COOL BLIND TECH

YOUR SOURCE FOR THE BEST ASSISTIVE TECH NEWS, REVIEWS AND INTERVIEWS FROM TOP BLIND AND LOW VISION EXPERTS. AN ENTERTAINING AND TRUSTWORTHY DISCUSSION ON EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

Apps

Introducing the Amazon Echo

The Amazon Echo is amazon’s Wi-Fi voice controlled speaker. Using just your voice, you can ask the Echo to do a number of things such as play your music library, check the weather, give you news updates, and much more! Additionally, third-party skills allow the Echo to expand its capabilities. In this podcast, Leo covers setting up the echo for the first time, as well as some of the things you can do with the echo, as well as its accompanying Alexa app.
Are there any particular features or skills you would like to be covered in a future podcast? Let us know!

Kayak For iOS: Happy Trails to You

One of the biggest obstacles for many people when it comes to travel is the hit it takes on the bank account. Luckily, Justin is here to show off the solution, which is Kayak. In this demonstration, he takes us through the essential components of the iOS app. He shows us how to view prices for flights and hotels, track flights using the application, and a few other handy little tricks. Kayak is also available via website and an app for Android as well.

BeSpecular: Helping The Blind Through Community Input

BeSpecular. Do you want to help/volunteer in your community, but you don’t have the time? Helping your community should be simple, convenient, and fun. Now you can help someone who’s blind by using your smartphone. You can spend a few seconds listening to the question, look at the picture(s), and reply with a friendly voice note or text message. You can: read more

Goodreads For iOS: Reading Gone Social!

Have you ever found yourself at the end of a good book, not wanting to put it down for fear of losing good reading material? Have you been searching for that perfect book to take you to far off lands, teach you that skill nobody else has, or help you gain the upper hand in your career? Have you read something amazing that you think your friends might enjoy? Well now you can find that perfect book and share it with others from your favorite devices. Goodreads is an innovative social networking platform built just for readers! Features include community book reviews, a searchable book database, author biographies, the ability to follow your favorite authors for the latest updates, and a handy news feed to keep up with what your friends are reading. There are several platforms to accomodate everyone, including the website, the app for iOS devices, and the Android app. This article provides an overview of how to navigate Goodreads for iOS, along with an explanation of some key features. read more

Amazon Adds Accssibility Upgrades To Some Kindle Hardware

For years, blind and visually impaired people who wanted to use a Kindle were left with a lot of frustration and even hassle. Amazon released their Kindle readers with only the barest of text to speech. Amazon did make their apps on iOS and Android accessible but only after significant push back from the visually impaired community. That, however, looks like it’s going to change. Recently, Amazon has announced, publically, that they are bringing VoiceView to their Kindle e-readers, starting with Kindle Paperwhite, so that visually impaired customers can enjoy reading on Kindle devices. read more

Audacity for Windows Part 1: Introduction and Interface Navigation

Alex begins a little tutorial on Audacity for Windows using NVDA.
He goes through some preferences that are useful and then shows off the interface a bit.
Future episodes in this series will cover real editing: Selection, cutting and pasting, zooming in and out to really hone in on a bit of audio you wish to manipulate. Stay tuned!

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