macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Apple apps – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Let Me Read to You

While I am out playing and having all sorts of visually impaired old lady adventures, Lin is at her house laboriously looking on the Internet for the coolest stuff she can find for us. Sometimes I get an email suggesting I buy something and check it out. [Lin/Linda: wait, I never, er, rarely suggest you buy anything.  Sometimes I recommend a free version of something & you choose to buy it.  For the record & just sayin’.]

OK. I try to do my part. I purchased the $9.99 upgraded version of NaturalReader. NaturalReader is a mobile text-to-speech app. It comes highly rated by the VIP commentator on Accessible Media, Inc. His show is App TV and his name is, Richard Harlow. NaturalReader comes in a free version, but after my problems with free Aipoly, I decided to spend some money. [Hate to interrupt again but don’t confuse this with an app called Natural Reader (space between the words) which is a text-to-speech reader for Windows 10.]

NaturalReader is available for both Android and Apple devices. It is able to convert the following types of documents from text to speech: PDF, PowerPoint, word documents and webpages. It offers 50 different voices in 20 languages.

When I saw NaturalReader was able to link to Dropbox and read PowerPoint, I got very interested. We keep our DBT PowerPoint in Dropbox and it would be cool to have the slides read to me when I am teaching. Unfortunately it is an extremely large file and took forever. Although I was told the files ‘exists’, I was not able to pull it up to be read. I seem to need someone with a lot more computer savvy than I have to accomplish this one even though I believe it can be done. It may have something to do with needing PowerPoint actually on my tablet.

Although the PowerPoint part of things has not yet worked so well, I was able to link into my Google Drive and everything I have written for the website became available to be read aloud by NaturalReader. I had it reading this page and by noticing the reading ‘mistakes’ the voice was making, I discovered I had some editing to do. Ooops.

Supposedly this thing reads eBooks. I am trying to navigate through. It appears that the heading ‘Webpages’ will allow you to go to several different free reading sites including Gutenberg.org which offers free, classic novels. There is also a link that will get you to news website the app will read to you. For our friends in Britain – and Anglophiles everywhere – there is a link to the BBC. They also offer a couple of American news sources. There is an option for navigating and reading websites of your own choosing should you prefer.

There are sync-with-desktop and input options that I am not figuring out, but I have only been playing with the thing for an hour or so. Part of the reason may be I have it loaded on my iPad and I have limited word processing options on that. If loaded on a laptop, it might be a different story.

There does not appear to be a camera option with NaturalReader. If you have a menu or something else that’s print media only it would appear you need something like the KNFB Reader. Just the same it would seem NaturalReader can save someone a fortune in the difference in price between eBooks and audiobooks. I suspect in many cases the app would pay for itself through one purchase.

To wrap this up, I have played with NaturalReader for about an hour and in that time I am impressed. The price is good – either free or $9.99 – and the quality is good. If I can figure out a few basics, the app will be of great benefit to me, especially in class.

Try it and see what you think. Available in the App Store (Apple) and Google Play (Android), of course.

written June 26th, 2017

Continue reading “Let Me Read to You”

App Update

Back to the Daniel Roberts article. Actually sort of back to Roberts himself. I just watched a video of him using the LowViz Guide.  [Lin/Linda:  we published Sue’s page Comparison Shopping on June 5th, 2017, where she talked about Dan Roberts.]

The LowViz Guide was basically Roberts’ brainchild. It is an indoors navigation system. Can’t find your way around the hospital or the cruise ship? The LowViz Guide may be able to help.

I say maybe because the venue – be it conference center, hotel or hospital – has to have been tricked out with iBeacons. Your smart device ‘talks’ to the iBeacons, the iBeacons talk back and your device tells you where to go.

(I find that only fair since I have told my devices “where to go” on numerous occasions!)

In the video Roberts demonstrated the app has not only VoiceOver capabilities but also gives you ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ signals. The ‘cold’ signal is very irritating as, I guess, befits a message that is saying “wrong way, buddy!” It would make me want to go the proper direction just to shut it up. (A perfect example of negative reinforcement for you psychology students.)

There is an informative article on the LowViz Guide on the American Federation of the Blind website. It does not say where the iBeacons have been installed and I got the impression the cost of installing these things is not small.

The LowViz Guide app is downloadable for free from the app store. [Lin/Linda: I don’t see an Android version yet.] If you can get a list of places with iBeacons and you are actually going there it might be fun to see how it works.

Another new technology I found interesting was Aipoly. The ‘Ai’ in the name stands for artificial intelligence, of course. Funded by Google, according to Natasha Lomas in a 2015 article, Aipoly uses computer vision and machine learning technology to recognize what is going on in photos you take with your device. Aipoly is supposed to be able to identify multiple objects in a scene. It is also reported to be able to identify the relationships between things in the photo. For example, Aipoly would say something like girl eating ice cream. It is sort of like Be My Eyes minus the thousands of volunteers.

The whole process can take as little as five seconds to have a scene described. The longest time is said to be about 20 seconds.

The most seriously cool feature of Aipoly -and one that will undoubtedly interest our readers in Massachusetts – is the system has the beginnings of the ability to identify facial expression!

As of the writing in 2015, the system was starting to be able to recognize very exaggerated facial expressions! It is not yet ready to describe subtle expressions but there is hope.

Be aware this system does not work in real time, but they are trying to get there. They are also trying to get it into as many hands as possible. I am downloading a free version from the App store even as I am writing this. They have also come out with an Android version. Not sure if there is a cost for that or not. [Lin/Linda: It is free, too.]

I will let you know how it works later. Taking some time to load. And, by the way, I don’t have to be the only product tester. Feel free to download it and experiment yourself. Continue reading “App Update”

How Many Favors?

One of the problems with being a cockeyed optimist and a Pollyanna is I always expect good things and relatively easy sailing. When that doesn’t happen, frankly, I become perturbed. I HATE to be thwarted.

Last evening I started downloading Golden Prey (book by John Sandford) from BARD. It has stopped several times since then.

I think it has to do with too much in my iPad memory. My ability to clutter up my environment extends to technology and cyberspace!

Another case of “do as I say, not as I do”. Deleting books you have already listened to is fine. You can always get them again. FYI for you non-technical savvy folks, your devices will run faster if you do.

My schedule is changing for the summer and I have to figure that out. Transportation will only pick up until 7 pm. After that my coach turns into a pumpkin! (Of course, for some of the ‘lemons’ I have ridden in, that would be an improvement!)

I have been picking up signs a woman who has dutifully transported me up for the last 15 months has gotten tired of it and needs a break. Changing my schedule so that I can ride my bike at least some of the time and take up some of the rest of the slack with transportation should work. I also have a co-worker who has started to take some of the same classes and who has offered to haul me. Also another gym friend.

People truly are wonderful and generous but they are not saints. Problem becomes they hate to let you down and will keep on helping even when it is no longer convenient.

I am starting to think I need some sort of rotation system. I already try to limit how many times I impose in one week. I try to keep it under three rides – counting someplace and back as two – a week for any one person. Except my husband, of course. He drew the short straw when he married me!?

Once again there needs to be some sort of etiquette book for this! Any ideas about the ride dilemma? How many favors for the old, visually impaired chick is too many?

Still haven’t got the new pool liner. Got that call at 7 am as the rain poured down.

And my frustration that you may actually care about….Aipoly, or at least the free version I downloaded, did not live up to its hype! My diet Pepsi bottle was “a wine bottle” (however, that is a thought!) and my glare glasses were “one string of headphones”. I got too close to my sandal when I took the photo so that was “a basket” although when I pulled back and tried again, Aipoly got it right.

Now, in all fairness, I am cheap. The word free can be music to my ears. There is an Aipoly version for slightly less than $5 per month. That one is supposed to be much ‘smarter’. Since I am cheap and not in need of such a service yet, and since I can never remember to cancel those damn ‘free’ trials, I’m not downloading it. If you are in need of such a service and can remember to cancel a free trial, try it and get back to us please.

Type at ya later! Continue reading “How Many Favors?”

News: July 23, 2016