Hello and welcome to the HumanWare
See Things Differently podcast.

Each month, join your hosts Peter Tucic,
Rachael Ramos and David Woodbridge as we bring you engaging interviews from
guests, interaction from our one of a kind distribution partners, stories
that will take you off the beaten path, current promos, shows
where you can find us and so much more.

So stick around.

Good morning, good evening,
good afternoon, good day, good night,
good times, good times David.

Good times Rachel.

Welcome to see things
differently with HumanWare.

How's it been?

How's your April going,
you guys, as we pre-record this?

Where? It's not even April yet.

Mine's going absolutely spectacularly.

I was going to say something smart today
and say all 3480 primary nodes are online
and fully functional on the Monarch.

That's a lot of pins.

And you got the number right. 3840.

Look at that.

Rachel, could you have pulled out
the exact number of pins on a Monarch at the drop of a hat?

You know, not like that.

So I got to give this to David.

David that was truly champion.

You are the Monarch
champion, and I applaud you.

Thank you.

I don't even know how you tied that
into an intro with your first sentence of the podcast, talking about
the number of pins on a Monarch.

So I hope we'll have 3840 great seconds plus of content here.

I don't know how many minutes
that equates to. I haven't divided it up.

A note from your friendly editor
3840 is 64 minutes.

This month we're going to be talking a lot
about talking books, about talking products.

So at HumanWare we have a wide
array of product and we've talked about

Braille, we've talked about low vision,
we've talked about our GPS products.

And this month we're going to talk a lot
about our talking solutions.

And we have a number of them, certainly
products like the Victor Reader Stream, which are the Victor Reader
Stream, is definitely our most well known product and has been for a long time
that Victor Reader brand.

But we also, have products
like the Odyssey, which are,
OCR optical character recognition devices.

And we certainly have other types
of talking book players.

And in looking at this
and kind of thinking of who can we talk to, who can we talk to
to really get a sense of, how we integrate
with so many different libraries around the world
with our talking products, and we do lots with not just libraries
here in the United States, but also in places like Canada
and Australia and all over Europe.

But I was, I was racking my brain.

And there is a friend of mine named Scott
Norris who has joined us, and Scott is the manager of the talking book library
in the state of Michigan.

And Scott is here
and is going to talk a bit about what it is like to kind of be in this role
because we oftentimes hear about analysts or CNIB or,
you know, CELA or Vision Australia, and we know
we hear a lot of presentations, but it's really neat to have that sort of librarian
or that, that, that manager standpoint.

Not only is Scott part of the library,
but Scott is totally blind.

And so I think it's going to be awesome
to talk a little bit with Scott.

Scott,
how are you doing? What's happening?

Happy, happy April,
even though it's still March.

Well, Michigan State University basketball
team is in a sweet 16, so that's good.

See, and this is why it's so Scott
is based out of Lansing and it-

For anyone who's not familiar with March in the United States
it is basketball college basketball crazy.

Can you talk a little bit about,
I guess, just about your role, at the National Library Service, just in
what kind of services or what it means to you to,
to bring and kind of be such a big part of the library
in such a big state.

I'll give you just a tad of a background.

I've been up, as Peter
said, I'm totally blind and, a Braille reader and the, when

I started with an
illness as a patron in 1964, so that was ten.

So if you could do some math,

I'm old. We normally joke
about how old David is, Scott.

So this is good, because normally David's
on the chopping block here.

Grandmaster. I'll have you know.

Thank you very much.

We provide braille books and audio books to qualified Michigan patrons.

And to qualify for this service,
you have to be blind, low vision, have a physical disability
that prevents you from holding a book or manipulating the pages,
or have a print disability like dyslexia.

And, you know, a physical disability
could be somebody- it could be a temporary disability
like, oh.

I knew a woman once that, broke both her wrists
skiing, you know, she fell and tried to stop herself with her hands and,
like I say, broke both of her wrists.

So that was, a fun experience.

Do you find it harder, to kind of keep up
with because you do have eight ways.

Some would say eight ways to Sunday,
eight ways that you can, you know, not only, you know, receive the book, but
you can consume in so many different ways.

Is that hard to keep up with, especially
with all the new kind of streaming or sort of On-Demand ways of getting books
today?

A little bit, but I'm going to
I want to tell you a story first.

This is about when BARD first came out in 2007.

And for those who don't know, BARD is what?

Oh, Braille and audio reading.

This is the website that actually where we get our books
from here to put on cartridges and where any of the patrons,
Michigan patrons or any patron across the country of NLS can download
a book to their computer, their phone, their Braille e-reader,
even their smart speaker.

It all comes from BARD.
At the same time that the the first edition of this Victor Stream
was released.

We got two Streams, one the library bought and one I bought, from the same vendor.

And my wife is sighted and sometimes, she's a little reluctant on some technologies.

So I said, look, this thing is really cool
here, look, I downloaded books to it.

I put on, this SD card,
and now you can carry this around.

Listen to it. She goes,
I don't know if I want to do that.

I said, come on, just check it out.

So sign it. Checks out.

And she says, can I take this to work out?

And I said, yeah, you can go try it.

That's the last time I saw it.

Yeah.

It's, you know, she goes,
this is the thing that's great.

So she goes download
some more books for me.

I love it too.

I have a friend who, he and his wife are both blind
and their sighted, their sighted children who are younger children, will use the
The Victor Reader Stream every night when they're going to bed, to
to listen to their books.

And it's, you know, I always jokes that
they're probably the only kiddos, some of the only kiddos, in this country
are going to use screenless devices to put themselves to sleep or,
you know, use them anymore.

But that is that is awesome.

That is, you know,
and I've heard of multiple. Yeah.

This kind of oh, my, my spouse
or my sibling or somebody uses the book when they're driving, you know, and they just hooks it
into their, into their car radio or whatever it may be,
because the Stream in particular has been such a unique way
to access content as a push button.

You know, interface.

And it is one of it's been a mainstay
for reading books for so long.

You know what else I have, Peter?

You know, now,
the new player's coming out, the new DA2 player come in. HumanWare's had
longtime partnerships with many different libraries and National Library Service
is certainly no exception.

We were part of the design
and kind of, of the first player, and now we're part of the
the design of the second or newer DA2 or the digital talking book player,
which is think of it as, for those of you out there
who are familiar with the Stratus, it's that sort of a desktop player.

This is an NLS iteration of a standalone
desktop player that will have Wi-Fi, that has Bluetooth,
that certainly, you know, capable of giving you a much louder speaker,
an experience.

Bigger buttons, a more
a more stationary experience.

And it's a-
but it's a way for you to receive

National Library Service books
now through Wi-Fi.

Or certainly
you could play them with cartridges, but having a, a much bigger unit.

And that's something we've been working on
for quite some time.

And now it's out in the open.

And it's we have a lot of folks who are excited,
and we do these sorts of partnerships, not just with the National Library
Service.

We've had partnerships
with libraries in Canada and in many parts of Europe.

We've provided Stratus machines or,
you know, for these different libraries.

And certainly, it's been really neat.

And, Rachel, you've been a big part
of this with me too, and creating some of the user guide and,
and working on the, the second, talking book player
for NLS.

And I think it, it, it's neat
because as much as we see the smart speaker,
we see the new Victor Reader Stream 3.

We you know, we have all these new pieces.

David,
I think would be a question for you.

And and as you kind of
look at the realities of Australia and you've certainly traveled
around, do you what are you seeing in terms of libraries
in your side of the world?

Are you seeing this?

We will give you all sorts of ways
to access content, or is it still kind of stationary?

You know, the I guess
the only thing we really don't have in Australia, which they've got overseas,
is the fact that, Vision Australia doesn't have a like an online
library system where you can, you know, log in via a smart skill and,
you know, get your book and listen to it.

But, you know, Vision Australia
does have an iOS app, an Android app.

You can run it, you know, through a web page.

I just like the fact that these days
we've got choice.

And particularly for some people,

I absolutely love the Victor Stratus
because sometimes the, you know, the Victor
Reader Stream has got too many buttons.

And I know on the 4
you can hide it with a mask the buttons that people don't want.

And for some people that's all they need.

They just want a player that can walk
in, press a button, hey presto.

They can listen to their book.

So to me, the Stratus is one of those things
that I'm really pleased to know that you know, HumanWare
and is continuing with NLS, because it's very powerful for people
that just don't want to know about technology,
but they want to have the fun of reading.

Yeah.

And NLS had a lot of say
in, in what they wanted to see and I think the difference, you know,
from, from a typical off the shelf

Stratus, if we look at, the, for instance
the braille labels.

So Scott, you've, you've seen the,
you know, there's braille labels on that device.

On the overlay itself,
there are different shaped buttons.

You know, and just it,
it is taken quite some time, from inception to as, as any product
does this to get it right.

And certainly now,
I mean, they'll continue through this year as they start
to really roll out this new player.

I think it it cements the fact that we want
to continue to provide products, especially in this talking realm.

Most of the users of our talking book
products are relatively newer to blindness.

When we talk about that kind of those
bigger players, not all, but many, and I'm sure quite a large amount of your patrons
are relatively newer to blindness when they come into learning
about NLS and books and things.

Is that true?

You know, the, patron population,
that are below 60 or 65
and older that have lost their vision and, you know, for some of those people, technology is a real struggle.

You know,
they lost their vision.

And that's where their focus is in trying to get them
to move them into technology.

Sometimes it's really difficult.

And, you know, technology's
like everything else, you know, some people just eat it up and think it's
the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Yeah. Like David and another people.

Yeah. Look,
I don't want to know about any technology.

I just want to get my book in the mail and play the book,
and that's all I want to do. Okay, fine.

And we have that option for people.

One thing for me, Peter, too, is that,
I mean, I hate the term because it has the word stupid in it,
but for me, it's on that constant term that I've grown up with is,
you know, keep it simple and stupid.

I just wish we could find another word
for stupid, because simplicity does not mean bad.

It doesn't mean I don't function.

It just means it's actually easy to use.

You pick it up, use it.

You don't have to, you know,
read the manual or anything else.

You pick it up, turn it
on, press a button, and hi presto.

So I'm really glad that, you know,
for the innovations that HumanWare has done over the past.

What's that now, 35 years or something that we've kept hold of,
that simplicity of our products.

And we haven't lost
we haven't gone into the, you know.

Oh, yes.

You've got to have a degree to navigate
this device.

We've kept that simplicity with most
of our devices, including the Stratus.

Well, and, you know, the other device
I was thinking about was the Braille e-reader that, we started sending out.

What was it now?

Almost two years ago?

And, you know, this is a device that has a 20 cell refreshable
display on it, so it has, pins that move up and down that create the braille letters.

And then ultimately the words.

But this device also has Wi-Fi on it.

It's got, you can connect it to NLS to Bookshare and to NFB Newsline.

And it functions as a braille display
as well with your screen readers.

Right. So your JAWS, your iOS.

And this was something
we've been thrilled.

I have been so-

And this is a US,
you know, NLS specific product.

And we would love to see this. Certainly.

You know, be successful with, with other libraries.

But the NLS e-reader being able to have a braille display
available to any patron, no questions asked, you know, if a patron
wants access to a braille display, traditionally a braille
display is a very costly, investment.

It's something that isn't necessarily available to anyone,
especially not here in the United States.

There
certainly are some programs in parts of, of the world that that have made refreshable
braille accessible.

But for us, it has been so neat
to see the, you know, Braille getting,
you know, underneath the fingers of folks who are newer to, newer to blindness,
but also folks who, you know, don't have the means
to buy a Braille display for personal use.

And, it's a great segue, right?

I mean, I'm glad you brought up
because, like, even as much as we're talking about talking books or the access to library,
Braille is a huge part of NLS.

From the music catalog
to the foreign collection, there is a gigantic Braille BRF
offering in hardcopy as well, I believe.

Right. And you can get one book
a month in Braille.

Just sent to you. Correct?

Yes. And you can, you know, basically keep that, now,
if you if you, we send you a Braille book,
then that you have to return.

But this,

Braille book a month from NLS and a yeah,
you can, you can basically keep the book.

You know, I'll give an example how useful
one of these, Braille e-readers are.

I have a patron up in Port Huron. He, goes to a Bible study class for church.

So he has one of the versions of the Bible in Braille on his e-reader.

And then he creates, questions
and comments, and he puts them on the SD card
that you can, pop into the back of the Braille e-reader.

And so now he can switch back and
forth and, and bookmark his,

Bible verse that they're talking about.

He can read that.

Then he can hop over to his SD card
and, read his questions, getting one of the,
Braille display for free, is really great.

And, I as one of the two

BARD administrators for the state,

I've seen the,

Braille downloads jump, like, 200%.

Scott, could you go back and maybe talk
a little bit about Braille on demand?

I just found out about that last year,
and I was so excited.

I have a cooking without looking book.
Oh, I love to cook.

And I love to read the recipes.

And,
I was wondering if you could tell folks, about that,
how they would sign up for that.

Can you get it in different forms,
like, uncontracted braille or maybe different braille tables
or how that works?

I just think it's a great resource
that folks may not know about.

Basically what it is, is
you could request a Braille book from NLS one book a month, and, they will produce that book
for you and send it to you at no cost.

I have not done that myself.

I know people that have, everything done except for some of that, juvenile books that NLS does is, done in UEB, you know,
I was thinking it for something if somebody might want
to keep in use over and over again.

And Rachel, you just brought it up.

Cooking
without looking or any of our cookbooks.

Well,
now I still have my book, my cookbook here, and I can grab my cookbook,
flip it open, and, and I'll see what other recipes
I can come across.

How does someone request those?

They can call us, and we can
we can, do the request process.

So contact your state library to
to do that.

There's also a website
we can put it in the show notes.

That's how I, I was able to request it.

And you can fill out the
the book in your information.

And it shows up at your doorstep
a couple days later.

It's a excellent service.

Can I ask a question about
as we look to kind of wrap this portion up on what you think of or where you see,
I mean, the library going, do you think we'll see some changes in
how books and libraries will work in today's world to give content
or create content for, or to patrons?

I think what, and this is just Scott Norris's opinion.

I'm not representing myself as an NLS the employee or an expert,
but I think what's going to happen?

I think they're going to utilize
some of the, either AI or at least some of the voices from Nuance and some of the other companies
that and some of those are pretty good.

And, and then, just have them read, read the text, you know, do a- do a text conversion, text
to speech conversion and that, you know,
that would not take very long, that you could crank books out
fairly quickly that way.

And, instead of only 4000 books,
you know, you would get 5000 or 6000 or 8000 books in and people would have much more, content to choose from.

And that's, I think, the biggest, stumbling block right now is the time that it takes to, record books, whether it's recorded by a, commercial vendor or one of the NS, contracted, narrators.

It still takes time.

But if you were just, scanning text,
you could do that very quickly.

I guess I'm sort of hang on, hang on
my head on the text to speech, but, you know, then they then they could
produce more esoteric books and, and more nonfiction because we're about,
oh, probably two thirds fiction, one third nonfiction.

So we could
we can increase our nonfiction catalog that way.

Well, here's to hoping
I know all of us on this call.

I think I think we were all voracious
readers.

And I know that the more content,
the better. Scott.

Thank you tremendously for joining us.

We really appreciate your time.

And, you know, it's been great to to be able
to just chat a little bit on the, on the library in the state of really,
you know, of NLS and what you're kind of
is seeing in the state of Michigan.

And certainly a lot of this can be
transposed to libraries around the world.

So again, if you have feedback,
please provide it and feel free
to send us an email at [email protected] .

Welcome, Scott. Thank you tremendously.

And I believe you may be sticking around
for a second or two with us, but, let's hopefully connect soon.

And thanks for coming
on. Oh. You're welcome. My pleasure.

Welcome back, everybody,
to the cringeworthy part of the podcast.

And Scott is has been kind enough
to stick around for this one.

I love this.

I was thinking about why I'm always, well,
what's what's cringeworthy.

And believe me,
there are lots of moments in my day.

They're cringeworthy.

Some are related to blindness,
some are not.

This one, though we can all relate to, and many of you out there
can relate to this.

And Rachel,
you and I just attended an extremely crammed, busy, awesome CSUN conference
and you were a rock star at the booth having a great time
as always, as we tend to do.

But in that
I realized something, all the time.

And we had a with a wonderful HumanWare
event one evening, a joint event with the American Printing House for the blind and in
and whether we were I was at the booth or whether I'm at this event,
which is a nice crowded room.

I always have this random time,
and I happen several times throughout a conference where somebody I'm talking to
and I'm engaged in conversation, and the next thing I know,
they're gone, right?

They have they have walked away.

And I think, you
know, and it's never intentional, but when what ends up happening
is I'm speaking with someone and the next thing I know,
I ask them a question or I try to continue the conversation
and they're gone.

Rachel, did you have this happen to you
at all at CSUN?

I'm sure you've had it happen all the time,
but did this happen to you at CSUN, where you're at the booth
and someone kind of someone kind of vanishes.
You know, that does happen.

You'll be talking to somebody
I know I have and will.

I'll just be chattering on about this
and that and the products, and I'm really into it.

I'm having a great time and I'm like, so
what do you think about X, Y or Z product?

And I get
crickets amidst a very busy exhibit hall, but there are still crickets.

And I think, wow,
I wonder where in my monologue they left.

I think what I'm, I think
what's funny is I guess it's what would we want people to do?

How can we avoid the talking
to the empty chair?

Because it is very embarrassing, especially when there's
a few other people around and they'll be like, oh, he's not there.

And I'll be like, oh, and usually I'll flip it into a joke
like, oh, he's ran away again, or that person is no longer
here, haha. But it's interesting.

I think, what would we like,
I guess,

Scott, you have what do you think?

Like,
have you ever talked to the empty chair?

I've had that happen at conferences.

You know, where
you're with colleagues and, you know, it's it might
be kind of the end of the day and you're talking to 3 or 4 people,
and then, you know, one person leaves and it's and then another person leaves it.

Yeah. And then all of a sudden, so wait a minute, where the heck did everybody go because they don't say,
you know, I'll see you later.

A lot of times they just walk away.

I always ask and I can tell
when somebody has worked in our space a long time because they'll say, excuse me
a second, I'm going to grab this.

Or honestly, I mean, you really know
if somebody has been very familiar with this because
I will have plenty of sighted colleagues.

Say, Peter, hold on one second.
So-and-so just walked in.

I've got to go see them, and I love-
I am so informed.

I'm like, do please do go.

Go over there.
You don't need to talk to me.

I love when someone will just say, or-

And even if you don't have to say
exactly what I love when they say what they're doing, though, because sometimes they'll be like,
give me a second.

Then they vanish. And I think, like,
where have they gone?

You know,

I love when it when they're a bit descriptive or even
just say, I need to get some water,

I have to go to the restroom,
whatever it might be.

Holy cow.

The amount of times.

And I love when it's amazing
when somebody does give you that information very quickly,
just very quickly.

What are the why they're stepping away.

How much more just, you know,
how much more normal the conversation is, when you don't have to all of a sudden
make a joke about you talking to the empty room.

Actually, what's funny, Peter, I was
I was demonstrating the Monarch
one day to a group of parliamentarians, and the person behind me
actually got the Monarch out.

And as soon as this person saw the
Monarch, they just took off towards it.

They didn't say, David,
your colleague's got the Monarch out.

I'm just going to go and grab
and have a look at it.

They just walked past me and kept going.

And I like we all do.

I just kept talking to thin air.

So. And you're right,
I love it when people just see we just tap you on the shoulder
or just say quietly, look,

I just saw somebody
or I just got to go and grab something and let you know,
and it just takes all the stress out of it and you end up
not feeling like a third class citizen.

Like it's like this is supposed to be 2025 guys, not,
you know, not like the 1800s or something.

So I kinda like,
when people just take that little bit of extra time to say, I just need to go.

I'll be back or I'll see you later.

The sighted, the light dependent folks
certainly have this complex as well, where they will meet
plenty of folks that they can't recall.

And so what I'll often do
is even just introducing myself.

I'll say it's Peter, you know, it's Peter Tucic from HumanWare,
we talked, you know, last year when I was in for this place
or that conference, even I will do that
all the time for folks, because I know they probably know who I am, or maybe they know my face
or they kind of remember me, but just very quickly
giving them a quick something to go on.

You're right, it's awfully helpful.

Especially from the context.

If I met you at a, at a loud aloud
party versus at a booth versus at a, you know, a professional meeting,
it's going to be quite different in how I'm trying to remember who you are
and how I know you.

Thanks so much, Scott,
for sticking around.

And we appreciate your time and

I don't know, hopefully, we'll get
some good feedback from folks as to what do you do, the, you know, have you ever had
somebody just kind of leave you?

There's a there's always a good
always creates a good chuckle.

So feel free to email us
your thoughts at [email protected].

Welcome back everybody.

It's time for the hot take, hot take time.

And this one
I think it's pretty obvious right.

We've done usually we kind of
throw ourselves our own curveballs.

We talked about Cane versus Guide dog.

We've had some Apple versus Windows
discussions.

This one we've been talking libraries
and talking products.

And of course that lends itself
to why use Braille?

The classic argument, why use Braille?

And this, you know,
I feel like about ten years ago,

I was often confronted with a, oh
my goodness.

You know,
we fear that Braille is going away.

And I'll say, personally,
I don't think I hear it as much anymore.

I think that the value of Braille
continues to prove itself on the access to Braille is more robust than ever,
especially with multi-line devices and just digital devices
and having a refreshable devices where we can access
large amounts of content.

In Braille, where before we were to have have to, you know,
kind of had that put into hardcopy for us.

But David, Rachel, what are your thoughts
and some of the arguments, obviously, of why do we need to use Braille?

So and I guess the question would be
we have more Braille than ever.

What do we- what do you guys think?

Where do you stand on this?

And for some people
who are newer to blindness, who say, well, you know, I can do everything through
dictation or through auditory means,

I don't know, what do you think?

What are you hearing?
What do you what do you feel? for people who are newer to blindness?

And they say, well,
why would I need Braille?

I would say even just for labeling things.

Spices, your medications.

If you just learn the basics of Braille,
it'll be so much easier.

You won't have to strain your eyes, and it'll just be faster
for you to recognize things.

So that's for newer to blindness.

And then, of course, for those of us
who have known Braille for a long time, sure, speech is prevalent.

And Peter and David,
I'm sure we use it all day, every day, because sometimes it's faster
to just skim through an email real quick.

But if I want to learn
how to spell something, or if I'm proofreading something,
or if I'm studying something,
then I'll use Braille every single time because it's so much easier
to comprehend that way for me anyway.

What do you think, David?

Yeah.

Look, I, you know, what's
what's at all the sort of science fiction, you know, when the balloon goes up
and everything goes dark type thing.

At the end of the day,
if your electronics for someone reason and I'm talking about speech here
and probably even the electronic devices, if everything goes off line
or you're in a blackout or where I was a couple of weeks ago,
I had a whole blackout for a whole week.

None of my electronic devices
actually worked unless

I went and sat in the car
and charged them up, but at the end of the day,
I still had my braille slate.

I still had my Perkins brailler.

So in people, you know,
we were ringing up and asking, you know, what the,
the local support people were doing for, you know, volunteering for the fire
brigade and what was happening and so on.

I could still write down my job reference numbers in Braille now,
if I hadn't have learned Braille.

And I'm not talking about contracted,
but I'm just talking here about, you know, even just basic braille,
the alphabet numbers,

I would have been absolutely,
you know, down the creek without a paddle because there's
no way I could've remembered, you know, about ten different
reference numbers and that sort of stuff.

So to me, I sort of cringe a little bit
when people who are blind say,

I don't have to learn Braille, because
I think it's like a sort of person

I'm not saying,
I don't have to learn to handwrite because I use a computer
or I use a smartphone.

It's like, well, okay, fine,
I'll take all those devices away from you.

How are you going to communicate
or how are you going to remember things?

So that to me is the
the most important thing.

It's not the fact that you're blind.

Thus you only need to learn braille.

It's your blind
and you still need a way to communicate.

If you can't access stuff electronically.

I think even, you know, for us,
we all obviously we're very much a Braille centric company
and we all have access to Braille.

I mean, and I love that I,
I do not take that for granted.

The fact that I, yes, get to,
you know, have a BrailleNote or a Brailliant or all of our devices
kind of at my disposal.

Even if I didn't work for HumanWare

I know
I would still have a Braille display.

Now what? I use it as much.

And I think that's the real question.

Probably not.

I think that when I'm out and about,
I probably would not have a Braille display on my shoulder
as much as I as I as I do now.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't use Braille
when I'm working, but I don't know
if I'd have it all the time.

Do you guys feel the same way?

Would you use Braille if you didn't have
access to Braille all the time as we do

I mean, let's say you just
you had to pick a device.

You know, you're purchasing a device.

Would you use it everywhere you go?

Would you always use it with your phone?

Or would you kind of have it with you
and maybe use it 60, 70% of the time?

So if I didn't have access
to the plethora of Braille devices,

I do, which is amazing.

I mean, there's a Braille embosser
on my desk, which I've recently used to print out lyrics for a little ragtag band
that that comes over every Friday.

And- wait a minute,
you're going to sing for us?

Absolutely not.
Do you hear your glass breaking?

If you're putting
out lyrics, you're clearly singing.

Well, it was one of those talking songs
like William Shatner, where you're like, as the moon comes up over the sun,
how about intergalactic?

Interdimensional?

That's about the extent of my singing
is a vocoder.

But anyway, if I didn't have access
to things like hardcopy braille, electronic Braille,
I still would have at least one braille display that I would own
personally, because it's just nice to be able to jot down a phone number
or to be able to reference something.

I may not have it with me
all the time as I do when I travel, but I would definitely
want to have one in my life, because I do think Braille
is that important.

That one should have access to it
if you can.

Yeah, my main thing,

I would still have at least one
brought us by around wherever.

It's a, you know, a full blown notetaker
or Braille display or whatever else for a couple of reasons.

Number one, sometimes,
and I found myself doing this at HumanWare.

Sometimes
you forget how product names are spelled.

Now, I always make a mistake with the StellarTrek,
I go, is it Stiller or is it Stellar?

Is it two words? Is it one word?

And when you're writing stuff
to promote something, you really want to get your product
name correct.

So that's number one.

Number two is sometimes I forget
how to spell people's names.

So for Mr.

Peter,

I can never remember
how to spell your last name because somebody said to me, what's that
9-dot thing called on the Monarch?

I said, well, it's called the Tucic square.

Square. The two six square. Yes.

And you said no.

How do you spell it?

I meant, well, square is S Q U A R E.

Then ask me about the first bit.

Now, if I had that in Braille,

I could have just went,
oh, yeah, blah blah blah, blah blah.

So to me, it's very important
to be able to like, you know, spell people's names properly.

Product names,
other things that you may not be sure of because I know one thing that I forgot,
particularly when I was learning, and this is sort of a I guess I would have
a counter argument for using Braille in some ways
when I'm using contracted Braille and when I,
when I first start learning that,

I forgot how to spell "words",
you know, quite normally

ANCE, ENCE, kind of words, right?

You know, k in knowledge
and everything else.

Yeah.

So I can remember my teacher saying spell
the word ONE.

And I went, I know it's dot
five in Braille.

What is it in anyway?

And what you can't even spell
a three letter word is like, oh my dear.

So yeah, I totally
I do agree even sometimes.

And that is, that is a perfect
kind of counter argument, right.

Contracted braille is beyond necessary
to save space, but it oftentimes does lead to us not having
the greatest command of spelling.

And I talk about blind people being
terrible spellers, and it is two fold.

We are bad spellers.

I am certainly an awful speller.

As much written communication
as I produce, I will double, triple, quadruple check what I'm doing because it
it really can be bad.

And that's, I mean, I, I'd like to think
I'm a good verbal communicator or a good written communicator, but my, my writing skills
I think proofreading as well.

You brought it up.

I, I have had and I thought about doing
presentations and redacting, of course, all the names and lots of things
of the feedback I receive.

And there are some folks out there
who make wonderful points, but they do it with such unbelievably bad
spelling and grammar, like not even trying to check
or have read back.

Even if you're using dictation,
at least read back what you've written.

You talk about my last name.

There is a public Facebook post out there where somebody calls me
repeatedly, Peter toothache.

And now I like that because I get it.

And they were very upset
and it was this long diatribe, but it kept talking about Peter toothache.

And they were trying to say Peter
Tucic.

But what was happening was
it was calling me Peter toothache.

And again, if you're trying to send me
sort of an email with, with whether it's criticism of a product or feedback or you're really upset,
at least spell my name correctly.

If you're going to do that.

And I think a lot of times we- or email
addresses, you know, names, phone numbers, email addresses, those quick things,
having Braille changes the whole way.

We are able to confidently read
and write that information.

So I, I think it's hugely important.

And, you know, the fact now that we have services like, you know, we were talking
with Scott, I mean, if we look here at the National Library Service, the Braille catalog
has hundreds of thousands of titles where previously
I would have those embossed for me, where now I can simply read them on a Braille
display.

You're having access
to a Braille book in real time.

That's incredible. That's incredible.

Because even a couple of decades ago,
that was seemingly impossible.

I think that's huge and great for reading.

As much as I love audiobooks and listen
and as much of a power JAWS or iPhone user, I am, certainly Braille
is still so important to me.

Another thing that's come to my mind
more and more now.

Like I just because I've joined, you know,
you guys at HumanWare

Now for six months, I'm
doing a lot more travel to the airport.

And it's really fantastic these days
because.

Because I lug around
like a 15, carry bag.

I've got a 20 kilo case
that I've got to lug around.

But the nice thing about all the lifts
I'm taking at the railway station, at the airport,
they're all labeled in braille.

Now for me, as a blind person,
that's fantastic.

But if I was a low vision person and
I couldn't see the numbers, for example.

But I knew how to read uncontracted
Braille.

I've just sold my information problem
because we always go on about access to information,
particularly in public infrastructure.

If you can read,
you know, braille signage or you can read, you know, the numbers
on this this and this and stuff.

You have just made the whole environment
so accessible for yourself.

Yeah, room numbers, all that stuff.

It makes it tremendously easy.

And there are times where you can't actually feel the embossed
print on a Braille room.

You know,
when on a printed or engraved sign because it's flat
or it's under a piece of plastic.

Sometimes if you know
your print letters or numbers, yes, you can certainly feel that.

But the Braille is, you know, going to cue
you into exactly where you need to be.

If it's correct.

We've all seen where it is
woefully inaccurate, I'm sure, but it is.

It is a good one.

And I wonder if this topic will ever get
put to rest. Right?

Will we ever, you know, find
or have folks who say, you know what

Braille is entirely necessary
and how it's become something that's somewhat of an argument is interesting
over the last couple of really the last probably ten+ years that we've kind of seen even people
questioning Braille or the use of Braille, the usefulness
or functionality of braille.

I wonder, I really wonder if people will continue
to kind of bring that forward, especially now when you can just truly
have more conversational types of auditory discussions with AI and
everything in it's, you know, people say, well, look, no, I really don't need
Braille or is it does it go the other way.

The other thing, too, is not to actually
when people talk about Braille, they dismiss the other part
of the tactile system, which is, tactile maps, tactile graphics.

And I think people tend to log
in the tactile bit with Braille.

And it's like, well,
why going on about Braille and it being good or bad,
which I think end of the day is just wasting time.

Also consider like tactile information.

So, you know,
I've been enjoying the F1 season so far because I've got a tactile map of all
the different circuits around the world.

So I can draw when they talk about particular,
turns on the circuit with the racing cars.

I've got a map of Sydney Airport,
so if I get slightly disorientated,

I can just bring up my
my map pad in my backpack and check it out.

So I just think people have to be really
careful when they try and sort of lump everything into this, quote Braille thing
and say that nothing else is worthwhile.

Like Rachel said,
you know, you've got labeling, and you've got all different
sorts of things.

So yeah, I just think people, don't know,
they just go to one stream or the another.

And I just would like to say
like a bit of a medium thoughtful, you know, thing
going on a little bit more.

It's simply a way for us to consume,
and we use our hands to touch everything around us anyway.

So we're going to be
consuming information, whether that's tactile
maps or Braille letters, I totally agree.

Hopefully you have thoughts.

Remember to email us
[email protected] and we look forward
to hearing from you on this.

And certainly any other hot takes.

Hey everybody and welcome to the Tips
and Tricks segment.

Today we're going to look at the Odyssey
Desktop Reader.

This is a standalone device
that will scan printed documents.

We affectionately refer to it
as a coffee thermos.

So it is a cylindrical device
with buttons on the top and an extendable camera
arm that comes out of the front.

I have the arm extended right now
and I have a document underneath, so there are several modes
that you can use with this device.

There is auto mode, which as soon as you place
a printed piece of paper under the camera, the Odyssey will put it in focus
and take a picture.

There's manual mode, which allows you
to place the document under the camera and then press the capture
button to take a picture.

There is finger pointing mode,
which allows you to point your finger at a line of text,
and the Odyssey will begin reading there.

And then.

There are some AI updates
which include a bill manager, a reading assistant,
and a translation mode.

So the bill manager
will take a picture of a bill and give you the relevant information
like the company name, the amount due,
and other associated information.

The reading assistant
will take a picture of any document, and then it will summarize it
and give you the key points.

If you want a detailed description,
you can then activate that after the Odyssey finishes
the summary.

The translation mode allows you
to take a picture of, let's say, a Spanish document and have the Odyssey
translate it into English.

The language that the Odyssey translates
into is based on your system language.

So because my Odyssey is set to English,
if I take a picture of a Spanish or French document, the Odyssey will
then translate it into English.

And those are the supported languages
so far.

English, Spanish and French.

So I'm going to start out by scanning a document
in manual mode.

When the Odyssey is powered
on, it will take you to the list of modes.

And I'm going to press the right arrow,
which is on the top of the Odyssey, to get to the manual mode. Auto mode,
Manual mode.

Here's manual mode,
and I'm going to press the capture button to take the picture.

Spectrum Savings

Bundle and Save $360 a year $70 mo savings based on current promotion versus

Spectrum's regular pricing commitment
that goes beyond savings.

We're committed
to keeping you connected 100% of the time.

Transparency at every step.

We're committed to clear and simple
pricing with no contracts.

I press the play pause button
to stop the Odyssey from reading.

So as we heard here,
this is a document outlining promotional services for the Spectrum
Internet service provider.

Now, if I wanted more information,
I'm going to turn to AI and see how the document is presented
with the reader assistant mode.

So I'm going to press the back
button located on the bottom right of the Odyssey
to get to the list of modes. Manual mode.

It said manual mode as that is
the mode I've just used, and I'm going to press the right arrow
to go to the next mode.

Finger pointing mode AI mode.

Here is AI mode.

I'm going to press the capture button
to go into the submenu bill manager.

This is bill manager.

We're going to take a look
at that in a little bit.

But I want the reading assistant.

So I'm going to press the right arrow.
Reading assistant.

This mode will take
a picture of the document and then give you a detailed description
if you'd like.

So I'm going to press
the capture button. Now.

The text outlines a promotional offer from Spectrum
for internet and TV services, highlighting significant savings of $360
per year.

It emphasizes the commitment
to reliable service, transparent pricing without contracts or hidden
fees, and exceptional customer service.

The offer is valid
for new residential customers and includes details about the services
provided, pricing for the first two years
and a moneyback guarantee.

Does it require a detailed description?

Yes. Now the Odyssey has presented us
with some options.

What? I'd like a detailed description.

The default is yes
or I can press the right arrow to know.

In this case,
I'm going to press the capture button to get this detailed
description of the document.

The content begins
with a promotional message about Spectrum

Savings Plan, which allows customers
to bundle services and save $360 annually.

It lists the services included
in the offer Internet Premier at $30 per month, advanced Wi-Fi at $50 per month, and TV stream at $40 per month.

The total monthly cost is stated
as $70 for both years one and two.

I press the play Pause button to stop
the detailed description, but as you can hear, that is a very comprehensive review
of the document that I took a picture of.

Now I'd like to show you translation
mode.

Translation mode, as mentioned,
allows you to take a picture of a document in another language
and have the Odyssey translate it.

So I have a Spanish document here
with some animal facts, and I'm going to have the Odyssey
translate those facts into English.

I'm going to press the back button
to get to the list of modes.

Reading assistant AI mode.

We're in AI mode.

I'm going to press the right arrow
to go to the next mode.

Translation mode. Here's translation mode.

I'm going to press the capture button
to take a picture of a document.

The Spanish language is recognized.

Translated into English language.

The octopuses have three hearts,
two of them pump blood to the gills, while the third is responsible for distributing
it throughout the rest of the body. 2: giraffes have a blue tongue.

Their tongue can measure up to 50cm long
and is dark blue to protect themselves from the sun,
3: dolphins sleep with one eye open.

This allows them to stay alert
to potential dangers.

While resting,
I press the play pause button, but those are some facts that were easily
translated from Spanish to English.

Now, you have heard that when the Odyssey is recognizing text,
there is some nice music that plays.

But if you want to change that to a less
obtrusive clicking sound, or you can have the Odyssey
tell you the progress by voice or as is some options offered by companies
when on hold, you can wait in silence.

The Odyssey has an offer of that as well.

So I'm going to show you
how to change the recognition sound.

And then we're going to
look at a fictional bill in the Odyssey's

Bill manager I'm going to press the menu
button to go to the main screen.

Main menu
99% power remaining. File management.

The menu button is located
on the bottom left of the Odyssey.

The first option here is file management
because you can saved scanned documents, but I'm going to press the right
arrow until I get to settings. reading speed, voice,

Wi-Fi settings,
Bluetooth Settings Settings.

And I'm going to press the capture button
to go into this menu.

LED settings, camera arm settings,
and I'm pressing the right arrow to go through these settings options.

Recognition Sound.

Here is recognition sound.

I'm going to press the capture button
to go into this menu.

Music. It's set to music.

I'm going to press the right arrow
to go to the other choices.

Click here is click voice voice blank and blank which is silence.

I'm going to choose Click Music click,
and I'm going to press the capture button to access this choice
set to click Recognition Sound.

Now we've set that to the click.

So I'm going to press the back button
which is located on the bottom right of the unit,
to go back to the screen of modes main menu settings translation mode.

It's set to translation mode is.

That was the mode that we last used

But we're going to go back to the AI
mode and to the bill manager, auto mode, manual mode, finger
pointing mode, AI mode.

I'm going to press the capture button
to choose this bill manager.

Here is Bill manager.

So I have a fictional
bill placed under the Odyssey.

And I'm going to press the capture button
to have the Odyssey take a picture.

This is a bill of type utility bill.

Bill date March 27th, 2025.

Total cost $35.

Company name
National Energy and Water Services.

So that sound means that the Odyssey has reached the end of text on the page, and it has given us
the relevant information from the bill.

If we wanted more information, we could switch to the Reading
Assistant mode and take another picture and have the Odyssey
get more information using AI.

So this is the Odyssey
and some of the updates that we have just recently added, along with being able
to scan and save documents, you now have the ability to translate
documents, get information about bills,
get summaries of documents, and more.

So please stay tuned for further updates.

And as always,
if you have questions or comments, please send us a note
to [email protected] .

All right everybody, welcome back
to another segment of The Partners Corner.

And for this one.

So we tend to talk to people.

Well we've been very North America centric
the first couple of episodes.

And forget that nobody needs
to just be North American centric.

We are going to go across the pond to my right, which as I sit in Chicago,
would be across the Atlantic Ocean.

We're going to head over toward Europe.

We're going to take a left.

We're going to go a bit north,
and we're going to stop in Denmark, where we are going to talk
with Michael Nilsson from Instrulog.

How are you, Michael?

Hello and thank you very much. I'm good.

Thank you. That's awesome.

I know you're you were you were highly concerned about,
doing an interview in English, but I'm telling you,
we're going to make you a star.

People are going to be wondering
where you are all over the world.

They're going to come find you
for your English prowess.

Wow. I hope you're right about that,
because it's, it's true.

I'm, I was a bit nervous, doing this
interview, based on the fact that I'm,

I'm not sure that my vocabulary would,
would fit in the podcast, but I'm,

I'm glad that you mention it
that your vocabulary is phenomenal.

I think, what you should really do is
have me on a Danish podcast and we'll see who has, you know, who has something
to really, really pick apart.

Because I don't even know if I can say
hello.

I could just say hello or something.

I'm sure that's close.

It would work. Indeed it would work.

So, so you're already, one level up.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

And can you can you tell us a little bit
about Instrulog?

So I know you're you're a technology
consultant for Instrulog and, you know, can you give us a quick sense of what
Instrulog all that Instrulog is?

Yeah, indeed. I can try at least.

So we are a small company based, just outside of Copenhagen.

We are,
as you mentioned, a technology company, and we are mainly a, distributor of products for the blind
and visually impaired.

We have a lot of technical equipment, and, all most half of the HumanWare product range is, here at, at my office.

I'm looking at it right now
because it's, it's one of, of the best,
like, manufacturers that we, we support, and we are three employees in total.

Here in Denmark, our main customer would be the
the public system here in Denmark.

And it's mainly because if you are a blind or visually impaired,
you are obligated to get products that help in some way
or another reimbursed.

So the system here in Denmark is that you- if you're blind, you,
you go to a communication center.

We have around 22 different
communication centers here in Denmark who are here to help with communication
and communication is a wide thing, but, but in, in, in our range or in our like segment, it's, it's product for the,
for the blind and visually impaired.

So that's, it's interesting in that
and I think a lot of people are, you know, curious about how equipment is obtained
in different parts of the world.

And so here,
you know, in the United States where I am, we have we have various ways
that a blind or visually impaired person receives equipment.

And, you know, think of HumanWare
equipment for sure.

For this the sense of this podcast
when I'm in school, a lot of that is provided through,
you know, my, my local school district, could be provided through
there are federal funding options once I get out of school though,
the landscape changes here.

I will have to go and, you know, whether that's through
a vocational rehabilitation setting,
where I can get equipment provided or, or a lot of times, especially for somebody
who is newer to blindness, who is older, they're needing to purchase
those products out of pocket.

And as you know,
that can be very expensive.

Can you talk a tiny bit about
so if somebody goes to a communication center,
I'm assuming that's primarily an adult.

Is it-

If they do, let's say a HumanWare
product is recommended, how is that product funded?

How is that product paid for by the users?

The user responsible
for paying for any of that?

Or is it something that's provided
through the government?

It's insured.

It's provided through the government.

So if you're obligated, we have a
we have a few laws and a few restrictions that tell us whenever a blind person is, do have the legal right
to get a product to be reimbursed

But if all that is clear, you get, you get a product reimbursed 100%.

So if an adult goes to a municipality
or a communication center, they will start a process of working out what would be the best solution
for this specific case.

So every single time it's individual, on an individual level, they always look at the, at the person
in front of them, and take action in, in relation
to the person in front of them.

Does it matter if they're working?

So if they're in, let's say
I'm an older adult, I'm 78 years old, a retiree, a pensioner,
and I'm losing my vision.

Can they still get a product?

They can still get a product. Yeah.

So it's not it's not- it's still relevant to, to to know whether or not
the person in charge is working or not.

If the person is working.

It's another process,
if the person is working and we can use whatever product
we are talking about at home as well.

It's a third system.

It's a third,
got to go to, to get it reimbursed.

But in the end, it's always 100% reimbursed and paid for by the government.

That's excellent.

And I think, you know, we've
certainly had various bills introduced here in the United States and the National Federation of the blind
and the American Council of the blind have been very active
in trying to push forward, you know, ways for technology
to be funded, regardless of whether you are working, seeking work or not working,
because a lot of times here, it's tied to your kind of employment
or looking for employment.

One question I have,
though, is about training.

When a product is given to or funded,
you're not given, but provided to somebody who let's say I
you know, I qualify for a Braille display.

I get a braille display or a magnifier.

What happens from a training perspective
is that provided by Instrulog or is there is there another channel,
of where that training comes from?

We can do it for sure.

We do offer training
and we just call it an introduction.

And that's mainly
because the communication center spread around here in Denmark do offer the same kind of training.

And they are the experts.

So we would always recommend and end users to,
to contact the communication center and ask for some kind of training
for a product that is either reimbursed or they are able
to, to purchase products themself of course.

And they can still get the training
if they need.

So and yeah.

So normally we would recommend the, the communication center
due to their expertise.

That is awesome.

Well, one last question
that has absolutely nothing to do with technology,
but I want your opinion on this.

Who is the most famous
living person from Denmark that we would know around the world?

Do you know the answer to that?

Well, I have my
I have my opinion, but I want yours.

You live there.

Don't ask me who's the most
famous current living person from Denmark?

I'm-

I'm guessing
that you're supposed to say me because I'm now a part of your podcast, so.

No, but I like that answer.

You. Okay?

You are the most famous, probably right
now, living person in the AT world.

On the podcast, although I.

I might have to check with Jesper Holten
to see, what Jesper thinks.

Yes, but I,
I would say so if I were at it now.

And I'll ask you this
if I don't know if you would agree, but I think Lars
Ulrich would be the most famous.

The drummer from Metallica, whose father was
a very famous tennis player,

I believe would be the most famous Dane
that's living.

Would you would you agree with that?

It's hard
not to agree with you right now.

I think I think we should stick with me.

Yeah, I think we will. We'll just.

Okay.

Michael Nilsson, technology
consultant, Instrulog.

Yes. Featuring your podcast.

And now one of the famous living people from Denmark with a perfect command
of the English language.

You're so kind.

Thank you so much for joining, Michael.

It's been fantastic.

And really, we appreciate your time.

And just being able to highlight
a little bit of what Instrulog does.

Thank you very much.

And I appreciate
have been a part of the podcast and thank you for having me.

It's, it was really a interesting email
to receive.

And, and now it did happen, and,
and I hope that it'll be successful.

All right, everybody, welcome back to our upcoming shows portion, where
we'll talk about where you could meet us.

If you happen to be in the area.

We always encourage you to stop by a booth
or a table near you to ask questions to get your hands on the products.

April 25th. This one.

You will not be able
to come to a booth near here because I will be presenting virtually
to the Illinois

American Council of the blind,
state chapter conference that will be on April 25th,
I believe my presentation, actually,

I know
my presentation is at 1:30 Central time.

We will be attending the Vision
Serve Alliance Leadership Conference that will be at the DoubleTree Resort
in Scottsdale,

Arizona, April 28th to May 1st.

And you can catch us at the Utah National
Federation of the Blind State Convention that will be taking place in Provo,
Utah at the Provo Marriott and Conference Center.

That will be from May 1st to May 3rd.

So please come see us.

We certainly do attend
other events as well.

If you hear, we may be in the area.

We have a large and fantastic distribution network
as we tend to cover on the podcast.

So please come
see us or our representatives, our distributors,
wherever they may be. Ask questions.

Don't forget to send your emails
or thoughts to [email protected]

Thank you so much everybody and
we will see you the third Thursday in May.

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

Please send them to
[email protected]

That's [email protected]

We'll see you next month.