Blind Abilities

Timothy Spuck from Associated Universities Inc.(AUI),, joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities studio, and talks about his involvement with the IDATA Project.  The chief component of the project is theirå new and improved software, AfterGlow Access,  that aids  individuals without sight  by converting astronomical images into soundscapes which can be heard by blind and visually impaired (BVI)fo...

In the Blind Abilities Studio, Hannah Harriman sits down with Jeff Thompson to talk about her academic and employment journey. From her early days and her Individual Education Plan (IEP) In Grade School to her Individual Plan for Employment (IPE) as she attended the Summer Transition Program, MN State Academy for the Blind and went off to college to her two current jobs, Hannah is excited about he...

Open up your native Music App on your iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac, MacBook or even on Apple TV, and play a song. Open the mini-player to show the now playing screen and tap on the Lyrics button down near the bottom. With VoiceOver on, you will hear the lyrics just before the singing starts. You can employ Air Play and play the song on your speakers or Apple TV system while VoiceOver remains in your d...

Blind Abilities adds to the iPhone101 Catalogue with this short, but informative demonstration of how to navigate your way out of a long list. Have you ever found yourself way, way down in your mail Inbox, processing your email, but when finished, you can't get back to the top without having to flick through those endless emails, one at a time? How about the same scenario in your Messages app, or...

Learning Ally's  College Success Program  coordinator, Abigail Shaw, gives us a history of Learning Ally and dives deep into the College Success Program. Mentor, Rachel Grider, and Mentee, Gabi Mendonca, explain how the  College Success Program  works from their experience as a Mentor and a college student perspective. You can get all the details on the web at  College Success Program Read more we...

Full Transcript Show Summary: Thomas Reid lost his sight back in 2004 and found podcasts as a way back into learning and getting his message out to the world. Coming from the IT sector, Thomas found technology and screen readers as a way back to the workplace and never looked back. He now host the Reid My Mind Podcast, is a Voice Artist and an advocate and voice for the Blind and African Americans...

Full Transcript Show Summary: It was a typical day for  Robert Tarango , working in the kitchen of the  Helen Keller National Center . That is until his boss summoned him to another building on the center's campus. Not given any further information, Robert imagined a host of mostly ominous reasons for the sudden meeting.   The last thing he considered was that he would be auditioning for the lead...

Serina, Raqi and Jeff are all doble jabbed and on their way for full vaccination. And the crew went deep into some topics, deep into the weeds as they say. Marlon joins Jeff to bring Audio Drama to life on the Blind Abilities show. Here is a chronological list of the topics we dug into and we hope you enjoy! We 3 got our 2 shots each, but separately. Read more Send us an email at info@BlindAbiliti...

Kimberly Arcand, Visualization Scientist Emerging Technology Lead for NASA's Chandra Observatory at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard and Smithsonian, has been working with Christine Malec and JJ Hunt, from the  Talk Description to Me  Podcasts, describing imagery created from data gathered by a variety of telescopes. Kimberly's work in visualization has connected her up with Christine and JJ to...

Today Jeff and Raqi are joined in the studio by Brandon Biggs, inclusive designer and Engineer with The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute (SKI), the foremost organization for vision research in the U. s. Brandon is involved in three major projects at SKI, including the development of the Cam IO app, which allows blind and visually impaired individuals to digitally annotate and navigate objec...

Tanja Milojevic had a passion for audio since her childhood and has followed her dream of becoming a voice artist and now creates, participates and collaborates with many other creatives in the field of voice artistry. From voice overs, audio description, and her favorite pastime, Audio Dramas. Tanja joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities studio to talk about how Tanja arrived at being a Voice...

Blind Abilities adds to their iPhone 101 demonstrations series with a review of two simple but time saving tips found in your keyboard settings. Just go to your iOS settings app, flick down to general, go to keyboard and there you will find these two convenient shortcuts: The Period Shortcut, and the Auto Capitalization features. These two features are often overlooked and will save you valuable t...

Jeff Thompson goes through the set up process on a couple of AirTags using his iPhone. The process is nearly automatic and in no time you won't be losing a thing. Kind of. If you have an iPhone 11 or 12 running iOS 14.5, you are good to go. Although, the iPhone SE, released in 2020, does not sport the A1 Nero Chip Near Field Communication (NFC) is not part of the SE features. You can find AirTags...

Blind Abilities brings you another episode in the iPhone 101 demonstrations and reviews series which will add to your arsenal of Keyboard shortcuts in the Text Replacement section of your Keyboard Settings. This one will show you just how easy it is to add emojis to your library of readily available shortcuts.  Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com o...

RaqiG, Serina and Jeff join together to talk tech, smack and some week old Spring Loaded news. Marlon storms back and joins Jeff in the creatives corner to add some news relief. Air Tags are selling fast and iOS 14.5 is out and you can keep that mask on, if you sport an Apple Watch that is. Serina orders a new  LG Gram laptop , graduates from AFB Leadership 2021 program, gives us a tease about the...

Matt Ater, Vice President at Vispero, joined Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities studio to talk about Vispero and what he and his team is doing to enhance the user experience and opportunities to learn about the products we have all come to know, such as the ever so popular screen reader, Jaws. Matt talks about the importance of the user experience and how the Vispero team is reaching out to list...

Jeff Thompson and Pete Lane are joined in the Blind Abilities studio by Sandhya Rao. They recently met Sandhya a few weeks ago along with Michael McCulloch as they discussed the amazing organization called, I Blind User's Group, (iBug). You can listen to the  iBugToday episode on Blind Abilities In this episode, they shift the focus to Sandhya, the person. Sandhya is currently employed as an Attor...

Dr. Ashley Tuan, Vice President of Medical Devices at Mojo Vision, joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities studio about the development of a new and innovative product for low vision individuals called Mojo Lens.  Dr. Tuan discusses the fascinating and impressive capabilities of these high-tech contact lenses, which are placed on the white part of the user's eye, called the Sclera.  With the he...

In this episode of  Blind Abilities we feature the iBlind Users Group, aka iBUGToday , a nonprofit organization located in Houston, Texas, but which operates a variety of virtual training and social activities for individuals around the country using the Zoom platform.    The mission of iBUG , is to promote the individual independence, social integration and educational development of the blind an...

introducing a new braille book for Teachers of the Blind/Visually Impaired, TBVI), parents and others who wish to instruct Blind students in learning Unified English Braille, (UEB). The book was written by one of our guests, Roberta Becker. She joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities studio along with her colleague, Lori Scharff. Roberta and Lori chat about a variety of topics, ranging from the...

Bree Klauser, Spencer Frankeberger, Juan Alcazar and Jeff Thompson got together in the Blind Abilities Studio to talk about the Easterseal Disability Film Challenge that they participated in and want you to check out their films and "like" them as the Awareness campaign is ending soon.  Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@BlindAbilities.com or give us a call and leav...

In the Blind Abilities Studio, we welcome Jagadish K. Mahendran, Artificial Intelligence Developer and Engineer,and Hema Chamraj, director, Technology Advocacy and AI4Good at Intel Raqi joins Jeff in the studio to learn and find out more about this great initiative that may one day enhance the  navigating experience while Blind. Read more we would love to hear from you! Send us an email at info@Bl...

The crew is feisty on Fridays but hey it's Monday, Raqi. From the release of Audio Description on HBO Max to Flicktype bolstering some Apples, we seem to get into a lot about what we want in the Clubhouse arena. What is it with Ringtones anyways? The real thing here is this, have you heard the Home Pod Minis in Stereo? Wowie Wow Wow is all I got on that. Read more Send us an email at info@BlindAbi...

our guest on Blind Abilities today is Sheila  Koenig, Transition Services Coordinator for State Services for the Blind of Minnesota (SSB). Sheila talks about a variety of opportunities available to Transition Age students. Learn about the programs such as the Summer Transition Program (STP), Chill and Chat, Peer Educators, Blind and Socially Savvy and the Learning Ally College Success Program. The...

Transitioning from High School to College is a major step towards self-determination and independence. Career choices are made and Colleges and Universities are explored to best fit one's needs. A group of high school students ask a panel of college students questions to help them understand the challenges and gain from the experience the college students share. When leaving the high school and th...