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20241120 - Main Menu Live - AIRa with Jenine Stanley, and JAWS With Elizabeth Whitaker.

November 21, 2024

Join us for a fun-filled two hours of technology as we present AIRA and Vispero/Freedom Scientific. In the first hour AIRA and Jenine Stanley join us to give us the latest happenings with their service. In the second hour we bring Elizabeth Whitaker back to Main Menu Live. We here all about the new JAWS 2025 release as well as other happenings within Freedom Scientific.

Sponsored by Blind Information Technology Specialists

20241030 - Main Menu Live - braille screen input with Judy Dixon. It's all new in iOS 18.

October 30, 2024

Join us as we talk all things braille screen input with Judy Dixon. It's all new in iOS 18. We will reschedule Ryan Jones from Vispero very soon. Stay tuned!!! .

20240925 - Main Menu Live Envision Ally and Jonathan Mosen.

September 26, 2024

This evening on Main Menu Live we have amazing tech discussions that will be of interest to many:

list of 2 items • Envision Ally is being rolled out very soon and rumor has it that Meta is also holding an event this week. Do we think we will hear about new inventions for our beloved Meta Glasses? Where does Ally fit alongside Companion and what is the future for Envision? Come learn more about Envision Ally and the future of AI in your digital life. • In the second hour we bring back a legend in the blindness community, that being the Father of Main Menu and the inventor of ACB Radio, now known as ACB Media. Our primary focus is to talk all about the newly released iOS 18, the future of artificial intelligence in iOS and so much more. We dive deep about product design and the impact that all of us can have in the digital space if we take advantage of opportunities. Jonathan has brought a wealth of knowledge to all of us so we will reminisce a bit about LivingBlindfully which is exiting the scene at the end of the month. Come during the second hour where we here from a giant in our community and someone who truly continues to make a difference for each one of us. list end

We bring you some pieces of software news that you will not want to miss, especially if you are a screen reader user, a content producer or just a casual user of AI and all things tech. In addition to this, we make announcements about what is coming in October on Main Menu Live. The digital landscape keeps changing and companies are addressing our needs in unique and creative ways. Come learn more this evening on Main Menu Live!

20240828 - Main Menu Live - David Goldfield, with BT Speak, and Everette Bacon from AIRA.

August 29, 2024

Join the Main Menu Live team for a fun-filled two hours centered around technology from a blindness perspective. In the first hour we hear from AIRA and all of the happenings with the service that truly changes lives of people each day. AI is one of the latest inventions from the team and we hear more about it. In the second hour we hear all about the latest changes in the BTSpeak.

Sponsored by the board of publications, the information access committee, Bits and the ACB media team.

20240424 - Main Menu Live - Samuel Greene, discusses the Zoom Essential digital Recorders. Amos Miller, Glidance Founder and CEO, discusses Glide.

April 24, 2024

Main Menu Live welcomes Samuel Greene, Product Specialist -Development at Zoom Corp., to discuss the very popular Zoom Essential digital Recorders. These recorders are accessible and have 32 bit float. Tune in to see exactly what all that means.

In the second hour, Main Menu welcomes Amos Miller, Glidance Founder and CEO, to discuss Glide, the first self-guided mobility aid designed to help individuals with sight loss navigate the world with ease. A groundbreaking leap in assistive technology, Glide combines cutting-edge navigational robotics and AI to provide you with an intuitive and comfortable guided experience. Using real-time data from an array of advanced sensors, Glide autonomously steers the way. It maps the best routes, identifies targets of interest, and avoids obstacles to get you safely to your destination.

Sponsored by the board of publications, the information access committee, Bits and the ACB media team.

20240327 - Main Menu Live presents all things Groups.IO.

March 28, 2024

This week on Main Menu Live we bring together major portions of the communication teams across ACB to talk with all of you all about Groups.IO in a comprehensive two-hour presentation. Members of the Board of Publications, ACB’s ACB Media team, Blind Information Technology Specialists and others will join us to talk all about Groups. IO. We will answer some questions like the following:

list of 7 items • What is Groups.IO? • In what ways can you obtain all of your communication from the platform (email, rss, web, ETC). • Learn how to manage the vast amounts of email communication you receive from the platform. • Find out about your Groups.IO account, a vital and necessary tool to know how to manage and configure. • Learn about digest modes, no mail, special notices and so much more about the type and ways that mail is delivered. • Find out how the management of spam can impact your Groups.IIO experience. • Do you use iCloud or Gmail for your mail provider? Come learn why you need to be aware of specific things with this email providers. list end

This is just a portion of the content we will discuss at length. We will demonstrate the effective use of your browser with Groups.IO and how you may even want to accomplish this with Gmail’s web interface. The options are truly endless on ways that you can truly engage.

Here is the current outline (it is still being adjusted before the presentation) but it should give you a full understanding of where this presentation is headed.

We hope to achieve all of this content in two hours but if we don’t we will continue it in subsequent presentations.

Here is the current outline:

Using Groups.IO with ACB Email Lists Agenda list of 16 items • Introduction • What Is Groups.IO? • Advantages of Groups.IO • Domains for ACB Lists and Affiliate Lists • Advantages of reading lists with your browser • Required Screen Reader Skills list of 4 items nesting level 1 ◦ Working with collapsed menus ◦ Reading tables ◦ Finding specific information ◦ Skipping unwanted information list end nesting level 1 • Email Lists list of 6 items nesting level 1 ◦ Joining a group by email ◦ Responding to a “Confirm your subscription” message from Groups.io ◦ Responding to an invitation to join a group ◦ Receiving a notice that you have been added to a group ◦ Joining a publicly listed group through the group’s website ◦ Joining Subgroups list end nesting level 1 • Creating an account list of 6 items nesting level 1 ◦ Logging in to your Account list of 3 items nesting level 2 ▪ Logging in with a Password ▪ Logging in without a Password ▪ Logging in with Facebook or Google. list end nesting level 2 ◦ Account Settings list of 5 items nesting level 2 ▪ Changing your Email address and Password. ▪ Setting your default Text Editor ▪ Getting copies of your own Messages ▪ Enabling Two-Factor Authentication ▪ Handling Bounces in your Account list end nesting level 2 ◦ The opening page ◦ The page for a specific group ◦ Reading message threads ◦ Replying and using the message editor list end nesting level 1 • Using Outlook, ThunderBird and Email Clients • Using Gmail to read your Group Email • Configuring Email Delivery Options list of 5 items nesting level 1 ◦ Individual Messages ◦ Digest Modes ◦ Special Notices ◦ No Email ◦ Responding to removal due to Spam list end nesting level 1 • Defining Group Signatures • Controlling the volume of email messages you receive from a group • Leaving a Group list of 2 items nesting level 1 ◦ Leaving a subgroup ◦ Be careful to not remove yourself from Main list end nesting level 1 • Warning on Email Providers • Contacting Groups.IO Support list end

20240131 - Main Menu Live - Karthik Mahadevan CEO Envision. We also will talk about CoPilot.

February 1, 2024

Karthik Mahadevan, CEO at Envision, will delve into the upgrades in the new Envision Glasses v.2.5 featuring a new interactive describe scene powered by GPT-4 Vision by Open AI & multilingual voice commands. That's not all! Exciting changes landed on the Envision App and future updates are set to revolutionize the user experience and create a more accessible world. Hear more from Karthik!

In the second hour we dive deep into Windows Copilot and Coipilot Pro and even give some demonstrations of their use.

Sponsored by the Information Access Committee

24 Episode Notes

Notes go here

20231025 - Main Menu Live - Ryan Jones from Vispero on the release of JAWS, Zoom Text, and Fusion 2024

October 26, 2023

Join the Main Menu team as we visit with Ryan Jones from Freedom Scientific where we hear all about the new 2024 releases of JAWS, Fusion and more! Sponsored by the Information Access Committee

20230927 - Main Menu Live - Apple and IOS 17 updates.

September 28, 2023

Hello Everyone, Join John, Larry and I along with a number of guests as we dive deep into all things tech this month: Finally, Microsoft has released a major update to Windows 11 this week. It has all kinds of accessibility improvements along with other user experience changes that we will discuss. The big change is the new Copilot feature. Think of it like ChatGPT but baked into Windows. We give it a spin during the show and we give you our thoughts on its future.

  • Apple has been busy with hardware releases, operating system changes and so much more. We have had some time with iOS 17 and some have even had time with the new iPhone 15. We share all of the details with you during the first hour of Main Menu Live. Most importantly are your questions about all of this. Some phones are heating up as most of you are cooling down in the beginning of Fall. The new Action Button is all the craze as well so we talk about the implications this has from an accessibility perspective for new iPhone purchasers.

Next we talk briefly about the Amazon announcements. Was this a big year for Amazon and what about the future of Alexa devices? We make some guesses on next steps that have all of us just wondering where they will take the technology moving forward.

20230517 - Main Menu Live - Be My Eyes and Web Accessibility the IAC way.

May 18, 2023

In the first hour we bring on Mike from Be My Eyes. We hear from him all about the latest innovation happening with AI and accessibility as we celebrate

Global Accessibility Awareness Day this week. Be My Eyes will also be at the national convention this year so you will hear even more from them later this summer. We encourage everyone to come with questions as we want this to be driven by you today to ensure you get all of your questions answered.

In the second hour we talk all about a number of technology topics. These include:

list of 5 items • The Information Access Committee has finalized its plans for the convention and we share all! It’s all about empowering you the audience to advocate for better web accessibility! Come learn more. • We focus on how AI is shaping the world around us as we talk with Brian from Tuesday Topics (he is also joining us in the first hour). • Jeff is moving back to Arizona and as a part of that trip it is time to consider what technology he brings back with him and what technology he discards. Brian, Larry and John will have a lively discussion about this topic. The conservative part of Jeff may not be happy with Brian’s suggestion