Blind Abilities

Aaron Spelker is a Mobile Game enthusiast  and writer. Aaron joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to share the resources he has created and the articles he has published as well as a novel. Aaron lost his sight suddenly and picked up the pieces by learning JAWS and has not looked back. His passion for gaming led him down a dead end street so he decided to build his own platform across...

In this Job Insights episode, Serina Gilbert and jeff Thompson welcome Sarlie Drakos to the Job Insights Team. We are excited to have Sarlie on our team and excited to bring back the Job Insights show after a 2 year hiatus during the pandemic. In this episode of Job Insights we will talk about how accepting ones Blindness, job readiness and confidence can play an important role in one's job and ca...

Thinkerbell Labs CPO, Shivam Agarwal, joins Simon Bonenfant in the Exhibit Hall to talk about Polly , the new Braille device that makes learning Braille fun!  Polly is an electronic Wi-Fi enabled device that will assist users in learning and reinforcing braille concepts. With many components for both input and output, Polly can provide practice and gamify the braille learning process for students....

our guests in this episode Come to us from BlindShell USA and are here to talk about the latest update to the BlindShell Accessible Cell Phone Classic 2. Bari Azman, President and CEO, and Diane Ducharme, Senior Program Director join Jeff and Pete to explore the latest iteration of this smart phone, the original of which intrigued many blind and visually impaired individuals due to its practical s...

Christy Pruitt-Haynes joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to announce her new book, "I Have to Pay for This $H!T?" Pre-orders are open and the book is officially being released on August 2nd, 2022. This is Christy's first family focused book and after meeting her, I am looking forward to reading this book about the excitement and emotions of becoming an Empty Nester as her daughter l...

Serina, Callie and Jeff cool down in the Blind Abilities Studio and dive into Clusiv, PC/Mac, Google Workspace, Fruit Freshness and expiration dates. Twitter's Alt Text reminder launched and a lot more Tech Tidbits and news from around the scorching planet Earth. Hopefully, you are staying cool and enjoying this latest episode of Tech Abilities. Here is a list of some of the topics and links menti...

The Team from Magnifying America which makes the Patriot brand of AT products joined Simon Bonenfant outside the Exhibit Hall at the NFB2022 Convention.  John Palmer, President and Founder of Patriot Vision Industries, along with  his team give us an overview of the new OCR Scanner, the LyriQ Assistive Reader. This is a camera operated flat folding device that is portable, fast and accurate. Withi...

Lukas Simianer joins Simon Bonenfant in the Blind Abilities Studio to introduce us to Clusiv, an all-new platform for learning the skills needed for new employment. Learn about the extensive courses that were built to  enhance your opportunities for employment and help build your skill set for a lifetime of rewards.  We have not experienced Clusiv or it's program but listening to Lukas makes us wo...

Announcing the 2022 in-person Atlantic Seminar! Reflect, Reequip, Reimagine: Raising the Bar for Blind Students! The  National Association of Blind Students  (NABS) and the National Federation of the Blind of Maryland invite you to the 2022 Atlantic regional seminar, a fun-filled weekend brimming with opportunities for professional growth, confidence building, and mentorship from Friday, August 12...

Sarlie Drakos is a Disability Employment Coach helping people around the world reach their employment goals. Not just finding them any job, but teaching them how they can pursue their dream job.   Sarlie has experienced losing a job through sight loss, and the limited expectations people around her put onto her resulted in her becoming a passionate advocate for people with disabilities and fightin...

Serina, Callie and jeff dig into some news and tech tidbits that have been getting a lot of attention. Callie delves into the Guide Dog dream and is mobility going to be the ice breaker? How about Blind Pride, hmmm, to each at their own time probably, We got a lot of topics through out this episode and some really good tips on copying text and arranging your rotor actions for efficiency. Here are...

Our guest today on Blind Abilities is Ricky McKinnie. Ricky is a longtime member of the iconic gospel singing group, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Winners of five Grammy awards and the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award. They have also been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and performed at the White House for three different presidents   The Blind Boys of Alabama have the rare distinction...

Aira Director of Communications, Jenine Stanley, joined Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio and hits us up with some news breaking announcements. Aira Everywhere starts out with Aira for the Desktop. Now Aira will be available on the Mac, PC and on the iPad as a web based app where you can be hands free and use Team Viewer, Google Remote and much more. This will be open to a limited Public...

Serina, Callie and Jeff, dive deep into the pool of news stemming from Uber, Lyft, Microsoft, and you can check out the links and topics below. The TA Team take a journey into their Vocational Rehab experience and explain how VR impacted their destiny and how it is differed a bit for each of us. When an iPhone drops into an outhouse or even a toilet, there seems to be an urgency beyond our reach....

Jeff Thompson is 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. and Christopher Toth, an Applications Engineer. Audiom is the solution for "glancability" of a map to give an idea of location of objects, places and relationships to each other as a map does for...

Do you get that feeling of urgency to upgrade to a new iPhone every time a new one comes along? I have and I am finally coming to terms with waiting and making the best out of what I already have, own and utilize perfectly well. I have upgraded on the Apple Upgrade Plan, did the 2 year upgrade cycle, and today I am going to keep my iPhone 12 Pro Max another year and I will tell you why and how I a...

Tech Abilities: Pump It Up! iOS16 Beta Surprises or I Thought We Had That? Amazoning, Intersection Crossing, Pop Culture, Tech Tidbits and News with a Blindness Perspective   Serina, Callie and Jeff kind of sorta in a way talk about that WWDC event from Apple, but same as it ever was, same as it ever was, these Talking Heads jump the tracks and yes, they do find there way back through the weeds an...

Christine Malec, co-host of the Talk Description to Me podcast, returns to the Blind Abilities Studio to bring us the news about the Luminato Festival Toronto Access Hub, The Chandra X-Ray Observatory Sonifications and descriptions from images from deep within our Universe and highlights some of the Star Trek and other topics from the over 106 Talk Description to Me episodes. Learn about how STEM...

Marty Shultz from Objective Ed joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to talk about all the new developments happening at Objective Ed. ObjectiveEd's mission is to provide students with disabilities, and the parents and professionals dedicated to their education, digital curriculum and integrated performance monitoring and reporting tools that will help the students achieve their best e...

Two is company as Callie takes a break from the Blind Abilities Studio this week and Serina and Jeff pick up the tech tidbits and news. From accessibility to losing sight, they dash through the latest and bring a perspective of experience and usability. Join the 2 out of 3 ain't bad crew and check out the list of topics listed below. But, believe us, there is a lot between the lines!   List of top...

This quick yet handy demonstration can be useful in many applications. If you need to use a password elsewhere and the password is a jumble of characters, numbers and symbols, then this method will do you well. Go to settings, swipe down to Passwords and then to the particular password you want to grab. Expose the bullets and an option to copy pops up and boom, you can paste wherever you want. Thi...

Tony Gebhard returns to the Blind Abilities Studio and third time is a charm! Tony has just dropped his 2nd album of 2022 and is making change a constant as he keeps growing in his pursuit of improving towards his highest potential. Tony has always worn his heart on his record sleeve and Guided, his latest album, is a refreshing look at Tony's outlook at life and his happiness in the choices he ha...

In this QuickByte demo, previously published in the Tech Abilities episode, Jeff takes us through the process of hiding and unhiding a Screen page on the iPhone. When you have a lot of apps and widgets filling screen pages and want to clean up the experience, you can hide the pages and still be able to access the apps through the Library, the Library search and with the Siri assistant. Just double...

Serina, Callie and Jeff roll through the toughest of weather situations to bring you the latest Tech Tidbits and News from around the Tech World with that special Blindness perspective that they bring to every show. Check out the 2 demos, Hiding Screen Pages on your Apple device and Putting a Widget into place, and so much more from the Tech Abilities Crew! Here are links to some of the topics fro...

Author and Advocate, Stephanie Duesing joins Jeff Thompson in the Blind Abilities Studio to share her journey into Cerebral/Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) - The Leading cause of Blindness in the Developed World. Her son Sebastian was finally diagnosed at age 15 after numerous Doctors from across the States offered no explanation for her son's condition. Learn about their journey and how CVI is n...