‘News on Air’ - Infotainment hub in your pocket

Jingle bells, carols, decorated Christmas trees, gifts and lot of cakes… Yes you guessed it correct! We are in the middle of Christmas and New Year’s celebration; which is the most favorite time of the year. Absorbing the energy and positivity in the air I decided to write a small informative blog about one interesting app called ‘News on Air’. I am sure this entertaining piece of software will boost the festivity mood for you.

Installation and Interface

As you all know, I am an Android user and I tried this on my Moto G5+. ‘News on Air’ is an official application by ‘Prasarbharti’ a division which is responsible for all government operated news and radio services in India. Since it is designed by government division it supports many regional languages, so if you are someone who wants to access the app in your own language then this is for you. During installation you can configure your desired language however it can be changed later using apps interface.

User interface of this app is pretty straight forward, each option is self explanatory like ‘Live Radio’, ‘Live TV’, ‘News’, ‘Podcast’, ‘Programs’ . Main menu button has got all the settings related to the app. Most important element of this interface is it is fully accessible with built-in screen reader ‘Talkback’. This application does not require any credentials or profile hence you can start enjoying all the services immediately after the installation.

News, Live Radio and Live TV

By default ‘News’ tab is selected and it displays all the news articles. You can even select ‘Top Headlines’ and ‘National’, ‘International’ news items as per your choice. Good part is that ‘Talkback’ reports the selected tab correctly. Under ‘Live TV’ you can watch all the government owned TV channels like ‘DD News’, ‘DD Kisan’, ‘Rajyasabha TV’. As soon as you tap on one of the channels, it starts the streaming. You can stop the streaming by locating the ‘Pause’ button at the bottom of the screen. In ‘Live Radio’ you have got huge list of radio channels across the different states of the country. It has also got the FM channels like ‘FM Rainbow’ and ‘FM Gold’ of specific city. By default this list displays in a grid format but you can switch to the list mode by using the options at the top. This is one of the most accessible designs I have seen in recent times. I truly appreciate this design, kudos to the developers! Guys please note, this list is really huge hence response from your screen reader is little slow at times. I was playing my personal favorite ‘FM Rainbow Mumbai’ for a while and results were just amazing. Using this service you can enjoy all the local streaming services of your city across the world.

Infotainment at its best

‘News on Air’ is a great resource for information and entertainment for every Indian who is closely connected to their regional radio and TV services. Being a streaming application it works using internet connectivity but you can listen to the downloaded podcasts anytime offline. Reading news articles on this app is a great experience and radio or TV works like a charm. Most of the online streaming applications are not that screen reader friendly but this one stands as a winner in this League. I hope developers will maintain this level of accessibility in future updates too. So, get yourself a glass of favorite drink along with some Christmas cakes, cookies and enjoy the popular regional and international content on ‘News on Air’.

Google Assistant, my virtual companion

Hi Friends,

After a gap of month I decided to write a small blog to celebrate the festival mood. This time I'm writing it on my favourite Google Assistant and most importantly on its commands. These commands are very handy on the go for a specific task or to fetch certain information. People around me know this very well that I use them extensively right from checking the time and battery level of my device to changing the profile picture on my phone. Since you get the response in audio you don't have to look at your screen. If you follow my blogs then you might be aware that last year I became a proud owner of Google Home Mini, the smart speaker by Google. This device is always online at my home and everyone uses it including my elderly parents. I must tell you whenever I am home I command Mini as ‘Hey Google’ and get the response within fraction of time. Its an amazing feeling altogether! Utilization of these services purely depend upon knowledge of important commands. Hence I decided to pen down few of the useful ones. Commands mentioned below will work on any device that supports Google Assistant.

So let’s get started with a big shout to our Virtual Assistant!

What is the time? or what is the clock?

Usage is very straight forward; but let me tell you it is one of the most asked queries on any smart speaker. Whenever I am home I use this a lot. I remember before assistant came into the picture I used to trouble my family members for this important but stupid question (wink..)

How is the traffic towards work? (or any other location)

This is very important for daily commuters who travel by road. Thanks to google's own map service which provides this information on the go. Let me tell you it is a savior many times if you are traveling towards new location.

How do you say --- [any word] in Hindi? Or any other language

This service is an output of Google's own rich translation algorithm. This is very useful in many scenarios. I know many of my friends' kids use this for their home work. Isn’t that great?  

How do you spell --- [any word]?

This is useful if you are into lot of documentation. When I am working on my laptop and if I stuck at any word then instead of opening additional browser window for Google search I just give a command to my Home Mini and get the result instantly. Like previous commands kids use this a lot.

Remember --- [any info e.g. "I kept my card in third shelf"]

This is the most amazing command I came across. With this one you can tell your assistant to remember certain things for you. You can fetch the saved information by asking few questions related to the task. For e.g. 'What did I tell you about my card?' or 'Where is my card?'. Warning! You should not ask your assistant to remember your passwords as it may not be a great idea from the security and privacy point of view. Guys please note, to use this command on smart speaker you will have to provide certain privileges through your 'Home' app. Don’t worry, Google will help you to set this once you ask to remember something.

 

India's cricket score? or when is India playing next?

It is very useful and handy when you want to know the status of any sport which is currently going on or recently completed. I like this command specially as I can check the score without turning the TV on. I taught this to my dad and he uses this effectively to know the score of cricket match. I often use this during my travel.

How do I do this? or any Google search term

Since Google Assistant is powered by Google's rich search mechanism, using assistant for searching any information is a pleasant experience. It even reads the trending search for you. I tried few queries like 'What is the price of certain phone?', 'How do I use filter in MS Excel?' and assistant quickly responded to me in it's pleasing voice.

Play [any artist name], [any music genres] [any album]

All these commands are good alternatives to access your favourite music quickly. Assistant looks for your active subscriptions and streams the audio using the appropriate service. In case of no active subscription, music is played using the free services like YouTube. You can even control your music hands free with commands like ‘Pause’, 'Stop', 'Rewind', 'Forward'.

Set me an alarm [any time]

Opening 'Clock' app and setting an alarm involves multiple steps but this command makes our life easy. Using this command you can set multiple alarms and even snooze any of the running alarm by just saying 'Snooze the alarm'. Canceling alarm is also possible with just a 'Cancel alarm [at specific time]’ command.

How is weather?

This command gives detailed weather report for your current location. Details include temperature and any important weather forecast. It is very useful to plan your day accordingly. I must tell you, being a Mumbaikar I use this a lot during monsoon time to know the unpredictable weather conditions. You can even use this for checking weather for any location in the world. For e.g. ‘How is weather in Melbourne?’. I remember I was using this query many times before my Melbourne travel.

Try and enjoy!

It's good to utilize Google Assistant in effective way by using the rich command library provided by Google. The above mentioned commands are few of the important ones however command library is still very huge. I must tell you these commands will surely save your time and give you the user friendly experience. Specially the voice control nature makes them the perfect companion for your elderly parents, kids and those who are not technology savvy. So, why to wait? Go wake your Google Assistant up and get ready to be amazed!

SuperSense – enjoying the independence

On the occasion of 73^rd Independence Day of our country I decided to share an interesting app which helps people with vision impairment in their independent living. I recently came across this Android app named ‘SuperSense’ developed by MIT lab and thought to write a blog post on it. Basically this app is designed using artificial intelligence(AI) and computer vision technology which helps its user to understand the surroundings effectively. It also supports object and text recognition on the go. Icing on the cake is that all the mentioned features work without internet connectivity. I tried this on my Moto G5 Plus and results are just amazing

User interface

‘SuperSense’ has very clean and easy interface. Once you launch the app you have a ‘Menu’ button which pops up the setting options once activated. These settings include features like ‘Enable TalkBack’, ‘Enable Beeping’, ‘Enable Vibration’, ‘Invite Friends’, ‘Give Feedback’ and ‘Help’. Utility of these settings is very straight forward as per their names. Beeping is useful in context of ‘Find Object’. ‘TalkBack’ option will provide audio prompts even when ‘TalkBack’ screen reader is turned off. I think this is useful for people with low vision who don’t use screen reader always. Next to this ‘Menu’ button we have three important options as ‘Read’, ‘Explore’ and ‘Find’. Each option has their little description written next to the name. At one time user can select one of the options and based on this selection button at the end will change its label accordingly. For e.g. ‘Start Reading’ when ‘Read’ is selected. During the recognition this button changes its label to ‘Pause’ for better usability.

Recognition results

I tried reading the text on my computer screen using the ‘Read Text’ option and it turned out to be very accurate. Guys, please note this recognition happens on the go so changing your focus and going away from the text may affect the result. ‘SuperSense’ even guides you to align the camera for better focus with directions however this needs some improvement.  ‘Explore’ option is also very useful while visiting any new place. I tried this in my office building and got decent results taking into account my surroundings including doors, steps and people around. One of the interesting options in the ‘SuperSense’ is ‘Find’ which helps you to locate the specific object from the category. Presently list of categories are enough for daily usage and this  list may increase with future updates. You just need to rotate your phone after selecting the desired object from the list, app gives you the beep sound if object is located. Using this option I tried locating my TV remote, water bottle, microwave and other small utensils in the kitchen and it worked just fantastic!

Experience the AI future

As we all know there are plenty of mobile apps available for object recognition but ‘SuperSense’ stands strong in this competition due to its easy interface, amazing accuracy and most importantly offline feature. Reading business cards, paper prints and signages is a cakewalk in ‘SuperSense’. Out of the other features ‘Find’ feature appealed me the most as it helps me locating my stuff quickly and saves lot of time. I think this app will be very useful for my friends with vision impairment living alone. Presently app is available only on Android platform but developers have plan of rolling it out on iOS as well. As of now ‘SuperSense’ is free for users but they are planning for subscription based usage in coming days. So try this astonishing technology on your Android phone by visiting the URL given at the end of the post and enjoy the independence. You can share your feedback with me by writing your comments.   

Google playstore link

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mediate.supersense&hl=en...

Netflix - My Experience with Screen Reader Talkback

Being grown up in nineties I have seen people listening to cricket commentary on their handy radios called transistor radio. Today things have changed with the smart phones and portable audio players where storing favorite song collection became trendy for many of us. With new age technology, we have huge mobile data benefits. Thanks to data war started by few telecom operators.  Because of unlimited data offers, people shifted to the online streaming of videos and audios. Right from a five year old to the security guard of our building, everyone started enjoying his preferred content on YouTube. To encash this massive market several online streaming providers jumped in India with their introductory offers. I tried one of the streaming services on my smart phone and decided to pen down my overall experience in the context of accessibility and usability.

Yes, you guessed it correct! I tried Netflix! One of the expensive streaming services which has very rich and diverse content in the form of films, TV shows, and web series. After scrolling through the list of categories I must say that it is one of the largest streaming libraries available to us. Instead of getting into the plan details I will directly review Android application of Netflix installed on my Moto G5 Plus mobile.

Profiles and Application interface

Netflix subscription is based on the number of screens, for e.g. if you have four screens membership then you can stream the videos on four different devices simultaneously. In other words, you can create four profiles under your account and all of them can stream any content at a given point of time. I am really impressed with this profile based access as managing multiple users in your house becomes easy and each profile can have its own preferences. As soon as you launch this app, on first screen it asks you to choose your profile. After the profile selection it lands us on the home screen which has options as ‘Films’, ‘Series’, ‘Downloads’, ‘Coming Soon’ and ‘Search’.  In ‘More’ tab you have all the configuration settings like Profile Management, Account, Notifications settings. You can even sign out using this option. I always check the accessibility of settings and configuration options before anything else as user customization is top most priority for any interface. Fortunately Netflix stands as winner in this area as all the options and menu are fully accessible with screen reader Talkback.

Finding desired content

On a lazy Saturday afternoon we mostly tend to watch something which can pass some time. Of course with an intension of an entertainment! And at that moment we usually want to find the best content, search quickly and with an ease. Netflix does this job very smartly by categorizing its content by ‘type’. Under the ‘Film’ category you have subsections for languages. I am happy as all the major regional Indian languages are present in this list. You can sort by genres like Drama, Comedy, and Action and even find the specific content by using ‘Search’ option. I tried exploring all these options using Talkback and did not face any issues as such. On home screen you can even have a preview of newly added content in the form of trailer. If you come across any interesting film or Web series then simply add that to your personalize library using ‘My List’ option. Netflix user can download any available content to watch offline from ‘Download’ option. I must say this is a very nice feature if you are a regular traveler where mobile data is not always available.

Streaming player

Built-in video player is one of the crucial modules of any streaming service. Player available on Netflix application is very advance in terms of features and its quality.  However it turned out very disappointing for me in terms of screen reader’s accessibility. Accessing playback menu using Talkback is a nightmare. I struggled a lot to open this menu and it opened on the screen after double tapping at top right corner with two fingers. After opening it, I observed few options like 'Forward 10 Seconds', 'Rewind 10 Seconds', 'Change language and subtitles'. Forwarding and rewinding the stream using timer slider was also not working. Overall this streaming player is not screen reader friendly as of now. I hope Netflix will improve on this in their future update.

Audio description    

Netflix is one of the few services which has rich content library with audio description. By the way, audio description is nothing but additional audio track added to the video which explains the scenes where there are no dialogues. It also describes the surroundings in that frame. Audio description is extremely useful for person with vision impairment as it helps them to understand the visuals more effectively and enjoy the content without much hindrance. Netflix has large number of films, series, and documentaries with audio description. The best part is all the Netflix originals are available with a quality audio description track. Even Netflix originals in Hindi language has this feature. You can search the content with audio description by using various categories. Please note that audio description track is not turned on by default. You need to enable it explicitly from 'Change audio and subtitles' menu available on video player. Unfortunately accessing this option is a hurdle as playback option of video player is not easily accessible while navigating with screen reader program Talkback.

Try and decide

As a streaming service Netflix is super loaded in terms of content. Obviously we have to shell out decent money for transforming our boring weekends into entertaining family time with choice of your popcorns. Either you watch it on your smart phone or smart television you have enough content to indulge your craving for films and shows. I hope Netflix developers will work on their video player to make it more accessible for screen reader users. To begin with one month free subscription is a good choice before joining the large Netflix party. Happy watching!`

Accessible Melbourne – My Solo Trip Experience...

April 3, 2019, the most important day in my life when I presented my research paper at the '12^th

 International Conference for Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance' at RMIT University Melbourne, Australia. A remarkable achievement in my professional career with Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC, Mumbai) under the mentor ship of my superior at C-DAC, Sr. Director Dr. Padmaja Joshi. Our research paper titled ‘Evaluation of Accessibility and Accessibility Audit Methods for E-governance Portals’ was published in the reputed international conference under the track, ’Digital Inclusion’. This is a result of our thorough research, testing and analysis of six months particularly on Indian Government e-Governance portals. This research paper publication and my success with international accessibility certification gave a dream start to me at the City of Melbourne where I toured from 2^nd to 12^th April 2019. In this blog I will be sharing my experience at the marvelous Melbourne city wherein I was all alone for twelve days and managed everything from travel to accommodation despite my visual disability.

Air travel Mumbai – Hong Kong - Melbourne 

I traveled by Cathay Pacific airline, last year to Seoul, South Korea. I had superb experience with them. So once again I booked same airline for this trip. Right from the airport gate they provided assistance for all the formalities like bag check-in, immigration and customs. Air crew was also helpful; they helped me in setting up my seat and arranging tray while having food. One of the ladies tried enabling the voice guidance menu in the touch screen panel installed in front of me but couldn’t do it, maybe it was not accessible. Ground staff was ready for me at the Hong Kong airport to help me in my transit flight. At Melbourne they even assisted me in collecting bags from the conveyor belt, clearing immigration and getting cab towards my hotel. Overall experience in flying with Cathay Pacific was really pleasant and hassle free. I truly appreciate their standard process for passengers with disabilities, kudos to their team. One small tip to my blind and low vision friends is that, guys please have one snap of your luggage in your smart phone. This helps your assistant to quickly locate your bags at the conveyor belt.

Hotel Mercure Melbourne Inclusive Policy  

As I reached the hotel reception, gentleman at the counter helped me in all my check-in formalities and even came with me to provide orientation of the floor and my room. He made me aware about the Braille labels installed on buttons of elevator and guided me to operate the panel on my own. I was really overwhelmed by this nice gesture. Next morning when I went down to looking for the restaurant, receptionist helped me in finding the way. She told me that whenever needed just ask for help, all the hotel staff is briefed by the management. I felt so amazed. What an inclusive policy they have for their guests! Then at the restaurant one of the ladies helped me in getting my food from the buffet and made me seat comfortably. The same lady came to show the way to my room and arranged an additional power adapter for me. She also guided to operate the AC, TV remote and electronic locker. Fortunately all these devices had raised dots on certain keys for easy operability. Guys, key card provided by hotel administration is useful at many places like elevator and doors. Please have some small sticker on one of the side of this card which will help you to identify correct side while using it.

Roads and Public Transport

In terms of accessibility Melbourne streets are just outstanding. Footpaths are very well designed and most of the intersections have tactile installed which is very useful for visually impaired cane users. Signals are equipped with buzzers which help commuters to cross the road easily.

I had read a lot of interesting stories about Melbourne trams hence I was very excited to use this mode of public transport. Fortunately there was a tram station near by my hotel. Melbourne has it’s dedicated mobile app for tracking the trams location. Since my friend had this app I did not try that on my phone .All trams have facility of audio announcements with visual indicators for passengers which is very useful for commuters. I even heard an announcement as “Please note, next station is the last accessible station on this route”. After inquiring I learned that few old stations have no facility for ramps hence they inform the passengers in advance. There were two types of trams running on the tracks, one is old British vehicle and another one is a modern tram with modern facilities. Old tram was not suitable for wheel chair users as it was having steps instead of ramp.

Apart from trams I traveled by Uber cabs. Since I am a regular user of Uber in India I configured my credit card to the same account for international usage. Along with standard cabs Melbourne also have‘Assist’ option in Uber. It is nothing but a regular car with driver having some additional training to assist person with disabilities. Most importantly this option is available in regular rates and no additional charge is levied. I used these “Assist” cabs many times while traveling. I also observed that most of the drivers were very well aware of the sighted guide technique which is worldwide standard for helping people with blindness. Wheel chair users please note that these ‘Uber Assist’ cars are not wheel chair friendly.

Sightseeing 

During my city tour I visited Immigration Museum, Queen Victoria market, Shrine of Remembrance, St. Kilda beach. At museum I was provided an I-Pod based audio guide. I was also offered a staff member to escort me in section called “Love Museum”. The Shrine of Remembrance is a war memorial where I visited an interesting section called ‘Pleasure Garden’. This garden has auditory sensory experience which means that as soon as we walk through the garden we can hear different pleasing sounds coming from different corners. Being visually impaired It was quite enjoyable.

On my one day tour to Yarra valley at one of the winery all the tourists were given a chance to play one game. I too expressed my interest and tour guide happily accepted to assist me. It was basically lawn ball game in which participant has to throw the ball on a specific line. They decided to keep someone at the line who will make some noise and I will have to throw the ball in that direction. To my surprise I won the game, this earned me a swanky bottle of red wine locally produced in that winery. I remember all the tourists and staff working there in the winery felt so amazed, they all came and gave me a hug. Wow! What an experience it was.

Every mile is a memory!

This was a tour where I experienced an accessible infrastructure, disabled friendly services, kind and co-operative people, pleasant weather and last but not the least the delicious food. Though this was my solo trip I could manage everything very well. Now I know why Melbourne is one of the top rated livable cities in the world. This trip gave me many euphoric moments to cherish them forever in my life.