Lori Thompson returns to the Kitchen Cafe and gives a demonstration on how she organizes her canned goods, contacts, phone numbers and more by using a inexpensive device made by #Caliber. this accordion like case holds and indexes the PermaBraille index cards that she has Brailled her information upon. 

You can get the PermaBraille 3x5 index cards from the American Printing House web site by clicking here.

You can find Expandable accordion style index card holders at office supply stores just be sure they have  dividers for labeling.

Pete and Jeff, along with new team member, Jeff Young chat with Tomek Wardega, creator of the FopyDo scanning stand for the visually impaired. This tough, corrugated plastic stand works in conjunction with your favorite IOS OCR app to provide a sturdy and very effective scanning solution for your iDevice. Priced at only $12, FopyDo possesses many features which other stands don't offer. Join Blind Abilities for this 34 minute interview about Fopydo, a funny name for a very serious scanning stand! This podcast contains chapter markers for those podcast apps that support chapters, such as Downcast or Overcast. #BlindAbilities #FopyDo

From the Pocket is a series from Blind Abilities that utilizes 2 accessible apps, Pocket and Voice Dream Reader. Pocket extracts the text from a web article or other sources you choose and with the Voice Dream Reader app linked to Pocket, you can listen to articles on-the-go while off-line any time any place. 

Some really big news in the Blindness community is Facebook just launched the new feature that automatically gives an uploaded photo an alternative text description. Known as Alt Text, Facebook engineers have just launched the new feature enabling Visually Impaired users of the Facebook app a glance at the images everyone is posting.

Now we can get a bit more of the big picture when people are talking with images. Thank you Facebook.

Catch a Falling Star from the Pocket Theme is by Go Fish and available on iTunes.

Go Fish Children Records 2006

Jeff Thompson gives us a demonstration of the Twitter App feature allowing a user to add a description to a photo they are posting from their device. This particular demonstration is for the iPhone using VoiceOver accessibility. Follow along tell your sighted friends to check it out and turn on this feature in their device.

Follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities Subscribe to our podcasts on the web at BlindAbilities.com and be sure to download the Blind Abilities App from the App Store.`

Radio Talking Book can be found at www.MNSSB.org/rtb and the password is rtb.

Berkeley scientist designs tools for the visually impaired
By Berenice Freedome • Mar 2, 2016

Dr. Joshua Miele's morning commute to Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute takes about an hour—as long as no one gets in the way. In fact, most people move out of his way when they see him coming, because Miele is blind.
He’s one of about 140,000 blind and visually impaired people in the Bay Area. Less than three quarters of those people are employed, and only a few work in tech, like Dr. Miele.

Uncommonly Universal
His office in Pacific Heights is full of tactile art, project binders, awards, and audio equipment. On a round meeting table, magnetic building toys sit in a cluster—just something to fiddle with on long calls. This is where Miele does the work he’s uniquely suited to do, designing accessible technologies for the blind.
“If you want to design a good boat,” he says, “you don’t ask somebody who doesn’t know the first thing about sailing. Blind people must be integral to the design process, not just as users that do the testing at the end, but as designers and engineers who do the thinking at the very beginning.”
Miele says most developers don’t even think about accessibility until it’s too late, because so few are trained in universal design. That’s a design principle that says, ‘find a single solution that will consider the broadest possible spectrum of human ability.’ It’s something Miele strives for every time he takes something on, though he mainly focuses on visual impairment.
“I want to build cool stuff for blind people that gives them the ability to do the things that they want to do, and I feel incredibly lucky that I'm given that privilege and opportunity.”

Jeff Thompson gives a brief demonstration of the Motiv App from Shure giving some demonstrations using the MV-88 Stereo Lightning Port microphone from Shure. The new line of microphone and interface units called the Motiv series is Shure’s response to the popularity of mobile convenience and Shure did not drop their level of quality. The MV-88 is a rugged solidly built metal constructed piece of kit.

ShurePlus MOTIV App
Every operation needs a mission control, and ShurePlus MOTIV is just that.
Designed for use with all MOTIV products, the free app provides an arsenal of smart features that will help you optimize your sound on the move. It also lets you share your files via email, text and SMS, and allows for real-time adjustments.
Portable Plug-and-Play
Designed to capture clear, high-quality sound, MV88 directly connects to any iOS device equipped with a Lightning connector.
With the MV88, anyone & everyone can benefit from the stereo quality recording.
Smart Technology, Retro Design
The microphone element rotates to offer flexible positioning options ideal for video applications.
Access five built-in preset modes and make gain, stereo width, and EQ adjustments using the ShurePlus MOTIV Mobile Recording App.
System Requirements
iOS 7.0 and higher: iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus; iPod touch 5th generation; iPad 4th generation, iPad Air, iPad
Air 2; iPad Mini 1st generation, iPad Mini 2nd generation, iPad Mini 3rd Generation.

Jeff and Pete announce the release of a brand new Blind Abilities App which offers a single Podcast feed from BlindAbilities.com  This eighteen minute chat covers the objective, features, development and accessibility of this simple new App. They also discuss their efforts to create Podcasts with Chapter markers using a new software program which allows some podcast apps to offer this simplified navigation feature. The new Blind Abilities app is available NOW in the IOS App Store FREE of charge! Check it out and listen to all of the Blind Abilities podcasts and Demo's from 2015 through the present. And enjoy listening to this podcast on the new App, or on the Downcast or Overcast Podcast Apps using Chapter navigation. #BlindAbilitiesPresents  #JThompson6835, #Lane7625