In this Talking Tech show for this week, I give you a run down of a talk I gave at the Round Table in Melbourne this week on things to think about when choosing a smart Braille display, Braille Note taker, Braille embosser or a Multi line Braille display.

Plaud AI Pin

If you have ever felt a FitBit, this is the size of the Plaud AI pin. As I said in the episode, app mainly works ok, device is ok to use.

https://www.amazon.com.au/PLAUD-Notetaker-Transcribe-Summarize-Languages/dp/B0DZWQ9WWJ/ref=sxin_15_sbv_search_btf?content-id=amzn1.sym.e97d0f60-983b-4a36-b35e-ccbffb80a35f%3Aamzn1.sym.e97d0f60-983b-4a36-b35e-ccbffb80a35f&crid=160HN41YPT0FW&cv_ct_cx=plaid%2Bai%2Bpin&keywords=plaid%2Bai%2Bpin&pd_rd_i=B0DZWQ9WWJ&pd_rd_r=3ce26411-cd20-43ec-b14c-f98f6112cdf7&pd_rd_w=CexLI&pd_rd_wg=9vz75&pf_rd_p=e97d0f60-983b-4a36-b35e-ccbffb80a35f&pf_rd_r=CW43KGFNDR5JNMXD0C4K&qid=1747716672&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=plaud%2Bai%2Bpin%2Caps%2C260&sr=1-1-0a53d72a-e58c-4324-b739-134d51de9f78&th=1

The Speaker I talked About for $13 Au

Small speaker that did USB, 3.5, and Bt plus had FM radio. Volume was good, FM good, connectivity via Bluetooth poor, and making sure it was charged was almost useless via the micro USB.

Attracted me because of the FM chip and the volume was great.

If you search for Bt speaker with UsB, 3.5, and FM radio that is really really cheap at $13 that will probably be it.

Ray Ban Meta Glasses on the Vision Store

As I said in the episode, lots of places to purchase this, not NDIS funded, main demos probably at major VA sites, and two corrections to VA Store promo: you can hear the audio from the glasses via the person next to you, and its not a good idea to Bt connect them to any thing else as you will have issues reconnecting them to your phone again with the Meta AI app.

https://shop.visionaustralia.org

Apple Accessibility Sneak Peak from GAAD 2025

Looks very interesting , especially the Braille Note taker, and using continuity iPhone camera as a portable VM on your Mac.

API opening up for camera based assistive apps on the Vision Pro looks interesting as well, but quite happy with my Ray Bans.

https://www.apple.com/au/newsroom/2025/05/apple-unveils-powerful-accessibility-features-coming-later-this-year/

As I sign Off this week

Testing JAWS sneak build that works with the Monarch, Tactile View Beta tactile images with the Monarch, and Wing It app all demos coming from me in August when this should all be released fully.

Of course, I will be doing demos when I get my hands on the development builds of IOS etc once WWDC is happening.

Catch me on social media or [email protected]

Helpful links from today’s program on NvDA.

Download the current stable version of NVDA at 

https://www.nvaccess.org/download/

We mentioned it a little bit, but we are currently in the Beta period for NVDA 2025.1.  

Some of the key updates in NVDA 2025.1

- NVDA Remote built in

- Speech responsiveness and other features for, SAPI4, SAPI5, and OneCore

- Improvements to add-on store auto updates

- New commands to manually refresh ocr

- Native selection in Chromium and Edge (Press NVDA+shift+F10 then copy as normal to copy text with formatting)

- Default input & output braille tables based on language

- Added a general setting to prevent the display turning off during say all or reading with braille. This option is enabled by default, but may result in increased battery depletion. 

- Braille works with say all config profiles

Add-ons:

Braille Extender, developed by André-Abush Clause and contributors

https://github.com/aaclause/BrailleExtender

Many features including Switching between displays or tables with shortcuts, and additional commands and support for a range of features.

PC Keyboard Braille Input

NVDA Spanish team (Available from the NVDA Add-on store)

Type Braille using six keyboard keys as on a perkins

Still on Braille, we published a lot of recent and upcoming features in a special edition of our In-Process blog back in October: 

https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-23rd-october-2024/#datavalidation

And you can subscribe to that blog, and to all our announcements, updates, releases etc, via email at: 

https://eepurl.com/iuVyjo

Our training material is all available from our shop: 

https://www.nvaccess.org/shop/

We recommend starting with Basic Training for NVDA, which you can get as:

- Electronic text (Word, Text, ePub and HTML formats) for $35: 

https://www.nvaccess.org/product/basic-training-for-nvda-ebook/

Human-read MP3 audio for $52: 

https://www.nvaccess.org/product/basic-training-for-nvda-downloadable-audio/

UEB Braille for $71:

https://www.nvaccess.org/product/basic-training-for-nvda-braille-hard-copy/

Community links:

NVDA user group: 

https://nvda.groups.io/g/nvda

Add-ons group: https://nvda-addons.groups.io/g/nvda-addons/

NVDA Developer Guide: 

https://download.nvaccess.org/documentation/developerGuide.html

Contact us:

Web: https://www.nvaccess.org/

Email: [email protected]

Social Media - most of our users are on Fosstodon: https://fosstodon.org/@NVAccess

In this webinar, Andrew and Peter from HumanWare discuss and demonstrate the latest enhancements to the Monarch software and a few other points including:

the new Email app,

Web browsing with Ecosia,

eBraille version of Treasure Island, and

a demo of the Wing It app to allow drawing on the Monarch tactile display from the iPhone.

Contact [email protected] for more information, Andrew or Peter or myself in Australia David Woodbridge at HumanWare Australia.

In this demo, I show you how simple it is to connect your Mantis Q40 QWERTY keyboard and Braille display device to your Mac.

Enjoy

Woody

Demo of how easy it is to connect your Brailliant BI20X or BI40X to your Mac using VoiceOver with Bluetooth.

In this demo, I talk about the importance of accessing the accessible QR code to learn how to use the BrailleDoodle fully, which then leads me on to my next point, and that is the amazing function of the BrailleDoodle where you can practice each character displayed on the back of the BrailleDoodle as well as having an example to work with for each character.

Also, happy to say BrailleDoodle is now available from the Vision Australia Vision Store:

https://shop.visionaustralia.org/brailledoodle.html

Have fun.

Woody

If you ever wanted a manual way (yes no battery or power required) to learn Braille, do some tactile drawing or even do some quick notes, then have a listen to this demo of the BrailleDoodle from the Touch Pro Fundation.

Amazed what you can do, and don't forget there is a lot of info on the back of the BrailleDoodle, not just the front fun face.

Enjoy.

Woody 

In this demo, I take you through the features of the Mantis Q40 leather case which gives you proper protection of the Mantis Q40 QWERTY keyboard, thumb keys, and the SD card slot.

One of my must have cases. If you've spent over four thousand dollars in Australia on a device, then spending $180 is a great way to protect your investment.

The case that comes with the Mantis Q40 doesn't offer any protection at all. It really just stops the device from slipping on a desk.

Go to https://www.humanware.com to find out more or to order.

Enjoy.

Woody

In this demo, I show you how easy it is to crate an image file on the computer, and then have it displayed on the Monarch.