Episode Notes
Thanks for checking out AccessWorld, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. In this episode, we get ready for the season of giving with AccessWorld's annual gift-giving guide. And we're excited that our guest sharing this year's guide is none other than AccessWorld founder Deborah Kendrick.
Deborah gives us the gift of hearing firsthand AccessWorld's origin story, and we get a sneak-peak into her annual gift-giving guide. So, be sure to like and subscribe, and you can check out the podcast page for episode transcripts, which should be posted within a day or two after the podcast goes live. To check out the latest online edition of AccessWorld, or to access over 24 years of back issues for free, visit the online magazine's home.
AccessWorld is a production of the American Foundation for the blind (AFB). To learn more about AFB, or to help support our work creating a world of endless possibilities for people who are blind or have low vision, visit www.afb.org.
Aaron Preece is editor-in-chief of AccessWorld Magazine, and Tony Stephens leads communications for AFB. Together, they take a deep dive each month into the world of digital inclusion. For questions or comments about this podcast, email: communications @ afb.org.
About AccessWorld
AccessWorld is a production of the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB). Tony Stephens leads communications for AFB, and Aaron Preece is the editor-in-chief of AccessWorld Magazine, an online publication that celebrates its 25th anniversary this year promoting digital inclusion and accessibility. Aaron Preece is editor-in-chief of AccessWorld, and Tony Stephens leads communications for AFB.
About AFB
Founded in 1921, the American Foundation for the Blind creates equal opportunities and expands possibilities for people who are blind, deafblind, or have low vision through advocacy, thought leadership, and strategic partnerships. In addition to publishing AccessWorld and the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness (JVIB), AFB is also the proud steward of the Helen Keller Archive, which is available on the AFB website at www.afb.org.
AccessWorld Podcast, Episode 14 Transcript
Female Narrator:
A-F-B!
You are listening to Access World, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. Access World is a production of the American Foundation for the Blind. Learn more at www.afb.org/aw.
Aaron Preece:
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of our Access World podcast, the December sort of a holiday issue, so to speak. I'm here with my co-host, Tony Stevens, and also with a very special guest we have today. Anybody that's Read Access World anytime in the last several years will know Debra Kendrick is here to talk with us today.
Tony Stephens:
Hey, Aaron. Hey, Deborah. It's exciting. We are graced by royalty in the access world channels of history here. It's very exciting. Thanks Deborah, for joining us.
Deborah Kendrick:
Well, thank you. This is going to be fun
Tony Stephens:
For folks that maybe are new through the podcast, or not even long time readers of Access World, can you share a little bit about your history with Access World, but even prior, because we are again graced by your presence because it's exciting to have you here because it goes way, way back.
Deborah Kendrick:
Well, thank you. Yeah. In the early eighties, I was a fledgling freelance writer, and I live in Cincinnati where the Clover Nook Printing House for the Blind is. And I was beginning to publish articles in local newspapers and magazines. I knew Clover Nook for other reasons. I'd done a little bit of teaching for them and so forth. And one day the executive director called me and said, we produce all these magazines in Braille for the National Library Service for the Blind, but we got the idea that it'd be really fun to actually publish a magazine, but we need somebody to create it. Do you have any interest in creating a magazine? And I said, yeah, of course. I mean, because when you're a beginning freelancer, you say yes to everything. So you say yes to writing a description of how to put the kids' scooter together, whatever.
So the next thing I knew, he called me back and said, well, we've figured out what we want it to be about. We want it to be about computers. What do you think of that? I said, yeah, sure. That's a great idea. I'd never seen a computer. I had no interest. This was the eighties. All my blind friends and cited people, everybody was all jazzed about the Apple two E or two C or whatever it was. I had no interest. But it happened that I had been at a party where the manager of voc rehab in my area was, and he said, I've been reading your articles. How do you produce them? And I said, well, first I write them on a Perkins Brailler. And then I read into a tape, and then I listen to the tape and I type from the tape, and then I wait for the only person in the world I trust to proofread, and then I usually have to type one or two pages over again. So it was this long, tedious process and he said, you need a computer? No, I don't. Yes, you do. Well, anyway, so in the same month I got my first computer, which was a tape-based versa braille. It was the first refreshable Braille device. And I launched the first issue of Tactic.
In the interim, in order to be any kind of writer or journalist, you have to have good research skills. And so I was reaching out to people all over the country, and it was amazing. Some of these blind pioneers who were working with computers, with the early computers, people were sending me just tons of stuff, Fred g Harvey Lauer, Sandy Kinni, the Smith Kettlewell guys. Everybody was sending me articles to help me get up to the speed. And so Tactic was launched, it was a quarterly and initially because the whole idea was Clover wanted to publish their own Braille magazine. Initially, tactic was only available in Braille, and it attracted immediate readership around the country and around the world. I entered it in a couple of contests. I got some amazing awards from the Society for Technical Communications in which competitors were General Electric and IBM and Delta Major Corporations.
Their technical magazines were the competitors. And for Tactic to get that kind of recognition was really cool. So then people were coming up to me at the early seasons and saying, I'm sighted, but my blind colleague tells me this magazine is really great. How can I get it in print? And early on I would say, do what we do, get a reader. And there were actually, there were people who wrote to me, blind subscribers who were reading to their sighted colleagues. So there was a little bit of cool reverse fairness going on there. But after a few years we did. I worked with a graphics designer who was a friend of mine and a communications organization, and we started a large print version, and then we started a floppy disc version. And I don't know if you guys are even old enough to know what a floppy disc looks like.
Tony Stephens:
Three and a half for five and a quarter. The big ones three
Deborah Kendrick:
And a half. Okay. Yeah. Predated the SD card and the USB flash drive. So we were sending it in three formats. And then in 2000, Carl Augusto, who was a long time friend, and then the president of the American Foundation for the Blind called me one day and said, how would you like to come to a FB? And I said, I don't understand. And I said, I'd love to, but I don't know what you mean. And he said, well, and in all fairness, I had some relationship. I was already writing some books for a FB. They had done a study, they wanted to do a computer magazine, and they had paid to have some marketing research done. And the upshot of that was there wasn't room for another national publication for the blind on computers. The tactic had the market. And so they wanted tactic and tactic came to A FB and became Access World.
So we launched in early 2000. Now in the beginning, maybe these were around at A FB. In the beginning it was produced in Braille. And interestingly, when I started Tactic, I held a contest in the Braille production department of Clover Nook because I wanted a cool cover. I wanted a cover that when people opened their magazine, they wouldn't have to read the title to know what it was. And somebody came up with a really cool tactile design, which was to emulate a computer screen, and it's really just maybe like full braille cells all the way around the outer edges of the page of the cover with rounded corners in all four corners. And then the word tactic spelled with braille cells spelled in large capital letters, print capital letters in the center. So it was pretty cool. And they did access world the same way without the letters in the middle, but the same design around the perimeter.
And I did have people say to me, I remember, I don't know if you knew Paul, but he was the first person I remember commenting. He was a really wonderful person who worked for MIT of Lan guy, and he said that he just loved when Tactic came in the mail because he just touched the edge of it and knew what it was. So anyway, so Access Road looked like that, and I don't remember exactly when. I think it was online as well as braille from the beginning. It must have been because all those issues are available archived, but I don't remember when it became online only, but it was pretty early. I'm going to guess around 2005 or 2006, and it's gone. As you know, Eric, it's gone up and down the timescale. It was quarterly and then it was bimonthly, and then it was monthly, and now we're back to quarterly again.
Tony Stephens:
Wow. That is wonderful, Deborah. I mean, just exciting to think about. And I never got it in print or in braille, like the physical copies. It's been Over the past 20 something years. And there was a while when we had the app, which was nice. I remember the app for the mobile phone. We still get questions about that.
Aaron Preece:
Yeah,
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah. People were so mad when that app went away.
Tony Stephens:
It's great though that folks can go back all the way to 2000.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah, yeah.
Tony Stephens:
We can find some technology that'll read those three and a half inch copies. You have those discs you have.
Deborah Kendrick:
Well, yeah. I was saying before we went on here that I just recently, I've had all these discs floating around and I've moved them As I've moved houses, these boxes of discs come and I got a little USB accessory drive and started looking at them a couple weeks ago. It's going to be a huge project, but I read through one issue Winter 1994, and it was thrilling. It was thrilling. I mean, yeah, some of the technology is outdated, but well, the spirit of there's just like the first braille light is in that issue. Our first, when Braille speak grew up and became real light, and there's a wonderful review of open book and it just, I don't know. It's really, I'm looking forward now. I have one complete set of the braille copies that I, well, maybe every five years I'll run across 'em and think I should throw these out, and then I think I can't. I need them. So I've had a couple people who are subscribers. Judy Dixon was one who said that she finally got rid of hers, that she had 'em. She had a complete set in her office at work and finally decided one day let 'em go. But
Anyway, it's really fun to read about today. We get all excited about ai, but the same excitement was there. Well, in an early issue of Tactic, I was the first to interview and write about Dean Blaze in 1987 when he went around a CB and NFB conventions and put the first braille speak in people's hands and said, what do you think? I
Aaron Preece:
Can't imagine. That was compared to the, you think about basically that being essentially a tablet or a laptop back then, or even more portable. And that's just crazy. That was that early.
Tony Stephens:
I remember freshman year of college in 92, I got my first one real speak, and it was smaller than laptops at the time, enormously smaller because it didn't screen, it wasn't so bulky. It was just, yeah, it like, and so you felt like you had the enterprise controls in front of you on Star Trek Enterprise or something. It was just so high tech. It's so exciting. Oh, wow.
Deborah Kendrick:
And you know what else a lot of people don't seem to realize or talk about is in many cases, and the Braylin speak is definitely among them. One of the leaders we with our braille or blindness related technology have sometimes been ahead of the curve ahead of sighted people because sighted people didn't have anything quite the equivalent of the power that brail and speak yet,
Tony Stephens:
I”m thinking of my Arkenstone scanner I had that was $3,000 back in 1989. The idea that we hold our phone up now and someone will take a copy of, they have a receipt for work or something, they'll take it and it converts it to text and all that. They didn't realize that's around for almost 40 years, or even not long, more than that, if not longer with the Kurzweil. But that it was in our hands as people that are blind is the early users of technology.
Deborah Kendrick:
The progression of it. I am so grateful that by just a coincidence, I fell into because I'm a writer, I'm a writer. I wasn't interested in computer science. I mean, I guess when I was a little kid, I really wanted to take the Perkins Brailler and my parents landline telephone apart why? I had a little bit of inclination, but way more interest in words and information than in technical ideas. But now that I've been part of this whole progression over the decades, I just feel so fortunate that I've seen each step of the way and from like you said to where we had this great big machine and we thought it was thrilling that we could put a little piece of paper on that great big machine and get a messy translation of what it said. Because those early translations with the Kurzwell and the open book, they had a lot of mistakes in them.
Tony Stephens:
I think of that when we do our AI captions, we go in to clean them up, and it's that same process of going into a document for school light scan and you have to go in and clean it up. It was just a hodgepodge of scan stuff. So yeah, I feel like I've come back to zero again whenever I try to use AI captioning for stuff still, that's not a hundred percent there, but yeah,
Deborah Kendrick:
And now it's moving so much more quickly than it ever has, so we won't have to see it's imperfections for long.
Tony Stephens:
This will be a year or two and then they'll get it fixed. Whereas it was my whole eight years of graduate undergraduate. Yeah. Wow. Well, we were fortunate to have you here with just that alone of just bringing the history of Access world to all the listeners on the podcast. Now, we're not even print, we're audio now in this sense, right? Or electronic print and what we are with the podcast, and this is hopefully not the first time we're going to do this. We'll hopefully have you back on this same time next year if you're willing, if we are. So great and Honored to bring you back. But tell us a little bit about, Aaron mentioned a holiday episode for this one. We're coming out of Thanksgiving. We just survived Black Friday, small Business Saturday. Don't forget everybody Giving Tuesday. But what we're excited to have you here this episode, not just for a look back, but a look into the holiday season when everybody's buying gifts and things like that is for the gift guide and something you've been doing for a while that has its own history as well, not just with Access World, but share with us a little bit about the other reason we have you here with us this month.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah. Well, I first, I think it was in the nineties, my other job, my real job, according to people who aren't blind, has been writing for newspapers and magazines. And I worked for the Cincinnati Enquirer for a lot of years. I wrote a column on disability rights and a lot of features. And one year, probably around 19 92, 93, I wrote a magazine piece called something like Holiday Toys for Children with Disabilities. And that was for the Enquirer. And I was looking for toys that would appeal to kids who were blind and who were deaf and who used wheelchairs and who had cognitive disabilities and the whole nine yards. And it was so much fun. It was so much fun. It gave me an excuse to look at all these toys and contact all these manufacturers and they would send me stuff. And so I just loved looking for, so I started doing that article every year and then I don't remember exactly when, it's been a long time ago now we got the idea of doing something similar for Access World.
So for a number of years I've been writing the holiday gift guide with a slanted toward the appeal to people who are blind or low vision. And I take different approaches with it, but I think, well, first and foremost, we all probably have a memory, at least one of some outstanding gift that we received that was particularly unique and wonderful and awesome because of its appeal to us as blind people. And on the other hand, we all probably have at least one memory of a gift that somebody gave us. We didn't know what we were going to do with it. When the first year that I was married, my mother-in-law gave me an alarm clock that was complete. It felt like a piece of plastic, like a cube of plastic. It was visual. And I remember my embarrassment that I opened it and whoever was next to me whispered to me, it's a clock. And I said, what am I supposed to do with it? And shame on me. I mean, I have better manners now. I was very young.
Tony Stephens:
You maybe had a right to bring that up. I'm still too guilty.
Deborah Kendrick:
But really, what are we supposed to do with that? But at the same time, that same family, probably not that same year, probably in the next year, gave me a gift that actually made me cry. They gave us a tandem bicycle, and I had never had a bicycle growing up. My brother taught me to ride and I rode his, but my parents never bought me a bike. And it was my first bike and I was 23 years old, and it was so emotional. So thinking about that kind of thing, I asked a group that I'm a part of recently where it's a tech group actually. But I said, before we start, I want to hear what everybody's most amazing gift that you remember was. And some of them set a piece of technology. One person said her first CCTV, that she almost lost her job until people put funds together and bought her as CCTV, so she could do her job as a lawyer and another person set a braille device and a couple people named Tandem devices. So I think we do all have that response. So in working on the gift guide, a lot of years I've looked at, okay, what's hot new technology or hot new devices. But I also like to look at entrepreneurs who are blind, who are making things, who are useful, who are forming their small business efforts and showing some creativity and artistry, but that are also particularly useful for those of us who are also blind.
Tony Stephens:
I love that. It reminds me of when I would go to the consumer conferences and hit the exhibit floors at ACB and NFB, where there's usually it's a handful, three or four small business. In fact, at ACB when I was at a B, we would give a discount for the people that were small business entrepreneurs to bring their stuff out. And it's like things like a thoughtful bag to carry all your other stuff you need in. It could fit, it's the right size pocket for this device and for not just your laptop, but also your braille display or just the other things I've found. Because a guide dog user, sometimes you'll find the person that's like, well, here's a new way of doing this, or here's something you can attach to the harness that carries all. And it's just like it is thoughtful stuff that's made from our community, but also it wasn't because I think of all the devices we've been given over the years, Aaron, I don't know. And Deborah, you probably would get a lot of stuff people would send to you too. But I know at a CB, we would get a lot of prototypes of things That are created by
People, but this is the next big thing for people that are blind or low-vision. And it was just like, yeah, I'll put this in my closet here. And you're struggling to open the door hoping everything else doesn't fall out. That's like misfit toys or orientation mobility devices for the blind. I feel like it's from the old Rudolph cartoon or something,
Deborah Kendrick:
But sometimes it doesn't even have to be something flashy or something that wished it was flashy. Sometimes the simplest touch that's personal. I don't know if you guys are Braille users, but for people who are something, okay, I have a picture on a shelf that is a picture of one of my guide dogs, and I've had eight guide dogs and all, and that's because a couple of them only lasted a couple weeks, and that's a whole other story. But the one that I had the longest was Clarice, and she was a black lab and a friend took a picture of Clarice and my daughter really liked the picture and she framed it and with puffy paint, she wrote in Braille Clarice on the bottom edge of the frame. And I actually, I just have been thinking about this and I think because I've been thinking about the gift guide, what makes makes a special gift. And I thought, I'm going to be sure to tell my daughter that because I wish she would give me more pictures with braille on them because I can't see that picture. But there's something about touching that frame and touching that word in braille, and I feel like I can see my little black lab. It's really awesome. And so gifts that have special meaning to us don't have to necessarily be extravagant or costly.
Aaron Preece:
And maybe not even directly, because I was thinking of the same thing recently thinking about this podcast. I know I've got a couple, my puppy raiser gave me a picture book of Dunn's Mirror, and it's got her as a puppy in different captions and stuff like that. And I can't really see that. And I've gone through it with people. And then I think she also gave me a picture, multiple pictures of Duns Mirror's Puppy. And I can't see that directly, but I still value that because of it is, and the sentimentality of it. And especially having something where it's tactile and you can see right there what the picture is and kind of mentally jog your memory, know what's in the picture, and know that that's there.
Deborah Kendrick:
You know what you can do. Now. I found a photo album a few weeks ago. I am in a moving thing again, I'm unpacking boxes. And I started taking pictures with Be My ai. It was so fun. I went through a whole photo album. So you could do that. You could look at those pictures with Be My AI or with your meta glasses or something.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah. Well, let's hop into some of the ideas of the things that are big this year. You just mentioned one of them. I know that I ended up
Deborah Kendrick:
Doing
Tony Stephens:
So then, what are some of the things that you think are popping this year or things that are thoughtful or things that are really useful for people that are blind or low vision as far as gift giving?
Deborah Kendrick:
Well, in the world of technology, there's no way I could write this year's guide without at least mentioning the meta glasses because everybody's talking about them. And it is wonderful and unique in that they share some DNA with the iPhone in that they are a mainstream product, that nobody was really thinking about us when the product was invented, but it turned out that they benefit us and now we've got sort of our blind edge to them. And that sort of gives them a, so for people who don't know the Bend Meta glasses, probably everybody does, but they're smart glasses that you can take pictures and videos with them. But you also can with the Meta View app on your phone, you can find out what's in front of you. And we'll eventually be able to get sort of a running monologue, a live video description of what you're passing as you walk down the street say.
And I've used them a bit with a live volunteer with a Be My Eyes volunteer to get directions, and it's just pretty thrilling. So that's certainly a given. But I think that will be a little tiny piece of the article because I want to talk about as many things as I can. And I'll probably touch on a couple of other bits of technology, things that are new, some that I've seen and some that I have not yet laid hands upon. But I also want to talk about, well, as I mentioned before, give some space to blind entrepreneurs who are doing, there are a couple that are my favorites right now. There's a guy, a blind woodworker, his name is Ray Wright, spelled with a W, and he calls his company Wright Turn Only, and with a lay, he makes absolutely gorgeous wood products X, and they're very imaginative.
A lot of Star Trek themed stuff and other themed stuff like that. But he does Hess and bottle openers and seam rippers and bulls and cutting boards. And I can't think just all kinds of, but I have bought some of his stuff and it's just absolutely gorgeous. So those would be gifts that you could give your blind friends, your sighted friends. Everybody's equal because it's good to look at and good to handle. And then there are a couple of people who are doing garments that have either braille on them or Blindness themes. Blind Girl Design is a woman who is Low Vision, who does t-shirts with a blindness theme sometimes with Grail. I was just looking at Two Blind Brothers, I'd forgotten about them. They've been around for five or six years. They're two blind guys. They both have star guards and they started a company, they actually, their company, they're making tons of money, but they're giving it all to research.
So that's a whole other story how I feel about that, but that's not my business. My business is talking about holiday gifts and they have really nice products. Originally, their idea was to make and sell the softest shirt you could find. And I have purchased a couple of their shirts, and they're amazing. The ones I bought were turtlenecks, but they have T-shirts and short sleeve shirts and long sleeve shirts and hoodies and I think sweatshirts. And one cool thing they do every shirt. And they are super, super, super soft and yummy to feel. But on the hem, inside of every garment in braille with embroidered French knots is what feel like to me is the color. So you just stick your finger inside the hem of that shirt and you find out if it's pink or blue or green, which is pretty
Aaron Preece:
Cool. Cool. I need to look for that. I didn't realize
Deborah Kendrick:
That. Yeah. Oh, they're so nice. And then I would just looking at their website and you know what they have now, so well, nobody's listening that I'm buying presents for in my family, I'm going to buy some of these. They've got a Guide Dog series, a Labrador, they're plus Plushies, they call 'em or Stuffies or whatever you call 'em now. But stuffed animals, a chocolate lab and a golden retriever and a German Shepherd. And they have names, and their names are in Braille inside their ear. And they got a bunch of other braille themed stuff, some tote bags and stuff. And it's pretty cool that their stuff is a little pricey, but when you buy it, you're also donating to research. Oh gosh. I dunno. I'm going to include, because Aaron, from a conversation that you and I had one day when I told you that somebody, I was at a blindness event and somebody gave me change, and I just squealed with delight when the bill was put in my hand because it suddenly had braille on it. It said $10. And you said, oh yeah, I have one of those
Aaron Preece:
From a FP. Yeah, back in 2006,
Deborah Kendrick:
I googled it last night, and you can get it from Amazon. It's now called Pocket Money Reader. I think I'm going to have to buy myself one. I really want one. It's like 10 bucks. And for those who don't know what it is, it's like a little squeezy pincher thing. You put a bill, you in between two layers and you choose, use the denomination that you want and you squeeze, and it makes a raised impression of the number in print and in braille on the bill.
Aaron Preece:
Incredibly helpful. Then you don't have to pull it out. And you seeing AI on your, I don't know. I know people fold their money. I'm bad to get mine mixed up. So it's really nice to be able to do that. People are 3D printing 'em now too. I noticed the School for the Blind here in West Virginia, 3D printed some of them.
Deborah Kendrick:
Oh, really?
Aaron Preece:
Yeah.
Deborah Kendrick:
Oh, that's very cool.
Tony Stephens:
Wait, they're not printing the money, are they?
Deborah Kendrick:
And it's amazing. Usually because I've been doing this stuff for so long, I'm usually among the first or am the first to know about things. People want to put stuff in my hands. But I guess that was a small enough thing that it just totally was under my radar. I totally missed it, so I'm all excited.
Tony Stephens:
What's the name of that again? Do you remember the name? It's
Deborah Kendrick:
Amazon. They call it Pocket Money Reader.
Tony Stephens:
Okay.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah,
Aaron Preece:
I could see that being a different, probably a lot of companies have come out with them and then gone, because I don't even know where mine, I know mine came from a FP, but I'm not sure what company it is or anything like that.
Deborah Kendrick:
And you do still use it
Aaron Preece:
So often? I've kind of, until we talked about it, I kind of forgot about it recently, but
Deborah Kendrick:
Well, and it's nice that another thing that's new within, I'd say the last, I don't know, maybe five years is there was a time, most of my life for sure, if you were going to buy something that was specifically designed for a blind person, like a Braille watch or something, it had to come from a specialty company, but you can get quite a few things on Amazon. So talking blood pressure monitor, talking, pulse oximeter, is it oximeter or oxymeter? I never hear anybody say it. It's the thing that measures your oxygen that you put on the end of your finger talking thermometers and talking. I didn't have a talking meat thermometer to check to see if the chicken is cooked enough. And I bought mine on Amazon a year or two ago. So that's kind of nice that people who are not as plugged into all of the blindness specific companies can now just go online and kind of poke around and find quite a few interesting things.
Tony Stephens:
That's what you mentioned, the talking thermometer, which reminds me, I need to get a new one from 2006 that feels like a Fisher-Price toy ray gun that everybody seems to be 97.4 degrees, even if we're in something, the sweats and cold chills. But I got Christmas gift the other year. That was a meat. You mentioned the meat thermometer, but it's for the grill. One of these egg grills. I love grilling outside and it's got the blue chip app and the app, but it's again, a consumer product. But the app is super, it was very accessible, the app, and it was so nice. I mean, I can also use it just in the oven and things like that, but it was such a neat little Bluetooth, a pen, almost like a writing pen. But again, that's a consumer based thing that anybody can buy. But it was a wonderful thing of just like, oh, Bluetooth device that I can use. It was so nice.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah. And do you use it? Do you use it?
Tony Stephens:
I do use it, yeah. It comes in a neat charging case. You put double A batteries in this whole charging case. And the charging case is a magnet in this nice wooden box that goes on the fridge. So it's always right on the fridge next to my stove, and I can just pop it out and just put it in whatever it is I'm cooking on the grill or if I'm trying to do something in the oven. And it's just
Deborah Kendrick:
So you can use it in the oven as well?
Tony Stephens:
Yeah, yeah. It's registered. It can get up to 500 degrees or something. I mean, yeah, it's
Deborah Kendrick:
Pretty, so what's the name of it?
Tony Stephens:
Meter is the company that makes it, and I can't remember the model it is, but it's like their Bluetooth. It's sort of the silver pin
And it's got a little transmitter on one end and you can just pop it in and then you can set it for alarms. So I find out, I was thinking back to one of the first gifts you mentioned earlier, when I went totally blind when I was 15, I was always legally blind, but when I went totally blind, when I was 15, my grandfather went out a month after from Radio Shack and bought just a little button. You would push a button on this size of a credit card and it would tell you the time, remember that it was special. It was such these great little special, again, it was less than a month after I was coming out of the hospital and stuff. And it was just one of those thoughtful things like, oh, Tony might need this. And the thing with the thermometer, it's just a simple little thing that's consumer purchased and it's just nice that,
Deborah Kendrick:
But when somebody thinks about that and realizes that it will be useful to you in particular, it's really nice. I remember when the first, and now these are kind of past, I don't know if kids even have them, but when all the talking technology was new, there were all these books that had press a button on this page. Some of them, it would read the page to you. Some of them it would make a sound. I know I had one for my kids. It was about Stevie Wonder, so and so on different pages, you'd hear Stevie Wonder S singing different parts of a song or blowing harmonica or doing something. But again, how nice that would be if you were a blind kid and somebody gave you that book.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah. Well, with the thermometer though, what I'm finding is the same thing with that clock I got that I realized when I started school back in that September, it was during the summer how borderline obsessive compulsive I am, because I would check every three minutes. The whole class would know that Tony's checking the time because everyone that I'm just like, what time is it? And the same is true with the thermometer where I find myself every two minutes checking the temperature. I'm like, okay, what's the temperature now? Okay, what's the temperature now? I need to find something to distract me from when a technology tool just consumes my life.
Deborah Kendrick:
I remember hearing Doug Wakefield give a presentation at CSUN or somewhere like that long time ago. What I'm going to tell you, you'll see how long ago it had to have been talking clocks were fairly new and they were not new because they were ubiquitous. We had by then all the different shapes and sizes and styles, but he was given a presentation about something or other, and he said was talking about his clock. And he said, I set it for make up a time, but 6:22 AM and why 6 22 rather than six 30 or six o'clock, because I can, and everybody cracked up. But we all understood because it was so unique to have the power to have that clocking clock in your hand that you could set it any old time you want. Yeah. Well, I want to meet thermometer like yours,
Tony Stephens:
Link to it. I don't think it was that expensive, but I mean, it is nice. It just pairs so well with the iPhone and it, yeah, so it just makes cooking easier.
Deborah Kendrick:
Well, and that's a consideration kind of on the caution side for people is that just because I've been thinking about this the last few days, I just bought a new bed and it's got all kinds of bells and whistles, and I wanted to be really, really careful. I bought a new washer and dryer last year. This bed is called Smart Pergo. It's adjustable and it does all this stuff. Well, I bought a smart washer and dryer, and I had them for a year before. I could operate them independently because they work with an iPhone app. But as we all come to learn and not necessarily love, not all iPhone apps are made equal.
And so it took some real figuring to, and someone cited who understands how voiceover works to help me figure out what I was missing to get the washer and dryer. And so I went to a couple of different sleep stores is all the rage right now. I guess everybody seems to be buying these beds that do all this stuff. And the first one, she couldn't get my iPhone to pair it with any of her products. And I said, well, this makes me really nervous. Well, after we deliver it, we could help you with it. Yeah, well, yeah, but then what if you can't? You're going to come over every night. So I mean, that's certainly something people need to consider is that just because something says it's iPhone enabled or Android enabled or Alexa enabled or whatever, you need to make sure that it can work for a blind person without seeing the screen.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah, check out online, do some research and find out.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah,
Tony Stephens:
Because
Aaron Preece:
Sure, people will talk about it if it's not accessible or if it is accessible. There's places.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah. So do you guys have any tips for me? The article isn't quite finished yet. You have any favorite things you think I should be sure to include?
Aaron Preece:
What for me is I'm always trying to find a pair of headphones that have decent enough latency with voiceover because so many of 'em, the Bluetooth headphones so slow that it's slow when you're trying to use your iPhone and the AirPods do the best job. But the Amazon earbuds, the 2023 versions do a pretty good job. And then one thing that I'm excited to get for myself is the new fourth generation AirPods because the case has a find my speaker on it and I don't know how often I set my AirPod case down and then forget where I put it, have to go hunt it down. So I know for me, I'm not sure how many other people have those exact situations, but finding a good pair of headphones that has good latency and now having ability, ability to find them easily too.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah, those
Aaron Preece:
AirPod cases are slick too.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah. Yeah. I'm on a blind hearing aid users list and as you may or may not know, I wrote a book about dual sensory loss a few years back, and I have worn Bluetooth hearing aids for a long, long time, but it's something that all the hearing aid users talk about because the lag in some of these products can drive you crazy. So yeah, I'd forgotten about those. But because the new ones too, the new AirPods are the ones that can simulate hearing aids too.
Aaron Preece:
I think so. I know with the latest one, there's two different versions and I think there's the Pro four Pros or something like that have Significantly more bells and whistles than the base model does.
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah. So what about you, Tony? You've got,
Tony Stephens:
For
Deborah Kendrick:
Me,
Tony Stephens:
There's two things. You don't need to put this in the article or not, but something I fallen in love with. It's like it wasn't a massive expense in my world, but I just had to travel to Europe for work. And it's like you have the one charger, the different type of plug, and there's so many devices and things that I have. I've got my iPad, I got my iPhone, I got my Apple Watch. All the tools I do to try to be tech savvy and then independent. But I picked up at the Apple store and there's several companies that make it. Mine is the, I think Nimble is the company I got, but Anchor and these other companies, the multi charging things where you can put your phone Air Pods Pro and my phone on and the watch on, and it's all just like it's this super portable, I could fit it in my pocket and then just plug one USB cable and then all my devices on the side of my bed are just charging at once. And it's more of an ergonomic thing for when you have to feel like there's a lot of tech on your hands
Pockets, and it's just so nice to not have eight cables. Is this a lightning or A-U-S-B-C or what type is this? And it's all just in one little handy little thing that sticks in my pocket
Deborah Kendrick:
Actually, what that jumpstarted my brain that I must be sure to include. Or power banks too, because I was so surprised after I was on a retreat for blind people in September when Hurricane Helene came and I was in North Carolina and they told us we were evacuated a couple times for tornadoes, and then they told us tomorrow morning is going to be the peak possibility time for the hurricane, so be prepared. And one friend said she was going to pack her bag. Another friend said if she wanted to make sure her medications, I'll tell you what I did. I made sure that my power bank and my iPhone were fully charged. And when I mentioned that afterward, it surprised me how many blind friends either said, what's a power bank or didn't have one. And I mean, to my mind, that's like life and death for us. I mean, it could be because your phone dies and you don't have any other way of communicating. Your power goes out. I mean, if you don't have any other way to charge it, it could mean the difference in an emergency between your contacting the outside world or going hungry.
Tony Stephens:
Power banks is a huge thing and they're getting so much better and smaller. I bought one a year ago that was solar too. You could have it out in the sun and it would charge
Deborah Kendrick:
Oh, nice.
Tony Stephens:
Slow. But it was still a bit bulky. But my son's wanting one, so hopefully, well, he never listens to anything I do. So he won't be hearing this, but that's on our Christmas list to get him. Any kid is just addicted to their phone and there's nothing more stressful than you can check the iPhone, find mine and see what their power is. And he's on his way home from school and it's like 2%. And I'm stressing like, oh, no. Yeah. The power banks is a good stocking stuff or gift for sure.
Deborah Kendrick:
Or air tags for more fine.
Tony Stephens:
Yeah. In the past couple years,
Deborah Kendrick:
I live in two places. I live part of the time in Ohio, one part of the time in Florida, and I kept getting my keys mixed up, so I put a little, I was at the Lego store and I bought a little Mickey Mouse Lego to put on my Florida keys, and then I bought a little beaded turtle to put on my Ohio Keys to keep 'em separate. But now I'm in Ohio and every time I go anywhere, my phone, as soon as I'm a few miles from home says Florida Keys left behind, find my Florida keys. I'm like, I don't need those keys today. I
Tony Stephens:
Could take a trip to the Florida Keys. That'd be a nice Christmas.
Deborah Kendrick:
I know. The first time I heard it, that's what it made me think of, and I thought I didn't really mean to be quite so clever when I named them.
Tony Stephens:
Oh, wow. Well, Deborah, this has been fantastic. Everyone we will post on our socials and our threads when the article goes live, but again, it's been great just hearing about Tactic and everything prior, the Birth of Access world. But too, just looking ahead and just all the great things that are out there that you don't have to really dive deep or think too hard when it comes to thinking of someone that's blind or low vision and what might be helpful in their life as we're beginning to think about what we're going to get people for the holidays.
Deborah Kendrick:
Don't forget about simple stuff like wayfinding. If you have a friend who's not totally, totally invested in being blind yet, buy 'em a white cane or a cool one or a charm for the cane they already have.
Tony Stephens:
Oh, yeah. A lot of the basic stuff too. The fundamentals
Deborah Kendrick:
Just to get us
Tony Stephens:
Out the door, get us moving, right?
Deborah Kendrick:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Wonderful. Some of us bought ourselves GL device,
Tony Stephens:
And for all this issue, Aaron, we've dropped November 20th.
Aaron Preece:
Yep. The issues stick issues
Tony Stephens:
Currently out, it's live online,
So we can go to afb.org/aw to check out the latest issue of Access World for all things technology and digital inclusion and accessibility. Be sure to follow afb.org on our socials, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and everywhere else, Twitter or XI should say, for folks that want to find out more. And when that article drops, we'll announce it and follow afb.org/aw, where you can check out all the back issues going all the way back, like Deborah mentioned, back to 2000, we've got them all archived for free. You can even read some of Deborah's articles over the years along the way. So we're excited to have a true writer on board here.
So thanks for joining us, Deborah, and tune in next month with everyone again to access World. So like and subscribe, be sure to follow this if you want. Let people know about it. And thanks everybody for listening.
Closing Music fades up.
Male Narrator:
You've been listening to Access World, a podcast on digital inclusion and accessibility. Access World is a production of the American Foundation for the Blind, produced at the Pickle Factory in Baltimore, Maryland. Our theme music is by Cosm Monkey, compliments of Art list.io.
To email our hosts Aaron and Tony, email communications@afb.org. To learn more about the American Foundation for the Blind or even help support our work, go to www.afb.org.
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A-F-B!
