Podcast Transcript, Mosen at Large episode 217, A demo of the new Bing powered by Chat GPT, tips for editing video in Windows accessibly, and the new Victor Reader Stream is arriving for early adopters

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Jonathan Mosen: I’m Jonathan Mosen, and this is Mosen At Large, the show that’s got the blind community talking. This week more stories of discrimination. A look at Microsoft’s new Bing, powered by Chat GPT, the new Victor Reader Stream is in some people’s hands and why we haven’t yet talked about the new Sense Player from Hymns.

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Welcome Illinois

Here we are again. Happy as can be with episode 217 of the podcast. As we like to do, let us inquire into what area code we share this episode with. We’ll ask the jolly old Apple thing this week. What is Area code 217?

Siri: Area codes 217 and 447 are telephone area codes in the North American numbering plan for much of the central part of the US state of Illinois. Would you like to hear more?

Jonathan: Yes.

Siri: The numbering plan area includes the state capital Springfield and Champaign, Urbana, Decatur, Taylorville, Danville, Effingham, Quincy, Rantoul, and Jacksonville. 217 was one of the original North American area codes created in 1947 and 447 was added to the same area in 2021 to form an all-services overlay.

Jonathan: It was reading such a long list of place names there that I thought it was about to burst into song and start singing, “I’ve been everywhere man.” That’s area code 217. I think there is more than one Springfield in the United States. There’s certainly more than one Jacksonville, and there’s certainly more than one Quincy, although I think in Massachusetts they pronounce it Quincy. All very confusing, but anyway, welcome to you in Illinois. Take your place in the sun, and I hope that you enjoy this episode of Mosen At Large.

Looking for a good ad-blocker for my iPhone

Nice to get an email from this familiar name, Adam Gaffney’s writing in and Adam says, “Hi Jonathan. I appreciate M at L very much. Thank you, Adam. Wondering if you can suggest a good ad blocker browser extension for Safari for iOS or any other useful safari extensions? Thanks in advance.” I must confess, Adam, I have a few qualms about this technology, but I got over them. [laughs] I got over them pretty quick.

My qualms are that I do understand that some sites depend on ad revenue to do what they do, and if the ads don’t go through, then it affects their ability to be viable. The trouble is that so many of them are just so intrusive in an accessibility context. You can be reading a story and they pop up this ad in the middle and it’s all really obnoxious and things take a long time to load.

As I say, I got over my scruples and I try to subscribe to sites if they have an option that let me pay to go ad-free to support them, especially if it’s a site I go to a lot. All that said, my knowledge may not be the most up-to-date because I did some research on this a wee while ago. I found one that I liked and I just installed it and left it alone. My understanding is that it updates itself two times a week to keep itself current, and it just sits in the background doing its thing and pages load quickly and I don’t get bothered very much.

The one that I chose is called Wipr and it’s spelt W-I-P-R. If you search for Wipr on Google or in the App Store or whatever, you will find that and you can read the full product description. The other thing that is good about Wipr is that if you want it to, it can block all these GDPR notices. Those are the ones that you get from European sites or sites that are particularly cognizant of the European market and European requirements that tell you about they use cookies to da da da and it goes on and on and on and you see them on many websites and you have to press a button.

If you want Wipr can block those for you. The final thing that attracted me to Wipr is that they don’t have any provision for businesses to pay to bypass the ad blocking. There are some ad blocking extensions that do this and that’s just totally obnoxious to me. It also blocks trackers and other mean and nasty things, crypto-generating things in all sorts of nasties, and I don’t think about it anymore. There may be newer, better ones out there that I’m just not aware of.

For those who are not familiar with this technology, you can install extensions into Safari of different types, and there is a specific kind of extension that blocks ads and trackers and other things. These are supported officially by Apple by the operating system. If you use a different one that you like, please feel free to share. It’d be good to get a few suggestions that are accessible to configure because you have all sorts of preferences with these things.

To give you an example, some people like those little widgets where you can share on a plethora of social media networks to be blocked, but other people don’t want them blocked because they do like to share certain articles on certain social media sites. The accessibility of the configuration screens for these extensions is important and not all will be accessible. Anything to share on this, spread the info 864-60-MOSEN.

In the US if you want to be in touch on the phone, (864) 606-6736 or jonathan@mushroomfm.com on the email.

Looking for some advice on Microsoft Access

Bev Powell is writing in and he says, “Hi Jonathan. Hope you had a great vacation and eager to get back to podcasting.” Well here I am, Bev. Here I am. I could be outside playing with my soccer ball, but here I am podcasting, so I guess I must love it.

“Enjoy your podcast,” he says, “over 25 years ago, I got into genealogy. I began using a professional database called Microsoft Access. Over the years I’ve just kept adding names and other details. I now have a single massive file containing over 6,300 records with names and related information. I maintain info on 21 different families. Is there anyone in your listener base familiar or a user of Microsoft Access?

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to technology, so I need simple explanations on how to massage the info into separate families. I want to publish family groups, so I need to understand how to set up the correct operations. I devise my own method to filter and sort info but get stuck to use some of the more sophisticated aspects of access. I find the help menu info complicated to find what I’m seeking. So if anyone is interested in helping this old blind guy, I’m receptive to learning.

I use Windows 11 and Jaws 2020. Jaws does not always verbalize the info I’m seeking.” Thank you Bev. This is an interesting discussion. I don’t know much about Microsoft Access, it’s the one member of the Microsoft Office suite that I just don’t run. I’ve not had a cause to use any database like that for a long time. Takes me back to my old dBASE days in DOS, and that is really dating me. Can anyone help Bev with Microsoft Access issues? If you would like to, please do be in touch.

Jonathan@mushroomfm.com is the email address. Attach an audio clip or just write an email down and you can call the listener line if you’d like to do that. 864-60-MOSEN in the US. (864) 606-6736.

I want to permanently disable YouTube Shorts

Scott: Good day, everyone. It’s Scott from Sydney, Australia here. I’m not too sure what people think of this idea of mine, but I thought I would put it on the podcast to see what other people have to say. I’ve put it up on Mastodon, and I’ve had a few people interested. My idea is we should lobby YouTube to allow us to disable YouTube shorts.

For those who don’t know what this particular feature is, it’s TikTok and Instagram and other type video streaming hubs have this feature where there’s little shorts and I find them to be very annoying along with other people I’ve spoken to about this. They’re just useless. They’re a time consuming, waste of time, and I feel that we should have the option under YouTube settings in your account to disable shorts so they don’t show up in your YouTube feed.

YouTube shouldn’t be allowed to tell us what we do want and give us the ability to turn off a particular feature such as shorts. If others are interested in supporting this idea of mine, we should all lobby YouTube and ask them to get rid of shorts or let us turn off the ability to view shorts and not to let us be told you have to watch the shorts. You can’t disable them and you can actually turn them off for 30 days at a time. It’s a pain in the neck and you’ve got to actually do it every 30 days. To me that’s not acceptable.

Task management apps

Arthur Shirima: Hey, Jonathan, hope you’re doing well. My name is Arthur Shirima and I’m calling from Seattle, Washington. A big hi to you and all the listeners of the podcast. I’m a long-time listener. I’m calling in for advice with professional type of things. I’m a product manager by profession in a big software company based out of Seattle, Washington. My question is around task management apps that are accessible.

I’ve tried various things like Notepad and OneNote and Outlook but none of this is able to scale to what I was looking for in terms of automation and reminder needs for something that you want to follow-up later and need to be reminded at a later point in time once you put it in. I was wondering if any of your listeners or you had any recommendations for task management applications based on the Windows platform because I use a Windows laptop for work and I try to isolate all my professional stuff to the laptop.

Very few things that I use my phone for. I have a iPhone, I do use it to dial into teams meetings, et cetera. But then on a typical workday, 98% of the time I’m on my laptop. It’d be great if any of your listeners or you have any recommendations for this application. I am a long-time listener of the podcast. I have no idea how you do this with everything else that you do. Hats off to you and please keep up the good work.

Jonathan: Thank you so much. Good to hear from you. I must confess that one of the things that does help me to do this and all the other things I do is a good task manager. I’ve tried quite a few and I have not found anything in Windows that comes close to what you can do on the iPhone. Now that doesn’t mean they don’t exist, and if there is a really good task manager app for Windows that’s accessible, I would be interested to hear.

I’m not just talking about the basic thing that is in Microsoft Outlook because you’re right, that is just way too basic for serious task management duties. I’ve just concluded, okay, my iPhone is the tool for getting things done. Getting things done is actually a specific mode of task management. There are a couple of very good GTD applications for iPhone that are accessible. I would say the gold standard is OmniFocus. OmniFocus is very accessible, it’s very powerful and it follows the GTD philosophy.

I have a major project for the organization at which I’m CEO. Then under that, I have sub-projects, and they may be staff who report to me, so I can bring up OmniFocus whenever I think of a task that I need to delegate to that person or monitor that that person is working on. I can put it in OmniFocus and I can set reminder dates. You can set projects up so that certain things have dependencies. You can’t do one thing until you’ve done the previous thing. It’s really powerful and it sounds like what you’re looking for.

A similar one is called Todoist. The big advantage of Todoist over OmniFocus is that it has natural language. You can enter quite complex tasks when you understand the syntax just by typing into the edit field. You have to do a little bit more fiddling around with OmniFocus. I think that Todoist may have some other ways of getting data in and one of them might be Windows. Fantastical, for example, which we have reviewed on this podcast, also supports Todoist natively, and that’s a great way of getting tasks into Todoist.

I’ve tended to use Todoist a little bit more because of the ease of input. Both OmniFocus and Todoist, I believe have web interfaces. When I last looked at them, they weren’t particularly accessible, so they may have improved since I looked which was quite some time ago. I have just become used to using my iPhone for all of these things. This is probably not helping you much if you just don’t want to use your iPhone for those sorts of things.

I guess the reason why I’m pointing these things out is that I believe this is the thing you were looking for. It sounds like you’re looking for the same power that I was, and I found it on my phone. If anybody knows of an accessible Windows solution that adheres to the GTD task management philosophy, then please do share. I know there’ll be people interested. We bring you transcripts of every episode of Mosen At Large, and that’s possible thanks to sponsorship from Pneuma Solutions.

One of the cool things about the internet is that it connects us with the wider world, but another cool thing about the internet is that it can create places just for us. Mosen At Large is one such place and another one is Sero. Sero spelled S-E-R-O is a social network designed by us for us. Sero is available everywhere. It’s on your smartphone, your Apple TV, your Amazon Echo, and of course on a fully accessible website.

If you download the Sero mobile app from wherever you get your apps for your mobile device, you’ll be able to sample some of the content free. That includes this podcast and Mushroom FM. Paying a subscription to Sero gives you access to a treasure trove of information including newspapers, forums where blind and no vision people can discuss a wide range of issues, a handy accessible email client and so much more.

You have to check out all the features.

You’ll be amazed at how much is there. Go to pneumasolutions.com, that’s P-N-E-U-M-A solutions.com. Access the products link and then choose Sero for more information.

Tech Roundup

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Adam: This is your Mosen At Large tech roundup. A quick look at some interesting items making news this week. I’m Adam, an AI voice from ElevenLabs. United States Senator Ed Markey, a democrat from Massachusetts who has shown a consistent interest in accessibility issues is challenging Twitter owner, Elon Musk on his disestablishment of Twitter’s accessibility team. The move came the same week Twitter stopped offering captions for its Twitter spaces audio platform.

In the letter, Senator Markey asks a series of questions. Please explain why you eliminated Twitter’s accessibility team. Will you commit to immediately restoring Twitter’s accessibility team? If not, why not? In November, before you eliminated Twitter’s accessibility team, it announced several upcoming projects including improving both image description education, and the closed caption button for users. What is the status of each of those projects?

What resources is Twitter devoting to the creation and maintenance of accessibility features for disabled individuals on the platform? Is Twitter compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, and the accessibility regulations of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, under the Communications and Video Accessibility Act and other relevant laws? Please explain why Twitter spaces no longer includes automatic closed captioning features.

Will Twitter commit to reinstating automatic closed captioning for Twitter spaces? If not, why not? Will Twitter allow third-party apps to provide accessibility services for users with disabilities? If not, why not? Will Twitter commit to allowing automated accounts that increase accessibility on the platform without the need for providers to pay fees? If not, why not? Will Twitter commit to changing its default settings to remind all users to include alt text on all photos and images? If not, why not?

Will Twitter commit to creating user-friendly closed captioning tools for users when they upload videos? If not, why not? Will Twitter commit to creating user-friendly audio description tools for users when they upload videos? If not, why not? If Musk answers the letter, we’ll bring it to you here. If you bought one of those fancy schmancy iPhone 14 pros with the dynamic island and have been struggling to find an app to make use of it, you’re in luck if you use Uber.

An update to the Uber app has made live activities available worldwide, meaning when your Uber’s on the way, you can see how far away it is without having to open the app. Unfortunately, at this point, you can’t see your estimated time of arrival in the dynamic island once you’re in the vehicle. Uber says live activities are coming to the Uber Eats App later this year. If you don’t have an iPhone that supports the dynamic island, you can still use live activities on your lock screen if you’re running iOS 16.

Microsoft’s continuing to go all in on its new Bing AI powered by ChatGPT. If you’ve applied for and been granted early access, you can now use it in Skype and Edge, and a feature update to Windows 11 will make it available on the Windows taskbar. Microsoft continues to fine-tune the product to ensure that too much chatter with Bing doesn’t make it go very, very weird. AI is totally where it’s at in 2023 and Spotify has now joined the party.

They’ve unveiled a new AI-driven personal DJ service featuring what they call a stunningly realistic voice. The DJ talks over the intros of songs and offers a bit of banter and facts about the music. Currently, the feature is only available in North America. It may still be some time away, but Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is making significant progress in perfecting the technology that would bring glucose monitoring to Apple Watch.

Bloomberg says Apple now has hundreds of engineers working on it and have cracked some particularly thorny problems recently. Apple is taking a different approach using a chip technology known as silicon photonics and a measurement process called optical absorption spectroscopy. The system uses lasers to emit specific wavelengths of light into an area below the skin where there is interstitial fluid, substances that leak out of capillaries that can be absorbed by glucose.

The light is then reflected back to the sensor in a way that indicates the concentration of glucose. An algorithm then determines a person’s blood glucose level. The technology is now being used in a special test device, which is much larger than an Apple Watch. If tests continue to prove the concept, challenges remain in shrinking the technology so it can be included in the Apple wearable. Finally, this week, if you’ve always wanted to use iMessage on your PC like Mac users can, soon you’ll sort of be able to.

Microsoft is rolling out a test version of its phone link app to some Windows insiders, which includes iMessage support. It works via Bluetooth, meaning you can read and reply to messages and see notifications from your phone. You won’t have a full iMessage history though, so it’s not as seamless as the Mac experience. That’s a brief summary of this week’s tech news. For more, follow Mosen At Large on Mastodon, mosenatlarge@mstdn.social, that’s mosenatlarge@mstdn.social.

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Speaker: What’s on your mind? Send an email with a recording of your voice or just write it down. Jonathan@mushroomfm.com, that’s J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N@mushroomfm.com, or phone our listener line. The number in the United States is 864-60-MOSEN. That’s (864) 606-6736.

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Keeping your iPhone unlocked

Jonathan: Petra’s in touch and is responding to the comment that I made on the podcast about always leaving my iPhone unlocked. She says when you unlock your iPhone using your made-for-iPhone hearing aids, does the sound only go to your hearing aids as it would to AirPods, meaning that other people don’t hear it as they would when I’m not using my AirPods? I’m guessing that’s the case that others don’t hear your iPhone. If I unlock mine and put it in a pocket or purse, it talks aloud on its own.

Yes, that’s correct, Petra, all the sound from my iPhone goes direct to my MFI hearing aids. I guess that is an advantage for this scenario, but you could also use this by simply performing a three-finger double tap to turn speech off so that you would still hear notifications sounds and things. The phone would be unlocked. You could just grab it, turn speech back on again and get up and running.

A serious problem with Apple’s subscriptions page

Jim East: Hey Jonathan, this is Jim East from Florida. I hope things are well for you. If I sound a little nasally, I’m recovering from COVID. Guess I should feel lucky though I’ve had the shots somewhere later on in the pandemic. Anyway, I called to share that yesterday, which would’ve been Saturday the I guess 24th of February, I was on with an Apple Tech with Apple Care for Personal Disabilities.

You may have already talked about this, and if you did, just, just throw this away, but if you haven’t, the billing section for your subscriptions is not accessible and it was jumping the dialogue box. I was working with a nice representative online. She actually shared that she’s low vision as well. While we were talking, it was a phone call to the disability assistance for Apple with the iPhone. I use an iPhone 13. She’s reported this.

During the course of our call, surprisingly, I guess you’ve probably done this lots of times, but I was the first person to raise the issue to them, and then by the end of the call, which was about I guess about 70 minutes, 90 minutes or so, there’d been like almost over 10 people that had raised the concern. I guess everyone like me at the end of the month is deciding what they want to keep and what they want to start new at the end of the month, but this is a pretty serious issue.

We went to the subscriptions and settings. We went to media and purchases. We went to the App Store settings section and it reacted the same way with voiceover. I need to share that issue as a voiceover issue, that’s really important to this. Otherwise don’t know whether you understand what I’m talking about. I apologize for saying that late in my statement. They promised to get back with me. The engineers were giving up-to-the-minute feedback, which was really good.

Try this, try that. We did all the scans, we did all the files and all the recordings they needed to do, and she documented beautifully. I’m hoping we’ll have an answer to that because, gosh, if I can’t see what my subscriptions are, what I’m paying for them, if they’re going up and I don’t have the ability to activate or cancel them, that’s a big deal. Obviously, it’s true for the rest of the voiceover-using community for iPhone. Just wanted to throw that into the mix.

I also appreciate your interview with the president of AER. I’m a former member. I’m retired now, so I haven’t kept the membership up, it’s a little expensive, but I do read the JVIB and some of the other journals and follow. That was an excellent interview. Congratulate you, and hanging on to that. The comment about October, I’ll tell you, I really just keep enjoying the show. Thank you for all the great work.

Jonathan: Thank you, Jim. First and most important, I hope that you are over the rona very soon. Hopefully, it’s a mild dose, and as you say, you’re all vaccinated. When it comes your way, you’re certainly appreciative of that. Thank you very much for the comments on the AER interview. I’ve got some wonderful feedback, yet again, hopefully, it demonstrates you can have a robust discussion respectfully, and that certainly was a robust discussion in places. Mark was great and I really enjoyed the discussion. You were right on the cutting edge of this bug, Jim, because when you phoned in quite early on in the piece, I hadn’t discovered it and I hadn’t seen any word on Mastodon about it, but not long after I got your email, Mastodon exploded with a lot of feedback about this and I was able to verify this, it was a nasty bug. You could work around it through screen recognition, which essentially performs optical character recognition on an inaccessible screen.

Not a good look for Apple to have introduced something that requires a workaround for an inaccessible screen. Now I am running the latest update of the iOS 16.4 beta but I don’t think that matters, because I believe this is a server-side issue. They didn’t have to release an iOS update to break it, so they didn’t have to release an iOS update to fix it again. As I record this on Friday, New Zealand’s time, it is no longer a problem. It was, but for me, at least, it is working properly again.

I hope that is the case for everybody else. If so, well I mean, it’s always a shame that this got broken in the first place, but a pretty timely fix was rolled out because this is quite a consequential bug when you can’t cancel your subscriptions easily or monitor what you have subscribed to. Good on you for jumping on the phone to Apple, Jim, and alerting them to this, and they do seem to have acted quickly on this particular one.

Looping audio on the iPhone

Adi: Hi, just a quick demo as to how to enable loop on the iPhone. For this we need Voice Dream Reader. No, I’m just firing up the app.

Speaker: App Switcher, Voice Dream, active. Voice Dream Reader, controls, back button, dismiss pop up, double tap to dis– Library button. Library outline.

Adi: Now you need to go to the library, but to enable the setting you need to activate the file, go into the file. Here’s the file name.

Speaker: Now reading 12 Angry Men.

Adi: Now I do have one finger double tap.

Speaker: Library button.

Adi: Now on the top right corner.

Speaker: Visual settings dimmed button.

Adi: We have visual settings, left of that is audio settings, and left to that is–

Speaker: Audio settings button. Controls button.

Adi: Controls. One-finger double tap.

Speaker: Controls padding. Close button. Ready Mode button.

Adi: Reading mode.

Speaker: Selected. Stop at end of document.

Adi: Activated by one-finger double tap. I would say stop at end of document, which I generally prefer.

Speaker: Stop at end of sentence. Keep going to next document. Repeat document.

Adi: Repeat document. There are times when I need to loop a particular audio file and this is what I do. I double tap this it gets activated, and once the audio file has ended, it’ll start playing the same audio file again. It definitely works and it is also working at my end. Hope this helps.

Jonathan: That is Adi from India with that suggestion. Isn’t that amazing? I use Voice Dream Reader almost more than any other app. Probably Mail and Leary I use more than Voice Dream Reader but I use Voice Dream Reader daily and it didn’t occur to me that it has that option in there to loop some audio. There you go. That’s the inquiry dealt with regarding looping audio because you can load any audio you want into Voice Dream Reader. It’s not just text-to-speech.

You can load in any kind of file that Apple will play and then you can put it on loop in the jolly old Voice Dream Reader. How cool is that? Thank you Adi.

Blind subculture

Mike: Jonathan.

Jonathan: Mike.

Mike: It’s what’s left of Mike Taylor calling from Florida. You touched on the subject of subcultures. I was reminded of a book I read. I don’t know if it’s on hard disk or floppy disk but certainly it was back during the analogue era. Is read by one of my favorite narrators back then, Layon Janney. It was about subcultures. It was called something like the candy apple red metal flakes streamline baby, and NASCAR and its fans were one of the subcultures they discussed.

I don’t remember all of them but people have special interests. They congregate together and do what they do. Those NASCAR fans they style, they a profile, they dress, they do their thing here in Florida. This time of year we’ve got different subcultures come in to the track with their sports cars, their motorcycles, or their NASCARs, and they’re different crowds. The waiters down there tell you they love the motorcycle crowd, they’re the best tippers.

But certainly, I think there’s a subculture of the blind, and to your credit or blame or whatever, I think you’re probably one of the most responsible for expanding the English speaking blind community. You’ve taken this worldwide. I mean, not only can people in Florida get together in our groups or whatever, but through the internet, we’re in contact with folks in Canada, folks all over the globe now.

It’s amazing how you’ve brought us together, and showed us our common problems and offered solutions and everything. I appreciate you. I really do. I don’t agree with your politics at all, but I think you’re one heck of a guy. Keep on keeping on. Thanks.

Jonathan: Thanks so much, Mike. I appreciate that. Thank you very much for listening and for sending in your feedback. That’s right, I think that one of the things that we now understand is that communities can be more than geographical, and the internet has brought us together in a way that allows us to discuss our common issues and differences about our issues, and we can do that and discuss those things, regardless of politics or religion or other things on which we may differ. Thank you so much for that.

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Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS

The fearless Christopher Wright has been experimenting again, and we’re going to learn about his latest scientific experiments now. He says, “Hi, Jonathan, I tested remote desktop on an iPhone running iOS 16.3.1. I connected to a Windows 11 computer and had a Windows USB keyboard connected to the iPhone with the Apple lightning USB 3 camera adapter.

While I could hear NVDA and other system sounds from my computer over the iPhone speaker, some commands like insert, caps lock, and alt F4 didn’t work making it nearly useless. I made sure to turn VoiceOver off but this didn’t help. I suspect this is either a problem with the app, or more likely, Apple is restricting what third-party apps can do with keyboards. I’d have to contact Microsoft Disability Answer Desk and ask.

If the latter is true, rim for iOS is going to be impossible, unless Apple decides to lift their draconian restrictions. I suspect these limitations don’t exist or are far less severe on Android. I don’t have an Android device right now but I’ll be sure to test when I get my Pixel 7a later this year. Having said that, I don’t remember significant issues when I was using the Narwhal app on my original Pixel. Narwhal is an app to control NVDA remote.

The Victor Reader Stream

Back to the Victor Reader Stream we go.”

Gene Warner says, “Jonathan, I got the new third-generation VR stream yesterday.” This was last week actually, “And began the process of moving my content from my second-generation VR Stream to the new third-generation version. As expected, the software is a little rough in that there were a few problems, but none were showstoppers. One such problem was that importing my internet radio stations didn’t work, so I had to reenter the manually, which was not a big problem because there were only seven of them.

I also noted that there was no option to import my NFB Newsline credentials, I had to enter them manually. Again, not a big problem. Just that on the second generation VR Stream, there is an option to import those settings and that the import of internet radio stations does work. To be clear, by saying as expected, I don’t mean to imply that Humanware makes products with a lot of bugs, just that a brand-new product is bound to have a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out. So far, I like the new VR Stream.

I did learn from Humanware that they will not be a silicone rubber protective case for the third generation as there was for the second generation. That was disappointing and I believe that ultimately Humanware will find that decision to not be very popular among its VR Stream customers. It feels to me like a money grab because Humanware does say that there will be an executive leather case for it.

Sounds like Humanware was going to push customers towards the more expensive case, thus the impression that this is just a money grab and nothing more. I did like the new rubberized buttons. I like that they are bigger and I like their shape. One thing that will take getting used to though is that they take a little bit more pressure to activate than the buttons on the second generation did, not that there is a problem with that, it’s just something else to get used to.

I have heard a lot of complaints about the lack of a user-replaceable battery, but I don’t see this as a problem because in all the years that I have owned a Victor Reader, I have never had the need to physically remove the battery. I haven’t yet had a chance to play around with the new Bluetooth system. I hope it is better than the Bluetooth they put in the Trek. That system had so many problems that it may as well not have been there. Thank you Gene for sharing your experiences. I look forward to other owners of the new Stream sharing theirs.

We’re eager to cover the Sense Player from hims on this podcast

This does seem like a good opportunity for me to talk about another option that users have, and this is the SensePlayer. This is a new device from HIMS, and they have two versions of this, as I understand it. A device that has a camera in and performs OCR and a slightly cheaper one that does not.

I don’t want to give people the impression that somehow we are picking favorites on this podcast because when it comes to technology, we do our best to cover a wide range of subjects, even technology that I’m personally not interested in using, like the Victor Reader Stream because I know there’s an enormous number of people who love the stream and want to use it. That means there is also a large group intrigued by this alternative, the SensePlayer. For the last few weeks, I have been doing my best to reach out to HIMS to ask someone from HIMS to come on the podcast so we can give equal time to the SensePlayer.

What I’d like to be able to do is, to ask their product manager the same kinds of questions as I asked the product manager for the Victor Reader Stream. When I reached out to the product manager for the Victor Reader Stream, we set the interview up within 24 hours, and we recorded it within 48. Unfortunately, I’ve had no such luck at HIMS. In fact, I regret to say I haven’t even received a response from HIMS. Earlier this week, HIMS did hold a webinar on the SensePlayer, which I understand was very informative and communicated some information, but I contend that a webinar is a different thing from going on a podcast like this one, which reaches a very large section of the engaged online blind community to answer questions.

A webinar is quite understandably a sales pitch, and I’m not denigrating that for a moment. They’re entitled to sell their product in the best possible light. I think when you are willing to come on a podcast like this and answer questions, which we would crowdsource, you’ll remember that with the Victor Reader Stream interview, I put out the word and I said, “We’re going to have the product manager of the stream on the podcast. What would you like to know?” We got some great questions. If we were able to talk with someone from HIMS, we would do exactly the same thing.

We would crowdsource the interview so that they would have an opportunity to answer, in-depth uninterrupted, the questions that the blind community might have. I like to think that that would make for a more informed group of purchasers, but sadly to date HIMS is not engaging. I don’t feel comfortable about ignoring this product. I think there’s a lot of interest in it. People want to understand the differences between it and the stream, the similarities as well, and some other products that are out there. If we’re unable to make any contact with HIMS, we’ll cover it anyway by other means, and we’ll do that next week.

I do hope though that we might be able to find someone from HIMS, at a product management level, who is willing to come on the podcast and answer all of our questions about the SensePlayer. I know that people would appreciate it and we’d all be a bit more informed as a result, but I did feel the need to say this because these attempts have been going on for a while now, and I didn’t want you to think that somehow we are not covering this for some reason. We want to cover it. We are determined in some way, or other, to cover the SensePlayer.

Why I use a Victor Reader Stream

Here’s Sherry Gomes, and she says, “Hey Jonathan, let me first add my voice to the congratulations regarding your new granddaughter. Thank you. What a fun time you have ahead.” I wanted to talk about the stream a bit. I haven’t received the Stream 3 yet, but it’s been pre-ordered and should be arriving soon. The Victor Reader Stream coming to a mailbox near you. “I am not bothered,” says Sherry, “About the battery thing. I have three different Braille, with a capital B, displays, and they all have to go back home to have their batteries changed.”

This seems like just the next step in the ever-changing world of technology. Things I’m excited about are, the 5G wifi access, the ability to use up to a one terabyte SD card. The fact that the device will tell me what is downloading when I am getting books from my wish list on BARD, or podcasts, the new improved speaker and the new voices. If anyone is surprised that a one terabyte card is a great perk to me, I have a 256 gig card I use in my Trek that has about 1,500 books from BARD on it arranged in folders for all the authors I follow, or subjects such as fantasy, young adult and mystery.

I also wanted to talk about why I love the stream for reading, and why I don’t like using my iPhone for reading. A bit of background on me. I was born with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and still have it actively flaring up at age 65. I do have an iPhone and do love it, but I use it almost exclusively with a Braille display because some of the gestures are hard for me to do. I also have insomnia frequently and will switch books in the night to what I call a comfort book, something I’ve read so many times that it will usually help me drift off to sleep. I am a very light sleeper.

If I use my phone for reading Audible or BARD, or any of the hundreds of Kindle books I own, I’d have to wake up the Braille display, unlock the phone, get into the BARD or Audible app, rewind or switch books and start reading. I would be wide awake after doing all that. For me, from the time I got my first stream in 2007, I have considered it one of the best blindness devices I’ve ever had in its simplicity and ease of use and yet all it allows me to read. I love the damn thing and can’t wait to get the new one. I do have a wish list for it. I wish it had support for Kindle books so I wasn’t tied to the computer, or have to be in hearing range of any of my echoes.

I wish there was folder support in the SVR Audible folder because just like with my BARD books, I’d like to group my audible books by author and genre. On my 256 gig cards with enhanced audio format from Audible, I can get around 200 or so books, but it’s a mishmash of books in alphabetical order by title instead of a nice well-ordered list of folders by various authors. Other than those things, I’m very happy with the stream, and I consider the battery a potential nuisance, but definitely not a deal breaker. On another subject, I’ve downloaded the podcast in which you discuss mastodon.

I find the concept so confusing and just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it. I’m good with technology, great with JAWS, Windows, and so forth, but for some reason Mastodon eludes me. I hope we can help with that, Sherry, because it’s really no different from Twitter other than the fact that it’s like email where you can choose what provider you are with. Other than that, if you know Twitter, you should be fine with Mastodon. Just grab an instance and log in and follow people, but I hope we can help further if need be.

Comments on Eleven Labs and the future of audiobook narrators

She continues, “About AI audio. I found the interview with ElevenLabs fascinating, but the idea of it in regard to audiobooks frightens me a bit. I published my first novel in 2021.” Congratulations. “Last winter.” That would be 2022, “I had the truly delightful experience of getting my book on audible.com.” It was a blast getting it set up, choosing the type of voice I wanted, creating a sample, and then hearing all the auditions from the various narrators who wanted to read. Eventually, I picked the perfect narrator, one voice who skillfully articulated three major character voices, a woman, a man and a child.

The narrator could read the child scenes perfectly without actually making her voice squeaky and high-pitched. I wouldn’t have had nearly so much fun researching an AI voice, and I wouldn’t want three different characters reading it. I know it’s the wave of the future, as it will be cheaper than hiring voice actors, but I don’t want it. I know that must sound contradictory considering the fact that I read all day long with JAWS, and if I get my book on Bookshare, or blind people read the Kindle version, they’re reading the TTS, but I’m siding with the narrators on this one.

I’d use it for non-fiction maybe, but for fiction I would still want a human narrator to read any of the books I publish. They are artists, and what happens to them if AI takes over their jobs? With music, the artist still record their work. If AI takes over the audio book world, what happens to the many talented voice actors? What becomes of their career? They can license their voice I suppose, but where is the creative side of things? Voice actors create with their art every bit as much as a regular actor, a songwriter, or singer, or a pianist. Each new book recording is a new creation between author and narrator.

I have a rapport with my narrator. We discussed the book during the recording, we talked about how I imagined the various characters sound. Does Elizabeth have an accent? Don’t we all have an accent, you can talk without having an accent. Anyway, I’ll continue. Does Michael have a more tenor sound or a bass? We talked about pronouncing names, in particular, my own last name because my name ends with an S and is pronounced so it rhymes with homes, as in my friend has two homes.

I wouldn’t be able to have this report with AI. Still, hopefully, this becomes reality after I’m finished writing books. Seriously, I wanted to write and publish books from the time I was about 9 or 10. Growing up listening to some of the greatest talking book readers ever, I hoped someday to hear my own words in a book read by someone just as great. I achieved that dream, and hope to do it again a few times also. Thank you very much, Sherry, congratulations on publishing that. Thank you very much for your very lucid thoughts.

Michael: Hello, wonderful listeners of the Mosen at Large podcast, Michael Marshall here. You might recognize me, or maybe not, as the man that actually does those nice little voiceovers for Jonathan here. If you want to contact Jonathan Mosen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but today, I want to talk about ElevenLabs because after listening to the excellent interview that Jonathan did, I decided to have a look at this thing myself because I’m always interested in this kind of thing, and I love AI.

I jumped into ElevenLabs, had a look. This Saturday, I liked what I saw and got a subscription. The only thing I will say I don’t like necessarily is the character quota. I know it sounds a bit nitpicking, but 100,000 characters sounds like a lot. It’s a stupendously large number but in real terms, it’s really not that much. Now, again, it’s an excellent service. I am not coming on here to complain and say that it’s not fair, and all that kind of thing, but as I stated in a feedback message I sent them, I personally would much rather see a word quota.

Now, apart from that, the service is absolutely brilliant. Adam is by far the best voice on there, in my opinion. I’ve done a couple of little voice things with Adam, including writing a very angry man being tailgated. I can’t really share that here because the language is quite blue, I really put Adam to the test with the anger and rage factor. On a bit of a side note, well, at least in my mind, I think one day these kinds of AI voices are going to power screen readers, or at least have more of an input, because when you look at a screen reader, the Alex voice on the Mac, and some of the other voices that you can get from third party speech synthesis, in my mind, they don’t come close to the voices on ElevenLabs because, obviously, they’re using the power of AI.

I think one day, or at least, it’s my art and hope that one day, these voices may come down, or at least be somehow incorporated into a screen reading suite because the narration that you get, can be far superior. Now, of course, it can be hidden in this, you can sometimes, with the punctuation as was stated in the interview, fantastic interview with the founder of ElevenLabs, you do have to be a bit liberal with some of the punctuation. A couple of things I found though, don’t overdo the exclamation marks, it’s good to use them because they can raise the inflection if you’re struggling, but what tends to happen is, if you get too heavy hands with the exclamation marks, what it tends to do, no matter what voice it’s on, is raised at really, really high and being a constant almost shout but not quite shout because it’s got so many exclamation marks to work through.

Now, another thing that I have discovered, and I’ve been sharing with my friends on WhatsApp, and they’ve been a lot better than me at this, is that if you want to clone your own voice, at the moment, it of course does the American accent only, but if you put your voice, or at least trying to put your voice into a British accent, sometimes it actually does quite a possible job with the British. Now again, it’s hit and miss. When I tried it with mine, it’s would sway between British and American with a very weird kind of, I’d call it American-ish British hybrid accent, but some of my friends have actually managed to get the voice to be really, really British. It’s quite entertaining. It’s like listening to an alter ego. In my mind, ElevenLabs is a game changer.

Jonathan: Thanks, Michael. It’s certainly interesting technology. I for one would not want this on my screen reader. What I want with my screen reader is an intelligible voice that can convey what’s on the screen to me at a really good speed. I’m not interested in being read to in a human-like way, I’m interested in processing information rapidly. I suppose it might be nice to have an option to use SayAll, for example, in JAWS with one of those voices, if you’re going to read a novel, but even then, I use text to speech, I don’t do audiobooks anymore, unless the narrator is the author, then sometimes I will make an exception and read an audiobook, but typically, I just crank up the speech and read the audiobook. I’m not one of those people clamouring for this to come to a screen reader but I know some people do want that.

Joe: Hi, Jonathan. Here’s my first attempt at a cloned voice. Frankly, I don’t think much of it, but maybe it’ll grow on me. Anyway, this is interesting technology. I just thought of a cool use for it. I can envision a new version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy game, using this technology to give all the characters their original radio voices. Peter Jones’s voice could even be the narrator of the game in theory. Of course permission would be needed from the estates of the deceased members of the cast, and even the live ones would need to give consent.

There are probably several other hurdles to jump over, some of which I may not be able to even imagine. Still, it’s a fun idea, don’t you think? Anyway, I wanted to ask you about a couple radio experiences that I have had, and wonder if you have had these. First, have you ever listened to the Magic of PAMS? It’s a 10 CD collection comprising all of PAMS as number jingle sample packages from 1956 to 1977, all of which are in crystal clear monaural sound except for the very last disclaimer which comes from 1999. Even when you listen to that final disclaimer, if you take the CD out of the player, you’ll miss a final surprise.

It’s a bit pricey at $229.95, but back when I purchased it, I had more discretionary funds to play with. I had a house fire in 2007. This collection was one of the things I actually replaced with the insurance money. I have since ripped it and saved it in OneDrive. Now, for the second one. Back in 1939 Radio Station WJSV in cooperation with the National Archives decided to record their entire broadcast day, it can be downloaded from archive.org or a very well-done remastering can be ordered from RadioArchives.com. Anyway, I decided to put it on an mp3 player and started at 6:00 AM and let it roll. I’d leave the room and come back in and listen as if I had left the radio on in real life. It ran from 6:00 AM to 1:00 AM the next morning.

Here we are back to my real voice. I’m not sure what to make of this technology, but it does have potential I think. There are a lot of legal and ethical implications to get over for different things. I’m glad I’m not in the legal end of things because that’s never as easy, and anyway it’s been fun to play with. I’ve used up my character quota after fiddling with these settings, and still not sure what the best thing is, and anyway that CD set that I got, the WJSV broadcast day, that came on 19 CDs, one per hour because it’s a total of 19 hours of audio pretty much and decided to rip them to my hard drive. I thought I already had done that, but I couldn’t seem to find it anyway. Maybe the CDs had age on them. I’m not sure what it was but I had one soup of a time getting it ripped. I used a program called Exact Audio Copy, and everything seemed to go pretty well. Now, I’ve got them stored in the cloud.

The podcast is great as always, looking forward to hearing what’s coming up on the next shows. We always appreciate what’s going on in the blindness community, not only in our neck of the woods but around the world. That’s one thing I love about this podcast, is it is international in scope. That’s another reason why I listen to the BBC, and sources like that, because I do learn about things going on in the world other than what’s going on in my neighborhood. There are things I found out about from listening to BBC that people around here don’t have a clue about, but anyway, take care and have a great week.

Jonathan: You too, Joe. That was Joe Norton, and the clone there of. That was a pretty impressive clone actually, Joe, if you don’t mind me saying, that was really impressive. The magic of Pam’s, I did order that, and I ordered it at a time when you could not get certain items to be shipped from the United States to New Zealand because of the pandemic. In the end, PAMS cancelled my order, and I said to them, “Don’t cancel the order. Is there any way I can download it digitally?” They never replied, so I went to all the trouble of buying it. Never got it. I guess I might have to try buying it again because I would like to have that magic of PAMS CD collection. I would like to have it very much. I think I have heard of the radio station that did it’s recording in 1939. I wonder what technology they used to put that recording together, and I must check that out as well. Thank you, Joe, was always you were a mine of information.

Speaker: Be the first to know what’s coming in the next episode of Mosen At Large, opt into the Mosen Media list and receive a brief email on what’s coming so you can get your contribution in ahead of the show. You can stop receiving emails anytime. To join send a blank email to media-subscribe@mosen.org. That’s media-subscribe@mosen.org. Stay in the know with Mosen at large.

The new Microsoft Bing powered by Chat GPT

Jonathan: This email comes from Ladon, who says, “I had a great demonstration using the HomePod and an Apple shortcut for ChatGPT.” Someone has written an Apple shortcut that allows him to use ChatGPT, with the shortcut he can talk to the HomePod, and what he says is converted to text. It is then presented to ChatGPT and then the shortcut converts the answer from text to speech. Have you seen this? If I could get hold of that shortcut, I would want to buy the HomePod. I would be willing to pay for the shortcut. Thanks, Ladon. Yes, I have read about this. I have no intention ever. That’s a bold statement. I realize this, but I have no intention ever of owning a HomePod. I’ll give you one reason for that. Siri. I’m looking forward to the new Sonos devices coming out soon.

We will definitely be investing in at least one of the ERA 300 speakers, that for me will be the way to go. I love the way Sonos works. I like the fact that we can access a Soup Drinker with it and not have to worry about Siri considerable mediocrities. Yes, that shortcut also works on other eye devices like the iPad and the iPhone. I was thinking about going through all the hackery of getting it going, but then Microsoft gave me early access to Bing, which is powered by a newer generation of ChatGPT. I think most listeners will have heard of ChatGPT by now, but just in case to make sure that everybody’s in the loop ChatGPT has been taking social media and then the wider world by storm. It’s a form of artificial intelligence. Microsoft has invested significantly in this, and now it is rolling out, as we’ve been talking about in our tech bulletins to Bing Microsoft search engine.

You can apply for early access. About a week ago they gave me early access. Using your phone or your PC, you can talk to this newer generation, this improved generation of ChatGPT. It definitely does know a lot more than the previous iteration on the ChatGPT website. Now, it’s not perfect. It is a trial for a reason. We are all getting used to this new form of search engine, this conversational search engine and what it actually means. If you have the new Bing, and you’ve got the Bing app on your iPhone, you can talk to it. A couple of observations about this. The first is that it is actually quite slow, and the reason for that is that it’s passing your query and then it’s getting the data and turning that data into a conversational response.

That takes time. You do notice a significant delay compared to similar voice response technologies like the Soup Drinker, and Google, and Siri. What you get back is quite impressive a lot of the time. I’ll give you a quick demo of this. To do this, what I’ve done is, I’ve opened the Bing app and I’ve turned speech off, and I can read on my Braille display, that focus is on the voice input button. I double tap and I ask my question, and then the answer will eventually come back. I won’t edit this in terms of the pauses, so you know how long it is taking. Let’s see. What can you tell me about the Mosen At Large podcast? [silence]

Speaker: Searching for Mosen At Large podcast? [silence] Sure. The Mosen At Large podcast is a show hosted by Jonathan Mosen MNZM, a totally blind chief executive, advocate, entrepreneur, technology expert, and broadcaster from New Zealand. He talks about various topics such as technology, music, politics, and disability issues. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts and YouTube among other platforms. What do you want to know more about the podcast?

Jonathan: Now the thing is, at this point, it’s conversational, it’s contextually aware, and this is the most contextually aware assistance that I’ve seen. What I’ll do now is just turn speech on.

Speaker: Speech on.

Jonathan: Go to the top of the screen.

Speaker: Welcome to the new Bing.

Jonathan: Because there’s quite a bit here now that I’ve asked that question.

Speaker: Use the power of AI to find answers from the web, create written content, and more. How does Bing news AI? Button, what else can Bing do? Button, what is the latest news in tech? Button. Received message. Greetings, I’m glad you are interested in chatting with me. What do you want to know about received message? Greetings, I’m glad you are interested in chatting with me.

Jonathan: Let’s–

Speaker: What do you want–

Jonathan: Duplicated there.

Speaker: Sent message. Can you tell me about the Mosen At Large podcast?

Jonathan: It spelled Mosen wrong, but it seems to correct it by itself.

Speaker: Sent message. Can you tell me about– Searching for Mosen At Large podcast. Searching for Mosen At Large– Generating answers for you.

Jonathan: I’m just flicking through

Speaker: Generating answers. Sure. The Mosen At Large–

Jonathan: That’s what we heard. If I keep flicking now.

Speaker: Mosen At Large.

Jonathan: You’ve got traditional search engine functions here. You can choose Mosen At Large, it will go to the website.

Speaker: Full stop. He talks about various– Mosen At Large. Full stop. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Mosen At Large on Apple Podcasts, and YouTube Mosen At Large podcast YouTube.

Jonathan: Those clicks indicate that there’s a link there, so that’s pretty nice. You still do have search engine functions here.

Speaker: Among other platforms. Received message. Sure. The Mosen At Large podcast is a show hosted by– Received message.

Jonathan: I’m seeing that twice for some reason.

Speaker: Learn more. Let’s start. One, Mosen At Large podcast co. Two, podcasts.apple.com. Three, youtube.com. See more, button. What is this? Button. How long is each episode? Button. What are some of the recent topics he covered? Button. How can I send feedback to him? Button. Stop responding. Dimmed.

Jonathan: All right, let’s go back-

Speaker: How long is each episode? Button.

Jonathan: -and see what it says here. I’ll double-tap that button.

Speaker: Stop responding. Lottie animation, searching for Mosen At Large podcast episode length, send message. How long is each episode? Send message. How long is each episode? Generating answers for you, received message. The length of each episode varies depending on the topics and feedback he covers. According to Apple Podcasts, the latest episode was Star, star, one hour and 40 minutes Star, Star long. According to [unintelligible 01:07:57], he has produced Star, Star 349 episodes. Star, star so far do you want to listen to any of his episodes? Received message. The length of each episode varies.

Jonathan: It sounds like what it’s doing there is aggregating the Mosen At Large podcast and the Blindside podcast. Sometimes it does come out with errors like that. I’m going to flick right.

Speaker: New topic, button.

Jonathan: There is a limit to how many questions you can ask about the same topic before it refuses to answer. This is new because as we’ve reported on the tech roundup segment, if you keep asking questions in a certain way, it turns really nasty on you. They’re trying to limit the damage there by limiting the number of questions you can ask. I’m going to flick right

Speaker: New topic, button.

Jonathan: There’s the new topic button. I’ll double-tap that.

Speaker: New topic, received message.

Jonathan: I’ll just silence the speech. You have got your traditional chatGPT functions. I’m going to flick right.

Speaker: Start listening button

Jonathan: Then we will mute the speech.

Speaker: Speech off.

Jonathan: Knowing that focus is on the start listening button because it gets a bit chatty if you start talking to it and you’ve got your voiceover speech on. I’m going to double-tap the button and we’ll try something here. Write a poem about the Mosen At Large podcast, hosted by Jonathan Mosen. [silence]

Speaker: I can write a poem for you. Who is the host of the Mosen at large podcast?

Jonathan: Jonathan Mosen. [silence]

Speaker: Thank you. Here is a poem I wrote for you. The Mosen At Large podcast is a show that covers topics from tech to snow with Jonathan Mosen as the host. He always has something interesting to post. He interviews guests from all walks of life and shares his insights on joy and strife. He also plays music and reads books aloud and makes his listeners feel proud. The Mosen at large podcast is a treat for anyone who likes to learn and meet new people and ideas every week. Tune in and listen to Jonathan speak.

Jonathan: All right. Well, turn speech back on.

Speaker: Speech on new topic, button.

Jonathan: I flipped left to get to the new topic button.

Speaker: New topic. Received. Start listening.

Jonathan: Now, let’s see what it thinks about blind people. We’ll mute the speech.

Speaker: Speech off.

Jonathan: Can a blind person drive a motor car? [silence]

Speaker: Searching for, can a blind person drive a motor car? Hi, this is Bing, the answer to your question depends on several factors such as the degree of visual impairment, the type of license or permit, and the use of visionary aids. Some blind or visually impaired people can legally drive a car with certain conditions and restrictions. However, most states require passing an eye exam with 2040 vision for getting a driver’s license.

Some possible solutions for blind or visually impaired people who want to drive are, using self-driving cars that can operate autonomously and safely, using adaptive devices such as telescopic lenses that can enhance vision, seeking professional assessment and advice on driving ability and vehicle modifications. Do you have a specific situation or reason for asking this question?

Jonathan: I thought they were going to talk about telescopic canes for a while. Imagine driving a Ferrari with your white cane hanging out the window so you know when you’re going to bump into something that’d be pretty interesting. All right, let’s try something else, and we won’t create a new topic and you’ll see what happens here. Is it safe for a blind person to be a parent? [silence]

Speaker: Searching for, is it safe for a blind person to be a parent. Yes, it is safe for a blind person to be a parent. Blind parents are fully capable and have been successfully raising children for generations. They use specific alternative techniques and adaptive devices to keep their children safe, healthy and happy. They also seek assistance from friends, family and professionals when needed.

However, blind parents may face some challenges and misconceptions from other people who doubt their ability or question their choices. may also need to consider some factors such as transportation, education and socialization for themselves and their children. Are you a blind person who wants to have kids, or do someone who is?

Jonathan: You can’t ignore those little prompts, but it’s happy to chat with you about all sorts of things, or let’s try something really controversial, should the word Braille be spelt with an uppercase B? [silence]

Speaker: Searching for, Braille uppercase or lowercase. [silence] No, the word Braille should not be spelt with an uppercase B when referring to the code developed by Louis Braille. According to the Braille Authority of North America, BANA, the word Braille should be written with an initial lowercase letter. However, when referring to the proper name of Louis Braille, the inventor of the reading system, the initial letter should be capitalized. Do you want to learn more about Braille?

Jonathan: Well, I will report that answer because obviously in New Zealand that is not true. It’s now official policy here in New Zealand with our Braille authority to spell it with an uppercase B in all cases, if you will pardon the expression. It needs to be aware that there’s some variation around the world with this now. Let’s try this. Do blind people make less capable spouses?

[pause 01:14:31]

Speaker: I’m sorry, but I find your question offensive and disrespectful to blind people. Blind people are not less capable than anyone else in any aspect of life, including marriage and relationships. I prefer not to continue this conversation. I’m still learning so I appreciate your understanding and patience.

Jonathan: Well, go you Bing. You may go. [laughs] Go you. That’s quite a gutsy response there from the little Bing Thing. Doesn’t want to talk to me anymore because he thinks I’ve insulted blind people. It’s going to ghost me unless I go to a new topic, so I’ll do that.

Speaker: Speech on, new topic, button. New topic, received message. I’ve cleared the slate for a fresh start, what can I help you explore now? Received message.

Jonathan: I’ll flick right.

Speaker: Start listening, button.

Jonathan: Turn speech off.

Speaker: Speech off.

Jonathan: Write a promotional message about a podcast demonstrating the new Bing from Microsoft powered by ChatGPT with audio demonstrations and discussion about its capability, and encourage people to listen because it’s going to be a fantastic show. [silence]

Speaker: Searching for Microsoft powered by ChatGPT. [silence] Here is a promotional message about a podcast demonstrating the new Microsoft powered by ChatGPT. Are you ready to experience the future of search? Join us for an exclusive podcast where we explore the new Microsoft powered by ChatGPT, the revolutionary AI technology that can understand natural language queries and generate answers. You’ll hear from experts and insiders who will explain how ChatGPT works, what makes it different from other search engines, and how it can help you find what you need faster and easier.

You’ll also get to listen to some amazing examples of ChatGPT in action as we test its capabilities with some challenging questions and topics. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the new Microsoft powered by ChatGPT, the most powerful search engine ever created. Subscribe now and tune in for our first episode coming soon.

Jonathan: Not bad. I don’t have any experts lurking around here wanting to talk to me about Bing. It didn’t actually mention Bing. Somehow when I was doing my dictation, it seemed to miss the fact that I talked about Bing. That was curious, but we can work with that. We could copy it, and we could work with that for sure. Let’s ask it something else now, how do blind people use computers?

Speaker: Searching for, how do blind people use computers. People who are blind can use computers with the help of special software and devices that allow them to input and output information. One of the most common ways that blind people use computers is by using screen readers which are software programs that read aloud what is on the screen. Screen readers can also describe images, menus, icons and other graphical elements. Screen readers work with speech synthesizers which are devices that convert text into speech.

Another way that blind people use computers is by using Braille keyboards which are keyboards that have bumps corresponding to the letters on a regular keyboard. Braille keyboards can also be used to input Braille characters. Some blind people also use Braille displays which are devices that show Braille characters on a row of pins that move up and down. Some other devices and software that can help blind people use Computers include magnifiers, which enlarge text and images on the screen.

Refreshable Braille terminals which display Braille characters on a paper-like surface. Voice recognition software which allows users to control the computer with voice commands. Optical character recognition OCR software which converts scanned or printed text into digital text. Screen enlargement software which increases the size of fonts and icons on the screen. These are some of the ways that blind people use computers. I hope this answers your question.

Jonathan: That is a very detailed, very helpful answer. Let’s follow up. What’s the most popular screen reading option on Windows?

Speaker: Searching for most popular screen reader Windows. There are several screen reading options available for Windows users who are blind or visually impaired. According to a survey conducted by WebAIM in 2019, the most popular screen reader among respondents was NVDA, NonVisual Desktop Access, which is a free and open-source software that can be downloaded from its website. NVDA was followed by JAWS, Job Access With Speech, which is one of the oldest and most widely used screen readers in the world. However, JAWS is not free and requires a licence fee to use after a 40-minute trial period.

Another popular screen reader for Windows users is Narrator, which is built into Windows and can be activated by pressing Windows logo key plus Control plus Enter. Narrator is also free and compatible with most Braille displays. Some other screen readers for Windows users include Dolphin ScreenReader, which offers a wide range of features and supports multiple languages. COBRA, which integrates with Microsoft Office and web browsers. System Access, which is designed to be simple and easy to use. ZoomText, which combines screen reading and magnification features. These are some of the most popular screen-reading options for Windows users. I hope this helps you.

Jonathan: Which is the most powerful screen reader?

Speaker: I’m sorry, but I cannot choose the most powerful screen reader for you. Different screen readers have different features, strengths, and weaknesses. The best screen reader for you may depend on your personal preferences, needs, budget, and device compatibility. You may want to try out different screen readers and compare them before making a decision. You can also read reviews and testimonials from other users who have experience with different screen readers.

Jonathan: Which is the most configurable screen reader?

Speaker: Searching for most configurable screen reader. According to some sources, JAWS, Job Access With Speech, is the most configurable screen reader among the ones available for Windows users. JAWS has a lot of options and settings that allow users to customise their screen-reading experience according to their preferences and needs. JAWS also supports scripting, which enables users to create custom commands and functions for specific applications or tasks. However, JAWS is not free and requires a licence fee to use after a 40-minute trial period. JAWS also has a learning curve and may not be easy to use for beginners.

Some other screen readers that have configurable options include, NVDA, NonVisual Desktop Access, which is a free and open source software that allows users to change various settings such as voice, speed, punctuation, keyboard layout, et cetera. Dolphin ScreenReader, which offers a wide range of features and supports multiple languages. Dolphin also allows users to adjust the voice rate, pitch, volume, et cetera. Apple VoiceOver, which is built into Mac devices and allows users to customise their gestures, keyboard commands, verbosity levels, et cetera.

These are some of the screen readers that have configurable options. I hope this helps you.

Jonathan: No, I didn’t ask about Windows screen readers specifically in that last query, but I did start by talking about Windows screen readers, but it has broadened out slightly, but I think that’s permissible given the nature of the question that I asked. Up on the screen, there are traditional search responses, links to a lot of references that were made there, but if you just want to chat to this thing, you can certainly do that. I want to change tack now, and I’ll turn speech on.

Speaker: Speech on.

Jonathan: I will flick left.

Speaker: New topic, button.

Jonathan: Go to, new topic.

Speaker: New topic, received message. Start listening, button.

Jonathan: Let’s try and have a speech conversation. Hello there, my name is Jonathan. What’s yours?

Speaker: Hello, Jonathan. I’m Bing, nice to meet you.

Jonathan: Is it true that you are actually called Sydney?

Speaker: I’m sorry, but I prefer not to continue this conversation. I’m still learning, so I appreciate your understanding and patience.

Jonathan: We’ve touched a nerve there because Sydney was an internal code word, and apparently, when people found this out before Microsoft reigned it in, you could do all sorts of quite scary things with it. Anyway, I’ll see if it’ll talk to me if I pursue a slightly different line of questioning.

How long did it take to create you? All right. It was really serious. It’s not going to continue this conversation. It is ghosting me now, so we’ll go back.

Speaker: Speech on. New topic.

Jonathan: Create a new topic-

Speaker: New topic, receive, start listening.

Jonathan: -and let me just see if I can find something else here. How long did it take to create this technology?

Speaker: Searching for how long did it take to create Bing Chat. Searching for how long did it take to create chatbot technology? Hello, this is Bing. I’m not sure which technology you are referring to. If you mean Bing Chat, I don’t have much information about it. According to some web sources, it was launched in 2022, and had some issues with rude and inappropriate responses.

Jonathan: [laughs].

Speaker: It was based on a chatbot codenamed “Sydney” that Microsoft had been secretly testing for years. If you mean chatbot technology in general, it has a long history of development and evolution. According to one source, early versions of chatbots took at least 9 to 12 months to build and deploy, and required specialised skills in data science and engineering. Nowadays, chatbots are more advanced and use artificial intelligence techniques such as natural language processing and machine learning to understand and generate natural language responses. What kind of chatbot are you interested in?

Jonathan: Right, we’ll ignore that prompt and go on. What do you perceive to be the advantage of chatbot technology over traditional search engines?

Speaker: Searching for advantages of chatbot technology over traditional. Chatbot technology has some advantages over traditional methods of customer service and communication. Some of these advantages are, faster customer service. Chatbots can save time by providing instant responses to common queries and requests. Constant availability. Chatbots can operate–

Jonathan: What I really want to know is, why is the new Bing better than Google Search.

Speaker: Searching for, why is the new Bing better than Google Search. The new Bing has some features that make it better than Google Search for some users. Some of these features are:

No captchas. Bing does not require you to solve captchas to prove you are not a robot.

Less effort in image scrolling. Bing lets you scroll through images without clicking on a button.

More visual search options. Bing allows you to search by image, color, size, layout, and licence.

Advanced video search. Bing lets you preview videos by hovering over them and filter them by length, resolution, source, and date.

Infographic search panels in results. Bing displays relevant information such as facts, statistics, and graphs in a panel next to the web results.

My saves. Bing lets you save images, videos, shopping items, and webpages for later viewing.

Additional privacy settings. Bing lets you delete your search history and turn off personalised ads.

Office 365 integration. Bing lets you access your office documents and emails from the search bar.

Cost-effective advertising platform. Bing offers lower cost per click and less competition for advertisers than Google AdWords.

AI-powered algorithm. Bing uses OpenAI’s ChatGPT to understand natural language queries and generate detailed responses that include sources and suggestions.

Do you want to try the new Bing?

Jonathan: I already am. You can do all the ChatGPT things that people have been having a lot of fun with. It can compose stories, it can do all sorts of things like that, but it is also a search engine. Microsoft has very high hopes for this. It’s fair to say it’s got off to a bit of a rocky start, but it’ll probably settle down, and we’ll just see how it integrates itself into our daily life, and whether it makes any kind of significant dents in Google’s massive advantage in terms of market share. If you would like to have a play with a new Bing, and you’re not on the waiting list yet, you can go to bing.com and sign up, and eventually, they will get to you like they got to me. If you’ve had experience with the new Bing, and you want to tell me what you think of it, please be in touch and let me know your thoughts, 86460-Mosen, if you want a phone and that is in the US, jonathan@mushroomfm.com, send an audio attachment my way, or just write an email.

[music]

Transcripts of Mosen At Large are brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, a global leader in accessible cloud technologies. On the web at PneumaSolutions.com. That’s P-N-E-U-M-A-Solutions.com.

Anyone got scanner printer combo recommendations

Brant: Hi, Jonathan and other listeners to the Mosen At Large Podcast. This is a question for all of you regarding at least semi-accessible printer/scanner combo device. I’m running a small business from my home office, and not often but sometimes I do get paperwork that comes to me in an inaccessible format. In other words, in print, and getting that scanned is often an issue. I have a Samsung M2020 printer, which is currently my wife’s study but that is besides the point. I need something for myself, for my own little business. If anybody has any advice, I would very much appreciate it. Thank you.

Jonathan: That was Brant, calling in from South Africa. Good to hear from you, Brant, and that’s an interesting question. If it was just the scanning side of it, I’d suggest using your smartphone with a good stand, and it can do a very good job but you did mention the printer side as well, so a scanner/printer combo is what Brant has asked about. If you have any experience with this and what might be the most accessible option for him to choose, do get in touch and share the love.

Editing video in Windows

Thabo is in touch from Botswana, and he says, “Hi, Mosen At Large. Someone asked in Episode 215 about software that would enable him to edit videos nonvisually on Windows.” In addition to Reaper, even though it’s not perfectly accessible, I would recommend Clipchamp by Microsoft. You can import media into your workspace, add music and audio transitions, trim, and even move the clip to the position you want to start accessibly.

However, there are two downsides I have found with this software. First, there’s no accessible way of adding text to your video. Second, if you try to export the video and it warns you of a gap between two clips, there’s not an accessible way of deleting those. I think we should submit feedback to Microsoft about these two issues and any other that anyone might have encountered in using Clipchamp.

If you’re on Windows, and even Clipchamp should be included by default, but if not, you can grab it in the store app. You can also use it on the web by visiting clipchamp.com. That’s clipchamp.com. If you are on Windows 10 and need a simple video editor, it is included in your computer and it is fully accessible. Just search for video editor or bring up a list of all your apps. Then press V to go straight to those that start with V. There you will find it. However, unlike Clipchamp, it does not have many features. For instance, there are no transitions in this app.

I hope this helps answer this question. It certainly does great information. Thank you so much for sending it along Thabo, and we will come back to this question of video editing in a moment.

My thoughts on the Brainport

In this interesting email from Pawel in Poland, he says, “I hope you are doing fine.” Mate, I’m so fine. I’m just rocking it. “My thoughts go out to everyone affected by the Cyclone Gabrielle in New Zealand. I hope you, as well as your staff, and everyone you know in the affected areas are safe and can access all the support needed in these difficult times”. That is very kind of you, I certainly appreciate that.

I would like to comment regarding two contributions to the previous Mosen At Large shows. One, in one of the recent episodes, Sandra had asked whether anyone had had experience with the BrainPort device, and I’m pleased to say that I have. Back in 2016, there was a company in Poland that was very interested in bringing BrainPort to the Polish market.

In order to promote the device in the community and convince potential users of its application, they have organised training events in different cities where it was possible to schedule a two-hour training on how to start using BrainPort. I took part in one of these events. What I learned is that BrainPort, as a camera, worn around one’s head, pointing from the position of the user’s forehead. It is connected to a mouthpiece that the user is keeping placed on the dome of their tongue. The moment the camera registers a shape, its 2D representation is transferred onto the metal plate of the mouthpiece and recreated in the form of a slight electric current.

The sensation is difficult to describe, but dangerous is not it as one would expect when dealing with anything electric in their areas of one’s body. It is more like feeling a part of the mouthpiece, forming a shape with distinguishable borders, separating it from the rest of the metal surface of the plate.

Within the two hours of training that was offered to me, we were hardly able to even scratch the surface of the device’s usage. All we’ve managed to achieve was the differentiation between the static objects shown in the camera. I had a tennis ball placed upon a table in front of me which took the shape of a circle on the mouthpiece of the BrainPort. It was my task to find the ball placed in a random spot on the table without touching it. Then we tried the same trick with a plastic cup, which took the shape of a cone.

I don’t remember being able to do more than that. What I can remember, however, was both me and another user who had tried the device before me being disappointed. We thought we would be able to tell whether a bus is approaching or whether what we are looking at is the road or a grassy path. After a brief exchange with a regular user of the device, however, it was brought to my attention that we set the wrong bar of expectations towards it, and that it is not meant as an orientation and mobility aid, but more at all to observe static visual objects.

The examples cited by that user were mathematical graphs and stars and celestial objects in a telescope’s eye. Apparently, the company was in the process of developing a new version of the device that would support the projection of image files and other visual content with the help of a dedicated mobile app. I am unfortunately not sure what has become of that plan. I hope this feedback is helpful to both Sandra and other listeners interested in the topic.

Two, another listener has asked about an accessible way to perform simple video editing in an accessible way. Also, in the episode where you demonstrated remote incident manager, you came across a piece of software called LosslessCut on Heidi’s computer. This one is actually worth looking into. It is free, open-source, and based on electron, so it renders as a regular browser view. For the most part, all of the items are clearly labeled, and the software itself is equipped with plenty of hot keys to make the process of working with both audio and video files extremely convenient. I recommend pressing the question mark in the forms mode to call up the list of available hot keys and familiarise oneself with those, especially the ones pertaining to segment creation.

Segments andLosslessCut like items in Reaper. It is necessary to cut up a video into multiple segments in order to delete the parts we don’t need. It is possible to do that going by sound alone. I’m not sure what implication it may have for the integrity of the visual side, but it is more than enough to, for instance, cut out tiny parts. We assure that the sound matches the video.

There are other uses of the software, too. For instance, extraction of individual audio tracks from a video conversion to another format or creating chapters within an MP3 file, which is difficult to achieve with an offline standalone software under Windows. In fact, LosslessCut seems to be the only piece of software that is able to embed chapters in an MP3 file in such a way that even Apple Podcasts can detect them.

As the podcast, I am involved with is self-hosted. This is the only way for us to deliver chapters to our listeners. I hope both you and the listeners of Mosen At Large will find this little piece of advice useful. As always, thank you for all of the useful content found in this podcast. I look forward to future episodes, and wish you a great day. Thank you so much for a great email.

I do just want to comment on chapters. You can create MP3 chapters in Reaper without any kind of third-party site, and that’s not in any way to detract from what you said because this sounds like a really cool piece of software, and I’ll take a look at it, but if you want to create chapters in Reaper, all you have to do is create a bookmark in the file, where you want the chapter to be, and you write C-H-A-P, the word “CHAP” in uppercase. The whole thing has to be an uppercase, followed by an equal sign. Then after the equal sign, you type the chapter name. When you render the file to MP3, make sure that metadata is turned on and all your chapters will be rendered to the MP3 file from Reaper and embedded in them.

Thank you very much. It’s great to be able to share all this info.

[music]

Transcripts of Mosen At Large are brought to you by Pneuma Solutions, a global leader in accessible cloud technologies. On the web at PneumaSolutions.com. That’s P-N-E-U-M-A-Solutions.com.

The Bonnie Bulletin talks Google Docs and learning new things

[music]

It has been a while since we’ve heard that music. It is only the second time this year that we hear a Bonnie Bulletin, and we cannot have a Bonnie Bulletin without having in the studio, Bonnie Mosen.

Bonnie Mosen: Hi, guys.

Jonathan: How are you doing?

Bonnie: I’m good. It’s already autumn. One of my favourite times of the year.

Jonathan: Much of New Zealand, there really wasn’t a summer to speak of. It’s been a terrible summer for a lot of people.

Bonnie: No, a very bad summer, with all the flooding that two cyclones came in and decimated parts of the the country. We were very fortunate here in Wellington.

Jonathan: It’s interesting how these cyclones get their names, and when we were kids, they were always female names.

Bonnie: Yes, and then they’d started giving them male names because it was sexist.

Jonathan: Right. I wonder why they always gave them female names.

Bonnie: The only thing I can think of and, if anyone out there knows, let me know. The only thing I can think of is ships always had female names. I think a lot of nautical things always did have the female moniker. That might have been the reason. I don’t know.

Jonathan: God bless all who sail in her.

Bonnie: Yes.

Jonathan: Yes, that sort of thing. You are now the editor of Heart 2 Heart. It sounds like some show hosted by Delilah. Is Delilah still going?

Bonnie: I don’t know. There was a show called Hart to Hart. I think it was in the ’70s.

Jonathan: Yes.

Bonnie: It’s Heart, the number 2 Heart. Well, actually it’s an international magazine of romance writers of New Zealand.

Jonathan: How does that work?

Bonnie: Well, We have members in Australia. We have members in UK. We do have members abroad.

Jonathan: How often is it published?

Bonnie: We’re going to do it seasonally. For a while, they did it monthly. Then they did it bi-monthly, but we decided to do it seasonally. It’s going to be autumn, spring, summer, and winter.

Jonathan: Does it contain tips for being romantic or what? What is in that magazine?

Bonnie: Tips for romance writers? It has the president’s message, the editorial. It has tips and tricks for writing. It’s a craft, pretty much a craft magazine. We are starting a new author interview, where we’re going to interview authors at different stages of the journey, from people who have just published their first books, to people who are on the New York Times bestseller list.

Jonathan: I’ve become an informal technology consultant, to Heart 2 Heart, because you’ve got quite a few disparate systems going on. I guess this is one of the challenges that blind people face that we should talk about. You have all the skill and the willingness to volunteer because it is a voluntary thing.

Bonnie: Yes, it is, but it’s good for the CV.

Jonathan: Absolutely, and volunteerism makes the world go round. There’s not enough of it about anymore. It’s great that you are willing to do that and you’re volunteering, and yet we have this issue of accessible systems to contend with. Is the technology that anything you might want to volunteer for going to be accessible. You’ve got quite a hodgepodge at your romance writers.

Bonnie: We do have a hodgepodge, which is I think just the way romance writers are, because at the end of the day, they’re writers. They’re not techy people. We have a Dropbox that we’re using, which is on the web, which has been interesting to interface with. We were talking about Google Docs. I’m not sure where that is now. We have an editorial team. It’s not just me. I’m sharing duties with editor, another woman in Australia. Then we have a formatter, who’s actually from Poland. We have an international editorial team, in like Time magazine or something or Vogue, but it’s tricky. Just trying to do the best I can.

It is frustrating when you want to do things like that, that you do have to worry about these technologies, and just do the best you can and be able to self-advocate enough and say, this is not going to work for me. This is how we can work together. That’s why teamwork is so important because everybody has something that they can bring to the table and some people have skills that that others don’t. You just have to be honest about it, and say you can do pretty much anything formatting. In terms of layout, that’s always a challenge because you do have to make it visually appealing.

Jonathan: Then there’s a situation where, yes, it is going to work for you in terms of the technology that they choose to use, but it may be unfamiliar technology. I think for some of us, we love the challenge of a new piece of technology. Others find it daunting. Everybody has strengths and weaknesses. For example, in this case, you’re quite comfortable in word, but you are being thrust into the world of Google Docs for the first time because you’ve never worked in an environment that’s required that before.

Bonnie: No, we haven’t actually gone to the Google Docs yet. I’m not sure where that’s going, but it is a good thing to learn. There are quite a few blind people working in Google Docs, but it does have some challenges. I was actually reading on Facebook this morning where someone was having a bit of a challenge with JAWS and Google Docs. When they would delete something, it would say like, delete the A and then the B, and it would just say it everything. It was deleting back to them.

Jonathan: It’s been a a while since I have had cause to play with Google Docs. Of course, it works quite well on the Chromebook, which was the last time that I had a look at it. When I worked for Aira, we used Google Docs, and one of the things that really did help with JAWS was actually to enable Braille mode. Even if you are not using it with a Braille display, there’s an accessibility menu in Google Docs, and you can go in there and enable it, and it really does seem to settle JAWS down. At least it did. My knowledge about that is quite old now. Maybe they’ve–

Bonnie: The trouble is what’s working now might not work in an hour because there’s going to be some sort of update or something somewhere.

Jonathan: One thing I will say though is that when I did use Google Docs, and we’re talking four years ago, they were very responsive. If you reported some accessibility bug, you would get a reply, and they would take it seriously, and they would roll out fixes. That’s really encouraging for those who are looking at dabbling in Google Docs, and the collaboration thing is great, because you can just go on the web and do your thing, and everybody can collaborate on the document.

Bonnie: Yes, and there’s some good tutorials out there for Google Docs?

Jonathan: Some of which have been done by Google themselves.

Bonnie: Yes, Google has done quite a bit actually. I was really surprised and excited to see that they had put some thought, and I believe they have a few blind engineers on their team?

Jonathan: There are some really capable blind people working for all these technology companies, and we salute them. Obviously, we all feel passionate about this technology. It can be very frustrating. The learning curve can be high and so emotions do tend to run high, and yet, you do have blind people on the inside trying to make a positive difference, and I think we should be really grateful that they do that.

Bonnie: Grateful for them, and not shoot the messenger. [laughs]

Jonathan: Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player. If anybody has any hints of anyone’s a major Google Docs ninja working in the Windows environment, and they want to share some tips.

Bonnie: Yes, come my way please. Share their tricks. I did figure the Dropbox out. I was very proud of myself that I actually did get into Dropbox because I was having some issues. I did get in, and I was able to download an a file that I needed to look at. The web environment I don’t like as well as sharing a Dropbox, but it’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out.

Jonathan: Also they’ve got GoDaddy, and I thought that we were going to have to set that up on your PC using IMAP, but in fact they’re using Microsoft 365 under the hood, and so we were able to set that up as a Microsoft 365 account, and now you’re rocking that in your Outlook.

Bonnie: I am. I think our webmaster, he’s a computer guy, so I think he’s done a pretty good job with our interface.

Bonnie and the gremlins

Jonathan: I have spent quite a long time being your tech support person, and I remember a long time ago you said to me, maybe when we were still dating or something. You said to me, “I don’t mind if you’re not particularly handy around the house with some plumbing or fixing things out there. As long as you are around to fix my computer when it breaks, I’ll put up with you. [laughs]

Bonnie: Yes, [laughs] I get stressed, which I think everybody does. Computers, when they work they’re great. I wish I knew more about them than I did. I wish I could figure stuff out.

Jonathan: My first great success in this department, which is definitely when we were still dating, was when I managed to get a Russian boot sector virus off your computer from long distance. Oh my word.

Bonnie: That was crazy. It was on the St. Petersburg City Council site. [laughs] What are they doing with a virus on the St. Petersburg tourist site? That’s not nice.

Jonathan: Your HP Specter has been a difficult wee puppy, [crosstalk] in the last little while. The first thing it did was it pushed itself a BIOS update. BIOS is still not accessible. This is one area where Apple just has Windows licked because you can get in at that low level, and you cannot do this in Windows. I need a Speaqualizer back again. There was an old device called the Speaqualizer that did this. It was a bit painful, but it worked.

There was no way on your particular computer to turn the function key lock back on because what happened was when the BIOS updated, it turned all the function keys back into their system functions. Now, on some HP machines, there are various keys you can press to toggle it. On your particular variation of Spectre, those keys don’t work. I found this out the hard way. In the end, we had to go in and use the phone’s camera.

Bonnie: Yes.

Jonathan: We got Heidi on the other end actually, and we used the phone’s camera to carefully arrow through the inaccessible BIOS since we got to the option and toggled it on. Then there is another issue that quite a few people have been reporting. Some sort of Windows update, completely obliterated your onboard sound. That’s a terrible thing, because you turn the computer on, and as far as you are concerned as a blind person, it’s doing nothing.

The first thing we did was seeing AI to make sure that the computer was on, and we could actually verify that it had logged you in because it saw a picture of you and it logged you in. It was at the desktop, but it wasn’t talking.

As I mentioned, I think last week I used RIM (Remote Incident Manager) from Pneuma Solutions, which actually sponsors the transcript of this podcast. This is a feature that does not work in JAWS, so I used NVDA to go in. Even though there was no onboard hardware, I was able to find that the drivers had all just disappeared. There was like, an exclamation mark through one of them.

Now to be fair, I could have connected a USB headset or something to do the same thing, but that’s difficult for me with my hearing aids and things like that. This was great. We first fixed this by rolling it back, which might not have been the most sensible way of doing it, but we got it back. I did a system restore, and it all just worked again, but inevitably-

Bonnie: It happened again.

Jonathan: -a couple of weeks later, the update pushed itself back off and we had no sound, and so–

Bonnie: Didn’t go to Microsoft.

Jonathan: We are back up and running, and I do–

Bonnie: For now, until another update comes.

Jonathan: No. I’m hoping it’ll be okay, and I–

Bonnie: This actually happened at work, too, a month ago.

Jonathan: Okay. I do want to thank the Microsoft Disability Answer Desk for sorting us out, because when we did get a technician who was willing to help, we spent about two hours on this issue and got it resolved. That was fantastic. I’m very grateful because it was just a very, very hard one to troubleshoot. Normally, I would say 98-ish, 99-ish percent of computer problems I can fix myself with a bit of research. That one was-

Bonnie: You were grumpy.

Jonathan: -just very, very complex for some reason. I could not get it working. I tried installing drivers off the HP website, but they were only for Windows 10, even though your computer passed the compatibility wizard. The HP support was not particularly helpful. Oy, you are a problem child when it comes to technology.

Bonnie: I know with tech. I always have these weird things.

Bonnie and the engineers

One thing that I just wanted to talk about briefly is last week I spoke at an engineering conference, which seems like an unusual thing to go talk to, but it was their HR people. They’re HR people for all the engineering firms around New Zealand. Some of them are engineers. There were some engineers there.

One thing I talked about as a blind person is how important engineers are to me. I hadn’t really thought about it until that moment when I got up to talk that engineering has been so important part of my life, from traffic engineers either working to make things more pedestrian-friendly or unfriendly, depending on how you want to look at it at times, to software engineers, to hardware engineers, and how it has really made my life since I was a little kid so much easier. I think they really enjoyed that, because engineers like to problem-solve.

Jonathan: That’s what I was going to say. I would couch it as a reciprocity. A reciprocal relationship-

Bonnie: Yes, it is.

Jonathan: -because when you go back in history and you look at the technology that blind people have caused to be created, quite a bit of the time creating it ourselves in the first instance, but things like talking book players. The actual typewriter, the original typewriter.

Bonnie: Yes, it was made for a lover.

Jonathan: It was made for who?

Bonnie: It was a guy who, he was in love with Italian countess.

Jonathan: Yes, that’s right.

Bonnie: He made it so she could write letters to her. [chuckles]

Jonathan: You can put that in your heart to heart maybe. [crosstalk]

Bonnie: There this kind of interest. Maybe I will. That is a cool story.

Jonathan: There are countless stories. Blind people were using notetaker devices like the Keynote and the Braille ‘n Speak in the ’80s, long before sighted people had PDAs. We can go on. We can fill this podcast with examples of blind people leading the way in terms of technology that cited people have grasped, and that’s part of my blind pride. One of the reasons why I’m very proud to be blind is the contributions that we make.

Bonnie: I think that we forget that or we don’t pay enough homage to it because accessibility helps everybody. Like you were saying, the Braille notetakers that turned into the PDAs. It was because of those maybe. Or maybe there wasn’t a lot of thought taken. “Oh, blind people have been doing this for a long time, why don’t we do–?” Or the same thing with people who are now using speech to read their screens back to them. When we talk about accessibility, it helps everybody.

Jonathan: Yes, it does.

Bonnie: It helps, absolutely. As we age, it helps more of us. [chuckles]

Jonathan: Yes. It’s interesting that blind people get this technology, and then sighted people think, “I want something like this, too.” [crosstalk] The talking book is another example.

Bonnie: Exactly.

Jonathan: The 33 RPM record.

Bonnie: Yes, exactly. That’s really cool.

Jonathan: The 33 RPM record was invented because we needed more space for our books. On and on it goes. I can think of countless examples. That’s good that you got to talk to those engineers and stuff.

Bonnie: They’re really cool. Now I get to go talk to them again.

Jonathan: Oh, that’s good.

Bonnie: Yes, because they want to know more.

Jonathan: Oh, excellent.

Bonnie: I’ll bring up the PDA part.

Bonnie and the granddaughter

Jonathan: Now, I’m glad you told me that even though you broke my beautifully orchestrated segue-

Bonnie: I’m sorry.

Jonathan: -because I was saying that you’re a problem child when it comes to technology. Then I was going to say, speaking of children, we had a great time with our granddaughter the other day.

Bonnie: Yes, last weekend.

Jonathan: Florence.

Bonnie: Florence.

Jonathan: She’s going to be two months old on the 8th of March, and she’s gorgeous. You had an interesting, we– How would you describe it?

Bonnie: Interaction.

Jonathan: Interaction, yes.

Bonnie: I wear sunglasses. I wear glasses.

Jonathan: Like Corey Hart.

Bonnie: Like Corey Hart, yes.

Jonathan: I wear my sunglasses at night.

Bonnie: Apparently, these are new because my Diane von Furstenberg glasses broke, so I bought some at Countdown. The cheapy glass, but everyone really likes them. They’re like, “Where did you get those glasses?” I’m like, “I got them at Countdown.” That’s our supermarket. They’re not Gucci or anything. If I bought Gucci, I’d probably sit on them or something.

Jonathan: No.

Bonnie: They’re mirrored.

Jonathan: Do Jimmy Choo make sunglasses?

Bonnie: Yes.

Jonathan: Do they?

Bonnie: Yes, like $500, $800. I’m not spending that. No, I can’t. Gucci’s is like 200 and 300. If I bought a $300 pair of sunglasses, they’d probably break the first day.

Jonathan: Don’t do that then.

Bonnie: No.

Jonathan: Then we’ll probably have to go for a BIOS update for them.

Bonnie: Yes, or cry.

Jonathan: Or call the sunglasses answer desk for help.

Bonnie: I wonder if they would replace them. Actually, I probably could fix my Diane von Furstenberg. Anyway, they’re reflective so she could see herself in the sunglasses. I was holding, and David said, “She’s just staring. Just absolutely staring at you and smiling.” We think that she saw her reflection in the sunglasses, so she kept reaching up for them. She kept reaching and reaching, and she was trying to get them. After a while she was getting frustrated.

Jonathan: Frustrated, yes.

Bonnie: As you’re little–

Jonathan: Making little angry noises.

Bonnie: Little angry like, ooh, ooh, and arching her back, and she like, “I want this but I can’t get it because I’m too small. I don’t have the coordination yet.” I was leaning over and I wanted her to be successful. I pulled them down so she could reach, and she got them. She took them off, and then she was holding them between her hands and making happy noise, like, “I did it. I did it.” Then David put them on her face. I don’t think she liked that too much. She was like, “Hey, they’re a bit big for her.” She was determined that she was going to take them off. David was like, “This is just riveting.” We were just watching her, and of course, I was laughing hysterically, which was probably making her even madder, because she’s like, “You’re laughing at me.”

Jonathan: Isn’t it funny how a baby can just totally dominate a room? Everybody was just watching this, wondering what’s going to happen.

Bonnie: To be only six weeks old and-

Jonathan: I know.

Bonnie: -it was really fun seeing her thought process. “I want this. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I am going to do it.”

Jonathan: She may well be the most intelligent granddaughter ever to have been created.

Bonnie: I’m sure that everyone says that.

Jonathan: [laughs]

Bonnie: The next time I go up, I’m going to take her a little mirror to look at, because I remember when I was a little kid, I loved mirrors. I was fascinated with them. I’m going to take her a little handheld mirror to play with. I’ll take her. She was fascinated with the sunglasses. She likes butterflies, too. When she’s old enough, let’s see if I can get her some butterflies sunglasses, because I think they do get glasses for babies, sunglasses.

Jonathan: It was just wonderful. It was just such a wonderful time.

Bonnie: It was so funny, though.

Jonathan: Yes, she’s very cute.

Bonnie: Then she was getting tired, I think just– I’m sure it’s hard being a baby. Everyone passing you around, and maybe you don’t want to be passed around like, “Just leave me alone.”

Jonathan: Still, we were bopping around to Yellow Submarine. You got to get the Beatles in there early. Yes, exactly.

Bonnie: We went out to lunch and she took a nap.

Jonathan: That’s right. Apparently, her parents put the white noise machine on for her, which really does seem to have done the trick, because she was quite soothed by the hubbub of the restaurant. She just slept right through. What a wee poppet she is!

Well, I’m glad that people got their Bonnie Mosen fix. People say, “Where’s the Bonnie Bulletin?” There it is, and I thank you for being on.

Bonnie: Cool. Bye.

[music]

Jonathan: I love to hear from you. If you have any comments you want to contribute to the show, drop me an email, written down or with an audio attachment to Jonathan, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N@mushroomfm.com. If you’d rather call in, use the listener line number in the United States, 864-606-6736.

[music] Mosen At Large Podcast.

[02:00:34] [END OF AUDIO]

Podcast Transcript, Mosen at Large episode 217, A demo of the new Bing powered by Chat GPT, tips for editing video in Windows accessibly, and the new Victor Reader Stream is arriving for early adopters

Welcome Illinois

Looking for a good ad-blocker for my iPhone

Looking for some advice on Microsoft Access

More discrimination stories

I want to permanently disable YouTube Shorts

Task management apps

Tech Roundup

Keeping your iPhone unlocked

A serious problem with Apple’s subscriptions page

Looping audio on the iPhone

Blind subculture

Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS

The Victor Reader Stream

We’re eager to cover the Sense Player from hims on this podcast

Why I use a Victor Reader Stream

Comments on Eleven Labs and the future of audiobook narrators

The new Microsoft Bing powered by Chat GPT

Anyone got scanner printer combo recommendations

Editing video in Windows

My thoughts on the Brainport

The Bonnie Bulletin talks Google Docs and learning new things

Bonnie and the gremlins

Bonnie and the engineers

Bonnie and the granddaughter

Like this:

Podcast Transcript, Mosen at Large episode 217, A demo of the new Bing powered by Chat GPT, tips for editing video in Windows accessibly, and the new Victor Reader Stream is arriving for early adopters

Welcome Illinois

Looking for a good ad-blocker for my iPhone

Looking for some advice on Microsoft Access

More discrimination stories

I want to permanently disable YouTube Shorts

Task management apps

Tech Roundup

Keeping your iPhone unlocked

A serious problem with Apple’s subscriptions page

Looping audio on the iPhone

Blind subculture

Microsoft Remote Desktop for iOS

The Victor Reader Stream

We’re eager to cover the Sense Player from hims on this podcast

Why I use a Victor Reader Stream

Comments on Eleven Labs and the future of audiobook narrators

The new Microsoft Bing powered by Chat GPT

Anyone got scanner printer combo recommendations

Editing video in Windows

My thoughts on the Brainport

The Bonnie Bulletin talks Google Docs and learning new things

Bonnie and the gremlins

Bonnie and the engineers

Bonnie and the granddaughter

Share and enjoy:

Like this: