Kia ora Mosen At Largers.
There’s no shortage of things to talk about right now, and that’s good, because would you be willing to listen to three hours of silence? Well perhaps you would, now you’ve heard the meditation episode. You still could, unless you email, call or record your contributions.
Microsoft bought Nuance. Dude! Who saw that one coming! Nuance plays quite a major role in the lives of blind people, since they own the Vocalizer voices, Dragon, OCR technology, help to power Siri, and yes, of course, they now own Eloquence. What do you think Microsoft’s acquisition of Nuance means for blind people? What do you hope it will mean? Do you really, really want to see Eloquence built into every copy of Windows? I see some people are lobbying Microsoft about this already. How about Eloquence on your iPhone? Is that something you yearn for?
This got me thinking, what is your favourite text-to-speech engine in the world, and why? What are the qualities that make a text-to-speech engine a good one? Sounding natural? Responsiveness? Intelligibility at high speed?
Apple’s next event is coming up next week and right after it, Mosen At Large listeners are going to gather in Clubhouse and discuss what was revealed. But if you’d like to tell me what you’re hoping for, be my guest.
It’s been a while since we covered COVID-19 at length on the show, and I’d like to catch up on how people are doing now that vaccinations are rolling out. I have heard horror stories about difficulty accessing vaccination websites. How has the process been for you? One thing I have found over the years is that while there are obviously some wonderful exceptions, many medical professionals don’t seem very comfortable around blind people and can often treat us like we’re not very competent. In the Bonnie bulletin, Bonnie and I will describe our brush with the medical profession this week.
As usual, there’s a wide array of blindness and technology topics from listeners on which you may like to comment once you hear them.
If you want to raise something new, you’re very welcome.
Getting your contributions in ahead of time leaves you free to hear the show, and gives me a chance to organise them all, so go for it. Please don’t be shy, I’d love to hear from you. To contribute, send an email with an audio attachment or just written down to Jonathan at MushroomFM.com, or call the listener line, +18646066736, that’s 1-864-60Mosen.
The best way to hear Mosen At Large is when it airs live and in full. Catch it on Mushroom FM, either on the station itself or in the Mushroom FM club on Clubhouse, the Mosen At Large YouTube channel and the Mosen At Large Facebook page on Saturdays at 2 PM Eastern, that’s 7 PM in the UK. It will then be available in abridged form on the Mosen At Large podcast, available anywhere you get podcasts.
Thank you so much for listening and contributing to the show and see you soon for Mosen At Large.