Talking Tech for May 6th 2014

Hills Set Top Box 

 

I am still trying to confirm whether the box is still available from Hills itself, but at this time of posting, Vision Australia is not showing them as a stock item on our online store.

 

Note - a check with Hills on Wednesday confirmed they are still selling the box, VA to decide how many to have in stock at a time.

 

 

GWMicro and AI Squared Merge - from the AFB Blog

 

This will be interesting to see where this leads.  Freedom Scientific this this quite a long time ago with the integration of 3 company’s.  AI Squared will be the main company.

 

http://www.afb.org/blog.aspx?BlogID=7&BlogEntryID=1237

 

Find My iPhone and other Like GPS Tracking Apps - from New York Times

 

This is a bit of a timely warning, if your phone is stolen and you know where it is via Find My iPhone, probably not a good idea to try and go and grab it yourself: depending on where it is.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/us/when-hitting-find-my-iphone-takes-you-to-a-thiefs-doorstep.html?hp&_r=2&utm_content=buffer9d620&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&u

 

Mac App to Replace Read4Me (text to audio): Babble

 

For quite a while I had been using Read4Me to produce Text To Audio files, rather than using Add To iTunes As a Spoken Track as I found the whole process a bit faster.  When Mavericks arrived on the scene, Read4Me stopped working so I was without a solution up until now with the Babble App for Mac.  Works in a similar way to Read4Me with the ability of changing voice rate and voice type: sends output to an AIFF file.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/babble/id468801049?mt=12

 

Another Twitter Application for Windows: TW Blue

 

I haven’t tried this one yet.  Will give Windows users and accessible Twitter client.  st a warning, this application is still in alpha so some instability may be experienced.

 

Keep in mind there is still the other client for Windows: Chicken Nugget.  Both links follow.

 

TW Blue

http://twblue.com.mx/index.en.html

 

Chicken Nugget

 

http://q-continuum.net/chicken_nugget/download

 

Telstra Testing Google Glass Apps for people who are blind or deaf: from Media Access Australia

 

This sounds very very cool: bar code reading for someone who is blind, but very exciting; translation of someone talking in to text for a person  who is deaf.

 

http://www.mediaaccess.org.au/latest_news/digital-technology/google-glass-apps-for-people-with-disability-trialled-by-telstra

 

A Touch of Light (Adaptive Photography)

 

This multi-touch book as Apple calls it (or eBook for everyone else - smile) is a book available on the iBooks Store in iOS for blind or low vision photographers.  Can only be read on an iPad or on the Mac with iBooks.

 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/a-touch-of-light/id870711531?mt=11