WEBVTT 00:05.370 --> 00:19.214 Hey, all. Welcome back to another Unmute, and today we have a special event for you. We're going to be talking to Mia and Gary from Echobatics. First, I want to introduce you to Michael Doyce. Say hello. 00:19.252 --> 00:21.278 Michael Doyce. Hi, everyone. 00:21.444 --> 00:28.406 He's going to be chiming in with some developer questions and some other questions as well. And as usual, we have Michael Babcock with us. 00:28.428 --> 00:30.390 Say hello, Michael. Hello. 00:30.540 --> 00:39.146 And I'm excited about this. This is an app that I've been recently introduced to. And let's see where it goes. 00:39.328 --> 00:39.674 Yeah. 00:39.712 --> 00:42.106 So Michael, why don't you kick us off? 00:42.288 --> 00:58.030 So we have been communicating with Mia and Gary from Echobatics, and I'm going to ask Gary real quick, can you explain to people real quick? Well, take as much details you want. What this is, it's a unique way of getting information in your environment. 00:58.930 --> 01:02.238 Sure. So it's the Acrobatics app. 01:02.324 --> 01:04.930 It's an app for iOS specifically. 01:05.350 --> 01:08.354 And the intention is that people can. 01:08.392 --> 01:12.158 Use it to interact with touch screens. 01:12.334 --> 01:22.774 And printed text and ink print words that otherwise are not remotely accessible. And we also have a feature, our. 01:22.812 --> 01:27.926 Second feature, they're more rolling out. We also have a feature where you can ask the app to find a. 01:27.948 --> 01:29.506 Word in your environment. 01:29.698 --> 01:37.178 So you ask, say, hey, could you find the Word event, please? And then you move your phone around and when it finds the Word event. 01:37.264 --> 01:50.670 It'Ll chime and then it can even direct your finger to the word. So in a nutshell, that's what it is. It's meant to be touch screen accessibility tool. And then we're adding more capabilities to it with each release. 01:53.090 --> 01:56.194 Well, let's actually take a step back. Can you tell us how you came. 01:56.232 --> 01:58.178 Up with the idea of this app? 01:58.344 --> 02:06.582 Lots of surveys and lots of doing things that people didn't want. So I started a few years ago, just asking. 02:06.636 --> 02:09.954 I was interested in indoor navigation. 02:10.002 --> 02:11.046 It remains an interest. 02:11.148 --> 02:14.166 But then the pandemic started and I. 02:14.188 --> 02:15.794 Realized there wasn't a lot of testing. 02:15.842 --> 02:18.666 That we could do in person. 02:18.848 --> 02:20.006 Basically none. 02:20.118 --> 02:23.466 So after trying Haptic Braille, something you. 02:23.488 --> 02:28.700 Wear in your hands, head level, hazard detection, and a variety of other things. 02:29.070 --> 02:34.106 Finally had one advisor, Jerry Barrier. Hello, Jerry. 02:34.218 --> 02:37.162 Who was retired from Perkins School for the Blind. 02:37.306 --> 02:39.774 Know, I really want you to do. 02:39.812 --> 02:44.720 This touchscreen accessibility thing because nothing exists. You mentioned it before. That should be the. 02:48.050 --> 02:48.958 So that's that's. 02:48.974 --> 02:56.754 Kind of how it came about. Just literally asking a lot of questions, talking to people face to face when we could do that, having calls with. 02:56.792 --> 02:59.502 People across the country and just gradually. 02:59.566 --> 03:01.106 Realizing that it's like, oh, hey, here's. 03:01.138 --> 03:02.918 Something that could be of use as. 03:02.924 --> 03:08.600 A tool to a bunch of different people. It's not just one narrow segment and. 03:09.370 --> 03:16.074 There wasn't anything out there. So it seemed like a good way to start off as a first product. 03:16.272 --> 03:44.466 Where did you get the idea for the app to begin with because I'm sure it didn't start out like this, but through iterations, I'm sure it evolved into what it is now. But definitely it's pretty interesting that you can point at something and it will read something you're pointing at, or you can move it around the room and look for something. Or even, for example, if you're say you're walking down a hallway and you're looking for a suite number or a hotel room number or anything like that. So, I mean, it's got some kind. 03:44.488 --> 03:45.810 Of cool use cases. 03:46.170 --> 03:48.758 Yeah, that's the hope that you can. 03:48.764 --> 03:49.846 Do all these things. 03:50.028 --> 03:51.750 So the way it started out was. 03:51.900 --> 03:54.934 Just talking amongst the team, and this. 03:54.972 --> 03:56.630 Was before Mia joined. 03:57.530 --> 03:59.078 This is going back a few years. 03:59.164 --> 04:10.186 And just asking, hey, what would be useful? This idea came up touch screen accessibility. People saying, I can't use, for example, the exercise bike in my home, or. 04:10.368 --> 04:12.598 I am living in an apartment with. 04:12.624 --> 04:28.306 A microwave that has 30 or 40 buttons. I only know how to press two of the buttons because they have indentations. You can't always put bump dots on things. And just talking to people realized, like, hey, wait a minute, we're hearing a pretty consistent story. So actually, the very first idea for. 04:28.328 --> 04:33.890 The app was just trying to make different appliances accessible. 04:34.310 --> 04:35.426 Read what's in the end of my. 04:35.448 --> 04:41.846 Finger so I can press this button. And I should mention that I had. 04:41.868 --> 04:46.920 Already been developing it for a couple months. And I'm going to mention a competitor here because he deserves credit. 04:47.770 --> 04:51.114 And then I found out that a. 04:51.152 --> 04:53.546 Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University by the. 04:53.568 --> 04:59.318 Name of An Hong Guo G-U-O had been working on an app called Vizlens. 04:59.494 --> 05:02.620 V-I-Z-L-E-N-S which is now in the app store. 05:03.470 --> 05:06.862 And his team had tried similar things. 05:06.916 --> 05:11.982 And we had no idea. We'd searched and searched, hadn't found anything. And then found, oh, hey, someone had tried this. 05:12.036 --> 05:14.522 But at the time, they had to upload. 05:14.586 --> 05:18.018 Like, if someone was going to interact with, say, a microwave, you had to. 05:18.024 --> 05:26.466 Take a picture of it, upload it. Other people would label the buttons, then the image would come back, and then. 05:26.488 --> 05:29.506 They would track your hand. Not using hand tracking like we are. 05:29.528 --> 05:30.774 And that's going off to the side. 05:30.812 --> 05:35.094 But I should mention that is essentially that's part of the chronological history of. 05:35.212 --> 05:36.358 Let'S just say this technology. 05:36.444 --> 05:40.410 There is someone who did it before, but we didn't know about it until we were already developing this app. 05:40.560 --> 06:03.460 And what gave you the idea to do an app like this? Because I always find it curious when someone develops an app that goes to such a small market, like people who are visually impaired or blind, something like that. So what brought you to being someone who's an app developer come to put your time into an app like this? 06:05.030 --> 06:12.414 I had worked in what's called machine vision, which is computer vision for industrial. 06:12.462 --> 06:21.094 Applications, like building computers, building cars, all those sorts of things, using cameras to help automate production. I'd worked in that for over 20. 06:21.132 --> 06:37.034 Years, and I didn't feel like I was doing what I should exactly, and so I wanted to do something different, and I wanted to feel like I was making a tool that people would. 06:37.072 --> 06:58.126 Use and I could talk to the people directly. Not that I was building stuff for robots. Basically, I like talking to people, so I'm not legally blind. I have a visual impairment, though, and I have strabismus. One of my eyes points out it's very common among people who are blind. And I grew up in a town. 06:58.318 --> 07:04.862 That had the second oldest school for guide dogs, so Rochester, Michigan. 07:04.926 --> 07:13.014 So there are all these different pieces, sort of my background, and I just put it together one day. I said, hey, wait a minute, maybe this is a place where I should work. 07:13.052 --> 07:27.210 And I just say that, for instance, for this particular app, it was like the third or fourth thing we were thinking of building as part of an integrated ecosystem of assistive tech and accessibility tools. 07:28.590 --> 07:32.202 We're still intending to get to that, but it just kind of rose higher. 07:32.256 --> 07:34.326 And higher in sort of the ranks. 07:34.358 --> 07:39.022 As we realized, like, oh, maybe this is the thing we should develop first, especially since we can deliver it through. 07:39.156 --> 07:42.046 The app store and as we were. 07:42.068 --> 07:45.520 Working on it, not have to meet people face to face when that wasn't possible. 07:45.970 --> 07:53.790 So are you guys using your own technologies or are you guys using something like the Apple Vision or how did you guys make that a reality? 07:53.870 --> 07:55.638 It's a combination of things. 07:55.804 --> 08:09.442 So for now at least, for example, we're using Apple's OCR and Apple's hand detection. They're handy. All the rest of it is ours. 08:09.506 --> 08:19.546 And I'm expecting to replace or supplement parts over. So, again, I have an image processing background, so I'm familiar with a lot. 08:19.568 --> 08:31.534 Of tools to do different kinds of image processing. Some of this is going to be covered by a patent, but I'm also. 08:31.572 --> 08:34.494 Familiar with the idea, or I'm becoming more familiar with it's, like, hey, someone. 08:34.532 --> 08:36.578 Else made this tool that works pretty well. 08:36.744 --> 08:46.574 Let's start with it. Let's use their things. But hey, we all paid for these expensive phones. Let's make best use of what Apple offers, essentially for free, or nearly for free. 08:46.712 --> 08:49.990 So I've built pieces in like that. 08:50.140 --> 09:13.282 And I guess that brings up my next question is I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with what's coming in iOS 17, but they announced a similar feature where to point at items. What do you guys feel kind of really distinguishes your product from what Apple is going to be doing in 17? 09:13.446 --> 09:17.086 Wow, we know about this. We should also come back to this. 09:17.108 --> 09:18.640 There's a bit of a story there. 09:20.850 --> 09:25.250 Do you happen to remember what the name of that is called? That feature is called Tap to Speak. 09:25.320 --> 09:29.134 But from my understanding, it requires the LiDAR. 09:29.262 --> 09:31.298 Yes, it does require that center. 09:31.464 --> 09:33.060 They call it point and speak. 09:34.890 --> 09:51.798 It was announced in May and Global Accessibility Awareness Day. And the way I found out about it is someone actually one of the co founders of I believe one of you guys talked about this, the makers. 09:51.814 --> 09:53.898 Of the Oko app that you saw. 09:53.904 --> 09:56.214 At NFB or ACB or some recent conference. 09:56.262 --> 09:58.634 Anyways, the app that allows you across. 09:58.672 --> 10:05.026 The street seeing crosswalk signs. Anyways, he emailed me and said, hey, Gary, you're working with Apple? 10:05.158 --> 10:06.702 Because he knew about the app. 10:06.836 --> 10:17.006 Me, and I had had a conversation with him, and I said, no. Why do you say that? He said, Check this announcement out. And so I look at this announcement from Apple. Not exactly pointing fingers here, but I'm. 10:17.038 --> 10:18.818 Just telling what happened. 10:18.984 --> 10:20.398 And I noticed that, oh, hey, they're. 10:20.414 --> 10:27.702 Announcing an app that does what we do using a demo that looks like our demo and using the same name. 10:27.756 --> 10:30.840 That we've used for two years, point and Speak. 10:32.090 --> 10:36.246 So that was kind of OD, to say the least, given that we had. 10:36.268 --> 10:44.310 Our app in beta in the App Store, and then they used the same name. I understand different parts of the company could be doing different things, but that's. 10:44.470 --> 10:49.894 Sort of the background. And we just, after talking and discussing. 10:49.942 --> 11:13.890 With various folks, decided, let's just change the app name to the company name. So that said, what I think is different is that they do rely on the LiDAR sensor. And I can see that there are certain benefits to that, sort of they can tell, for example, where a hand or a finger is relative to the surface of a touch screen or an appliance. 11:14.710 --> 11:16.374 You don't actually need that. 11:16.412 --> 11:17.560 But it's interesting. 11:18.090 --> 11:24.920 And what's different is that our app runs on phones without the LiDAR sensor. You don't need it. 11:27.210 --> 11:28.330 In addition. 11:30.110 --> 11:32.170 Their feature of the Magnifier. 11:33.470 --> 11:36.454 The updated Magnifier in iOS 17, overlaps. 11:36.502 --> 11:43.934 One of our features. A good point, though, that your app. 11:43.972 --> 12:02.100 Does not work with LiDAR scanner or does not need the LiDAR scanner. That's something you guys should definitely marketing. Get around that, because not everyone can go out and afford a brand new phone. And some people have phones that don't have LiDAR scanners but could make use of this technology. 12:03.030 --> 12:03.634 Thank you. 12:03.672 --> 12:05.460 Yeah, no, it's a good point. 12:06.170 --> 12:17.606 And I would argue you don't need the LiDAR scanner. It doesn't actually add much, and in fact, it could introduce some problems, one. 12:17.628 --> 12:33.742 Of which is that, okay, so they're now going to give you instructions, I assume we'll find out how it works. They know where your finger is, so oh, your finger is three inches away. Two inches away, one inch away. Okay, does anyone want to hear that? I'm not sure what sort of directions they're going to be giving to someone. 12:33.796 --> 12:37.626 On the fly that the LiDAR sensor. 12:37.658 --> 12:38.894 Is really going to help with. 12:39.012 --> 12:59.382 I think that in the same scenario where you're walking down a hallway and you're looking for a suite number or a hotel room number or something like that, that might come in handy if it can pick something up from a distance, sure. But I don't think you need to know the distance of your finger to the button on a microwave or something like that. 12:59.436 --> 12:59.942 Really? 13:00.076 --> 13:32.842 Yeah, I think they're using the LiDAR to measure how far your finger is for precision, more than just optical recognition. That's the only thing I can gather that they're doing. But again, there's benefits to both ways. But I think most blind users I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but here, but most blind users do not have iPhones with the LiDAR. So I think what you guys are doing is a plus for those users that do not have that on their phone. 13:32.996 --> 13:41.106 Sure, I appreciate that. And to me it's funny because actually my previous work, I spent some number. 13:41.128 --> 13:50.738 Of years working with 3D sensors, so using 3D sensors in different applications and so on. So I'm familiar with the technology, I'm. 13:50.754 --> 13:52.274 Familiar with the sensor. 13:52.322 --> 13:55.590 They actually have that's in there or the precursor to that sensor. 13:56.010 --> 13:57.206 So yeah, there are a lot of. 13:57.228 --> 14:12.346 Applications, they may end up doing some really cool stuff. Maybe this was just their stepping stone to having some interesting features in Apple Vision Pro and other headsets that are coming. But yeah, we want to reach as many people as we can, which means. 14:12.448 --> 14:18.078 Allowing for right now, any iPhone that can run iOS 16, which, if I. 14:18.084 --> 14:19.486 Remember correctly, is the iOS or is. 14:19.508 --> 14:23.374 The iPhone eight or later. We don't want to exclude people because. 14:23.412 --> 14:33.826 People hang onto their phones for some number of years. Who wants to and who can spend whatever $1,000 every year to get oh, it's just because it's the latest phone. 14:33.848 --> 14:40.520 It'S like no, and when people buy new phones, they don't always buy the most expensive thing. A lot of people get the se or something like that. 14:40.970 --> 14:41.720 Yeah. 14:43.130 --> 15:13.186 So I've been using the app a little bit. Can you explain the you talked about the fine mode and can you explain that in a little more detail? So basically the way I understand it is you speak to your phone or I guess it's using like Apple's dictation and when you speak the words, as you move the phone around, it will tell you if the word is in view and then you could point your finger at it. Is that kind of how you explained it? 15:13.368 --> 15:13.906 Yeah. 15:14.008 --> 15:14.466 Yeah. 15:14.568 --> 15:17.778 So when you switch over to find. 15:17.864 --> 15:22.900 Mode, it prompts you to ask it to find a word. 15:23.350 --> 15:30.002 So find the word character, please. I'm just picking random words. 15:30.056 --> 15:34.870 Find the word Marty, please. And we had the word please. 15:34.940 --> 15:39.734 One, because it's nice. Why not be nice to your phone? But also because that's a way of. 15:39.772 --> 15:43.706 Quickly wrapping up the recording, because what's what it's doing? 15:43.728 --> 15:46.634 It's recording your voice. It's recording what you're saying. 15:46.832 --> 15:49.306 And it knows oh, when I hit. 15:49.328 --> 16:13.554 The please word, I know oh, the command is there. And now I'm going to extract the word that the person is interested in. And so then, yes, it immediately starts. It switches over to this mode where it's scanning constantly looking for that word amidst whatever words may be in front of it. Right now, we're not trying to distinguish between words that appear that are printed on a piece of paper, words that. 16:13.592 --> 16:18.014 Appear on, I don't know, a washing. 16:18.062 --> 16:26.754 Machine or a billboard or anything like that. We're just looking for the word. We're assuming it's just again, it's a tool. A person figure out what the context. 16:26.802 --> 16:32.950 Is and then they decide the process is recording. 16:33.110 --> 16:42.090 What you're looking for. Is the processing being done locally or does it send it out to the Internet somewhere it calls home and then brings back the information? 16:42.240 --> 16:43.500 How's that work? 16:43.810 --> 16:45.310 It's on device. 16:46.050 --> 16:49.406 There are some you don't need Internet. It'll work fine without being connected to. 16:49.428 --> 16:51.214 Any kind of Internet. That's right. 16:51.252 --> 16:52.494 You should be able to switch it. 16:52.532 --> 16:56.562 Into airplane mode and try it. Okay, great. Yeah. 16:56.696 --> 16:58.894 All the processing gets done on Device. 16:59.022 --> 16:59.458 Yes. 16:59.544 --> 17:05.810 Now there's one exception because someone did report back to us is like, oh, no, it's trying to connect to a server. 17:06.630 --> 17:09.686 And I think we don't actually have. 17:09.708 --> 17:12.406 An older phone, like an iPhone eight. And we may get one just to. 17:12.428 --> 17:24.810 Test this, but when you get to the iPhone eight, I don't think the X, it may try to do the processing by connecting to some Apple server. 17:25.310 --> 17:27.130 And sending into the audio. 17:27.710 --> 17:28.460 Yeah. 17:33.870 --> 17:40.250 I thought this was already enforced, but I think this may actually be a bug that it's not being enforced to do all the processing on Device. 17:40.410 --> 17:45.586 But we try to do all of the processing. This is decision made years ago is. 17:45.608 --> 17:46.994 Like one of the key ideas is. 17:47.032 --> 17:50.718 That if someone's in a building somewhere. 17:50.894 --> 17:54.466 And they lose their cell signal, they lose WiFi if they happen to be. 17:54.488 --> 17:56.670 Connected, may not be public WiFi. 17:56.830 --> 17:59.382 The app shouldn't be worthless or whatever it is we're doing. 17:59.436 --> 18:02.082 Everything should work without a connection. 18:02.146 --> 18:04.886 We can take advantage of a connection. There may be some things and there. 18:04.908 --> 18:08.086 Are some features coming in the future. 18:08.188 --> 18:11.286 That will take advantage of available connections. 18:11.318 --> 18:13.434 But we always want, at the very. 18:13.472 --> 18:20.074 Least, the core functionality, the most basic and frankly, most useful functionality to be available whether you have a connection or not. 18:20.192 --> 18:21.366 So there's a lot of stuff that's. 18:21.398 --> 18:27.774 Going on there right now that find function, is it just one word or is it multiple words? 18:27.892 --> 18:30.606 You can do multiple words. Okay. Yeah. 18:30.708 --> 18:32.800 There are limitations that if the words. 18:33.410 --> 18:42.942 Appear, if they all appear in a row. So if you've got ink print like I'm just looking over my bookshelves. 18:43.006 --> 18:44.898 Programming language is on a book. 18:44.984 --> 18:49.574 So if you said programming language and those words appear in a row, then. 18:49.612 --> 18:51.986 Yeah, it'll find together. But if they were on two separate. 18:52.018 --> 18:56.920 Rows, then the way it's configured now, I don't believe it's going to find that. 18:58.570 --> 19:00.106 Or where would it store the information. 19:00.208 --> 19:13.710 Once you have scanned? Or does it not it doesn't store it. Currently this is all live processing on the fly. We're just now introducing features to store things. 19:13.780 --> 19:24.270 Like, for instance, that I'm getting a little ahead of any announcement or anything, but if, say, you visited a kiosk. 19:24.930 --> 19:30.786 Somewhere and you would use this kiosk and you're like, hey, it'd be great. 19:30.808 --> 19:34.082 If this remembered kind of what I did last time. Or what some of the features were. 19:34.136 --> 19:36.786 What I did last time. 19:36.888 --> 19:49.894 Those are the sort of things that we plan to add in the near future. So that, for instance, it's not having to relearn everything or you're not having to rescan everything all the time. And that's a little vague. 19:50.022 --> 20:06.046 Long story short is we're adding a connection to the cloud that's going to allow data to be uploaded so that in the future you're in the same location or if you're doing the same sort of thing, there'll be some quote unquote memory of it. 20:06.148 --> 20:11.934 So currently it's for identifying this doesn't have any OCR capabilities at this time. 20:12.052 --> 20:14.010 Oh, it does, it does have OCR. 20:14.090 --> 20:26.440 But it's just not saving anything. Yeah, so it's OCR, hand detection, various other things, but it's not saving anything long term. You shut down the app, you ask it to find a new word, you scan for a different word, it's not saving anything. 20:26.810 --> 20:27.814 Got you. 20:28.012 --> 20:41.018 But we do plan to save, I think, relatively obvious features that someone would want is like, hey, what if I come up to an interface that someone else using this app has encountered as well? 20:41.184 --> 20:43.606 Why wouldn't you just kind of reload. 20:43.798 --> 20:49.434 What their phone saw and maybe already they've already figured out, oh, here's this. 20:49.472 --> 20:54.560 Button, here's something else. Someone else might want to try that sort of thing. 20:55.570 --> 21:00.206 What would you say has been the biggest challenge with this app creation process. 21:00.308 --> 21:02.474 And building this out? It's a good question. 21:02.532 --> 21:03.634 A lot of it is the number. 21:03.672 --> 21:20.274 Of things we're trying to do more or less simultaneously on what is still a pretty wide range of phones with different processing capabilities. So for example, OCR, as we typically. 21:20.322 --> 21:23.750 Use it, you capture an image and say, hey, can you do OCR in this? 21:23.820 --> 21:29.320 All of that is fast, but it's not real time really. 21:29.690 --> 21:38.298 Typically OCR in a full image is going to take a second or two. More recent phones are going to go faster than that. Whereas what we're trying to do is constantly reading OCR where someone's finger is. 21:38.304 --> 21:41.618 Pointing or constantly reading OCR as images. 21:41.654 --> 21:58.050 Are coming in live as close to video rates as we possibly can. So that's meant a lot of juggling internally to say, okay, now we're doing this, now we're doing that, now we're doing this, now we're doing that. We're ignoring this part of the image. Now we're interested in this part of the image. 21:58.550 --> 22:02.114 So that actually took a fair amount of time. 22:02.312 --> 22:04.018 And a lot of this tinkering was. 22:04.024 --> 22:06.706 Actually on an older phone. Initially. 22:06.738 --> 22:07.718 It was on my old, I think. 22:07.724 --> 22:09.080 It was iPhone seven. 22:11.290 --> 22:12.422 Starting a couple of years ago. 22:12.476 --> 22:22.886 So that was actually pretty tricky because we couldn't actually run OCR in the entire image and keep it on device. 22:22.998 --> 22:24.940 And also track someone's hand. 22:25.550 --> 22:47.426 Yeah, it sounds like a challenging problem to have, for sure. I played with the app as well, and the first thing I tried it with was the oven because I was familiar with the layout of that touch screen and I was surprised with how the experience was, but it did keep losing track of my hand, I noticed. Is that something you guys have been made aware of and I expect probably working on? 22:47.608 --> 22:53.890 Yes. So Apple has really good hand detection. 22:54.230 --> 22:56.040 For what's available these days. 22:58.090 --> 23:08.038 But there are certainly situations where hand detection is tricky or it'll just flat out fail. I mean, one, there's the matter of. 23:08.124 --> 23:12.198 Depending on how much vision someone has, it may or may not be obvious to them whether or not enough of. 23:12.204 --> 23:13.574 Their hand is in view. 23:13.772 --> 23:15.478 So generally with the app, you want. 23:15.484 --> 23:17.206 To have your hand more or less. 23:17.228 --> 23:20.206 As far from the phone as you can get it. So what it usually means, and I. 23:20.228 --> 23:22.026 Think I'll turn it over to Mia. 23:22.058 --> 23:38.162 In a moment because she can describe this well, she's had a lot of practice, is keeping the phone relatively close to your body and keeping your hand relatively far away. As long as we have an app running on a phone rather than some other device, there's a lot of this. 23:38.216 --> 23:41.410 Coordination that, admittedly, it's tricky. 23:42.470 --> 23:43.602 So that's one thing. 23:43.656 --> 23:45.554 The farther away your hand is, the. 23:45.592 --> 23:51.378 More likely it is that the phone's going to be able to see it. So that's one thing. But the other thing is that depending. 23:51.394 --> 23:53.880 On the lighting, so if there are. 23:54.250 --> 23:55.926 Overhead lights on or not, right now. 23:55.948 --> 23:58.934 We'Re not turning on the iPhone's built. 23:58.972 --> 24:03.270 In flashlight, which I know things like seeing AI will do that automatically in certain modes. 24:03.350 --> 24:11.870 We're not doing that as yet. Turning on the flashlight could help, depends on someone's skin tone relative to the background. 24:13.250 --> 24:15.066 But these are all things that we're. 24:15.098 --> 24:24.670 Addressing and there is something novel that we're going to do that I believe is going to help hand detection. 24:25.730 --> 24:30.082 When we're going to be able to release that, I'm not sure because it's another tricky sort of thing. 24:30.136 --> 24:32.718 We're trying to take a hand detection. 24:32.894 --> 24:38.098 Feature built by a massive company, Apple, and we're actually trying to improve on. 24:38.104 --> 24:43.318 It, which is not a very easy thing to do, but we have this very specific application. 24:43.404 --> 24:47.526 So there are a few things that we can do to I don't want to call simplify the problem, but we. 24:47.548 --> 24:49.702 Understand it's like this is the application. 24:49.836 --> 24:55.846 For which you're using hand detection. We're not trying to do a gazillion other things, we're not trying to generalize it. We're really just trying to track someone's. 24:55.878 --> 24:58.154 Hand so as they're moving their hand. 24:58.272 --> 25:05.166 We can detect, oh, here's what's at the end of their index finger. Or in time, here's what's underneath their index finger so they know, oh, we can tell them. 25:05.188 --> 25:06.574 You can press this button. 25:06.772 --> 25:18.020 Yeah, that's I could see how that is the way that it would work. Mia, did you want to mention how or explain how you envision using the app? 25:18.470 --> 26:05.950 Yeah, so I would definitely say in the beginning, coordinating how you hold your hand and how you hold the phone relative to the thing you're trying to read kind of can get a little difficult, especially with the less vision you have. But I've actually done a few different videos on some of our social media platforms kind of explaining how to hold your hand, standing, holding your phone, and et cetera. So the best thing to do is hold your phone with your nondominant hand and then use your dominant hand to interact with the touch screen or the piece of text you're trying to read. And then it's also best to try to keep your dominant hand kind of like in the middle of your body. And I kind of say towards kind of how you would hold your cane if you're a cane user. 26:06.110 --> 26:06.482 Okay. 26:06.536 --> 26:43.680 That kind of typically helps. And then it's always best to use your index finger plus another finger because that kind of helps hand detection, be able to pick up your finger a bit better. And then I would say as for standing, you want to kind of stand at least like arm's length apart from not apart, but like arm's length away from the device or the text that you're reading. And those kind of always seem to be able to help people as I was like, helping people troubleshoot, helped people interact the app a lot better. But as Gary said, there's a lot of things that we're trying to correct. 26:44.050 --> 27:47.826 Yeah, this sounds like a great use for favorite device called a Slinger, which is a Lanyard that could help hold the phone at chest level and then all you have to worry about is orientating your hand and pointing at the touch screen. I'm super excited about what you guys have done. I've played with the app a little bit and I think it's important for people to realize where the use case scenario is. It's not something to go read through your mail. At least I don't see it as something to go read through my mail, which is what a lot of people would see OCR apps and similar apps to be. But it is a great app to walk up to a machine that isn't accessible and point at something and be able to hopefully access that. Gary, you've hinted a lot on what you've got coming up in the future, and I imagine you can't talk much about that more. But I am just curious if you have any suggestions or offers to the listeners about how they can provide you some feedback if they have it about. 27:47.848 --> 27:50.386 The app after picking it up. Oh, certainly. 27:50.488 --> 27:52.862 So me and I discussed this in advance. 27:52.926 --> 27:59.446 One thing we'll say is, let's say the first five people, if they contact. 27:59.548 --> 28:11.030 Us, can get a promo code for the app to try it for free. And then that way they can get the app, they can try it out, and they can provide us feedback. 28:11.110 --> 28:17.066 So after the first five sorry, you'll have to pay for it, but the. 28:17.088 --> 28:29.166 One thing we do ask is if people are listening to podcast. Not that I think it's necessarily a problem, but we ask that they mentioned something specifically we said during the podcast so that we know they listened to the podcast and it's specifically, hey, when. 28:29.188 --> 28:33.342 Was the company founded? May I want to answer that one for a listen? 28:33.396 --> 28:39.618 It was founded on Groundhog Day 2020. So February 2, 2020. 28:39.784 --> 28:42.686 That's a rough time to found a company. Congratulations. 28:42.798 --> 28:47.990 Thank you. At the time, everything looked good. 28:48.140 --> 28:51.654 It was like, oh, hey, it's a fun date. 28:51.852 --> 29:07.366 If you write it out, it's Palindromic 20 2020. I was like, oh, that's funny. And then two months later, the world changed. But yes, someone mentions Groundhog Day, then we'll happily send the promo code to. 29:07.388 --> 29:08.600 The first five people. 29:09.210 --> 29:10.494 So that's one way they can try. 29:10.532 --> 29:11.760 The app, and. 29:13.810 --> 29:25.360 Someone can also just email us and try to make the case. But we'd really love to know that people are a listening to your podcast and they're listening to the whole thing. And that way we know it's like, oh, hey, yeah, we'd be happy to. 29:26.130 --> 29:27.822 Share the app with you for free. 29:27.956 --> 29:36.100 And to clarify, if someone already owns the app, because I know a few people who own the app and they have feedback to provide to you, what's the best way for people to do? 29:37.510 --> 29:48.774 Can certainly, if they'd like, they can post a review in the App Store. I should mention that if someone does get a promo code, this is just one of Apple's legal things, is if you get the app via promo code. 29:48.812 --> 29:51.974 You can't actually put a review in the App Store. 29:52.012 --> 29:52.954 And I'm not sure where that is. 29:52.992 --> 29:54.298 That's just the way it is. 29:54.384 --> 29:57.466 But if someone already has the app one, they can just email us so. 29:57.488 --> 30:05.822 They can go to our website, Echobatics.com. That's Echobatix.com. 30:05.876 --> 30:25.906 So that's echo. As in to hear an Echo bat, as in the flappyanimal, I X Echobatics.com and we have a contact page. Or they can reach out to Miami@echobatics.com or megarry. Gary@echobatics.com Those are all different ways they. 30:25.928 --> 30:26.866 Can get back to us. 30:26.888 --> 30:28.754 And if someone's already purchased the app. 30:28.792 --> 30:30.294 And they want to share it with. 30:30.332 --> 30:33.206 Someone else, or they think someone else should try it, but that person is. 30:33.228 --> 30:35.158 On the fence, they can send us. 30:35.164 --> 30:41.800 An email and we'd be happy to strike a deal with them so that their friends, their loved one, colleague, whatever. 30:42.410 --> 30:43.882 Can get the app as well. 30:44.016 --> 31:01.902 I was going to say I'd also like to jump in and say you can always reach out to us. We're on multiple social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. So you can always just send us a message on there with your feedback or any questions. And it's all at Echobatics echobatix. 31:01.956 --> 31:06.962 And just so everybody knows, the price. 31:07.016 --> 31:11.154 If you're going to pay for it, I believe is $10.01 time fee, is that correct? 31:11.352 --> 31:12.660 That's correct, yes. 31:13.110 --> 31:18.638 So it's only $10, everyone. So go pick it up. It's not too much. It's one time. It's not a subscription. 31:18.734 --> 31:20.530 So give it a whirl. 31:20.610 --> 31:41.210 And I have one last question on that and then we'll wrap it up. And we appreciate you guys joining us. It is a one time $10 cost, and as we all know, there is an ongoing cost of development. Is there a subscription plan in the future you can talk about or how do you guys plan to maintain it with a one time cost? Because you have seen all these apps go to subscriptions. 31:41.550 --> 31:43.550 Yes, that is the plan, in fact. 31:43.620 --> 31:46.766 So if someone purchases the app now. 31:46.868 --> 31:52.766 Or in the future, number one, they're going to have undue influence on where the app goes because they're going to. 31:52.788 --> 31:54.506 Be part of the early group telling. 31:54.538 --> 31:55.774 Us, like, hey, I want this feature. 31:55.822 --> 31:59.234 If a few people, even sometimes half. 31:59.272 --> 32:00.466 A dozen people, said, hey, I like. 32:00.488 --> 32:02.738 This feature, we're most likely going to. 32:02.744 --> 32:04.286 Develop it at this early stage. 32:04.318 --> 32:06.966 But yes, we are going to be. 32:06.988 --> 32:20.666 Switching to a subscription model. And that was actually our original plan. Apple's announcement back in May caused us to scramble to get the app out. We didn't want to seem, even though. 32:20.688 --> 32:24.838 We had the functionality first, we didn't. 32:24.934 --> 32:28.214 Make it look, frankly, like we were following after them and copying. 32:28.262 --> 32:31.178 So we got the app out, and. 32:31.264 --> 32:37.262 The quick way to do that was to release it as a paid app. But anyone who's paid for the app. 32:37.316 --> 32:39.086 Will in the future be able to. 32:39.108 --> 32:45.154 Transition over to the subscription app. We'll also have other ways. We'll have ways of trying out the. 32:45.192 --> 32:47.422 App, which right now you really can't. 32:47.486 --> 32:57.160 Do other than, for example, getting a promo code. So we are going to switch over and we're going to make sure this makes sense. 32:57.770 --> 33:00.454 We're switching to a subscription model because. 33:00.492 --> 33:10.746 Then it allows us to continue develop. We have a very long roadmap, a lot of cool features planned and that will allow us to continue development. So it's not a you buy it. 33:10.768 --> 33:17.050 Once and that's it. We're going to be coming out with features for some time to come. Well, perfect. 33:17.200 --> 33:21.030 I appreciate you guys joining. Michael D. Do you have any additional. 33:21.110 --> 33:25.066 Questions before we wrap it that's I've. 33:25.098 --> 33:31.262 Asked questions I had earlier and it sounds like you guys have a fantastic product. I'm excited to see what you guys. 33:31.316 --> 33:33.662 Add in the future. Thank you so much. 33:33.796 --> 33:40.450 Marty, do you have anything you want to add or feel free to wrap it up. And again, we appreciate me and Gary for joining us. 33:40.600 --> 34:04.730 Yeah, thank you guys so much. We really appreciate you coming on and telling us all about your app. We definitely want to keep in touch and you got to keep us posted on moving forward. What you got going on, any news, updates, new features, any of that stuff. And again, thanks so much to Gary and Mia from Echobatics. We appreciate it so much and we'll see you guys next time. All right. 34:04.800 --> 34:05.740 Thanks, guys. 34:19.410 --> 34:46.838 Every Tuesday at 10:00, a.m. Pacific time, myself, Michael Babcock and Marty SoBo go live on ACB Community to answer your technology questions. How do you join in? Couple always use Alexa, your computer or the new ACB Link app to listen to ACB Media Five. You can also join in in clubhouse or visit ACB Community to learn how to join us live in Zoom every Tuesday at 10:00, a.m. Pacific Time. We'll see you there with your tech questions.