Aira vs PowerTalk
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Sir Richard BransonMost popular feedback for Aira
Amazing opportunities This is one of the most amazing tools available to blind and low vision people. I use this app almost daily here in Los Angeles where I live. It is so incredibly helpful on so many levels and allows such a greater sense of freedom and autonomy. I use it for all different things ranging from asking the color of an item of clothing to a detailed description of a picture to taking selfies to assistance creating profiles etc. I’ve also used it when I became discombobulated in a shopping mall by myself and I was able to get assistance to successfully locate the escalators. I also use it for beauty related things, nail polish, make up, finding similar dupe items online etc. I am sure that Ira will continue to get even better and better as we move forward. I would love to see Ira be available outside the United States, even if it was just for US citizens so that there could be options to use the app when people do have to live outside the United States because of work related travel, vacation or being married to someone who is stationed internationally and so on.
zara royce
About Aira
Aira is a service that helps visually impaired individuals to live independently. In doing so, we — through the latest, personalized assistive technology and approaches — serve as visual interpreters and navigators for blind and low-vision people. Here is a detailed description of how the Aira platform works: Smart glass technology: The blind user puts on a Smart glass that has a camera, network connectivity and a rich set of sensors, such as Google Glass and taps on a button. An “Uber” style routing will connect the user to an available trained Agent to help the user with his or her request. Aira Agents are certified and trained: Agents are specially selected and trained through a 4-step process (described below). Agents are either from the user’s friends and family circle, or from our Aira Agent Team. The user will always interact with Agents whom they feel comfortable with and have trained/worked with in the past. Agent selection and training is a four-step process: — -Agents are selected by a pre-screening process that is similar to tests of a 911 operator. — -Every Agent is trained by experienced Aira team members on the use of the Agent Dashboard and go through various emergency protocols. — -The Agent is also introduced to “Aira Phraseology,” which will help him or her deliver timely, clear and concise information while taking into consideration the user’s surroundings. — -In addition, Agents go through a certification process after undergoing a thorough background check and signing confidentiality agreements. The Agent has a sophisticated Agent Dashboard which has the following data feeds: — -The current view from the user’s Google Glass User’s current location. — -Current traffic conditions, points of interest, government warnings, etc. — -Personal data gathered from the users — such as medical history, emergency contacts, things that they enjoy doing, places they like visiting, and names and contact information of family members and personal assistants. — -Facial recognition that will enable the user to identify individuals around him or her. Agent-User interaction: Agents are first paired with users to get acquainted with users’ needs by working with them on simpler tasks under supervision. This provides an opportunity for both the Agent and blind user to get to know each other and develop a compatible relationship. Once the user builds trust and becomes comfortable with the guidance received, the Agent will transition to guiding them independently with their tasks. User safety is paramount: — -Our platform, electronic equipment, system protocols, Agent training and user acclimatization are designed to put user safety as our top priority. All the transactions via Aira platform are secured confidential. — -The system has automatic algorithms to assess potential dangers. For example, the system is constantly monitoring for sound, video input, and sensor feed. As new safety systems and wearable devices become available, Aira’s platform is built to incorporate them and remain at the leading edge of safety. — -Aira has mechanisms to handle contingent situations, such as device or technical failure. Agents will be able to make calls on behalf of the user, request taxi service from reliable service providers to take the blind user home safely, or follow a specific user’s contingency plan. — -Even when network coverage is lost, Aira continues to store the user’s location locally on the wearable device. Once the network connection is regained, their location history is updated on the server, enabling the Agent to pinpoint the user’s current location. — -Aira’s platform is also capable of solving latency issues (slow network) for when there is limited network bandwidth, such as in crowded or remote areas. Environmental adaptation: In order to provide precise and accurate guidance in a noisy area, the majority of communications between the Aira Agent and the user can be done via pre-set tones and clicks. Latency adaptation (aka Slow 4G LTE Network): The Aira team has worked diligently to reduce time effects due to network delays. New algorithms being developed will optimize the quality of video streaming and reduce network delay to 1–2 seconds (depending on network reception in the area). Extensibility: — -Aira will be able to leverage indoor locations, based on systems such as iBeacon and Google Indoor Maps in the future when the technologies mature. — -Aira was built using its API platform, which will be open to external developers, allowing them to expand it to most of the industry’s wearable technologies. This means Aira, as a system, can incorporate information from other wearables, cameras, proximity sensors, infrared canes and other sensors to provide a complete solution for users. — -Aira has access to next generation Artificial Intelligence algorithms and advanced object and pattern recognition technologies. Market research and experiments: — -Aira has conducted experiments at FFB Dining in the Dark 2014, Vision Walk 2014, LA Tech talk, CSUN 2015 and Braille Institute. — -There have been 50+ blind user experiments, 200 blind user in-depth interviews, and 5 sessions for Agents and training. — -There are 100+ beta users signed up for trials in summer 2015. — -There are 8 formal focus groups with Mobility and Orientation specialists, assistive tech experts, and rehab advisors.
Most popular feedback for PowerTalk
PowerTalk will need a fairly powerful PC or laptop to run it. It requires PowerPoint 2000/ 2002 and Windows 2000 or Windows XP, as earlier versions do not provide the necessary support for events required by PowerTalk. Unfortunately the freely redistributable PowerPoint viewer is 'stuck' at PowerPoint 97 so it cannot be used. When you first run the software you should open PowerTalk. ppt. This is a sample presentation that describes the project, demonstrates the narration capabilities and allows the user to try out presentations with ease. So to the software itself. Every now and again one finds a piece of software that actually does what it says on the packet. PowerTalk is a prime example. To hear PowerTalk reading a presentation, waiting for animations to arrive before it continues and reading the 'alt text' behind a graphic, was astonishing. It even waits for you to advance the slideshow, before continuing its reading. When the next slide appears, the narration continues � automatically, without any further user intervention at all. If you have included any animation effects (eg flying bullet points), PowerTalk waits until each animation effect is complete before continuing. The voice was a fairly typical 'computer voice' � although I understand that future releases will include a GUI (Graphical User Interface), which will allow the user adjust the settings � I found it to be the tiniest bit fast and you would need to know your way around the Control Panel to make alterations. The voices supplied with PowerTalk are Microsoft standard -perfectly acceptable and quite intelligible. The installation is long� on our test machines here at Ford it took about ten minutes, and they are quick machines! But then there is a lot of software to load, as I mentioned earlier. If you do exactly what the Installation Wizards tell you (they are very clear and easy to understand), the package will install and work first time. Something of a rarity these days. Packaged with PowerTalk is the text of the General Public License and a file called Powertalk. ppt � a demonstration presentation highlighting some of the features. To run a Powerpoint presentation, simply write it as you would normally (but remembering to include your 'alt text' !), then open it using the Power Talk 'open file' dialog box. And Robert, as they say, is your relation by marriage ! (Ed. Bob's your uncle!) Overall then, I thoroughly recommend this software, to anyone who has difficulty speaking and needs to give Powerpoint presentations � and remember, it is absolutely free !
Steve Lee
About PowerTalk
PowerTalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows. You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images. Speech is provided by the synthesised computer voices that are provided with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and other voices are available. PowerTalk uses PowerPoint supplied with Microsoft Office to show the presentation. Features. Aids you if you have difficulty speaking or you have an audience that contains people with sight problems (visual impairments, low vision or blind) or who have dyslexia; Helps you access presentations when there is no speaker and you are partially sighted; Creates engaging school activities such as reading stories created by students; Simple to use as you just select a presentation and it runs in PowerPoint as usual; Speaks the text on any presentation and uses standard Windows speech; Waits for text to appear and animation effects to play before speaking; Will speak hidden 'alternative text' for pictures, graphics shapes and text; Lets you add instant narration to presentations without the need to record speech; Is a useful tool for testing presentation accessibility when using a screen reader; Is mature with 1000s of downloads and several reviews from people who have found it useful; Free (gratis - as in 'free beer'). No purchase, registration or adverts, you just download and run it; Free (libre - as in 'free speech'). The Open Source Licence guarantees you the freedom to make copies and to alter its behaviour; Is listed on DMOZ and on Google web directories; Anyone can contribute to the project and developers will find it is a SourceForge project; Is an example of Open Source Assistive Technology Software, or OATS. Find out more on the Fullmeasure.co.uk home page. Is a featured project in the OATSoft Open Source Assistive Technology Software project which brings the benefits of Open Source software to Assistive Technology users; Using PowerTalk. Opening Presentations. NB! - some people are experiencing errors when opening a presentation from the PowerTalk file dialog. Please right click in explorer and select 'Narrate with PowerTalk'. There are a number of ways to get PowerTalk to narrate a PowerPoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx file) or Slide Show (.pps / .ppsx file): Note: ppt and pps files are identical except for the ppt/pps part of the filename, the difference being what happens when they are opened. A .ppt file may be be saved in PowerPoint as a .pps file or else a .ppt file can be simply renamed as a .pps. Open a Slide Show. See below for details. Right click on a Presentation or Slide Show and select 'Narrate with PowerTalk'. Drag a Slide Show file onto a PowerPoint program shortcut. Browse to a Presentation or Slide Show using the dialog that appears when launching PowerTalk from the Start menu. The initial folder used may be specified using the shortcut 'Start in' property or adding the folder name as a parameter. Create a specific shortcut. Specify PowerTalk.exe as the target and the presentation file as a parameter(e.g. "C:Program FilesPowerTalkPowerTalk.exe" "MyShow.ppt"). By default PowerTalk will narrate Slide Shows when they are opened outside of PowerPoint (e.g. by double-clicking or right click and 'narrate' in Windows Explorer). Slide Show files may still be shown without narration by opening within PowerPoint or right-clicking on them and selecting 'show'. During installation there is an option to disable this feature and another option to enable it for Presentations. This behaviour may be changed at a later time by using the PowerTalk settings option in the startmenu (or as follows: open Windows Explorer (Windows key + E), select 'Tools' -> 'Folder Options' -> 'File Types', type 'PPS', select 'Advanced', select 'show' from the list (or 'open' for .ppt files) and then select 'Set Default'). Controlling Speech. Text can be entered on a slide in either a single text box or split into multiple boxes and these are handled slighty differently. The text in any single box is spoken continuously from top to bottom. Individual boxs are spoken in the order they are added to the slide. There appears to be no way to alter this and the way to force a different order is to create a new slide and copy the text boxes in the required order (hint: click on the box border and copy). Animated text is spoken in the order that the animations play, waiting for each to complete before speaking the next. However if a number of animations are used within a single text box, PowerTalk waits for the first animation only and then speaks all the remaining text. You may want to break the text into separate boxes and animate each. It is possible to specify the text spoken for images (and indeed any object including text) by entering Alternative Web Text for the image. This is done as follows: right click on the image, select 'format object' ('size and shape' in Office 2007), select the Web tab and enter the alternative text to be spoken (there may already be some alt text when images are cut and paste from web pages). If you enter a space then nothing is spoken at all. It is also possible to have text spoken that is not visible on the slide, for example to provide narration in addition to the slide content. One way is to add some text to a slide that is one or more spaces, which is then not visible, and set the Alternative Web Text to be the text to be spoken. If you have slide notes that you would like read then these can be copied to the Alternative text. Other ways to make text invisible are to drag it off the slide or set the text colour to be same as the background (and make it behind other text) and then you do not need to set the Alternative text. It can be hard to reselect invisible text later in order to change it unless you pick a consistent placement (e.g top left of slide). One way is to drag a selection rectangle over the area where it is known to be. Speech Options. The voice used and the speed of narration can be changed with the settings in the 'Speech Settings' section of Control Panel (on the 'Text To Speech' tab). There is a PowerTalk startmenu item that opens these settings. Windows XP comes with as single voice 'Sam'. The 'SAPI TTS components' download available in the Downloads section will add 'Mike' and 'Mary'. A range of additional SAPI 5.1 voices are available and examples include AT&T Natural Voices, Nuance RealSpeak, Neospeech and IBM ViaVoice The first time that PowerTalk is run you may notice a small delay as it analyses your PowerPoint and Speech API installations.
Aira reviews
Great service but has a long way to go on certain things I love using this app during COVID-19 but if you use the five minutes l like doing work emails it takes time to get the team viewer up and running and then you have to speak to the agent and to see if they can type as fast as you’re speaking so you do not go over the five minutes and have to call back to back and I do agree with one of the other reviewer’s that they need to make special Time events like if you want to cook something or take a walk or need help with a longer task if they made the subscription mode like this I wold pay for it . Guest accounts need to have a usage meter to know how many minutes you use because I am trying to lower my usage of this app
- kal2123
Connectivity issues and camera angles can be problematic I’ve noted at times, it will say speaker on and no one will be there to respond indicating they are seeing what is on our camera! When we do connect with people, however, the feedback has been great! We’ve gotten help with lots of different things such as labels and packaging of foods, team viewer with a computer, looking up items on the Internet which in some cases may be difficult for us to navigate with our technology! I am totally blind, and Ira has been a great help since both Brian and I are both totally blind and we both live alone. We only have a housekeeper coming in once a week! Thank you.
- Brian.albriton
Love this app!!! if you're blind or visually impaired, this app is a must-have. I have used it for everything from identifying things in my kitchen to taking pictures of my family and friends. The agents are very professional and never rude. The app is also great for navigating in unfamiliar places. The only problem I have ever had with it is that sometimes it doesn't stay connected, and at first I had a problem with the sticker shock. But really, it is worth every penny you pay for it. I may finally be able to label all the clothes in my closet now. So please, if you're blind, get this app. You will eventually find that you won't know how you lived without it. It is truly a game-changer.
- Blind blues mama
PowerTalk reviews
Nice and Easy to use.
- wkunes
excellent application
- girondeza
Pros & cons
Aira
| Pros |
|---|
| Connect to an Aira Agent in under 10 seconds |
| Achieve enhanced efficiency for completing tasks with access to visual information |
| Sign up as a Guest to use the service in specific Aira Access locations such as partner airports or venues |
| Cons |
|---|
| Expensive compare to its competitor |
| The Hardware |
PowerTalk
| Pros |
|---|
| Speaks the text on any presentation and uses standard Windows speech |
| Waits for text to appear and animation effects to play before speaking |
| Will speak hidden 'alternative text' for pictures, graphics shapes and text |
| Cons |
|---|
| Supports windows OS only |
| Need a fairly powerful PC |
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