In this episode, we talk about the highly accessible Miro app, Mac accessibility updates, and finally, we explore the possibilities of assistive technology bolstered by brain-computer interfaces, including Neuralink’s recent milestone, where a patient was able to draw an image using only their brain.

• Read More

Gloria works as a pharmacy assistant, handling everything from helping customers get their prescriptions to stocking the shelves. Recently, her hearing aids died, making it much more difficult to do her job.

Her hearing aid specialist referred her to WorkBC Assistive Technology Services for help funding a new set of hearing aids. Assistive Technology Services staff walked her through every step of the process, ensuring that she got the hearing aids she needs for work.

• Read More

Donna works in a busy pharmacy that prides itself on its customer service. She helps customers find items, discusses the benefits of different products, and tries to make them feel welcome and comfortable in the store. However, her hearing loss was making it more difficult to help customers.

“I had issues hearing their questions and comments over the sounds that occur in a public place,” she shares. “I was always asking them to repeat their question, which when someone was in a hurry could irritate them. I also had to ask my co-workers to repeat themselves for the same reasons. I have found that most people are quite considerate, but as the hearing loss progressed, it became more of an issue for me.”

• Read More

Perez works as a part-time manager at a fast-food restaurant. Working in a busy kitchen environment with a lot of noise, she found her hearing loss was affecting her ability to work.

“I was diagnosed with a bilateral, moderate-to-moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss, which has a big impact on my work,” she explains. “My self-confidence was affected as I can not work properly. I need to ask my colleagues what they were saying and sometimes I [would] just guess what they really want to say, which [would] lead to a wrong decision or wrong task.”

• Read More

At 71 years old, Ali still works as a manager and estimator for a construction company in Vancouver. However, his hearing loss was making it difficult to communicate on the job. Through WorkBC Assistive Technology Services, he received funding to help cover the cost of the hearing aids he needs to keep working.

“[The] Assistive Technology Services program assisted me to purchase suitable hearing aids to keep my job,” he shares.

• Read More

On our latest episode of “We Have Solutions,” Seaver Stafford is joined once again by Nakia Singh, and they talk Mac accessibility, do a quick review of Notebook LM, and chat a bit about the future of AI.

• Read More

Ronald is an insurance estimator. His work requires a lot of communication, both in-person and over the phone.

“[I have] hearing loss, which resulted in missing information (sometimes critical) during calls or in-person meetings, [and I’m] always having to ask people to repeat themselves which slowed the workflow,” he shares.

• Read More

Today, we’re excited to celebrate a huge milestone on our 41^st anniversary. Since 1984, we’ve served 100,000 participants with disabilities! A heartfelt thank you to our donors, supporters, volunteers, and community for making this possible. We couldn’t have done it without your help. Here’s to reaching the next 100,000!

• Read More

After a long career as a service tech working on cars, Robert now works full-time driving the customer shuttle at a car dealership in Kamloops.

“I was suffering hearing loss as a result of working in a shop for 50 years, and I was having trouble hearing directions from customers I was driving,” he shares.

• Read More

OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is always great to have in one’s back pocket, because it allows you to easily scan and digitize documents with just your smart phone. In past articles we have looked at both PrizmoGo and Microsoft Lens, and we consider them to be among the best OCR apps available right now.

However, there is another well-established OCR app that we haven’t talked about before, and that’s going to be the subject of today’s e-bulletin.

ABBYY Fine Reader is an AI-powered scanner designed to scan and capture paper documents, books, agreements, receipts, magazine articles, notes, recipes, charts, tables, slides, whiteboards, and even billboards on the street.

• Read More