The Blind Side

Imagine a device which instantly converts print to Braille, just by lying the device on top of a printed page. That’s what a team of talented MIT students have been working on, with Project Tactile. Jonathan Mosen speaks with two of the students, Charlene Xia and Tania Yu. He also speaks with Paul Parravano, Co-director of Government and Community Relations at MIT. Paul is blind, and has been providing advice to the Project Tactile team. Paul also talks about some of the work he is doing at MIT.

One person can make a big difference, with the law on their side and a bit of tenacity. Phillip Chalker tells Jonathan Mosen about his successful campaign to have Virgin Australia install accessible in-flight entertainment systems on their aircraft.

Unexpectedly, UK voters are going back to the polls again, for a snap general election. Dave Williams joins Jonathan Mosen to talk about the possible ramifications of brexit on the blind community. We look at some of the issues dominating the campaign, and learn about the hoops disabled people are being required to go through just to keep the benefits they have already.

Note that this interview with Dave was recorded before the barbaric and horrific events in Manchester. We send our deepest sympathies to everyone affected.

We all know how important it is to exercise regularly to stay healthy and alert. Audio workouts and accessible gadgets are making it easier than ever for blind people to stay active. But where to start? Respected technology author Anna Dresner has written a new book for National Braille Press to get you started, entitled “Ten Thousand Steps, Cane Not Included”. Jonathan Mosen speaks to Anna about her writing in general, and this book in particular.

You can purchase a copy of the book by visiting http://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/10KSTEPS.html

Whether you’re blind or sighted, applying for a passport is a laborious process, requiring you to provide photos and numerous details. In Canada, if you want the Passport Office to assist you because you don’t have, or choose not to rely on, sighted friends or family, you’re out of luck. Canadian Press journalist Michelle McQuigge tells Jonathan about the controversy, and talks about it in the wider context o [...]

Gaining access to reading material is about more than having good books to enjoy, which is of course a worthy end in itself. It’s even about more than having access to material that can advance your education and training. Being able to read a book at the same time as your sighted colleagues are talking about it around the water cooler facilitates full inclusion.

Many of us can still remember that due to resource and technological limitations, it could often take many months for a best seller to be made accessible. Now, there are many accessible ways for us to read a book, often in a timely manner, and one of those is Bookshare, which is specifically for print disabled people.

More than 425,000 people in 70 countries have access to Bookshare’s collection of 546,950 titles. More than 820 U.S. and international publishers contribute to its social mission by donating their digital files, making it possible for Bookshare to serve users around the world and ensurin [...]

Many Sony Bravia televisions are now powered by Android TV. They sport two screen readers, offer access to apps from the Google Play Store, and can even work as a Chromecast device.

Jonathan Mosen brings you a comprehensive demonstration of one of the offerings in the Sony Bravia range, the 49-inch version of the Sony X8000D.

He looks at a range of apps, browses the accessible TV guide, talks about recording TV onto a USB hard drive and more. The accessibility of this TV, while not perfect, is impressive.

He also offers some advice to owners of Sonos soundbar products for choosing a TV that will get the best audio possible from them.

This week’s episode of The Blind Side could be the most important thing you’ve heard all year, as Jonathan Mosen speaks with author, blogger and podcaster, Jimmy Moore.

Weighing over 400 pounds and having failed at a low fat diet, Jimmy turned his life around when he adopted a high fat, low carb lifestyle. It’s the same lifestyle that’s caused Jonathan to need a completely new wardrobe.

Increasing, compelling evidence suggests that going low carb will reduce significantly your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases that have become commonplace since the low fat craze took hold some decades ago.

To learn why eating fat doesn’t make you fat, and how science got the all-important topic of what we should be putting into our body so wrong, join Jonathan and Jimmy as they share their personal experiences, and the increasing body of evidence in favour of a low carb lifestyle.

To find out more about Jimmy Moore’s w [...]

Determined to make his country a better place, David Blunkett became a local politician at the age of just 22, the youngest city councillor at the time. He ultimately became Council leader.

Elected as a Labour member of Parliament in 1987, he served in Tony Blair’s cabinet in a number of capacities, including the senior position of Home Secretary, becoming the first blind person to be a part of the UK Cabinet.

He was, at one point, considered a potential Prime Minister.

Now Lord Blunkett, he joins Jonathan Mosen, a political junky who has followed his career closely, to talk about life in the bear pit of politics when you’re blind.

Jonathan Mosen and Jeff Bishop talk about some of the new features in the Windows 10 Creators Update, which Microsoft will begin pushing via Windows Update on 11 April.

There are many new features and enhancements of general interest, and also considerable improvements to built-in accessibility.

Learn about the new features, and how best to ensure you have a smooth upgrade to this latest version of Windows.

How much of a difference does blindness make to being a parent? What techniques are necessary to supervise a child if you can’t see? And for those who become blind when they’re already a parent, how does blindness change things?

We’ll discuss these and many other related issues with our panel of blind parents, each of whom brings a different set of experiences on the discussion. Jonathan Mosen, a father of four himself, is joined by Maggie Rush, James Manders, and Ericka Mosley.

Ericka is a co-founder of Blind Parent Alliance, a support group of over a thousand blind parents worldwide who keep in touch via Facebook. Perform a Facebook search for Blind Parent Alliance if you’d like to connect.

We also learn about an email list which has been run for many years which serves as another supportive place for blind parents.

Unlike their sighted counterparts, blind youth aren’t bombarded by sexual imagery, and they can’t see the pictures in sex education textbooks. Two-dimensional drawings simply don’t work, and the process of experimentation can be disastrous. So how do we inform and educate blind youth about sex in a safe, meaningful way?

Professor Gaylen Kapperman is world renowned for his work on ensuring that blind people aren’t left out of the STEM subjects. But for decades, he’s also been an advocate for ensuring that blind youth can learn about sex education in an accessible way. Now, he’s promoting the use of newer technologies, such as 3D printed models of sex organs.

Professor Kapperman speaks with Jonathan Mosen about this critical and often overlooked accessibility issue.