This week on Main Menu Live we bring together major portions of the communication teams across ACB to talk with all of you all about Groups.IO in a comprehensive two-hour presentation. Members of the Board of Publications, ACB’s ACB Media team, Blind Information Technology Specialists and others will join us to talk all about Groups. IO. We will answer some questions like the following:

list of 7 items • What is Groups.IO? • In what ways can you obtain all of your communication from the platform (email, rss, web, ETC). • Learn how to manage the vast amounts of email communication you receive from the platform. • Find out about your Groups.IO account, a vital and necessary tool to know how to manage and configure. • Learn about digest modes, no mail, special notices and so much more about the type and ways that mail is delivered. • Find out how the management of spam can impact your Groups.IIO experience. • Do you use iCloud or Gmail for your mail provider? Come learn why you need to be aware of specific things with this email providers. list end

This is just a portion of the content we will discuss at length. We will demonstrate the effective use of your browser with Groups.IO and how you may even want to accomplish this with Gmail’s web interface. The options are truly endless on ways that you can truly engage.

Here is the current outline (it is still being adjusted before the presentation) but it should give you a full understanding of where this presentation is headed.

We hope to achieve all of this content in two hours but if we don’t we will continue it in subsequent presentations.

Here is the current outline:

Using Groups.IO with ACB Email Lists Agenda list of 16 items • Introduction • What Is Groups.IO? • Advantages of Groups.IO • Domains for ACB Lists and Affiliate Lists • Advantages of reading lists with your browser • Required Screen Reader Skills list of 4 items nesting level 1 ◦ Working with collapsed menus ◦ Reading tables ◦ Finding specific information ◦ Skipping unwanted information list end nesting level 1 • Email Lists list of 6 items nesting level 1 ◦ Joining a group by email ◦ Responding to a “Confirm your subscription” message from Groups.io ◦ Responding to an invitation to join a group ◦ Receiving a notice that you have been added to a group ◦ Joining a publicly listed group through the group’s website ◦ Joining Subgroups list end nesting level 1 • Creating an account list of 6 items nesting level 1 ◦ Logging in to your Account list of 3 items nesting level 2 ▪ Logging in with a Password ▪ Logging in without a Password ▪ Logging in with Facebook or Google. list end nesting level 2 ◦ Account Settings list of 5 items nesting level 2 ▪ Changing your Email address and Password. ▪ Setting your default Text Editor ▪ Getting copies of your own Messages ▪ Enabling Two-Factor Authentication ▪ Handling Bounces in your Account list end nesting level 2 ◦ The opening page ◦ The page for a specific group ◦ Reading message threads ◦ Replying and using the message editor list end nesting level 1 • Using Outlook, ThunderBird and Email Clients • Using Gmail to read your Group Email • Configuring Email Delivery Options list of 5 items nesting level 1 ◦ Individual Messages ◦ Digest Modes ◦ Special Notices ◦ No Email ◦ Responding to removal due to Spam list end nesting level 1 • Defining Group Signatures • Controlling the volume of email messages you receive from a group • Leaving a Group list of 2 items nesting level 1 ◦ Leaving a subgroup ◦ Be careful to not remove yourself from Main list end nesting level 1 • Warning on Email Providers • Contacting Groups.IO Support list end

Karthik Mahadevan, CEO at Envision, will delve into the upgrades in the new Envision Glasses v.2.5 featuring a new interactive describe scene powered by GPT-4 Vision by Open AI & multilingual voice commands. That's not all! Exciting changes landed on the Envision App and future updates are set to revolutionize the user experience and create a more accessible world. Hear more from Karthik!

In the second hour we dive deep into Windows Copilot and Coipilot Pro and even give some demonstrations of their use.

Sponsored by the Information Access Committee

24 Episode Notes

Notes go here

Join the Main Menu team as we visit with Ryan Jones from Freedom Scientific where we hear all about the new 2024 releases of JAWS, Fusion and more! Sponsored by the Information Access Committee

Hello Everyone, Join John, Larry and I along with a number of guests as we dive deep into all things tech this month: Finally, Microsoft has released a major update to Windows 11 this week. It has all kinds of accessibility improvements along with other user experience changes that we will discuss. The big change is the new Copilot feature. Think of it like ChatGPT but baked into Windows. We give it a spin during the show and we give you our thoughts on its future.

• Apple has been busy with hardware releases, operating system changes and so much more. We have had some time with iOS 17 and some have even had time with the new iPhone 15. We share all of the details with you during the first hour of Main Menu Live. Most importantly are your questions about all of this. Some phones are heating up as most of you are cooling down in the beginning of Fall. The new Action Button is all the craze as well so we talk about the implications this has from an accessibility perspective for new iPhone purchasers.

Next we talk briefly about the Amazon announcements. Was this a big year for Amazon and what about the future of Alexa devices? We make some guesses on next steps that have all of us just wondering where they will take the technology moving forward.

In the first hour we bring on Mike from Be My Eyes. We hear from him all about the latest innovation happening with AI and accessibility as we celebrate

Global Accessibility Awareness Day this week. Be My Eyes will also be at the national convention this year so you will hear even more from them later this summer. We encourage everyone to come with questions as we want this to be driven by you today to ensure you get all of your questions answered.

In the second hour we talk all about a number of technology topics. These include:

list of 5 items • The Information Access Committee has finalized its plans for the convention and we share all! It’s all about empowering you the audience to advocate for better web accessibility! Come learn more. • We focus on how AI is shaping the world around us as we talk with Brian from Tuesday Topics (he is also joining us in the first hour). • Jeff is moving back to Arizona and as a part of that trip it is time to consider what technology he brings back with him and what technology he discards. Brian, Larry and John will have a lively discussion about this topic. The conservative part of Jeff may not be happy with Brian’s suggestion

Larry Gassman, John Gassmann and Jeff Bishop review CSUN 2023

In the first hour we talk with HumanWare all about the new Victor Reader Stream 3. It is now shipping so we get the absolute latest from the company and

most importantly we get your questions answered. We will take as much time as HumanWare will give us so this may spill into the second hour.

The Information Access Committee is working on plans for a very ambitious project for this year’s national convention. We give you a sneak peek into what the committees thinking is and how you will play a role in that process. To give it away, you are crucial!

Microsoft has released (in a public preview) their new version of Bing. We describe to you what is going on here with Bing, why you might be interested in trying it out and how to sign up for the new service. We will also give it a spin on the show and share with you some interesting things that Bing’s AI capabilities might reveal …

This month on Main Menu Live we bring you two hours of technology talk from a blindness perspective, including your comments and questions.

AIRA has made some major announcements concerning their service. We bring Troy Otillio and Jenine Stanley  to have an open, honest and frank conversation about the service and its future direction. Emphasis will be on what we can do as an organization and as users to further the mission of AIRA to advocate for change.

In the second hour we bring on the team from Unmute Presents along with the iACast Network team to have a technology discussion centered around the most recent Apple hardware and software announcements, Open AI’s Chat service and much more.

This month on Main Menu Live, we present JAWS 2023; Envision; and the latest on security. Ryan Jones from Vispero joins us to talk the new JAWS 2023 release. Bob Roehm joins us once again to give us updates on the Envision app and glasses. Jeff and team along with Damashe Thomas, will update you on the latest state-of-the-art password managers. will update you on the latest state-of-the-art of password managers.

During the first hour Main Menu welcomes Bob Roehm, Manager Envision Technologies, to discuss the Envision AI system including glasses and app.

Bob will introduce the Envision Technologies AI system. He will compare this system to other assistive technology devices and discuss the components of the system and how the features can help the VI community.

During the second hour we present Chris Hofstader, Amanda Carson and Keri Swendsen who represent World Blind Herald, a new and unique online publication about all aspects of blindness and blind people. It will be going live on January 4, 2023 and this is their first public announcement of the project. World Blind Herald is not affiliated with any blindness agency and its two primary themes are that not all blind people share the same values and that the blind community is not homogeneous. Thus, WBH will publish as broad a set of subjects about blindness as possible.