Full Transcription
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. All in attendance at the National Federation of the Blind Convention 2019 held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sin City. I ran into Gil Beeri from OrCam. I met up with Gil a couple of years ago, so it was really nice to meet up with him once again and talk about the MyEye 2. It’s had some updates, some new features, and Gil’s just ready to talk about it and let us all know the new features and what the OrCam team is up to.
Jeff Thompson:
I’d really like to thank OrCam for being such a big sponsor at the convention. It’s nice that they support the convention. They’ve been out there for four years now. OrCam’s come a long ways, so thank you, OrCam.
Jeff Thompson:
Their booth was right up front and it was quite busy, so I really want to thank Gil Beeri for taking the time away from the booth a little bit just to share with us all a little bit about the OrCam MyEye 2, and announcing some special partnerships with NFB and ACB and some discounts just for you. So let’s head into the exhibit hall, over to the OrCam booth and talk to Gil Beeri. We hope you enjoy.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson. I’m at the NFB 2019 convention in Las Vegas, and I came up to the OrCam booth and I’m talking with Gil Beeri. How are you doing?
Gil Beeri:
I’m great. How are you doing, Jeff?
Jeff Thompson:
I’m doing great. Nice to see you again. It’s been a couple of years.
Gil Beeri:
Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Thompson:
So OrCam, you’ve been around for a few years, why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about it?
Gil Beeri:
Yeah, we were here for our fourth time already, and very proud sponsors for the NFB convention this year. We have special news for this convention this year. We signed a collaboration agreement with the National Federation of the Blind, which will, first of all, offer members of the federation a special 10% discount buying an OrCam MyEye or an OrCam MyReader through OrCam. And we also join hands with the National Federation of the Blind on seeing where development goes on assistive technology and our product in particular. So we’re very excited about that. Just last year we’ve came up with a few updates to our new MyEye 2 device adding an app that you can use the app for basic menu set up and operating the device. We also came up with voice commands.
Jeff Thompson:
I like some of the gesture bases. You just pretended to look at your watch and all of a sudden it just told you the time.
AI:
The time is 9:01 AM.
Gil Beeri:
Another way to get time is by using voice commands. I would double tap on the device.
Gil Beeri:
Tell time.
AI:
The time is 9:01 AM.
Gil Beeri:
More than 20 voice commands that will make operation of the device much easier for the user and that would [inaudible] to the new Bluetooth connection and other things that came out with the MyEye 2 when we came out with it a little bit less than two years ago.
Jeff Thompson:
So I could use the OrCam with my Bose frames?
Gil Beeri:
Yes, you can. I actually tested that and they worked perfectly with it.
Jeff Thompson:
That’s great. Now this is something that someone could just be in the comfort of their own home and just point at the newspaper magazine and just have it read to them.
Gil Beeri:
Exactly. The whole idea behind OrCam was to make the usage as intuitive as possible. There are a lot of man hours that are put in the design of the device to make it as easy to use as possible.
Gil Beeri:
Now, using artificial intelligence is not always very easy and we understand that, especially for a person who is blind or visually impaired, it’s not very easy learning about technology. So this is why we put a lot of hours in design of the comfortable and relatively easy user interface.
Jeff Thompson:
One thing that’s really unique about the OCR that you have, it’s all done internally. It doesn’t go up to the web or anything. So the privacy of what you’re actually scanning is contained.
Gil Beeri:
Yeah. Well this is a great question, Jeff, because privacy is an important thing today, not only in your day to day life, but also in your workplace. We know that employment is a huge challenge. Using OrCam at the workplace enables the user to read information without sending any of it up to the cloud, which then exposes that information to third parties that you do not want to have that ability. So everything is done, the whole process is done, on board on that tiny little device, which is the size of a finger basically and weighs less than an ounce.
Gil Beeri:
This is one of the advantages we see for using OrCam at the workplace.
Jeff Thompson:
And it just clips right onto your existing glasses?
Gil Beeri:
Yeah. There’s a magnetic mount. A tiny magnetic mount that connects to your glasses. Basically any frame will do. Basically it doesn’t matter if it’s sun glasses or regular glasses, as long as they’re not those little tiny wire frames. Almost any frame you can put the mount on and the device clicks magnetically on that mount, ensuring also that it’s in the right direction.
Gil Beeri:
You cannot put it on the wrong direction. The camera cannot go pointing backwards. It only can only point forward because the mount won’t take it because of the magnetic fields. So it won’t stick.
Jeff Thompson:
If someone has hearing problems, they could switch to one ear or the other?
Gil Beeri:
Yes, exactly. Can go now on both sides. The old device was mounted only on the right side, but this device can go on both sides, no problem.
Jeff Thompson:
So what else can they do? It can do OCR.
Gil Beeri:
Well it does OCR, facial recognition. It recognizes products, recognizes barcodes, money notes, colors. Basically that’s it. But you … regarding barcodes, colors, and facial recognition, you can also program the device to recognize either your friends and loved ones, your preferred products in the grocery store, or if there’s a barcode on a product that is not stored in our about million barcodes that are on the device, you can program that barcode and it will announce it on your own voice the next time you scan that barcode.
Jeff Thompson:
The first time I experimented with OrCam, it was in Minnesota Convention and it said Monty. Hey, it knows you. Monty?
Gil Beeri:
Yeah. Well, I think we’ve made a few steps forward since then. OrCam now is a device that is sold in 42 different countries all over the world and 25 different languages. By the way, the device in the US for example, comes already on board with reading capabilities in Latin Spanish and Canadian French. So you can use the device if you are a multilingual speaker, you can use that device to read in Spanish, to read in French, whatever you prefer. In other countries, we have other sets of languages. Again, 25 different languages in 42 different countries and they’re all localized to that specific country, meaning that on that device you’ll read the money notes of that country, the barcodes of that country.
Jeff Thompson:
So that’s really great. You mentioned members of the NFB do get a discount? You’re also at the ACB convention and you made that announcement there too, right?
Gil Beeri:
Yes. Well, both ACB members and NFB members will get that special 10% discount. Right here on the NFB convention and valid only for the convention, we have a special exclusive convention deal. So not only that you will get the 10% discount. You will also get a package of accessories from OrCam valued at $300 that we have with that.
Gil Beeri:
Part of it is this tiny little thing I’m showing you here, which is a special designed charger for the MyEye device that has a belt clip on it and it’s like a cradle that you put the device in it. It can sit on your belt and if the device has about one hour and 30 of consecutive work, this will add four times that time of usage.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, wow.
Gil Beeri:
So you can actually hold the whole day using that cradle. You can put it up and down from your mount into this cradle and it will charge it when you’re not using it.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s just about the size of a pack of gum.
Gil Beeri:
Yeah. That’s right about it.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, that’s really neat.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, Gil, thank you very much for taking the time out of your day here at the convention and sharing everything with the Blind Abilities listeners.
Gil Beeri:
Thanks Jeff. It’s always a pleasure and I hope the next time I see you will be less than two years.
Jeff Thompson:
All right.
Jeff Thompson:
Always a great time talking to Gil. Always a great time at the OrCam booth and always a fun time at the Exhibit Hall of the NFB Convention. So, if you want to find out more about or camp, check them out on the web at O-R-C-A-M. That’s orcam.com. Follow them on Twitter @Orcam and on their Facebook page at OrCam Tech.
Jeff Thompson:
And be sure to check out blindabilities.com or the Blind Abilities app or on your podcatcher of choice, Blind Abilities. That’s two words. And you can find all the convention coverage from the summer of 2019. And be sure if you got a Victor Stream, check us out on the suggested list. You can listen to the Blind Abilities podcast right on the Victor Stream and you can enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device just by saying, “Enable Blind Abilities.” And most importantly, I want to thank you, the listener, for listening to the show. We hope you enjoyed. And until next time, bye bye.
[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.
Jeff Thompson:
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*****
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