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I’ve had a few tech challenges over the last few weeks, one related to hearing aids. The needs of blind people who wear hearing aids aren’t discussed often. But we are a unique market with specific needs which I don’t think are well-understood by hearing aid companies who typically won’t engage. I’ll discuss this and lament my other tech crisis this week, because I wouldn’t want you to think I always lead a technologically charmed life you know!
A listener has been in touch, very unhappy that bookshare has substantially increased its annual subscription. What do you think? Is the increase excessive? Are you considering not renewing now that the cost has increased, or is it worth every penny for you? I also ask a tough question. With all the accessible, mainstream ways we can get books these days, do we really have a right to a service like Bookshare, which treats blind people so favourably? How do we justify it in 2023?
We’ll have more thoughts from blind people on the thorny question of dealing with help when its offered, particularly help we don’t want or help that is overbearing. I welcome your thoughts on this one as it’s something most of us experience regularly.
Recently, I bought a new gadget, the Zoom M2 MicTrak. It’s a microphone that records without you having to plug it into anything. Plus, it records in a modern method called 32 bit float, which has advantages for blind people because it’s virtually impossible to make a bad recording that distorts. This is the same review that I recently published to The Blind Podmaker feed, but I’m including it on Living Blindfully because it has a much larger audience and the product may be useful as the US convention season draws closer. Plus, it also means people will have a transcript, which will be very handy when wanting to prepare a cheat sheet for the menu system.
There’s plenty more as well, and I look forward to bringing it to you soon in episode 231. Thank you very much for continuing to listen and for your ongoing support of the show.