So back in 2007 before I deployed to the Middle East with The United States Army, I purchased the very first iPhone. At the time of course I could see and I did not have a disability like the one I deal with today. For those readers who don’t know me, I was wounded in combat operations in the Middle East and 2008, where I lost all my vision and nearly lost my left arm due to blast injuries. I wanted to write this short post to give you some perspective, to teach people how important it is to learn technology and incorporate tech into your day-to-day life. On a normal day in my life at my home, accessible/assistive technology aids me in opening doors, locking doors, setting thermostats, setting timers for cooking, paying my bills, notifying me of movement in my yard or driveway and so much more.
Before I go on, I would just like to say that I’m very minimalistic at times. What do you mean by this you might think? Well, I feel sometimes too much technology can slow us down and frustrate us, so one must really assess and evaluate what is useful and what truly works for them in their day-to-day grind. The Apple iPhone is an amazing tool, and there are many other companies/manufacturers who create assistive/accessible technology. The third-party applications that are developed for the iPhone allow us to do so much. When I am checking my mail, I can use optical character recognition to read the computer bass text printed on the paper. Essentially there’s an application running on the phone that uses the optical sensor/camera to scan and analyze the text, which is then read back to me by synthesize speech. The Apple screen reader called voiceover, is a wonderful tool and other forms of this type of technology exists on other platforms such as android, and mini blind and visually impaired individuals choose which platform they want to operate on. I say I’m minimalistic, but really I am a techy person. I have been since I was a little kid and I’m thankful for it, it has provided me the ability to adapt and transition very quickly after my traumatic injury. This is not the case for everybody, many people lose their sight at a very old age and as many of us may know, some elderly folks do not adapt well or use technology in their day-to-day life. Companies are working hard to develop more intuitive interfaces and methods for navigating technical Contin on a screen, whether its through visual means, or through voice commands.
This post is just the beginning of what I hope will be a continued journey for me. I hope to teach others about my life and what I went through, so they can make informed decision about what direction they want to go in to improve their independence and lifestyle. Stay tuned and if you like the Contin please share with others. Forgive me I dictate a lot of my work and quickly go back to check it for misspellings, but it is a very tedious thing to do from the perspective of the blind and sometimes I’m just lazy ha ha.