 Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Green Mountain Support Services, empowering people with disabilities to live home in the community, Washington County Mental Health, where hope and support come together. Media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times, Muslim Community Report, WWW, this is the Bronx.info, Associated Press Media Editors, New York Power Online Newspaper, U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International, Anchor FM and Spotify. Partners for Ableton on Air include the HOD of New York and New England, where everyone belongs, the Orthodox Union, the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont, the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity, and Montpelier Sustainable Coalition, Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx, Roosevelt Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York, Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx, Ableton on Air has been seen in the following publications, Park Chester Times, WWW, this is the Bronx.com, New York Power Online Newspaper, Muslim Community Report, WWW.H.com, and the Montpelier Bridge. Ableton on Air is part of the following organizations, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Boston, New England Chapter, and the Society of Professional Journalists. Welcome to this edition of Ableton on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the differently-abled. I've always been your host, Lauren Syler. I'm just not here today. Before we get started and talk about something that's extremely important, near and dear to me, especially for those that are blind and visually impaired, let's thank our sponsors, Washington County Mental Health, Green Mountain Support Services, and many others, including the support of the Division for the Blind of Vermont and the Association for the Blind of Vermont, and many others, also including sponsorships. One of our new sponsorships is Enough Ministries of Buried Vermont. So let's get started. Thanks to... Well, before we begin our show, let me just talk about a little bit of a commentary. I don't know if everyone knows out there, but in Vermont, I am slowly losing my vision. I am visually impaired, and I am getting services from the Division for the Blind of Vermont. So recently, I was at a grocery store. Now, many people who are visually impaired can't see those little stickers that are on the shelves. Yes, people can probably see large posters that are talking about specials, either by the deli counter or the fish counter. If it's a large enough poster, saying a price, then a person can probably see that. But I'm talking about the small stickers that are by products. So, for example, if something is $2.99, and then a supermarket puts a price on top of a price, then on top of another price, you can't see that. It's a little disconcerting. So I say this as a small part of my commentary. Stop doing that. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, stores are supposed to have large enough print for people to see. Now, since this is the 32nd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, stop and think and come out of yourself for a minute and become us. In other words, go into our shoes. What if you were blind and visually impaired and you needed help? So if corporations would stop basically and smell the coffee pretty much, if that is the same these days, stop and smell the coffee, which means help us and then we can help others. So basically, according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, all stores are supposed to have large enough print. So stop putting those stickers on top of one another so people can't see. I myself have peripheral vision issues. So let's get started with this. And if I haven't today, if this doesn't educate you, please get yourself more help through your community blind or blind and visually impaired organization so you can get the assistance that you need. So according to the Vermont Center for Independent Living, who basically recommended this app, so Be My Eyes is a Danish and I've tried this and it's a wonderful thing. So if you have a smartphone, Be My Eyes is a Danish mobile app that aims to help blind and visually impaired people recognize objects and cope with everyday situations. An online community of sighted volunteers receive photos or videos from randomly assigned effective individuals in a system via live chat. In other words, if you're in a store and looking at a product, let's say this was a can of soup and you needed to find the price of the soup, you take a picture of it, then take a picture of the price and the person can help you on the other end. This is how this works. A visually impaired person starts a live stream showing their view from a cell phone camera. They are assigned through a phone, call or chat or random volunteer who speaks the same language in the same time zone. This allows the volunteer to describe the object and assist visually impaired people with that object such as guiding the person to move the camera and read instructions or clean up a spill if they are mopping or that kind of thing. Through speech synthesis, content can be read out loud and the process encourages a more independent life for the blind and visually impaired person. Now, this was released. The app was marketed by Hans Jurgen Wilberg. He had demonstrated this through video chat such as software of Skype and FaceTime, which people don't use Skype too much anymore. None of these apps FaceTime or Skype is tailored for the visually impaired. For development, he joined forces with the Danish Association for the Blind and other organizations. The app was first presented at an event and started up companies in 2012 and was released in 2015. In February of 2020, they raised more funding to help people who need visual support services and this is free for people who are visually impaired. There are actually more apps for the blind. Let me talk about those. There is a website here for those who want to find more apps for the blind. The apps come from www.railworks.com www.railworks.com Here are the top five apps that I'm going to actually go through and next time we come on the show we'll bring a couple of examples. The top five apps, if you have problems with money, example, if you have problems identifying a bill, there are money identifying apps. It's a clip that goes on your money and it will actually tell you what it is. That's one. It's called Looktel which is a money identifying app. Then there is one called TapTapSea which is almost the same thing but it helps you identify photos and other ones like that. That's www.railworks.com Let us go through this here. www.railworks.com is a company that transcribes If you need help learning how to transcribe it you can go to www.railworks.com They do provide rail transcription services and things like that. The most interesting thing about this website is that if you are having problems and you are visually impaired and need a bit of counseling per se there is a blog that people here that people viewing our show can look at www.railworks.com They have a braille that talks about going through braille and transcribing it and then also they have articles about the Americans with Disabilities Act which brings me to this. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act in terms of braille it is imperative the Americans with Disabilities Act formed in 1990 is a wide-ranging civil rights law that prohibits under certain circumstances discrimination based on disability. Now, in terms of braille according to the ADA standards braille is only required in signs that identify a room, space or area known as a men's room, a women's room so on and so forth. Now, there are five things that a person should know that a business should know if you are going to add ADA signage or adding braille to ADA signage. First, find out if the signs require braille. You might, according to this you might be surprised that not all ADA signs require braille. According to the ADA standards braille is only required on signs that identify a room. It is required to put braille on the following signs rest rooms, meeting and conference room signs utility room signs meeting for janitors and other people who work classroom signs, common room signs it is not required but people do anyway it is not required to put braille on directional signs, elevated signs check in now at a reception desk informational signs open hour signs in other words when a business is open and closed and if there is a security guard assigned pointing to that also exit signs not required refuge another is where garbage is stairs and floor but again you are required now if your sign requires braille please make sure the text is raised raised text has a purpose at least 10% of the 1.3 million people who are legally blind in the US actually know how to read braille which I am going to be learning a sign with braille makes it a tactical sign a tactile sign with a purpose of serving the visually impaired which means text has to be raised as well okay now use the right version of braille there is not one, not two but three levels of complexity in English braille ADA standards require grade 2 grade 2 braille which was introduced as a space saving alternative to grade 1 braille grade 2 braille abandons 1 to 1 transcription and adds hundreds of abbreviations and contractions to fit easier on signage now again for more information on this you can go to www.tinkeringmonkey.com that's T-I-N-K-E-R-I-N-G monkey.com forward slash guides on ADA signage and basically it would go into that now number four keep braille transcriptions together to make easier for visually impaired it is required that all braille is grouped together in one section and always located at the bottom of the sign number five ADA standards specifically dimensional requirements in order to ensure that the braille is easily and comfortable to read there are no sharp edges no sharp edges please therefore it's important to choose a sign vendor with experience with ADA signage to ensure that it is correct and the material is processed correctly and is used correctly now for more information again on this you can go to www.tinkeringmonkey.com forward slash ADA signage and if you need help please contact your community disability organization who will be gladly to help now let's talk about for a brief couple of minutes which is very important here in Vermont there is an organization called Vermont Center for Independent Living Vermont Center for Independent Living can turn around and help you learn how to be more independent in your home as well as in the community they can give you classes on how to they can teach you how to be more independent they can give you workshops on how to manage your money and other things like that so if you need help from the Vermont Center for Independent Living on how to advocate for yourself and be more independent it's extremely important for people who especially need to be more independent and yes relatives can help but if you're not independent then don't in my vast opinion doing this show for many years here in Vermont as well as for the 30 plus years don't let relatives kind of take over or be on top of a person yes if you need further assistance yes ask for relatives help but you must be independent till you cannot be independent which means there are situations where relatives do become people's guardians if they so need it then it becomes who can I trust to help me become more independent so the Vermont Center for Independent Living does help people who especially need to become more independent for more information on that and we will have them on the show at some point again you can go to www.vcil.org that website once again is www.vcil.org and for more information on services for the blind and visually impaired our partners organizational website we have division for the blind of Vermont as a partner in the show you can go to www.dvbi.org that's www.dvbidivisionfortheblindofvermind.org and also the partnering organization to that is the association for the blind of Vermont which is www.associationfortheblindofvermind.org associationfortheblindofvermind.org and they can help you with anything that you need help with when it comes to equipment they can help you with computers they can help you with tablets they can help you with money clips or anything helping the blind and visually impaired become more independent and the last thing I want to mention on this show it has not been easy doing what we do on this television program however we have had the association for the blind of Vermont on this show before and for more information on that and last time they came and they brought many pieces of equipment from kitchen equipment to helping someone who cannot read a medication bottle if it's a little bit too small example again money so if it's too small for someone to read they can help you so for more information on Ableton On Air and the programs that we've done on this show including helping people become more independent through our journalism you can go to Orca Media's website at www.OrcaMedia.com we will have more shows within the coming weeks on how to navigate blindness how to read Braille and how to navigate becoming more independent again we would like to thank our sponsors for sponsoring our program and partnering with us we would like to thank Washington County Mental Health Green Mountain Support Services and many others including the Association for the Blind of Vermont the Division for the Blind of Vermont and also if you need any extra assistance being blind and visually impaired you can go to www.AFB.org that's the Association for the Blind they're in New York but they have a national organization so that's www.AFB.org and if you would like to read any information on Lewis Braille and Helen Keller you can go to AFB.org www.AFB.org they have a library on Helen Keller's books and pictures as well and you know different things of that nature about her life don't be afraid to ask for help when you're blind and visually impaired I'm Lawrence Seiler see you next time Major sponsors for Ableton on Air include Green Mountain Support Services empowering people with disabilities to live home in the community Washington County Metal Health where hope and support come together media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Park Chester Times Muslim Community Report www this is the Bronx.info Associated Press Media Editors New York Parrot Online Newspaper U.S. Press Corps Domestic and International Anchor FM and Spotify Partners for Ableton on Air include Yachad of New York and New England where everyone belongs the Orthodox Union the Division for the Blind and Visually Impaired of Vermont the Vermont Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired Central Vermont Habitat for Humanity and Montpelier Sustainable Coalition Montefiore Medical Center of the Bronx Rose of Kennedy Center of Bronx, New York Albert Einstein College of Medicine of the Bronx Ableton on Air has been seen in the following publications Park Chester Times www this is the Bronx.com New York Parrot Online Newspaper Muslim Community Report www.h.com and the Montpelier Bridge Ableton on Air is part of the following organizations the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Boston New England Chapter and the Society of Professional Journalists