It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as Brian sits down with Dr. Bryan Wolynski from the Lighthouse Guild in New York City fresh off of this year’s CES and ATIA conferences.   We start off discussing this year’s CES Conference and the most interesting things that caught Bryan’s attention. How odd we start with autonomous vehicles. We discuss the fun part of locating your vehicle when it arrives.   Next up was Robot Dogs. Blind brian’s Guide Dog Wesley was not a fan.   Bryan then dives in to the Eureka Park area at the Venetian Hotel where all the start ups are located and some real innovation is being done.   We discuss the newly released app OOrion that helps people discover items around them. We then discuss another app Bryan got introduced to called From Your Eyes. We then dive in to the obstacle avoidance apps that were on display at CES. We then discuss OneCourt for the blind sports fan out there. And the impressive work that AARP is conducting. We wrap up our coverage of this year’s CES discussing an award that the Lighthouse Guild NYC won.   We then jump in to this year’s ATIA Conference that just wrapped up. Surprisingly Apple was an attendee at this year’s conference. We then discuss a company called Audible Sight whose goal is to allow you to produce your own audio description for your videos. Next up is Orcam and E-Sight.   We then discuss CSUN which will be happening in mid-March.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.  

It’s the first That Real Blind Tech show of the new year, and we got the entire gang here. It’s a blind tech podcast so we start off with what else, but a state of the podcast.   We then kick the year off with the story of the year. Yes, we are getting it out of the way early as eBay executives sent critics of eBay a bloody pig mask among some other things. And yes, if you criticize us you may want to check your mailbox for a bloody pig mask!   Microsoft is set to take one of your keyboard keys away for Co-Pilot, how will this affect screen readers workflows?   Over the holidays Be My A.I. announced a new feature to set up a group of friends and family.   Brian then goes in to a recent negative experience he had with an Amazon product, and is still trying to figure out what to do about it.   We then discuss the meal delivery service factor 75.   Google Assistant will be losing 17 features in the coming weeks, unfortunately most of them are voice related.   A.I. George Carlin releases a comedy special that George Carlin would have hated.   Apple Vision Pro is up for preorders on January 19th, delivering on February 2nd, here’s what will be in the box. Apple is only producing 80,000 Apple Vision Pro’s for launch day. Additionally, if you want a demo of Apple Vision Pro it looks like Apple will only be demoing the device on launch weekend.   We kick off the CES portion of our show discussing the clicks iPhone case. Who knew we already had a replacement for the Humane A.I. pin in the R1. All the Apple Gear announced at CES. We then discuss some of the weirdest and coolest gadgets we heard about at this year’s CES. And with a lot of us here at That Real Blind Tech show being insomniacs and bad sleepers, we were very interested to learn about the Brain Band.   We then dive in to our reviews of the Meta Ray Ban Glasses and our initial experiences with the Celeste Glasses.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.     

It’s an absolutely epic end of the year That Real Blind Tech Show which brings the entire gang and more together. We end 2023 squashing our beef with another Blind Tech show. We once and for all settle the beef over who The Real Mr. F is.   After some fun we eventually get to discussing our favorite tech products of the year, as after all we are a tech show believe it or not.   Of course with all of us here we have a little trouble getting through all our favorite tech products, but along the way you will get to learn a little about how  That Real Blind Tech show, Double Tap, and ICantCU  found our ways in to the spectacular podcasts we are today.   Yes, it took us this long to get through all of our tech products, but trust me you will not want to miss the insanity that ensues along the way. If we were up for an Emmy this would be our submission episode!   And it’s an extended Watcha Streaming, watcha Reading with our guests.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.   

It’s an all new That Real Real Blind Tech show as the entire gang of Allison, Brian, Ed, and Jeanine are back together again for the first time in awhile. The Fab Four is back baby, sorry David.   We kick off the show discussing new social networks which leads to us discussing old social networks.   We then dive in to our back and forth with the gang over at Double Tap and Mr. F, and a response you must hear to actually believe.   A boy in England has an issue with the Nerd Face emoji, and who knew there was a nerd face emoji?   We then revisit a topic from years ago, should you be force quitting your apps, and is juice jacking real?   No you don’t need to turn off the Name Drop feature on your iPhone, despite what the coppers are saying.   How out of control has tipping gotten?   Be My A.I. beta and Seeing A.I. finally have come to Android phones.   Ends up the Open A.I. Board wanted the Altman firing to be a secret until it happened, how did that work out for the board? And why has the entire A.I. world been talking about Q star? We then discuss what we use Chat GPT for. We then discuss adding Chat GPT to our action button, which leads Jeanine to discussing her new favorite app.   Brian then talks about his Audio Hijack issue which led to a trip to the Apple Store and then to a purchase.   And since Brian has a new purchase we figured we would discuss what steps we take when setting up a new computer. Which then led to a little winter cleaning.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.      

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show, and the episode that almost never happened. It’s a packed studio with Allison, Brian, Jeanine, and David Goldstein once again pinch hitting for a sick Ed.   After some fun technological difficulties, we kick things off discussing the NFB Pennsylvania state conference that both Brian and David were just at. And Brian doesn’t even live in the state of Pennsylvania. Jeanine then fills us in on the ACB Ohio conference she just attended and the special message that was waiting for her at the conference. Which then leads us to a new term, BBB, and you will have to listen to learn what it mean.   Is. Amazon working on a new operating system?   Microsoft is rebranding Remote Desktop as Windows app, but will it be for enterprise users only?   Apple has followed IBM, and Disney, Comcast, and Paramount have all paused advertising on Twitter because MuskButt it an idiot.   It has been a crazy past few days since Open A.I. fired C.E.O. Sam Altman. What will this mean for the future of Be My A.I.? And because we are not a daily podcast or a breaking news show, before we could get this episode released Sam Altman has returned to Open A.I. and is back as their C.E.O., and the board is out.   Be My A.I. has now expanded in to customer service with their partnership with Microsoft.   Is the Singularity closer than we think, and is it real?   The Humane A.I. pin sounded like a game changer for the blind at first, but then we checked out their website. And their demo got a few things wrong with their A.I.   With A.I. being the rage these days, no wonder Cambridge Dictionary chose Hallucinate as the word of the year.   We discuss Black Friday and if we will be shopping for anything, or has Black Friday jumped the shark. While none of us were that excited for Black Friday, we were all very interested to learn about the strangest gifts found on the internet.   Supposedly in Watch OS 10.2 you will once again be able to flick through your watch faces like you used to be able to.   And it is an absolutely epic What’s Pissing Off Brian that you will not want to miss and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. 

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. The entire gang is almost here, we’re missing Ed, but we got David Goldstein pinch hitting for Ed  as we recap the Apple Scary Fast event. But not to worry our show includes a lot more than the Apple event included.   We kick the show off discussing traitorous behavior, and how silly other blind podcasts can be. Yes, we are quite the critics.   We then play a clip of Brian on the news discussing this year’s Laugh For Sight Comedy Benefit which was at Gotham Comedy Club on Monday, October 30th, yes, the same time as the Apple Scary Fast event. We bet we were much more entertaining, as David and Brian discuss this year’s benefit.   We then discuss a very interesting spam email Brian got.   We then discuss the Beatles new song which made use of A.I. in its development. Is this a good thing?   YouTube is cracking down on ad blockers causing a mass exodus from them.   Introducing the world’s first ChatGPT indoor camera. Could this be something for the blind and useful if it is accessible? On a related note world powers got together as they claim they want to contain A.I. And it took President Biden watching the latest Mission Impossible movie to get concerned about the future of A.I.   We then finally tackle the latest Apple event Scary Fast. Apple announced new M3 Mac Book Pros and a new 24 inch iMac. Instead of discussing the newly announced Macs, we discuss which Macs we are currently running, and our current opinions and issues with the state of VoiceOver on the Mac. And we’re all trying to figure out why Mac accessories are still lightning charging.   And finally, finally Brian remembered to include some of the VoiceMails and Emails we have gotten in to the show. Thanks to everyone who called and wrote in.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.   

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show with the entire gang here. We kick off the pre-roll with the first ever That Real Blind Tech Show talent competition where Jeanine dominates, and others just try.   After our intros and a brief discussion about the horrific event that transpired this past weekend, we get in to some nonsense to hopefully put a smile on your face.   Our first article we discuss may be of interest to those Ring Doorbell owners, and how you can get Amazon to give you 1 million dollars!   You will not believe this next one as a man was sentenced to 9 years in prison in England for his A.I. girlfriend talking him in to attempting to kill Queen Elizabeth. Disclaimer this took place while she was still alive, and we can not confirm or deny that this was Steven or Shaun from Double Tap!   Remember that call for a pause on the further development of A.I.? Well, it didn’t work.   The reviews are in, and so far A.I. is a money pit that isn’t paying off. Here is the must see YouTube video of a British Comic speaking before Oxford University about the environment that Brian mentions.   Can’t green and blue bubbles live together in perfect harmony? And on a side note who the hell knew there were different colored bubbles in your text messages?   87% of American teenagers own an iPhone.   This year’s Laugh For Sight NYC Comedy Benefit is coming up on Monday, October 30th at Gotham Comedy Club, you can purchase your tickets here.   Future iPads may be able to charge your other devices through its screen.   Is your iPhone shutting off in the middle of the night? You’re not alone.   We then discuss Allison’s new AirPod Pros with a USBc charging case, and how often we charge our AirPods.   We then get a little sidetracked in the first ever That Real Blind Tech show singing competition, but you will not want to miss it and make sure to submit your vote for a winner at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com.   The only thing worse then the state of things at Twitter is the stuff that is going on in house at Twitter. And in another poor decision by Musk, Twitter removes headlines from news articles causing accessibility to go down hill for screen reader users.   We then have a discussion of the top five apps we use on a daily basis, not necessarily accessibility focused, but we end up only doing three rounds, as we get a little sidetracked. If you listen to the full episode you will discover why we cut it short a little later in the show. You will not want to miss it!   It’s a special What’s Pissing Off Brian Now, with a bunch of quick hitters, and we get a What’s Pissing Off Jeanine and Allison, with a very special reaction by ed that you will not want to miss.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Joining Allison and Brian is T.J. Meloy, as we had to exclude Ed and Jeanine since they are not rocking all new iPhone 15’s. We decided to jump on and discuss our new iPhones along with a little other tech news.   We kick things off discussing the latest coming out of Be My Eyes. On a related note ChatGPT announced they are rolling out chat and visual capabilities. Amazon announced they invested 4 billion dollars in OpenAI competitor Anthropic.   The reviews have been less than stellar for Apple’s leather case style replacements. Brian has had an adventure finding just the right case for his new iPhone 15.   We then dive in to our initial thoughts of our iPhone 15 Pro’s and Allison’s iPhone 15 Pro Max. We discuss the Action Button and the disappointment of it not being an Actions Button.   We then dive in to some of the interesting issues we had setting up our new iPhones. Wow, wouldn’t it have been nice to know that you need to perform an update to your brand new iPhone before transferring your data!   Brian then discusses the issue he had pairing his old Apple Watch to his new phone.   We discuss speeding up the Siri voice and personal voice.   We then tell you whether or not we will be updating to Mac OS Sonoma which dropped earlier this week.   It’s a quick What’s Pissing Off Brian Now, as Amazon announced they will start putting more ads in its content unless you pay extra to get rid of them.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show where the entire gang is back together to discuss the Apple Wanderlust event, the products we have already ordered, and much more.   We start off discussing why we recorded this episode later than usual. Hey, like we have said before, we got busy lives.   Apple kicked off its Wanderlust event with a video of how Apple products have saved lives. Well let’s just say this gentleman did not make the video as his butt dial triggered the S.O.S. alert.   No, Mexico did not discover alien life!     And in the in you can’t make this shit up corner, a woman mistakenly swallowed an AirPod thinking it was a vitamin.   One of us picked the wrong week to join BetMGM.   We then discuss some disturbing trends going on with the tremendous Be My Eyes Virtual Volunteer. Thank you very little ChatGPT. After we recorded, Be My Eyes released the following statement about what has been going on with ChatGPT and photos with people in them.   We then discuss the chaos of what was Apple new product launch day.   Then one of us does a total about face about an Apple product they said they had no interest in. Hmm, wonder who the flip flopper could be?   We then dive in to the Apple event. Not to worry as we assume you have most of the details elsewhere so we go through everything only as That Real Blind Tech show can. We start off discussing all the new iPhone 15’s that were announced. We discuss the new action button coming to the Pro lineup and what its capabilities will be. We discuss the switch from lighting to USBc and how the port will be standard USBc. Relax everyone, it has been confirmed that the Apple cloth will work with all iPhone 15 models! The iPhone 15’s USBc will be capable of reverse charging for your other Apple USBc devices, and possibly non-Apple USBc devices. Apple in iOS 17 has introduced 20 new ringtones.   We then get to iOS 17 and the bugs we have been having. Since iOS 17 launched today, you may have already updated, but if you did a backup, you can probably still roll back to iOS 16 until Apple stops signing it which could be the end of the week. Remember, not everyone will have the same bugs. We discuss being able to invoke Siri without the Hey and using back to back commands.   Apple announced the new Apple Watch 9 and Ultra 2. The sighted community went all gaga over the new hand gesture feature announced, but is it really a new feature? On device Siri processing also comes to the new Apple Watches.   Apple introduced new Air Pods with a USBc case. Bad news if you only want the new case.   Mac OS Sonoma will drop on September 26th. Chrome on the Mac will soon get access to iCloud keychain.   While none of us have this product yet, it sounded to cool not to mention. The Flic Twist Button for all your smart home products.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. It is just Brian and the newly named Bladies, Allison and Jeanine. We start off with a little pre-ramble discussing tech frustrations. Yes, it happens to us tech Gods.   We then kick things off discussing exploding microwaves, and microwaves catching fire. If you have a great microwave for the blind, do let us know.   Horrifying news, as scientists have proven that Beer Goggles are not real! Next up, who knew Astronauts were such Messy Marvins?   We then discuss the two new apps here to replace Microsoft Soundscape, Soundscape and Voice Vista. Jeanine tells us about her recent trip to Hawaii and her experiences using Voice Vista. Jeanine then tells us about a new app she recently discovered to help you read touch screens called Echo Batix.   An impossible Apple security vulnerability has appeared to riders of the NYC MTA.   England could soon ban Apple security updates.   We then discuss Facebook’s new Threads app, which leads us down the social media rabbit hole to Mastodon. Facebook now has a new privacy setting where you can beg Facebook pretty pretty please don’t use my data to train your A.I. Europeans may soon have the option to pay for an ad free Facebook.   No surprise, since Twitter rebranded to X, App Store downloads have dropped significantly. Are you waiting for the day when you can make a phone or video call through Twitter?   We then dive in to the rumors about the upcoming Apple Event on September 12th, Wanderlust. We discuss the iPhone models that could be in our future, battery issues some of us have been having with our current models, and the dynamic island and its usefulness. We then discuss the rumored new action button which will replace the mute button. And of course we need to mention the rumored switch to USBC. We then discuss the new AppleWatch rumors. AirPods are rumored to also be making the switch to USBC charging. We then wonder if we will hear more about the Apple Vision Pro? And finally one of us is hopeful that the rumor of a new iPad mini is true.   We then discuss some helpful information if you are running an M  Series Mac and having issues with VoiceOver volume when booting up.   Apple will soon be ending all Social Media customer service support.   And it’s more of Watcha Watching, Watcha Streaming.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show, Brian is joined by Developer, Writer, and Fellow Podcaster Casey Liss from The Accidental Tech Podcast. Casey is the developer behind the new fantastic CallSheet iOS app. The app works fantastically well with VoiceOver, and we highly recommend subscribing to the app if you are a TV and Movie fan.   We kick the interview off actually talking about Brian and a little behind the scenes about his Top Gear appearance.   Casey then tells us how he came up with the idea for CallSheet, and then walks us through how the app ended up being fully accessible for VoiceOver users. Casey explains how Swift UI Kit  makes it easier to design apps with accessibility in mind.   Casey tells us about meeting one on one with an Accessibility expert at Apple during WWDC, and how beneficial it was to him.   We talk about Casey’s fellow podcasters John Siracusaa and Marco Arment from the Accidental Tech Podcast, and discuss how Marco was helpful in the development of CallSheet.   We discuss the Yahoo All Blind Fantasy Football League Mini Documentary and how it was all born out of accessibility and communication.   We then discuss the subscription plans in CallSheet and what they include. Casey then tells us what developers think about short and long term when setting subscription costs.   We then talk about the moved.org where CallSheet’s information is sourced from and whether or not you can update information on it.   We then discuss possible CallSheet integration with Plex and Channels. Which leads Brian to mentioning Audio Description and how fantastic it would be to have a service that mentions whether or not a title has Audio Description.   Casey tells us a little about his podcast The Accidental Tech Podcast and you can subscribe to it here.   You can keep up with all things Casey on his website. You can also find Casey on Mastodon and Instagram.        We finish up discussing Mastodon and the blind communities exodus from Twitter, or whatever they are calling it these days.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show, as most of the gang is back together for the first time in a month. Allison, Brian and Ed discuss some tech, interesting articles, and share some laughter along the way.   We kick the show off discussing the Inaugural Laugh For Sight Long Island which took place on August 7th. We then get a little self involved as we realize our third anniversary since our rebrand came and went without a party or anything.   We then discuss the recently released Voice Vista. The app that replaces the now defunct Microsoft Soundscape. Ed gives us an example of how he uses beacons to map out places in Central Park, which then leads us to discussing indoor navigation in unfamiliar layouts.   We then discuss the possible dumbest rebranding of all time, Twitter to X. We then turn our attention to the latest updates on the bout of the Century, Musk V Zuckhead.   Google Chrome is getting ready to start using Generative A.I. to summarize articles. Is this a good or bad thing?   We then discuss a must read article, The Origins of Your Favorite Swear Words.   We then discuss two new exciting apps. First up is an app called Beeper which is currently on a wait list, then we discuss a fantastic fully accessible replacement for iMDB, CallSheet.   With the cost of streaming services going up everywhere, are you cutting back?   Scammers are now coming your phone number. Is this fear mongering or real?   You will soon be able to get food delivered to you at your airport gate, but will any of it be accessible?   And it’s the return of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now, an extended version, and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes. 

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. The entire gang of Allison, Brian, Ed, and Jeanine are all here with are great audio back to normal now that we are off the road.   We start things off discussing Ed and my Flight for Sight travel adventures, and some fun recording issues we ran in to while on the road. Allison then lets us all know what Brian is like as a houseguest. To learn more about Flight for Sight check out their website.   We then dive in to the 2023 NFB Resolutions discussion, and you can read all of the resolutions that were passed here.   While we don’t cover all the resolutions that passed, we do start off discussing resolution 1 which has to do with web accessibility and the Department of Justice.   Resolution 2 deals with state VR and their usage or lack of usage of funds.   Resolution 3 has to do with the accessibility of Twitter.   Resolution 4 was about accessible absentee voting. Resolution 5 has to do with real time audio delays at live sporting events for the four major sports. Resolution 6 is about the enforcement of 508, and thank goodness Jeanine was here to explain 508 to all of us. Resolution 8 has to do with the Department of Transportation. Resolution Now we get in to the silly resolutions, as Resolution 13 has to do with the way chat bots and A.I. define blind peeps.   And we came up with the best solution to Resolution 15 the inaccessibility of CSPAN votes. We then get an update from Jeanine about her time at this year’s ACB Conference. Then we hit up an email and recent phone call from our buddy over the pond.   And if you are in the Long Island area, make sure to come out to the Inaugural Laugh For Sight Long Island on Monday August 7, 2023. For tickets.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show and ICantCU Combo Podcast, as our friend David Goldstein joins Brian and Ed at the NFB Conference 2023 to recap our three day experience at this year’s conference. We recorded this podcast at two in the morning, so we may sound a little tired, and since we were all in the same room, we apologize for the issues with Ed’s mic. Of course with technology, it wouldn’t be That Real Blind Tech Show if there wasn’t a tech issue!   We start off talking about the fun people we met in Houston. Only Brian, David, and Ed could go to a conference with 2800 blind peeps and end up meeting a bunch of sighted people.   We then head back to our arrival in Houston, and the fun we had finding our hotel. David talks about the phenomenal customer service we received during our entire stay at the Embassy Suites Downtown Houston.   We then discuss the iBug  Today party that we were invited to, and hit up a little late. David talks about the luck he had at the party. Ed then discusses the difference between beep ball and the Italian Blind Baseball he was discussing with people at the conference.   We then discuss some of the booths we hit up at the NFB conference. And David discusses the blind enterprise program and the struggles he has had with it.   David then tells us about the closing night banquet dinner and it sounds way to confusing  and not fun, good thing Brian and Ed will already be out of Houston. We then backtrack and talk about our dinner at Papa Deux that night, and we circle back to meeting our new friends Clay and Bryan.   We then discuss going to the Astros game on July 4th. We discuss our experience with guest services and the real time radio broadcast feed.   We then go in to what caused us to delay podcasting to two in the morning, and it was worth it.   We then all give our opinions of this year’s NFB Conference.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.          

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as Brian and Ed sit down with Mike May at the National Federation of the Blind 2023 Conference in Houston, Texas. Our apologies for our tech issue as even though we tested it, Ed’s mic was not hot, so his mic quality is not what you are used to on That Real Blind Tech Show.     Mike discusses using the Good Maps app to get around the Conference and find places of interest in Houston. Mike tells us a little about his career involvement with accessible navigation. Mike then tells us about some of the exciting changes coming to Good Maps Outdoors.   Mike then lets us know what he likes about coming to conferences like the NFB and Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. We discuss what products at this year’s NFB have excited Mike.   We discuss the current 15 to 30 second delay from real time that is occurring on AM/FM radios at Major League Baseball games. At the 2023 NFB Conference a resolution was passed targeting this delay. You can read about the resolution and all the NFB resolutions passed at this year’s conference here.   We then find out why Mike is now consulting with Flight for Sight.   Mike then explains the concept of the power of getting un-lost.   Mike fills us in on his upcoming travels  which are fairly extensive.   If you would like to read Brian’s recap about Ed and Brian’s entire time in Houston, a recap of the NFB Conference, the Astros game, and more, you can read it here.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Join Allison, Brian, and Ed as they discuss the latest in tech news.   We start off discussing a follow up article from two episodes ago, as we may be getting the fight of the century!   A New York City man attempted to drive his car in to Google’s Headquarters as he claimed that Google had been torturing him for years, and no, it was not Brian.   Flight For Sight has announced their Inaugural winners, and Brian is one of them. We discuss his upcoming travels that will be kicking off July 1st.   VoiceDtream Scanner has a new name, whoops.   We are thrilled to announce the Inaugural Laugh For Sight Long Island. If you are in the Long Island area, join us on Monday, August 7th at Mulcahy’s in Wantaugh. Join Legendary Comedian Robert Klein, Aaron Berg, Ophira Eisenberg, Brian Fischler with his guide dog Wesley, and Host Brian McCarthy. More to be announced soon. For tickets. This evening will benefit the U.S. Blind Baseball Association and Third Eye Insight.   According to 9to5 Mac third party apps will not be allowed access to the Apple Vision Pro cameras.    The Vision Pro will turn any surface in to a display with touch controls. We then read an email about how the Apple Vision Pro could be revolutionary for those with low vision.   In Mac OS Sonoma and iOS 17, Apple will be giving all Apple ID’s a Passkey. Apple News in iOS 17 will be getting crossword puzzles. iOS 17 will allow you to send any audio to the HomePod using Siri. Scanning QR codes will get easier in iOS 17.   The EU could force all phones to have removable batteries.   The FTC is suing Amazon over deceptive Prime sign up and cancelation policies. Amazon Prime Day has been announced for July 11th.   Logitech suffers stock hit and sarcastic Amazon reviews over sub disaster controller.   We then dive in to Brian’s initial experiences planning his travel for his upcoming Flight For Sight trips, and what a disaster all the new guide dog regulations have created.   And you will not want to miss the very very special message we got, and it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes. 

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian welcomes in Aaron Hale, a motivational speaker, extreme athlete, business entrepreneur, and a Blind Veteran.   We kick the interview off with Aaron telling us how he was blinded in combat as Aaron was in the army and an explosives expert. We find out what it feels like to approach an explosive device, and Aaron shares with us the incident that blinded him.   Aaron then walks us through his recovery process at Walter Reed, and how helpful his introduction to the Bard Talking Book Reader was.    While rehabbing and instructing Aaron was introduced to Homes for Heroes.   Not one to sit around, as soon as Aaron got going on the iPhone, he began researching outdoor activities for the blind. He came across several blind people who have accomplished amazing tasks, and wanted to know how he could get involved with exploring the outdoors as someone who is blind. Which led to him climbing the Andes Mountains with a group of Wounded Veterans.   Aaron and Brian reminisce a little about some of their favorite shows growing up.   Aaron then tells us about when and how he lost his hearing, and what learning he would be deaf blind was like. Amazingly, Aaron all handled it phenomenally well thanks to his sense of humor.   Aaron then shares with us what takes place during the Cochlear implant process.   Next Aaron tells us a little about his time in the Navy as a cook, and how he eventually started a very successful fudge business called Extra Ordinary Delights.   Read about Aaron’s appearance on The Rachel Ray Show.   Aaron then tells us about his continuing involvement with Homes for Heroes, and the upcoming event he is currently training for the Badwater 135 where he will be raising money for Homes For Heroes. If you would like to support Aaron or Homes For Heroes please make a donation here.   We then discuss what the experience with Veteran Affairs has been like.   Make sure to check out Aaron’s podcast Point of Impact.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. Allison, Brian, and Jeanine sit down to recap all the announcements we got at WWDC23.   Even though it is almost an all Apple show, we kick things off discussing a very funny article about Zuckhead.   Unless you have been living underneath a rock, by the way who actually lives underneath a rock? The expression had to come from somewhere. By now you have probably heard that Apple announced Apple Vision Pro. We discuss all the juicy details, and I mean all of them. Unfortunately pre-order’s will not begin until early 2024, so start saving now because the glasses ain’t cheap.   You will control Apple Vision Pro with your eyes, hands, and voice, and we speculate how people who are blind might control the glasses without their eyes.   We then move on to iOS 17. We start off discussing the accessibility announcements that were announced on Global Accessibility Awareness Day. We then move on to the changes coming to phone, FaceTime, and Messages. Auto-Correct will be getting a long over due update, and dictation is supposed to be improved. A new Name Drop feature will make it easier to share contact info, and a new Journal app is coming to iOS.   Air Tag Sharing will now be possible.   The iPad will be getting new interactive widgets and a new locked screen. You will now be able to work with PDFs in the Notes app, and PDFs are supposed to be easier editable, but who knows about the accessibility of all of this.   Mac OS Sonoma is the name of the new Mac operating system. There is a new Mac Air 15 inch and two new Mac Studio’s coming. Web Apps are coming to the Mac along with Widgets on the Desktop. There is a new video conferencing also coming to the Mac. You will now be able to share your PassKeys and Passwords through iCloud, and profiles are coming to safari.   The Air Pod Pro 2’s will be getting two new listening modes a conversational mode and an  a new adaptive audio mode. Siri will now supposedly be able to switch Air Play devices with your voice. Oh yeah, I am sure this will work fantastically.   And of course we got the return of the Geek, my favorite Apple employee, Kevin Lynch, Mr. Apple Watch. Snoopy and Woodstock will be coming to the Apple Watch, but wait they don’t talk?    Apple Health will now be able to help people with how they are feeling and depression through private surveys, and suggest advice.     And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show demo. Brian is flying solo and doing a demo of some new features to the fantastic iOS downcast app.    Brian talks about his history with the Downcast app and why people are flocking away from the Castro podcast player.   Brian starts the demo off exploring the Downcast podcast tab, and shows off some of the individual podcast customization settings. Brian walks you through the play screen settings including the different speed rates you can listen at.   He then jumps you in to the universal settings screen for Downcast.   Brian then walks you through how to create a continuous playlist with a queue and manual sort episodes to play in a unique order. He shows you how to move episodes in a playlist to set your preferences of a play order using the new action options. It is wicked cool.     You can download Downcast here.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.      

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. We finally found Ed, he’s in Italy. Ed pops on to tell us why in the world he is in Italy. Also joining us on this episode from Italy is Amanda Maxson, a member of the New York City Blind Baseball team.   We start things off with Amanda explaining to us how she got involved with blind baseball, and what the American team is doing in Italy. Amanda tells us about her love of the 1990’s Yankees, and Brian couldn’t agree more. Amanda then fills us in on what the plan is for the New York City Baseball team once they return from training in Italy.   We then locate Ed, he’s been in Italy. Ed takes a seat in the interviewee chair to tell us about his Italian Baseball travels. He gives us an update on the progression getting Italian Baseball recognized as a Para-Olympic sport.   Ed tells us about the amazing Volunteers that have been helping out with the Blind Baseball team, and how traveling around Italy has been.   Ed tells us about the expansion of Italian Blind Baseball around the United States.   You can keep up with the All Blind Baseball USA Team on Facebook.   And it’s a light version of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.         

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian is flying solo but is joined by the developers, the C.E.O. Michael and C.T.O. Vincent of the fantastic new app OkO Co-Pilot For the Blind.   Brian kicks things off with finding out what the OkO app is all about, and how the app works. Vincent then tells us what the development process of the app was like.   We find out the meaning of the name OkO and you can find the app in the App Store here.   Michael tells us about the process they went through to make sure the app was safe before releasing it in the App Store, and then gives us a brief demo of some of the sounds you will hear in the app. . He then gives us 5 best practices to do while using the app for the best user experience.   Vincent then tells us about how much battery power the app consumes.   Michael explains to us where they see the future of the app going, and Vincent tells us about some upcoming updates to the app.   You can visit Ayes and Ono on their website. And you can visit them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Ayes_AI.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.    

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. On this episode it’s Brian and just his gal pals, Allison and Jeanine.   We start off discussing the in product for this summer, blow up hot tubs.   We then begin talking about what else, but A.I., and how in a few years we may be able to talk to and understand what animals are saying.   With everything being A.I. focused these days, is Apple being left behind?   WhatsApp may be leaving Britain due to a new Online Safety Bill.   Twitter has a new C.E.O. Does it matter at all?   Castro has had its share of backwards accessibility lately. One of us is done with the player, so we discuss what podcast players we are currently using.   Brian discusses his meeting with the OkO - A.I. Co-pilot For the Blind  developers.   Allison and Jeanine let us know if snooping on your significant others phone is ever ok.   Amazon is working on a new Rosey the Robot with A.I.   Even though none of us are Android users we discuss some of the announcements that came out of Google IO. We discuss that Google plans to super charge search and what the heck this even means. Is Google search reverting back to Ask Jeeves? Google announced the new Pixel Fold, only problem is it still runs Android. Google says it will be rolling out passkeys for a passwordless future. Google announced a re-entry in to the tablet market with the Google tablet and dock, does anyone care?   We do our annual look back on WWDC and discuss what we were excited about, and what we are actually still using that was announced last year. We start off discussing Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro coming to the iPad, deal or no deal. We actually got new hardware at last year’s WWDC and two of us bought one of them. We discuss the new locked screen and the introduction of the dynamic island. They actually claimed at WWDC 22 that Siri was going to get smarter. Wow, they ruined it when iOS 16 launched. We also got the launch of the Apple Watch Ultra. The Mac was suppose to get improved continuity, we don’t think this worked out to well. Other things mentioned at last year’s WWDC StageTime, Free Form, App Windows, and PassKeys. Jeanine and Allison talk about how much they are enjoying Live text.   Brian then discusses the new keyboard he got the protoArc Foldable Multi-Device full keyboard with NumPad. Brian also got his first Apple Air Tag as they were on sale, but outside of traveling, he has no clue what to do with it.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. Brian is flying solo as he welcomes back Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes.   With the Be My Eyes Virtual Volunteer rapidly evolving, Brian and Mike sat down to discuss how the app has been improving,, how the feedback from the closed beta group has been, and what’s up next for the Be My Eyes Virtual Volunteer.   We discuss the call to action that Elon Musk put out  calling for a delay with A.I. advancements beyond ChatGPT4.   Mike then tells us how the Corporate Connection side of Be My Eyes will co-exist with the Virtual Volunteer as they open the beta to some of Be my Eyes corporate partners. Mike gives us a glimpse about how the future of Be my Eyes, the Virtual Volunteer, and Customer service may all work together.   To keep up with the latest developments of everything Be My eyes make sure to visit their website.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Allison, Brian, and Ed gather around the campfire to discuss the latest tech topics. How odd as a lot of it has to do with A.I.   It is being reported that some visually impaired iOS 16.4.1 are having only 30 days in every month. While we could not reproduce this issue we thought it was still worth talking about.   We then dive in to all the hot A.I. topics. We start off discussing the Godfather of Google A.I. leaving the company to warn the world about the perils of artificial intelligence. Next we discuss the NBC Nightly News segment that featured Brian and the Be My Eyes Virtual Volunteer. Microsoft has announced that they are working on a privacy focused version of ChatGPT.   Would you want or trust an A.I. powered Guide Dog out of China?   Criminals are now using Voice Cloning to terrify and scam people. What a world.   With WWDC a month away we figured it was time to discuss some of the rumors we have been hearing about iOS 17.   MuskButt has now owned Twitter for about six months. It has been one heck of a rollercoaster at the Blue Bird. If you have been randomly getting locked out of Twitter account, you are not alone. It’s the end of Twitter Auto-Sharing, or is it?   If Mastodon is not for you, maybe the future BlueSky could be your social network choice.   We then discuss dealing with other health issues on top of blindness and how difficult an additional injury or health situation can be. Have you heard of Transabled?   Amazon launched a new feature called Dialogue Boost, just don’t plan on using it if you like Audio Description.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.    

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. Brian and Ed welcome fellow podcaster Shaun Preece to the show for another Trendsetters episode.   We start off learning how Shaun went blind and how his journey to Blind Tech Podcaster God began. Next we dive in to Shaun’s first experiences with assistive technology.   Shaun then hits us with a classic #EBB Embarrassally Blind Blunder  story.   Next we find out why Shaun prefers the PC and Jaws over the Mac and VoiceOver.   As a fellow podcaster first on RNIB Tech Talk and now on AMI’s Double Tap, we find out how Shaun began his journey as a podcaster. We ask what it is like working with Steven Scott? And we find out the technology used to record and produce Double Tap. The secret is now out! We also discuss the downside of podcasting, the criticism. Next up we find out what the deal is with Shaun of the Shed.   We then find out Shaun’s opinion about the state of assistive technology in 2023.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as the whole gang is back together for the first time in awhile. We allow you behind the curtain as we leave in some of our pre-show recording as we discuss food delivery services and tipping.   Allison then hits us with an absolute shocker during our intros.   Once we finally get going we start off discussing the strange story where in Houston Apple’s Find My keeps sending people to the same dudes house.   Next up we discuss Brian discussing the Be My Eyes Virtual Volunteer beta on NPR. Followed by the article about MuskButt and several other people in the technology field calling for a slow down of advancements in A.I.    While the big announcement came after we recorded as HBOMax and Discovery will launch as just Max on May 23rd, we wonder if we are panicking to be worried about the apps accessibility and audio description continuing in the new app. Here are all the big announcements.   The FBI has once again warned the public not to use public charging stations for fear of juice jacking. Who the heck knew it was called juice jacking?   Brian has finally installed Mac OS Ventura on his main 2020 iMac so we discuss our thoughts of how VoiceOver is running on Mac OS 13.3. We then discuss the VoiceOver and Siri improvements that showed up in iOS 16.4.   We then discuss how badly the ADA is in need of a digital update. We discuss some of the fun we have each had recently trying to use government websites.   This then leads us to a discussion about whether or not disabled people can expect to have privacy anymore if they want access to information.   We then discuss the recent NY Times article called I Went Blind and I Found It Strangely Exhilarating. Because the Times is behind the paywall we could not post a link to this article, but if you Google The NY Times and Found Going Blind Exhilarating you can get access to the article.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.   

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as Brian and Ed welcome in Sam Nikmanesh  to discuss a story that is more harrowing than any other   story we have ever discussed on the show.   We start off finding out from Sam what it is like to start going blind while living in Iran, and what kind of services there are for people in Iran who are blind.    Sam tells us about her recent travels from her home in Vancouver to Turkey  with her Guide Dog Lemon and the misadventures that ensued. The flight there started out well, but getting any place once she arrived in Turkey was when the nightmare began.   Sam and Lemon were constantly encountering wild dogs while in Turkey, but the real scary part of her trip began when she arrived at the airport to continue her trip to England. You will not believe her story about how she was treated by Turkish airlines, and the ordeal she went through to get home.   Sam explains to us how reaching out to Guiding Eyes  For the Blind and That Real Blind Tech show was so helpful in getting her home.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. Allison, Brian, and Jeanine get together for a different kind of conversation, not a tech conversation but rather a discussion about Blind Justice.   We start off with Brian’s latest Uber guide dog refusal experience. Allison and Jeanine chime in with their most recent Uber refusals due to traveling with a guide dog. Brian then tells about starting his trip with a refusal and ending it with a refusal in the cab line at LaGuardia.   Brian then talks about some of the fun guide dog adventures and misadventures he had on his recent cruise.   Since we are talking guide dog refusal stories we then revisit Brian’s refusal to a nutritionists office from last year and whatever happened to the complaint he filed.   Brian then talks about his disastrous experience going through TSA at the Miami International Airport.   We then shift focus to talking about our most embarrassing stories with our guide dogs. If you want to catch Brian on Top Gear USA you can view it here sorry no Nash peeing in this clip or audio description. Next we discuss the most annoying thing someone has done to us or said to us about our guide dogs. Lastly we discuss the strangest or funniest thing someone has said to us about our dog.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.   

It is an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian is flying solo as Host, and is joined by Hans Jorgen Wiberg, Founder of Be My Eyes  and Mike Buckley CEO, Be My Eyes.   We start off finding out how the connection with Be My Eyes and Open AI originated. We find out what some early beta testers are saying about the Virtual Volunteer experience.   We discuss what seems like endless possibilities for the early stages of the Virtual Volunteer. We discuss the closed beta and when people may expect the Virtual Volunteer to come to a public beta.   Hans then explains how the Virtual Volunteer will co-exist with contacting a sighted volunteer.   Currently, you can sign up to be alerted about the beta for the Virtual Volunteer in the Be My Eyes app. You can keep up with all things Be My Eyes on their website and on Twitter.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.       

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. Allison, Brian, Jeanine, and Bryan Wolynski get together to discuss the latest tech news and recap this year’s CSUN Conference.   We kick things off discussing Senator Markey’s call for Elon Musk to bring back Twitter’s accessibility team.   Next we discuss the huge announcement out of Be My Eyes that they are using Chat GPT4 to help create an all new Virtual Volunteer.   Chat GPT4 has been released with a lot of improvements. And we discuss the former Siri Engineer who explains why Siri sucks so bad.   We then continue our conversation from two episodes ago about Eleven Labs Voice Cloning, and Jeanine got very creative with it.   Apple is specifically working on a AR/VR headset to help people with vision issues.   Both Bryan Wolynski and Jeanine attended this year’s CSUN, we have them recap the most interesting things they saw and heard at this year’s conference. They tell us about this year’s turnout compared to the past couple of years. Jeanine gives us some ideas that CSUN could adopt to make the conference even more inclusive. Bryan then tells us about his presentation at CSUN about Assistive Technology Interventions  and the research he has been conducting. And we hear about some of the more interesting topics of conversations that were being discussed at CSUN.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.     

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian and Ed welcome Mike Walsh, Founder of Flight For Sight to the show.   We kick things off discussing Mike’s back story being diagnosed with Usher’s Syndrome in his twenties, and how Ushers began to change his life in his thirties. The three of us then compare notes about when we put the car keys down for the last time.   We then dive in to a topic we never ever thought we would discuss on That Real Blind Tech Show, professional mascots, as Mike was a professional mascot for ten years. We get the low down on the San Diego Chicken and Philly Fanatic, and Ed outs himself about a high school job he had.   Mike then tells us about traveling the world with low vision in 2014, and how his experiences led to him founding Flight For Sight. A couple of his highlights include traveling to Ethiopia and attending South by Southwest not in Ethiopia.   Mike then hits Brian up with a question, what is preventing Brian from traveling these days.   We then dive in to what Flight For Sight is all about and start discussing the current $10,000 grant give aways they are running for blind and visually impaired people to travel all over the world. Make sure to visit their website. We discuss the application process and how the grant winners will be selected.   Want to apply for the grant, but having trouble getting started with your own travel idea, why not visit Flight For Sight’s idea page.   Michael then informs us about who is eligible to apply for the grants, and what requirements are needed to prove that you are eligible. We then find out how the grant winners will be selected.   The deadline to get your application in for a Flight For Sight $10,000 travel grant is May 1, 2023, so get cracking on your applications!   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.   

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. Brian and Ed welcome in Justin Yarbrough from Deque Systems. Justin will be presenting at this year’s all virtual Axe-Con taking place on March 15 and 16th. You can register to attend the conference here.   We kick the interview off learning a little bit about Justin’s backstory. Justin then explains to us what he does at Deque Systems as an Accessibility Consultant.   Justin tells us a little about his presentation at this year’s Axe-Con. His presentation will be on the second day of the all virtual conference on March 16th and will be about working in Digital Accessibility with a disability.   Justin explains to us what he enjoys about working in digital accessibility, and walks us a little through Deque’s testing philosophy.   We then get Justin’s advice for anyone looking to get in to the field of Digital Accessibility, and learn about Deque University.   Next we dive into Justin’s role as an advocate for the blind, as Justin has written a few articles about the   on board flight entertainment systems and accessibility issues specifically focused on United Airlines.   We discuss the current state of web accessibility and what is wrong with it. We get Justin’s thoughts on what you should do if you come across a website or app with accessibility issues.   Justin then tells us about his go to tech products.   Make sure to tune in to Axe-Con on Thursday, March 16th to hear Justin’s presentation, and you can keep up with Justin on Twitter at @FatElvis04 and on his website.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005, and make sure to visit our website where you can listen to any of our past episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show as Allison, Brian, and Jeanine are together to discuss the latest tech and AI headlines.   We kick the show off discussing why in the world you would want to use a physical pass key. Then move on to discuss the recently released Victor Reader Stream 3.   Is Tick Tock really a threat to the United States national security?   Starting later this month Ring Alarm will require a subscription for basic features users have been getting for free for years.   Are you interested in a brand new Twitter?   And you are not going to believe what Apple is rumored to be doing with USBc.   And it’s the hottest thing since Clubhouse, but Chat GPT is all the rage these days, but will these AI bots be the end of modern civilization as we know it? And we are sure they are not the first, but Cnet has begun mass layoffs after it leaked that their writers got stupid and lazy and used Chat GPT to write their articles. And it’s not just the Journalism world that has been affected by Chat GPT, as the Literary world is now on high alert to ai written stories.   And if you think Chat GPT is terrifying, they ain’t got nothing on what Eleven Lab Synthesized Voices can become. So what we’re basically saying is we’re all screwed!   Open AI is now making Chat GPT available to third parties. Oh boy get ready for the ride.   Microsoft Windows 11 Preview Editions have introduced new ai features to Bing and Edge, and the next Windows 11 update will come with a bunch of new features for iOS. Phone Link if accessible could be the most exciting feature to come to Windows in years.   We then take a little departure from discussing tech to discuss a few things that we each individually have difficulty with because of our blindness.   And it’s more of Watcha Ya Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. Additionally, make sure to check out our website where you can listen to all of our past episode.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Join Brian and Ed as they sit down with Blake Steinecke, Growth Manager and Luke Simianer, CEO of Clusiv.   We start off with Luke explaining to us what Clusiv is all about and how the company got its start. We then get a little background on Blake and find out what he does as the Growth Manager at Clusiv.   Luke then explains to us how they design the curriculumn at Clusiv.   We then find out what barriers Clusiv faces from the state agencies, and what some of their most popular training modules are about.   We then discuss how Clusiv may be utilized at companies with inaccessible propriety software.   Luke then fills us in on what is on the road map for Clusiv, and whether or not Clusiv training will eventually make its way to the Mac.   Luke then explains to us what the Clusiv Lifetime of Learning Promise is all about.   Clusiv is on iOS, and we find out what you can do on the iOS app.   To learn more about Clusiv please visit there website.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. And make sure to check out our new website where you can download and listen to all of our episodes.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show with a fully over packed studio as the entire gang of Allison, Brian, Ed, and Jeanine are all together for the first time in 2023.   We start off discussing the price changes coming to the Envision Glasses. Jeanine then fills us in about the latest announcement coming out of Aira about extra minutes and the special that will continue to run to the end of February. And it’s not just the assistive tech companies that are raising prices, as we discuss the announcement out of Amazon that Amazon Fresh groceries are now going to have different fee levels.   We then discuss the latest update to SeeingAI and Jeanine lets us know about something pretty cool that could be happening.   You may have wondered why Apple doesn’t make AirTags for dogs, well this is why.   Paramount Plus will be merging with Showtime in the coming months. And what in the world is Netflix doing about cracking down on those darn password sharers?   Did you know that supposedly you can track a flight on your iPhone? Of course no clue how well this feature works with VoiceOver. And future iPhones may be able to listen to your chewing and scold you about what you are eating. Yikes.   Who knew that your A Lady echo and dots could have a shelf life.   Ed then gives us a review of the Samsung screen reader built in to most new Samsung TVs.   We then discuss the new products Apple announced the M2 Mac mini, M2 Mac Book Pros, and the new HomePod biggie.   Next we discuss online signature services and compare the accessibility of DocuSign, Dropbox Signature, and Adobe Sign. And why the heck do we still need a signature in the year 2023?   And it’s an extended What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. And make sure to check out our new website where you can find any of our past episodes here.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Ed and Brian welcome Nefertiti Matos Olivares to the show. Not only is Nefertiti a fellow blind New Yorker, she works in one of our favorite industries, Audio Description.   We start off discussing one of the many hats Nefertiti wears, that of a Cultural Accessibility Consultant, and find out what the role involves. Nefertiti then tells us about a few of the museums in New York City that the blind and visually impaired can go to and put their hands on some of the exhibits.   Nefertiti then gives us a little of her background story about her vision loss, and early life.   Next we discuss Nefertiti’s time working at the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library. And it’s ironic timing as Brian will be leading an iOS Question and Answer this Saturday, January 28, 2023 at 2pm Eastern time. If you would like to attend you can join here.   We then dive in to how Nefertiti got in to working in Audio Description Narration. We find out what recording that first Audio Described track was like, and how she came up with her workflow. We find out how someone builds a career in Audio Description Narration.   Nefertiti then tells us about her role as a Workflow Manager for Quality and Inclusion for Descriptive Video Works.   Which leads us to discussing the Social Audio Description collective, and what their goals are.   We then discuss the ACB’s Audio Description Awards which Nefertiti was the Co-Host for, and actually the Audio Description Narrator live from 30 Rock in NYC.   After a little Will Smith fun, we discuss more of Nefertiti’s current work at Descriptive Video Works.   Nefertiti then explains what ADForward is, and surprise surprise we are on their Mastodon server. We then find out a little about Mastodon as the newish or new to us social network makes our heads want to spin.   And of course it is more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   You can keep up with all things Nefertiti on Twitter  and Linkedin.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. You can also keep up with us and get any of our past episodes on our website.,   

It is an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian and Ed are joined by Dr. Bryan Wolynski, CTO Lighthouse Guild to discuss this year’s CES conference that Bryan attended in Las Vegas.   We start the show discussing an Australian visually impaired woman being refused a drink at an Australian hotel. This leads to a conversation about why the general public treats people differently that use a white cane compared to walking with a guide dog.   Navilens is partnering with Kellogg to bring accessibility to its cereal boxes.   Linkedin has announced a bunch of accessibility improvements coming in 2023. We discuss the benefits of being on Linkedin, and this leads to a conversation of Dr. Bryan using VoiceOver on his phone for two weeks.   We then briefly discuss the new Book Share app  and our thoughts of it.   Twitter not surprisingly have interrupted service on some third party Twitter clients, notably Twitterrific and Tweet Bot. The MuskButt is at it again.   We then dive in to why Bryan is here, and start discussing his experience and what he saw of interest at this year’s CES. Brian with a capital B and lower case I had a brain fart about what CES stands for.   Bryan tells us about the expanding landscape at CES for assistive technology, and we find out if CES will ever grow in to a competitor of CSUN.   Wearables are all the rage these days so we discuss the smart glass technology that Bryan got to check out at CES. Brian got his hands on a pair of the Celeste Glasses which we had their Developers on a few shows ago to discuss.    Next up we discuss autonomous vehicles. They are coming and there is nothing you can do to stop it! And forget about self driving cars, what about a flying car?   We then discuss some of the stranger things that were at CES.   Bryan then tells us about some of the sessions he attended at CES.   And it would not be 2023 if we didn’t discuss Matter.   And to hear more about Bryan’s adventures at this year’s CES make sure to tune in to his Facebook Live this Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 3pm Eastern time on the Lighthouse Guild’s Facebook page.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.   We then touch on a few of the main stream tech items Bryan got to check out.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian and Allison are joined by friend of the podcast David Goldstein to discuss the new price plans announced by Aira today.    Allison, Brian and David discuss their first thoughts after reading about the new price plans, retail prices, and having to call customer care to find out what your price plan will be.   Next Brian welcomes in Troy Otillio, CEO of Aira, and Jeanine Stanley Aira’s Social Media Manager.   Troy and Jeanine walk Brian through the new pricing structure, what retail prices are  why the need to post the retail prices on Aira’s website, and why the need to call customer care to find out more information about individual pricing plans.   If you alarmingly reacted to all of this information then you will definitely want to hear what Troy and Jeanine have to say, as Brian was very relieved after speaking to both of them.   Remember you can contact Aira Customer Care directly through the Aira app or by calling 1-800-835-1934  6am PST to 6pm PST, or contact them by email at support@aira.io.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Kicking off the New Year, Brian and Ed welcome in Dr. Joel Snyder, from Audio Description associates and the Founder of the Audio Description Project.   We start the interview  finding out how Joel started working in audio description. Joel explains what the early days of audio description was like including how difficult it was to convey what audio description actually was when people had no clue what it was.   We find out that a certain somebody who the Force is strong in is aware of audio description.   Joel walks us through some of the work he has done with museums to make the museums an accessible experience to the blind.   We then discuss how the initial work flows to deciding what would and would not work for audio description came about, and how audio description has changed over the past several decades. We discuss what audio description was like in the VHS and DVD days.   We then find out what Joel’s goals were when he founded the Audio Description Project.   we discuss how different describing a museum tour is compared to film and TV, and how different describing a live event is compared to pre-recorded. We then discuss how amazing most Audio Described content is on the streaming services.    We then discuss Joel’s book Audio Description, The Visual Made Verbal.   The conversation then moves to the networks, Congress requiring a minimum number of described hours, and the job the networks are currently doing with audio description.    It would not be an interview about audio description if we did not discuss the controversial topic of text to speech audio description. Which then turns us to the topic of when content switches from one streaming platform to another, why doesn’t the audio described tracks follow with it.   We wrap up discussing methods of streaming audio described content to your phone and Spectrum Access.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.     

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Join us as Brian sits down with Shush Mittal and Smit Patel the creators and developers behind the upcoming Celeste Smart Glasses coming in 2023.   Brian is very excited for the release of these smart glasses that have partnered with Seeing AI. Shush starts off describing what the Celeste Smart Glasses will be able to do and tells us about how the guys came up with the concept of the glasses.   The guys explain what the main differences are between the Celeste Frames and the Envision AI glasses. And we talk about their very affordable price point of $700 US.   We then discuss the question on everyone’s mind, how will people be able to see what I am seeing?   To make a deposit so you can be among the first people to receive the celeste Smart Glasses please visit here, and to learn more about the glasses click here.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.   

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show.   The gang starts off discussing the announcement that Microsoft Soundscape will be going bye bye in 2023. We then discuss what our go to GPS app will be.   These people took crash detection to a whole new level!   If you had smart toilet on your holiday wish list, it may be waiting for you underneath your tree.   And Brian thought he had it bad for a bit with his Door Dash deliveries. Wait until you hear about this guy and his issue with an Amazon delivery.   We then discuss Sight Tech Global, and why you may want to wait if you have not yet seen any of the videos from this year’s conference. Next up is the ACB  2022 Audio Description Gala which featured several interesting people including a clip of the Yahoo Mini Documentary The All Blind Fantasy Football League.   Will app side loading be coming to the iPhone and will it be a disaster for accessibility?   Next it is on to the latest with Twitter because Elon be flipping back and forth more times than a fat man in a water bed. Is MuskButt stepping down as CEO of Twitter? And because we can do it to, we held our first ever poll on Twitter. And finally MuskButt decided to kill Twitter Audio Spaces.   It’s that time of year, so we thought we would have a little conversation about the difficulties and fun that comes with being blind at a holiday party.   And it is more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. We gathered Allison, Brian and Ed to talk about the latest tech news going around.   We start off discussing a tweet about our last episode, And Everything. Drink!   You may have heard that Aira will be under going some changes. We discuss what has been announced so far.   Menus4All has launched as a paid subscription app, will you be getting it?   If you live in New York City and are searching for a job, maybe this one is for you.   Airplane mode to become a thing of the past as early as next year in the EU.   We then discuss Ed’s new product and something that Allison is shockingly selling, what could it be?   Next we discuss Mastodon, and is it worth your time?   With the end of the year here we thought it would be a good time to discuss the accessibility of our financial and medical applications and websites.   Next we turn our attention to those pesky Windows and Jaws updates, as Brian had a fun experience after not turning his PC on for a few months. Ed then had a little bit different of a dinner one night that he tells us all about.   And of course it is more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.    

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show, and it is amazing how often podcasts imitate life. On our last episode we discussed the blind woman who was not allowed on an Air Canada flight with her guide dog. Well, Brian just was extremely hassled by JetBlue when checking in for his most recent flight about his guide dog and new policies that JetBlue has initiated for people traveling with guide dogs. Amazingly, it is not JetBlue’s responsibility to alert you of these new regulations, you are just suppose to magically know them on your own. Ed and Brian discuss this experience before the gals jump on. Brian and Ed discuss how airlines are utterly failing people with disabilities.   We briefly discuss the latest people fleeing Twitter, and Brian mentions a little bit about the upcoming Sight Tech Global which you can register to virtually attend for free here.   We then move on to discussing iOS 16 and the new feature that allows you to control your iPhone from your Apple Watch and vice versa. Next we discuss iOS 16.2 and the report that there will be a new accessibility mode introduced. Is that a good thing?   With the holidays here we thought we should discuss what all of us pack in our tech go gear. Not to worry no clothes discussed here, just tech stuff. Sorry no time to put the products discussed in the show notes with links as Brian has been on a time crunch and wanted to get the episode out. If you are interested in a product we discussed and you cannot find it on Amazon, drop us an email and we will find the link for you.   We then discuss Brian’s recent visit to the eye doctor and try and understand how in the world people who work at a world renown eye hospital can be so utterly clueless when it comes to helping guide a blind person around.   No surprise, as a couple of Senators have once again drawn up a bill requiring all websites and mobile applications to be fully accessible.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.    

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. The entire gang is here in their lair of choice.   We start off discussing the upcoming Sight Tech Global, as Brian will be the Host of this year’s Virtual Conference which you can register for free to attend here.   Air Canada is the latest airline to make a blind person’s life absolutely miserable while traveling with their guide dog. Will the airlines ever get it?   It happened a week ago, but we dive in to the blindness communities reaction to the entire accessibility team being laid off at Twitter. Allison educates us a little about the new social media craze of Mastodon. Or as the kids are calling it, the new Twitter. And finally just when you think things couldn’t get any worse at Twitter Elon Musk goes all nuclear. And because we doubt this will be the last we talk about Elon Musk, we try and decide on a nickname for Elon Musk moving forward.   And because Zuckhead couldn’t take Twitter getting all the press, Facebook/Meta decided to fire 11,000 employees, and did it by email. How classy!   Out of nowhere Amazon announced they are putting the A Lady under a performance review, which made us wonder, could the A Lady have peeked at Amazon?   We have screamed about our frustration for quite awhile about our devices and Bluetooth connectivity, so it is great to see the mainstream is getting on board with this frustration. Here are some basic tips that could help improve your bluetooth connectivity.   After a discussion about an injury a friend of the podcast had, we dive in to the good and bad we have been experiencing on Mac OS Ventura.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian and Ed welcome in friend of the podcast David Goldstein to the podcast.   David just popped in to NYC to join Brian and Ed at Laugh For Sight at Gotham Comedy Club on October 24th, so we thought we would have David on to help us recap the long awaited return of Laugh For Sight. This year’s benefit was absolutely epic and featured Legendary Comedian Robert Klein, Aaron Berg, Ophira Eisenberg, Joe Derosa, Andy Fiori, Boris Khaykin, along with Host and Friend of the podcast Brian Mccarthy. Oh yeah, and our pal Jim Gaffigan popped in to do a set. This year’s benefit was also the Inaugural What the F*ck Have the Blind Ever Done For Me Laugh For Sight Lifetime Appreciation Awards. Recipients included Robert Klein, Chris Mazzilli Owner Gotham Comedy Club, Gilbert Gottfried, and Larry Goldberg. The idea of the award is to merge the comedy world with blind tech, and who better to do that then friend of the podcast, Larry Goldberg.     After many mentions on this show during a specific segment of the show, Apple is finally redesigning iCloud.com. The beta which you can now visit is surprisingly off to a much improved start.   We continue on the positive with a fantastic story about a developer that gets accessibility. The streaming wars are here, and prices are going up everywhere. Will you continue to stream or cut the stream? We discuss which services we are subscribed to, and mass confusion sets in. We then speculate on how the Netflix password crackdown will work as it will kicking in come January. Even though it was announced over a week ago, we briefly discuss the new iPads launched by apple because we are a blind tech show after all. Next we  discuss Mac OS Ventura and how it is currently working, or not working with VoiceOver. And finally it is on to our thoughts about iOS 16.1. The iPhone 14 just came out, so it’s the perfect time for iPhone 15 rumors. You are not alone if you think you have been seeing just a few ads for gambling in the App Store. And you thought political ads were annoying enough, could you soon be seeing gambling on political race ads?   And has Apple finally turned in to Robert deNiro from Goodfellas with their new in app purchase ad policy?   We then discuss the JackPocket app, a app to buy lottery tickets, which is surprisingly fully accessible with VoiceOver.   With the end of the year creeping up on us, we figured it would be a good time to go around and check out what all of our go to devices and apps were at the end of 2022.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Now that we have gotten past our massive 100th episode celebration, it is back to podcasting as the entire That Real Blind Tech Show gang gets together to recap the latest tech news.   We start off with a mention that the All Blind Fantasy Football League Mini Documentary has an imdb page.   We start off with a congratulations as one of us lives in the filthiest talking city in the world. And its not NYC!   Wasn’t the whole point of streaming no ads? Well get ready for ads coming to AppleTV. Is anyone surprised that Apple’s crash detection is not working as it is suppose to?   Big Googlie Eyes may save pedestrians from silent vehicles, but what about us blind peeps?   Medical experts say it is healthy for you to disconnect from your phone. Is it possible for blind peeps to disconnect?   Google IO featured Molly Burke, but seriously selfies? We then discuss the newly announce Pixel 7 phones. Next up was the Google Pixel Watch, not quite ready for prime time. And shockingly Google Face Recognition is very far from secure. On the plus side all Google devices will be getting new TTS voices in the coming weeks.   Samsung and Google showed off how their devices will interact once the Matter Standard has launched. It’s going to be pretty cool.   Facebook hosted meta Connect all about VR and AR, but will any of this tech be useful to the blind? Facebook launched the MetaQuest Pro, but what is it and who is it for? Zuckhead says the Metaverse should be open to everyone, but read closer. Meta also announced future wristbands which would allow you to control things in the Metaverse with muscle movement.   Microsoft held an event in which they announced that Apple will be bringing more services to their devices. Of course, the accessibility of them is in question. Microsoft then announced three new Surface devices with one of them starting at the low low price of $4300.   Did you notice that another Amazon Prime Day came and went?   And it is more Voicemails, What’s Pissing Off Brian, and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

We begin the final part of our massive 100th episode clip show celebration with the gang styling and freestylng on Episode 71.   With the huge success of the NumPad Commander a listener requested a demo of the keyboard commander which arrived on episode 72.   Episode 74 was our attempt of multiple host interviewing multiple guests about this year’s CSUn, and the new tech center at the Lighthouse Guild, and also saw the return of friend of the podcast, Dr. Bryan Wolynski.   Episode 75 brought Aira CEO Troy Etillio and Jeanine Stanley wearing her Aira hat to the show.   Episode 76 brought Deque Systems Jon Buonaspina to the show. Episode 77 brought Ukrainian Helger Kellanstonian to the show. Yes, another April something episode. Additionally, episode 77 brought TJ Meloy back to the show as TJ, Allison, and Brian all had recently picked up Android devices, and talked a little Talk Back and their initial thoughts. Full disclaimer, none of us are still using our Android phones now. Episode 78 was another demo episode as Brian did a demo of the fantastic item chooser on the Mac along with a demo of the improved dictation. Episode 80 brought Liz Gutman to the show, Head Writer of Audio Description for IDC. Episode 81 brought YouTube’s The Blind Life Sam Seavey to the show. Episode 83 brought the recently rewired not retired Larry Goldberg formerly of Yahoo to the podcast. Episode 84 brought friend of the podcast Joe Steinkamp back for a recap of Google IO. Episode 85 had us venture a little out of the tech arena and ask the question, do blind people dream? Episode 86 was our annual review of WWDC, and we were so thrilled and excited as the Geek was back for Apple Watch. Episode 87 brought the CEO of the Miami Lighthouse, Virginia Jaco back to the show along with Jorge Hernandez. Episode 88 was a demo of how to transfer music playlists  from one streaming platform to another. Episode 90 was our demo of the Echo Frames and some big announcements from Aira. Episode 91 was another episode in our Trendsetters series with PodFather Rodney Edgar.   Episode 92 was our yearly recap of the NFB’s resolutions. Episode 93 brought friend of the podcast, member of The All Blind Football League, and designer of our website www.blindtechshow.com, David Goldstein to the show.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

We start off our 100th Anniversary Episode part 4 Clip show with the developer of AirBuddy Guide Rambo.   Episode 51 brought the Fantastic Foursome all together on the same episode for the first time with Allison, Brian, Ed, and jeanine for what do you expect but an Apple event recap.   Episode 52 brought skateboarder Justin Bishop to the show.   Episode 54 brought us therapist and Author Rebecca Alexander and Inspiration porn.   Episode 55 brought former guest Joe Steinkamp in as a co-host to discuss a little Microsoft news.   We had a bunch of Apple announcements which then led up to Episode 57 where we spoke with Michael Kalberer.   Episode 58 was our first mention of The Yahoo Mini-Documentary The All Blind Football League that we had filmed a few months ago, and was also TJ Meloy’s first appearance on the show. And Episode 59 brought the entire cast of the Yahoo All blind Fantasy Football league and the principles at Yahoo behind the project to the show.   Episode 61 was our tremendously popular demo of the powerful NumPad Commander for the Mac.   Episode 62 brought blind developer and space man Sina Bahram to the show.   Episode 63 was a special end of the year Festival What’s Pissing Off Brian Now. Because what says anger more than the holidays?   Episode 64 brought fellow podcaster and friend of the show Steven Scott on for a chat about the new show he was launching, Blind Guy Talks Tech.   Episode 65 brought Accessibility Evangelist Samuel Proulx from Fable to the show.   On Episode 66 we began to see the light out of the pandemic and the virtual studios became That Real Blind Tech Show Lairs.   Episode 67 brought us Eric Wickstrom from IDC for a conversation about audio description.   Episode 68 was a demo of the Spectrum Cable App with Cloud DVR.   Episode 69 brought all of us together for our Mac versus PC Smack down.   Episode 70 was a demo of the fantastic Mac mail client and a demo of what a disaster iCloud.com still is with VoiceOver.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Welcome to part three of the That Real Blind Tech show 100th Episode clip show.   We start off at episode 31, which was an absolutely classic recording.   Episode 32 brought in comedian friend and former Warm Up Comedian at The Late Show with David Letterman, Eddie Brill.   Episode 33 brought us the first Brian flying solo episode and our first demo which was Amazon Prime and Audio Description.   Episode 34 was the first of our only two part episode as it brought Legendary Comedian and Laugh For Sight Headmaster Robert Klein.   Episode 35 brought us our fill in co-Host Jeanine Stanley. She filled in for Allison and the chemistry was pretty good so we kept her around.   Episode 36 was our conclusion of our very special two part episode with Robert Klein.   Episode 37 brought us the first trifecta pairing of Allison, Brian and Jeanine for an Apple recap. However, more importantly, Episode 37 brought us the new That Real Blind Tech Show theme music produced by our good friend Patrick Lafayette.   Episode 38 and 39 brought us some demos by Brian, the first was how to turn off Amazon Sidewalk and the next was the Ultimate Sonos Demo.   Episode 41 brought us our first review of a Microsoft Keynote.   Episode 42 brought us another in our Trendsetters series as we welcomed David Woodbridge to the show.   Episode 43 was another super cool super solo demo by Brian, this time on HBOMax and the Apple TV app which makes fantastic use of the now playing list for all your services except Netflix.   Episode 44 and 45 were our recaps of the NFB and ACB virtual Conferences.   Episode 46 brought us Carl Richardson from the Audio Description Project.   Episodes 47 and 48 brought us demos of the Yahoo Fantasy app and its amazing track record of accessibility and the Underdog Fantasy app.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005..                 

It’s a continuation celebration for our 100th episode, as we present you with The Clip Show Part Two.   This episode starts off at the beginning of 2021, as we welcome our good friend Allison Meloy full time to the podcast. Allison was a regular guest on iAccessVO and joined us here regularly starting with episode 14.   Our next few guests included Greg Stilson from The American Printing House for the Blind, Steve Ewell from The Consumer Technology Association, and Shaun Eli  comedian friend of Brian’s who worked very hard to make his website fully accessible. It was Episode 17, wow, not sure what was going on with our audio on this episode, as it was absolute crap. Episode 17 was also the beginning of Brian introducing all those fun movie clips that 95% of the listeners enjoy. We did get one email from a listener who absolutely hates them.   Episode 18 brought Jayme Schwartz from Aftershockz to the show. Episode 19 was back to our Trailblazers series with Ricky Enter and friend of the show Joe SteinKamp. Episode 21 was the web developer of Ottoneu Fantasy sports, Nav shah.   It was episode 22 that saw friend of the podcast Dr. Bryan Wolynski make his first appearance on the podcast. Episode 23 brought us Virginia Jack, CEO of the Miami Lighthouse for a conversation about web accessibility.   Episode 25 brought us our first fun with an April fools episode, as blind Olympian Henry McKeller joined the show.   Episode 26 brought over the man you have to blame if you hate Brian’s editing of movie clips, Derek Lane. And staying on our sound trip, Episode 27 brought us Jim Reekes the original creator of the Mac start up chime and the iPhone camera click sound.   Episode 28 brought us Comedian friend Stacey Prussman who at the time was running for Mayor of New York City. She did not win, but that was not our fault.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Join us for a stroll down memory lane. In honor of the 100th episode of That Real Blind Tech show, it is our absolutely epic five part clip show.   You will laugh, you will cry, you will learn, ok, so maybe there will be no crying, but we can guarantee a few laughs along this stroll down memory lane.   The clip show starts off with Brian babbling on about what the new show will be, then Ed pops in as Brian quickly realized he is better with Ed then without him. Our first few guests you hear include David Kingsbury author of several books helping the blind with PC production, Karen Kramer an O and M specialist with pandemic living advice, Kisiah Timmons from the Yahoo Fantasy accessibility team, and Jeanine Stanley from Aira and eventually also from That Real Blind Tech show.   The next few guests on the show included Dr. Cal Roberts, CEO of the Lighthouse Guild in NYC, our Trailblazers series kicked off with Holly Anderson and Darcy Bernard, and we welcomed in at the end of 2020, our very good friend Brian McCarthy to close out the year, and wrap up the first five months of That Real Blind Tech show.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show. We are here primarily this episode to discuss iOS 16.0.2 and new Apple products. It is an Ed less and Jeanine less show as TJ Meloy joined Brian and Allison in their isolated lairs to discuss our new products and thoughts.   We start off discussing the 40 year anniversary of the first emoji being sent and how that day began the descent of modern civilization. Is anyone surprised or shocked at the lengths Facebook is going to to keep on tracking all of us? Not only are they going around Apple’s privacy road blocks, Facebook is now breaking state and federal law to track all of us. If you are a gmail user, get ready to have your inbox flooded by unwanted messages from politicians. We’re all getting another Amazon Prime Day that no one asked for on October 11th and 12th. Does anyone care? We then dive in to discussing iOS 16.0.2, starting out wondering how in the world Apple could release an operating system that left some VoiceOver users in the dark. Next we discuss focuses and under settings the missing on/off toggle for focuses. We then bring up the app switcher issue some VoiceOver users have been having and try and figure out who realized that if you turn inverted colors off, the app switcher should behave normally. We then get Brian’s F*ck me moment of iOS 16, which is a bad one. Notifications are then discussed and. Door detection is here, door detection is here, just don’t try using it at night.   If you do not want to experience crash detection first hand to find out if it works, definitely check out this YouTube video of some guys who tested it out for all of man kind.   And if you are noticing a battery drain on your phone you may want to consider turning off haptic keyboard. If you have been getting bombarded with stupid requests asking are you sure you want to paste this here, not to worry those idiotic notifications will be going away in iOS 16.1.   We got new products, we got new products. Allison and TJ tell us about the new iPhone 14’s they are rocking with. We then get Allison and TJ’s thoughts on the locked screen new island. After our visit to the island we move on further down discussing the new Lock Screen. Allison and TJ enlighten us to the new start up and shut down chimes specifically only on the 14 models.   After the new phones, we discuss our new watches as Allison has the new Watch Series 8 and Brian went Mac Daddy with the new Watch Ultra. We talk about the on-screen typing experience, the new action button on the Ultra watch, L5 GPS and using GPS on the watch. We discuss which complications we enjoy using.   And finally all three of us discuss our experience with the new Air Pod Pro Two’s.   We then listen to a Voicemail and an email we received.   Brian then plugs the upcoming Laugh For Sight at Gotham Comedy Club on Monday, October 24th, and tickets can be purchased here.   And it’s a little bit of a lengthy What’s Pissing Off Brian, and we get an appearance of What’s Pissing Off Allison, and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s a fully packed That Real Blind Tech show lair as the entire gang is here to discuss and recap in our own way the Apple Far Out event.   We start off discussing the name of the event and the new Apple emergency S.O.S. for when you are stuck in the middle of nowhere or Ohio. We discuss our issues getting the event to play in Apple TV, and the opening video to the event.   We then get our iOS 16 beta testers opinion of whether or not you should install iOS 16 on the September 12th release date.   We discuss Apple moving to eSim iPhones only in the United States.   Our watch coverage begins with us discussing an odd arrival time for those it’s time to stand notifications and then gets in to the always on display. The ladies then chime in about the new ovulation tracking coming to the new watches.   We get a little sidetracked with the innuendos, but hey that’s what you tune in for. After Giggles gets it all out, we discuss the new Watch SE2. It’s then on to the new Apple Watch Ultra, and one of us has already placed an order for it.   Next up we discuss the new Air Pod Pros with double the noise reduction. And on Apple announcement day, Bose attempted to steal some of Apple’s thunder by announcing their new Quiet comfort Two ear buds.   Apple announced four new iPhones starting out with the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus but these phones will be running last years chip. The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max will introduce the new dynamic island on the Lock Screen. We are quite curious how all of this will work with VoiceOver. Even though most blind peeps feel blah blah when Apple discusses the camera improvements. We discuss what the improvements mean for text scanning applications and Aira.   And finally we play some messages and emails we have received recently. We promise to get better at playing and reading your emails on future shows. You can call us at 929-367-1005 and tell us what you like, don’t like, agree with, or want to hear us talk about. Or email us in at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com. And as long as Brian gets his head out of his ass and remembers to put the emails and Voicemails in the outline, we will get to them.   And of course it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.       

The gang is back together again after Ed’s European Vacation.   We kick things off discussing the new alliance between Aira and Envision glasses. Does this change anything for you?   Twitter because it doesn’t know what it wants to be is getting in to podcasts now.   Tesla wants videos of its self driving technology running over dummies of children taken down. Will negative feedback slow us blind peeps from eventually getting behind the wheel?   We are big fans of the Sonos speakers, and rumor has it that their next gen speakers will have directional audio.   We mourn our friends Blind Guy Talks Tech as they transition to Double Tap fully. We have some advice for Steven, please for the love of all that’s holy stop attempting to do a New York accent!   We then start discussing how close we are to the release of iOS 16 and all the VoiceOver issues we are still hearing about is quite troubling.   We then catch up with Ed and review his trip to England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, and find all about the World Blind Baseball Tournament he participated in.   After we examine Amazon’s downward spiral with accessibility across all of their apps. And one of us is just absolutely tired and worn out of reporting nonstop accessibility issues.   And it’s a very special What’s Pissing Off Brian Now as we also get the first ever What’s Pissing Off Ed, and it is a can’t miss that will make you so so so mad!   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   Our apologies to those of you who have emailed us in and left voicemails, we plan to get to them on the next show, blame Ed for the long ass recap of his vacation as we ran a little long.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.      

It’s a packed again That Real Blind Tech Show lair as we dive in to the American Council of the Blind’s recently released 2022 resolutions. And are we really positive that it is not the American Council For the Blind? And if so, why not?   Some of the jokes are a continuation of our last episode as we recorded both of them together but after an epic historically long recording session, we broke it up in to two episodes. So if you are wondering why we find beeping getting faster and faster kind of sexual, then go listen to the last episode to find out why door detection is just so damn sexy!   You will not want to miss an absolutely classic experience that happened with an Air Pod while recording this episode. Strange stuff. And it was so classic it happened twice, and we left almost all of it in for your enjoyment as it is not always smooth sailing recording That Real Blind Tech show.   Here is the link to all of the ACB’s 2022 resolutions we discuss in this episode.   And we actually did save the best for last, to capitalize or not to capitalize braille!   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.   

It’s a fully packed That Real Blind Tech show lair as the usuals Brian and Allison are here and joined by Jeanine and David Goldstein as Ed tours all over England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, not Neverland which as Brian learned on the last podcast is a totally different place.   You may have heard that crypto theft is on the rise, well Nomad has decided to let the thieves and pirates keep ten percent of their stolen bounty if they return the other ninety percent.   Apple is rumored to be launching a HomePod mini with a screen. It’s the yearly promise of Siri getting smarter, our Beta testers of iOS 16 chime in, and also let us know how door detection works. Unfortunately, passkey our method to a password less future will not launch when iOS 16 launches, and the feature will be bringing us more use of QR codes.   HBOMax and Discovery Plus will be merging in to a single streaming service. And Amazon has acquired iRobot.   It’s a very important What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. 

The gang is back together again to discuss the latest greatest tech news.   We start off discussing the Zuckhead as he wants to ruin your Facebook and Instagram timelines even more then he already has done.   Interestingly, employees are more concerned about working in the Metaverse than employers.   Next we answer the age old question, why do sighted people make so many more buttdials than blind peeps?   Amazon Drive is going bye bye, will anybody miss it? This then leads us in to discussing our current cloud services that we enjoy using.   This interactive map highlights the most famous person from every city. Unfortunately, the map is completely inaccessible.   Kamala Harris was mocked for using gender specific pronouns and describing what she was wearing to an audience of disability leaders. We try and avoid the politics but thought we needed to discuss our thoughts about this.   It’s then a special early edition of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now, and if you are a guide dog user, you will not want to miss this.   We then check in with Allison, as she is the only one on the team who is running the iOS 16 beta. We find out about focus issues, notifications, and if she has tested door detection yet? The sighted community is claiming that dictation in iOS 16 beta 4 is amazing, but what about the VoiceOver community? Apple has already ruined one of the most exciting features in iOS 16 beta 4, the ability to edit text messages is now just stupid!   The new M2 Mac Air is here. The new M2 Mac Air is here! How was the setup process? What the heck is granting kernel access to a program? The big brain on Allison explains. We then discuss why Apple can’t get TouchID right. We then discuss the debacle known as the Mac App Store and using it with VoiceOver.   We say goodbye to Ed, not to worry, it’s just for the month of August, and find out what Ed will be up to.   Join us on Thursday, August 4th to learn how to play fantasy football and about the fantastic accessibility of the Yahoo Fantasy iOs app. Join members of The All Blind Fantasy Football League as we discuss our history of playing fantasy football, why we play, what we like, different styles of play, and more. This event is being hosted by the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, and registration is required. You can register for free here.   And it is a very memorable Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.           

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Brian and Ed welcome in good friend David Goldstein to the podcast. David is a long time member of the All Blind Fantasy Football League, a web designer and marketer, and a fellow podcaster.   We start off discussing the Podcast Roundtable that all of us were on, on July 6th, and presented by the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library.   We then go back to the beginning of David’s vision loss. David walks us through his early years, the 18 surgeries he has had, and how he has learned to cope with his vision loss.   We touch a little on Fantasy Football as the season is approaching and David is a long time member of the All Blind Fantasy Football League and was featured in the Mini-Doc that Yahoo Fantasy produced about the league. If you have not seen the video, watch it here.   David is a member of his local NFB Chapter. We dive in to his role with the chapter, and what he likes about the NFB. David recently started helping out at a BEP stand. We learn about the accessibility tools used at the stand, and a little bit about the BEP program.   David is a fellow podcaster with two shows, iCantCU and White Canes Connect. We discuss how David got started in podcasting, and what he likes most about podcasting. We find out how difficult it is to do a solo show, you paying attention here ed?   We then discuss David’s work designing the all new www.BlindTechShow.com website, how he got in to web design, how he became familiar with Wordpress design, and making accessible websites.   You can keep up with David on  and find him on Facebook and LinkedIn.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.   

It’s a fully packed That Real Blind Tech Show lair as the entire gang of Brian, Ed Allison, and Jeanine are all here to discuss a recap of the NFB Conference and some other current tech topics.   We start off with the very self indulgent uber exciting news that we have finally launched our own website, www.BlindTechShow.com. Brian learned if you don’t capitalize the letters to our name, it sounds very weird in the outline for the show. A very special thanks to friend of the podcast, David Goldstein for building our website. Check it out, we guarantee you will love it.   The iOS, iPad, and we think Mac OS public betas are now live. Will you be a beta tester or not? We then talk about AppleVis finally getting with the times and finally allowing beta testers to discuss the beta operating systems on their website.   YouTube is finally rolling out picture and picture on its iOS app, but none of us are happy about it.   Conference season is mostly over. We start off discussing how each conference handled hosting a conference as we continue to live in a pandemic world. We get Jeanine’s thoughts about what she got to check out and enjoy at this year’s NFB Conference, besides coming home with Covid. Jeanine walks us through all the Braille, yes, Braille with a capital B, devices that she got to put her hands on at the conference. And yes, she asked permission before touching any of them!   With both the ACB and the NFB presenting resolutions to Congress to help improve the lives of the blind and visually impaired, are they canceling each other out by not having one direct united approach to Congress?   We discuss this year’s NFB resolutions, and would have posted the link in the demo, but at the time of writing this the NFB’s website now says page not found when trying to read this year’s resolutions. Hmm, very strange stuff.   We threw this article in to our discussion of the NFB’s Resolutions 13 and 14 about Lift and Uber, as CNN published this fantastic article about how ride share services are still failing disabled customers.   Even though Amazon Prime Day has come and gone, we discuss what we purchased this year, or didn’t purchase.   We then discuss why bluetooth remains an incredibly frustrating technology after two decades, and who bluetooth is named for.   And it’s an all encompassing What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and more of Watcha Streaming, watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. 

Brian and Ed welcome in Rodney Edgar to the That Real Blind Tech show lair for another Trendsetters episode.   Rodney began podcasting back in 2009 with the show Tech Access Weekly. We find out how Rodney and his wife Erin started the show, what gave them the idea for the podcast, and what tools they were using back then to produce the podcast. Rodney walks us through his workflow of putting the show together.   That’s right, Brian let it slip out, as Blindtechshow.com will be launching some time this week, so check back soon. And as we launch our website for our show, we find out what caused the demise of Tech Access Weekly.       We discuss the fun of going to the ATM when you are blind as Rodney used to work in banking and ATM coding.   Rodney then explains to us how he ended up on the Podcast High Contrast. Rodney walks us through reviewing products and software and being brutally honest about it all to their listeners.   We find out how Rodney got in to a career in coding and web design. He shares with us some of the biggest accessibility design issues facing developers.   We discuss how podcasting has evolved, and how advertising is ruining a lot of podcasts.    Rodney shares his advice for those low vision and blind people wanting to get in to a career in web development.   You can keep up with Rodney on Twitter.       And it’s a special with Rodney Edgar Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show product unveiling, as Brian could not wait to get in to the That Real Blind Tech show lair to discuss his new Echo Frames with you.   Brian walks you through the design of the glasses, what the buttons on the glasses do, and how the touch pad works. He talks about the differences between the Bose Frames and Echo Frames so you can make a good decision about which pair of Smart Glasses may be right for you.   Jeanine Stanley then pops in from Aira and That Real Blind Tech show. Jeanine is here to share some very exciting announcements coming out of Aira over the next few days and at this year’s NFB and ACB Conferences.   To get in on the Aira Desktop beta please visit Aira here.   Aira is at this year’s NFB and ACB Conferences so you can learn more about everything going on at Aira at the conferences or just listen to this entire episode for the other very exciting announcements coming out from Aira.   Then it’s a brief What’s Pissing Off Brian Now.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.      

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show with the gang in their separate lairs. And we start talking about how someone wants to copy That Real Blind Tech show and build their own lair.   China claims it has discovered aliens, but then quickly deletes the report. How did a man in Japan lose his entire town’s digital information?   The A Lady may soon be able to mimic the voice of a deceased relative. Creepy or cool? Instagram is testing out a new tool that will be able to tell your age by scanning your face. Again, creepy or cool?   It has been awhile since the three of us recorded last, and one of us, has a new M1 Mac Book Pro. Who will never guess who, and you will not want to miss the story behind the purchase, as it was not bought at your every day retailer. Brian then tells his adventure with his Air Pod Pros and what he learned at the Apple Store that you may be able to try and do if your Air Pod Pros are making funky noises. Rumors be running wild that the Air Pod Pro 2’s could have heart monitoring and work as hearing aids.   Allison is the brave one as she is running both the iOS and Mac betas. Even though the betas are in the very early stages we figured we would find out what she likes so far besides the Eloquence voices. This some how leads to a debate about the Singaporean English voice and what the heck language do people speak in Singapore if there is no language called Singaporean?   The fun continues with a little more smack talk with the guys and gal over at Blind Guy Talks Tech.   In iOS 16, you will now be able to mark junk text messages as spam. Personalized Spatial Audio is coming to Air Pod Pros, but we have no clue what this means or actually will be, but Apple claims it is a thing. Here’s a list of what features will not be coming to Intel Macs and what features may not be ready when OS Ventura is released in the fall.   Prime Day 2022 will be July 12 and 13, but the sales have already begun, and Brian and Allison already jumped on the massive sale for the Echo Frames.   CNN was baffled that there are PodFasters out there. Obviously the crack writers at CNN have never ever met a blind person.   And for the inner hippy in all of us, we found this article about soundscapes from all over the world that you can listen to to chill out.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.  

It’s been awhile, but it’s another Super Cool, super Solo That Real Blind Tech Show demo from Brian. With more big companies playing nice together, it was about time for Brian to ditch his subscription to Amazon Music, and switch to Apple Music as part of the Apple One Plus option.   The issue with switching music providers is how do you take your playlists with you that you have been spending so much time creating over the years. Well, with the help of a third party free website, called Tune My Music,    The good news is with Tune My Music you can transfer playlists between almost any music provider. The disappointing news, at least on the Mac, is you have to take all of your playlists with you, as the feature to deselect individual playlists is not accessible. Still, even with this issue, we thought it was worth it to demo how to take all of your music playlists from one provider to another.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.  

It’s an all new fully packed That Real Blind Tech Show lair, as Brian and Ed welcome in Virginia Jacko, CEO of the Miami Lighthouse and Jorge Hernandez, IT Manager for the Miami Lighthouse.   We kick things off catching up with Virginia since we last spoke with her mid-pandemic, and find out how things have been going at the Miami Lighthouse.   We then learn what Jorge does as the IT Manager on a day to day basis.   Next we  dive in to the headache of web overlays and where we are in fighting the battle against them.   The conversation then moves too distant learning, and the importance of teachers understanding basic accessibility and accessible instruction.     Here is the web accessibility Overlay fact sheet we discuss during the interview.   The Miami Lighthouse was heavily involved in reviewing the Presidential candidates websites during the 2020 election. We find out if politicians are following the Lighthouses’s advice on the importance of making their website accessible as we approach the Mid-term elections.   Virginia then walks us through one outstanding example of a case where The Florida Division of Blind Services really excelled.   We then discuss the differences between working with younger and older visually impaired and blind individuals.   We discuss policy of government agencies, and the Lighthouse, and how important tackling the mental health side of blindness needs to be.   Virginia then explains to us some of the non-technical services that the Miami Lighthouse offers.   We find out how and who is eligible for services from the Miami Lighthouse.   There are several ways to keep up with the Miami Lighthouse. If you are eligible for services through them, you may want to check out their online shop. To check out all of the amazing services the Miami Lighthouse offers, please visit their website. To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show,  and we have found Jeanine, she’s alive, and we sucked her in to the That Real Blind Tech Show lair for a massive recap of WWDC 2022. So welcome back Jeanine Stanley, and Allison Meloy is here as well. Sorry Allison no creative lengthy intro for you.   We start off finding out what the Matrix has been like, as that is the only reasonable explanation to where has Jeanine been.   We start off discussing the new S lady, er, well it took us awhile but eventually we found a name for the new Sonos assistant, how about the S dude! We don’t believe it is taken yet.    Next before jumping in to everything WWDC, we discuss a landmark lawsuit coming in from Australia against Google and YouTube.   Then it is on to WWDC 2022. We start off discussing the high quality audio description for this year’s keynote, what some of our highlights were and if we had any disappointments from the keynote.       We got two new Macs coming next month, an M2 Mac Air and a M2 Mac Book Pro. Will either of these devices be in any of our futures? We also got a new Apple 35W charger that will have two UsbC ports.   We discuss the rumor that Eloquence voices are coming to the iPhone and Mac. We cannot confirm or deny this rumor. We then get in to what excites us most about iOS 16. We then discuss all the changes coming to the newly redesigned locked screen. Next we will be getting iCloud Family Sharing of the photo library. You will now be able to edit and delete sent messages, however, people will be able to tell that changes have been made to the message. Siri is going to kind of get smarter, as she will now be able to hang up phone calls and add emojis. Medication tracking is coming to the health app. Safety Check, a new feature will help people escape domestic violence. iOS 16 apps will now need to ask permission to access the clipboard, ugh. Haptic feedback will be coming to the keyboard, really, we thought it was already there for VoiceOver users.   Apple Pay later is coming to Apple wallet, but is this really a good thing? Shockingly, we learned Apple Maps currently does not have multi-stop directions, well it will in iOS 16.   We talk about sports scores and play by play coming to sports, and if you are an Apple News Plus member, you will be able to get news about your favorite teams, but some of us already have apps that do this. The Home app will get an all new badly needed redesign.   In our favorite segment of the keynote, the Geek was back, as he told us all about the new Watch OS. I love this guy! We are not runners on this show, but lots of new things for those of you who have been known to run. More on sleep tracking to, but nothing about keeping Freddy out of those dreams.   Mac OS Ventura is coming and is supposed to improve continuity between all of our devices. We discuss the new Stage Time coming to FaceTime and Zoom, and the new Desk. View. We try and figure out what the difference is between deleting a sent message and recalling one, as some of this stuff got quite confusing. Free Form collaboration is coming to the Mac, but will it be accessible, and useful? Stage Manager is yet another feature coming to the Mac, but again, will it be useful for VoiceOver users? And yet another new feature called App Windows will be coming to the Mac. Head can explode now.    The biggest most revolutionary announcement at this year’s WWDC, in our opinion, is PassKey, Apple’s attempt to replace old school annoying passwords. Wow, if this actually works.   The long awaited global nightmare of the iPad not having a weather app is over!   We discuss Live Text and Jeanine gives us an example of how she has used it.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The gang is back together again in the That Real Blind Tech Show lair.   On this episode we start off discussing WWDC, oh wait, that is still a few weeks off.   What does Morgan Freeman and Zuckhead have in common? Well, you will have to listen or read this article to find out.   We figure that we’re all adults here, well maybe except for Brian, but we still discuss how Pornhub has changed the world.   In the absolutely ridiculous portion of the news, California parents will soon be able to sue over their children’s social media addictions.   In more sensible news, Apple is reminding developers that by June 30th, if their app offers the ability to create an account, it must offer the option to delete an account. In a totally utopian world, Apple wants you to be able to switch devices just by picking one up.   Netflix is stepping up its commitment to Audio Description and Captioning. Did you see the memo the CEO of Netflix sent to woke employees? We did.   One of us never dreams, so we thought it would be a good time to ask, do blind people dream? And if so, do they dream visually or in sound? And if you dream, what about nightmares too?   From dreams and nightmares to employment of the blind and low vision. We thought it would be a good time to re-visit how much of a struggle it still is for many people in the low vision and blind community to find suitable employment. And does remote work lead to more low vision and blind people getting employed?      In honor of the upcoming WWDC from Apple, we decided to take a look back at last year’s WWDC to recall what excited us about new features, and what we think about those new features now that we have been using them for a year. Hold on to your hat for this ride!   The one thing that does have us excited about WWDC 22 is the recent mention of Door Detection coming in the next iOS update, hopefully it will not be as much as a lame duck as recent iOS new features.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.    

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as Brian is joined in the That Real Blind Tech Show lair by Joe Steinkamp. Joe is here to discuss all the exciting news that came out of this year’s Google IO.   We start off discussing Joe’s tweeting habits during big tech announcement sessions, and then directly move in to why Talk Back still sucks so bad.   We then dive in to the big announcements that came out of this year’s google IO. We start off discussing the upcoming Pixel Watch  and Fit Bit accessibility. We then discuss Google copying Apple, which leads us in to discussing Google Glass.   The word accessibility came up several times during Google IO, but not in the way we would have hoped.   The conversation then turns to Android 13.   Google announced the Google Pixel 6A, who is this device being marketed towards? And Pixel Tablets again.   We then discuss both Google and Apple’s current business philosophies, and the state of accessibility development.   And of course it is more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   You can keep up with Joe at Blind Bargains. And make sure to follow Joe on Twitter.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.    

Brian and Ed are back in the That Real Blind Tech Show Lair, and are thrilled to be joined by the recently rewired, not retired Larry Goldberg. Larry just left Yahoo, as their Head of Accessibility.   We start off asking Larry about the future of accessibility at Yahoo.   We revisit our history over the past few years with Yahoo and the All Blind Fantasy Football League. If you have not seen the mini documentary about The All Blind League, you can watch it here. If you are interested in joining the Second All Blind Fantasy Football League which will be launching this August, email us in ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com to reserve your spot.   Coming up in just a few days is Global Accessibility Awareness Day which Larry is involved with, we get his thoughts about where the state of accessibility is in 2022. Larry is also involved with XR Access, a group who’s goal is making augmented and virtual reality accessible to all, we dive in to what is coming up with them as their virtual conference will be June 9th and 10th.   We then begin our stroll down memory lane with a This is your life with Larry Goldberg. We discuss some of Larry’s career highlights, some lesser known moments of Larry’s career, and of course discuss all the amazing achievements Larry has accomplished in the name of accessibilityy.   We discuss how a USC Broadcast graduate ends up working in accessibility. Larry explains how captioning eventually led to audio description in television and film. We discuss the early days of audio description and how audio description has evolved here in 2022.   We then talk about Larry’s involvement with the 21st Century Communications Act, and find all about Teach Access.   We wrap up discussing what we can look forward to from Larry Goldberg the Consultant. You can keep up with Larry through his LinkedIn page.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as the gang is back together in their still socially distant lairs of choice. We start off again with a little peek behind the curtains to our discussion before we actually hit record. Ok, so record had obviously already been hit, but we speak freely until we actually kick off the show.   Once we get rock and rolling, we start off discussing Global Password Day. Who even knew this was a thing? So for the big day, we discuss our latest methods of managing all those messy passwords. In honor of Global Password Day, Apple, Microsoft, and Google have come together looking to get rid of passwords! And to do so they will be using Fido.   CNN Plus Sleeps with the fishes! We didn’t even get to talk about the launch. And is Netflix adding ads?   At least as of June 1st on this show we will have some competition for the name the S Lady.    Apple has announced they will be lowering trade in prices on all devices not named iPhone. Since we have the queen of returns on our show, we thought we would get Allison’s expert advice on how she maximizes value on all those returns.   VoiceDream Reader has come to the Mac, but why would someone need or want it?   Some users are having a weird iOS bug where Apple Music is replacing other music providers in their dock. Conspiracy theorists are out in the millions!   With Edge recently passing Safari as the second most used desktop browser, we thought we would visit our go to browsers of choice.   We discuss the recent article about best wireless headphones in 2022.   The conversation then moves to the word Transitioning and why is this word used so predominantly in the blindness community. One of us has a big issue with it. Bet you can guess which one of us does!   Next we discuss our favorite items from the recent article top ten cellphone myths.   We then go over a couple of emails from Dan and Mary regarding a blunder that happened with the release of an episode a few weeks ago.   Finally, it’s a classic story from Brian, and more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now, and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Sam Seavey to the That Real Blind Tech Show Lair. If Sam’s name is not familiar to you, his YouTube Channel probably is as Sam produces The Blind Life.   Sam takes us through how he started The Blind Life originally known as The Blind Spot, what made him want to get in to producing videos for the blind and low vision, and his experience with Android devices of all things.   We discuss some of the initial accessibility barriers Sam faced when he launched his YouTube channel, and what some of the challenges he faces producing his channel in 2022.   Sam then shares his experiences being back in person at ATIA and CSUN conferences this year.   Since we are both tech shows, we discuss reviewing products and how we handle a product that we just cannot give a positive review about. We then tackle the common complaint that assistive technology products are overpriced.   Here at That Real Blind Tech Show, our setup is fairly simplistic, as we just work with audio. We were quite curious to learn about Sam’s setup for filming video, and how accessible the products he uses are for the blind and low vision. Sam tells us about the first Sony camcorder to have a screen reader built in to it, but hold your horses, as the screen reader is still unfortunately, in its development stages.   While Sam’s The Blind Life Channel is completely free to view and subscribe to, he does need to eat, so if you are a fan of his content we discuss the different subscription levls he offers.   We then get Sam’s advice for people in our community who have been thinking about starting their own YouTube Channel.    You can keep up with Sam on The Blind Life YouTube  and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, now on Tick Tock if you use this one.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Liz Gutman from International Digital Center (IDC) to the That Real Blind Tech Show lair.   Liz is the Head Writer for Audio Description at IDC. She explains to us what that entails, how she first learned about audio description, and how she got involved with working in Audio Description writing.   Liz pulls back the curtain a little, and lets us know about her process for writing an Audio Described script. We discuss the difference between good and not so good audio description, and learn that putting together an Audio Described script is more of a team effort than you would think.   We ask Liz if the studios and production companies are aware of the difference between high quality audio description and the other stuff.   We then discuss Brian’s experience reading his first Audio Described track and Liz’s experience working with him.   Liz then explains to us what her experience was like writing the Audio Described script for Bridgerton. You can read the article that both Liz and Brian are quoted in about Audio Description in the Wall Street Journal.   Liz is now teaching Audio Description writing with her former mentor Colleen Conner and while the current classes are completely sold out, you can learn more about them here. You can keep up with all things Liz by following her on Twitter.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech Show as the gang is back together and one of us has an all new podcast lair.   We start off discussing the fun back and forth we have been having with our friends over at Blind Guy Talks Tech.   We begin our tech segment of the show discussing how Uber and Lift’s initial response to the NYC Subway shooting was to hike all passenger fares in time of an emergency. Did you hear the one about the cops that pulled over a self driving car in San Francisco? We did.   Elon Musk is interested in buying Twitter. His bid came in just a smidge ahead of ours.   In our legal corner this week, some Russians are attempting to sue Netflix over them shutting down in their country.   Zuckhead wants Meta’s AR glasses to be Facebook’s iPhone moment. Here’s a role reversal, Apple is now calling out Facebook for their plans to take 50% from Mettaverse sales. Apple is rumored to be testing a feature that would allow app developers to automatically charge users for subscription price increases. Bad apple, Bad Apple. Are Apple’s own privacy concerns getting in their own way of innovation? With WWDC sneaking up on us, we decided to put together a wish list for Apple stock app improvements. You may want to hold off on buying a new Mac anytime soon as Apple is rumored to be working on 9 different M2 Macs.   We then check in on our Android experiences and discuss our thoughts of using the device, the gestures, and whether or not we plan to keep our Android phones.   We then discuss the state of accessibility for a few apps that are really failing pretty miserably.        We then talk about a new topic, NFT’s. We actually had to look up what they are!   In honor of Spring Cleaning, we decided to talk robot vacuums. If you have a model you are loving, please do let us know and email us in at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com.   And of course its more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian is once again flying solo for another super cool, super useful That Real Blind Tech Show demo. He has the keys to the That Real Blind Tech Show lair, and can get in it any time he chooses.   First a test as the 144th person to email us in at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com wins a million dollars. Full disclosure, there is absolutely nothing true about this previous statement, and no moola is being given away, just testing if you actually read the show notes as Brian mentioned on this episode.   Brian starts off demoing the item chooser on the Mac and how useful it has become in his daily workflow. He shows off the benefits of using the item chooser on the desktop and how it will not work in mail. He goes through using first letter navigation to quickly find emails, and then back to the item chooser in safari and numbers. Brian shows the difference between using the item chooser and web item rotor.    Brian next walks you through using your Jump Command, VO J in finder windows and Mac mail. He demonstrates the issue in Mac OS Monterrey where you cannot get rid of the toolbar in finder windows or you will lose access to your side bar. Brian then shows you how to quickly add a folder to your side bar and dock as well as remove them.   Lastly, Brian shows you how to enable dictation on your Mac and gives an example of how improved dictation is on the Mac.    To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome in Helgar Kellanstonian to the That Real Blind Tech Show lair for an interview you must hear. And that is all we can say about it in the show notes.    After our conversation with Helgar. Ed vanishes, and Allison and TJ Meloy enter the lair to discuss Android of all things. Yes, Android. Allison and TJ recently purchased Motorola Droids and Brian picked up a Samsung Flip Z3. Hey, it’s the 90’s all over, and we are flipping phones closed again.   We start off talking about why we wanted to dive in to the Android ecosystem, getting started with TouchID, and the ease of the setup process.   We give you our initial thoughts of the Talk Back screen reader and how steep we feel the learning curve is for new Talk Back users.   We discuss some of the main similarities and differences between VoiceOver and Talk Back. Some likes and dislikes, and some of the first few apps we have downloaded and played around with.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome in Jon Buonaspina to the That Real Blind Tech Show lair. Jon works for DeQue Systems.   Jon begins with  telling us what DeQue Systems does, and what his role with the company entails. He then lets us know how someone without a visual impairment ended up working in accessibility.    We then get Jon’s thoughts about whether or not the Department of Justice should implement some kind of minimum web accessibility standards, and yes, we hate using the word minimum.   Jon discusses some of the tools he uses when working with a client, and how he learned screen reader technology.   The conversation then turns to Laugh For Sight and The roast of Brian Fischler which Jon was at.   If your company is in need of accessibility fixes, maintenance, help building your companies accessibility team, please reach out to Deque Systems here.      To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian welcomes Troy Otillio, CEO of Aira and Jeanine Stanley, Aira Social Media Manager to the virtual That Real Blind Tech Show lair. While  We start off discussing what made Troy initially want to invest in the future of Aira.    Jeanine then tells us what she does at Aira as their Social Media Manager.   Troy then tells us about the exciting new Aira Desktop which is in the works and will be launching later this year. Jeanine tells us that Aira Desktop will be coming to both the Mac and PC.    Troy discusses with us how Aira has been handling the worker shortage, and how it has effected them.   Jeanine tells us about the Airacast which you can subscribe to here. Troy then tells us about the sustainability of Aira, and how Aira is working with employers.   Jeanine then tells us about some of the more humorous social media encounters she has had.    Troy then tells us about the benefit of using multiple visual interpreter services.    Jeanine then tells us what she enjoys most about working at Aira.    Troy informs us how you might be able to bring an Aira hotspot to your city or business.      To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It is a super duper ultimate packed That Real Blind Tech Show lair as Allison, Brian, and Ed are joined by Dr. Bryan Woolenski to discuss the new Tech Center that was recently launched at the Lighthouse guild NYC, this year’s CSUN, Axe-Con, and much more.   We start off discussing a recent survey which decided on the happiest places on Earth. What, no Disney Kingdom?   Walgreens is replacing fridge doors with digital screens. Is this leaving the blind further behind? Netflix is claiming people who are sharing their passwords are preventing Netflix from producing great content. Are you one of these horrible people? Some of us are, Microsoft Edge now provides screen labels, err alt text for images.  and proud of it. And it looks like the Smart Home of tomorrow will once again be delayed. Does it Matter?   Ed then joins Dr. Bryan in the interview chair as we ask them about the new tech center recently launched at the Lighthouse Guild NYC. We discuss both Bryan and Ed’s roles at the Lighthouse Guild NYC, what the Lighthouse Guild NYC hopes to accomplish with the new tech center, and the benefits of all the services the Lighthouse Guild NYC offers its customers.   Dr. Bryan was at CCSUN, so we welcome Ed back to the interviewer side of things, and we discuss what Dr. Bryan enjoyed about CSUN 2022, what impressed him, Gaming, and the benefits of being back at an in person conference.   The musical charts continue as Brian with an I moves in to the interviee chair next to discuss his presentation with Yahoo Fantasy at this year’s Axe-Con. Allison and Ed hold Brian’s feet to the fire with a Congress like questioning of him.   And of course it is more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!       To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show, join us as we talk some tech and create a new word. Allison, Brian, and Jeanine gathered together in the That Real Blind Tech show lair to discuss the Apple Event and some other tech topics.    We start off discussing the good of social media, and a unique way that people are using Air BnB to help send money to people in the Ukraine.   After discussing the Ukraine, we move on to the bizarre story about a man in Florida who was killed by a co-worker while in a Port A Potty, yes, while in a Port A Potty.   Does your FitBit have you all hot and bothered? Well, you are not alone. And we have heard of cellular networks throttling your connection speed, but now, phones are throttling app speeds, this is a new one. And Dropbox finally got an update out for M1 Macs, but what about M1 Ultra Macs?   Axe Con will be taking place on March 15th to the 17th, and you can catch Brian as part of the Yahoo Fantasy, It’s not just a game panel on Tuesday, March 15th at 130pm EST. You can register to attend this massive accessibility focused conference for free here.    Apple kicked off its March event discussing two new colors for the iPhone 13 lineup. Apple must not have gotten the memo as AppleTV Plus is now offering Friday night baseball, of course there would have to be baseball played for this to happen.   The first new product that Apple announced is the iPhone SE third generation. This could be the most popular model of the iPhone for people who are blind. The M1 chip now comes to the new iPad Air.   Apple then announced the launch of the all new Mac Studio. Is it a laptop, desktop, bird or plane? And to monitor or not to monitor? On a more serious note, if someone is buying one of these new Mac Studios and using VoiceOver, should they bump up the Ram on a M1 machine.   We are not sure of the accessibility of the OCR Scanning Pen, and how accurate you need to be with it, but this could be a very promising product for the blind.   You are going to start hearing a lot about Matter, a process that will make all of your Smart Home devices communicate with each other better. And of course it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s another super cool, super solo, That Real Blind Tech Show demo coming at you. Brian is alone in the virtual lair again, and thanks to an email, decided to put together a demo of the Keyboard Commander for you.   Should you be up on how to use the Keyboard Commander, skip ahead to the second part of the episode where Brian will demo some of the serious navigation issues with the Mac Catalyst designed apps and VoiceOver.   Brian walks you through his set of keyboard commanders that he uses on a daily basis. He then walks you through how to set up a keyboard commander to open a program, and follows that with setting up a keyboard commander to perform some VoiceOver specific tasks like setting different keyboard commanders to control your system volume and your VoiceOver voice volume.    Brian then decides to torture himself, and show you the myriad of issues with Catalyst designed apps and VoiceOver. He starts off with messages, then moves to the Music app, and finally ends up in the worst of all the catalyst designed apps, the App Store.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The gang is back together once again in the That Real Blind Tech Show virtual lair.   We start off talking about a possible Y2K Part two on the news that the chrome and Firefox browsers may stop working with some websites as they hit version 100.? Then it is on to Brian’s latest favorite story of the year, about a man who shut down his town’s internet while trying to curb his kids screen time.   Facebook continues to rebrand and they have changed the name of the News Feed to, well, you will never guess what! And blow the dust off the app, but we actually have some KNFB news.   If you have an old PC or Mac lying around as a paper weight then you may want to think about turning it in to a chrome book using the new Google Chrome flex. But of course, is the process accessible?   We then talk a little medical science and if we have ever been approached about a cure for our blindness. This leads us to the disturbind story of Second Sight and Argus the second. On a some what related note, are carriers shutting down 3G networks too soon? And on the heals of 3G going bye bye, Wifi 7 is coming, but wait didn’t Wifi 6 just get here?   With inflation rocketing up we decided to discuss a little prep work for making sure those finances are secure. We then dive in to how much each of us is worth, and you might be surprised by this! We then discuss the rising cost of Amazon Prime and Netflix.    CSUN is coming up in March, but has the conference Jumped the Shark?AxeCon is coming this March 15th to the 17th, you can sign up to virtually attend here.   We have emails. If you tell them the email address ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com they will come!   It’s a new segment, Tweet of the week.   Then it is more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now, and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an all new Super Duper Super Cool That Real Blind Tech Show demo as Brian was flying solo and decided to put together a demo of Mac Mail and talk about why he loves it so much.    Brian first discusses the two main view options for mail, the great way with the mail preview pane closed, and the annoying way with the mail preview pane opened. He walks you through using mail in both of these view modes, and demonstrates the different behaviors.   He then walks you through working with multiple mailboxes. Why this is a fantastic way to organize your email through iCloud. How to move a message to a mailbox, how to create a new mailbox, and how to delete a mailbox. He also shows you why it is best to use Mac Mail with QuickNav turned off and how to work with message threads.    Brian then attempts to walk you through iCloud.com and creating a mail universal rule, but unfortunately, iCloud.com is still a freaking train wreck for VoiceOver users.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The entire gang is back together again, and we snuck Jeanine in to the That Real Blind Tech Show Lair. We left some nonsense in at the beginning to give you a peak in to our non-podcast minds, as it cracks us up.       We start off discussing Apple suing a Ukrainian filmmaker over his film titled Apple Man. We continue moving forward with the legal part of the show as FlickType’s lawsuit versus Apple will be moving forward.   We then dive in to UnderscoreGate.  Next we dive in too Quick Notes and where the heck is it for VoiceOver users? Can one of us be right and completely wrong at the same time? After that we discuss the soon to arrive universal control and how it is much much different than side car, but hey people are confusing them. You may want to hold off installing the Mac OS 12.3 beta if you are a dropbox or One driver user. iCloud Keychain will be adding a notes component in iOS 15.4. It looks as if sports scores and favorite team news may be coming to Apple News.   Action Audio brought the Australian Open to blind tennis fans in a new way, but was it helpful or did it remind you of Atari tennis?   Aira has partnered with the NFB, and will help anyone take a Covid test.   Aira will also be describing the Super Bowl pre-game show The Puppy Bowl, and the half time festivities on February 13, 2022. Additionally, if you are a football novice or newbie, you can tune in early and get a Football 101 presented to you by Brian and Liz Loza from Yahoo Fantasy Football. Sign up here.   Thanks to an email from Rebecca Skipper, we decided to have a PC versus Mac smack down, or smack off. We kick it off discussing our most used apps on our PC or Mac.  We then discuss a few of our favorite things that are unique to the PC or Mac. Next we hit upon limitations to an operating system. And we touch on the ease of access getting started as a newbie to an operating system, and how difficult it may be to troubleshoot. We wrap up our PC versus Mac smackdown discussing which OS each of us believes is easier to get up and running with faster as a new screen reader user.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.  

It’s another super cool, super solo That Real Blind Tech Show demo. This time Brian is left alone in the podcast lair and he demos the Spectrum Cable app and the incredible improvements that have been made to this now fully accessible iOS app.   Brian walks you through all the tabs in the app, the Home Screen, live TV, channel guide, on demand content, and the most fantastic feature, the cloud DVR. The Cloud DVR now allows you to play content with its Audio Described track. Hold on to your socks and shoelaces, this is going to be a fun ride.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome to the That Real Blind Tech Show virtual lair  Eric Wickstrom, Director of Audio Production at IDC.   With a career very heavily focused in audio production, we find out when Eric first learned of Audio Description and what he enjoys most about making TV and film accessible to everyone.    We discuss Eric’s time at the USA Network along with some of their hit shows like Suits, Burn Notice, Psych, and why the network moved away from its Characters Welcome approach.   We dive in to the F Word on Network TV, and the humorous use of it, and removal of it.    We talk about USA Network and the inception of Audio Description arriving to the network.   We discuss how much influence blind organizations have on Audio Description, and who drives the most change in the business.    We also discuss the cost of adding an AD track, and why it is logical to just do it.   Of course, Netflix comes up and their amazing commitment to Audio Description.   Since we have an expert on the podcast, we find out why one streaming service may have a title with Audio Description but then that same title shows up on another streaming service without Audio Description. We want to know why! We also dive in to the difference between high quality audio description versus subpar audio description.   We talk about some of the challenges describers face when describing for a totally blind audience versus a low vision audience, and the tough calls they need to make.      We then tackle the difficult conversation of Text to Speech automated audio description, and how it affects the industry.   Eric tells us what it is like to work with blind describers, and it is something he is willing to share with his competitors if any of them want to take him up on it.       We wrap up discussing whether or not the Academy may ever recognize Audio Description as a category, as they seem to have an award for everything else.   To keep up with Eric, make sure to follow him on Twitter. To keep up with the Audio Description Training Retreats, you can follow them as well on Twitter.    To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

For the first time in awhile, the full gang is back together in the newly renamed Podcast Lair. With 2022 off to an Evil start, we figured we would ditch the bunker for a lair!       We start Evil 2022 off with the story that shocked all of us, no pun intended. Alexa telling a little girl to do something with a penny.   We briefly discuss fantasy football, because one of us is a Champion We then touch on Sports Online gambling becoming legal in New York State!   911 is taking a page out of Aira’s playbook, as they are looking to live stream through your camera to see what’s going on.   AT&T and Verizon have agreed to put the expansion of their 5G Networks on hold. Well, at least for now.   MobilEye the former parent company of Orcam is working to release a fully autonomous vehicle by 2025.   Forget about the latest Apple iPhone rumors, we want to discuss the one about Google paying Apple to stay out of the search engine business.   WORDLEis the hottest thing on the planet other than South Florida. Even though we are not sure of the accessibility of the game, WORDLEBOT at least is bringing accessibility fixes to tweets about the game.   Outside of WORDLE the next most popular word we have been hearing is Metaverse. So, what is it?   We begin our CES segment coverage discussing what else, but autonomous vehicles. Singled announced a lightbulb that could track your sleep at CES. Finally, what we have all been waiting for, our pets can now text us! The one thing that we all want from this year’s CES is a Sound Bar that can send music to you without the use of headphones! Schlage Smart Locks will allow you to put your key in your Apple Wallet. Dell obviously does not listen to Apple customer feedback as they have brought a Touch Bar to their new model laptop and got rid of the headphone jack.   One of us had a major screw up on our PC. We talk about things not to do when installing new software.   New products. If you are a Mac user and in need of a new keyboard, look no further than the Logitech MX keys for Mac. If you are a Air Pod Max owner, check out this new charging stand from Satechi. And of course, it would not be a That Real Blind Tech show if one of us didn’t return a Mac Book Pro.   And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian and Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

To kick the new year off, Brian is joined in the Virtual That Real Blind Tech Show Studio by Samuel Proulx, Accessibility Evangelist for Fable.   Samuel tells us what the missions of Fable are, the meaning behind the name, and what an Accessibility Evangelist does.   We then find out what Fable’s short and long term goals are.    We discuss how Samuel got in to working in accessibility,  long history working with screen readers, and what he enjoys about working in accessibility.    If you are interested in learning more about Fable and interested in becoming part of the Fable Team, you can learn more about it here.   We get Samuel’s opinion on screen reader overlays and find out Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading up in Canada.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Steven Scott in to the That Real Blind Tech Show virtual studio.   We try and find out the dirt behind Steven leaving RNIB Tech Talk, and discuss his new podcast, Blind Guy Talks Tech, and what he hopes to accomplish with his new show.   Steven walks us through his early days working in radio. Yes, radio. It was a thing back then.  We find out how he went from being a rock DJ to NewsRadio to RNIB Tech Talk.    We discuss the negativity of social media and have some fun with it.    We then go back to the beginning and find out what caused Steven’s vision loss and how it affected him growing up.  Some how this leads to what we would be doing had we not lost our vision, and one of us wonders if it would have been a life of crime, and what prison might be like for the blind.   We then revisit the first days of RNIB Tech Talk and how it all began. We find out who was a major influence on Steven, and then move on to finding out how Double tap came to be   We discuss the synergy between Steven and his various Co-Hosts. . We also discuss how funny translates on our podcasts, and why it is so important to be real.  And of course the conversation moves towards some of our favorite feedback we have gotten over the years, and some of the more bizarre feedback.   We then discuss the AfterShockz OpenComm’s and Bose Frames.   You can keep up with Steven on   Twitter and make sure to tune in on January 10th for the launching of Steven’s all new podcast Blind Guy Talks Tech.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

With the end of 2021 here, and Ed and Allison off with holiday family responsibilities, Brian decided to creep in to the Virtual That Real Blind Tech show studio and drop some of What Is Pissing Brian Off as 2021 rounds out. Not to worry, he made it a festive What’s Pissing Off Brian with demos to go along with it all.   Brian starts off discussing the iOS Paramount Plus app, its accessibility issues, and the baffling commitment to Audio Description by CBS. How can shows have audio description on every other episode? Does no one at CBS or Paramount check this stuff? Here’s an idea Paramount Plus, hire a blind dude or dudette to make sure this does not continue to happen in 2022. Brian gives a brief demo of the layout of the app.   Next Brian walks you through the accessibility issues when trying to order groceries through the Amazon Prime section in the Amazon iOS app. While it is usable, it is quite a frustrating mind numbing experience.   Next it is off to the Mac  and VoiceOver running OS Monterrey. Brian shows you the disappearing desktop, why you can no longer hide the toolbar in finder, but can in mail, and the hilarious dictation Siri VoiceOver bug.   To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Sina Bahram in to the Virtual That Real Blind Tech Show studio.   We find out from Sina what it is like to experience zero gravity as Sina was part of the first all disabled crew to get to experience what space flight feels like.  Sina then tells us how he got involved with Astro Access.   Sina then walks us through the age he was diagnosed with a vision issue and how it affected him growing up.   We find out how Sina got involved with coding at such a young age, and how he got his Masters in Computer Science Engineering.  Which then led to his work with museums all around the world.    We then discuss the Aria AT Project, a project which aims to conquer the mountain known as screen reader inoperability. We discuss companies getting it right and how important it is for companies to be thinking about universal design from day one.    The conversation then moves to accessible overlays and what a scam they are for companies trying to fix their website accessibility. To view the overlay fact sheet click here.   Make sure to keep up with Sina on Twitter and on his blog on his website.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

  It has been awhile, but once again it is Brian flying solo with a super cool super helpful super useful demo, that is basically, pretty super.   Brian will walk Mac users through using the NumPad Commander. He walks you through how to enable the NumPad commander, how to toggle it on and off, his NumPad Commands, how to customize your own NumPad commands, and shows some of the commands off in action.    The fantastic option about making use of the NumPad commander, is you can do a lot with one hand, and you can also have hundreds of NumPad commands when you make use of the modifier keys the Zero key, Shift, Control, Option, and command.    A possible bug with using VoiceOver single key navigation may have reared its ugly head while doing the demo as Single Key Quick Nav seems to not always work when browsing the web in OS Monterrey. Brian left this in the demo as a few days later when testing Single Key Quick Nav it failed yet again.    Brian also will walk you through working with web spots, how to set one up, how to navigate with them, and discuss why they are so valuable.      To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The gang is back together to discuss the latest tech news after our two fantasy football centric episodes. Jeanine is pinch hitting for Ed, as Ed had some bad clams, and we will just leave it with that.    We start off discussing the story that one lucky or unlucky individual can sell their face for the price of two hundred thousand dollars to be the face of PromoBot robots moving forward. If you are interested in selling your face then go here.   Sight Tech global will be December 1 and December 2, you can register for the free virtual online conference here. Friend of the podcast, Larry Goldberg and Brian will be presenting on a panel at the conference.    Jeanine then fills us in about the Carroll Centerer Virtual Technology Fair that took place on November 23rd.   Some Tesla owners got locked out of their cars by the Tesla app, and boy did we laugh our asses off about it. HBOMax and Air Pods, Pod Pros, and Maxes are not playing nicely together, well at least for sighted people! Amazon has released a Mac stand alone app for amazon Prime, and while the design is clunky, the catalyst designed app seems accessible.   We discuss Black Friday, because some of us want things, and some of us may flip flop about what we want.  We then discuss our go to shopping apps and the state of these apps accessibility in November 2022.    It’s the story that will not go away, Apple is on track to deliver a fully autonomous self driving car by 2025. Will this happen? What laws and regulations will need to go in to affect for a blind person to take control and get out on the road?  Apple is also bringing Do It Yourself fixes for iPhones and Macs to the masses in 2022.   With security vulnerabilities not going away, we revisit what we are doing to keep our passwords safe and unique.    We then discuss a few new products that are actually not Apple! But of course at the end of the day, it all comes back to Apple, as Windows could potentially becoming to M1 Macs after a contract between Qualcomm and Microsoft expires. We then discuss a brilliant plug in for your Mac, VOcr. You can download it from GitHub. Here is the direct download link.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.    To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Once again, it is an overstuffed That Real Blind Tech Show virtual studio, as Brian and Ed welcome members of Yahoo that were instrumental in the production of the Yahoo Mini Documentary about The All Blind Fantasy Football League. We also welcome in all members of the league who were able to attend this year’s live in person draft  to get their thoughts on the documentary now that it has been released.  We kick this episode off with Larry Goldberg, Yahoo Head of Accessibility.    You can read the article that came out in 2020 about how The All Blind Football League started here.   To register for free for the upcoming Sight Tech Global on December 1 and 2nd, where Brian and Larry will be presenting the documentary and discussing  the company/consumer relationship for inclusive design  click here.   We then welcome in Libby Luna, the Producer of the Yahoo Mini documentary. We discuss what the post production process was like, and how she came to cut 8 hours of filming down to just under five minutes.   Next up is Brian’s nemesis Lord D’ambrosio Vader. Seriously everyone, Nick and Brian get along just fine. Nick shares with us his love of fantasy football and a little adventure he had at the border getting to New York to film the draft.   We then welcome long time listener first time caller Allison Meloy to the show to get her initial thoughts of seeing the documentary, and find out what she hopes it will accomplish..    David Goldstein then stops by to discuss how much he enjoyed meeting everyone in person, what the filming experience was like, and his thoughts of the mini documentary.   Then it’s part time That Real Blind Tech show host Jeanine Stanley. Jeanine discusses what it was like drafting a fantasy football team for the first time, how much fun she has had playing fantasy football, her thoughts about the documentary, and how to and how not to properly smack talk!   Up next is TJ Meloy. TJ co-manages his team with Allison, and tells us how surprised he is in how much fun he is having with fantasy football. TJ chimes in with his thoughts about the documentary.   Following is Frank Hipolito. Frank is leading the league in points, and talks about how much fun it was meeting everyone in person, and learning about everybody in the league.    Dominick Petrillo, a part time contributor to The Athletic then joins us, discussing his first year in the All Blind League.    The last member from The All Blind League to pop on with us is Richard Guerrero. Richard talks about how much fun it was meeting everyone in person and how much he has enjoyed playing fantasy the past few years. He then lets us know what he thinks of the documentary.    It would not be a full recap of our experience without an interview with Edith, Nick’s better half, who was one of our sighted guides during filming.    Last but definitely not least, Colin Bright, the Lead Motion Graphics Artist from Yahoo joins us to discuss his thoughts of the entire filming process, fantasy football, and the post production process of working on the documentary.      To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005..   

Allison, Brian, and Ed welcome Jeanine and TJ Meloy in to a fully overpacked overstuffed virtual phone booth studio to discuss our experiences filming the Yahoo All Blind Football League Mini Documentary that was just released on Yahoo and Yahoo’s YouTube channel.   Before we dove in to our filming experience, we had to start off talking about a certain member of the That Real Blind Tech show Team who ended up flip flopping more times then a fat man in a water bed and now owns a new Mac Book M1 Pro. Whom, I wonder who it could be?    That person gives us a break down of their experience with the new Mac Book Pro and their thoughts so far of the base model. We then discuss whether or not Keyboard Maestro is still a useful tool for Mac users.   We then discuss the Air Pod Maxes as one of us took the leap, and TJ chimes in with his thoughts about why he loves the Maxes almost as much as he loves Allison.    The Bose Frames will soon have some competition as Anker will be releasing the SoundCore Frames.   Ed has been testing out the Envision AI glasses for a few days, and gives us his initial thoughts of them.    Since our last episode iOS 15.1 has been released giving us SharePlay for some music and movies. Will any of us ever use this feature   We then dive in to why all five of us are on this episode. We wanted to share our experiences filming the Yahoo Fantasy All Blind football League Draft mini documentary which you can now view on Yahoo and the Yahoo Fantasy YouTube Channel. Here is a direct link to the mini documentary  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHz6gPnQg8g.   . We discuss our experiences being on set, and our hopes for what the mini documentary may accomplish. We also discuss what it was like for all of us to finally meet in person and how having met in person, it has brought out a lot of smack talk in The All Blind football League.          To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Michael Kalberer in to the virtual That Real Blind Tech show studio. Michael is an uplifting spirit as he lives with both blindness from LCA  and Cerebral Palsy.    Michael is a big sports fan and tells us what it was like growing up with multiple disabilities and still participating playing sports.  We discuss how he handled being ten years old with CP and then being diagnosed with a visual impairment.    Michael explains to us what it feels like being told you are unemployable and how he proved the person wrong who told him that.    We discuss how Michael discovered he had been misdiagnosed with RP, and how randomly speaking at a Foundation Fighting Blindness seminar led to a clinical trial that changed his life.     Michael was one of the first people in the world to undergo the Brilliance trial. We find out what goes through your mind the night before being one of the first to undergo a clinical trial.  He then explains to us what CrispR is.    Michael is a member of The All Blind Fantasy Hockey League, we discuss how he uses accessible technology to follow his team.  Even though Brian could talk all day about Fantasy, we get back on track with Michael discussing the first year of the results for him through the Brilliance trial.    To keep up with Michael make sure to visit his website. You can also find Michael on Facebook.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The gang is fully back together after a busy weekend and start of the week to talk the latest Apple announcements and a little other tech news.   We start off discussing some changes you may or may not want to make to VoiceOver when getting a new device. And some basic maintenance you will want to do when starting with a new Apple device.   We then discuss the serious accessibility bug that has been affecting many Amazon VoiceOver users on iOS.     On a more positive Amazon note, Amazon music will now allow unlimited subscribers to play music with spatial audio on their headphones of choice.   NASA may not let a legally blind individual boldly go where no man has gone before, but Astro Access will!   In the dumbest news of the week, Facebook is rumored to be changing their corporate name. We speculate on what a few of their new names may be.   We then dive in to the latest Apple announcements. We start off discussing the newly announced Mac Book Pros. Here’s a comparison of all Mac Book M1 Pros. Only Apple, after dropping two plus grand on one of these machines if you want to fast charge the 14 inch model you will need to still buy a $20 dongle. Seriously, only 11 hours of web browsing battery life on the new 14 inch model, is that enough?  Dogs and Cats everywhere rejoice, it’s the return of MagSafe charging for the new Mac Book Pros! Oops, the notch comes to the Mac Book Pros, but Apple decided to not share this with everyone in house.   Apple’s new GAM 140  Watt charger is supposedly a game changer, Ed explains to us why that is the case.   Here is a comparison of the newly announced Air Pod  3’s to the Air Pod Pros. We would highly recommend you spend the extra moola to get the Pros.   Seriously Apple, a micro fiber cloth for $19?   Apple announced a new $5 music plan, but who is it for?   The most anticipated feature of Mac OS Monterrey will not be released on release day.   Don’t go to Brazil to buy your Apple products. They’re a little expensive there.   And in some non Apple news, Google announced the Pixel 6, the prices have some of us thinking.   And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.         To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

[MUSIC PLAYING] - You're listening to "That Real Blind Tech Show" with Brian and Ed. BRIAN FISCHLER: I have a name for my chronic pain. It's called Ed. REBECCA ALEXANDER: I wanted to say first we've met in New York. ED PLUMACHER: I've read your book. I found it to be brutally honest and very straightforward. REBECCA ALEXANDER: I think that the most important thing that I can tell people is that you want to find a therapist who specializes in grief and loss. ED PLUMACHER: Hey Brian before we move on, I just have one question. I'd like to have your definition of inspiration porn? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh my God. Ed, you are a doll to take this. Oh, man. I just-- I am just tickled. I wish I had popcorn here BRIAN FISCHLER: I don't wake up anymore and think of myself as a blind person. It's just life. It's what it is. - Here is Brian and Ed. [APPLAUSE] BRIAN FISCHLER: Welcome back to another "That Real Blind Tech Show." With me today as always or almost as always is my partner in crime, Ed Plumacher. How are you doing today, Ed? ED PLUMACHER: I'm doing well there, Brian. How are you today? BRIAN FISCHLER: I am fantastic 'cause the weather is getting ready to turn. And you know, if there's one thing I like it's cold weather and everything. I'm one of those freaks. - You guys are freaks. BRIAN FISCHLER: That likes it cold and everything. ED PLUMACHER: Yeah. From a boy-- a boy from Florida loves a cold. That's interesting. BRIAN FISCHLER: Hey, born in New York. It wasn't my fault. My parents dragged me kicking and screaming to Florida at four years old and everything. But I've been back in New York since 2000 though. So it's been a pretty long time. ED PLUMACHER: Yeah, but you're still a Gator at heart. BRIAN FISCHLER: When it comes to football. That's about at football, Florida Gators fan. That's right we got-- we got a game tonight and everything. But we're not here to talk football today because joining us today is a friend of mine who has Usher syndrome. But she's much more than that. She's a best selling author. She's an extreme athlete. She's also a psychotherapist. And if you listen to this show you know two things. I'm definitely a psycho who's in need of therapy. How are you doing today Rebecca Alexander? [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: I knew there was something like that coming. I was just waiting to figure out what it was going to be. And, of course, I couldn't have predicted it. I'm doing well and I'm very happy to be joining you guys today. So Thanks for having me. ED PLUMACHER: Well, thanks for joining us, Rebecca. It's great to meet you. REBECCA ALEXANDER: He is well. BRIAN FISCHLER: So Rebecca, let's start at the beginning. It's like, welcome to your life on "That Real Blind Tech Show." Take us back to when you were first diagnosed with a vision loss. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Right. All right. So yeah. So I was diagnosed actually with retinitis pigmentosa, RP with the age of 12. I had difficulty seeing the blackboard at school. I was in the sixth grade. I told my dad. He took me to an optometrist. The optometrist said there was something in the back of my eye that his equipment wasn't sophisticated enough to identify what it was. So he sent us to an ophthalmologist. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. So we went to UCSF and, you know, they did all of the different tests that they did. I guess this was in the early '90s. And you know, the contacts with the wires coming out of them, the Goldman. BRIAN FISCHLER: Mh-hmm. REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, field of vision that we all know and love. And you know, for me at the time, I was just like, Oh, Jesus. All of this to get glasses. But-- so they, you know, told my parents that I had RP. We decided, I guess, to get a second opinion. We Went to Stanford and came up with the same information. So, you know, I was 12 years old. I don't know how you tell a 12-year-old that they're going blind when for all intents and purposes, at the time I could see relatively well. I grew up with dogs, so I tripped over them constantly. You know, there were various things I had difficulty seeing at night. All of the usual symptoms you would expect. But I was also scared of the dark. So maybe I thought that, you know, it was just me being scared of the dark. And yeah. So that was my original diagnosis with RP. And so when we started getting involved, you know, with the Foundation Fighting Blindness and everything. At the time, we only knew that I had RP, that I had retinitis pigmentosa. I was told at a young age that I had what was called a cookie-bite of hearing loss. And they thought that it was from having frequent ear infections. There was not a connection made really between the two. I used to watch TV out of the side of my left eye. And you know, what we came to deduct over time was that my left ear was always my stronger ear. So I think it was sort of this superimposed wave that I created to adapt to my hearing loss by, you know, cocking my ear, or my left ear, or my better ear forward to watch TV. BRIAN FISCHLER: You know, it's funny Rebecca, you mentioned that afraid of the dark thing, and it reminds me when I was a kid. You know, what movie scared the bejesus out of me? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Can't wait. BRIAN FISCHLER: "ET." - Elliott. - What? - Elliott. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, yeah. So scary. BRIAN FISCHLER: And my mom said to me like 10 years ago, she said, "Brian, do you think that you were afraid of "ET" because you had a vision loss problem?" And I said, no mom I think I was just a giant freaking pussy. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. That day, you too was scary. And when the whole scene with him with the stuffed animals. Ay-yi-yi. BRIAN FISCHLER: That glow in the dark finger freaked me out. Elliot. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, no. Hold on it. BRIAN FISCHLER: Elliot. Yeah. I believe it freaked me out, man. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Toddler of young age, I went to like, a friend's house, and her mom just did not supervise us, and I think we had "Freddy The 13th" on. And I must have been in like, the second grade. So needless to say, I slept in my twin brother's room for good. I don't know when did I stop sleeping in this room. Like, a year ago. [LAUGHTER] Now-- but I always slept in his room for a good four years or so. Because I was just absolutely scared shitless. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. This movies will do that to you and everything. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. ED PLUMACHER: Aside from, you know, being diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, later on, I guess, usher syndrome, reading your book, I read about this your devastating accident which had a major impact on your life as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, it's interesting because I wrote a memoir as you know. And thank you for reading it. And I know that generally, I assume that it usually ends up in people's bathroom as wonderful toilet reading. So I appreciate your taking the time. But what people oftentimes don't know is they think, Oh, yeah, here's a woman who wrote a story about-- her about her life living with a condition that causes death blindness. But a huge part of my life and to this day was impacted by this very serious accident I was in at the age of 18. I went out with some friends after, I guess, we were maybe celebrating graduation from high school or 18. We stopped at a school playground, and just pounded alcohol, and made it to some nightclub for 18. And you know, I don't know whatever it was we made it there. I was OK to get in and soon after was too drunk. And so we had to go home. And my friends brought me home and put me into bed. And, of course, I don't remember any of this. But at some point, I got up to go to the bathroom, presumably at about maybe four or something in the morning. And I was still so, you know, delirious and intoxicated that instead of going from my bedroom door I went from my bedroom window. BRIAN FISCHLER: Oh my God. REBECCA ALEXANDER: And I fell out and onto our-- yeah, flagstone patio. I fell about 27 and 1/2 feet. So it's about almost three storeys. And I broke just about everything in my body. And I was supposed to be going to college in the fall. But, of course, those plans were pushed off. And I had just about every part of my body casted. Shattered my left foot, shattered my left hand, broke my right hand, broke my back. And the only thing that wasn't casted or broken was my right foot or my right leg. And so after, you know, many surgeries and bone graft from my hip to rebuild my foot, I was only allowed to leave the hospital when I was able to get myself out of a hospital bed into a wheelchair and out of the building in the event of a fire. That's how they determine whether you're ready to go home. But the problem was the only thing I could use was my right leg. So I spent a lot of time, you know, in the hospital just figuring out how to get myself out of the hospital bed using just my right leg. And so I was home and recovered for a long time. And I still look back at that time as probably the point of really where I developed resilience and strength, not knowing that I would need as my diagnosis would be realized a little bit later on. Yeah. BRIAN FISCHLER: That's incredible. I can't imagine the state of mind you must have been in while all that was going on. What was that like? Do you recall what it was like? I mean, was it just depression, mass depression or-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, it's interesting because I was in-- so there is a combination of things, right? I mean, it forced my life to absolutely slow down. Everybody, including my twin brother who does not have RP or usher syndrome, they were going off to college. You know, my high school boyfriend, everybody was leaving. And it wasn't, like, I was staying home and I had some cool internship or that I was working. I was literally relegated to a bed and a wheelchair. I had visiting nurses that came to bathe me. And they couldn't bathe me in a shower or even a tub because I had so many casts. So I literally sat on a closed toilet seat with a visiting nurse in my birthday suit with-- BRIAN FISCHLER: Hmm. REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, a washcloth and soap. And we would just pass it back and forth. And-- and so it was an incredibly humbling experience, to say the least. You know, I had like, a calendar and I would cross off each day. And the one thing I look forward to were those doctors appointments or the physical therapy appointments that I had to put my body back together again, one bone at a time. And it was incredibly painful physically. But I think the drive and the motivation I found then was just to feel like I was going to be human again. So yeah. It's a good question. I mean, you know, one of the biggest things that I contend with now is, yes, the vision and the hearing loss. But like many of us, I live with chronic pain. And I've lived with chronic pain for the last 20 something years since that accident. And that's another piece of life that I think we don't often hear people talk about. BRIAN FISCHLER: I have a name for my chronic pain. It's called Ed. [LAUGHTER] ED PLUMACHER: There you go. Heard it. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, man. ED PLUMACHER: When I read about your rehabilitation, the one thing I did come across with Rebecca is that you were able to get through that because you just had this incredible determination and-- and an awful lot of grit. Just reading that story was one of the most incredible things I've read about someone overcoming a tragic accident like that. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, I will tell you that the simplicity that you have to minimize your life to and how chaotic our lives have become, we create problems for ourselves, we create drama. I mean, to me, as wonderful social media is-- and this is how, you know, this podcast is likely going to be disseminated and get out there, it also can be sort of the bane of our existence. You know, and where people really sort of, create so much more than they knew to. - Hi. This isn't real. You know what it is? It's St. Elmo's Fire. Electric flashes of light that appear in dark skies out of nowhere. [GASPING FOR BREATH] [BANGS] [CRIES] Sailors would guide entire journeys by it. But the joke was on them, there was no fire. There wasn't even a St. Elmo. They made it up. They made it up because they thought they needed it to keep them going and things got tough. REBECCA ALEXANDER: For themselves. So needless to say, it was an incredibly trying time. But I was told by doctors, you know, at 18 that I was never going to walk properly again. That I was never going to be able to do a lot of things. And I could either accept that or I could say, you know what? Let's see. Let's see what I'll be able to do. And I think that. What's interesting is, you know, as I was growing up before they knew what my diagnosis was-- and I should mention as many of us have experienced, it wasn't just my diagnosis with RP, my parents were getting divorced at the same time. - We're dealing with a lot of shit. REBECCA ALEXANDER: And that really did a number on me, you know. So it's like, my parents told us they were getting divorced. It was a very difficult divorce and experience. And then I get this diagnosis. And it's not I never felt like I was the reason why my parents got divorced. I know that, that sometimes is a misconception. But I did feel like there was just a lot going on. And so I think that when all of this was happening before I got my official diagnosis. I was in the fourth grade when they separated and soon later divorced. I think that the teachers told my parents that I was going to be a cheerleader, that I had my head in the clouds, you know. They didn't know about my hearing loss and vision loss so much. And those were the messages I received. And my brother, my twin brother was just like, killing it. You know, I was such a great athlete. And I was a good athlete, but I wasn't like you know the star of the team or anything. I mention this because it's amazing. How I think that having all of these messages that I received early on, how I came to use them and be like, yeah, no, I think I'm going to be the one to determine what my life is going to look like and what I'm going to be able to accomplish. And I think that when I got, you know, this information from the doctor that I wasn't going to be able to walk properly again, I will always have a little bit of a limp with my left foot-- But you know, I've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, I've swam from Alcatraz to shore. There's a lot of things that I've done since that accident that I was told I would never be able to do. So there's sort of, interesting parallels between the two. BRIAN FISCHLER: That's awesome. Now this next question it's kind of, I guess, a two-parter now. You've always been very athletic, I guess. One, what do you like most about competing? And two, do you think your drive for competing is what helped you get through everything you were going through? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know it's interesting. I think so. I grew up with brothers. Right. So I was always like the designated referee for whatever we were was playing. Which was basically like, you know, just sit on the sideline, we don't really need you, but we'll let you play. And I think that I felt to a certain extent, like, in order to keep up. I kind of, had to, you know, really-- I mean, try to be a good athlete. I wanted to emulate what my brothers were doing. I wanted to fit in a bit. So I think, sort of, started there. But the computing thing is actually less about other people and more about myself. I'm highly competitive with myself of just wanting to prove myself to myself. If that makes sense. But what I will tell you is that I do like competing. I do like being one of the stronger people in the room, or in the class, or on the team. I loved being picked first or early when they would pick teams for PE or whatever. But it's more about the way that it makes me feel. You know, that when I'm actually being physically active, I am so aware of the things that I can do and not focusing on the things that I can't do. - Every man dies. Not every man really lives. REBECCA ALEXANDER: And so that feeling of just being so alive, so present, so in the moment. Because we are incredibly capable of getting lost in-- in our own minds. BRIAN FISCHLER: That's very true. ED PLUMACHER: I know that having competed, and been very athletic, and everything, and then, you know, gone through your rehabilitation, and gotten older and things, you took up big classes and even took that as so far as to become a spin instructor. So is that a major part of your life today? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, so I became a spin instructor for a couple of reasons. First of all, I was in graduate school and I obviously was paying a ton of money to go to school. I was doing work-study, but Lord knows how much that pays. And so I figured, well, if I'm going to join a gym, I might as well get paid to use the gym. So part of it was just, you know, for financial reasons of just wanting to have this side income and also be paid to work out. And on the other hand, what is more ideal than being in a dark noisy room than being the one to control the lights and the music. [LAUGHTER] It wasn't like, I had to worry about hearing what the person was saying, or what music they were playing, or choosing, or how loud it was if I was the one running the show. [MUSIC PLAYING] - I thought of being an instructor, sir. - Top Gun. - Yes, sir. - God help us. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: And that was really a part of why I became an instructor. I've always loved music from all different genres. And so I thought that really what makes a spin class good is not how hard the person works you but where they transport you in terms of the music. So music selection was a huge piece of that. Yeah. It's-- it's a good question. And it's still very much a part of my life today. Not necessarily-- not definitely spinning but I also do a lot of high intensity interval training. So yes. BRIAN FISCHLER: And you've been doing this more over Zoom since the pandemic hit, correct? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yes. It's fantastic. I mean, there's nothing better for people who are low vision than to control the space that they exercise in and what are their obstacles are. And so I had to acquire a lot of exercise equipment during the pandemic in order to be able to work out from home. But secretly I love it. BRIAN FISCHLER: Ed and I, are only a fan of the 12-ounce curl exercise, correct Ed? ED PLUMACHER: No. Mine's are 16. I do pints. BRIAN FISCHLER: Oh. OK. [LAUGHTER] So yeah. We're-- were not known for exercise on "That Real Blind Tech Show." I may have to change a few things here once we get back to, you know, post [INAUDIBLE] ED PLUMACHER: Well, you'll have to join one of Rebecca spin classes, Brian. BRIAN FISCHLER: I'd have to get a bike, and I don't know where it would go in this apartment and everything. ED PLUMACHER: Brian, two things. You have to get a bike and then you have to get an insurance policy and made me as the beneficiary. [LAUGHTER] BRIAN FISCHLER: Now along with obviously teaching spin, we've mentioned that you're a psychotherapist. Now, I imagine with therapy-- and maybe I'm completely wrong, that a lot of therapy-- a therapist job is observing their clients and listening. As somebody who lives with ushers, how do you get over those two things? How do you as a therapist view your patients? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. We live again, in a time and place where you can Google anybody and everyone. So I don't know when people come in to see me, whether they've googled me and they know who I am, or whether they just think that I'm a psychotherapist. And they don't know that I wear cochlear implants, that I'm low vision. The environment for me to be in one on one in a quiet room is ideal particularly for somebody with-- you know, who lives with Usher syndrome. So that-- that's sort of, one piece of it. And I have my central most vision. I don't know where I'd say. Maybe I'm between 10 and 12 degrees. I'm not really sure it's probably closer to 10. So-- but I don't hide it. I mean, I don't. If it's not relevant to the work that I'm doing, I won't necessarily volunteer and like, here, I know you're here to talk about your stuff, let me tell you what mine is. Because the reality is this isn't about me, it's about somebody else. But I will tell people when they come in immediately that I wear cochlear implants. And so if I don't hear them and I ask them to repeat themselves, it's not because I'm not listening, it's because I may have missed what they said. Because I want people to know that I'm tuned in. And I think it's important to know that the people we work with are human and have their own stuff. One of the things I remember when I was doing my psychoanalytic training, I was applying for further education and advanced training at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis, and one of the analysts who ran the program, sat me down. I had to be interviewed. There's all this pomp and circumstance, and nonsense, and this hierarchy. And she basically just flat out said to me, so what are you going to do? How are you going to treat people when you're blind? And I wanted to say, fahrvergnügen you. [LAUGHTER] BRIAN FISCHLER: Good for you. REBECCA ALEXANDER: I mean, but I literally-- and that was it for me that less than-- it was so offensive to me and hurtful. If I'm being honest, it was just so hurtful. Right? BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: But like, as soon as I went blind that I would be useless? BRIAN FISCHLER: Mm. REBECCA ALEXANDER: But what more importantly, it wasn't about me. This to me said, this is someone who's incredibly narrow minded. This is somebody who doesn't have the ability-- and even someone as a psychotherapist. As someone who's the head of this program that, that was the first question she thought to ask, it was deeply disappointing. And that was the deciding factor, this is not the place where I'm going to receive further training. And not to mention everything I went through before then to try to let them know that the accommodations I needed for reading materials. You know, these are reading materials that came from like, the '70s that were in like, a six-point font. BRIAN FISCHLER: That's what we call a shitty psychotherapist. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. Yeah. - I am handicapped. I'm psychotic. ED PLUMACHER: She skipped the lesson plans on empathy. [LAUGHTER] BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Right. I know. I mean, it's like, I didn't know if I could say, like, I'm not sure if you're serious or not, right now but it's very concerning. BRIAN FISCHLER: So 30 years ago, Ed, she would have been a multimillionaire as a psychotherapist because A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R would have been pretty close at the front of the yellow pages. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Fair enough. ED PLUMACHER: Unfortunately half our audience doesn't even know what yellow pages are. [LAUGHTER] BRIAN FISCHLER: Well, that's because they're blind. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Your blogging made me feel old. - That's funny. ED PLUMACHER: What was it that inspired you? What made Rebecca Alexander even want to become a psychotherapist? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. That's a great question. You know, it's interesting. I originally you know, I went to Columbia and did a dual degree in public health in clinical social work. And part of the reason why I did two master's degrees was not because-- but while I was always interested in doing work abroad. I applied for the Peace Corps when I got out of college. - It'll help you. Better prepare storing foods for the up and coming monsoon months. Also Tupperware products are ideal for storing leftovers to help stretch your food dollar. This too-caught seals and right container keeps hot dog buns fresh for days. REBECCA ALEXANDER: I basically threw that application process realize, like, wait a second. You know, I grew up speaking French and I wanted to go to a francophone part of Africa. I was always fascinated by developing countries and Africa in particular. So I thought, all right. I'll go do the Peace Corps for a couple of years. And when I went through the application process, I started to realize just how remote some of these places and villages were. And it wasn't like of my hearing aids broke down, like, all right. Let's just go hop over to the audiologist and get these bad boys fix. Right. BRIAN FISCHLER: There was no Costco? REBECCA ALEXANDER: No, yeah. No Costco. And so I had to sort of, re-evaluate what it was that I was interested in. But I was always fascinated. I was medical sciences health promotion, disease prevention. So I had a lot of interest in that. But after I got out of school, I had to really think about what was sustainable for me for long term. And what I really enjoyed and what I really enjoyed most was learning about the human condition. You know, because I think that's what I've been most fascinated by is how people do what they do? How we become who we are? How we manage to face the challenges we face? You know. And what adversity does to us? And so you know in my own process of coming to terms with the condition that causes death blindness, I do go through a lot of therapy myself. Going through parents who divorced at a young age for me that again that really did a number on me. So I found that it was incredibly useful for me in developing my own sense of identity. When I graduated from Columbia, I actually worked as a school social worker at the School for the Deaf in Brooklyn. And that's where I mastered my sign language. And later became well versed in tactile sign language, which is the language of the deafblind. And I think that partially for me, a lot of doing this work of being a psychotherapist, and also learning sign language, and then becoming more immersed in the blind and the DeafBlind, and the deaf communities is developing tolerance with the discomfort. Because I think that so many people will be, like, yeah, you know I started reading your book. And I'm, like, hey, way too close to home. I couldn't do it, just couldn't do it. - "Not gonna do it," wouldn't be prudent at this juncture. And I'm, like, all right, you know, but I also think that we are so afraid to go there. And I think developing distress tolerance you know being in that position of really facing the stuff that makes us most uncomfortable as part of how we develop that resilience and empathy. BRIAN FISCHLER: I'm one of those people that doesn't like reading books or watching movies about people that are-- I guess, when I was first going blind, I didn't like it. Now it doesn't bother me, I'm so used to it and everything. But do you see a lot of deafblind or just blind clients? REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know that's interesting, isn't it? Because I have more deaf patients than I have blind and/or low-vision. And you know, there's a lot of people who have asked me why that is. Interestingly, I do think that the deaf community is a very social community. It's a very gossipy community in many ways. And so I think that partially, there have been people I haven't been able to take on because they know each other. And so I've had to refer them out. I also when I've had deaf patients, I've had to spread them out so that they're not in the waiting room together or anywhere close to each other. But I have found-- and I'm curious to hear your thoughts from both of you on this. I have found that it seems that there's a tremendous amount of shame that can go into going deaf and going blind. But I have found that, that shame seems to be more pervasive among the low-vision community, the people losing their vision than even the deaf community. And I don't know. It's been very sad for me to see. But even coming to terms with using a cane, I found that people will not start using a cane until anywhere between about 5% to 15 years after they have been recommended to start using a cane. And so I think there's a lot of shame around it. There's a lot of-- I don't know I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. BRIAN FISCHLER: I think it's just that blind people are more-- - Favored moving. BRIAN FISCHLER: Up than deaf people. [CHUCKLES] Ed, do you have a-- ED PLUMACHER: Yeah. Well, I think part of it too is Rebecca is our exposure to low-vision and blindness comes from the retinitis pigmentosa side. In the blind community, those with RP I've often heard it referred to as the death of 1,000 cuts. Because for most of us, not all, but, you know, 'cause some-- some of the progression is very rapid. It's just this long protracted degradation of vision that you just seem to adapt to certain levels and then next thing you know, all of a sudden, you know, it's gotten worse again and it's gotten worse again. So-- so yeah. It could be this part of shame, this part of denial, my vision hasn't changed for a while, maybe I'm going to beat this thing. Or maybe-- maybe I'm one of those few people that can be in my late '60s, early '70s and still have 2020 central vision, even though it's only three or four degrees. You know, I could maybe have that just night blindness. So you know, all those things come into play. So people spend more time trying to figure out how to slow down the degradation than they do about moving on with their lives and living life, you know. And that was part of the experience I had as well. And it wasn't until I finally came to terms with my loss of vision and then dealing with that. And just moved on, and embraced the cane. And embraced all the rehabilitation training I got and technology training I got after that to really go on and live a fulfilling life again, that I just overcame. That I'm comfortable in my skin today but it was a long, long process. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. And getting back to being more serious about it, Rebecca, I was working in Hollywood when I first started losing my vision-- and it was interesting that you used the word shame. It wasn't anything I could control. But thinking back, I did feel a lot of shame. I remember I wasn't walking with a cane. You know, this was the '90s where people weren't as understanding in corporate America as they are today. Where I had to keep hidden that I was losing my vision and everything. Because it was viewed as a weakness, as a skill set almost. Not something that I was living with and could thrive with. And I was in my '20s, I was 21, 22. So mentally I don't think I was capable of really saying, you know, I'm going blind, does it affect me? Yeah, we're driving. That sort of, thing. But I'm still capable of performing at an extremely high level. And I wasn't the person I am now. So I think with going deaf or blind, and deaf blindness, everybody deals with it differently. I mean, it depends on your economic situation. It depends where you are age wise in life. It depends how mature you are and everything. And yeah. It's great nowadays that there are so many services and psychotherapists like, yourself. That people who are dealing with this, whether it's somebody that's new that's dealing with it or somebody that's been dealing with it their whole life, It's great that there are so many resources to help people cope and deal with things. 'Cause everybody deals with traumatic issues throughout their life when they're younger as well as older. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, I think that one of the most important things people often will reach out to me and ask me, you know, if I am taking new patients, clients, whatever. And/or they, you know, live in some part of the country-- you know, this is pre-COVID. During COVID, I definitely took people on in all different parts of the country, because we could. And the HIPAA laws were alleviated, so that we could work across state lines. But when people ask me, like, what type of therapist they should look like-- because we do need more therapists who are low vision or not just people who are actually born blind. Because we all know that that's a spectrum, too, right? People who are born blind, versus people who have progressively lost their vision. I think that the most important thing that I can tell people is that you want to find a therapist who specializes in grief and loss. Because one of the primary things I think we don't really talk about just in general, in life, is how much grief and loss is a part of our lives, not just when you lose a significant other, a loved one, or a close friend, or for my case, a beloved pet, but when-- just the experiences of grief and loss, as they come in all different forms. And it may be a stage of life. It may be hearing. It may be vision. It may be just mobility functioning. There are so many different ways in which we experience loss. And we don't talk about it as though it's a part of the human experience, a human condition. And yet it is an integral part of our lives. And we have to allow the room and the space for it, so that we can alleviate that shame and so that we can be more open about what we go through, right, and share the experience with others. BRIAN FISCHLER: You know it just hit me do you think that Tony Soprano seeing a therapist made therapy- because, you know, there was a time where therapy was looked down upon, not on the therapist, but on the individuals that were in therapy. Do you think like a macho movie TV character like Tony Soprano regularly seeing a therapist has helped maybe more people go out and seek a therapist for help? REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, I think it would be an excellent case study for someone to study and maybe media and psychology to see whether the impact was there, certainly. I certainly think that it didn't hurt. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: But I think that it was absolutely fascinating. People love movies or shows where there's therapy involved. They want to know what goes on in there, right? I think that there's probably a good chance that it had an impact on the number of men-- BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: --who go in and seek therapy. I mean, the number of men that I have in my practice now is far greater than it ever was at any other point in time. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. Yeah, I'd be curious to know that. That'd be an interesting case study. ED PLUMACHER: Well, I have a question for you, Brian. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah? ED PLUMACHER: Going you with your media genre and everything-- so what came first, Tony Soprano seeing a psychotherapist or "Analyze This," with Robert De Niro and Billy Chris? [AUDIO PLAYBACK] [POURING SOUND] - You know, normally, a patient wouldn't have a vat of Scotch during a session. - That's an interesting fact I'm going to have to remember if I'm ever on "Jeopardy." [END PLAYBACK] REBECCA ALEXANDER: [CHUCKLES] BRIAN FISCHLER: "Analyze This," I believe, came out first. It came out like six months before the "Sopranos" aired, I believe. I'd have to double check that. But I remember thinking, wait a minute. Didn't they just do this as a movie and everything? But that was more a comedy. But it was interesting the timing. I believe "Analyze This," the first one, came out about six months before "The Sopranos" aired, and everything. So it was very close, though, and everything. A lot of ideas-- I mean, look at "Tombstone" and "Wyatt Earp." The same exact story came out six months apart and everything. So just because one person has an idea doesn't mean another person has it. Sometimes Hollywood runs with both of them. Now, we know you can't get into too many specifics about specific clients, Ed Plumacher. But is there a more-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: [LAUGHING] BRIAN FISCHLER: --humorous story? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh my God, Ed, you are a doll to take this. Oh man. I just-- I am just tickled. I wish I had popcorn here. Anywho. So is there-- oh, man, how many do we-- I mean, how much time do we have? That might be another show. BRIAN FISCHLER: One or two [INAUDIBLE]. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah, OK. Well, so, listen. You know, there are certainly the number of fetishes that I see out there, unlike anything I've ever known before. We walk right into that. This is-- what is this? PG-13? BRIAN FISCHLER: Ish. REBECCA ALEXANDER: But-- ED PLUMACHER: You can't talk about Brian's fetishes. [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Right. BRIAN FISCHLER: No peanut butter and the dog, no, no, no, no. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah, no, we NDA'd that one. So here's what's interesting. I mean, you know, to stay on theme with this and not to become that therapist that ever discloses anything that could be seen as immoral or unethical, I will tell you that I have had many people come in, you know, who have googled me. I've had people tell me-- someone who-- I could barely hear her speak. [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - [INAUDIBLE] [LAUGHTER] - What's that? - Excuse me? [END PLAYBACK] REBECCA ALEXANDER: And so I had to say to her-- because she was talking about a lot of things. And this is not someone who are vision or hearing issues. BRIAN FISCHLER: Mm-hm. REBECCA ALEXANDER: But I could really hear her speak, because she was talking about a lot of things she hadn't talked about out loud with anyone before really, let alone a stranger or therapist. And I finally said to her, listen, unless you want me to come over and sit on your lap, I-- BRIAN FISCHLER: [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: --I can't-- I can't hear-- I can't hear you. And I certainly can't help you, if I'm not able to hear you. And ultimately, I ended up having to terminate with this client, because I really felt-- it was so weird that I felt this tremendous sense of, you know, just lack of ability in helping her. Because clearly, even me asking her to speak up and even at some point jokingly saying, "unless you want me to sit on your lap, we're not going to make any progress." [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Oh, excuse me, your honor. Well, what is the point of this testimony? This woman is a low talker. I can't hear a word she's saying. So I had to get some other kind of microphone up there. Well, let's move on. [END PLAYBACK] BRIAN FISCHLER: You didn't have to end up wearing a puffy shirt like Jerry Seinfeld, with-- ED PLUMACHER: I was thinking the same thing. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, my goodness. No. But maybe that would have saved me. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: But I've definitely had many people ask me if I can see them. I've had many people say that they don't know if I'll be able to help them, because I'm going blind, you know. And I get caught off guard here and there by people who ask me questions that are like either-- partially, it makes you think, at least initially, really, in your mind, you thought that was the way you should have asked that question or make that statement? [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - That was the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. [END PLAYBACK] REBECCA ALEXANDER: But you know, people are human. I mean, they're flawed characters. We all are, right? BRIAN FISCHLER: You know, I'm thinking about it now. And I would also have to think there's a certain segment of society that would like going to a blind therapist. Because you're not judging them visually at all. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, there's so much that we pick up for visual cues in terms of whether someone's holding a pillow in their lap, because, you know, in some ways, they're guarded, or they're trying to sort of protect themselves, or block themselves from me really seeing them. Or maybe they're repeatedly tracing over the lines of the texture of a pillow. There are so many different visual cues that we get from people that also occur, actually, in terms of the way that-- in the way that they speak and whether their speech is pressured, and whether they're speaking loud or whether they are speaking or softly, and how long it takes them to be able to process a question and respond. And so it is interesting how, I think, we're able to adapt our abilities as they continue to change and start to have to rely on other cues to process or try to help someone understand why they may be communicating or handling things the way that they are. BRIAN FISCHLER: Now, does it mean something different if they're closely holding a pillow, compared to closely holding a Japanese sex pillow on their lap? [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, that is an excellent question. I'm going to leave that one to Ed. BRIAN FISCHLER: Ed? ED PLUMACHER: [LAUGHING] Gee, thanks. You'll have to tell me your experience, Brian. I don't have a lot of experience with Japanese sex pillows. BRIAN FISCHLER: Hold on. Let me lay down. Let me lay down. REBECCA ALEXANDER: [LAUGHING] ED PLUMACHER: [LAUGHING] I'd like to know what situations you've run into. I mean, you moved to Manhattan. You've lived in New York City for a while now. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. ED PLUMACHER: Being a woman in New York, how often would you have somebody come up to you, a guy in a bar-- Hey, how are you doing? You just start talking. What do you do? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Right. ED PLUMACHER: What do you do? All of a sudden, you mention, oh, I'm a psychotherapist. And you just see them, like, fade away. [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Totally. Well, and this is what's funny. I don't know if you guys-- you know, it's a show. It's not a movie. But I don't know if you guys remember on "Saturday Night Live," I believe it was Will Ferrell who was playing Alex Trebek. And he was one of the candidates. And I think it was what's his name, the wonderful comedian-- BRIAN FISCHLER: Sean-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: --that just passed. It was Sean Connery. You're right. Sean Connery was playing it. And I think it was-- BRIAN FISCHLER: It wasn't Norm MacDonald. No, he played Burt Reynolds. REBECCA ALEXANDER: He played Burt Reynolds. BRIAN FISCHLER: One of my favorite-- I'll let you tell it. REBECCA ALEXANDER: OK, but-- so it was Will Ferrell. And he said, yes, I will take "The Rapist" for 200, please. BRIAN FISCHLER: "The Rapist." [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Mr. Connery, why don't you pick? [LAUGHTER] - It looks like this is my lucky day. I'll take "The Rapists," for 200. - That's "Therapists." [LAUGHTER] [END PLAYBACK] BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: "The Rapists." And I have to tell you, to this day, it's one of my favorite jokes of all time. When people say, so you're a psychotherapist? And I say, excuse me, I'm a psycho, the rapist. BRIAN FISCHLER: Psycho the-- the-- that's therapist. ED PLUMACHER: [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh my God, it is fantastic. BRIAN FISCHLER: It is. It is so funny. ED PLUMACHER: Absolutely. Absolutely. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Totally. But to answer your question, Ed. When I was coming to terms with using my own cane, I remember years ago-- and then, let's be clear. The first four or five times, six times I used my cane in public, I cried, which fortunately, when you live in New York City, if you're using a blind person's cane, and you're walking down the street and crying, it doesn't draw that much attention. But I do remember walking down the street. I must have been in my, like, mid to late 20s. And I was practicing with the cane. Wasn't psyched about using it. And I see there's this group of, like, hot guys walking towards me. And I'm like, well-- [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Fahrvergnügen. [END PLAYBACK] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Great. I'm sorry, fahrvergnügen great. ED PLUMACHER: That's correct. REBECCA ALEXANDER: I mean, [LAUGHING]. But you know, just like-- and I mean, it was-- at the time, of course, it was just like, of course, you know. All I could think-- I was like, these guys aren't looking at me. All they see is this cane and like, completely dismiss me as a potential girl that they'd want to-- forget about date, want to hook up with. And you know, I think being able to face that and have to kind of keep walking-- because so much of what we go through, whether it's with vision loss or hearing loss or both, or whatever our circumstances are, is a lot of trying to cover up or mask whatever it is we're contending with to the general public. And I wasn't able to mask it. It was something that I was, like, quite literally facing my fear of using my cane and having this group of guys walk towards me and just having to sit with that. And it was wildly uncomfortable, and yet it was so crucial to my own ability to just come to terms with it. Like, this is what it's going to feel like, and it doesn't feel good. And guess what? Life has a lot of that in it. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. ED PLUMACHER: Yeah. Yeah, you know, you have a-- you have a lot of great experience that you've put together throughout your life. You wrote a book, "Not Fade Away." You mentioned earlier that some people have told you it hits too close to home. I've read your book. I found it to be brutally honest and very straightforward at times, yet it was hitting very close to home. What inspired you to write this book and tell your story? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, that's a good question. There was a piece written about me for "New York Magazine." I want to say it was like 2008. And it was-- I think it was called "Going Blind and Deaf in a City of Noise and Lights." And so a literary agent came across it. And he approached me. And I must have been 28. And he said, you know, I think you should write a book. And I was thinking-- we met for lunch at a diner. And I'm like, nobody wants a 28-year-old writing a memoir. Like, you've got to be pretty full of yourself to think that you have things to say that someone's going to want to hear. So some time passed. And I started doing more work just with various organizations, just to raise awareness. You know, my brother is a NBC White House correspondent. And he's an anchor of the "Today Show" on the weekends and does NBC "Nightly News." And so he had a couple of stories about me on the "Today Show," which I was tremendously grateful for. Because for us, it was about getting awareness out there and letting people know that they're not alone. And so after a fundraiser I did-- a spin-a-thon, actually, to raise money for Usher syndrome, it was written up in the "New York Times," the Nostalgia section. What do they call that-- the ladies' sports section? BRIAN FISCHLER: [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: And where all the wedding announcements are, or whatever. It's probably not PC now to say that. ED PLUMACHER: That's Brian's favorite section. [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, naturally. BRIAN FISCHLER: Hey, a guy can have dreams about his big day. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: So the same literary agent approached me again. And I must have been, I don't know, 31 or so. And I figured, you know what? All right, let's do this. Because at the very least, I want people to know, that what they go through, that they're not alone, you know? So it's a very lonely experience to go deaf and blind, especially in your 20s and even in your 30s. And so I used a lot of my journal writing. And it was very cathartic. It was incredibly cathartic to write. BRIAN FISCHLER: While putting your book together, what technologies did you use to write your story? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Large font. And I had my literary agent's wife, she co-wrote with me. So I would literally go there to their apartment in Brooklyn twice a week, and she would ask me questions. And at times, when it was just too much for me to be typing and rechecking it, she would ask me a question. And she would type up what I responded with. And then we would review it. So this was-- I'm 42 now. I think it came out when I was 34. 34? Or 35-- I don't even remember. But it's funny now, when I think back on the book. It's a little cringey, because I feel like so much more has happened, and then I've grown up a lot-- BRIAN FISCHLER: Sequel. REBECCA ALEXANDER: --since that time. BRIAN FISCHLER: Sequel. ED PLUMACHER: Sequel. [LAUGHING] BRIAN FISCHLER: The best thing about using a large font when writing a book, you're like, God, I feel like I only wrote 20 pages. And then you read it in large font, and it's, like, 234 pages. [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: I wrote a chapter and I'm like, so, I guess this'll wrap it up, huh? 300 pages. Great. Yeah. So you know-- and now-- I think I told you, Brian. But we're-- they're in the process of making my book into a movie. And so dealing with all of that has been just nothing shy of a total headache and dealing with the anticipation of how much feedback you're going to get. Because as you know on social media, people-- there's nothing people like more than being offended. They're like waiting-- BRIAN FISCHLER: Oh God. REBECCA ALEXANDER: --to have commentary and be offended. BRIAN FISCHLER: Has the actress followed you around at all yet or not yet? REBECCA ALEXANDER: We're getting there. Yeah, we're just-- Yeah. BRIAN FISCHLER: Can you say who's going to be portraying you? I believe I read it online. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. So I think we're-- we're in transition now, luckily. But you know, this is another debate and probably a subject for another podcast conversation, as-- and people are saying, well, we want authentic representation. BRIAN FISCHLER: Oh God, yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. ED PLUMACHER: That's why when they do the movie, Rebecca, and they do the segment on your appearance on That Real Blind Tech Show-- because we know it's going to be a pivotal point in your life-- BRIAN FISCHLER: [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Naturally. Naturally. ED PLUMACHER: You know, I expect when Brad Pitt follows me around to play me, that it won't be too disruptive at work. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Well, you know, we may have to speak to his agent about that. BRIAN FISCHLER: I get that whole debate. They want authenticity. But it's gotten a little out of control. And was Emily Blunt going to play you initially? Was that who it was? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yes. Yeah, that's who they announced. And you know, it's funny. I mean, this is the way this goes, that people-- I mean, I found out as everybody else did. I guess it was posted to whatever online website or social media. And I just had a slew of text messages, like, Oh my God, that's amazing. And I was like, what's amazing? I mean, I really didn't know-- BRIAN FISCHLER: Really? REBECCA ALEXANDER: --earlier than the rest of the world. And we've come a bit further now. Netflix bought the rights to it. I actually am not against authentic representation. But I will say that I agree with you. What's interesting is that you need to find someone then. And you know, they have asked me many times, because there are all of these different types of organizations who, in my opinion, have capitalized on disability, who claim to be sort of in an effort to increase awareness and representation of people with disabilities. But I actually think that, in some ways, they take advantage of it. And disability is so broad, that you guys know-- I mean, people-- I'm a disability rights advocate. And oftentimes, people will say, well, you know, I have a friend with cerebral palsy, or I have a friend who uses a wheelchair. And I'm like, listen. I have plenty of friends who use a wheelchair or maybe have cerebral palsy, but I'm not an expert. Because that's not my disability. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, I'll stick to the blind and the deaf thing. That's kind of my jam. But so-- so basically, when they ask me about it, I have found that historically, people with vision loss are just as ignorant and uninformed about hearing loss as the sighted community and the hearing community. It's just so-- it's just complicated. And we'll see what happens. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: See what happens. ED PLUMACHER: When your book became optioned, was that something that-- did you pitch the book to them, or did they come knocking at your door. Or how did this whole process start? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. You know, I was actually about to give a book talk when my book came out in Los Angeles at a Barnes and Noble there. And-- do Barnes and Noble still exist? They do, right? I don't know. ED PLUMACHER: Yes. Yes. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Anyway, so-- OK, that's good news. I'm glad that people are still able to read, not simply just what's posted online. Anyway, so I was heading into the Barnes and Noble. And I got a call from my literary agent. And he asked me if I was sitting down, and I said, no. So I found a seat on a bench next to a homeless guy in Santa Monica. And so he just told me-- I did not mean to sit down next to a homeless person, but you know that vision loss thing, how that goes. And he just told me that they-- there were two different producers, or directors, who were interested in purchasing the rights. And so I had to go-- I interviewed both of them and ended up going with the movie option. Because I was told TV never-- I don't know. In the whole-- listen. Every time I talk to Hollywood, I feel like I need to take three showers after I've gotten off the phone with them. BRIAN FISCHLER: Well, after this podcast, you only need two. So we're-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, that's good news. BRIAN FISCHLER: --one step above Hollywood. Well, we'll be keeping our fingers crossed and following along to see, you know. Hopefully, it makes its way to the big screen or the streaming string or some kind of screen, and everything. Because it's a phenomenal story. But what advice might you have for other deaf-blind writers out there as far as getting their story to the page? Even if it's not going to end up in a big Hollywood movie, would you encourage others to share their story? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Absolutely. You know, I think that these days, there's so many options for self-publishing. The publishing world has really been hit hard because of digital media, right? And these days, sadly, it seems that one of the primary factors or what helps people decide whether they're going to sign someone to write a book is even how many followers they have on social media, which I think is too bad. Because I think there is an authenticity that comes with not having to follow so closely in the mainstream. But more importantly, everyone has a story. Everyone has their experience. And I've found that reading memoirs throughout the years has been incredibly helpful to me, even if it's somebody who has been through a totally different experience than I have, that has nothing to do with losing the vision or hearing. There's always pieces in their book that resonate with me, that really, again, amount to being just human. And so I encourage people to write. I think that if you are trying to do something more ambitious and write and be published, that when we start writing for an audience, that's when we lose our voice, that you really need to write for yourself. You need to write thinking that you're not writing to a mass audience, but maybe to someone who is like your best audience. In my case, I'm my older brother's best audience. He's so funny. And so people often say that I'm his best audience. But who is your best audience? Who is someone that you feel most comfortable sharing your stories with? And so maybe write as though you're writing to that person or write it as though your journaling. And I think that when we try to be too specific in terms of writing a book and wanting to let it go to the masses, that we lose the integrity and the authenticity of our voice. BRIAN FISCHLER: I think that's excellent advice. ED PLUMACHER: Yeah, if we ever write a book, Brian, we could use That Real Blind Tech Show audience, you know, because it's only three people we have to worry about. [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Well, now it's four, Ed. You've got four people now. ED PLUMACHER: Excellent. You've accomplished so much. And you mentioned that you were 42 years old. And wow, you've done so much in those 42 years. What does the future hold for Rebecca Alexander? REBECCA ALEXANDER: That's an excellent question. You know, hopefully, the future holds for me more dogs in my life. One thing that makes me happier than anything is our dogs. But people say, like, what's next for you? Like, you've climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and you swam from Alcatraz to shore. What are we going to do next? And for me, I think a lot of what I would love to be able to do is just be able to sit with the things that I have accomplished and continue to work with organizations and people individually to improve their accessibility. I mean, for people with vision and hearing loss, one of the things that I think my biggest goals right now is, is to take this age-old idea of disability as inspiration-- I mean, we all know what inspiration porn is-- and to move away a bit from the inspiration porn and start moving towards less about what people have overcome in spite of their disability and more of who people are and "oh yeah, they have a disability." BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: I just think it's become a little bit too inspiration porn. And we need just to start making things more mainstream. Accessibility needs to be more mainstream. BRIAN FISCHLER: There's nothing I hate more when it's somebody that I've just met or I barely know, and they give me the you're my hero. I'm like, you don't know me. [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Come on, you little party girl. That's it. Come on. Fun little games-- you want to play the fun little games? Come on, you nasty little, cute little baby. What are you doing? Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, stop. Don't-- don't, don't. She's smiling at me. She's playing fun little baby games. She don't know me. She doesn't know my address. Do you know my address, you little [INAUDIBLE]. [END PLAYBACK] BRIAN FISCHLER: You know, it's just insulting and everything. I can't stand that, and everything, because-- ED PLUMACHER: Well, if they knew, they wouldn't say that. [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Whatever. I don't have to be like everyone. Some people don't like me. I don't like certain people. [END PLAYBACK] ED PLUMACHER: [LAUGHING] BRIAN FISCHLER: I'm pretty guarded. I live a for-- I live a fairly private lifestyle, not-- ED PLUMACHER: Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: [LAUGHING] ED PLUMACHER: Hey, Brian, before we move on, I just have one question. I'd like to have your definition of inspiration porn. BRIAN FISCHLER: Me? ED PLUMACHER: Yeah. [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah, we want to know your definition, Brian. BRIAN FISCHLER: Well, I can't. [LAUGHING] Ed wants me to tell us-- he's been trying to get me to tell the-- I could tell Rebecca. This part will not make the show. Basically, I would sum it up in two words-- Ed's sympathy f-- [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Fahrvergnügen. [END PLAYBACK] [LAUGHTER] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Oh, man. I don't know why that won't make the show. That's fantastic. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. It-- I don't know. We'll see. Maybe-- maybe I'll edit it and put it-- I'll have to hear how it sounds. But-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. BRIAN FISCHLER: --there's a story behind that that definitely can't make the show, but-- ED PLUMACHER: [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Well, then by all means, I got to hear that story. [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - We interrupt our program at the request of the White House. This is the emergency broadcast system. All normal broadcasting has been discontinued during the emergency. [END PLAYBACK] REBECCA ALEXANDER: That's different. [LAUGHTER] You said, I get them all the time? BRIAN FISCHLER: Yes. Yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: That's fantastic. BRIAN FISCHLER: So Ed loves bringing up that story, and everything. And he-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: That's fantastic. BRIAN FISCHLER: But now getting back to, though-- seriously, though, Rebecca, what's your definition of-- REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. [LAUGHING] BRIAN FISCHLER: --inspiration porn? REBECCA ALEXANDER: Well, so inspiration porn is people get these, like, videos. First of all, inspiration porn happens at the end of NBC "Nightly News." It happens at the end of, like, the whatever the nightly news story is. It's not just NBC. It's ABC. It's CNN, as other stupid news broadcasting has it, where their end story is the "make you feel good" story about the family who's-- The husband and father, he became an amputee, because his Humvee was hit when he was in Afghanistan. And look, they've retrofitted his house. And so now he can live like every other person. And he has just all of the retrofitting to live a comfortable life, which is incredible, which is wonderful. But the fact that this is something that we do so that people can say-- here's how I explain inspiration porn. When I was being trained, an analyst once said to me, that when someone calls you an inspiration, what they're saying is better you than me. BRIAN FISCHLER: Hm, yeah. REBECCA ALEXANDER: And that always stuck with me. Because what it is is that that makes me feel so much better, knowing that this person-- his quality of life is not just reduced to having a disability. Or when sometimes, we see the video clip of someone who been cochlear implanted, and they're activated for the first time, and let's say it's a child. And that child's face lights up the first time they're given access to sound. And then the video clip stops. And the person watching it, who has no experience with hearing loss, is like, oh, I'm so touched. This deaf kid now can hear again, and life has gone-- everything is, like, just improved for them. And it's nothing like that, you know, that it's just sort of a way that we try to create this us and them, that somehow, people who have disabilities are people we should really feel sympathy for, or that we should pity in some way, or that we should hold in different regard than we do anybody else. BRIAN FISCHLER: So Ed, would do you say my definition as sympathy-- [AUDIO PLAYBACK] - Fahrvergnügen. [END PLAYBACK] BRIAN FISCHLER: --was way off? ED PLUMACHER: [LAUGHING] BRIAN FISCHLER: I like that we can all have different definitions of it. ED PLUMACHER: You know, every perspective is your own reality. So-- [LAUGHING] But I love-- I love Rebecca's definition. It was awesome. BRIAN FISCHLER: And I do, too. I do, too. ED PLUMACHER: Now that we've exhausted that, can we move on to perspiration porn? [LAUGHTER] BRIAN FISCHLER: Rebecca, in my opinion, you deal with everything so fantastically well. If I was somebody out there that's newly dealing with Usher's or losing my hearing or vision, what advice might you have for somebody that's new to this journey? REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, I think that we have a tendency in general, whether, again, it's Usher syndrome, RP, [INAUDIBLE], whatever you're-- whatever you're facing, whether it's disability-related or not, we just macro everything. We look at the bigger picture, and we overwhelm ourselves. We become incredibly anxious, because we think way too far ahead. And we don't think about the here and now. What are you to do to get through today, what I need to do this week? And I think that when we start to think too far ahead-- you know, if I were ever to think of myself, when I was younger, as being as deaf-blind as I am now, I definitely would have said, I'd rather die. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah, me, too. REBECCA ALEXANDER: And I mean, hands down, no question-- I mean, when I gave a TED Talk, that was, I think, the first line of my TED Talk, is that if someone told me 20 years ago that I was going to be deaf and blind, or whatever, I would tell you I'd rather die. And the irony is that my life is far more meaningful and more fulfilling now than it ever was at the time. But we can't quite wrap our heads around that, when we get an overwhelming diagnosis, because I think we have to allow ourselves to go through the process of whatever stage we're in, when we're in it, and not think further ahead than that. You have to be where you are. And I think sometimes, when I've spoken on panels, and they say, what advice would you give to a parent whose kid, whatever the case is? And people say, well, you just have to teach them to be self-confident. Like, you guys both said, we didn't get here overnight. There's a lot of grit. There's a lot of tears. There's a lot of discomfort. There's a lot of humanity in the process. And unfortunately, you have to really allow yourself to just be where you are. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. Yeah, it's-- Ed and I, we've both all, like yourself, Rebecca, have gone through our trials and tribulations. And I've been to my own hell and back in everything. And I think everybody's experiences are different. And it's how you handle it. And the one thing that you could take away from this, you're going to get through it. You're going to get through it. Things can change for the positive. And I don't wake up anymore and think of myself as a blind person. It's just life. It's what it is, and everything. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. Yeah, and I also think it's important for people to know that there are-- there is hope out there, you know, that yes, you're right. I mean, socioeconomic status has a lot to do with what we have access to. But there are tremendous resources out there that are not costly, too. And there are a lot of people in the community who are doing a lot of important work and that can be supportive and helpful. And so I think part of our biggest issue of reaching out to that is not wanting to admit or acknowledge that we're a part of it, that maybe that-- that we ourselves live with whatever that community lives with. And you can go and reach out to those people and also, still not accept that that is something you feel comfortable acknowledging as something you live with. They can coexist. ED PLUMACHER: Yeah, that's the one thing that I wanted to say, too, is that in this day and age, there's no reason to go through this process alone. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. ED PLUMACHER: In the age of internet and social media, the number of agencies and organizations and government agencies that are involved in helping people with disabilities, whether-- regardless of what it is-- that's why I really enjoyed your book, Rebecca. Because, like I said before, it was brutally honest. And yes, it is close to home. And the reality is, people think that they're experiencing all these feelings and that they're unique to them. And when you get exposed to whether it's a support group or therapy or you read a book like yours, you realize, oh, this isn't unique. Other people feel this way. Other people overcome these things. And that could be the start of a path to just overcoming your obstacles and just leading the way to a fulfilling life. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Mhm. And you know, to add to that, Ed, one of the things that I really try to focus on in my practice, and just sort of generally as my message, is that, to me, I think we have to also turn a little bit away from overcoming obstacles and talk more about living with them. Because I'm not going to overcome blindness. I mean, sure, listen. I told Brian at some point when we were having a conversation, that I was told, when I was 12, that in 10 years, there would be treatment. I'm 42. So if I was hanging on that, there would-- it would-- and simply sitting around waiting for that, imagine how unfulfilling and simple and not in a positive way my life would be, that I would be missing out. So I think that people really also have to learn to live with these things, not just think about, how do I overcome this? How do I live with it and incorporate it into my life? ED PLUMACHER: Good point. BRIAN FISCHLER: I've got one last question for you, Rebecca. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah? BRIAN FISCHLER: So your life story turns into this huge film, Academy Award winner. And what's it going to be like when people, like, know you, and they want to come to you, and they're like, wait a minute. Your story has been told. It's so big, everybody knows who you are. Isn't it going to be a little strange, when-- at least, I imagine your hourly rates will skyrocket, and everything, for therapy, and everything. What's that going to be like, when people actually know you before they come through the door? REBECCA ALEXANDER: You know, that's an excellent question. Because I'm not there. I have no idea. And it's one of my biggest fears, actually. I think that living those-- as you know, Brian, you have a pretty public life. I don't think that having a public life is something that I have aspired to, which sounds like, really? Well, then why are you doing all this? For me, all of this has just been to raise awareness and to really let people know that they're not alone, because of how isolating it is. So it scares me. The more you put yourself out there, the more you put yourself out to scrutiny and to other people's criticism. But what I can say is that I am not the therapist for everyone. And thank God. Because I think that-- I remember somebody asked me a long time ago, when I wrote my book, well, who's your audience? And like, at the time, I was like, I don't know. Everybody could read my book and find something that they relate to. And I remember this guy saying, that's the kiss of death, that no, you want to know who your audience is. You want to know who the people who are touched by your story. And so the same is true, I think, for being-- finding a therapist, that there are likely, people out there who will not want to see me for exactly what you describe. Like, now I know too much about her. Or maybe people will see this about me and say, I didn't want to read it, and I didn't want to see it, because I don't want to know this. But I'm touched by the very little that I know about your story. But I think that being an open book has been one of the most freeing things that I've ever done. Not hiding my disability has been one of the most relieving and freeing experiences that I've ever given myself. BRIAN FISCHLER: That's awesome. And where can people find you? I think-- I know you're on Instagram, I believe. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Yeah. Facebook. Yeah, so my Instagram and Facebook, I believe-- and full disclosure, I have a have a social media assistant, A, because I suck at it; B, because I don't particularly enjoy it that much. But I do think that it's very important. So @Reb_Alexander, @Reb_Alexander. And on Facebook, I am Rebecca Alexander, author, I believe. But @Red_Alexander is my social media handle. BRIAN FISCHLER: Cool. REBECCA ALEXANDER: And my website is RebAlexander.com. And my psychotherapy practice is RebeccaAlexanderTherapy.com-- a lot of options. BRIAN FISCHLER: I'm going to check as soon as we hang up here if the @inspirationporn is taken on Twitter. REBECCA ALEXANDER: No, you-- if-- BRIAN FISCHLER: [LAUGHING] REBECCA ALEXANDER: Wait a second. Wait, Brian. You have to tell me. If it isn't taken, or even if it is, you have to tell me. Because if I can change my social media handle, I think that would be the one that would make me make the switch. BRIAN FISCHLER: You'll probably have to be, like, @inspirationporn204, or something, because there's that many. REBECCA ALEXANDER: No, I'm just going to say, I'm going to be @inspirationporn99999999999-- BRIAN FISCHLER: There you go. REBECCA ALEXANDER: --something like that, yeah. BRIAN FISCHLER: There you go. ED PLUMACHER: I just want to say, Rebecca, I've really enjoyed this afternoon. It's been so much fun to meet you, to have you on the show. I thoroughly enjoyed your book, and I'm looking forward to the movie and the sequel. REBECCA ALEXANDER: Likewise. Thanks for having me, guys. You're a lot of fun. BRIAN FISCHLER: Yeah. Yeah, we don't take disability that serious. But anyway, for now, we are That Real Blind Tech Show, and we are out. We are That Real Blind Tech Show. You can email us in Thatrealblindtechshow@gmail.com. Join us on the Facebook, in our Facebook group, That Real Blind Tech Show. Tweet us at blindtechshow, or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005. And for now, we are out. There you go. [MUSIC PLAYING]  

It’s an all new That Real Blind Tech show. Pinch hitting for Ed is Joe Steinkamp who joins Brian and Allison in the virtual studio to discuss all the latest greatest tech news.   It’s the hundred year anniversary of the white cane . Is it time for a robotic cane, and would you trust it?   Twitter is developing a pop up to warn people who are too stupid to realize they are about to get in to a Twitter beef!   GoodMaps is now free on both iOS and Android. The app is off to a good start  with outdoor mapping, but the future could be in indoor mapping.  Our conversation strolls in to some of our other favorite navigation apps including Blind Square GPS, Google Maps, Lazarillo, Microsoft Soundscape, and a mention of Apple Maps.    Because we have Joe here, we figured we would speak a little Microsoft, it also helped that Microsoft had a slew of announcements over the past few weeks. Have you installed Windows 11 yet? Joe explains to us some of the new designs to Windows 11.    We then jump in to Microsoft’s version of the iPad and mass confusion the name of all the Surface devices.  And yes, after hearing Joe explain them all, Brian felt like his head was going to explode.    If the Surface line wasn’t confusing enough, try figuring out all the different Microsoft Office packages now available. Our favorite is the Ewok Office.    It wasn’t all Microsoft as Amazon had a slew of announcements. The most notable, Astro. Will this be a help to the blind or just a giant hinderance? This leads us to discuss how much information is too much information?    And it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming Watcha Reading.      To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Best Selling Author, Psycho-Therapist, Spin Coach, and all around great gal Rebecca Alexander to the That Real Blind Tech show Virtual Studio.   We begin at the beginning as where else would you begin? We start off discussing when Rebecca was initially diagnosed with a vision loss. Rebecca then tells us about the very serious accident she had that changed her life at the age of 18. We discuss Rebecca’s uber competitive drive which helps her deal with a lot of what she has over come.   We then discuss a passion of Rebecca’s, spin class and working out. Ironic as you won’t find any of the Hosts of That Real Blind Tech show with 10 miles of a gym.         We then dive in to Rebecca’s work as a Psycho Therapist.  We discuss some of the obstacles she has faced, dealing with deaf blind and blind patients, and discuss why so many people feel shame when dealing with loss.   We wonder if a macho character like Tony soprano regularly seeing a therapist has helped society evolve and lessen the stigma of seeing a therapist.   We ask Rebecca if she is able to share some of the more humorous things she has heard over the years.    We then dive in to what made Rebecca want to share her very personal story with the world in her book Not Fade Away.  And what it has been like anticipating the book hitting the big or streaming screen.    Rebecca then offers some advice to anyone who has been thinking about sharing their life story in print.    Having accomplished so much, we had to find out what is up next for Rebecca.    You can keep up with Rebecca on Instagram,  on Twitter,  on Facebook, on the  web, and for therapy you can find her and her services here.    We will be releasing a fully transcribed version of this interview in the coming days.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an Ed less podcast, as Ed is refusing to update to iOS 15, that’s 15 not 5. So without Ed, Brian, Allison, and Jeanine gather in the That Real Blind Tech Show virtual studio to discuss all things iOS 15.   They start off discussing if they have preordered any new devices.    We then discuss the disappointing news of no Touch ID returning to an iPhone for the next two years. Which causes the gang to reminisce about their phones prior to their first iPhones.       Eventually we get to discussing iOS 15. We start off with some of our favorite likes and dislikes of iOS 15. We are purposely not listing all our likes and dislikes in the show notes so you will have to listen to the episode to hear them!        We believe it was Shakespeare who said to Url on the bottom or url on the top!        After a lengthy discussion of our likes and dislikes of iOS 15, we dive in to some of the smaller less noticeable changes such as using Siri for sharing in native Apple apps, the native Apple weather app is finally useful,  and will you be coming the digital legacy for anyone?   Safari offers some neat new features in the actions rotor when your focus is on the URL.    And it’s more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.         To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

  Brian and Ed welcome Justin Bishop in to the That Real Blind Tech show Virtual Studio. Justin who has Retinitis Pigmentosa does not let that stand in his way as a professional Blind Skateboarder.   Justin walks us through losing his vision, and what it was like getting back on a skateboard after his vision loss.  He explains to us how he uses sound as audible markers  while skateboarding, and how he developed the cane technique he uses.   He tells us about some of the bums and bruises he has collected along the way, and some of his more humorous encounters.        Along with being a Blind skateboarder, Justin also distills his own Whiskey. Being that both Brian and Ed are big fans of Whiskey, this caught their attention.  Justin walks us through his process and the accessibility of distilling booze.   The conversation then turns to Orcam as Justin is a big fan of the Orcam Myeye.    We then talk Audio Description and Alt text for images, as Justin’s wife provides the Audio Description for his longer videos.   To follow Justin on his fully described Instagram page visit him here. Check out Justin’s videos here.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s a Super Sized gathering of the entire That Real Blind Tech Show team, as Allison, Brian, Ed, and Jeanine get together to discuss all the new Apple products.   The gang starts off talking about meeting each other in person for the first time.    We then welcome newbies Allison and Jeanine to The All Blind Fantasy Football League and hear about their first weekend experiences.    Amazon tried to steal Apple’s thunder a few days early as they announced a slew of new TV sets including the Series 4 and new Omni line.   On this show because we don’t care about all the fancy dance colors of the new iPhone 13, we discuss the new A15 bionic chip, and what the heck it is.  A fully loaded iPhone 13 will cost you a pretty penny or penny, or your first born, your choice. Apple finally has upgraded the base amount of storage to 128GB. James Bond would be happy to know that all iPhones will now have Duo SIM capabilities.   iOS 15 not 14 will be dropping on September 20th. Will you be installing it on opening day?   We are not sure but Brian could be the only person on the planet who is excited for the iPad mini Series 6 finally arriving on Earth. With Apple’s Centerstage camera feature coming to the newly announced iPads, now you to can roll around like a monkey and still stay in frame with the people you are speaking with!   The Apple Watch Series 7 was announced and we are pretty sure they will be bigger but not in inches in millimeters.,  The Series 7 will be getting a full on screen keyboard. Which could only mean one thing, another lawsuit against Apple by FlickType.   And with the birth of new products, it means the death of others!   And of course it’s more of What’s Pissing Off Brian Now and Watcha Streaming Watcha Reading.        To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian welcomes in Gui Rambo the developer of AirBuddy .   We discuss what AirBuddy is, why you want it, how it will make using Apple Ecosystem Headphones work with your Mac so much smoother.   We discuss the work a developer needs to take in to consideration when designing and updating an app with accessibility in mind. We walk through some of the features to AirBuddy, and things that are on the horizon for future versions of AirBuddy.       If you would like to join the AirBuddy Beta Testing Team, please visit here.   To listen to more of Gui make sure to subscribe to the 9to5Mac podcast Stacktrace. You can follow Gui’s blog here. And on Twitter make sure to follow Gui Here.   We finish up discussing a new Buddy product that Gui is working on.   Brian then demos how to use AirBuddy with VoiceOver   To purchase AirBuddy please visit here.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The gang is back together in full for the first time since Butch and Sundance last rode together, and we start off with a little fun, or well, at least letting you see behind the curtain of what takes place prior to us hitting that record button.       Once we get rambling, we start off discussing the mass exodus of stylists from Stitch Fix. Don’t always just read a headline, as the article may be completely different than the headline!       The U.S. government will be streamlining the process supposedly to make it easier for people with severe and permanent disabilities to have their student loans forgiven when they have been unable to find employment.   Netflix has begun rolling out Spatial Audio to Air Pod Pros near you.s   We live in a very different scary world today when Facebook needs to block friend lists of people in Afghanistan. On an unrelated note, China has passed the world’s strictest data privacy law. And in the final article from our international tech segment we discuss Russia demanding that Apple remove an Opposition Party’s app from its App Store.   We suggest making use of Aira to help store your proof of vaccination, we discuss an article about the way the mainstream has been digitally doing this.   With so much news everywhere these days, we thought it would be a good time to review some of our favorite news apps. Honestly, there really isn’t anymore news today than there was yesterday!    Apple rumored to be hosting multiple events in September to announce new products. We guess that means more episodes of That Real Blind Tech Show. It was a good thing that Ed was here so he could explain to us why Apple’s CSAM system is extremely dangerous and will kill us all!   Flick Type keyboard for the Blind sleeps with the fishes and the developer blames Apple.   Several iOS 15 features will not be ready for launch day.   And its the return of What’s Pissing Off Brian and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Demo Month continues as Brian walks you through another fully accessible Fantasy Football game. This time he is doing a demo of the fantastic fully new accessible Underdog Fantasy. Underdog Fantasy offers Best Ball contests along with weekly one day daily contests where you can draft a new team each week.   Best Ball fantasy football has become all the rage the past few years, as the game is also known as set it and forget it. With Best Ball Fantasy Football, once the draft is completed, there is no week  to week management for your team. What you start with is what you finish with. You can check in as often as you like to see your team move up the standings. At the end of the season, the team with the most points wins the pot.     Brian walks you through the layout of the Underdog Fantasy app. He demonstrates how to enter a contest, add players to your queue, re-order players in your queue to your liking, and walks you through how to organize your pre-draft rankings for faster contests.         Brian then dives in to Underdog fantasy on their website.   On the website you will see additional fantastic accessibility navigation methods you can use such as heading navigation, use of the web rotor, and item chooser Additionally, you will get to hear some specific help tags specifically built in to Underdog Fantasy’s website for screen reader users. .   Brian walks you through removing a player from your queue of preferred players, walks you through how to reorder your preferred player list, and how to pre-rank your players on the website.   On a very sad note, neither Ezekiel Elliott or Tyree Hill made it to Brian when it was his next turn to pick.   Please make sure to tweet Underdog fantasy thanking them for their fantastic accessibility improvements on the Twitter at @UnderdogFantasy         To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

  It’s another spectacular That Real Blind Tech show demo. This time, Brian walks you through the Yahoo Fantasy Football app for iOS.    Brian briefly discusses the difference between season long, daily fantasy, and Best Ball Leagues. He describes how to join a Yahoo Fantasy football League. Brian then walks you through the my team home screen,  the main tabs you will use, and the league screen.       Brian then walks you through once of his head to head baseball weekly matchups to give you an idea how football scoring matchups will work.  He follows that with joining a football mock draft, and showing you how VoiceOver works when live drafting.    For you hard core fantasy football fanatics, Brian finishes with walking you through how to pre-rank your draft rankings using Google Chrome on the Mac.        To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

Brian and Ed welcome Carl Richardson, Co-Chair of the Audio Description Project for the American Council of the Blind to the show. We start off discussing how Carl came to be at the ADP and what his role is  at the ADp.   We then discuss the panel that Carl moderated at this year’s ACB National Conference on Audio Description. All 8 major streaming services were represented on the panel about Audio Description.   We then discuss some of Carl’s favorite features of Audio Description, and the age old question with Audio Description should the describer describe it before or after it happens?   Carl and Brian then share some of their more interesting experiences with Audio Description at the movie theater. What’s a movie theater? It’s a big room where people used to conjugate to all watch the same movie at the same time, but that’s not important right now.       Just like us, Carl is also a podcaster. Carl’s podcast Picture This is all about audio description, and you can subscribe to it here.   We then discuss some of the various ways for you to get audio Described content, as there are so many ways to access this content these days.   The conversation then turns to the controversial topic of Text to Speech Audio Description. .    We also discuss what to do when your local Network affiliate breaks audio description being passed through. And if you have had it with cable make sure to read Carl’s excellent article about cutting the cord which can be found here.   For any and all your questions about audio description, find out what is playing on Network TV with audio description, find out what is streaming where with audio description, and pretty much find anything about audio description in the universe please visit the Audio Description Project.   You can find the full ACB 21 Audio Description Project session that Carl moderated with the 8 major streaming services here.         To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s an Ed less That Real Blind Tech Show, as Allison and Brian wonder twin powers unite to bring you the latest all new That Real Blind Tech show.   Listen in to find out what baffling phrase is setting off Brian’s A Lady devices. Strange stuff!   We then discuss self flying planes, seriously self flying planes, they are coming, well some of us think sooner than later.  Epic Games is back at it, now they are suing google.    A German man tried an interesting experiment as he sent Air Tags to Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and North Korea. Definitely check out this video about it.    Virtually go where ever you want with Amazon Explorer.   Google Maps can now tell you when your train is too crowded for comfort.   Are you ready for some Fantasy Football? As the new football season approaches, and thanks to popular demand from last season, The All Blind Fantasy Football League will be launching a second All Blind Fantasy Football League. If you are interested in getting in on the free fun, email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com to reserve a spot.    Aira 2.0 will be launching possibly by the end of the year. We discuss some of the exciting additions coming to Aira.    Allison and Brian then dive in to their experiences and recap of this year’s ACB Virtual Conference.   Allison and Brian then discuss updating apps and whether or not apps are breaking all accessibility less frequently these days.      To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

The entire gang is back together again in their cardboard basements of choice.    We start off discussing the Linuk Foundations launching an open voice network to build an industry wide standard. Leakers are reporting that Lidar will only be available on the iPhone Pro 13 models. Will that affect your decision?   We have told you multiple times to never ever quote That Real Blind Tech Show, well now you may never ever want to quote Mashable, as they get things wrong to! They claim Spatial Audio will not work on the iPhone SE, but it indeed does. Verizon customers can now enjoy numbers attempting to spoof theirs being blocked.   The NFB has wrapped its 2021 National Conference. We start off our recap discussing the impressive Crowd Compass app that was used for this year’s conference.  Allison and Brian then discuss their take aways from the sessions and exhibitors that caught their attention. They were both really impressed with everything Amazon had to discuss.    We include a sample of text to speech audio description and a little error that TTS can make.    We then dive in to reviewing this year’s NFB Resolutions, and amazingly we agree with almost all of them.    Since we last recorded Allison made the jump to a new Smart Speaker setup. She has joined the Sonos ecosystem after hearing a phenomenal demo The Ultimate Sonos demo. We wonder where she heard it? We then discuss setting up the Eero Mesh Router network, while fully accessible, you can encounter some fun if you previously have both a 5G and 2G network.    Your VoiceMails can now be heard on That Real Blind Tech Show. We got a great call about our review of the Saetchi Multi-Device keyboard. A listener suggests the Mathias Multi-Device Bluetooth keyboard which sounds fantastic despite only a 3.7 review on Amazon.   And it’s the return of What’s Pissing Brian Off and more of Watcha Streaming, Watcha Reading!         To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.

It’s another spectacularly awesome That Real Blind Tech show demo. Brian flying solo as he demos the HBO Max iOS app accessibility along with how to play Audio Description.   Brian walks you through the Home screen of the app, how to get audio description playing, how to add titles to my list, heading navigation of the app, and the design quirks to finding my list. He also walks you through the search functionality of the app   Brian then walks you through the Apple TV app and how to make use of the continue watching feature with HBO Max and other applications. He then demonstrates how to move around to different seasons and episodes for a tV series. He then explores the library tab where all of the movies and TV Shows you have purchased through iTunes are located.    Brian finishes showing you how to search for a movie if you are uncertain where it may be streaming through the Apple TV app.     To contact That Real Blind Tech Show, you can email us at ThatRealBlindTechShow@gmail.com, join our Facebook Group That Real Blind Tech Show, join us on the Twitter @BlindTechShow , or leave us an old school phone message at 929-367-1005.