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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Show Notes:
NuEyes with Justin Moore | www.nueyes.com
Making Room for Autism in the Workplace http://buff.ly/29XyqBd
Entrepreneurs push for affordable devices supporting people with disabilities – MedCity News http://buff.ly/2af1TWa
Mum credits Pokémon Go with encouraging son with autism to ‘socialise and interact’ http://buff.ly/2ao5sZr
ATFAQ034 – Q6. Pokemon Go and people with disabilities – Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads http://buff.ly/2ao5q3R
Pokémon Go: It’s More than Just a Game – Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads http://buff.ly/2ao5rF5
Tackling the Research Paper: Tips and Tools for Success for People with Vision Loss – AccessWorld® – July 2016 http://buff.ly/2a9eZqt
App review: Skyview Free www.BridgingApps.org
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——-transcript follows ——
JUSTIN MOORE: Hi, this is Justin Moore, and I’m the cofounder of NuEyes, and this is your Assistance Technology Update.
WADE WINGLER: Hi, this is Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals crossroads in Indiana with your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
Welcome to episode number 270 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on July 29, 2016.
The INDATA Project is one of 56 federally funded Assistive Technology Act programs. Every state in the United States and territory has one. Want to find one close to you? Head over to eastersealstech.com/states.
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I don’t typically look to the Atlantic to be a source of assistive technology information, but I found a really cool article called “Making room for autism in the workplace.” It really focuses on the Dan Marino Foundation in Fort Lauderdale and the Marino campus which is a school down there. They are using avatars to help people with autism, specifically young people with autism, prepare for job interviews. They talk about several different situations where this technology is being used, and the idea is that a person with autism can spend some time practicing with an avatar who might ask really tough interview questions or maybe easy interview questions. The article goes on it talks really in detail about the transition from high school into employment in college for people with autism and talks about the need for people who have very analytical skills and how folks with autism might fit that. I was fascinated to read some of their descriptions of avatars and see some of the pictures depicting people practicing intervening with these electronic interviewers. I’m going to pop a link in the show notes over to the article in the Atlantic and suggest you check it out. Pretty cool stuff.
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I love any story that talks about entrepreneurship and assistive technology. From MedCityews.com, there is a story about entrepreneurs who are pushing for affordable devices affording people with disabilities. There is a group called Furenexo who is currently in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, and they have a product called Sound Sense that will vibrate and give it haptic interface when there is a loud noise like an alarm. Apparently Furenexo is all about the open source projects, and this is supposed to be just the first of many things that they do to try to make affordable assistive technology available to people who are blind, visually impaired, have other kinds of disabilities. Brian Goral, who is one of the cofounders, is quoted as saying, “We don’t consider ourselves a health tech company. We are a public benefits company. Our emphasis is making sure products are put together well.” I’m happy to say that I also secured an interview with Mister Goral and I’m going to talk to him for next week’s episode. I’m looking forward to getting the setup and sharing more about this socially aware group of entrepreneurs. I’ll pop a link in the show notes over to Med City News and you can read about Furenexo.
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It seems I can’t turn on the news these days without hearing something about Pokémon Go, super popular game. It’s an augmented reality system allows you to wander around your neighborhood looking through your phone and seeing pocket monsters, those Japanese creatures that you can collect and do battle and all those kinds of things. I bring it up on our show because it’s showing up on my radar with a lot of disability implications. One of those is an article I found out of Australia news outlet that talks about a mom, Lenore Kopelman, in New York that says her son with autism is playing Pokémon Go and it is helping him to establish some social interactions that he normally wouldn’t have done. The technology apparently fascinates the young boy and he goes out and has conversations with other kids about the game, and it is breaking up is very carefully establish routine. It’s helping him sort of expand his horizons a little bit.
In our other show, ATFAQ, or Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions, just like last week with a release date of Monday, July 25, we had this question come up on our show, do we think Pokémon go is a good thing for people who use assistive technology or not. It turns out that we found some situations where that is an important thing. Our very own Laura Metcalf, who creates a lot of our content here at Easter Seals Crossroads in the INDATA Project, is a Pokémon go player, and she has told us that she plays the game and goes out into local areas of the city, and she meets other people and that helps her break out of her shell a little bit and talk to people about a common interest. It’s hard to get the conversation started. Obviously, I’m a parent, so I’m thinking about safety and security and just being logical. Anytime you’re out and about meeting strangers, you want to be safe about that. This is an interesting phenomenon. Obviously the game is designed to help get you out and move around, so there’s a health and fitness component there. And it seems there is some socialization that might not otherwise happen.
I’m going to pop a couple links into the show notes. I’ll pop a link to this article from nine news Australia. I’ll also put a link in the show notes for our ATFAQ episode where you can read more about that, and our own Laura Medcalf has done a blog post on it. I have a few different Pokémon go links. Check our show notes.
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It’s almost time for back to school. I know people in my household are certainly thinking about that. In that vein, I found an article from AFB Access World Magazine that appeared earlier but I still think is relevant and good. It’s written by JD Meddaugh. We’ve known here for a while on the show. It’s called tackling the research paper, tips and tools for success for people with vision loss. Pretty cool article that talks about, from an academic standpoint, if you’re in high school or college, what you might do to make sure your research paper comes out well especially if you are dealing with vision loss. In the article, he talks about some ways to begin your research and to define your topics. He has some good advice about doing online research. He tackles the topics of do you use Google and Wikipedia for your online research, and part of what he says is that you might use that as a starting point but realized that that might not be an accessible place for a cited reference. He also talks about the importance of using the existing resources at your school. He gets into how to cite your sources and some tips on when and how to do that. A quick word about plagiarism before he wraps up the article. Whether you are a high school or college students for the first time or you’re going back after being away, I think you ought to check out JJ’s article about tackling research papers. I’ll pop a link in the show notes to make it easier for you to find that.
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Each week, one of our partners tells us what’s happening in the ever-changing world of apps, so here’s an App Worth Mentioning.
AMY BARRY: This is Amy Barry with BridgingApps, and this is an App Worth Mentioning. This week I’m sharing the Skyview Free: Explore the Universe app. A BridgingApps favorite, Skyview bring stargazing to everyone. Yes, it is totally free. Simply point your mobile device at the sky to identify stars, constellations, satellites, and more. This highly engaging app makes targeting interactive, educational, and super fun. You don’t need to be an astronomer to find stars or constellations in the sky. Just open the Skyview app on your device and let it guide you to their location and identify them. Beautiful and intuitive, the Skyview app uses your camera to precisely spot and identify celestial objects in the sky, day or night. So find your favorite constellations as they fade in and out while you scan your device across the sky. You can locate the moon the moon, discover distant galaxies, and even witness satellite flybys. Additional features include the night mode and an augmented reality view of the universe. Users can select a celestial body by tapping on the “i” button or by swiping up to see detailed images and even more information. Calming music, sound effects, and sky object trajectories can be enabled or disabled when using the app. Another great resource is the option to download a section where users can get even more awesome sky objects to find and follow. We trialed the app with users of all ages and abilities, and it was a big hit. So gather around the campfire with some hot dogs, s’mores, and the Skyview app. Skyview: Explore the Universe is available at the iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon stores and is compatible with iOS, Android, and also Kindle Fire devices. For more information on this app and others like it, visit BridgingApps.org.
WADE WINGLER: So I’m sitting in my studio – and I know that’s not a surprise. I do the all the time. But I’m looking at things in a very different way. I see a light switch and I see some soundproofing stuff on the wall, and I see my computer screen. I’m saying a magnified version and I can say, glasses, change color. Glasses, change color. And now I’m seeing an inverted screen. And I can say glasses, make bigger. Glasses, make smaller. And that’s what’s happening. As I’m looking through this assistive technology, things are getting bigger or smaller and going from full color to sort of an inverted view. I’m seeing things in a magnified way like I’ve never seen before. Okay, so I’m taking these off. Now I’m seeing Justin. Justin Moore is the cofounder in NuEyes and is the in the studio with us today. Justin, how are you?
JUSTIN MOORE: Great, thanks for me.
WADE WINGLER: Thanks so much for stopping by. You sort of watched the world of our staff meeting today by showing us this product. You got everybody here sort of buzzing and talking about NuEyes as something new and different than what we seen in the field a little bit. In the past – I’ve been in the world of assistive technology for 23 years. It’s going to be a long time. I remember CCTV’s and a lot of magnification technology that sort of carved out the cutting edge of magnification back then. But NuEyes is something different. Before we talk about the technology, I want to know a little bit about you. Tell my audience a little bit about you and your background and how you got where you are today with NuEyes.
JUSTIN MOORE: Thanks. My background out of high school, I joined the Air Force. I was a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force. My business partner is also a vet, so NuEyes is a veteran owned business. After the Air Force, I went to college at West Virginia University, got a degree in marketing. I looked at how people see things and how to bring parts to market, so that’s one of my specialties. For several years I worked for a CCTV manufacturer, about eight years. In that time, I learned how to train people and how distribution works. I actually hired a good friend of mine, and he became the Los Angeles distributor for the CCTV company.
Five or six years into it, he decided that the wearable market and the wearable technology was really starting to come on. If you haven’t noticed with the Google glass and things like this are starting to come out and roll out. He got real motivated and decided to go out and make a connection. He wound up contacting a group called the Osterhout Design Group in San Francisco. They had been working on a wearable technology, about a $90 million R&D product. It’s a very extremely advanced piece of technology. It’s a full computer inside of a pair of glasses with the camera on front. Instead of looking through, you’re actually looking at two screens in front of your eyes. If you can imagine the camera on your head taking that image and then sharing a right to the lenses, that’s how you can magnify. You can magnify, change contrast, change your voice as Wade was doing. He was using his voice there. These are called smart glasses. You can imagine anything your cell phone can do, these can do, but on your head. As we looked at how it’s going to evolve, Consumer Electronics Show last year where we were start up award winner. We got a lot of attention there and it was really exciting. We brought to market – in January we started the company and it rolled out. We started shipping in April. The VA healthcare is already starting to pick up on them, schools, state agencies, individuals. It’s really picking up quick. The need is there, the want is there.
I was just showing Wade and the crew how it has OCR built into it. You have a full CCTV on your head. Because it is on your head, it is limited to 12x, so it’s not going to be something for someone who needs a 30x CCTV or something like that. It’s going to be someone who can really benefit from this, someone who is working, sitting in a meeting and can’t see the board or can’t see their coworker’s face, or a student in the classroom who can’t see the board or a college student who has to go to six or seven different classes and they need something small. The NuEyes are 125 grams, so just a hair lighter than an iPhone6. You can throw them in your backpack and they look like a black pair of sunglasses. That’s kind of where it’s come from. That’s where NuEyes is that today.
WADE WINGLER: There’s a lot going on there and obviously we can tell you are passionate about this product, it’s something you know a lot about it are excited about. I’m going to back up a little bit because I’m looking at these across the table. Like you said, they look like a pair of sunglasses. We have a few different virtual reality systems in our lab, so I’m going to say this is bigger than Google Glass but it’s more than Oculus Rift. It’s in the in between there. Very high-tech looking, very sleek. I can tell that’s got those two screens. Along the bottom side are some buttons. But when I was using it, you put a remote control that sort of slid over my finger and I could use my thumb to hit a few different buttons to control when I’m not doing voice activation. I’m pretty impressed with how it looks and I think it’s cool. Tell me a little bit about – we are making some assumptions about the population, but tell me who might use this, somebody who is totally blind, somebody with low vision, and where might they use it. You gave me a couple of examples but let’s go a little deeper.
JUSTIN MOORE: It’s not going to be helpful for totally blind. It’s a low vision device so you have to have some vision. Usually what I’ll say is if you got a newspaper and you can read the big, bold fonts but you can’t read the regular text, you are a good candidate for that NuEyes. That’s who is going to be. The people so far who have been extremely excited about it would be retinitis pigmentosa patients, maybe newly diagnosed macular degeneration patients who have been treating with Glucentis who don’t need that three times modification, 40 times, but are up to 12 X is very helpful for them. Those are the specific as far as who uses them. It’s great as he mentioned about the remote. We call it the trackpad. It’s got four buttons on the front, two on the back, and it’s actually got a trackpad. As we develop, that’s actually going to be a mouse. It’ll be able to control all the functions that are coming and we can get into that in a second.
WADE WINGLER: That’s a little bit about the who. Let’s talk about the where a little bit. I have been walking around with this thing on and I know that it can be used in a lot of different settings. Where do you see this technology being used?
JUSTIN MOORE: Absolutely. We see this just about everywhere you’re going to need them. If you are low vision and you want to play cards, it’s really difficult to use a CCTV to play cards with your friends. It’s really difficult to use a CCTV to go shopping at a store. It’s really difficult to wear a CCTV and looking across the room at Thanksgiving dinner and look at grandma’s face. It’s really difficult to use a CCTV to sit in a ballpark and look at a player, things like that, look at the score. Or if you’re in the yard and you want to watch a birdfeeder, we’ve seen people do that. Watching TV, going to a play, everything that we who have normal vision take for granted. That’s where Mark and I have really have a passion about helping people get that independence back. We had a gentleman who is a veteran, and he bought a pair and his wife pulled me aside. She goes, he’s using these out in the garden. He’s uses them on the flowers. He’s able to do a lot of things he had to give up and it’s giving this new lease on life for him. You talk about new tech, this gentleman is well into his 70s. He’s tickled. He’s using them every day and is coming up with new ideas and new things that he said to give up. He’s able to get that all back. As a business owner, it couldn’t be more fulfilling.
WADE WINGLER: And it sounds like you might be knocking something’s office honey do list as well. You’re solving marital problems.
JUSTIN MOORE: Made them a little happier there, middle bliss.
WADE WINGLER: I was able to make the size of the image bigger and spun into some of the versions and stuff like that. I know it does more now and it’s going to do more in the future. Let’s talk about some of the features that are there right now.
JUSTIN MOORE: So you’ve got modification up to 12 X. That’s very important, people need things bigger. Then he got contrast, the white and black, the black and white, and full-color. A lot of the devices out there will offer 10 or 20 different contrast. After our research, most people, above 90 percent, the black and white, white on black, color meets Moe’s needs. If there was a specific color that someone needed, that’s just a simple software. What’s great about the devices it has a 64 gigabytes hard drive built into it and 2.7 gigabytes of RAM. What that will allow us to do is to put a lot of goodies on it. Is an android-based tablet smart glasses if that makes sense. It does everything that a tablet can do. What we’re going to be adding to it, the OCR is there, it’s going to be released here in about a month. That’s a free upgrade software. We want to create an ecosystem. But you want to be able to do is at all the apps to it. We want to have barcode readers, apps that will tell you if it’s a five dollar bill or a $10 bill. We want to have apps where if you’re in France and vacation, you can pick up a paper, push the button, the OCR will read it and translate for you. It’s going to open this you’d rolled up. In addition to that, TV streaming. I know some of the older devices you could take a cable and run it from the TV to the glasses. Having it run directly to it opens up the siege amount of opportunity. If you are streaming TV and you are sitting in an airport or you’re traveling, anywhere in the world you can have that, it’s going to open the world to you. You can change the channel. You have the sound. It has two little earbuds that thing down from it and go into your ears. It’s cool about these is that, everything, Bluetooth. You can actually pair them to a beach by Dray wireless set, things like that, see you get a better sound out of it. Having the voice really makes it easy. We had a young man down in Florida who put them on and he wanted to be an auto mechanic and he was having difficulty seeing into the engine. He was having difficulty in the classroom. You put these on it and he says – of course had a really bright LED light on the front of them. He’s able to put that light on, see in the engine and get to work. That’s the whole goal, is to give that independence back and allow people to live to live a better life. The wearable technologies is the future. It’s going faster and faster. We are very blessed to have been partnered with Oser how to design group and take their device and bring it to market with our software.
WADE WINGLER: That’s incredible. We talked about the importance of wearables, but let’s talk a little bit about why this device should be headmounted and how is that different from traditional handheld or desktop CCTV’s. Why do we care about it being a wearable?
JUSTIN MOORE: Just that people like to do things hands-free. You want to write, read, worked on arts and crafts. If you’re playing the piano, CCTV’s not going to do much good for you because you want to be able to turn your head, see the music, and rock ‘n roll. We had a violinist. He’s very pleased because he’s hands-free. The biggest thing about the wearables is hands-free. If you’re in the classroom trying to take notes, pulling out a CCTV can be a challenge because just look down, look up, you have to write. This natural movement just to move your head. What’s great is the camera is in front of your eyes, so anywhere you move your eyes you are getting it. You’ve got a 100 frames per second camera drinking, so it is faster than your I can keep up. And was very quickly. HT image, very bright and beautiful. As far as you mentioned, the wearable, that’s what’s important about it. Just having that hands-free to be up to live your life and not have to hold anything.
WADE WINGLER: So is doing a lot. I know it’s going to do some more. Talk to me a little bit more about any of the limitations you are expressing now and what’s in the crystal ball for the technology. What do you see coming down the pike?
JUSTIN MOORE: It has a five megapixel camera and three their degree screen. You get a 30 degrees field of view. That’s really the limitation of technology today. If you think back and you had a four cell phone how big they were and things like that – I’m not saying these are like that, but it’s going to get lighter and faster and better as time goes on. This is actually innovative. There’s nothing that’s ever been this advance into a pair of glasses. If you look at these, Wade, what would you think they look like? Do they look like goggles? Do they look like a headset? Or do they look like a pair of glasses?
WADE WINGLER: They look like a funky pair of glasses.
JUSTIN MOORE: The lenses are black out. Have a stealth look. They definitely look technological, so if somebody saw you wearing them, they would definitely say that is a pair of technology. As the future goes on, there is really no limit to what we can do. We would hope to eventually allow the glasses to let someone who is completely blind to be able to cross streets, have signs read to them, or technology can come on there and expect to them what’s moving around. There is really no limitations. We are in a golden age of technology. Wearables are the very next step. People do not want to be tied to things or be stuck somewhere. They want to be able to put something in their pocket and carried around. Think of smartphones and how it has an impact on people’s lives today. This is going to be just the same. Here’s something crazy. I was having a conversation with someone. There are algorithms being developed that can tell you when you’re looking at an item, even someone who is completely blind, they can look down. The algorithm in the glasses will look at it, process it so fast, and tell you that it’s Campbell Soup. As we have this technology, they are going to pick up on something, you could be walking down the street, pass someone and see a pair of shoes, magnify and see the shoes, algorithm figures out that a pair of Nike’s, and you can voice activate, order of Amazon, and have Amazon delivered to you in about 10 minutes. How amazing is that?
WADE WINGLER: That’s awesome.
JUSTIN MOORE: That’s the future.
WADE WINGLER: We’re running a little short on time here, but I have a couple of questions I want to make sure we cover. Is it available? What does the cost? And how long does it take to learn this device? What does training look like?
JUSTIN MOORE: It’s available now. It’s $6000. How long it takes to train on the device depends on how many functions you’re going to use and how techy are you. If you’re using a smartphone, you’re going to figure it out in about 15 minutes. If you are new to the technology, it may take a few hours of training and maybe some follow-on training on top of that. We’ve got a woman on our website whose 95, and she managed to figure them out and she’s playing the piano with them. Don’t hold yourself back. Give it a shot. I get phone calls a lot and people ask will work for me. You really can’t tell. Everybody’s eyes are different. You’re going to have to try them on first. We don’t sell them direct. We go through a distribution channel. But reaching out to our website, put your information in there, we can put you in touch with someone local. We’ve got 35 distributors signed up. Probably someone right in your backyard.
WADE WINGLER: So if people wanted to do that, if they wanted to take action, learn more, how do they contact you? Was the website? What’s the best way to reach out?
JUSTIN MOORE: The very best way is the website. That’s www.NuEyes.com. Make sure you get the spelling right. That’s the best way. You put your information in there, it goes to our inside staff, they figure out which ZIP Code and they’ll put an email together, forward you to the local distributor, and you’ll make that connection there. Getting it deposition is no cost. We want to make a clean and easy and quick so that someone can get there and try them out and discover if it’s going to help. It’s likely to be for everyone but it definitely going to help a lot. It arty has helped a lot of people.
WADE WINGLER: Justin Moore is the cofounder of NuEyes, has been our guest in studio today. Justin, thanks for hanging out with us.
JUSTIN MOORE: Thank you so much, Wade. I appreciate it.
WADE WINGLER: Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? Call our listener line at 317-721-7124, shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject, or check us out on Facebook. Looking for a transcript or show notes from today’s show? Head on over to www.EasterSealstech.com. Assistive Technology Update is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. Find more shows like this plus much more over at AccessibilityChannel.com. That was your Assistance Technology Update. I’m Wade Wingler with the INDATA Project at Easter Seals Crossroads in Indiana.
