Ask the Experts Helping Blinded Veterans Get the Most out of Their Ray Ban Meta Glasses

Hi everyone, and welcome. I'm Jackie from TechSoup. Thank you so much for joining us today. This session is an overview and interactive Q&A for blinded veterans designed to help you get the most out of your Ray-Ban Meta glasses. So, whether you've had yours for a while or you're still getting familiar with them, this is your chance to ask questions on setup and use and get practical answers. We're joined by Katie and Gus from Meta first, followed by the team at Blinded Veterans Association. So, between the two, you've got both deep product knowledge and lived experience in the room with you. And with that, I'll pass it over to Katie from Meta. Take it away, Katie. >> Hi everybody. It is so great to get to meet/see everybody on this call. My name is Katie Jordan and I'm at Meta, where I am leading our program to deliver 130,000 Ray-Ban Meta glasses to blinded veterans in the US. So, I am so excited to be chatting with y'all today um and just incredibly grateful to our partners over at the BVA and at TechSoup. And with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague Gus, who's the director of design prototyping for accessibility and a long-time champion of this work internally. >> Thanks for the kind intro, Katie. Uh yeah, I'm Gus. Uh um I've been working with uh designing and and building uh AI devices and glasses at Meta for the past 7 and 1/2 years. Um this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart. I have low vision, my mom's blind, and uh a lot of veterans in my family as well. My grandfather was US Air Force and uncle was US Army. Um and uh I'm here to help answer any questions you have about the product and hopefully help them become as useful as possible for y'all. And with that, I'll hand it back to Jackie. Thank you. >> Thanks, Gus. Uh very helpful. Next, I'll hand it over to our friends at the Blinded Veterans Association to kick things off. Take it away, Leah and Dominique. >> Hi everybody. My name is Leah Rome, the National Executive Director with the Blinded Veterans Association and we are very excited to kind of do a walk-through of the glasses this morning to kind of show the highlighting and tactile descriptions of the device itself and walk you through the pairing process. BVA is here to support you. If you have any questions, we are more than glad to answer them. You can either put them in the chat um and we can answer them at the end. So, that way we can be able to follow it from start to finish throughout that process. Additionally, on bva.org underneath programs, underneath resources, there is additional training guides and in the future we will have videos as well so that you can be able to reference specific points of the start setup process so that you're not trying to go through an entire manual to get that one question asked. Additionally, if you are needing additional follow-up, you can join our other Q&A sessions that are on the BVA calendar. At this time, I'd like to pass it off to Ms. Dominique Lawless who is our National Program Director with the Blinded Veterans Association. >> Hi everybody. It is so great to be with you today. Leah, can you guys hear me okay? >> We can. >> Perfect. All right. So, I know some of you have had your Meta glasses for a little while and some you might have just got them in the mail. So, I think that we should go over how to set up the glasses and some of the basic commands that we can use. I'm blind. I've had my Meta glasses for about two years and I kind of push the limits on them every day to find out new things that they can do. So, I'm excited to get you started with your pair of Meta glasses. So, when you receive them, they are going to come in just a regular box that has the Ray-Ban Meta logo on them and the easiest way, although not the prettiest way, is to feel for like a perforated tab on the long flat edge of the box and pull that open. And once you do that, the box kind of you know, just unfolds like a piece of paper. And so, you can easily take out the glasses. These are the Gen 1 Wayfarers. And um most of the glasses that we are distributing have a transition lens. So, they're going to stay clear when you're inside, and then when you go outdoors, they're going to get a little bit darker. Um these glasses are fully charged. Please note that um unfortunately, a USB-C cable does not come included in the package. So, that's something you'll need to provide for yourself. But, a lot of the newer iPhones and Androids have those um as you know, as chargers. So, I'm I'm sure you'll have one floating around the house. If not, an external battery pack will do as well. Um but these are nice and charged. Um so, we are going to go ahead and explore the case first. So, if you are holding your case, you're going to feel the opening to that and have that face you. And if you notice, that kind of opens up like an envelope does. So, if we open it up, we'll feel that the glasses are in the case with the lenses facing out. And there's only one way to put them back in the case, and that's again with the lenses facing you. Um otherwise, they will not charge. And uh we don't want to damage them by forcing them in a way that they're not going to fit. So, when we close the case, if you notice, there is uh what feels like a button. That is actually an indicator. One to make sure the case is closed, but two to make sure that it's charging. So, um I tell people, you know, if it's red, it's dead. If it's green, it's good to go. Um so, we want to make sure that that color is green. Um otherwise, you will need to charge your case. Uh reminder that the glasses are charged by the case, but the case itself actually needs to be charged from time to time as well. If we >> Yes, ma'am. >> Just out of curiosity, if I'm charging my device and it seems like it's not connected, is there anything in the device or inside the case that might be preventing that from taking place? >> Absolutely. So, when you get your glasses and you open the box, the arms of the glasses are going to have kind of a protective wrapping. You want to take those off, but also if you feel inside the case, there's almost going to be like a clip um where the glasses are housed securely, and there's going to be a piece of plastic, like a tab, that you're going to want to gently pull out because that's what's going to allow you to Bluetooth pair the glasses as well as to charge the glasses themselves. So, yes, that is a great point. Thank you. Um if we turn the case over to the smooth flat side, towards the bottom, you will feel a round button. This doesn't protrude a lot, um but it is textured, so hopefully you'll be able to feel it. Um and in most cases, this is what we're going to press to pair the device. Um sometimes they come ready to go, uh and are you don't have to press the button, but for most of the glasses, you're going to press the button on the back until the button on the front turns blue. Um and then if we go to the bottom of the case, you'll feel where that USB-C charging port is. All right. So, let's jump into pairing because that is the part that um you know, it's a little bit it's it's fairly easy, um but sometimes we ink you know, encounter some troubleshooting areas from time to time. >> Miss Monique, >> Yes, ma'am. >> What am I pairing the glasses to? >> That is a great question. So, in order for the glasses to function um as they are intended, you're going to need an Android or an iPhone. I'm going to be using an iPhone today to demonstrate this, but um you want to make sure that you are using an iPhone that has a version that is supported by Meta. Um so, that way you can receive their app updates. So, I'd say anything, you know, 11 or higher if you're using an iPhone and I am not familiar enough with Android to to advise you on the operating system, but you at least want to have an iPhone or an Android um to be able to pair the device. >> And what particular software am I needing to download in order to pair this particular device? >> I was going for that next. Um so, you want to download the Meta AI app. Um so, if you go into your app store or your Google Play Store, um you are going to type in m e t a space a i and that should bring up an app that is free. There are no purchases necessary for the app to download. Um and if you have someone who can see the icon of the app, it then Meta folks, correct me if I'm wrong, uh but it should be a white background with a bluish purplish circle on the front, but it says uh Meta AI. And once you have that downloaded, what uh you need to do is to have a Meta account that can be associated with your glasses. And so, this could be a Facebook account, an Instagram account, a WhatsApp account, or you can create a Meta account using your email or mobile phone number. Um it's easiest if you already have a Facebook or Instagram account and it's they just need it for account creation purposes, not to actually post what you're using the glasses for on Facebook. So, you're uh protected in that way because, you know, no one's no one on your feed is is seeing how you use the glasses, but it's just helpful to have one of those accounts or to create one using um a mobile number or an email. In this case, I already have a Meta account linked um on the on the AI app and so, we are going to go to add um to add a new device. So, I'm already >> Siri 001 >> I'm a voice over user. Um so, you may hear that in the background. Um so, what I'm going to do is there's already a picture of glasses on my screen and I'm going to swipe until I hear add device. And I'm going to activate that link. And then on the screen the first thing that comes up is Wayfarer, but it already detects the glasses that are close to me. So, I'm going to go ahead and press connect. And it says that it's pairing. I'm keeping my glasses nearby and we're just waiting for it to finish pairing. It is still pairing the glasses right now. Um so this sometimes can be a tricky part if we're at group events and we have lots of meta glasses that need to be paired at the same time. But if you're, you know, in your own home where there's only one or two pairs of Ray-Ban meta glasses, then your your right serial number and right pair of glasses should pop up after um after you start the pairing process. Do we have any questions so far? All right. So, I got a notification that said a device would like to pair with my phone. And we're going to press the pair button. A notification that said could not pair glasses and this happens from time to time, so we're going to make sure that I've pressed that button on the back. That's going to turn the light blue and we're going to try pairing again. And hopefully this will go a little bit faster. All right. So, when you initially pair your glasses, it's going to give you an onboarding tutorial. Um this can be helpful. It shows you the different spots on the glasses that are touch panel, where the capture button is, different things you can say like that. I'm going to press skip on this for now because I'm actually going to give you the tutorial. So, unless Leah you want me to go through the tutorial. >> No, I I think you're doing a great job, Don. >> All right. So, what it's it's going to bring you to a dialogue box next that tells you about meta AI and asks if you want it to to be turned on. We are going to You can read through all that. Essentially, it tells you what Meta AI does. We're going to press continue because we definitely want to use the Meta AI feature in this. So, it gives you the opportunity as well to connect your apps to this. So, especially for music, if you use Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, you can actually, I think, connect iHeart Radio to it as well. Um, but there is an opportunity for you to connect your music so that way you can say things like, you know, "Hey Meta, play jazz." Or, "Hey Meta, play Dolly Parton music." Um, and we can listen to our music and control what we're playing from our glasses specifically. So, I'm actually going to press connect and connect this to my music. I'm going to play connect Apple Music. So, it's just asking me if I want to connect everything. It's always double-checking that there are permissions granted. And we're going to press allow. And then it shows in this panel of settings that it is connected and gives you an option to disconnect if you so choose. All right. So, we now have the option to connect phone calls and text messaging to this as well, which is what I like to get a lot of folks set up with, if they ask. So, what you need to do for this once you hit the connect button is you actually need to pull out the glasses and have them open. Um, and I'm going to put them on so that way I can hear voiceover. And so, it's giving you instructions. So, I need to go to my Bluetooth settings and find, um, my Ray-Ban Meta glasses and make sure that I can sync contacts and hear who's sending me a text message. So, we're going to go over to our Bluetooth settings. All right, so we're in iPhone Bluetooth settings and I'm going to click on more info under the right meta glasses. And I'm going to allow message notifications. So this means that my meta glasses will say, I have a message from Leah Roe. Would I like to hear it or respond? And I can choose what I want to do with that message. I'm also going to activate sync contacts. So on the screen both of those are that those toggle switches are on. Um and now I am going to go back to the meta AI app and press continue. And I have to decide if I want to allow full contact or if I want to limit those contacts. So I'm going to allow full contact access. And so in contacts access in your settings, I'm going to allow access to all contacts and apparently I've increased my number of contacts to over 700. So this could take a minute. Um but we are going to press the button that says allow full access. So now we're going to go back to meta and it brings us to the settings that say, you know, just your meta AI settings. So if we need anything related to the glasses in the top right corner, we're going to press the button in the top right corner. It should bring up a pair of glasses and show that it's connected. So that is how we pair the app and get our contacts associated with everything and now we can move into the orientation and layout of the glasses unless anybody has any questions. All right. So there's a few things that are important to note on the glasses. While you can use your voice to command, you know, to make commands and get descriptions, there are just a few little pieces of hardware that are important to remember. So if you are holding the glasses on the inside um left arm, there is a little button. It's more of a switch, but it feels like a button. And if you switch that towards your ear with your finger or your fingernail, that's going to power your glasses off. If you switch it towards your nose, that's going to power your glasses on. And in most situations, you don't need to turn them off or on unless you're experiencing a little bit of a glitch or you want privacy or if you're in a room full of people who have meta glasses and everybody's saying, "Hey meta." Um that's usually when I power mine off. Um but mo- most often than not, I don't even bother with the power switch unless I just need to do a quick hard reset. Um if you are holding the glasses as if you were going to put them on in the top right corner of the right lens on the frame, there is a camera. Um so, we kind of tell folks, "Where you point your nose, the camera goes." And if you are looking at a greeting card, you might hold your head down a little bit or in front of you. Whereas, if you're looking for the gate number in an airport or at the McDonald's menu, you might look a little bit more up. So, just remember where you're pointing your nose, that camera is oriented. Um so, that is at the top right corner of the frame of the glasses. And then on the top of the right arm, there is a long rectangular button. That is the capture button. So, if I press that once, it just took a picture. If I press and hold it for a second or two, it's going to start or stop taking videos. So, this is great if you find that uh you know, your your hands are a little unsteady with your smartphone or your camera or you can't get the the angle that you want. This is a great way to be able to take pictures and capture those special moments as well. On the right arm of the glasses is a touch panel. This touch panel will allow you to do a few things. First, if you do a short swipe towards your ear, that is going to increase your volume. If you do a short swipe towards your nose, that is going to lower the volume. Um and that's only one of the ways. There are about three ways you can control the volume on the glasses. This is one. Um, I will show you my two favorite ways to do that in just a moment. If you take one finger and tap on the glasses on the right arm, that will activate or stop your most recent audio. So, if you've been listening to music or an audio book or a podcast, that will stop or start as you touch it. Say for example, you're getting a phone call. If Leah's calling me and I don't want to answer the phone right now. I might uh decline that call or to accept it, I would take one finger and tap twice. So, if I wanted to talk to Leah, I would take one finger and tap twice and then when we were finished with that conversation, I would take that same finger and tap twice again to disconnect the call. All right. So, if we're going to go back to volume, um, sometimes the glasses come at at varying levels of volume and um, there are different ways to kind of check on that. My favorite command for this, I'm going to see if you guys can hear it. Is to say, "Hey Meta, what's my volume level?" >> Volume 55%. >> So, it's telling me that volume is 55%. So, I'll say, "Hey Meta, raise volume to 75%." And just to confirm that it is, I'll say, "Hey Meta, what's my volume level?" >> Volume 75%. >> Volume is now at 75%. >> Dominique, >> Yes, ma'am. >> what was that sound it was making after you said "Hey Meta"? >> So, when you say the wake word "Hey Meta", it's going to make a we call it the water drop sound because that sounds better than just going "Boing." Um, but that essentially tells you that the app is ready to listen and the AI is ready to process your command. Um, and so, what I kind of tell folks to do is instead of just saying, "Hey Meta, can you tell me what time it is and what the weather is in Cupertino, California?" "Hey Meta, stop." We need to slow it down a little bit. So, we want to say Hey Meta, pause, and then say, "What's the weather in Washington, D.C.?" >> In Washington, District of Columbia, it is currently mostly cloudy and 85° F. Today, expect a high of 87° F and a low of 69° F. >> So, it just gave me the weather for Washington, D.C., but it's important to remember um especially as you're getting started that you want to speak clearly, that you want to say the wake words, "Hey Meta," and that right after you say that, you almost want to pause just long enough to clap your hands. So, I'll say, "Hey Meta, what's the weather in Washington, D.C.?" And that's about as long as you need to to pause to get it to respond to you. All right. Um And so, that that is absolutely a great question in terms of, you know, what that sound is and what it does. Um there is an alternative called Live AI, and we can touch on that later, but when using that, you don't actually have to wait for that water drop sound. You can kind of have more of a continuous conversation with the glasses and the AI. The third way to adjust the volume is to simply um press the volume buttons on your smartphone, and that will um manually adjust the volume on your Meta glasses, as well. All right. So, moving forward, um we there are I did want to touch on one more thing. Um so, when it comes to volume and hearing, in um in the glasses settings and the devices settings, there is an option to change the or to change the language, voice, and speed of the voice of your glasses. And so, we're going to make sure I've got the right pair of glasses. I'm going to double tap on those. So, this is the screen that talks about updates and general information, things like that. We are going to go down to Meta AI and activate that. And one of the first things that comes up is language and voice. We are going to double tap that and it gives you different options. So, you know, my native language is English, that's what the glasses are set to and it also gives me the opportunity to control how fast the AI talks to me. I like it a little bit faster cuz that's just my listening speed, but some folks might like it a little bit slower and so there is a slider that you can adjust the speed um and that will let you slow or increase the speed of your speech from the glasses. And then below that are options for different voices. So, it gives you some higher pitched and lower pitched options. One of my favorites, I usually have my personal glasses set to Keegan-Michael Key cuz it's easy to hear and I can hear it in a variety of environments. So, you can sample the different voices and then just make sure that what you choose, go back to the top right corner and press apply. So, I'm going to quickly change the setting on this. >> While Dominique is doing that, the reason why we wanted to make sure we showed this feature is that if you need to hear a deeper tone voice, it is easier to pick up for you to be able to hear that they have those features available. Whereas some people might need a softer voice maybe because of the hearing aids or other different conditions. So, this will be able to allow you to customize it based on your particular needs and including the speed of the voice because if you need to have a little bit of a slower um rate of speech for comprehension reasons, this is a feature that you're able to do to be able to customize it for you. Take it back, Mr. Dominique. >> All right. So, I should have successfully changed my voice. Um so, let's test it out and see. So, if you remember before I was using one of the female higher pitched voices, so we're We're to test and see what it says now. Hey Meta. What's the weather in Washington, D.C.? >> In Washington, District of Columbia, it is currently partly cloudy and 85° F. Today, expect >> stop. And Dominique, would you mind doing that again, but holding the mic closer to the back, please? >> Absolutely. Hey Meta. What is the weather in Washington, D.C.? >> 85° F. Today, expect a high of 87 and a low of 70° F with rain and thunderstorms forecast for later this evening. >> It's not Virginia if there aren't thunderstorms. All right. So, hopefully everybody was able to hear that. And so, that's just something that we like to like Leah said is folks have all levels of hearing and processing. And so, this just kind of allows you to customize what you need for for the glasses to make them the best tool for you. Um one thing to that you know about is the glasses are going to come with differing levels of software and firmware. So, when you have your glasses paired, um it's important to go in and check what update you have. And so, if you are on Okay. If you're in the device settings, the first thing that you should see is updates. And you want to make sure automatic updates are on. And that way it automatically lets you know when it's ready to download and install that update. And it actually says that I have an update for these glasses, and I'm not going to install it now because it can take a little bit of time. But just know that you need to be connected to your Wi-Fi network and make sure that your glasses have a good amount of charge on them. And it's good to make sure that you're at the most recent firmware and software levels because that will give you more options to Meta's latest features, um as well as the detailed response feature. So, that will be the difference between saying, you know, if I'm asking for a description of the environment, of it saying, "Oh, you're in a living room." to "You're in a cozy living room with a fireplace and a mantelpiece and there's a dog on the bed and, you know, or on the couch." and, you know, all the different things like that. So, if you want the option for detailed responses, we're just going to make sure that your glasses are up to date. Otherwise, I think we can jump into the functionality of the glasses. >> Real quick, Dominique, we do have one question that did come through that I wanted to give you an opportunity to answer before we move into the next segment. How can they navigate and tap things on the phone if they are visually impaired? Will they actually need another person to help them set it up first? >> That is a fantastic question and that's what I love about these glasses because they lead into other opportunities and possibilities. Um, so, like I said, I'm blind um, and I use a program on my iPhone called VoiceOver. And so, this program uh, will read out everything that's on the read out everything that's on the screen in apps that are accessible. So, I use this to check my email, I use it to make phone calls, uh, to do my online banking and bill pay, and essentially it because it talks to you um, and because we can't see as well, if we tap the screen, we don't want to just activate anything. Um, so, we kind of use gestures like swiping and double tapping to uh, really get the best functionality out of the glasses. So, I kind of picture it like a long like my finger is a long white cane and I'm moving from app to app and if my finger is over an app or a specific area on the screen, it's reading out what that is. Now, if you don't necessarily need the speech on iPhones, there is a program called Zoom, which is different than the Zoom that we're on. Um, it simply magnifies it and so, I can take, you know, three fingers and increase the size of my whole phone screen. Um, so, I can explore different parts and see, you know, see the text at different sides. Android does have this functionality. Um, their program is called TalkBack. Um, and it kind of just depends on what model of Android phone you have. Um, I believe there's also large print settings and magnification. One of the things that I like about the iPhone as well, and I don't know the official name for for this, um, but they Apple created a function for folks who needed a smartphone but didn't want to use the smartphone functionality. So, they could limit what's on the screen to just one or two apps and a few contacts that they want to call. So, that's in assistive settings as well, but there's so many ways to be able to use your smartphone as a person who's blind and vision impaired. And if that's something that you're interested in, um, I would love to talk with you about that further and you can reach out to me at BVA. All right. So, do we have any other questions, Lea? >> I do have one if you wouldn't mind touching on it before we move into the functionality features. We did have a, uh, question come in about some of the devices that are the smart Motorola consumer cellular service plans. Would you mind touching on that and what we've learned about that through our experiences at the events? >> Yes. So, phones that are distributed for, uh, strictly for making phone calls, text messages, those type of assistant phones, um, are are such a wonderful option in the community, but they typically have something called multi-device management software on them that prohibits you from downloading other apps, especially ones that are perceived as being used for games or social media, things like that. And so, unfortunately, with these types of phones, they at present do not allow you to download the Meta AI app, uh, because like we said, they're they're being perceived as just social media when we know this is an accessibility tool. So, unfortunately, those phones will not work with um with the Meta AI app. >> Thank you, Dominique. Can you show us some of the features now? >> Absolutely. So, like I said, I use these glasses in my everyday life, and I use them for everything from reading cooking instructions to greeting cards to um all sorts all sorts of things. Um and one of my favorite commands is to say, "Hey Meta, look and describe what's around me." >> Dominique, that is some >> Hey Meta, look and describe what's around me. >> But, would you mind >> describe what's around me. And so, it told me that there was a laptop open, that there were cables on the desk, a phone on the desk, that there was a framed photo in front of me, things like that. Um and I love this command because as a blind person, I don't always have someone to, you know, describe the environment I'm around or to describe it to the level that I would prefer necessarily. Um and you know, because folks are busy. They have stuff to do, and they can't always take time to describe. So, if I can ask my glasses, then I can get the information that I need. And so, if I'm going to do a presentation or I'm in a new space, I still want to take time to personally explore that with my cane, but it's really helpful too to have that layout of um you know, of what that room looks like, of who's in the room, uh things like that. One of the things that I also use it for is to um read greeting cards or business cards, things like that. Um and so, I am actually going to see if it will read One of the the commands that I use is look and read this document. We want to be very specific about the commands that we're using. I can't get that out of the box, so we'll just have to read the >> While Dominique is doing that, um one thing that we want to be very clear on is to explore the way that you ask questions and think through the information that you're wanting to get from the device. So, for example, when Dominique said, "Look, hey Meta, look and read." Um it's going to read either a summary or you can ask it for a full description or you can ask it to search specific words or concepts that you're trying to gather from that device. I'll pass that back to you, Dom. >> Okay. Thank you, ma'am. And so, I actually have the the glasses and I'm going to see what uh the glasses can read. So, I'll say, "Hey Meta, look and read what's in my hand." >> It says "Wait box" you're holding with "Listen" "Call" "Live stream" above it. >> That sounded very enthusiastic. Um were you able to hear that, Lea? >> Yes, we could. >> Okay, excellent. Um so, like Lea said, we're specific about what we're asking. Sometimes I work with folks and they they'll say, "Hey Meta, what can I see?" Hey Meta, stop. Um and that's a great question, but Meta needs us to be a little bit more specific. Um so, some of the areas where I find this to be very helpful in my life is if I feel like making a freezer meal and I don't want to cook that night, I can pull out a box and Hey Meta, stop. Um I can, you know, have it read those instructions to me. I use it to check the thermostat on my grill when I'm grilling. Um I apparently go through the airports now every couple of days and one of the things that I like to do is to ask it to read the gate numbers to me. Um and where it can also be very helpful is say, for example, I want a smoothie. Um I can say Hey Meta, stop. I can say, you know, "I'm in the Atlanta airport in terminal B and I'd love to buy a smoothie. Can you tell me where I can do that?" And it'll pull up a map and show you and tell you where the closest smoothie station is and then you can use your O&M skills, your orientation and mobility skills and figure out where to go from there. Um, so those are some things that have been very helpful in my personal life. Also, I love getting greeting cards and I love giving greeting cards, but I'm not a fan of picking out greeting cards because I usually have to get someone from the store to stand with me and read the cards and I feel like I'm using up all their time and so with my glasses, I can ask it to look and read this card or look and read what's in my hand. And if I want to, I can stand there all day long and read every single greeting card in that store. And that for me was absolutely worth the money of the glasses is to give me back a little bit more of that freedom. Um, so I would love if we have any questions or if there's anything else you want to touch on, Leah? >> No, I think that you've done a really great job on kind of going over all of those different features. Um, at this time, do you have anything you want to add, Dominique, before we open up to live question and answers? >> Absolutely. So, I know especially depending on the stage of technology, um, you know, you're using that these can seem intimidating or you may not necessarily know if they're going to be right for you. Um, what I would suggest in this area is just to play with them, ask it questions, figure out how this is going to be most applicable in your life because the way that I use them might not be the way that you use them and that's absolutely okay because these are a tool in our toolbox to help us maintain and gain independence and um, in that regard, these are a very powerful tool, but they're not ready to replace your existing skills of blindness and your independent living skills. So, keep using your long white cane, keep using your guide dogs, keep using the skills that you're using, but make sure that you're also finding a way to incorporate this powerful tool into your toolbox. >> I do have one question for you, Dominique. >> Yeah. >> Um one of our um participants talked about the language translation services or the language feature. Could you mind touching on that? >> Absolutely. Um so there is a program called live translation. Um and what it does essentially, and I'm going to find this, if you go into your glasses, let me get to the right setting. So I Oh, I want to touch on another thing, too. Um so if you're on this home screen where it shows like your glasses are connected and your glasses are most up-to-date, there's going to be a feature called live translation that you enable on your phone and you enable through the glasses. So you're going to say your wake word, hey m e t a, and you are going to say start live translation and make sure this is enabled on your phone. And so what this does is if someone is speaking Spanish or Chinese or, you know, name a language, if you're looking at them, the glasses are picking up on what they're saying and they're translating it to you into your chosen language. Um you know, so for me it would be Spanish to English. Um and then if I wanted to communicate with that person, I would show them my phone and they could see what I'm saying and it would translate it from English to Spanish. So we could more easily communicate than uh maybe some other apps have, you know, right now. So I think this is a great way to to do this. It does have a little bit of limitations. It tends to work better if you're facing the person. Um and so I I still need to play with this more a little bit myself. I've not extensively used this feature. Um but it is from what I've used, it's been immensely helpful so far. Um the other thing that I wanted to mention is there is a there's a feature called conversation focus. So as a blind person, my hearing is great. However, if I'm in a really loud situation like a crowded restaurant where they have like the the raised warehouse ceilings or I'm out with a, you know, a large group of friends, sometimes it's hard to process and hear that information. So, if you make sure your glasses are most up-to-date, um there is a feature called conversation focus that you can turn on through early access. And so, what this does is it allows me to again look at the person that I'm speaking with and the glasses actually kind of funnel what they're saying towards me and kind of blur out some of that background noise. So, that is very helpful for folks who have hearing impairments or folks who just hear all the things like me and need to funnel some of that out. >> Thank you for sharing that, Dominique. We really appreciate all of that information. At this time, Aretha, do you want to open the floor up for any questions that anybody might have in the chat? >> Great job, Dominique. I was on mute for a second. Everybody's saying great job job, Dominique. I did see somebody ask about a command about getting a radio station, but Dominique, you've already answered that question. You just say, "Hey Meta, tell me what radio station turn to." Um Shane said AI. Uh I think this is an organization G G W O T veteran. I'm familiar with Oakley more than Ray-Ban. So, this might be a question for Meta if um Gus wants to come on and see if there's any other brand they're going to be bringing on board. >> Yeah, sure thing. Um I put a comment in the chat thread as well, but we currently offer Oakley, uh Halston, and Wayfarers. The Wayfarer style is probably the one you're familiar with with the wrap-around. Um and there's also Halston, which is more of like a rounded frame. There's Ray-Ban uh Wayfarer, which is sort of this classic square rectangular look, Headliner, which is round look, Skyler, which is more of a teardrop kind of feminine look. Um there is the Meta glasses which just released with uh um we have actually a few really cool models including a collaboration with with Kylie Jenner. Um for those that are into that, um we have our Optics Ray-Ban Optics series, which are a little bit more of like the classic style or the style for like putting prescription lenses in. Um and uh uh we have our Meta Ray-Ban display glasses, which include all these feature sets along with the small uh built-in display, which could be interesting for folks with low vision but still some vision. Um and that's the portfolio today, but we are going to be pushing out more styles in the future. So, hopefully that covered it, and Katie, please keep me honest if I missed any. >> No, spot on. >> Awesome. And feel free to put your questions, if you have another question, in the chat. And while you that, I do want to remind you that this is being recorded. You're going to get the recording uh probably later today or early in the morning. And there's a comment here from somebody. I'm also thankful to you for offering this to our blind veterans and who are visually impaired. You all rock. Yes, you do, BVA and Meta. Thank you so much for being here. It looks like we've answered the question as they were coming in. So, I want to make sure that we didn't miss anybody. Gus, was there anyone that you wanted to repeat so that people can hear it audibly if they watch this on the replay that you feel is worth um being uh told on the replay, the video replay? >> Uh sure thing. There were a couple really great questions that came in on the chat. Um one of them, which I think Dominick covered really well, was around the screen reading capabilities of the mobile devices that many of you already have. Uh VoiceOver for uh iPhone um and TalkBack for Android. Um so, I just want to really double click on that cuz that's super powerful. Um for the radio station question specifically, I think you were asking about um a San Antonio station in 107.5. So, in that case, the iHeart radio integration, which is a integration available on Meta AI, would work. And once you've connected that, you would say, "Hey Meta, play KVBH." Or, "Hey Meta, play Vibe 107.5." You do have to use the name of the station um for that because there's number of different places that are 107.5, but I think the one in in San Antonio is the one I just mentioned if my if my Google skills are correct. Um and I think the other thing which I think Dominique did a great job of just showing, um the best way to use these honestly is just to like try stuff out. So, there's no one set rule with how you can use prompts and often you'll discover things that maybe even we at Meta don't know about. Um what I found to be really useful when I'm using these with uh friends and family who are are blind um or even when I'm using them myself is really nailing down the prompt. Um so, for example, if I'm reading a a financial statement, credit card bill, that kind of thing, sometimes I want to read me exactly what's in front of me and not summarize it. And when I do that, I'll say, "Hey Meta, please read me verbatim what's in front of me." Um so, sometimes even giving that prompt ahead of time or even saying, "Hey Meta, I am blind, so describe exactly what is I'm looking at." It'll give you a better answer. Um and then lastly, inside of the accessibility menu uh on our device, um in the same place in settings where you you saw stuff like conversation focus, there's a there's a section called accessibility and in that section, there's a couple really cool features. There's detailed descriptions, which I think Dominique touched on, but if you turn that on, the AI will be a little bit more detailed with the answers it gives you. Um so, sometimes instead of just glossing over and saying, "Hey, there's a can of soda in front of you." it'll it'll read, "Hey, this is a can of Coca-Cola. It's got such and such many calories." or whatever it is. Um and there's another feature on there which is great called Be My Eyes. Um for those >> I didn't get to touch on that, so I'm glad you are. >> Go for it. Um go for it, Dominique, actually. >> didn't want to steal your thunder. No, I just just saying I was I didn't get to touch it. So, um there are a few visual interpretation services. One is Be Be Eyes and the other is Aira. And you can link both of those to your glasses and have the interpreter look out through your glasses. So, what these are great for is if I call Be My Eyes, I'm connected with a volunteer who can read things for me or help me put together IKEA furniture by reading those little hieroglyphics. Um and it's great because, you know, I'm used to doing it with my phone, so I'd hold my phone up and search and scan, but if I need to do something hands-free or I need a specific point of view, they can look out of my glasses. So, this is a great way for, if you think about like a language interpreter or an American Sign Language interpreter, this person's a visual interpreter. So, they're interpreting the visual world and the printed world around me um and just giving me those descriptions. So, both services are great. Aira is paid. Um Be My Eyes is free, but they both connect so easily to the glasses. So, which thank you, Meta, for that. >> Yep, thank you. And I think that's a really great touchpoint. I see Dr. David Tharp just asked, are there a list of prompts? I That's a really good question because the beauty of the prompts is that it tries to respond to you uh as though or a person. So, there's not some fixed list of things. It's not like one of those old, you know, text-based computer games from the '80s where there was only five things you could ask. You can ask it pretty much anything and um like I mentioned, sometimes you'll actually discover it's able to do things that even we at Meta weren't uh necessarily aware of. So, we have some good examples and the BVA has some great examples of things to get started, kind of like what what was shown during this session. But, I recommend once you you have them, just taking them for a spin and and trying stuff out cuz you might discover something that even others could benefit from and and share with them. And and definitely huge shout-out and thank you to all our third-party partners like Aira, Be My Eyes. Um we have some really great um AI-based ones like Scribe Me and Orion and um Seeing AI from Microsoft in beta right now and and hopefully we'll be launching a bigger uh um splash with that pretty soon. So there's a lot of really great apps out there in addition to what we offer first party on the glasses that we're going to be building support in and we're really looking forward to seeing how we can build it out with our partners. So thank you. >> There was a question that came through about a list of prompts or commands. There is a list on BVA's website at bva.org underneath programs underneath resources. There is some basic commands to help you navigate specific questions or different things that you're wanting for it to do. Feel free to look at that. It is completely accessible on our website. >> And speaking of that, BVA is going to be giving a another webinar on their website on August 31st. Did you want to mention that as well? >> No, yes, absolutely. So we understand that sometimes it's hard to get navigated to the right link, to the right information. So we just wanted to be able to provide an additional resource. It is available on our calendar. It is open to anybody who would like to join. bva.org underneath our calendar and we have that scheduled for 3:00 Eastern Standard Time on August 31st. >> Awesome. Well, I think we answered all the questions. I would love to thank Meta for being here. Thank you for everybody in the background and especially TechSoup. Thank you Jackie for holding down the fort for Connie. You did a great job. Dominique, always always I'm always learning new things from you Leah. Thank you so much for being here. Gus came in and gave the great advice. We appreciate you so much Gus. Just a friendly reminder, this is being recorded and you're going to get the recording later today or early in the morning. Have a great day everybody. Bye-bye. >> Thank you. >> Thank you everyone. >> Bye.