Speaker 2 00:01:00 Good evening, thank you for joining Disability and Progress, where we bring you insights into ideas about, and discussions on disability topics. We have a great topic for tonight. We are in the meeting with Diane Dharm du Charm, sorry. Hi, Diane. Hi is a senior program manager for Blind Shell usa and we'll be talking about the blind Shell phone and who uses it and how it's different. Thanks so much for your patience, Diane. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 00:01:31 Thank you. <laugh>. You have, you have some jazzy music going on though.
Speaker 2 00:01:36 Well, you know, you know, you, you get, you got what you got and I just, uh, you know, you just never know what you're gonna get here. Anyway, my name is Sam, I'm the host of this show. Thanks for tuning in. Charlene Dolls, my research person. Hi Charlene. Good evening everyone. There you are. Oh yeah. Okay. So, um, let's start off Diane, by talking about you for a minute. You get to, you get to talk a little bit about you and then it's, it's nothing about you. No, I'm just kidding. <laugh>. So, talk to me a little bit about how you came to this job and what is your role with Blind Shells usa?
Speaker 3 00:02:16 Well, okay, so I, I actually don't like talking about myself, so this is my least favorite part, but, um,
Speaker 2 00:02:23 But you're interesting cuz you landed here.
Speaker 3 00:02:26 I know. Okay. So I, um, I was born in Allen, down Pennsylvania, <laugh>, this is probably way back now. Um, so I have always worked in the field of disability. Um, I have a master's in education. Um, so I'm a certified rehab counselor. So I've always been working in this field, have loved to see the advancements in technology, see how things have changed. I've mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, I'm a visually impaired person myself. I grew up, I've always been visually impaired. Um, started off legally blind around 2100. And then as get, as I got older and older, um, the vision started to decline and nobody knew why everybody was blaming, like the retina. People were blaming the cornea. Cornea playing, of
Speaker 2 00:03:15 Course.
Speaker 3 00:03:16 Yeah. So, you know, like it really makes a difference. <laugh>, but, so it is what it is. So now, um, it's pretty much just like light perception if I'm lucky. Hmm. So, yeah. So I feel that that is, um, you know, in a way it's a benefit when dealing with people in our community because I feel like I understand, um, sometimes what a sighted person thinks is accessible, isn't accessible and Right. Yeah. So I, I feel like if I'm frustrated with something and, and, you know, smacking the phone that I know that everybody else is as well. Right.
Speaker 2 00:03:58 So how did you, how did you end up with, um, working with Blind Shell?
Speaker 3 00:04:05 So I was working for Sprint as a blind and low vision outreach specialist. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and then Covid hit and we got furloughed and I just happened to meet Barry Mond while I was working for Sprint. And we kept in contact, we see each other all the time at different conferences. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, um, the opportunity came up with, with Blinds Shell. So he, he's our president and he asked me. And so here I am.
Speaker 2 00:04:36 Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. So the Blind Shell phone, that's an in, that's, I don't even know what to think of that name. That's such a <laugh>. Did you have any idea of how they came up with that name?
Speaker 3 00:04:49 Yeah, so the Blind Cell, um, started around, back in 2013. There was a competition in Prague where a college student entered this competition because his best friend was blind and his friend's like, I really wanna use a cell phone like everybody else. So he created this platform and apparently Shell is the geeky technology word for technology. I, and, and so they came up with this name as Blind Shell.
Speaker 2 00:05:26 Wow, okay. So it's like a, a German,
Speaker 3 00:05:31 The phone is actually, uh, blinds Shell headquarters are located in Prague. Okay. And we, yeah. And we are blinds Shell usa So we handle everything in the us North America, south America, central America, <laugh>. Excellent. All the Americas.
Speaker 2 00:05:49 All the Americas. All right. Yes. So blind Shell Cell, uh, cell phone. Talk about what, like, what that is, what is it exactly besides the cell phone?
Speaker 3 00:06:03 Yeah, sure. So Blind Shell classic two, which is the phone that we have now. It started in 2019 with the classic, but in 2021, fall of 2021, we came out with a classic two mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that's our focus now. So it is basically an all-in-one communication device. So it's a cell phone, but it's also your book reader. It's also how you can, uh, watch YouTube podcasts. Um, it's got a step counter in it, it has a guitar tuner. It's just got a ton of different features, which I can go through all of those if you, if you like. But, so it is mainly a cell phone and it has actual tactile buttons on it. Ah,
Speaker 2 00:06:56 So there's just for those who missed the button thing.
Speaker 3 00:06:58 Yes, yes. The screen on it is for display only. So you can tap it, swipe it, rotary it, whatever you wanna do to it. It's not gonna affect anything. And that's really what our customers like, because they were fed up with the whole, um, just flat glass. And every time I pick it up, I was activating something that I didn't wanna do. Right. And it's also a menu driven phone. So there's two bars in the middle that take you up and down through all the menus, and then you just use a tactile button to select what you want and everything is spoken to you.
Speaker 2 00:07:34 Ah, excellent. So I will tell you that, um, for a long time I resisted the, the iOS I, um, I missed my N 86, excuse me just a minute. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3 00:07:48 <affirmative>,
Speaker 2 00:07:50 I used to, I loved my N 86 and I was in an accident where upon my N 86 was smashed <laugh> and was forced to go to the other side. Yeah. But boy, I'll tell you what, I loved my phone that had buttons and there was a lot to be said for that. Um, yeah. So can you describe what the blind shell looks like?
Speaker 3 00:08:13 Sure. So it comes in two colors. You can get it in midnight, black or cardinal red. And on the front of the phone there is this, so the phone itself is about five and a half inches tall. It's about two and a half across, and a little less than half an inch thick. And then on the front there is that screen that goes mm-hmm. <affirmative> probably a little bit more than halfway down. And then underneath that you have six buttons, which are all tactile. And those are your navigation buttons, the way to actually activate the phone. And then underneath that is your tactile keypad with a very pronounced dot on the number five.
Speaker 2 00:08:56 Ah,
Speaker 3 00:08:57 On the top of the phone you have your standard, uh, 3.5 headphone jack.
Speaker 2 00:09:03 Oh, the lovely headphone jack. I miss my headphone Jack <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:09:08 Yep. And then next to that you have, it's, um, you'll feel a little bump. And that is the flashlight. Mm-hmm. And then on the bottom of the phone is your standard u s BBC charging port.
Speaker 2 00:09:23 Okay.
Speaker 3 00:09:24 So if you flip the phone to the skinny side, like on the left hand skinny side mm-hmm. There's a rocker switch on the top. That's the volume. And if you flip it to the skinny side on the right, halfway down, there's a button about an inch long. And that has two purposes. So one is it will save your favorites. So if you don't wanna go through all the different menus to get to something, you have, you know, your list of favorites, you can save them there. And also that's how you dictate to the phone.
Speaker 2 00:09:56 Oh, I was gonna ask that. Cool. Yeah. Yep.
Speaker 3 00:10:01 And then on the back of the phone, there's a recess button that is a designated SOS button. So you can program whoever you want there. And then above that button is the camera.
Speaker 2 00:10:14 And I'm presuming this is fully accessible?
Speaker 3 00:10:18 Yes, it is. Yep. We like to say that it is the, um, it, it is 100% accessible, uh, like it when our apps are updated that they are accessible. Right. Some, sometimes they're a little bluey <laugh> at first, all of it. But, but we do make 'em, you know, cuz it, we have a lot of third party apps on here. So sometimes if Amazon updates, then we have to quickly go in and make that accessible to our phone. Right. So that, that's why, you know, if if Amazon doesn't update today, then somebody will call me and say, you know, I used to be able to do this and now I can't. So then I'll have to look at that and say, oh, this is what's going on. They updated, let's fix this immediately. Right.
Speaker 2 00:11:17 So I presume that the blind shell has a SD card. What's the capacity of that? And like, how much does the phone hold?
Speaker 3 00:11:28 So the phone itself is, um, has 12 gigs of storage mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but it holds an up, an SD card up to 128. So there's a, you can have a lot of storage on here and also it has, um, dual sim cards. So if you're somebody who travels a lot and you go to a different country, you can have your other SIM card in there ready for you when you get there.
Speaker 2 00:11:54 Cool. So you could, you know, if you'd like to go to Germany or wherever mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you could have that. Yep. And then you could have your own. Wow, that is really cool. Um, so that you wouldn't have to worry about roaming charges or whatever
Speaker 3 00:12:10 That is. Correct. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:12:13 Excellent. Uh, so you were talking Diane, about dictation and does it work a lot like, um, like you would see an iOS, like can you dictate with, you know, your messages and things like that?
Speaker 3 00:12:31 Yeah. So you can dictate, uh, your, if you wanna do a text message, you can dictate an email. You, it does not, well this is kind of a, a two-part question. You can't hold that button down and say, when was George Washington born? Ah, however, <laugh>, however, Alexa is built into the phone. Oh. So if you go down to the, go through the menu, get to Alexa, then you can ask that question.
Speaker 2 00:13:03 Gotcha. And so what is the voice that Blinds Shell is using?
Speaker 3 00:13:11 So there are multiple voices. I have a couple here that I will demonstrate. Sure. And also, um, the Blinds Shell has built right into it. 19 different languages. So if English isn't your preferred, or say you're trying to learn another language and you wanna practice on your phone, you can switch it out to a different language
Speaker 2 00:13:34 Because it is built on an Android platform, right?
Speaker 3 00:13:37 Yes. It's Android under the hood with Blind Shell software.
Speaker 2 00:13:42 So in a way it is proprietary.
Speaker 3 00:13:45 Yes. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:13:47 All right. Well give us a demo of what kind of things we could hear.
Speaker 3 00:13:51 Okay. So I will, um, this is an example of, let me turn up my volume. Oh, I'm glad I listened. I had them switched. I was gonna say this is the female voice. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 4 00:14:03 10.
Speaker 3 00:14:04 So this is, um,
Speaker 4 00:14:05 Call one of seven
Speaker 3 00:14:07 Messages, an example of
Speaker 4 00:14:09 Contact three of set application settings.
Speaker 3 00:14:13 That's the voice. And I'll show you turn up
Speaker 5 00:14:21 10, 10 important, three of four drafts, communication, media, books, games, vision aids.
Speaker 3 00:14:30 And I'll go over 13, all of those things. But I just wanted to give you an example of the different voices, depending on how well somebody is hearing some like the male voice, some like the female voice. And then also once you choose your language, so I chose English. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, then I can go in and there's like a hundred and different versions of English. I could pick <laugh>. So if I want the, if I want the British guy or if I want the Australian lady, or the, for St. Patrick's Day, I had the Irish lady talking on the phone. So you can have a lot of fun playing around with your voices too. I, um,
Speaker 2 00:15:09 I recently read that, um, that the blind Shell has Ira and for those who do not know what IRA is, because this is a global show and a lot of people do listen who maybe don't have a disability or maybe know somebody who has a disability, but they're not familiar with this, IRA is kind of this helpful, um, helpful program that you could call someone and ask them like, I need to know what color this shirt is and does it match with my pants? Um, did I describe that correctly that you would describe that exactly as that? Yes. And it's kind of, the other side will look at things or you could say, does this say carrots for my plants? Um, or read a recipe or whatever it is. There are different people that can help you with that. One of the things that they do use on the iOS is a camera. So what, talk about the camera a little bit on the blind Shell. Is it pretty good?
Speaker 3 00:16:10 It's pretty good. Yeah. It's a 13 pixel camera and we do have IRA and b my eyes on here. And we also have, um, a lot AI programs where you can turn text into speech and the camera works just fine for all of those applications.
Speaker 2 00:16:26 So do you have seeing AI on there?
Speaker 3 00:16:29 We have Google Lookout, which is the Android version of seeing ai.
Speaker 2 00:16:36 So we'll get to that in just a minute. But it's good that you have both be my eyes and Ira as people may not know, but Ira is not free for the exception. I think you can get five, five minutes, um, every 24 hours at least. You used to be able to. I'm not sure if that's changed.
Speaker 3 00:16:54 It's something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 All right. And then,
Speaker 3 00:16:56 Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:16:57 And then, um, uh, be My eyes is free to my knowledge still.
Speaker 3 00:17:02 Yes. So what I always recommend to people is, you know, use be my Eyes for things like, like you said, what color is my shirt? What, what is my washing machine set at? Don't use Be My Eyes for anything that's, you know, personal, legal, financial because they're volunteers. So you just wanna be careful.
Speaker 2 00:17:21 Yeah. Right. Uh, so let's talk about the Google Lookout. What is that and how does it work?
Speaker 3 00:17:30 So I love Google Lookout. It has five different components. Let me open it up. 7 24 page. Yes. So do you prefer the male or female voice sound? Is one better for that you're hearing? Well,
Speaker 2 00:17:44 Let's see. Let's ask my research, but Charlene, what would you rather hear? Female or male? Let's go with the female. All right, let's go with the female.
Speaker 3 00:17:53 All right. Division A, it's girl power team.
Speaker 2 00:17:57 <laugh>. That's right.
Speaker 3 00:17:59 Okay. So if I wanted to 4 7 19 25. So right now, this one I have set on the 24 hour time military time. I'm
Speaker 2 00:18:09 So into that. No, I love that
Speaker 3 00:18:11 <laugh>. Okay, so, um, if I wanted to go to be, what are we doing? Google Lookout? Sorry? Google
Speaker 2 00:18:18 Lookout.
Speaker 3 00:18:18 Yes. Yeah. And um, I don't have it in my favorites. So I'm gonna actually go through the, so I'm gonna use, there's two bars right underneath the screen, and I'm gonna hit the lower bar, go
Speaker 5 00:18:33 One of seven messages,
Speaker 3 00:18:34 And I'm gonna go two, two of
Speaker 5 00:18:35 Contacts, three of applications, four of seven.
Speaker 3 00:18:38 I'm gonna go to applications and I'm gonna hit the okay button above the number one. It's tactile round button,
Speaker 5 00:18:45 Internet browser, one of 13.
Speaker 3 00:18:47 So as you heard, you can go on the internet
Speaker 5 00:18:50 Tools, communication media, four of their books by Ames, vision
Speaker 3 00:18:55 Aids. I'm gonna go down and vision and I'm gonna hit okay,
Speaker 5 00:18:59 IRA
Speaker 3 00:19:00 Explorer. And there's our IRA
Speaker 5 00:19:01 Marks two of 12, be my eyes, three of 12 beeps. Color indicator Envision GPS points eight of TW Google Lookout. There we go. Seven of
Speaker 3 00:19:13 12. So I'm gonna hit okay on that.
Speaker 5 00:19:19 Look at
Speaker 3 00:19:21 And change
Speaker 5 00:19:22 Language
Speaker 3 00:19:22 Down. Turn
Speaker 5 00:19:23 Camera off. Explore beta one of five. Explore,
Speaker 3 00:19:27 Explore, explore beta. We'll tell you what's around you.
Speaker 5 00:19:31 Window television bed, fix your frame.
Speaker 3 00:19:35 I'm justm just moving it around this room. Now I'm in
Speaker 5 00:19:39 Chair, chair.
Speaker 3 00:19:41 So if, if there was another person here, it would tell me there's a person. If there was backpack three people, it would say three people backpack. If it comes across text, it will read the text as well. Wow. Cool. Yeah, I like the explorer mode for when I am going, when I'm going into an office, giant office building, and I'm trying to find a specific, you know, office number. I could just, as I'm going by the doors, hold the phone and it'll read the office numbers as I'm going by.
Speaker 2 00:20:13 So I could think this would be really cool. How good is it at like pinpointing? So let's say you're walking in the office or walking somewhere in a, in a classroom setting, you maybe wouldn't wanna run into a desk or chair. How is it, can you kind of tell like how far away it is or where it is
Speaker 3 00:20:33 So that you don't Not necessarily, no, I wouldn't use it for, um, for mobility purposes. I would use it. If I'm walking into that room and I wanna know what's in the room, it would tell me. And I'm, I'm sure like if I, if I hold it straight ahead from me and it says desk, then I can assume there's a desk in front of me. But yeah, it wouldn't give you any indication on how far away that desk is.
Speaker 2 00:21:00 Maybe if you drop something, you could look for it. Would it? Oh
Speaker 3 00:21:03 My gosh, Sam, listen. So the other day, this was a while ago, I was at my office and I dropped my ID and I could not find it anywhere. You know, I was doing the whole thing with the foot trying
Speaker 2 00:21:17 To find it
Speaker 3 00:21:18 <laugh> and you know, and I was like, oh, this is ridiculous. So I grabbed the phone and I opened the Google lookout to explore and I just held it down to the ground, and once it read my id, I reached down and I grabbed it. So yeah. Wow. You were right on with that.
Speaker 2 00:21:34 Cool. Yeah. That's cool. I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:21:39 Yeah. <laugh> and that's just one feature of, of Google Lookout. So it also has a food labeling mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, system where it will identify packages and it doesn't look for a barcode. It will actually snap a picture of an item and then it pulls information from the cloud also about the item. So it might say, you know, um, Cheerios and then start telling you the saturated fat and the calories and all that other kind of stuff. And then there's also a text mode where it will read text. So if you hold it up to something, it will, um, it will read it. And it has a, so that's good. If you're like, um, you know, going through your refrigerator and, and you don't wanna do the food mode, you just wanna quickly see what something is like, is this the mayonnaise or the, you know, or, or the applesauce. You can quickly just, um, put the phone towards it and it'll start to read it.
Speaker 2 00:22:43 One
Speaker 3 00:22:44 Of the, and then there's, go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 2 00:22:45 One of the things I've noticed, um, so I, I w I have you seeing AI and it, I, maybe it's just me, but I always have trouble with like round things, like, so pill bottles or cans or things like that. Um, especially like, you can usually find labels on the jars, but mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, cans and pill bottles are harder to sometimes find where it would be, how easy is it to manage with that?
Speaker 3 00:23:19 So yeah, bottles and cans and stuff like that work very well with this system. I was looking to see if I had anything here, but I'm like down at a bar and everything is booze, so <laugh>, I dunno how well
Speaker 2 00:23:34 Then, I mean,
Speaker 3 00:23:35 How, how well it would do with that. Um, but it, I, I've used it to identify, um, like those icy drinks mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I can do the, do that to figure out what flavor it is. So it wor it works very well, surprisingly, that's, everybody's surprised at how well it works with the, the rounded items.
Speaker 2 00:23:59 Yeah. That's really nice. Um, so,
Speaker 3 00:24:02 Um, looking to see if I have anything here
Speaker 2 00:24:05 That I could
Speaker 3 00:24:07 Use while
Speaker 2 00:24:08 You're looking at that. Yep. When you, when you, when an application or an app gets added to Blinds Shell, how do they decide what they're going to add and how close a lot of, do you work with that?
Speaker 3 00:24:24 So a lot of times we put the apps on there that people are requesting. So Bard was the big thing. So everybody's like, oh, we need Bard. We, we, you know, we need Bard. And it's like, yeah, we do need Bard. And, um, so that we did manage to get on here, um, of Spotify. People have been asking for Spotify. Ah, so now we have Spotify on there.
Speaker 2 00:24:53 Excellent. Yeah. Bard, for those who don't know, Bard is, uh, um, library for the Blind basically. And it, you have just thousands and thousands of books at your disposal to be able to read. So Great. That's nice that Yes, and, and not just books but magazines and things like that. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:25:15 Yeah. So if we, um, you know, sometimes people will put in a request for something that, you know, like, um, um, that they're the only one in the universe who would ever want this app. And it's like, sorry, I don't think we'll, you know, be able to put that on there. But if it's something that's relatively popular and um, a lot of people are interested in, then we will definitely consider putting it on. I, I send a lot of requests over that from, you know, that I hear from people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then I also want for myself and I, and then I, once an app is put on the beta phone, then I will test it and make sure that it works.
Speaker 2 00:26:00 Give me an idea, like approximately how often an app is put on.
Speaker 3 00:26:06 Well, um, as far as an app, I would say I, if I had to get, I would say probably four to six are added a year.
Speaker 2 00:26:23 Excellent. That's actually not so bad because, I mean, especially because if you're doing really big apps, like Bard is a big deal for
Speaker 3 00:26:31 Bard was big. Yes.
Speaker 2 00:26:33 You know, e even Spotify, I'm a Spotify user, so Spotify can be a big deal. I could, you know, um, IRA I'm sure is a big deal that a lot of people do use that, even if it's not free. Um, and I'm sure be my eyes is just, you know, the same. So if somebody wanted to suggest an app, how would they do it?
Speaker 3 00:26:57 So they can email me directly. It's Diane, d i a n
[email protected]. So it's B L I N D S H E L L U S usa do com. And you could let me know what your suggestions are or if you have any other questions and you can also, um, send an email directly to Blind Shell, our development team in Prague at Info Blind Shell without the usa. So it'll be info blind shell.com.
Speaker 2 00:27:29 Excellent.
Speaker 3 00:27:30 So Sam, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do a live thing here and hope it
Speaker 2 00:27:33 Works. Let's do it. Let's
Speaker 3 00:27:35 Do it. Okay. Because I found something. Let's see. Language. Let go to the food label system.
Speaker 5 00:27:44 Beta.
Speaker 3 00:27:46 Okay.
Speaker 5 00:27:49 Food labels. Food labels, product. Sunny Bee original Citrus Punch.
Speaker 3 00:27:57 There you go.
Speaker 2 00:27:58 Ah, nice. Nice. And is that a can?
Speaker 3 00:28:02 It's a round, um, bottle.
Speaker 2 00:28:04 Ah,
Speaker 3 00:28:04 No product of of Sunny d.
Speaker 2 00:28:07 Excellent. Well thank you. That's a great, uh, uh, great thing to be able to see. Diane, one of the things that I'm curious about is, cuz I know it depends on sometimes how, maybe how much stuff is open or what's on, but what's the general life of the battery?
Speaker 3 00:28:27 So far we haven't had an issue with that and the phone's been out since the fall of 2021, so I am, um, assuming they're gonna keep going for, you know, a little, little while I, if I had to put a guess on it, I would say three years. Um, but that's just a guess, a very uneducated guess, but that's just what I'm assuming. And the nice thing though is the battery is an external battery. Okay. So user
Speaker 2 00:28:56 Replaceable.
Speaker 3 00:28:58 Yeah, they're replaceable. Excellent. So you don't have to, you know, send it in, get rid of your phone, you get,
Speaker 2 00:29:04 Do you have to send it in or is it user replace? Like can you just order a new battery?
Speaker 3 00:29:09 You can order a new battery, yes.
Speaker 2 00:29:11 Excellent. And what is the battery length? Like how long does it last till you have to charge again?
Speaker 3 00:29:17 So in between charges it can last 96 hours. So I charge mine every three or four days.
Speaker 2 00:29:26 Wow. Wow. That is really good. Yeah. Um, actually impressive. And so the phone, does it, does it have Bluetooth on it? And if so, is it usable with different things like, uh, headsets or keyboards or anything?
Speaker 3 00:29:45 So it does have Bluetooth and currently it's pretty much audio Bluetooth, so headphones, speakers, um, some hearing aids are pairing, we're actually working with the universities' audiology department to figure out exactly what kind of hearing instruments are going to pair. Mm-hmm. However, there is um, an upcoming update that will also improve that Bluetooth so that people can connect Bluetooth keyboards.
Speaker 2 00:30:22 So that's good. Um, so I, so Mike, my bone conduction headphones, they could work on it.
Speaker 3 00:30:30 Yeah, most likely. Um, there's been just a couple things as far as audio that haven't connected, but most things are connecting. We're finding,
Speaker 2 00:30:41 So go ahead.
Speaker 3 00:30:43 So I was gonna say, so the reason that, um, I bring up the keyboards is because right now people are using a u s BBC connected keyboard with their blind shell because they prefer that versus the T nine texting way or the dictation way. Oh. They plug in their keyboard and then they can do all their emails and their text messages and whatever it is they wanna do <laugh> when that text box opens, they could just use their keyboard.
Speaker 2 00:31:11 I remember doing so much T nine texting <laugh>. Yes. I got really fast. Um, so that's most excellent. I think that, yeah, a lot of people do do the keyboard thing and so you will see that. So you're saying that accorded keyboard, but
Speaker 3 00:31:31 Right now Yes. Right
Speaker 2 00:31:32 Now Bluetooth is is in the future.
Speaker 3 00:31:36 It is. Um, I always get in trouble because I say things I'm not supposed
Speaker 2 00:31:42 To say, I'll calm down <laugh>, but I understand they,
Speaker 3 00:31:47 I mean I, you know, they should know better than to let me do these. That's right. If, because I have a beta phone, so I see what's coming around
Speaker 2 00:31:57 The corner. Ah, we have ways of making you talk
Speaker 3 00:32:01 <laugh>. Exactly. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:32:04 So this sounds really cool. So you've told me a lot about what the blind phone or blind shell phone is good for. What is it not good for? What are some maybe big things that you can't do that you would need the iOS or a pure Android to do? Or especially let's go with I iPhone. Cause a lot of people, let's face it, Android is nice because they have, they don't make you their way of the highway, but Apple is the most accessible as far as the two platforms when it goes for pure phones. And um, a lot of people are on Apple. So tell us like what might be a big thing in on the iPhone that people would use that is not, and, and, you know, on the, yeah. Blank out. So
Speaker 3 00:32:53 Yeah, uh, Uber, Uber and Lyft, we do not have those apps yet. Uber has our phones and they're playing with them to see if they can create, cuz their app is just so mammoth. And to see if there's a way that we can get Uber on the phone. I, I think it's gonna happen. I just don't know when. I'm hoping by the end of this year, um, you can use Uber through the internet though on the phone. I've done this quite a bit where I'll go into the internet browser, I'll type in m.uber.com mm-hmm. <affirmative> and then, you know, I could put in my username and my password and my account comes up and then I can just request an Uber that way. So if somebody, it's one of those things, if, if if you're willing to, to take a little bit more effort, then you can get that done as well. But that's, yeah, it's Uber and Lyft and also, um, I know people who have like glucose monitors mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, that's something we're trying to get on here too, because right now they can't use their apps.
Speaker 2 00:34:06 I would think that would be a huge thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:34:08 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:34:09 So is it still my understanding that like if you called, I don't know if B my I does it, I know Ira did like they could schedule a Lyft or whatever for you.
Speaker 3 00:34:20 Yes. So Ira can schedule a Lyft. Um, also Uber has this pilot program in certain states where you can call for an Uber now. Huh. So, uh, I'm wondering if that's kind of a direction they're gonna go in. Yeah, that
Speaker 2 00:34:34 Could be good. Then you can call mm-hmm. <affirmative> and complain too. <laugh>. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:34:38 Exactly.
Speaker 2 00:34:39 <laugh>. I'm not an Uber fan. Do you have the uh, oh wait, wait, Charlene go. My research person has a question. Charlene, go ahead.
Speaker 6 00:34:46 Uh, I was wondering about the grocery apps like, uh, shipped in, uh, Instacart. Ah,
Speaker 3 00:34:51 Yes. Yeah, that's, I actually just about two weeks ago I requested Instacart, so I'm hoping that that's something that will come as well. Right now they are not on, so many people actually do have a, a smartphone and a blind shell. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it, when they get their blind shell, they'll use their smartphone about 90%, their blind shell 10%. But as time goes on and on on those numbers tend to reverse where they're picking up their blind shell more and just using their iPhone for those Ubers or Instacarts or whatever. But they prefer the buttons on the, the blind shell. And also, you know, we do have Spotify and we do have YouTube and we do have a podcast player, but they're, they're um, simplified versions. So it's so much easier to create, say, a playlist on Spotify with the blind shell than it is using a smartphone app.
Speaker 2 00:35:57 Interesting.
Speaker 6 00:35:58 Oh, I'm gonna go a little bit different direction. The, uh, blind shell are you, is it for all uh, carriers or only certain ones? Ooh,
Speaker 2 00:36:10 That's a great question.
Speaker 3 00:36:11 Yeah, that is a great question. So right now, out of the box, if you take your blind shell out of the box and you would pop in a T-mobile, um, micro sim card or anybody who uses their towers, the phone will work immediately at and t There's setting changes that need to be made. It seems to work better with, if you're using at and t through say like a consumer cellular or an H two O, like some other carrier that uses at and t Towers. Um,
Speaker 2 00:36:47 Didn't they just
Speaker 3 00:36:48 Verizon Buy, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, who just
Speaker 2 00:36:50 Bought T-Mobile? Someone just was that att
Speaker 3 00:36:53 T-Mobile's buying everybody T-Mobile's. Oh, T Sprint and Mint <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:36:57 Ah, gotcha. Yeah. So Sprint should work on there. Yes,
Speaker 3 00:37:02 It should as, as long as it's a T-Mobile tower. So on my phones I use a company called Tello, T E L L O. Okay. I love 'em. They are very affordable and they use T-Mobile towers and they send you a three in one sim card. You just pop out the micro size sim card, you put it in and you're ready to go
Speaker 2 00:37:25 Explain to people what a three in one might mean.
Speaker 3 00:37:29 So a three one sim card would have three different size sim cards in one card and they're all tiny. Even when the card is um, intact with all three sim cards, it's still only maybe a half an inch tall. Oh my. So these, all these sim cards are really tiny, so you know, you may need some help to punch it out. I actually used IRA when I got my, my sim card in the mail. I used IRA and I said, can you, um, you know, help me punch this out? And then they were able to do that. So I got the right size card in there and then was able to put it into the phone.
Speaker 2 00:38:14 Anything else? Charlene?
Speaker 6 00:38:17 No, I, I, that
Speaker 2 00:38:18 Was very good. That was very good. Uh, <laugh>, Charlene's usually the quiet one, so it's nice to hear her. Uh, she kind of got excited there for a minute about this, so that's good. Um, so there's, they might extend, I mean just some, what about Verizon? Is it gonna have trouble with those?
Speaker 3 00:38:41 So Verizon, we have had a couple meetings with, and they are, um, they're interested in getting it to work on their network. The only issue is that with Verizon, they said because of all their internal testing mm-hmm. And certifying it could take at least nine months. Oh my. So yeah, so Verizon we're, we're gonna have to wait, but um, yeah, so if you really, if you know, if you want your phone to work out of the box, say you say you're on a plan with Verizon, but you wanna get a blind shelf, I would suggest just using one of these tellos or um, H twoo, these small companies that use T-Mobile towers, but they're affordable. Like, you know, for my demo phone I get um, unlimited talk and text and think one gigabyte of data, which is all I need cuz I'm always connected to wifi and it's $10 a month, so.
Speaker 2 00:39:42 Wow.
Speaker 3 00:39:43 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:39:44 Ah, excellent idea. Yeah. So we talked about, about approximately how many apps are being put on per year about mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but how many up, how often is it updated?
Speaker 3 00:39:59 There's generally about three updates a year and everything is pushed right to your phone. So you'll get a notification letting you know that there's a system update or a new app and then you can just download it right from there. So you don't have to connect it to a computer or anything and just everything is just pushed right to the phone.
Speaker 2 00:40:21 So one of the things I noticed as far as updates goes with the iOS is they, you know, sometimes things aren't accessible as they were or they change them as far as where they are or they might mess with your settings. How does that work on the blind Shell? Does things kind of stay so you're no huge surprises except for maybe a new app or something?
Speaker 3 00:40:44 Yeah. So if there's a system update or an app or an app, it doesn't affect your setting changes. It, it can, as I said earlier, um, affect the way the app works until, until we take a peek at it and, and you know, turn it into an accessible app again because you know, these third party apps are just always doing some kind of update and it's a silly little thing, but, but it may change the whole format of the app. So it's just, um, you know, and we'll go in as soon as possible and straighten everything out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because you know, that's, that's important. We need these apps to work for everybody.
Speaker 2 00:41:31 So are you the one who's testing all the apps? Is there anybody else testing 'em? <laugh>, would that be a lot for one person every time updates?
Speaker 3 00:41:42 Um, yeah. Well I have a whole blind she community out there who help because we have, well there's actually two list serves for Blinds Shell, neither of them are run by us. They're all either, um, the one is a distributor and the other one is just a consumer and they started these blinds shell list serves and trust me, there's an issue. I get 37 emails <laugh> immediately. So everybody out there is is like my, my blind shell army. They're, I love 'em because they, you know, it, they keep me informed and they always let me know what needs to be changed, what, you know, what's working great. You know, they don't just complain, they just tell me what's good too. And I say, you know, even though these, these lists aren't run by blinds, shell mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I monitor them and I say, I wanna know the good, the bad and the ugly. Right. You know, cuz that's the only way we're gonna make improvements is if I know something isn't, isn't right.
Speaker 2 00:42:50 So I I'm sure a lot of people listening to this might think, well that's good for a blind user or somebody who, but are you finding that there's users who are not blind who are using this too?
Speaker 3 00:43:04 Yes. So what's interesting is somebody will get a blind shelf and then either their spouse or a sibling will be like, oh, that's pretty cool. And it's so easy to use that they want one too. And the best part is if somebody is cited and they just love the simplicity of the phone, you can totally turn the speech off. So then it's just a standard cell phone.
Speaker 2 00:43:34 Oh, okay. Um, so they, if they, I was gonna say why would they do that as far as, but they might get it for just for use of ease of use because sometimes, you know, some of these platforms can seem overwhelming.
Speaker 3 00:43:50 Yes. Yeah, they can. And um, we're also finding that it's not just people with visual impairments that are coming to the phone. It's, I get calls a lot with somebody who will say, you know, I have my brother, um, he has a little bit of cognitive, um, impairment, uhhuh <affirmative>, and I need a phone where I can program it. Where all he has to do is is you know, do a speed dial thing, can your phone do that? And it's like Absolutely. Yes. So they get the phone and so this person knows if I wanna call mom, I just hold down the number one because that's the number for mom, you know, if I wanna call Yes. My brother. That's number two. And so it's, it's a whole other market that we didn't initially think about.
Speaker 2 00:44:44 Well, this sounds really exciting and I'm gonna ask the dreaded question. If you what, you know, what secrets won't you be interrogated? Like with, if I tell you what's coming, what's coming up on the blinds shell, what can we expect to see? Maybe that ha isn't quite there yet. Is there anything like in the, in the edges that should be
Speaker 3 00:45:07 Coming on soon? There's um, hmm. Let me see. There is a fitness app that's going to be coming. There is another way to read books that's gonna be coming. Um, there's glucose monitoring, there's, um, another way to read text as well coming.
Speaker 2 00:45:40 And so I, I presume maybe there's more than one different glucose monitors. Will this work across the, the platforms with glucose monitors or will it work just with a specific one? I don't know how many glucose monitors that hook up to, you know. Yeah. iOS There are.
Speaker 3 00:45:57 So there I, there's several, but I think we're gonna start with one, the one we've been getting the most requests for mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2 00:46:06 Excellent. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?
Speaker 3 00:46:11 Well, gosh, there's just so many features. There's, um, there's a camera as you know, cuz you need that for i b my eyes. But it's a great way to take pictures because when you save a picture, the way you label that picture is with your own voice. So oh, you snap a picture and it says, um, record message and you can say, you know, this is my dog running through the park. That, so then when you that's, that is, yeah. Then when you go in,
Speaker 2 00:46:38 That's awesome.
Speaker 3 00:46:40 That's saying, you know, if you wanna share a picture, you know what it is and it's not just 8 87 25.
Speaker 2 00:46:45 I know it's really a pain in iOS. So I can you, can you label it with text there too? Or does it have to be, I mean does it turn into text or is it always your voice? Is it a voice label? It's
Speaker 3 00:46:58 Always, it's always your, it's always your voice. So what happens? And then if you
Speaker 2 00:47:02 Put that, what happens if you put that like on another thing, like on to your computer or something, can you do that? Download them to your computer?
Speaker 3 00:47:13 You probably could, you know, I don't know. I've never done that. But that's in an interesting question how it would come out because I wonder if it would come out as still an audio file.
Speaker 2 00:47:24 Would it save, does it save them on the SD card or on the phone itself? Sorry, I'm asking all these difficult things.
Speaker 3 00:47:34 <laugh>. No, no, no, it's okay. Um, I'm trying to think if I have any on my SD card. Um, I think an, I think it will save them to the phone. Gotcha.
Speaker 2 00:47:49 You might have to figure out how to get them to the SD if
Speaker 3 00:47:52 People, and then you can transfer them to the SD card so you can transfer things back and forth from the SD card to the internal storage of the phone.
Speaker 2 00:48:01 Great. We need to, um, we need to unfortunately end it, but how, tell people how they can get the, the blind shell
Speaker 3 00:48:10 So blind. She, well first the price is 489 US dollars and you can order it through blind shell usa.com. We, you can go on our website and see several distributors that we have. We probably have, oh, maybe 30 now across the country who are selling the Blind Shell. And also I recommend checking with your, um, accessible telecommunications program in your state. Many state programs now are giving out the blind shelf for free. Oh, awesome. To yeah, to people who qualify. So a lot of them, well if you have an issue with using a standard flat screen phone, then the blind shell is an option that they have that they can provide to you. Also the va, if you're a veteran, ask your your VA counselor about the blind shell too, because they're also giving them out.
Speaker 2 00:49:14 Diane, I wanna thank you for your time. It's been very informative. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 00:49:19 It's been, thank you for having
Speaker 2 00:49:20 To pick the brain and, and I am hoping you need to talk to, uh, state services at, uh, in Minneapolis. I think they need a blinds shell so I can play. Sounds
Speaker 3 00:49:30 Good. <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:49:33 So thank you very much and, uh, good luck and, and I'll be looking forward to hearing more about it in the future.
Speaker 3 00:49:40 All right. Thank you so much. Good.
Speaker 2 00:49:41 Goodnight. I wanna let everyone know that you've been listening to Disability and Progress. The views expressed on this show are not necessarily those of K F P I or it's board of director,
Speaker 2 00:49:56 But there are definitely ours anyway, this is K ffi I 90.3 fm, Minneapolis and cafe i.org. Tonight we've been speaking with Diane Du Charm, who is a senior program manager of Blinds Shell usa. We were talking about the Blind Shell phone and I wanna thank Bobby Lakey for this great suggestion. If you have a suggestion, you can email me at disability and progress sam jasmine.com and put in your suggestion. And just like Bobby, you might hear on the show. Also, if you wanna be a part of our listener club, you can do that by emailing me at the same address, disability and progress, sam jasmine.com. Thanks so much for listening. This program runs because of you. Goodnight,
Speaker 0 00:50:44 PayPal.
