Audio file OrbitResearchJuly2026ZoomMeeting.mp3 Transcript [Note: This transcript was automatically generated. It will contain transcription errors. Frequent speakers were labeled, while infrequent ones are only identified with numbers.] Robert Carter hello everyone. This is Robert, your host today for the July meeting with Orbit Research. Wow, hard to believe it's already July, but here we are, already at the middle of the month. My goodness, it's going by. Anyway, as usual, we are honored to have you all with us today, and thank you for joining this Zoom meeting. So without further ado, let's see if we can get Venkatesh, the CEO of Orbit Research, to step up to the microphone and tell us what is going on this month. Venkatesh Chari Thank you, Robert. Happy to be here, as always, and hello, everyone. Thanks for joining. It's been a really, really busy period for us. July is always hectic with the conventions. We had a very exciting NFB convention, really great, great turnout, lots of visitors to our booth, a huge amount of interest in our new product announcements. the Orbit Flow and the Strata Line, as well as the Orbit Flare. The Orbit Flare was there last year as well. It's shown, and we were just starting to ship, but I think a lot more people got to see it this year at the convention. So the Flow was definitely a huge hit. People seem to really love its simplicity and its form factor and its build. So lots of great interest there. Also, this was the first time at a convention that we were announcing and telling people about the the subsidy through the voice of specially abled people on the Orbit Reader 20, the Orbit Reader 20 Plus, and the Orbit Player. So there was a lot of excitement around that as well. It's with the subsidy, you know, as you folks know, it brings the price of the units down considerably with the Orbit Player available for just $199 and the Orbit Reader 20 for $499. So a lot of excitement around that as well. The graffiti and graffiti plus also had a lot of interest, especially now with multiple tactile graphic displays on the market. People were eager to compare and contrast and happy to report that people were really able to see the advantages that the graffiti technology offers with multi-level pins and the ability to keep your hands on the surface, on the pins as they refresh. A lot of good interest in the Slate multi-line products as well. So overall, a very exciting convention. It's always both, you know, tiring at the end of the the exhibit period and also very energizing and inspiring. So in terms of product updates, we are building the orbit flow units as we speak. We had an initiative that is now gone. We haven't, we are waiting for a larger batch. It should be here sometime by the end of the month, at which point we will make announcements to folks who have signed up for the pre-order list, and we'll be taking those in the order that we, that folks signed up in. So if you're interested, please go to our website, go to the Orbitflow webpage, and there's a form there which just basically needs only your e-mail and name, and we'll reach out to you as soon as it starts shipping. We have also been working on the software. Some of you might have seen some announcements in this regard over the last couple of weeks. So we released the 2.1 software update for the Orbit Player earlier this month with a bunch of new features, including bookmarks in the media player and podcast, and some usability improvements to the sleep timer, a mode to set which application the device starts in, playback of folders, prompt folders rather, in the media player, and a reorganized home screen, which is, we feel now, organized a little more logically. Might take a few minutes of getting used to, but hopefully it's more intuitive. Also published an updated and easier reading user guide. Fair bit of effort went into that. various bug fixes that folks had reported, including issues that we had discussed here, such as playing some of the ACB media streams, and a number of language localizations. We are planning release 2 point this week, and that will include Bard support. through the native Bard Android application. And this has been in beta testing. We've got some feedback, great feedback, and we've resolved whatever we can resolve on our side. It's important to emphasize that this is the Bard app from the NLS. And we have made it accessible using our own screen reader, which is designed for our devices. So it's keyboard friendly. And we expect that it gives a reasonably good experience, a user experience. There are certain things that, unfortunately, we can't change because they are the way they are in the app from NLS itself. And at some point, we will be developing an app that is native to our product. This still requires a large amount of work and a lot of validation and testing. So it's Not easy for us to predict any dates at the moment because there are various dependencies as well with other parties. But we're really thrilled that at least we have access and people will be able to do most of the things in a relatively simple and easy to use way. The Orbit speak Updates are also coming. So this week, we will have an update that will allow toggling on the fly between different Braille modes, contracted, uncontracted, et cetera, improved system-wide translation for Braille, and all the latest fixes from the Orbit Player release will also be merged into this. BARD support for Orbit Speak Plus is also coming. and it'll roll out a few days later. There are additional complexities with BARD support, mainly because Braille input and has to be fully tested and adjusted. There are conflicts there with the BARD app. And of course, all of the new features from or the Player 2.1 release will also be included. So as we had said earlier, we are trying to keep both of these in sync. They'll probably be off by a couple of days, but you will now see no significant additional weight for one device over the other. I know folks who have who purchased the Orbit Speak have been very, very patient. Some of them have had them, had their devices for over a year. So I want to thank everyone for their patience and they wait for these features and especially for BARD. So it's now imminent. On the Braille products, we've been doing some significant improvements on the Graffiti Plus. Various new features have been added, some optimizations to the user interface as well. We have improved some of the response times and latencies as well. Also, the support for the Orbit Flow 40 has been added to JAWS and NVDA. So folks who receive these will be able to literally have a plug and play experience. This works over USB only, so the moment you plug a cable in, it should just work. The Orbit Writer has also had an update recently. There were minor changes for that. There's been also releases, or rather, there are upcoming releases for the Orbit Reader 20, Standard and Plus models related to Orbit Chat. Orbit Chat is our app that allows deafblind users to use their Braille display along with an Android app to communicate. And it's a free app. And so we have a number of improvements there, some bug fixes, some feature enhancements. So file transfers are now able to happen with longer file name, rather longer files, larger files. There were some issues with naming of files received from the Orbit Chat app. So some small but important improvements. On the Graffiti Plus, we have also added support for additional drawing features. And options for setting the height of the axis when we display data from the PID-4 graphing calculator. So a number of improvements there. We also wanted to... tell everyone about the availability of voices for NVDA. So we are now making the RUNA TTS voices available for purchase through our website. These are, I think many folks are familiar with this, with these voices. They are the same as the vocalizer synthesizer, but available specifically for use on a PC through Windows for NVDA. So these are available for purchase through our website. We'll send an announcement out to the mailing list later this week with links. Another exciting development is that we have, for quite some time now, been working on a chatbot to enable folks, users, to get quick answers to questions they might have about our products, technical questions. So this has been in development and in testing for the last couple of months with feedback. We have made a lot of improvements. and we feel that it's now very close to release. So that is also coming in the next week or two. Other than that, I just want to remind folks about upcoming conventions and conferences. So we'll be at the ACB convention, which runs from the 21st to the 29th. I believe exhibit days are 26, 27, 28, and 29th. And also at the AER International Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, which runs from the 29th of July through the 31st. So we hope to see you folks all there. And with that, Robert, I'll hand the microphone back to you. Robert Carter Thank you, Venkatesh, for those great updates. And before we take questions, I have my Orbit Player plugged into my mixer here. And if you would like me to, I would be happy to do a little demo of Bard, but everyone needs to keep in mind, this is an early beta. This is not exactly what's going to be released. But would you like me to just show it a little bit, Venkatesh? Venkatesh Chari Yes, absolutely. We'd love that. Robert Carter Okay, let me see if I can wake this system up here. Device voice Home screen, apps list, file manager, one of 12, screen on. Robert Carter All right, so we're at the home screen here, and just to double check, I'm assuming you can hear this speech okay, Venkatesh. Venkatesh Chari Yeah, it's coming through loud and clear. Speaker 4 All right. Robert Carter Okay, so I'm just going to cut right to the chase here. There's a new item in the menu system now. I'm going to go up to that. Device voice Help group, 12 of 12. Android apps group, 11 of 12. Robert Carter It's called Android apps. I'm going to press select on that. Device voice Android apps group list, Bard Mobile, one of one. Robert Carter And we're sitting on the Bard Mobile app. I'm going to press select on that. Device voice Bard Mobile, Camino Island, and Bard Mobile, Camino Island, and novel. Robert Carter So it just opened up Bard Mobile. It told me that the novel that's currently focused on is called Camino Island, which is a John Grisham novel. I'm just going to down arrow a little bit through the through the system here, through the app. Device voice Recently read button, you select, space or enter for activation. Robert Carter Recently read button. Device voice More options, button, you select, space or enter for activation. Now reading, tab, selected, 4-4, use left and right arrow to navigate between tabs. Robert Carter So that's an important one. I'm on the now reading tab, which is what's selected. I can change tabs by using the left and right arrow. So if I press the left arrow right now. Device voice Settings, settings. Robert Carter I go to the settings tab, and then if I start down arrowing, I will go through the different settings options. But I'm going to go back down to tabs. Device voice More options, settings, tab selected. Three of four. Robert Carter Use left and right arrow to navigate from text. Back over to now reading. Device voice Camino Island, a novel. Camino Island, a novel. Robert Carter And I'm going to go down and we're going to find the play button, and I'm going to let you hear a little bit of this novel play. Device voice Recently read more options now reading. Camino Island by navigation button, zero hours. Progress bars, sleep button, previous button. Use current level front matter jump. Next button. Bookmark button. Rewind button. Use play button. Use select. Space or enter for activation. Robert Carter Here's the play button. NLS narrator From the original recording, including music, sound effects, announcements, or other additional material, may be present. Traditional NLS talking book announcements have been added. Please note that although this recording is unabridged, some information such as photo... Robert Carter So that's the front matter. I'm going to go up and... Device voice Rewind button, navigate. Bookmark button, next button, you select, space or enter for activation. Robert Carter I'm going to press on the next button here to get to chapter one. Device voice Bookmark button, you select, space or enter for... Next button, you select, space or enter for... NLS narrator Library of Congress annotation. Robert Carter So there's the annotation. Book narrator Chapter one. Robert Carter There's chapter one. Gonna go back down to play. Device voice Bookmark, rewind, play, button, you select, space or enter for activation. Book narrator Chapter one. The Heist. One. The imposter borrowed the name of Neville Mansion, an actual professor of American literature at Portland State and soon to be doctoral student at Stanford. Robert Carter Okay, so... You can see there that I was able to play the book. You can also adjust the speed. You can set bookmarks. You can, of course, go to other books that you have loaded on your player. I can show you that real quick. We'll go back up to the tabs item. Device voice Rewind, bookmark, next, current level, previous, but sleep button, progress bar to minutes, zero hours, navigation button, use select, chapter one, the heist chat, now reading, tab selected, four to four, use left and right arrow to navigate between tabs. Robert Carter So I'm going to go over to the bookshelf tab. Device voice Settings, settings, more option, settings, tab, get books, get books. Robert Carter There's the get books tab. Device voice More option, get books, tab, select bookshelf, bookshelf. Robert Carter And now we're on the bookshelf. Device voice More options, button, bookshelf, tab selected. Audiobooks, 2. Robert Carter So I've got two audiobooks loaded on my player. Device voice Audio magazines, one. Robert Carter I've got one audio magazine loaded, you can tell. But we'll go back up to audiobooks. Device voice Audiobooks, 2. Robert Carter And I'm going to press select on that. Device voice Audiobooks to items, navigate button, use audiobooks to item, more options, bookshelf, tab, selected, title and author search, search, title, button, you select, author, button, latest, button, you select, Camino Island, a novel, Grisham, John, 8 hours, 47 minutes. Robert Carter There's Camino Island. Device voice More info, Camino Island, a novel, Grisham, John, 8 hours, 47 minutes, you select, space or enter for activation. Robert Carter More info about it, which we're used to in the Bard apps. Device voice Camino wins. Robert Carter The second book that I have loaded is another John Grisham book called Camino Wins. So that's just a very quick and in far, far incomplete view of the Bard app. And I just wanted to give people a little flavor for what it's like. And while we all understand that the Bard app, the Android app, which was never really designed for a keyboard interface, it works quite well on the Orbit player. And it is, in my opinion at least, I think Audi and the development team have done an amazing job getting this thing to work. the way that it does. And if I can, I know you're here, Adi. Just ask you, is there anything that you would like to say about this or anything that I left out? Again, I just wanted to let people hear that it works. Adi Kushnir Thank you, Robert. Thank you so much. It was a very good demo. I just wanted to say that it's important to really understand the difference between this app versus our own apps. So our own apps have this kind of simple and consistent user interface with lists, menus, and everything else you're used to, shortcuts. This is a traditional Android app. So what essentially is happening when you are navigating between the items, we perform similarly to the way that TalkBack performs on a phone just with a keyboard-friendly interaction model. So we have tried to do the best in order to make it respond as quickly as possible and in order to make it operational in the most efficient way we could come up with. We will still be making improvements after this first release. There are some other enhancements that we would like to try and accomplish there to make navigation and operation even more intuitive and easier. But I think that for our first release, this is already doing quite well. And it's important to understand that since we are running the Bard app, we do not have control of its user interface functionality. and some other aspects. So when you'll get the update, we strongly recommend, and we'll be highlighting this in the release notes as well as in the updated user guide that we produced, that you read and consult the official BARD documentation for usage instructions so that you'll know how the app is constructed. And of course, in our user guide, we will provide the keyboard specific instructions on how to operate the app, how to operate the app with this new accessibility module that we have developed for it. And I would like to thank everyone for the patience. And I'm sure that this will open up the door for some very exciting stuff forward. Thank you, Robert. Robert Carter Thank you, Adi. Vankitesh, do you want to make any comment before we open it up for questions? Venkatesh Chari I just want to add that this has been a long time coming, and I want to reiterate how thankful we are of all the patience and the support from the user community. I know folks have been frustrated at times, and I'm hopeful that Now at least they have usability and hopefully we'll be able to also get the native app released soon. As we have discussed before, I mean the work that we have done to get to this point to make Bard available also then lets us in the future bring other apps to the platform. And this will be a, I think this is a question that has been asked many times, and I'm sure it will come up again today. So I just wanted to tackle it ahead of time. That, this will be a careful process, but I think it's important for folks to know that, we have now sort of crossed the main barrier with our own, with the development of our own screen reader that allows third-party apps such as Bard to be made accessible on our platform. So, while the question of side loading, which I'm sure will come up, is still there, and the we We currently do not have plans to allow side loading by everyone. We'll offer a curated list of apps that we have checked out, and they'll be available through this app menu that you described earlier, Robert. So we're really excited because I think This is the first of many, many, many great things to come. Adi Kushnir Just if I can add one more point as a follow-up, Venkatesh, to what you do. I know that this is going to come up, so I want to address it. And when it comes to installing these Android applications, so what will happen after you install this update, you will have a new dedicated app under the Tools menu called App Catalog. And in there, you will find an option to install the apps that we officially support. Do not try, please, to load any APK file through the File Manager or any other facility because, I mean, it should block you, at least from the File Manager app to do so. We strongly recommend and encourage installation of the apps that we mark as supported. For now, it's going to be barred only in this first release. So our US, for our US folks, it will add a lot of value. International customers will have to wait a bit until some relevant apps for them become available. So this would be the way to install Bard. This will be the way to update Bard through our own installer. It's not going to be built into the software itself because not everyone will need it. So just keep that point about the side loading process in mind when you want to grab the update. That's it for now. Robert Carter All right, thank you, Adi. Mitch, you've had your hand up for a while. Please unmute yourself and go ahead when you're ready. Speaker 8 Hi, where do the downloads go in the app? And can you change the name? There's the symbol that's the same as a period. Can you change the name to a period in your next update for the OS? Adi Kushnir Oh, you mean the full stop? Yeah, the. So good, question. So the downloads from Bard go to its own encrypted locations. When you install Bard, Bard asks you for the first time if you want to save books on the internal storage or on the SD card. Now if you select an SD card, you have to continue using the same SD card always. If you change SD cards and you have some previously downloaded data to another SD card, you might have to delete all the BAR data and re-download it. It's part of their encryption scheme. So keep that in mind that Robert has already encountered that and we during testing and it's so don't try to kind of look and copy the files over because they won't work, you'll have to use the app by itself. As for the punctuation, yes, we have a plan in the update that's going to be coming after this one to add a punctuation processor. This has been a long time requested thing that we wanted to get to and we have not been able to get to yet, but you'll have levels like in typical screen readers of some, most, none, and all. And this will also improve the way that the punctuation symbols are spoken. Right now, they're handled by Vocalizer. So by default, Vocalizer speaks period as full stop, but they will be handled by us in one of the next updates, and it will become period. as you expect. So thank you. It's a good point. Speaker 8 All right. And what if you have content that you've gotten from Bard for like a victory or something like that? Adi Kushnir You have to re-download it. Yeah. Speaker 8 Okay. All right. Thanks. Adi Kushnir Yeah. You have to re-download it because it will only play content downloaded from this particular app. Robert Carter Yeah, I'm sure that's part of the copyright and stuff. Adi Kushnir Yes, Very good, very good questions. So actually, before you, especially if you use an SD card, prepare a big enough SD card that you want to store books on so that you won't have to go through the process of, you know, changing and deleting BARD data and stuff like that. I really recommend reading their support documentation because it explains some of these things. and their specifics. Robert Carter Yes, I agree. This really does work, people, but you have to work with it because it's not an app that Adi and team developed custom for this player. So it is, but it's important to remember that this is allowing us to have Bard access. Brandon, please unmute and go ahead. Brandon, are you there, sir? Adi Kushnir Okay, meanwhile, we've got a question in the chat. Please go ahead with that, Adi. About the vocalizer voices for NVDA that Venkatesh mentioned, and how does it differ from the Tiflu Technia product, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll just answer that briefly. Unfortunately, we this week have received some shocking and sad news that Rui Fontes, the guy that owned the Tiflotechnia company in Portugal who was selling the vocalizer voices for NVDA, has passed away due to unknown circumstances. To us, this was very sudden. And essentially, we are the developers of the Tiflotecnia version of Vocalizer. We have developed it for him and we have rebranded it. So now, for them. So now, yes, so now when, unfortunately, due to circumstances out of our control, Haru is no longer with us, we will transition gradually all customers to be able to purchase it from us directly. The prices will stay the same. We will add additional voices in August when we will transition everyone to be able to purchase from us and we'll notify about that step by step. We will also add new voices from another company. So you'll be able to purchase vocalizer or voices from another company called ReadSpeaker. And you'll be able to choose what you want to get. But it's basically the affordable vocalizer product will still remain available just through our own brand and the original version of it instead of the Tifel Technia one. Robert Carter Thank you for that, Adi. One more try for Brandon. Are you able to unmute? If you are, please go ahead. Well, I know Brandon's running that new Mac OS beta. Maybe that's the problem? Adi Kushnir Oh. Robert Carter Okay. Let's see. Yeah, maybe we'll go to you, Bobby. You were next on the list. Please unmute and go ahead if you're not running the Mac OS beta. Speaker 4 I think I fixed it that. Adi Kushnir Hello, Brendan. Speaker 4 Go ahead. Speaker 5 One question, though, is with the app catalog, will that be available on the... Well, first, is my volume level any better? Adi Kushnir Yeah, we can hear you fine. Speaker 5 Comes to the app catalog. Will the will it only be available for the Orbit Speak Plus or the or both Orbit Speak versions? Adi Kushnir Good question. So the app catalog as well as the BARD support and all of this will be available for Orbit Speak Plus. Venkatesh Chari That's correct. The Orbit Speak is it does not have internet connectivity and library support. It does have connectivity for upgrades, so OTA upgrades are of course available, but it doesn't have support for advanced file formats, so it can support BRF, BRLN text files, and it has a but also doesn't have the Internet radio and podcasts and those features. Robert Carter All right, thank you, Brandon, Venkatesh, and Adi. Boy, we're getting things done around here today? Bobby, please unmute and go ahead if you're ready. One more try for you, Bobby Vinton, if you're there. Adi Kushnir By the way, we have just shared in the chat the links to the NVDA voices. There are two links there from the Orbit Research website. One is for the full version, and the other one is for people who are upgrading from the Code Factory, from the previous Code Factory add-on. So both options that were available from Tifo Technia are available now directly from us and feel free to connect with us if you need this product. Robert Carter Oh, excellent. One more try for Bobby. All right. Anthony, please unmute yourself and go ahead when you're ready. Speaker 9 Hello, can you hear me? Speaker 4 Yes. Speaker 9 Right, yes. You know you have the Bard Support app. That only applies to people in the US. Have you sort of thought about sort of the easy reader Android app, because that would allow people in, other countries to have some sort of library support, even though it wasn't quite as good as the native app, because it seems, it's going to be a while before we get native support in other countries. Adi Kushnir Yeah, we are exploring various ways, actually. Stay tuned over the next while, because I know you, of course, are interested, as we discussed before, about the RNIB library and other libraries. So we have the foundation now to make things work and to develop gradually, even on our native side. I am not sure that we will allow the standalone Easy Reader app to run, but we will certainly be able to do more with it now that we have system, that we have accessibility in many areas in where we could not work before, especially things like libraries that require authentication via a web page, which was a big deal breaker. We're also going to introduce support for captive Wi-Fi networks as a result. So this is all connected and I'm sure you'll see from, you'll hear from us about improvements to international libraries in the next several months every month or two. like something else will happen related to that because we are, this is an area that we're actively investing on at the moment. So stay tuned. Speaker 9 Okay, thank you very much. And I'd just like to say I have the, your voices for MVDA and they work very well. Adi Kushnir Thank you. Thank you, Anthony. Robert Carter Yes, thanks, Anthony. Ken, please unmute and go ahead when you're ready. Speaker 10 Hey, I will be, I mean, I am, I'm talking through a hearing aid connected to my phone. So if it sounds a bit different, I'm sorry. But, you know, when you said something about an app catalog, I just, I was just combining, you know, other products that utilize something similar. The Blindshaw Quizik phone, being one example. Of course, I don't have it. It's just from what I've heard about stuff like that. Adi Kushnir Yes, there are other products that are taking various approaches, some similar, some different to ours. For example, on the blind shell, they made it completely open so you can load whatever app you want at your own responsibility. We took a slightly different approach because we want to focus on a good experience first. So yeah, there are, you're right, there are, I mean, similar products that they're doing, that are going in a similar direction. We chose our approach and we'll step by step refine it together with you to find the optimal ground of how to make it satisfactory and at the same time to allow you to enjoy most of the capabilities that you can. Speaker 10 Cool. One more thing I was going to say, though, is would it be cool? I mean, do you think it would be cool if you guys had a Braille display that only used USB and Bluetooth for connections and no internal functions? Venkatesh Chari We do have units like that. So our Orbit Reader family has some standalone functions, but they're very simple functions. So you can take notes in Braille or text, and you can read Braille or text files. But that's about all they do. I mean, they have a simple calculator and calendar, but they don't have these advanced features for connecting to libraries or supporting advanced file formats. So we do have products like that. And also in our new Strata family, the Strata 40 has that same level of functionality. So very simple, basic Braille displays, primarily intended for use with a computer or smartphone. Okay. Robert Carter All right, thank you. Brandon, I believe maybe you have another question. Please go ahead. Speaker 5 Yeah, with the ReadSpeaker TTS option, will that also be available in the OrbitSpeak eventually? Venkatesh Chari So, yeah, we have been we have been discussing that, and it's, as we have said before, it is there are various aspects related to that, and it is that and others are things that we are, DDS officers that we are looking into. As you can see, there's a lot of stuff on the critical path that still remains to be done. we want to be able to have really robust releases. there are still some lingering issues and some critical feature updates that we have promised and that we know are needed that we want to finish first. So I know you're very interested in this, Brandon, and we really appreciate you. pushing us in this direction genuinely. And so we will offer these options hopefully sometime soon. It's just that the team is relatively small and we are consumed by what we have on our plate right now. And more often than not, things end up being more complex than we had expected. So Thank you for asking. Thank you for your patience. Adi Kushnir We will start with our Windows product actually with the NVDA voices with ReadSpeaker very soon. I believe it's about two or three weeks time. And that's easy for us to do and we're done. It's just a matter of some licensing things we need to set up. But as for these products, yeah, as Venkatesh said, This takes some additional effort and we will, of course, follow up when we're ready with info. Robert Carter All right, thank you, Brandon. James, please unmute and go ahead, sir. Speaker 11 Thank you. I noticed in your demo that the reader voice was a lot lower volume level than the system voice. And I wonder, now I know that's come up several times. Did you deliberately have the reader at a quieter volume? Adi Kushnir No, that's an issue we're still fighting with from time to time. When you connect an external device, like a 3.5 millimeter jack, for some reason we... On some devices, yes, on some devices, no, on some occasions, yes, on some occasions, no. We are looking at a permanent solution to this. In some cases, we still get the volume lowered beyond our control. Our Android platform does that automatically for us. We are looking how to completely prevent that. Speaker 11 Yeah, audio docking, is it? Adi Kushnir It's not audio docking. I wish it was. If it was audio docking, we would have... Speaker 11 Yeah. Adi Kushnir We would have disabled it because it's in our hands. Speaker 11 Yes. Adi Kushnir But we have done some fixes that affect it worked for a while, then it appears that it's coming back. In some cases, I am active. I am personally actively investigating that. And as soon as we'll have a solution that I can say it's 100, you know, percent work proof, we'll will update everybody. Also, another advantage of this app catalog approach is that if we fix something that is critical or we see that it's serious enough, we do not have to issue a full software update anymore to deliver a fix to one or two areas where we believe we need to fix something. Let's say we received some bug reports in the for podcasts or for any other client that we have, we can just push an update through that app catalog and fix it even before a full software update is coming. So we have enabled some level of flexibility now to respond quicker to various points that users Report to us. Speaker 11 Thank you. Robert Carter Thank you, James. Yeah, I was sorry that was, that volume was as low, but that's as loud as I can get it right now when plugged into a 3.5 mil. Speaker 11 So one option might be to deliberately introduce a gain control. So you actually deliberately multiply the output signal before you send it. Yeah, we, that could introduce distortion, of course. Adi Kushnir Yes, we are looking into that. The reality is that there is some kind of setting that limits the volume on our Android system thereby on purpose. And although we have done the best to disable it, in some cases it comes up again. So we will address it. It's annoying, but we're on it. Speaker 11 I was recently looking at an Android device and I noticed in settings there were no end of different audio levels for different apps. Adi Kushnir Oh yeah. Speaker 11 That could well be part of the problem too, I guess. Adi Kushnir It is, and it's adjusting them dynamically. So let's say you plug headphones. Speaker 11 Yes. Adi Kushnir And then it decides, oh, I won't let the volume go above a certain level because it will hurt your hearing. And then it's like they decide for you, they became too intelligent, in quotes. Speaker 11 Either the signal is silent, they'll say it's going to hurt your hearing. Adi Kushnir Yeah. So we are looking at a permanent way to disable these audio processing things. We'll keep folks posted. Speaker 11 Thank you. Robert Carter Yeah, thank you, James. Appreciate that. Steve, you can unmute when you're ready and let us hear from you. Please go ahead. Speaker 4 Hi there. A question related to something which came up earlier about voices being changed. So it would output period rather than full stop. Is that, if you can implement it, is that to be implemented as an optional setting? In other words, for those of us who love the idea of full stop, it's still full stop. For those who are happier with the hearing period, it will come out of this period. Adi Kushnir Well, this is where the this is where the problem starts, right? So, when you enable these kinds of features, you are always going to have different people that want different things. In general, We are going to follow the traditional screen reader model where we predefine how punctuation is spoken and then you'll be able to select if you want to hear it or not and at what level. You want to hear it and it will differ per language. So we know that, for example, in the UK, full stop is more popular. So it will most likely be that way versus for the American English localization, it will be period. Will we allow customizing that and defining your own custom text for each symbol? Maybe, but it's a lot of extra effort. So we did not decide on that yet. We first have to deliver the core functionality because this is annoying. people that there is no punctuation control, especially on the orbit speak where it's a editing type of environment. But we'll get to it. Speaker 4 Yeah, I don't think it would annoy me too much hearing period. As you'll probably notice, I'm in the UK. But yeah, but just wondering whether, and it sounds like it would be customizable, as you say. So it sounds like the option kind of is in there if you choose UK kind of English as opposed to American English. But I was just thinking of the option of one or the other, not putting in your own text to hear the punctuation as you personally yourself would want to have spoken. But yes, I understand people. What can you do with them? Maybe one of them. But yeah, thank you for that clarification. Robert Carter All right. Thank you, Steve. Maria, please unmute and go ahead when you're ready. Speaker 12 Hello, thank you. Looking forward to meeting those of you who will be in St. Louis for the ACB convention. I had a couple of quick questions. First, relating to the ACB convention, will there be prototypes of Orbit player case and the Optima to be able to feel and check out there? And then relating to the software versions that you're hoping to release in this next, these next couple of weeks or so tentatively. I just wanted to get clarification on the versions that I should be expecting on both the Orbit Player and the Speak Plus. So I have the current latest public versions for both. So am I correct? So I have 2.1 on the Orbit Peak, Orbit Player, sorry. So I should be expecting version 2.2. And then with the Orbit Speak Plus, is it going to be also a version 2.1 initially and then the version 2.2 to add the board catalog support to then match with the version would be on the Orbit player in future as well. Thanks a lot. Adi Kushnir That is correct. Venkatesh Chari In terms of the software, yeah. Speaker 12 OK. And great. Venkatesh Chari And as far as the. prototypes at the ACB. Yes, exactly as you said. We do have prototypes of the case for the player and also the Optima. The Optima, we showed it progressively through different conventions, updated versions, updated prototypes of the Optima, and then most recently at CSUN and then also at Site City and at NFB last week, we also showed a version of the Optima that has piezo cells in addition to the one that has our true braille cells. So yeah, we'll be showing all of that. And of course, the Strata products and the orbit flow. So we'd love to welcome you to our booth, Maria. Speaker 12 Thank you. Venkatesh Chari Looking forward to it. Robert Carter All right. Thank you, Maria. Mitch, please unmute and go ahead. Speaker 8 Any date on when we can get a case for the player? Venkatesh Chari Oh, any date? So we have now finalized the design. We are in the production phase. The best date I can probably give you is going to be probably October to have the first batch. Robert Carter Excellent. Sounds like that's coming along. James, please go ahead. Speaker 11 Thank you. I just want to come back to punctuation management. Adi, you probably know this, very well. There are three characters which you can't just use a single string. One is full stop, period, decimal point, dot. All words will be needed. One is comma separator, and the other one is hyphen minus. The trick is to identify the characters before and after, and then you can pick the right string. Adi Kushnir True. That's exactly what we are implementing. Yeah. Speaker 11 I thought you'd be on it. I thought you'd be on it. Adi Kushnir Well, we are. Speaker 11 Excellent. Adi Kushnir We know the, we know the job from the screen reading, you know, industry as much. So, you, understand our. Speaker 11 I do. I used to work on speech synthesizers. Yeah, exactly. Many moons ago. Thank you. Adi Kushnir Yeah. Robert Carter All right, thank you, James and Adi. Bobby, are you able to unmute and go ahead, please? Speaker 13 Hey, I got a question for you. I love the presentation. I'm glad you were able to update that beta. I mean, do the beta for me. That was wonderful. All of us, it's wonderful. My question is, when will the Bard update come and then when will we be able to add our own apps? Adi Kushnir Okay, so The Bard app is, the final release is being prepared right now as we speak. You should see it any day this week. We are just finalizing some documentation aspects and we are rolling it out. So you'll receive an update notification very soon. So check your device and stay tuned to the Orbit Reader users list if you're subscribed. to that. Sounds good. But that's it as far as apps for now. As we said before, we will gradually expand the choices of apps we offer. So Bard will be the first one. And based on our assessments and evaluations, we will step by step expand to other specific apps that we feel work well enough. Robert Carter All right. Well, we are coming up on the end of the meeting here, the top of the hour. While you're on there, Adi, do you have any final comments? Have you let everybody know everything you wanted to mention? Adi Kushnir Yeah, I did. I just want to again emphasize and thank everyone for being so patient. We know that Some of these things took and are taking longer than you would have expected to and that we were hoping for. But as you see, the result is worth it. And we'll continue perfecting this formula until we reach a more or less stable cycle. And I just really wanted to thank everyone for the For the support, for the feedback, for telling us where things are not right, and also for complementing us when things are done properly, this really helps to prioritize things. This helps to refine things. At the end, all of us are here in order to produce products that all of us want to use on a daily basis. We have developers in the team that are blind. And the whole mission of ours as a company is to make the best products for ourselves and for the community that we want to have. So that tremendous amount of support we are getting and the pushbacks also, this all helps to make it stronger. So I wanted to thank everyone for their time. Robert Carter Thank you, Adi. I think you all have done an awesome job with this app system with Bard and what's going to be coming in the future. Venkatesh, any final thoughts, comments, tie the ribbons on this, please. Venkatesh Chari I just want to thank everyone once again for participating and for your continued support. Thank you all. Robert Carter Right. Thank you all very much. We will be back sometime next month. Everybody take care. So long.