This has been an ACB community call.
This community. Unmuted was hosted on Saturday, May 17, 2025.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Unmute, where we're answering your tech question. A couple reminders here at the top. We want to let everyone know we're going to get through all of the first hands first questions and if we have time, we will take second questions. We want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to get their questions answered. Also, please be respectful to each other and give everyone the same respect that you would want while your question is being answered. That is much appreciated all around. And with that being said, I got Michael Babcock here. How's it going, Michael?
Oh, it's going awesome, Marty. And yourself?
Going good, thank you very much.
Good.
And I think the question that I want to ask people today is something that we've asked before. And let's go. Actually, I'm jumping here to try to figure out what it is the question Mallory suggested, a question that we've asked before. So I'm gonna go with what she suggest suggested. And that is what is one assistive technology tip. So specifically assistive technology that you wish you would have known a long time ago. For me, an assistive technology tip that I wish I would have known a long time ago is that you shouldn't drop your Android phone on concrete floors. Anyways, that I wish I would have known a long time ago is that you can easily typically restart your screen reader, typically with a keystroke or two. So if things lock up and become frozen and don't work, you can just quickly hit jaws key space and the F4 key and that'll turn jaws off and turn it back on. Or of course command F5 twice and that'll turn voiceover off and back on. Triple click your side button or press and hold the volume keys. Side button on iOS, volume keys on Android and that will turn off your screen reader and turn it back on. And with that, I'm going to say hey to Liz and see if she has a tip she wished she would have known a long time ago about access technology. Hey, Liz.
Hello. My tip is, and I did not know that this was going to be a thing, so I'm scrambling with coming up with something. And I did think about restarting your access technology, but that can't be said because it already was. I guess I could just second that. But know that there is always usually. Well, always usually. Okay, we're good. There is usually more than one way to do something something. And there is and there is just knowing that there is more than one way to do something and that there are more tools that you can have in your toolbox that might do the same thing, but one tool may be better for a certain situation. So that is my tip and I will pass it to Chris. Hello, Chris, how are you?
Hey, I'm doing well. I haven't had enough coffee to think of this tip, so I'll just second. I'll just second Michael's because it. It took me a while to. Well, this may be different than turning your screen reader on or off, but I had to learn how to bypass my Android phone when talkback stopped talking, had to learn to turn it completely off. And I was afraid because I didn't want to set off any emergency call to anywhere. And I'm like, oh, no. So I called Aira and they helped me turn off my phone so I could get talk back talking again. So I guess that's my tip. I have to think fast. Thank you.
Back to you, Marty.
Okay, we got some hands up, so let's go for some hands.
Who do we got first there? Cindy?
Did we lose her?
Possibly. All right, I'm going to jump in here. Looks like the first hand.
I'm sorry, I was muted. It's Angel's first.
Hey, Angel.
I'm sorry, I know he's had angels. There you go.
Okay, well, I'm trying to help my friend out. His name is desean o' Gavel and I'm trying to help him out on how he can access the ACB community, link the ACB community via email and he has some struggle to doing it. So how can he do it on his tablet? What should he do?
What kind of tablet?
He has a Samsung Galaxy Ultra 25. That's his tablet.
Chris, this is you.
I haven't used my Galaxy Ultra 25. That's his tablet.
Okay, so exactly what, what is he having trouble doing? Is he able to open the email? Is he not able to click a link? Tell us more about what he's having trouble doing, please.
Well, he has a little bit of struggles of basically how to type in the email basically and how to basically learn about accessing like the ACB community podcast. Like he wants to know all about how to access this, this show and all others ACB community so that way that he can get a little taste of it. Because I'm inviting him to come into the ACB community calls and learning about the zoom on the. On his tablet, how to access zoom in the ACP community so Angel.
I think the best solution for him then is to not jump in on Zoom. And I think the best solution for him would be to do exactly what you're doing. Call the 800-424-8666 number, take note of the meeting IDs, and just start joining in with those meeting IDs. I think trying to. And others might disagree with me, but naturally, I think trying to learn a whole new paradigm of navigating a tablet with a screen reader. And it sounds like he may not have any sort of formal training with using that to jump into a Zoom call that. That, for some, can be sensory overload, trying to hear the screen reader, especially when they don't have experience with it. So that's what I would tell him to do. I know he listens on ACB Media 5, and we really appreciate that, but if you'd like to start participating, I would encourage him to call 800-424-8666 and get the Zoom information. Okay.
Yes. Yeah, I'm going to have him do that.
Perfect.
What about the podcast? Like, how can he access podcasts? Because he's very into the accessing podcast.
Does he have an Alexa device by chance?
Yes, he does. His brother has one.
Yes. He can tell Alexa to play ACB Community Podcast.
Okay.
And that'll play the most recent episode and then just keep playing more and more content. Or, of course, you can always tune in to ACB Media 5.
Yes, I will have him do that.
Awesome. Look forward to hearing him. And you have a beautiful rest of your day.
Are you ready, Lynn?
Hey, Lynn.
Hello.
Good morning. So I'm calling to answer the question about the title.
Okay.
So the tip is, it's funny you should ask this question because it's exactly why I wanted to let you all know about this. So this is something I just found out about the other day, and I'm beyond excited about this. So I have. I'm a. I'm a message hoarder. I don't mean to be, but I don't delete my messages. And I have like over 2000 on my. Or almost 1900 messages on my iPhone right now, and I'm trying to delete them. And trying to go back to the top of a conversation is like you have to scroll and scroll, Right? And, you know, and that's really hard to do. So I found out the other day that if you get into a conversation and you want to go to the top, all you have to do is press. Okay, is it seems like this wouldn't Work, but it really does. So you press the. You know the. At the status. The status bar where the clock is.
Yep.
You press that. You probably know this already, Michael. You press that. And you have to do it a couple of times until it refreshes and it takes you right to the top. It's amazing.
It is amazing. And someone taught me that probably two years ago or so. And I'm like, wait, you can do that? A faster way that might save you a little bit of time, too, is using the split tap method. So if you touch your time with one of your fingers at the top of the screen, and then you just double tap another finger while you're still touching the time. So you tap, tap. Then that means you. You don't have to tap the status bar four times. You can just do that twice, and that'll save you a couple of taps. So again, touch the time at the top, and then with another finger, while you're still touching the time, touch your screen twice, and that will scroll the top.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you so much. So that was my tip, and that was all I wanted. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Of course. And for clarity, that is a iPhone and iPad gesture. I do not believe that same gesture works on Android. So just so people know, who do we got next there? Cindy.
Well, you had a hand, but she disappeared. She's shy.
Oh, okay. Does that mean no hands? No, none.
As soon as you say that, you know, people raise their hand.
I mean, that's why I'm playing it. Hey, Vanessa.
Yes, Vanessa. Go ahead, Vanessa. Hi. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to ask, is it something because I have my computer, some reason I cannot figure out? It's not on WI fi, and usually I type it in, it comes up, and it's not coming up. But is there something with Microsoft accessibility where, of course, they can't take control of my computer because it's not on WI fi? But isn't there something where they can look at the monitor? I don't know if it was something of the be my eyes or something like that, where someone can look at the monitor and tell me what's happening, and then they can give instructions. Are you familiar with anything like that?
Well, they do have those options, except that you need to be connected to the Internet so somebody remotely can look at your computer. Unfortunately, you could take it into a shop if you have that ability, or you can check around and see if there's people that could come to your house who work on computers. But if you don't Have Internet. You're not going to be able to have anyone come and remotely look at your computer because you need the Internet for that.
Vanessa, do you have an iPhone or an Android?
I have an iPhone.
Okay. And you have Internet service on your iPhone like cellular service or Wi fi? I do. So what you can do is you can open the. You are correct in that you can open the Be My Eyes app and then across the bottom if you tap on the service directory or double tap if you're using voiceover. And then you can go down to. I believe it's under either accessibility or technology, but I think it's under Accessibility. You'll find Microsoft Disability Answer Desk. You can tap on that and then that will prompt you with an AI, you can skip the AI and just go to call a representative and double tap on that. And then they will be able to see through your back facing camera. So you would point your camera at your computer screen and then tell them, hey, I need to get on WI Fi. I don't remember. I'm 90% sure there are some keystrokes that you can use and maybe Chris or Liz might know them, but they can guide you through what keystrokes you need to use in order to get connected to your wi fi. You know your WI fi password?
I do, yes.
Perfect. Yep. So that's what I would do in your case.
Okay. Okay, thank you. You guys are great. Thank you so much.
No worries.
Are no more hints right now.
Okay. Okay, I can do this. So I've been playing with Android lately and the other day, I think it was yesterday, I played with a new tool, well, newer tool to me and if you have comments, feel free to raise your hand and I will potentially see those or Cindy will let me know. But I've been playing Gemini Live and it's funny, I had Gemini Live send a friend a voice message for me and engage with that person on WhatsApp. So what Gemini Live is is it's an app that you can use and you go into it and it works a lot. Like if you've heard the ChatGPT Live AI, it allows you on the account that I'm using, which granted is a Google workspace account, it allows you the ability to call someone or call a AI and actually talk with that AI, you can interrupt it like you can with ChatGPT. The voices are very high quality. But. But the reason I bring this up is it's also available on iPhone and Gemini Live does not cost extra to use. It allows you to quickly jump in there and use it without any extra things. And it's it for some, in some instances allows you to take photos and use live video. I say in some instances because on my Google Workspace account it would not let me do that. But that is Gemini Live. I used it on my Pixel 9 Pro and I have used it on. Well, I've used Gemini on the iPhone. I've not used Gemini Live on the iPhone, but it's available. I'm going to pick on Chris just to ask her to jump in here. Chris, what's something new, fun that you've done with tech recently?
Okay. Doesn't have to be related to Android or anything. Just anything.
Just anything.
Okay. Well, I am getting into the weeds with my Mac lately and loving it and I'm developing a tutorial and I'm so, so excited about it. And so I've been looking up things and just, just really jazzed about it. And so that's what I'm doing. That's exciting.
Is there a tip that you've learned that you didn't know about on the Mac recently?
Actually, yeah. Last evening I was listening to appleviz and one of somebody who's new to me brought a tip yesterday about how to select a bunch of files and then press a keystroke and it creates a new folder and dumps all those files into that folder so you don't have to move them and then you can edit the name of your folder. So I'm hoping that made sense. So it's a really great tip. This person has been developing a lot of new things lately, it looks like, for appleviz. So if you're a Mac user and you want to learn about numbers, he's got a whole thing about several tutorials about numbers and. But this was a great tip. I really thought it was cool.
Yeah. I believe that keystroke is. Yep. Control command N and that takes your selected files and creates a new folder with those files in it. And when I heard that at first I was just going to skip over it. I'm like, I'm not too worried about that. But then that, that, that was pretty cool and I appreciate learning that. Now what is that keystroke that you.
To select the files?
Yeah.
So you hold down your voiceover keys, Control and Option, and you down arrow through your files and you keep holding VO down. And when you get to something you want to select, you press Command enter and it adds it to the selection that you've got going. So it's kind of like adding to the drag and drop, you know, idea. So, yeah, it's really cool because you could skip over a file if you don't want to select it. You don't press Command Enter. You just keep going down through your list and pressing Command Enter, holding those voiceover keys down. And it keeps adding the files to that selection list.
And I just learned a cool keystroke. And we'll go to the questions here in a moment. But I don't know if you knew this, Chris, but Control Enter when you have a file selected, does the same thing as VO shift M. And I did not know that. So for someone who might struggle with that keystroke, which is equivalent to. Right clicking that is pretty cool. Can I do that?
Awesome.
When you're hitting Command Enter to select the files, you can let up on the modifier voiceover keys. Correct. You don't have to hold them down as well.
You do have to keep them down.
Yes, you keep them down.
Yeah.
Keyboard gymnastics. Right?
Because.
Got it.
But at least it's three fingers together, you know?
Indeed.
A split. Split finger action.
I just thought to clarify that for the sake of anyone else who may.
Also have been wondering. Thank you. Thanks for that, Chris. I'm going to pick on Liz next time. We don't have any hands, so people better keep raising your hands.
There you have. Hands up, Judy.
Hey, Judy.
Hey there, Michael. You were talking about Google. Gemini just started playing around with it last week. It is for fun and scary both at the same time. Yeah, the voices are very high quality. I downloaded onto my iPhone, picked a voice, and then downloaded it onto my iPad and picked a different voice, but then it changed the voice on my iPhone. I guess it's because I was logged in, but I was asking it about my niece who is an author. She's written a trilogy and a ton of short stories. And I asked what's the latest short story that she had published? And Gemini told me and asked me, do you want me to send you a link to that short story? And I said yes. And boom. It was just really unbelievable. So I've been having a lot of fun with it.
Awesome. And I don't know if you've played with it yet or not, but you can also go to it on the web from a computer as well. You can go to gemini.google.com I can never spell Gemini. So here's an advanced tip. If you go to bard.google.com b a, r, d, it'll redirect you to Gemini. Now, Google, now that I've said That please do not, do not break that link. Get there. But yeah, it's a pretty cool interface and you can use headings to navigate between conversation messages, which ChatGPT now does, but did not for a while. And that's really helpful, especially if you're on a mobile device or desktop.
One experience that I have with ChatGPT with the similar thing, the Live, is that I find that it lowers the voiceover voice quite a bit. Has that been your experience?
Yep. So what it's doing in ChatGPT and I don't know what Gemini does because again, I haven't really played with the Live on the iPhone I have on Android is it treats the ChatGPT conversation like a phone call. So it's treating it like. And that's why voiceover volume gets lower. Because if you might notice, when you're on a regular phone call and you try to use voiceover, often, your voiceover volume is lower as well. Right. So that's why that's happening.
Oh, interesting. Okay, I'm glad I asked. All right, thanks, Michael.
No worries. Who do we got next?
You have Sandra.
Hello, Sandra.
And unmute.
So I tried to unmute myself and I was in something else, so whatever.
Yeah.
I find the opposite happens to me with my iPhone is that it lowers the voice of the speaker speaking to me rather than the other way around. But that's just like tangent. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking about YouTube. So from the back end, if you want to post videos and so on, because I found Vimeo is quite accessible. All I have to do is press upload and it will just do it and it will select a thumbnail from some point in the video. But I've been trying to find out about YouTube and it seems rather more convoluted. So I'm just wondering where I can get hold of information that's accessible about how to do that. Because I was listening to a couple of videos from this blind woman and she's going on and on and on about the content and not necessarily anything about how to put it on there in the first place.
Are you doing this from a computer or from your mobile device?
Well, that's open ended, really. Which one is easier?
Okay. So I believe I use Windows, if.
That makes any difference.
So if you go to studio.YouTube.com and sign in with your YouTube account, then there is a button there that you hit enter on that will allow you to upload a video. It'll say something about drag and drop. Don't worry about that. Just hit Enter on it. That'll put you in a standard browse dialog and then you can shift tab to find your video, hit enter on that. And then once you do that, it'll give you a couple of edit fields that allow you to add a title to the YouTube video. And then there's one for description and then there's one for tags. You can set the privacy level of that video if you want it to be public, unlisted or private. And then you can also schedule the upload time so when it becomes available on your YouTube channel. Is that what you were asking?
Yeah, I suppose I was really, but the idea of you have to, I think, select a thumbnail. So part of the video that will appear as a sort of photograph at the beginning or whatever.
Yeah, so it's what people click on when they visually are browsing YouTube. By default, YouTube will select some thumbnails out of your video, so if you want you can just use those and you don't even have to do anything extra. There is another browse button if you have a thumbnail specifically that you want to associate with that video. So you can find that button on the upload screen and then once you hit enter on that again, it'll put you in a standard browse dialog and then you can browse for the thumbnail itself. I don't know offhand what the dimension requirements are for a thumbnail, but you can search that up pretty quickly. The last thing I'll mention is if you'd rather do it from your phone, because some people do prefer using their phone. The YouTube Studio website's actually very clean and it's gotten a lot better over the years. But YouTube's been pretty good at keeping that fairly clean and accessible. If you're browsing your videos in your phone. First of all, I would download the YouTube Studio app to your phone and that is separate from the YouTube app. And then when you're browsing your videos, in the bottom left hand corner is a share button. And I do this with my TikTok videos because on, on a daily basis I post the question of the day that ACB Presents does on my personal TikTok account. So you find the video, you hit share in the bottom left hand corner and then you can either hit, in my case, TikTok or YouTube Studio. You'll double tap on YouTube Studio. That'll upload the video to YouTube and then it gives you an opportunity to add the title and the description and the key there and then you hit publish, which is in the top left, top right corner. And then that'll publish that video to your YouTube channel.
Okay. It looks like I'll be team computer. The other thing is the file types. So MP4, is there any other file type it will allow or can I just look this up or something?
Typically it's going to accept any file type for video. You cannot upload MP3s directly, directly to YouTube because they don't have video content associated with them. So most of your video file formats, it'll take MP4. It'll take. Yeah, I'm trying to look them up right now. But you should be good to go with most of your file types unless you have a very obscure video format.
Yeah, no, I was just kind of thinking in my mind because it needs to be something I can do on my own. And so I was trying to work out how I'll film myself. And the only kind of coherent way I can can do that is to sort of do Zooms with myself and then upload video.
Yep. So the video that. I don't know if you're aware of this, but Cindy and I started doing a weekly YouTube video of the events. We just record that in Zoom and then I grab the video file from Zoom and I send it to our social media person and he just uploads it. There's no conversion needed or anything.
Great, that sounds good. The other I suppose spin off question from that is an accessible editor, preferably something that is either free or low cost. So I know everyone is really into Reaper, but then I've got to buy Reaper and then an interface between my speech program and Reaper and I really can't be bothered when I just literally need to trim the ends.
So Reaper actually will let you use it A for free for 60 days and b after that. 60 days doesn't require you to pay for it, especially if all you're doing is trimming your videos. It just makes you wait five seconds every time you open the application to reload it. There's a button that says I'm still trying. Reaper is $60 if you needed to pay for it and frankly might be the easiest, especially on Windows. I know some people are using Clip Champ clipchimp. I think on Windows with that video.
Is that accessible?
I have just heard people using it. I personally cannot say that it's accessible.
Okay, so with Reaper, you know, I've heard that you need to buy interface so that your speech program will work with it. Is that not the case anymore?
No. So You? I. I don't know. And then we'll go on to the next question. Tier 2, but I don't know about purchasing. There is a additional add on that you have to add to Reaper called Osara, but it's always been free, so you don't have to pay for any. There used to be and they may still exist. Paid Jaws scripts. If you're a Jaws user, you can actually get free Jaws scripts from the Snowman. If you search for Snowman Jaws scripts, you'll be able to find those for Reaper.
Is there an NVDA add on?
I don't think you need an NVDA add on as long as you have Osara installed to Reaper, which is free and Osara is Osara.
Brilliant. And just quickly, before I let you guys go, if you could just repeat the URL for the YouTube Studio thing.
For the computer studio.YouTube.com thank you. Of course. Who do we got next there? Cindy?
Okay, Eric. And no more hands after Eric.
Hello, Eric.
Yeah, you were talking about ChatGPT and chat and Gemini. I'm interested in both of them. Which paid version for the average person would you suggest is best? And that would store like library of chats and summaries and yada yada yada.
For me, hands down, chatgpt.
And that's good for both mobile and desktop.
Yep. If I had to pick one to pay for, which right now I am only paying for. Well, I'm technically paying for two because I pay for GitHub Copilot, but that's for programming stuff. If I had to pick one to pay for it would hands down be chat GPT 100% and which level? So they only offer two. I'm too cheap to pay $200 a month, so I would just pick the $20 a month. It's chat GPT Plus Pro is the $200 a month, plus is the $20.
Yeah. And that allows you to have the live without the 15 minute a day thing.
Yep. That takes that limit away.
Yeah, it'd be nice if they had a yearly fee there.
Yeah, I don't think you can pay yearly. You have to pay monthly. You can pay for it through the App Store or you can log on to their website at Chat do and pay for it with a card online if you would rather. And then you mentioned live. I just want to briefly mention you can get live for free with less limitations by using studio Google. No, studioai.google.com live in your web browser. And that will let you use Google's Live video AI on your phone. So if you want to try that out before paying for something, that might be worth it. But you mentioned something keeping a library of your conversations. And it's super easy to find things in ChatGPT. The Windows app is very accessible. Control K like Kilo will let you search your chats on both the web and on the Windows app.
And that's only during the paid version, correct?
I mean, no, ChatGPT will let you access your history for free version as well. I don't know the limitations because I've been paying for it for years now, but it will let you access some of your free version, your chats on the free version.
Okay. All right. Thank you so much.
You're welcome, Eric. Thank you for your questions today. For those who don't know, I know we do have another hand here for a second. I just want to remind you, this is really throwing me off. I renamed Brad in my dictionary in voiceover and I need to go fix it because I'm like, that's not right. Anyways, so for those who don't know, we do have these calls repurposed into podcasts couple days after they are done. So if you miss any of the resources, check that out. Cindy, who do we have next?
Petra, I have to unmute.
Hey, Petra.
Hi there. I have a question. Using an iPhone 16, is there a way I can eliminate more than one email at a time? I woke up the other morning and found out that I've got 300 emails. I'd like to dump about 250 of them.
Okay, Marty, do you have an answer for that?
Well, you can always do like select all, but you don't want to delete every single email. There is a way, I think you can go up to the top and you can edit and then. Wait, are you doing this on a computer or a phone? You said a phone, right?
Yes. IPhone 16.
There used to be a way to. If you do the edit button, then you could select multiple messages. Although I'm not sure you could still do that.
I know how to do this.
Oh, go for it.
This is Chris. So near the top right corner, there's a select button and it's next to the more the more button at the top. Right. And so when you. When you double tap the select button, assuming you're using voiceover, then you have to go down through your emails individually. There's no way it knows which 250 you want to delete. So when you go down through your emails and you double tap each email It'll say such and such. Email, selected, selected, selected. And so you do have to go through them, but if you double tap each one and then you can send them all to the trash in the. In the bottom right corner. But that eliminates the Swipe up with one finger and double tap. Swipe up with one finger and double tap. It eliminates a little bit of finger movement there on your phone. Does. Does that make sense to you, Petra?
It does, but is there a way I can start at the bottom, the oldest emails and work my way toward the newest instead of newest toward the oldest?
Yeah, if you use your little scroll on the side that says the percentage of, you know, 10%, 20%, 30. You know, there's a little tiny right next to the. Probably the case of your phone on the right hand side. So if you swipe down with one finger and hear that percentage, when you get to 100%, you're 100% down the list. And then you could then work your way backwards, basically.
Okay, thank you ever so much.
Hey, Vanessa.
Good morning, Vanessa.
Thank you. It's me again. Excuse me. Oh, yeah. Since I'm kind of new to all this, how do I listen to you in the App Store? I would go to the app, not the App Store, but to listen to the podcast.
Do you have an Alexa?
I'm sorry?
Do you have an Alexa or are you just doing this from your phone?
Oh, I have the Alexa too.
But if you tell Alexa, play the Unmute Presents podcast, it'll start playing for you. That's the easiest way to do it if you want to do it from your phone. You open the podcast app and then you can search for Unmute and you'll find Unmute Presents, and then you can subscribe, subscribe to it. There's.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Okay. Thank you.
Perfect. Thanks, Vanessa.
Hey, there are no more.
There are no hands. Well, I told her I was going to pick on her next, so I'm going to jump over to Liz and see. Oh, there you are, Liz. See if you have any contribution new tech you've been playing with or other things.
Yes. Another thing would be that not all of the facilitators answered the daily question question of the day. And so, Marty, what is your assistive technology tip that you have to share with us?
I would say everybody should know how to restart their device using Siri so they don't have to go all the way through all of the menus. So if you don't know that, if you're on a phone or an iPad, you can invoke Siri and say, restart my device and it will shut it off and turn it back on for you without having to go through all of the menus and everything else.
I wonder if you can do that with Gemini. I'm gonna have to play with that a little bit and see if that works. Looks like we do have a Hannah.
Yes, you do. Ms. Janet, Ms. Colorado and unmute.
Hello. I was gonna say.
The way I.
Subscribe to your podcast is through YouTube.
There you go. Yep, Yep. I heard an interesting stat today. Well, it was earlier this week, I can't say everything was today. That YouTube has now overcome Apple's podcast directory in. In podcast listening. And that astounds me because I am not the type of person to go to YouTube to listen to podcasts, but obviously a lot of people do. So thank you for bringing that up, Janet. We appreciate that.
Yeah, I like.
I like YouTube, actually.
I use it all the time now. Do you use YouTube Music or do you just use the YouTube app? The YouTube app.
Okay, I have.
I have played with the YouTube Music, I think. But anyways, my tip is if your.
Phone is being wonky, restart the darn device.
Yep. Yep. For sure.
You have a great day, everybody.
You as well. Thanks so much for jumping in, Marty.
Thanks, Janet.
Okay, Eric has his hand up.
Hello, Eric.
I've been playing with a lot of the AI thing and the one AI I haven't heard you mention, and that's the one with the Apple AI. What's your view on that?
I'm going to shut up for this one and let other people who actually have newer phones input on that.
Marty, let me just clarify. Are you asking about Apple's AI specifically or are you talking about like using ChatGPT on your iPhone?
The Apple AI specifically. I tried playing with it and I ended up going back and just turning it off.
Yeah, My opinion on it is what they've done with some of the apps people don't really like a lot of, for example, mail. Most people turn all of those features off because they don't like how it works, you know, with all that stuff on. And the only other thing I would really say is they're behind the eight ball a lot, especially with Siri. So hopefully they'll be able to catch up which WWDC is coming here in just about a month or maybe even a little bit less, which is Apple's worldwide developer conference, and they talk about all of the new things that are going to be coming out for all of the operating systems. And all the devices. So I'm hoping that some of these improvements will come and they'll catch up to everybody else and maybe they'll get rid of some bugs that's, you know, make things run a little smoother and not have so many problems for people.
That just kind of struck me after I had asked the Gemini question. I was like, wait a minute, nobody's said anything about that. And the other one is on the 15 Pro. I also noticed on the tutorial the other day, and I can't remember right off the top of my head.
It'S.
A four finger triple tap that gives you the live version of the camera.
Are you talking on an iPhone or what do you. Yes, on the iPhone, a lot of people use. There's a camera button, like right on the lock screen on the bottom right side. A lot of people activate it that way or they assign it to the. Do you have the. That button up on the top left side? The action button? It's called.
I'm not sure I have a 15 Pro.
Okay. I think he's talking about the live description, right?
Yeah.
Not the actual taking a picture, but invoking a live description.
Yeah, the live description, Yep.
Oh, you want to take this one, Chris?
Well, I mean, I've used it before. I don't really have a need to use it, but I have used it and it's okay. But. Yeah. And what was your question? Definitely about that.
The quickest way to activate that.
You're right. Four finger triple tap.
Triple tap.
And that will put you in a screen where you can turn on and off the different elements that you want to select for it to detect for you automatically. So if I do a four finger triple tap, then it gives me the ability to detect things like scenes, people, doors, furniture, text, point and speak, or to stop recognition. So if I hit point and speak, that turns it on and then it's able to detect my hand. So if I put my hand in front of me and I point at something, it's now reading what's on my computer screen because I'm pointing at that after it detects my hand. And then I can go and turn that on and off as well if I want to.
Okay. And one other thing I haven't heard you mention. Which smart glasses do you feel is effective on the market, Price wise or accessibility wise that's affordable for most people?
Depends on what you want to do.
You gotta help me with that part.
If you're gonna say affordable for most people. I'd probably say the Metaglasses. Because they are the most inexpensive than majority of the rest of them. But at the end of the day right now they all kind of do a similar thing. They will read read stuff to you or describe a room or an area or something like that. And they kind of have different iterations of that a little bit depending on which glasses. But they, they're right now currently kind of all do mostly the same things. They have little different things here and there, but that's what they mostly all do.
But if you want to sit and read some text though, you want to read a whole page of something, I don't think the metas are going to do that for you reliably. You know, if I want to read a book or a couple pages, I don't really think they're the best option. So that's why I say it depends on what you want to do.
It may also depend on what ecosystem you are comfortable with your data going into. You may not care, but you might. And so that is also something to keep in mind regardless of price.
Yep.
Okay, now that threw me for sure. And they're all have a upgradable, updatable feature tool because I noticed some of them are what they call just smart glasses and they're more like for sport type things, magnification, where other ones have more features like the medi glasses.
I think you kind of answered your own question. It just all depends on which ones you go to and you know what they have to offer. You'd have to kind of check into each different brand that's making them that you think that you would want to use and ask those questions or find out, you know.
Okay, is Apple or Google more supportive to any of them?
Well, Apple right now just has the bigger like goggle type looking ones. They're much bigger than regular glasses like the meta glasses. And they're also I think one of the most expensive. I think they start at like 3500 or something like that.
So if you're talking platform though, you know, Apple and Android do support several of the smart glasses, but the two things that you really have to decide what you want to do with them, I can't stress that enough because metas are not made for blind people. They're getting better, I think at what they're doing. And yes, the app is updating. Some of these glasses come with subscriptions, so there's a lot of things to think about. And Marty's saying research each one because you have to get an idea of what they each do and what do you want them to do? And then what's your price point? So it's not anything. I don't think that we can really specifically answer very generally, but that's what I would say.
So if you have a tech trainer per se, would they be able to help you maybe make a choice?
They.
The professional tech trainer would. Not necessarily. They could show you options. But as my. Speaking for myself as someone who has previously been a trainer and can also still do that. Well, I'm sorry, speaking for myself as someone who previously was a trainer and has been asked certain questions like this, I will show people options, and I can help them kind of. I can guide them to a decision, but it should be up to the person using it to decide and make the decision as to what is going to work for you.
Okay, all right.
As a tech trainer, myself actively doing that, I. I would still answer the same. We have a lot of clients who ask, oh, I want the meta glasses, because it's all the rage and they're affordable and things, but at the end of the day, what do you want them to do, and will they do that for you effectively? You know, that's really the question.
Okay. All righty. Thank you.
And this market's about to get a lot more crowded, so it's going to get a lot more confusing, too. Just throwing that out there, Cindy. Who do we have next?
Hold up, Let me see. Who hasn't. Okay, Scott, go ahead. We have two other hands, but they've both spoken.
All right, thanks. First of all, I was going to say that you mentioned. What is it bard.google.com earlier that redirects.
You to gemini.google.com I only use it because I always forget how to spell Gemini.
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that that's not to be confused with NLS bars.
Exactly.
Yep, exactly. Number two, you know, another thing to consider. If you've already got a smart device of some kind, like a phone, an iPhone with a camera, what will the main thing to ask, too, I would think, what will besides hands free? What will the smart glasses actually do that you couldn't. That you couldn't otherwise do with an app on your phone? I mean, obviously, obviously, they're going to be hands free, and you could just turn your head as if you're looking with your. Looking with your eyes, and you focus on something with glasses. That's the main deal. But if. Is there, you know, is there anything that the glasses would do that would accomplish the same thing by simply using an app on your phone nowadays. It's kind, it's kind of, you know, there's not a whole lot. I, I'm not sure that there's a whole lot of that. Using an app on your phone Wouldn't do that. Would do, I mean, wouldn't do that. The glasses.
So in my opinion, you can't undervalue that hands freeness, especially when it, when leveraging glasses for things like navigation and engaging with the environment. Because pulling your phone out to double tap on things, to swipe around to find things can be a bit cumbersome in some instances, especially when you're moving around. Also, it's that voice first interface that can be very helpful for people too, because the glasses typically don't have a way to engage with them. But with your voice, there is value in the voice first interface too.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Alrighty, who do we got next there? Petra. Hello, Petra?
Yes, I have a comment about the glasses. I have the meta glasses and Michael, I agree with you. The hands free is really important. And the other interesting thing is the other day, two days ago, Verizon must have had an outage in my area. And my daughter and I are both on Verizon. Two different households, two different accounts, but neither one of us could make a single phone call. No one could call us and we could not call out. Except I put the meta glasses on and I was able to Facebook messenger call her with the meta glasses. And we did fine by talking through the meta glasses. So that was just a comment that they really saved me. I really was very glad to have them. The other comment I wanted to ask, this is a question. What is the Dynamic island and what does that do on iPhone 16?
The dynamic island is a small little screen shaped like a horizontal oval in the top of the glass on a 15 or a 16. And what it does is it shows you small pieces of information. So for example, let's say that you're talking on your phone and the person that you're talking to wants you to look up something. If you minimize the phone app, then it will show you the phone app data in that little screen up there. So it'll show you how long you've been on the phone, stuff like that. While you're looking up something else. So. Or if you're listening to music.
What I was just going to say, do you find it very useful as a blind person?
Not really.
I was going to say also, this is Chris. I was going to say also, if you have like a grocery order coming or a taxi coming I think that little place updates the live thing that's happening, the thing that you want to keep track of. I don't really use it because I have other ways of monitoring what's going on with my groceries or my taxi. But I think that's another place that you can what other things you can find in the little dynamic island.
Right. And the other thing is it doesn't always work because the developer of whatever app needs to develop it to be able to actually go and show up information in the dynamic island, like when you minimize the screen or something like that. So not every app works, you know, when you do, when you minimize it. It's only some of the apps for Apple they have like the phone works, music works. I think there's a couple of other things. But like they have a sports app. I think that it works. But there's not a whole lot. I mean third party developers, there's a few that do it, but it never really caught on. So it's not hugely, you know, popular.
Really.
That pretty much was my opinion. So thank you so much.
Yeah, no problem.
Perfect.
Hey Michael, you have eight minutes and you have two hands.
Okay, let's take those last two hands then.
Okay. Donna, you haven't spoken yet. Go ahead. All right, so I really don't know much about AI. What's a good place for me to go and learn about AI and which one would I use? If I'm a beginner.
I would say probably Chat GPT was a good place to start as a beginner and you probably could go on YouTube and search, you know, chat GPT, how to's or something like that and find some videos on how to use it.
And Donna, are you going to convention?
Unfortunately not.
Okay, so as a replay which will be available, you can spend $50 once it's out. And Bits is offering a three day AI from a blindness perspective to help affiliates. The replays will be purchasable for $50 if you can't attend in person. And that'll get you access to Zoom after the convention as well to ask questions about the material too.
Okay, great, because I've been on the.
Board meetings and heard about that.
Thank you.
No worries.
You have one hand and you have six minutes and 20 seconds. Hey Sandra, you're up.
Hey Sandra.
Yeah. Glasses question. Do they work with the iPhone? SE 2022?
Yes.
Great, that was fast. And I think in terms of the information, just heads up that look and tell is available in the UK at last. Because that was a long time coming. I would say if you want to get the best out of them, static information rather than continuously changing information. I not crossing the streets. I've heard some really dodgy videos of people doing that. But you know, looking up the expiry date on your carton of Built, which is the kind of thing I want to do. And the other thing I would say is because I've tried this with ordinary glasses and I use the sides of my face especially to kind of map where I am and I didn't really notice that you lose bits of information with glasses on your face. Not much depending on if you have the thin glasses, but just.
Yeah, yeah, yep, perfect. Well thank you so much for that Sandra. Glad to hear that it's finally available in the UK. It only took 1000 years it seems like, and that's awesome to hear. So thanks for your comments and yes it will work with that iPhone so well. Looks like we are out of hands. It is currently 8:54. You'll want to stay tuned to ACB Media 5 if you're interested in hearing the Blindness prematurity call if you want to participate in that. You can check your daily schedule for the zoom details to participate. And thank you Chris and Liz for joining us. And I'll hand it over to Marty to thank everyone else and wrap it up.
Thanks everyone for being here. We always appreciate it and have fun seeing everyone and answering your tech questions. If you want to find out more what we have going on, you can check out our website at Unmute show and if you have questions, comments or anything else, you can always email us at Feedback, Unmute show and everyone. Have a great weekend and week and we'll see you next time.