Tag Archives: Panthers

On Braille Access and Live Captioning

Posted on by John

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you probably know that I have significant hearing loss. I could likely even be classified as functionally deaf. This has presented challenges not only in likely spaces like restaurants, on the bus, or even at work, but also sometimes at home. The issue there is that sometimes I’m trying to hear someone over a television or just the way the room is designed causes an echo that interferes with my hearing aid’s ability to clearly perceive the sound. This is stressful, to say the least.

So color me very excited to discover that in Apple’s latest update to iOS 26, they included a feature called Live Captioning. I think there is a Live CAptioning option that provides visual captions usable by those who are deaf but have sight, but the version I’m going to talk about is built specifically for those of us who are blind and also have hearing issues. Yay in itself is a revolution as even in most accessibility regulations they rarely consider persons with multiple disabilities. They have rules for blind folk, rules for deaf folk, etc, but not often an acknowledgment of the potential crossover, which I dare say is more common than we might think.

Anyhow, if you don’t know how to access Live Captioning and want to, here’s how. First, you have to have a Braille display of some kind; it can either be with a Perkins-style keyboard or using a QWERTY keyboard with something like the APH Mantis, which is what I’m using. If using a Perkins keyboard, access Braille Access by pressing dots 7 and 8 with Space bar. And all you need to do to envoke this feature with the Mantis in most cases is to press VO (Control+Option, or Control+Windows if you are more Windows inclined) with Y to enable Braille input, then press the letter A and semicolon as your dots 7 and 8 along with the Space bar. There are other items in the Braille Access menu that appears, which operates separate of your iPhone so you could use VoiceOver’s speech to view other content while it is open. It lets you, for example, take notes, view the time, or use Braille to open other apps.

But I’m just pressing up arrow (Space with dot 1 if using a Perkins keyboard) to navigate to Live Captioning and pressing Enter. You also have two options with this feature open, changed easily by pressing dots 7 (or the letter A with a QWERTY keyboard) plus Space bar: listen to audio or listen to microphone. Audio refers to the audio generated by the iPhone, and if you do this you can have it pick up spoken words even without the phone being turned up. I used this to, for instance, follow play-by-play of a Carolina Panthers game via the display while in a car with others (they beat the Dallas Cowboys on the Sunday prior to this entry’s writing, so I was thrilled as they’ve done virtually nothing over the last five years, but I digress). I’ve also used i to make sure I can hear narrators in an audiobook, as I find that after listening to their voice for a while as I also view the transcript I can actually understand them more.

If set to listen through the microphone, it’s as if the iPhone is recording. This means that you do not really have use of any other audio on the phone while in such mode. But the beauty of this is it will pick up conversations and other things, such as the TV, happening around me. I used this to speak to a coworker whom I’ve usually had a hard time hearing, just because of how things sound in our office and the fact that we’re positioned relatively far apart. I’ve also used it to chat with my father-in-law about work, and that went smoothly.

There is, naturally, a slight delay in between the words being spoken and flashing on the screen, and if you fall behind in reading the transcript, indicated by a braille box on either end of the display, you can just press a cursor routing button to jump to the end. And of course, the transcription is not always totally accurate, though it usually makes enough sense for me to get the gist of what was said. It can also be more challenging to follow if you have lots of crosstalk going on, as it doesn’t identify if a different character is speaking. But it was/is helping me to pick up at least a degree more than I had before, and every little bit helps. This is especially important as I continue to gain responsibility and standing in my career, not to mention that it’ll likely make family social gatherings not feel as difficult. So I applaud Apple for taking such a step. Let’s hope it’s only the beginning of what can be done to get this tech to truly help us all.

Despite Panthers Loss, My Birthday Hits The Spots

Posted on by John

As one of my sisters says, happy life day to me! It was yesterday, and despite it, like everything else these days, being in the middle of a pandemic, I had a wonderful time. The fun thing about birthdays is that one gets to feel special, even if you know that millions of others actually share the day with you. My family and friends definitely made me feel special and helped me enjoy exiting what was, by all accounts, the most stressful year I’ve ever experienced.

The day started early for me, shortly after 8 AM. I came in and read a little, taking time periodically to view the Facebook and other posts as they streamed in. Then sleep claimed me around 10:30, and I stayed there for about 45 minutes until my wife announced breakfast time.

Then at 1, I opted to watch my Carolina Panthers (NFL) take on the Las Vegas Raiders. First, as a long-suffering Charlotte Hornets fan I hate the idea of teams moving, as I feel the NBA snatched ours away just as they were becoming respectable and has since given us a poor facsimile as replacement. And the Raiders? They’d already left Oakland once and returned to the city, only to leave it again.

Anyway, the game was interesting. A stadium with no fans presented an unusual listening experience, but truthfully I got used to it after a while and just enjoyed the announcer’s cadence and the game’s momentum. And the Panthers did a pretty good job seizing that momentum down the stretch. With Teddy Bridgewater, our new quarterback, it looked like we would pull off a decent comeback and top the Raiders after all. But after the Raiders popped it into the end zone to retake the lead 34-30, we failed to convert a critical 4th down play (I’d say because we didn’t give it to our all-world running back Christian McCaffrey, but to be fair he may not have gotten the needed half yard either). There was no more magic in the bottle after that, so we went down. I’m not too concerned yet, though the Panthers have started so many seasons this way that one can only guess how things will go moving forward.

That disappointment finished, I scrambled upstairs to have dinner with my wife and two of her sisters. She and I chose Olive Garden, and each of the sisters picked different restaurants. As we enjoyed lively conversation around the table, we rocked out to Michael Jackson’s Bad album, well the B side anyway. Remember the concept of turning records, or for that matter tapes, over to complete listening? Seems antuquated in the era of streaming, but it also kind of makes you really listen to a singer’s artistry more. For this reason and one of just having that older, better sound, we are starting to collect vinyl records. We now have, in addition to Mike, Lauryn Hill and one of Bruno Mars’ albums. It’s a cool throwback.

After my delicious meal of spaghetti with meat sauce and Italian sausage, served with a house salad, they sang Happy Birthday as I turned red. Then we sank our teeth into some chocolate cake from Publix. And later I had one of my true favorites, butter pecan ice cream.

The only other thing I did, a really important thing, is to have a nice phone conversation with my mom. If this year has emphasized nothing else, it has highlighted the need to try and stay connected to those we love and let those who need to know of our love for them. None of us knows just how much longer we’l be here. I need to do a better job of remembering this within the scope of my ever-crazier life.

And that was about all for my celebration of turning 41. I am tremendously thankful to still be here and in relatively good health. I have so much to reflect on, most of it already written in previous entries. Now I look forward to finding my new place, and this might sound crazy to say as a 41-year-old man, as an adult; as I really feel like I am only now finishing growing up. Here’s to many more for me, I hope?

Ramblings on a Crisp Day

Posted on by John

Hello. I have to admit I’m feeling a bit uninspired, but need to try and type something out anyway. So, I am sitting under the sun, for it is so cold out that one must be in sun to enjoy it if that one is me, and just letting my brain wheels spin.

I guess the first piece of news, which most of you already know, is that I got my iPhone 6 on Friday. It’s both longer and wider than the 4S, and amazingly thin. The unit is subtly faster than my other one as well, as I’m noticing that apps start up immediately on launch. And the battery life is fantastic! I’ve been running it, outside of the hours I took for sleep of course, almost continuously since 1 PM yesterday, and it’s still at 20% charge. My 4S definitely couldn’t do that.

Thus far, there are only a couple of things I don’t really like, and I think they’re more iOS 8 related. First, there is no way to turn off key echo in VoiceOver. This isn’t a big deal, but it probably slows me down a bit as I pound away on the screen. Also, the A button in particular only works intermittently, with me having to swipe away and back in many cases in order to input it. I do like that autocorrect seems to be less intrusive, in that it doesn’t make that pop-up sound but will just correct the word once you hit space. I need to figure out how to more adequately use the predict feature, but once I do I think that will be pretty cool as well.

I downloaded Alex, the voice that Apple had already included with VoiceOver for the Mac but only just put onto the iPhone. I like it, I suppose, but am just so used to Samantha, the American voice that had been there since this software was made for use on iOS, that I ultimately had to go back to her. I just feel I understand more of what she says at a higher speech rate. People’s milage with this may vary, though.

And now for something completely different in this largely pointless post: a topic I’ve not talked about much in a while. What am I reading. Well, I currently have two titles going, trying hard to get that somewhat low year’s book count of 26 up before we end it.I’ve read others by both of these authors before.

The first is Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This is about what I assume is a little-known war in Nigeria, a Civil war of sorts between that country and a breakaway southern country called Biafra. (Assuming I spelled that correctly, having consumed it in audio). The story is told through the perspectives of three main characters, a house servant boy, the mystress of that same house, and her sister’s boyfriend. The latter is a white man originally from England, who has come to live in Nigeria and is writing a book on his experiences there, and particularly in the war.

It is a beautiful story, but kind of sad as so many kids slowly starve to death in villages that have been cut off by the warring Nigerians. While it does show that side of Africa, the side we often think of in referring to it, this novel also demonstrates that there was a substantial middle class even at those times. Some work for the area’s major university, while others are employed by the government. Some live in a sprawling oceanfront house, while others reside in a village near the city. I’ve heard Adichie talk about how she wishes to show those in the west that such parts of African society do exist.

The other I’m reading is Earthbound, by Elaine Calloway. The third in her Elemental Clans series, it takes place in Portlant. The earth elemental is attempting to stop the Acobi fallen angels from taking young girls into tunnels dug into the riverside and torturing them. He must also do battle with a woman who lives in a pressure-cooker family of workers in a business who try to get her to further develop the riverfront in a way that would thwart his plans.

As always with her books, the best part is the amazing description of the town and its surrounding scenery. I’ve also read the other two books in this series, Water’s Blood, which I think I reviewed earlier, and Raging Fire. They take place in New Orleans and New York respectively.

And now I’ll disconnect and continue listening to this Carolina Panthers game as I sit outside here at Dunkin Donuts. Given that we are a virtual mash unit lately, with so many of our players hurt, I’m surprised that we are at present winning 7-0. Hope we can hold on. More soon.