Hi all. I’m feeling kind of off today. I’m not sure it’s all in my head or I’m suffering with the early symptoms of a mild case of COVID. I haven’t had another lateral flow test, as I don’t feel worse than I did yesterday – in fact, I feel slightly better. On Tuesday, I’ll have a PCR test, so unless I develop really telling symptoms, none of which I have so far, I’ll wait and see until then.
Anyway, for my blog post today, I’m answering E.M.’s Sunday Ramble questions. Her topic for this week is technology and the future. Here are her questions.
1. Are there any applications on your mobile device, tablets, etc. that you cannot live without? Feel free to ramble about them! Maybe we will learn new apps that will become important in our own lives.
I am going with the more unusual apps here, as I doubt I’ll be inspiring anyone else to download Facebook or a web browser (I use Edge even on my iPhone, by the way) if they haven’t already. Apps I truly love on my iPhone include the diary app Day One. I previously reviewed Diarium, another diary app, but have since gone back to using Day One mostly because it allows me to have multiple diaries.
Other apps include MyNoise, an app that allows users to select soundscapes, the task management app Microsoft To Do and Seeing AI, an app that describes images. It most recently guessed my age in a photo to be 44 though. 😒 Admittedly, I pulled a rather odd face in a forced attempt to smile. And just so you know, no, I’m not going to post the photo here. 🙂
2. Do you prefer Apple or Android?
Apple for sure! It is far more advanced with respect to accessibility for the blind.
3. Windows OS or MacOS?
Windows. I tried a Mac some years ago, thinking it’d be easy to use with my being an iPhone user already, but I couldn’t get used to it. The only advantage of MacOS is that it comes with a built-in screen reader, like iOS. For Windows, you have to buy (or get insurance to pay for) JAWS.
4. What do you wish that you would have placed in a time capsule 15+ years ago to have access to now?
I answered a similar question already on another blog a few weeks back: I’d bring back the disability-related story-sharing websites we had in the early 2000s, like Tell-Us-Your-Story.com. I also would’ve put Diaryland’s diaryrings into the time capsule, but then I’d have hacked the concept and applied it to today’s blogs. Webrings are cool! I think the concept still exists, but hardly anyone participates nowadays.
5. When you think of the what the world will look like 50 years from now, what does that future look like through your eyes? Go as sci-fi and/or fantasy as you would like and ramble on however you wish to ramble When you think of the what the world will look like 50 years from now, what does that future look like through your eyes? Go as sci-fi and/or fantasy as you would like and ramble on however you wish to ramble.
I have absolutely no idea. I did a post on this topic some six years ago on my old blog, but I mostly focused on what my life would be like when I was in my late seventies. I really hope that image description and the like will be very much improved, so that the blind will be able to “see” this way. There already are glasses, such as the Orcam or Envision Glasses, which will describe things a person is looking at. I haven’t tried those, but if they evolve more, and they likely will, I’d love to try those someday.
What do you wish you could’ve put into a time capsule to take with you from 15+ years ago?
A Multitude of Musings 
I’m a big MyNoise fan as well. I sleep with it running, either on white noise or one of the rain settings, all night. I have a ton of noise apps and really need to get rid of most of them because I don’t use them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, that’s so interesting that you prefer the white noise soundscapes. I prefer the nature soundscapes. I don’t listen to them all night, since I’d have to keep my phone charged and I can’t do that while listening to my music pillow too (thanks no headphone slot on newer iPhones). That is, my lightning-to-audio cable does have an additional charging thingy, but I’m not sure it’s safe to charge my phone on it since it’s not the official Apple one. Oh well, that’s a luxury problem, since I could of course listen to the soundscapes on speakers while charging my phone.
LikeLike
I use a power pack to keep my iPod charged so I can run it all night, and a Bluetooth speaker obviates the need for that ridiculous dongle they give you. They’re really pushing Bluetooth, which is fine with me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I use Bluetooth headphones usually too, but my music pillow somehow doesn’t work with Bluetooth and I don’t think I’ve found any that do. Of course, I could place a Bluetooth speaker near my bed too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gonna download my noise now! I dont know what I’d like to take with me from 15 years ago. Probably instant messenger! I miss it!
LikeLiked by 2 people
That’s an interesting answer, since I consider Facebook Messenger to be pretty similar to MSN (if that’s what you’re referring to). Thanks for sharing! Emilia recommended MyNoise to me and it’s awesome. You do have to pay for the full collection of soundscapes, but it’s a one-time purchase.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those were interesting answers. We’re apple fans too. I tried a windows PC and then it forced an automatic update on me and the thing would never restart. I recycled it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, that sucks that your Windows PC crashed with that automatic update. My old Windows PC, the one I had before briefly trying the Mac, couldn’t install updates after a while. I still used it for several years, but each time it wanted to update, I had to wait for an hour or so f or it to try to update and eventually give up and shut down by itself. Thankfully my current Windows PC works pretty well.
LikeLike
Hi Astrid! I enjoyed the answers. I remember the webrings! I had forgotten all about them. Thanks for reminding me. 🙂 I wish I would have worded the last question differently, of course. I wish I would have said imagined instead of “see”. Then it would have been more universal. Thanks for rambling with me, and I hope you feel better soon. I had a small bout of Omicron about a month ago, and I still have some sluggish days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh no, my lack of an imaginative answer to your last question had nothing to do with your wording. I just can’t really imagine what the future will be like, LOL.
I am so sorry you’re still dealing with the aftereffects of COVID a month on.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Astrid! I look forward to feeling normal again lol. I am so glad that my wording was okay. I always try to make the questions for everyone 🙂
I’m scared of the future a bit myself, but I am also kind of pessimistic about it. I just don’t see a good ending right now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I understand that, you not seeing a positive future right now. I am still hopeful though. I also understand you’re trying to make your questions as inclusive as possible, but I personally wouldn’t worry about wording such as “see” or “hear” offending people. At least, for blind people, “see” is part of everyday language like it is for sighted people. Not sure about “hear” for the Deaf, since I’m hearing, but I’d assume the same applies.
LikeLike
I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling the best, I really hope it’s not Covid.
MyNoise is cool. Back when I was first introduced to it and started using it, I thought it’d be more useful for me with regards to the thing that I experience that I call sensory anxiety or sound/silence anxiety, which didn’t quite work out as much as I hoped, but it’s still nice for relaxing. NatureSpace is another app that I’ve tried out and that you might like if you haven’t yet come across it.
I’ve had my MacBook Air for almost two months now, and while getting used to things was raw at first and of course there are still things I don’t quite understand, I must say that overall I prefer the system itself to Windows, though I’d really like VoiceOver to be more responsive and stable, as I find it more buggy than NVDA which is what I’d mostly used on Windows. It’s not so unstable though that it would be unusable, but Braille support for Mac is really poor imo. And I miss some apps which just don’t seem to have equally good alternatives for Mac, but I’ll still be able to use the Windows for what I need it, it’ll simply be mainly Sofi’s PC now, when I’ll feel confident enough to let go of it, though I already only use it like once or twice a week. In general though I’m quite happy with the Mac and really surprised that I’ve managed to get used to it so quickly, I really doubted it, and even more so that it could become my primary computer, which it definitely has.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, I admire you for having gotten used to your Macbook Air so quickly! I had it for six months and then, once I was able to get JAWS through insurance, got a Windows PC as soon as I could. Then again, I use JAWS, not NVDA, which I think is pretty cumbersome with Braille too.
As for NatureSpace, I don’t think I really like it as much as I do MyNoise.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for your kind words, I myself don’t really know how I managed to get used to it so quickly, I’m not really this kind of person lol. 🙂
I have very little experience with Jaws so I can’t really say how much difference it makes in getting used to VoiceOver what screen reader one has used on Windows, but from what I’ve heard from other people apparently VoiceOver is more like Jaws than like NVDA. But when it comes specifically to Braille, while from what I know Jaws is indeed a lot better than NVDA at handling it, I think VoiceOver does even worse than NVDA so I’ve just given up on that and mostly rely on speech unless I really really have to have Braille.
I like MyNoise more too, I think it’s more versatile than NatureSpace, though the latter has its advantages too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, I couldn’t possibly rely on speech alone. Then again, until I got my iPhone, I used Braille only, no speech, so I had to get used to using speech.
LikeLiked by 1 person