ABILITY Magazine: CSUN 2015

I consider this show to be the disability community's equivalent of the consumer electronics show.

If you are doing anything in the area of access to technology, you want to be here.

Because its just a great learning experience.

Here at CSUN, we're focused right now on demonstrating Voice Guidance,

which is the industry's first talking guide available on the set top box.

So for the first time, someone who is blind can navigate the TV listings.

They can discover the content that's out there for them to watch in that thousand channel universe.

Ok, so I see the app open here, can you tell me what it does?

So they have this app that has other features, but this time they have a tactile map.

So when you go in a building, this app automatically downloads the map and it will show up on the screen.

Ok, can you show me a little demonstration how it works?

Yeah, you will get to the front gate. This will be you, and..

[Computer voice] Main entrance, horizontal path.

This is how to learn about the surroundings.

Ok so before you move, you play with the app and it tells you which way to go.

Double tap it. [Computer voice] Voice guidance for men's restroom.

In front of the door, there is a mirror. When you turn right from the mirror there is one sink and three restroom stalls on the right side.

And on opposite side, there are three sinks and four urinals right next to sinks.

My name is Marcel Hoogervorst. I am legally blind. I have 22/100 vision.

And with my special pair of glasses, I can see 20/40. These glasses are revolutionary. They help me see.

I can adjust for short distance, and I can adjust for long distance.

This fair opens up a world for all kinds of people. Every year there is more and more.

I think its fantastic. There's things for all kinds of people who have disabilities.

I have run into people who are deaf, visually impaired, autistic, and all kinds of disabilities.

It's Ultrasonic Blind Glass. So it will beep when you are 1.4 meters away.

So its to find spots and detect obstacles so its much helpful for visually impaired people.

So we're here at CSUN for another year of assistive technology, can you tell us who you're with and what you're doing here?

I'm here with Charmtech labs, and last year we presented Capti Narrator for iPhone.

Capti is an application for aggregating content from different sources and different formats,

and for listening or reading that content on different platforms.

So this year, we're introducing Capti Narrator for desktop, which works on Windows and Mac computers inside the Firefox browser.

So you can open any webpage, right click on the link, and select add to playlist.

And then the article will appear in the playlist.

Once its loaded, all you need to do is double tap on any track in the playlist.

It will read and highlight what it reads to you.

Capti was originally created for people with vision impairments, but then we realized anybody could use it.

There is at least 20 percent of people with dyslexia, who need to listen and read along.

And also people who are busy, who are running around and want to multi task.

We spend way too much time staring at the screens. We hope that this application will free us from the dependency.

Here's to hoping!