Full Transcript
Speaker 2:
If you’re blind or have low vision,
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Be My Eyes is a must have tool.
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No matter where you are
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Or what language you speak
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You can call up on-demand visual support in seconds.
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In seconds.
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From a pool of more than two million volunteers
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Two million volunteers
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And the best part is
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It’s completely free.
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It’s completely free.
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No matter how many times you use it
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No matter how much you use it
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Completely free.
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Besides the option to call volunteers
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You can also use Be My Eyes’ new feature
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Specialized Help
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To get quick, high quality
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Video custom service
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Directly from companies like Microsoft
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And Google
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All within the Be My Eyes app
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On Android
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Or iOS.
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Join the community
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Join the community
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Today
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Today.
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On the web at www.bemyeyes.com.
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Enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device just by saying enable blind abilities.
Charles Palmer:
Absolutely.
Charles Palmer:
Hi, nice to speak with you all. My name is Charles Palmer with Patriot Vision Industries and our website is patriotvisionindustries.com.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson and I’m at the National Council of State Agencies for the Blind in Appestat, part of Washington D.C. I’m at a conference and I met up with Charles from Patriot Vision Industries. How are you doing Charles?
Charles Palmer:
Very good, thank you for having me Jeff.
Jeff Thompson:
Charles, you’ve got some very unique pieces of equipment here that people with low vision would be able to utilize. Could you share a little bit about that.
Charles Palmer:
Yeah, so we have two devices on my table here, one is called the Patriot Pro 12.9, which is an all-in-one concept made out of an iPad 12.9 Pro that also doubles up as a CCTV reader, OCR reading machine, and then our second device is called the Patriot Viewpoint, which is a pair of wearable goggles that someone could wear, and help them not just read printed material up close, but also do a lot of cool things like distance viewing, looking across the room and so forth.
Jeff Thompson:
When you talk about wearable products, this is something you place over your eyes and it enhances what you are seeing.
Charles Palmer:
That is correct.
Charles Palmer:
So there’s a few straps that fit around your head. And it does fit right in front of you like a pair of goggles. And it had different color modes like a CCTV would. It has the option to read out loud the documents and then the biggest thing people have been using it for, is distance viewing, looking at television sets or maybe a sporting event, like a grandson’s hockey or soccer game, stuff like that.
Jeff Thompson:
Gaming?
Charles Palmer:
Gaming even, yeah. If people want to play on the computer or something with it, they’re able to check their email or gaming and all that stuff. And then also TV viewing has been big. If they’re watching or playing a game on the TV.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, someone in a classroom could actually follow along on a chalkboard if they don’t sit right up front and right up close. They could view it or set it up or adjust it to see what’s on the screen or the chalkboard.
Charles Palmer:
They can. Depending on someone’s eye condition, some eye conditions the device works better than others. I have people with macular degeneration that can’t see typically more than a foot in front of them, they would put this on, they would looking across the room, they would going to a hockey game or something. They would be able to do some really cool things with it.
Jeff Thompson:
And like you said, it’s adjustable and in color as well.
Charles Palmer:
Yeah, true color and then all the CCTV color modes, like white on black, yellow on black, and there’s a few other gray scale color and then also a high contrast color, which is a natural color, just a little bit brighter.
Jeff Thompson:
I have a couple of friends that are in the business enterprise program and one of the purchased it and they use it to scan their machines, scan their products. They’re using it, and another one, who is here at the conference today, is also talking about coming over and picking one up.
Charles Palmer:
Okay. Yeah, I just met with him earlier and I was able to work for him. We do have a lot of people using that. It came out about two years ago, I would say now. And we just have been having phenomenal feedback with it so far. So yeah, there is a lot of people using it.
Jeff Thompson:
Must be fun to hear the different stories and what people are using it for.
Charles Palmer:
It is. I’ve heard stories that the typical reading male watching TV and stuff like that. But then I have people that have had really great testimonials. A lady, she is 16 years old in high school. She was able to compete in a robotics contest with it, where they compete with little remote robot things over the weekend.
Charles Palmer:
There was another gentleman that said he would have never thought he would see the day that his daughter walked down her wedding isle, but he was able to watch it with that.
Charles Palmer:
There is another gentleman that’s going to school plays with it and stuff.
Charles Palmer:
There is so many cool stories that we hear about with the device.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh that’s great. And that’s called the
Charles Palmer:
Patriot Viewpoint.
Jeff Thompson:
And they can find that on the website?
Charles Palmer:
They can find that on our website and then as well as if they do want to give us a call. We have a 1-800 number. It is 1-800-364-1612. And our website is patriotvisionindustries.com.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s just one great product you have here and there is another one that really caught my attention. I’ll let you tell them about that.
Charles Palmer:
Yeah, so the Patriot Pro 12.9. It is, in addition to being fully unlocked, functional iPad that you could browse the web, Safari, the App Store, all that stuff can be done. It is mounted inside of a custom [inaudible 00:04:49] that’s holding the tablet looking down at a tray and then on that tray you are able to open up our custom proprietary software that acts as if a CCTV, so you will be able to pinch in or out to zoom in or out, tapping on the screen with two fingers will change through all the CCTV colors. There is also a button along the bottom of this mode that you can take a picture of the document and then have it be read out loud to you so text to speech is on here as well. It does distance viewing if you want to look at a chalkboard in a classroom setting. It folds flat into a little laptop case weighing no more than 8 pounds. So it is like a perfect all-in-one concept if you want an iPad computer out of the device, CCTV reader, you could do everything all into one.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s really an all-in-one. That’s like a Swiss Army Knife.
Charles Palmer:
It is, exactly, I know, you have so many different features to pull out, right?
Jeff Thompson:
It really makes sense, because there’s so many times during classes and something you want to bring something of this nature, but back in my day it was, probably 45 pounds of 3 pieces. You’d have a whole wagon behind you. But 8 pounds, you could just stow that in your backpack.
Charles Palmer:
Yeah, my dad, he is the owner of the company 34 years ago and he’d tell me stories about these huge CRT monitors and stuff. He’d have to lug them up flights of stairs before. And I’m just amazed how technology has advanced to being so lightweight, portable, and integrated with the latest technology like an iPad.
Jeff Thompson:
So your dad is visually impaired.
Charles Palmer:
He is actually not. He started the company, our grandparents owned a little optical store so he got in the industry that way, because that is right when the technology was evolving to being these kind of solutions. But he is not visually impaired himself. He has a mild case of diabetic retinopathy that happened later on in life. But he wasn’t visually impaired when he started the company.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s really cool, it’s really neat that someone puts their resources for such a great initiative.
Charles Palmer:
Yeah, yeah, he’s still very involved with the company, he started it at the age of 18, believe it or not. And so he’s relatively young still. We’re a Florida based company, so he’s over in Florida.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great. Well it is great hearing about these products, and like they said, they can find them on the web.
Charles Palmer:
Patriotvisionindustries.com
Jeff Thompson:
Or give them a phone call
Charles Palmer:
1-800-362-1612
Jeff Thompson:
And we will put all of this in the show notes, so Charles, thank you for sharing what Patriot has to offer the visually impaired community.
Charles Palmer:
Thank you so much Jeff, thanks for having me.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
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