're talking about
connecting external accessories, but

I'd love to see something like an OCR app
come to Monarch.

You know, you have an external camera
and you connect it and you scan a document
or maybe even a food product box.

And then, you know,
I could read instructions or save them.

So OCR, I think would be great.

Also, if we had a way to get,
maybe in PDF documents right now they're turned into text,
but sometimes know there's tables.

And what if we could keep, you
know, structured or tagged PDF documents and then we could see
how it's spatially formatted, you know, for tables or headings
or columns or things like that.

Because we all,
I think, work a lot with PDFs.

So I guess OCR and then maybe, physical representations of PDF
documents would be great.

Hi Rachel your next time
you work in the kitchen reading your recipe
or your box with an OCR program,

I want to find out
how good that membrane is.

Like getting flour on the Monarch.

I am washing my hands a million times in the kitchen, so it would be very far away
from any cooking, but it'd be great to kind of look at instructions
and get everything ready.

Yeah, I remember a while back actually,
when we when we first presented the Monarch, actually, one of my demonstration
was to spill some Coke on the device.

Oh, gosh. So. Oh, I can't really like.

And I still got the same one.

Oh, I still got the Monarch
and I've still got the same membrane.

It's it was really just to prove
the protection.

Well,
obviously if you, if you go in between the cracks of all the keyboards and stuff
and that could potentially cause damage.

Right.

But it's nevertheless the membrane
there is to serve as protection of those brain cells.

And just spitting actually no liquid,
whether it's red wine or Coke.

Oh my.

I've got that little bit of protection
there for you.

I probably we probably should say though.

Please do not try this
demonstration at home because just thinking about it right.

Yeah. Please do not. Right.

Well thank you
everyone for joining me on this.

I guess we're running out of time now,
so I'll pass it over to Rachel.

Well, I just want to thank everyone,
Andrew and Alison and Chris and Scott, of course.

Trustee host David,
thank you guys so much for coming on.

And giving folks kind of an inside
look as to why you purchase the Monarch and how you use it, both personally
and professionally.

It's been a ton of fun
chatting about what things we want to see, what things are here
that we're excited about, and I think it's only going to get better from here as technology
just continues to grow and evolve.

So thank you guys so much for coming on
and having a really great discussion and conversation about Monarch
and what it's done for you in your lives.

We appreciate you guys so much.

And as always, if you as listeners
have comments, suggestions, you want to be like Scott and Alison
and Chris and come on and chat to us.

You're more than welcome.

Send us a note to [email protected]
and we'll be back next month.

See you later.

Hey everybody, it's time for the upcoming shows segment.

We will be in quite a few places
during the months of October and November.

Starting on October 23rd
through October 26th.

You can find us at the NFB
state convention in Albuquerque,

New Mexico. On October 23rd and 24th.

You can find us at the South Carolina
AER Association of Education and Rehabilitation
Professionals Conference in Myrtle Beach,

South Carolina. On October
30th through November 2nd.

You can find us at the NFB convention
in Westminster, Colorado.

On November 14th, we will be at the V Rate Conference
that is the Vision Rehabilitation

Assistive Technology Expo in Phoenix,
Arizona. On November 18th and 19th.

You can find us at Sight Village, London.

And lastly, on November
18th through November 21st, you can find us at the Accessing Higher
Ground Conference in Denver, Colorado.

If you're at any of those places,
please feel free to stop by and say hello.

We'd love to catch up with you!

If you have comments or suggestions,
we'd love to hear from you.

Please send them to
[email protected]

That's [email protected]

Thanks so much for listening to See Things
Differently.

We'll see you next month.