Roger Ebert – Signing his new book “Life Itself” in Toronto Tomorrow-Sept. 14, 2011
Roger Ebert’s book signing in Toronto is a great opportunity to get out and use your MyVoice speech aid in what should definitely be an accepting situation. The MyVoice team will be having a book or two signed and speak with Mr. Ebert about MyVoice.
Mr. Ebert has shown the world how to continue to succeed in life despite his loss of speech by embracing adaptive speech technology. Mr. Ebert will be signing his new Book “Life Itself “ in Toronto at 7pm on Wednesday Sept 14, 2011 at Indigo Books in the Manulife Centre at the intersection of Bay and Bloor Streets and at 4pm on Friday Sept 16, 2011 at TheatreBooks at 11 St. Thomas St .
You can find a great blurb about his new book here.
We have been warned to arrive 30-60 minutes early as Mr. Ebert will only be signing books for one hour.
See you there,
MyVoice Team
Aakash, my co-founder and VP Engineering at MyVoice, recently had the pleasure of presenting to a big class of bright young students at the University of Toronto’s summer camp. The campers got to learn about about what MyVoice is, who uses it, and how it works. I think you can tell from the photo that they had a blast! What started as a typical presentation quickly turned into a lively discussion when the campers started peppering Aakash with smart and insightful questions. Maybe some of these great kids will come work for us one day!
Big thanks go out to U of T Engineering and the camp staff for inviting Aakash to come take part in the camp.
A few weeks ago, Ontario’s Ministry of Research and Innovation kindly invited me to be a guest blogger on their fantastic blog. Here’s what I wrote:
There is a reason why no language on earth has ever coined the phrase, “As beautiful as a wheelchair.” Technologies for people with disabilities are, quite often, pretty ugly. In my particular area – assistive software – all this bad design can worsen the challenges faced by people with profound disabilities. In fact, the tools they’re provided are often even harder to use than mainstream products. My dream as the CEO and Lead Designer of MyVoice is to change all that.
Two months ago, we launched the MyVoice Communication Aid, an innovative new app and web service for people with speech and language challenges like aphasia and autism. Just a few days ago, we reached a new milestone – 5000 users in a dozen countries. For a specialized market like ours, this is huge growth.
What attracted so many people to MyVoice? It wasn’t advertising – we haven’t spent a single dollar on that yet. Our secret is just simple, thoughtful design. It’s true that MyVoice pioneers powerful technologies like wireless, web-based customization and vocabularies that change automatically to suit a user’s current location. Yet for all this power, MyVoice is actually easier to use than other communication aids because of how we chose to design it.
Here are a few examples:
Continue reading…
We just launched MyVoice 3.6 on the App Store and the Android Market! MyVoice is better than ever and we really hope you like the improvements we’ve made. 3.6 has dozens of enhancements and two exciting new features:
1) On-Screen Keyboard
This was a widely requested feature and we’re really happy to bring it to our users. Now, you can type words and phrases into MyVoice without even leaving the app. Just press and hold on the black home bar to open the keyboard. Then, enter some text and hit speak to hear it aloud. This feature is perfect for our users that know what they’d like to say but aren’t near a computer to add their thoughts.
2) Swipe Storytelling
This is one of the best features of MyVoice yet. It makes storytelling, task planning, and routine structure so much easier. To start Swipe Storytelling, simply press and hold on any picture in MyVoice to see it fullscreen. Then, swipe up to see the next item, or swipe down to see the previous one. You can even tap the text caption to hear it spoken aloud. It’s a really simple way to share stories with friends and family and keep track of ordered tasks.
Thank you so much for all the positive feedback and feature requests! Keep your comments and questions coming to support@MyVoiceAAC.com!
Also, click the link below to follow us on Twitter!
MyVoice CEO & Lead Designer, Alex Levy was interviewed by Amber MacArthur on BNN’s technology show App Central. MyVoice coverage starts just after the 2 minute mark.
App Central is a fantastic new show that covers everything that’s inventive, quirky, and interesting in the world of apps.
Big thanks to Amber, Mike, Kris and the whole App Central team for an awesome segment (and a wonderful evening).
