[Njabs-talk] NJABS Conference Call Minutes for December 12, 2010

[Benjamin Vercellone]

NJABS Conference Call Minutes for December 12, 2010

Members present:

Evelyn Valdez - President.

Shafeka Hashash - Vice President.

Ben Vercellone - Secretary/Treasurer.

Greg Rivera - board member.

Melissa Hurff - board member.

Dannie Romero.

Dannie Herrera.

Liz Morgan.

Marie Lomax.

Randy Clark.

Bryan Mackey.

Jason and Jeremy Capadi.

8:03 pm - Evelyn introduces the board: Shafeka Hashash. Ben Vercellone. 
Greg Rivera. Melissa Hurff. This was a conference call put together by 2 
people: Dannie Romero and Greg Rivera. Greg is a board member. Dannie 
Romero is an active NJABS member. This was titled Technology for 
Students by Students.

8:05 pm - Danny recited the NFB pledge.

8:06 PM - Evelyn went over a few things coming up.

1:

The NFB After the holiday party will be on the 8^th of January, 2011, 
from 1 to 5 PM.The cost will be $25. Evelyn is definitely going to go, 
and hopes other people can go.

2:

The Pedestrian safety enhancement act was just unanimously voted in.This 
is dealing with sound in hybrid electric cars.With this legislation, we 
can all listen to cars.Evelyn said she would post this to the list.This 
comes from the Motor Vehicle act.

3:

We are going to be doing a fund raiser.We are planning on doing one with 
lollypops with white chocolate with the NFB logo on it.The logo is the 
Whozit, a stick figure with a white cane. We can hopefully sell each one 
for $2 and raise money.

4:

The Rolex 24 in Daytona is coming up in January.There is a non-visual 
interface in the ford escape, and a blind person will drive the car down 
the race track totally independently. Let Evelyn know if you want more 
info. We have a student team for the Race for Independence called the NJ 
Student Squad. Email Evelyn if you want to be part of this team. Her 
email address is

Tweetybaby19 at comcast.net <mailto:Tweetybaby19 at comcast.net>.

Give her your name, email address, cell number, and mailing address. If 
you raise $250 before the 15^th you can win a chance to go to the 
Daytona event for free.

8:12 pm - Evelyn turned it over to Shafeka. Shafeka talked about the 
upcoming Conference run mostly by students for students. There will be 
social workshops and things geared toward students. This is not for 
adults but for kids. After applying to the Imagination fund, we have 
received a grant of $2300. We want to use all of this money for this 
conference. This is very exciting. The next conference call will be 
focused on this upcoming conference. Start thinking of ideas for the 
conference and send them to Shafeka. Email her at

shafekah at gmail.com <mailto:shafekah at gmail.com>.

Every idea is a good idea.Brainstorm.

8:14 pm - Evelyn says Shafeka applied for the grant. There were 3 awards 
in NJ, and we were one of 3 to win.Thanks to Shafeka.This is our student 
seminar. If there is anything you want to see at the conference, you 
need to contact Shafeka.We are going to do hands on workshops.People 
like to do a lot of interactive things. We are looking at maybe the 
beginning of May, but it is not set in stone right now.

8:16 PM - Shafeka introduces Greg and Dannie. They talk about cell phone 
technology. They talk about technology they personally use.

8:17 - Greg and Dannie. Dannie is first. He said cell phone technology 
has gotten much better throughout the years.There is a touch screen 
platform for the blind now.Said he is Going to start with Mobile Speak 
and Talks. Talks is a screen reader for phones from Nuance. Mobile Speak 
is also a screen reader, from Codefactory. Mobile Speak is generally on 
Windows mobile. Talks is typically on nokia. If you go through AT&T you 
will pay $89 for Mobile Speak. You will pay $300 if you buy it directly 
from Codefactory. Talks uses eloquence as its voice. Mobile Speak uses 
DecTalk. Sometimes Mobile Speak is too big for the phone. The phone 
tends to run slower. You can put Mobile Speak on an SD card. Mobile 
Speak has DecTalk. This would be the main voice of Window Eyes. It works 
pretty well. There are definitely some differences with Talks. Mobile 
Speak uses left and right soft. Talks left key and right key.

The iPhone is the focus of this conversation. It is a touch screen 
platform, and is completely accessible. Dannie got it last weekend. The 
screen reader is a program called Voiceover. It is on the latest apple 
products. The iPhone 3gs and 4, iTouch 3 and 4, iPad, iPod Nano, and 
Mac. We are not paying $300 for accessibility. Products are accessible 
right out of the box. He talked about operating the phone. Most of the 
time sighted people just tap on an icon like for mail. If you don't know 
the layout of your phone you can swipe right or left. Most of it is 
swiping. 3 fingers are used to switch pages. 2 fingers to end call. For 
typing we need to find a letter. If you know your keyboard well you can 
find a letter pretty fast. There are 2 modes of typing. Regular typing 
is one way, where you can find a letter and then double tap the screen 
to enter it, or keep one finger on the letter and tap the screen once 
with another finger to enter the letter. Touch typing is the other mode. 
It is much faster. Find the letter you want and lift your finger and it 
already inputs your letter. He is absolutely in love with the iPhone. 
One app scans money very well. Another app can scan text. oMoby is first 
app. Noogle Noggles is other one. Dannie turned it over to Greg who 
talked about android.This is the Verizon competition.

8:27 pm -- Greg began. You can find apps for Android like on the iPhone. 
It is not up to par with the iPhone in terms of accessibility. The main 
screen is touch screen. You can slide it and have a keyboard. You have 
to activate settings for it to talk. It is ok so far, like with Texting 
and Reading incoming and outgoing calls etc. The internet is not too 
accessible, but it is being worked on. A wonderful group is Ideal.com. 
People here work on accessibility of android. They make a program called 
ideal web reader. There is the Dolphin browser HD also. It is not too 
accessible. The built-in Google one is not too accessible. The Ideal one 
is coming along. He talked about a podcast. There is the IDEAL K9 E-Mail 
reader. It works ok, but it is not all the way updated like the iPhone. 
It reads the information but lies a little bit. You have to go around 
with your finger and read little by little. Have to swipe again 
sometimes. And wait a while.It is not up to par.

Verizon is releasing iPhone in January. It is going to be the iPhone 4 also.

He also wanted to talk about Oratio.It as a screen reader for 
Blackberry, a growing phone. He hasn't messed around with the software. 
It does its purpose.The internet browsing is not the greatest. The email 
feature is excellent, and is better than email with Mobile Speak. Oratio 
does not work with BBM.Wait a little while.It is brought to you by 
Humanware and Codefactory.

For android there is a GPS app. You can see your surroundings. It is 
called Walky talky. You can see around you. There is turn by turn 
navigation.

Dannie says there is the Around Me app with the iPhone. The map that 
comes on the iPhone is not accessible. You can have the map on around me 
open in an accessible app.

Back to Greg. With Verizon, you have the Envy 2 and nv3, which have some 
accessibility. There is another phone now. It is totally accessible. 
Greg went to the store and played with it. It is the Samsung Haven. It 
is a regular phone. You have to pay an internet data plan with the Envy 
and the android and iPhone. You don't have to with the Samsung Haven. 
You can hear a podcast at blindgeekzone.com.

For podcast on the Android and email client, you can go to 
blindcooltech.com.

Not everyone can purchase the iPhone or Android phones. For Verizon 
there is the Envy 2 and 3 and the Samsung Haven with accessibility out 
of the box. Not for internet and mail though. For calls and texting and 
typing, there is accessibility. You are not stuck with the iPhone, 
android or Mobile Speak which are all costly. Greg and Dannie talked 
about the more advanced phones because they are the phones they know the 
best. Mobile Speak and Talks still work phenomenally with other phones 
like Samsung phones that look like Blackberries. Dannie asked if there 
were questions.

8:38 pm.

Shafeka and Evelyn thanked Dannie and Greg. This was the last conference 
call of 2010.

Jason had a question for Greg about the Haven. Samsung Haven is a candy 
bar phone. Not a flip phone. Nothing too fancy.

Jeremy had a question. When will iPhone be with Verizon? Between January 
and June next year. Dannie said there are GSM and CDMA in terms of the 
different networks that AT&T and Verizon run on. Verizon is CDMA. GSM 
allows a lot of data. CDMA is a little careful. When the iPhone comes 
out for Verizon, try and test it out. There is a possibility that the 
network can clog up. This is a work in progress and will take a while to 
get a lot better.

8:42 pm - Evelyn wishes us safe and happy holidays. Keep up with our 
FaceBook page, where there are reminders of events. Reminders are on the 
list serve too. She said the posting for the legislation will be on the 
list serve. She hopes to see everyone on the 8^th of January.

Dannie reminded us to check out blindgeekzone.com and blindcooltech.com. 
You can contact Dannie at

Djdan567 at gmail.com <mailto:Djdan567 at gmail.com>.

He can also be found on the list serve. He will see questions there as well.

You can contact Greg at

Gregg.rivera at gmail.com <mailto:Gregg.rivera at gmail.com>.

He is also on the list serve. His other email is

greg at njabs.org <mailto:greg at njabs.org>.

Don't forget to check out the Facebook page Looking Good Without 
Looking. You can email Linda at lindazani at aol.com.

8:50 pm - Call ended.

Respectfully submitted,

Benjamin Vercellone

NJABS, Secretary/treasurer.