RACHEL BUCHANAN: Hi, everyone, and welcome to FSOpenLine, Freedom Scientific’s global call-in show. Of course, this is our episode for September 2019, which is usually a pretty exciting time of the year for us, as you may know, what with betas all about, and updates floating around in the future. All of that being said, let’s get to the gentlemen that most of you know pretty well who are going to be giving you most of your answers tonight, Glen Gordon and Eric Damery.
GLEN GORDON: Hey, Rachel, good to be with you. And I don’t think you should underestimate the number of questions you’ll end up answering, since you’re well entrenched in our training department now.
RACHEL: Yes, that’s very true. It’s a possibility. But I’m...
GLEN: It’s great to be here with you.
RACHEL: It is. I’m thinking folks...
GLEN: It’s great to be here, actually. I had technical difficulties right up to the top of the hour. So I’m happy I’m here at all.
RACHEL: Definitely. How’s it going for you, Eric?
ERIC DAMERY: It’s going great. Good to be here. And, boy, it’s that time of the year for us.
RACHEL: It is.
ERIC: So it’s been a busy time at the offices, I guess many can imagine. And we’re really excited to have had a great week with FSCast getting out on Monday. The Public Beta 1 of 2020 hit on Tuesday. Here we are Thursday night to answer all the questions. And we’re ready for the upcoming Public Beta 2, 3, and release.
GLEN: And we have some nice new features this go-round. We previewed one of them in the last couple of FSOpenLines, namely that we wanted to improve JAWS cursor support in applications that currently have the JAWS cursor simply say “blank blank blank.” And we’ve come through on that promise, much to our delight.
First round of the new, what we’re calling the JAWS Scan Cursor. I don’t think “scan” is a copyrighted term, so it’s safe for us to combine it with the word JAWS. And it allows you in applications like those from the Windows Store and some others, as well, to appear to you similar to the way the JAWS cursor appears. The difference is that the JAWS cursor, the traditional one, would always show you things lined up in a line. And in this case, we show them to you sequentially. Each line is considered to be an element in that sequence. But you can navigate up and down, which moves you between the elements, or left and right by character or word, and be able to hear the individual parts of that item. It works really nicely.
ERIC: Glen, one of the first places I looked at this feature, and I think a lot of people ought to try this if they’ve installed – if they’re running 2019, if you launch the calculator and turn on the JAWS cursor and the calculator, you’ll get nothing. But if you do it with 2020, when you hit the JAWS cursor key, that minus on the numeric keypad, it actually brings the JAWS cursor, mouse pointer, right onto the first element, and you can just arrow around all the elements and hear them. It’s a great place to experience the difference.
GLEN: And for all 10 of you who actually use the touch cursor, it’s some of the same functionality. But the touch cursor has a whole different paradigm. And for the most part, what we’ve packaged and how we’ve packaged it for this new JAWS scan cursor is easier and more familiar.
ERIC: And there are some places still that we haven’t finished yet. Can you talk a little bit about that with text patterns and how we anticipate that improving further in December?
GLEN: So in essence, we use information that Microsoft UI automation provides to us. That’s Microsoft’s way of making things accessible. And part of that involves how you would normally navigate text that would be in a traditional edit control. That’s supposed to be part of the scan cursor, but we kind of ran out of time. So there are some places, like if you go to the About box of an Office application, where theoretically the scan cursor should allow you to read the version, because you can’t get to it with a PC cursor, in this case you can’t read the version, and that’s actually an issue on our part that we’ll be rectifying in the December update.
ERIC: You know, as we get closer to the 2020 release, a few things to remind folks of. One, if you’re an ILM customer, as most of you are, you have an authorization key and a serial number, please make sure that your SMA is up to date. This will be the last time we have an FSOpenLine before the – after the release. And once we get past the release, if you haven’t got your SMA in place, you’re going to be paying as much as you would for the SMA just to get one upgrade.
So you can go to the home page, FreedomScientific.com. There’s a link on there called SMA and Upgrade. Go to the links list, hit “S,” and you’ll find it. And in there you can enter your serial number and check to see your exact status of your serial number, if you’re not sure. If you’re scheduled to buy an SMA at this point, they’ll take you right to the store, if you’re in the United States, or they’ll let you know and direct you to the distributor in your country.
So please make sure that everyone is up to date on their SMA. If you’re in the United States, and you’re on the home annual licenses, you’re all set. Your home license is probably good through the end of January, since we just started selling them the end of last year, and we made sure everybody was good till then. You’ll be entitled to get access to the 2020 build and run it on that license that you bought. So you’re all set. But for those of you who have the ILM, please make sure you take care of those SMAs. And we are on schedule. We should hit the end of October, for sure, with JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion. So you can be watching for that at that time. You’ve got about 40 days left to make sure that you get renewed.
One other point I guess to mention, traditionally we used to ship DVDs with all of our software products, which stopped the end of last year. You know, most computers that you get today don’t even come with a DVD drive. And the fact that we update the software about every four to five weeks, it doesn’t really make any sense to be shipping DVDs. We’d never be able to keep them renewed. So we just make it available online. In the United States, if you’re entitled to the SMA, you’ll be receiving a letter pointing you to the URL in order to download it once it’s released. So never fear. But we will not be sending DVDs this year with the SMA, if anyone asks. You’ll just get it from the web.
GLEN: So you’ll have to find a different source for coasters.
ERIC: Yes.
RACHEL: Do we want to jump in, Eric? It looks like we have some questions already.
ERIC: Ah, okay. Let me get back over here. I’ve got an iPhone unmuted now.
QUESTION: So I wanted to ask a question regarding the OCR engine. See, you have included the new OmniPage, which has Kofax now. So are you going to include that new OCR engine in OpenBook and release an update of it?
ERIC: We have not scheduled that at this time. If we respin OpenBook in the future, we absolutely will update the OCR engine. But that has not been planned at the moment.
GLEN: Thank you very much.
QUESTION: Thank you, sir.
ERIC: Anil, are you there?
ANIL: Yes.
ERIC: Go ahead.
ANIL: Yeah. Since simplicity is the theme in JAWS 2020 release cycle, I want to see auto language switching coming into JAWS in the future. This is my first question. Second one is some websites, in some websites you will find that, if you do not maximize the window, you are not able to type anything in the form fields. It just says “read only edit.” Could you bring fix for that?
ERIC: Okay. So let’s take these one at a time. So your first question I already – my memory isn’t what it once was.
GLEN: Auto language.
ERIC: Oh, auto language switching. So we automatically switch languages when you’re reading on the web. At least we’re supposed to, if the web pages are marked up correctly. What’s the situation that you’re hoping to have it added for?
ANIL: Yeah, it should work at Vocalizer voices.
ERIC: And it should. So if that isn’t working for you on the web, where as you’re reading content that’s in different languages it doesn’t automatically switch, and you’ve got those voices installed, please contact support with that one so we can figure out what’s not set up right.
ANIL: Okay.
GLEN: Yeah, that’s supposed to work. Now, to your other topic about needing to maximize the window, have you ever had someone who’s sighted look over your shoulder when you can’t fill out the form?
ANIL: No.
GLEN: Okay. Because it’s possible that for some reason the default size of the window is really small. And if it were too small, the whole field might not be there. It could also be that JAWS is doing something wrong. But most of the time – I don’t notice the problem. I’m an “n” of one. So you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt. Eric, are you sensing this?
ANIL: I tried with NVDA. And it works fine with that.
GLEN: Okay. And what browser?
ANIL: Google Chrome and Firefox, as well.
GLEN: And is it always, or is it just sometimes?
ANIL: It’s always.
RACHEL: And Anil, were you in the webinar earlier today? Because we had a question about Google Chrome and someone not being able to activate buttons when the window was not maximized. I don’t know if that was you.
ANIL: Yes.
RACHEL: Was it you?
ANIL: Yes.
RACHEL: So the similar problem with edit fields and activating buttons when you’re in Chrome.
ANIL: Yeah.
RACHEL: Okay.
ERIC: And this is Windows 10? Everything’s up to date?
ANIL: Yes.
ERIC: Okay. So this will be another good one to take offline with support. It absolutely should work. And if you’ve got a particular site or sample form that you work with online that we can have access to, I’d definitely like to get this followed up with, with the tech support guys. So that should absolutely be working.
ANIL: Okay.
ERIC: Okay? All right. Thank you very much. All right. Let’s see if I can find another hand here. How about David Dunphy?
DAVID: First, Eric, I’m really excited about 2020 JAWS. I did have a question about the whole home license thing. You may have mentioned it. I came in a little late. But I did want to know, when your product or license is about to be up for renewal, will there be some type of a notification within JAWS to tell you to go to the page and update it? Will you have to – does it auto renew on your card automatically? How does that part work?
ERIC: I’m glad you asked. And, yeah, we’ve worked hard at getting this ready over the course of the summer. And when you approach the renewal time, you’ll be prompted through the software, and I suspect we’re going to have it so that you’ll get an email from us, letting you know that you’ve got 30 days or 60 days, whatever the time limit is, to do the renewal. And you’ll be offered an opportunity to go and do it at this point. And it’ll send you straight to the portal.
And in the portal you’ll find, next to your product, a link to be able to do the renewal. It’ll ask you do you want to, you know, it’ll recognize what product you’ve got, let’s say JAWS, and it’ll say, do you want to get a one-year, three-year, or five-year. You pick the one you want. It’ll take you right to the store, and you can do the renewal right there. We do not store credit card information, so we will not auto bill you. You will have to come back and do it at the renewal time. And the good news is you don’t have to wait till the renewal time. You can go to the store at any point and find the renewal access in there and do a renewal, and it’ll add the time to the end of your current time. So you won’t lose anything if you do it early; okay?
DAVID: So I can renew whenever, and then it’ll just keep going from that point on.
ERIC: Absolutely. Yup.
DAVID: All right. Thanks, Eric, I appreciate it.
ERIC: Okay. Thanks, David. Just for you, David, we have the renew for a hundred years option.
DAVID: All right. I’ll keep that in mind.
ERIC: Okay, good.
DAVID: Thanks.
ERIC: All right. Let me see if I can find another hand up here. How about Michael? Michael, are you there?
MICHAEL: Yes, sir. I am here. Can you guys hear me?
ERIC: Great. Yes, we can. Go ahead.
MICHAEL: So along the same lines about renewing, a friend of mine gave me a coupon. I want to take advantage of the coupon. It’s supposedly up at the end of September. But, you know, I know that my current license will cover 2020 up till January 31st of 2020, the current license that I have now. So I can go ahead and use the coupon that my friend gave me and renew, and it’ll just be tacked onto the January 31st of 2020?
ERIC: Absolutely. So if you go to the portal, portal.freedomscientific.com, and log in with your email and password, when you land on your product page, I believe it’s going to change, and soon it will change, so that it’ll be an easy button to find. But right now I know that, if you SHIFT+TAB two or three times from where you land, you’ll find a little information button. And if you hit SPACEBAR on that, you’ll find a renew option right there. Press ENTER on that. It’ll let you renew, and it’ll add the time to the end; okay?
MICHAEL: All right, cool. And I also had a friendly suggestion.
ERIC: Yes.
MICHAEL: For future JAWSes. How about adding a, you know how – coding, I should say, coding it to where, when let’s say I’m doing a Tandem session, and I reboot the person’s computer, you know, and of course it’ll knock you off. But when it comes back, how about adding to where it reconnects the JAWS and the Tandem and all that.
ERIC: Yeah, we’ve had that request in the past. And, you know, when we go back in and do some more work on Tandem, I think that has to become an option. It’s probably more of a security issue than anything else because you wouldn’t want to, if you had a Tandem connection and you shut down your computer, and the next time you started up they could still be connected to you or something like that. So it would have to be some sort of a handshaking agreement that we’re going to let it happen. But we’ll...
MICHAEL: Okay.
ERIC: ...take it under advisement. Thanks, Michael.
GLEN: Would it be okay with you, Michael, if the user had to log in on their own? Because we could never automate that part.
MICHAEL: Sure, yeah, that would be fine.
ERIC: Okay.
GLEN: Okay.
MICHAEL: All right, thank you.
ERIC: Thanks, Michael. All right. Let’s see. We’ve got a few more hands up here. How about we try Doug Oliver. Doug, are you there?
DOUG: Yes, Eric. I wanted to let you know that I just grabbed the 2020 beta, actually on Tuesday, after I listened to FSCast. And I’ve got to say that I love it. Now, I had one question. When the Beta 2 is released, will I get an automatic update? Or will I have to go to the website manually and download it whenever that comes out again?
ERIC: If you’ve got 1 installed, you’ll get the automatic update. If you’ve only got 2019 installed, you’ll have to start just like you did with Public Beta 1. Someone would have to go to the website to get it. But if you’ve already put on 1, we’ll get you there with an automatic update. And our intent is that you’ll get Public Beta 3 and the final release all through the automatic updates. Okay?
DOUG: Okay. Yeah, because I’m actually getting ready to, believe it or not, I’m testing Beta 1. And so far I haven’t found anything problematic. It’s been working great so far with Chrome and all that. I’ve kind of retired from Internet Explorer, but sometimes I’ll occasionally go back and use it. But I’ve been trying to get used to Chrome, considering the webinar that I went to today about Chrome. So it was very, very informative. And I want to thank you, Rachel, for that. So, yeah.
RACHEL: You’re very welcome, Doug. It’s good to hear from you.
ERIC: Yeah.
DOUG: Yeah, good to hear from you from a while back.
RACHEL: Yup.
GLEN: Thanks, Doug.
ERIC: And we’re really appreciative of everyone that goes out and installs it and gives it the old tire kick. Our developers, our testers work really hard to make sure this thing is solid when we put it out there. But, you know, until we get a bunch of people running it, you just never know because everyone’s got different ways of doing it. So we appreciate that. Let’s try Mitchell.
GLEN: Before you do that, Eric.
ERIC: Yeah.
GLEN: Doug brought something to mind, and that is that we are about to put out a 2019 update.
ERIC: Oh, yeah.
GLEN: Which is going to warn people – excuse me, not “warn,” encourage people to download the 2020 update.
ERIC: Actually, it’s not going to encourage them for that. But let me back up and explain exactly what’s going to happen. Currently, if you go out and buy an SMA for your license, so let’s say you had the 2019 release, and you went to a trade show over the summer, and you stopped by the booth, and you renewed your SMA there so you could make sure you’d get 2020. Well, we make sure our system knows that you’re ready for 2020. But the key on your computer did not know. And so until you go in and update that authorization key, whenever you do download the 2020 final release, and it requires an authorization, it would pop up and say “You’re not authorized.” But you know you are because you bought it last summer.
So the thing that we’ve built into this latest update of 2019 that’ll come out next week is something that will go and compare the serial number that you’re currently running, the key on your machine, against what you’re entitled to get. And if your ILM key is behind, it hasn’t been updated yet, we’ll alert you right then and give you an opportunity to get your authorization updated. And this way, when 2020 does come out, the final release, and you get it installed, it’ll just work for you. You won’t have to go and do your authorization at that point.
So in the future, anytime you renew your SMA, anytime your SMA status increases, it’ll automatically warn your key on your computer, and you’ll be able to get that. Now, in the future, next year, when the new version comes out, our goal is to make sure that that software, even though it’s not the version that you’re currently running, you’ll be alerted that a new version is available, and you can download the latest and greatest. But first thing we did is took care of the authorization and this update coming up next week. And that’ll be true on JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion. They’ll all do it the same way.
GLEN: I can’t tell if that’s a laugh or a...
ERIC: That sounds like Richie’s.
RICHIE: It is. Anyway, Eric, about the Research It thing, Eric, have you guys been trying to work with the NFL and the NHL and all those sports sites to see how we can get it to...
ERIC: We have. We have. And I’ll tell you what happened. We’re such a small fry, and they deal with very large organizations where they license their APIs and access to their systems. So for us to try and get in there has been pretty difficult. We’ve got to find the right connections. Your voices to them would be great. Write to them. Tell them you’re a JAWS user, and there’s a screen reader named JAWS with a great Research It feature, and point them to us. And enough people do that, maybe we’ll get some action on it. Okay?
RICHIE: Oh, yeah, all right.
GLEN: All right. Thanks, Richie.
RACHEL: Thanks, Richie. I’m going to go ahead and unmute Ryan, Eric. I think. Ryan, are you there?
RYAN: Hear me okay?
GLEN: Yes, we can, Ryan. How are you?
RACHEL: A little quiet, but yeah.
RYAN: How are you guys?
ERIC: Good, thanks.
RYAN: Good.
GLEN: Ryan, how’s Canada?
RYAN: Canada’s, well, we’re not snowing yet, Eric, so it’s – actually I’m really glad to – really nice to hear your voice. It’s been a long time. The reason I’m jumping in today is back to the Annual Home Licensing. Do we have a timeframe as to when that’s going to be available in Canada?
ERIC: We don’t have a date yet. But it’s high on my list, and we’re doing everything we can to try and get this implemented so we can distribute it in such a way that the service centers, the distribution point in those countries can work directly with us so that they can sell it, and that we can administer the delivery of it. And there’s a lot of things behind the scenes to do it. Technically, it’s capable. This is much more of a business issue, to be able to make sure that we can sell it in the right locations through the right channels. So we’re working in that direction.
RYAN: Okay, great, thank you.
ERIC: Yeah. Let’s try, it looks like Adam’s iPhone.
RACHEL: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.
ADAM: Yes, hello. Thank you very much for taking my call. So I do a lot of training with varying degrees of skill levels with JAWS for other users and had two quick suggestions of feature requests that I get sometimes of people that ask if it’s possible. And I thought they sounded reasonable, so I wanted to bring them up. One is when you’re tabbing on a web page, many times you can tab outside of that web page and end up in the search bar and toolbars and other such things. And I wonder first if there’s any way to limit that so when you’re tabbing you’re restricted to web content on the page only, and you can use the designated keystrokes like CTRL+L, ALT+D, and so forth to bring yourself to address bars and toolbars and such. So that’s one.
The other suggestion is about various windows in the operating system itself where there’s sometimes one column of information and sometimes multiple columns where one would need to press RIGHT and LEFT ARROW keys in addition to just UP and DOWN. And perhaps if UI automation exposes that, or JAWS knows it somehow, that a tone could be played or an indication could be told to the user that there’s multiple columns, and they may want to press the RIGHT and LEFT ARROW keys in addition to just UP and DOWN ARROW keys. So I’m not sure if those make sense, or they sound like good ideas, but wanted to bring them up.
GLEN: They both sound like actually good ideas. Do you know, in terms of number two, do you know of some examples that tend to be confusing to people?
ADAM: Well, probably in like the Settings window in the operating system, when you hit WINDOWS+I. Maybe parts of the Start Menu, parts of the Control Panel, just various things in the operating system in Windows 10 when sometimes you can, you know, have folder windows, and you can configure those so you can say a detail or a list view where UP and DOWN ARROW keys are all you’ll need. But there are parts, you know, in Control Panel and other areas. I guess WINDOWS+I is probably, you know, the quickest one. When I show people how to navigate that the best way, I just tell them, use the RIGHT and LEFT ARROW keys instead of UP and DOWN because it does seem to be in multiple columns. And that seems to allow you to get through everything and not miss things, just arrowing up and down through that window. So that’s one example. But I’ve seen, you know, others.
GLEN: I can give you a temporary workaround that may – it’s one of those things where the cure may be worse than the problem. But I will offer it up. And that is, if you put the browser in full-screen mode, which is what I think it’s called when the address bar and all that other stuff goes away, then you can sort of tab till the cows come home and just be on the page content. But of course then you have to remember to turn full-screen mode off with F11, I think.
RACHEL: Yeah, I think that’s correct.
GLEN: So may not be worth it. But that’s a good idea. I’ve actually wanted some variant of that, as well, because usually I don’t want to tab into all those other areas.
ERIC: One of the reasons I haven’t pushed for that as I’ve been paying attention to this is that that is the standard Windows behavior. And if we broke how the tab key is supposed to cycle through the application window, it would really be breaking one of our rules. So I haven’t pushed for it. But some sort of a notice that you’ve entered a different location, at least, would be helpful.
GLEN: I actually have been trying to get the Google folks to have an option that you could get to the address bar and other things with hot keys, but the tabbing wouldn’t put you there because we’re actually passing the tab key on to the application. So we’re honoring its behavior. So far I haven’t gotten any bites on that one. But hope springs eternal.
ERIC: And on the WINDOWS+I issue, as Adam mentioned, I think a good thing there would be for us to recognize that you’re in a window that is better navigated with the RIGHT and LEFT ARROW. This could also be something, though, Adam, where you might want to complain directly to the Microsoft Accessibility Line and let them know that UP and DOWN ARROW should give you the same movement as RIGHT and LEFT ARROW does in that window.
ADAM: Right, yeah. Because users usually ask, well, do I use TAB or SHIFT+TAB, UP and DOWN ARROW keys, RIGHT or LEFT? Or what do I do?
ERIC: Yeah, in that case, you’re right. In that case it’s far better off if you just RIGHT ARROW, and you can get through everything. UP and DOWN ARROW should cycle from column to column, too, and that’s something that Microsoft could do. So that’d be something good for them. Okay? Thank you.
ADAM: Great. Thanks.
RACHEL: And Eric, I’m going to go ahead and unmute Mitchell.
MITCHELL: Hi, Eric. Did you guys make any improvements in that picture feature in JAWS 2020?
ERIC: Yeah. So let’s talk about this. You’re talking about the Picture Smart feature, which I know I heard from some users over the past couple of days because something went wrong, and it stopped working. We did get some things resolved, and it’s back up and working. But I was noticing this afternoon that the OCR capability had stopped. So we’ve got someone looking at that. I’m not sure if it’s been resolved yet or not. So what kind of improvements would you like to see us make on Picture Smart?
MITCHELL: Like say you’re looking at a page that has graphics, being able to do the picture feature to see what kind of a picture it is.
GLEN: Without having to save the graphic to your computer and then recognize it that way.
MITCHELL: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. I know there’s – one issue I know of is the picture formats. Not all the picture formats are recognized and able to access. So sometimes you can land on a picture that you wouldn’t be able to get. But I think that’s something that can be done. And I think if we could have a command so that, as you’re moving through a page, and you hit a graphic, like on Facebook, when you land on a picture, if you could jump straight to Picture Smart and say, “Get this image,” and basically tell our product to download it for you, send it up, have it analyzed, and send you the results back. And I know we’ve got that on the list. I don’t have a timeline yet when we can get to it. But we do get a lot of requests for that one.
MITCHELL: All right. And is there going to be any new training material?
ERIC: Great question. Rachel, do you want to fill us in on what’s happening in 2020 with the training material?
RACHEL: Yes. We are in the process of updating the JAWS Basic Training. We’re really trying to clean that up, take out all the old references to older versions of Windows and slim it down so it really just has the essentials. And we will be releasing that very soon after 2020 is released. So you’ll see a new JAWS Basic Training whenever you open FSReader.
MITCHELL: And a third thing, I went on the free webinar page. I did not see a “What’s New in JAWS 2020” webinar up there.
RACHEL: No, we don’t. We haven’t had one of those yet.
MITCHELL: Right.
RACHEL: But keep your eyes peeled, or keep your ears open, I guess.
MITCHELL: Okay. Because I know every year you guys have done that with every release.
ERIC: So if you go to the beta page, you’ll find a link to the FSCast that we did, which is where we spoke a bit about the what was new, at least in Public Beta 1. And that’s what we were doing last year and the year before, too. I basically covered it in the FSCasts in August/September timeframe. So if you go to the Public Beta page you’ll find a link for a “What’s New” recording, and you’ll be able to hear it there.
RACHEL: And that’s a great podcast. But we’ll also be demoing some of the new features as it comes up.
ERIC: Doug Oliver has still got a hand up. Maybe I just never lowered it. Doug, are you still there?
DOUG: I’m here, Eric. Two things. First off, if I ever, ever get a new computer, how can I go in and remove the key from that current computer and reload that on another computer? Because like I said, I have the Home Annual License. And by the way, I love it. And, two, if I renew my Home Annual License within a month, or let’s say if I’m close to renewal, will I be eligible for the second – will it show me two upgrades? Or will it show just one upgrade still currently if I renew again?
ERIC: So the Home Annual doesn’t – let me answer that second part first. The Home Annual doesn’t think of it like the SMA. Home Annual is based on time rather than versions. So if you purchase a 12-month...
DOUG: Gotcha.
ERIC: If you purchase a 12-month, it’s going to give you access to any version that’s released during the course of that time.
DOUG: Okay.
ERIC: If you buy for a three-year annual or five-year annual, you’ll get entitled to all of those upgrades. And as far as how do I remove it from an existing computer, it’s just like Office 365, where you’ll go to portal.freedomscientific.com, log in with your email and password, and then go to your product, and you can ask it to deactivate from a computer that it’s on, and it’ll move the key back onto your portal page, and then you can re-use it on another computer. Okay?
DOUG: Okay. Are they ever going to have that also for pro users? Are they going to do the Pro Annual License? Because I wasn’t sure if that was ever going to be an option.
ERIC: It will be. We are working on expanding this for all of the products. So we’ll get there hopefully soon. All right. And let’s see. Can I unmute Howard Goldstein?
HOWARD: Okay.
ERIC: Go ahead, Howard.
HOWARD: Someone was talking about Picture Smart with large pictures, or pictures that are very detailed and large files. The system seems to time out before the picture can get uploaded. I have a very slow Internet connection, DSL Internet connection.
GLEN: Poor man.
HOWARD: With less than a meg a second. So...
ERIC: You know, I’ve run across this exact problem, Howard. What happens is I’ve gone to trade shows, and when we get into the exhibit hall, everybody gets connected to the cheap WiFi that they give us in the exhibit hall. And I go to show Picture Smart, and it doesn’t work because the connection is so slow, and it ends up timing out. So I don’t think it’s your picture. I think it’s more tied to the connection speed.
HOWARD: Well, it will work with, for me, it will work with smaller pictures.
ERIC: Smaller files, yeah.
HOWARD: It’s the larger pictures that don’t work. And if I go in and save it with a lower resolution, I can sometimes get it to work.
ERIC: It’s been a little bit of time since I’ve seen this happen, but it seemed to me it used to be about 10 or 15 seconds before it would time out on me.
HOWARD: I think it’s a little less than that.
ERIC: Okay. Well, I will take that one back. I’ll make a note of it and take that one back, and we’ll talk about it at the office.
HOWARD: Okay. Thank you.
ERIC: All right, thank you. All right. And can I try and unmute Thomas Tupton? Thomas, as you there?
THOMAS: Yes.
ERIC: Go ahead.
THOMAS: So if you haven’t got it from the chat, normally for if you would like to use JAWS Home Annual, then you might have to pay for, like, 90 to $500. But if students have to use it, then how can you get those free discount codes, if you don’t want to pay for it from Vispero?
ERIC: So I’m not quite sure on the question. But let me talk about it. So we’re talking about the home use license for users within the United States. And there are a couple of options. First of all, if you’re a college student, if you’re attending a university in the U.S., and you have a university email address, if you go to the website, go to the Freedom Scientific page and go to the Software for Home link that’s underneath the View Software page, you can type in your university email address. And if your university has a multiuser license and is up to date, you would then qualify for taking advantage of getting a Home Annual License for free based on the fact that your school is up to date with a multiuser license.
And there are hundreds of universities throughout the U.S. that are qualified. So there’s a lot of students out there that should go and check that out. If you’re not a college student, you can still take advantage of the Home Annual License for yourself at home, or schools can take advantage of a Student Annual License that can be used on a computer within the school system, as well. So I hope that answers the question. And both of those annual licenses are under a hundred dollars, whether it’s JAWS or ZoomText.
GLEN: I think the college thing is one of our best-kept secrets. It’s not intended to be a secret, but I don’t think...
ERIC: No. No, it isn’t.
GLEN: ...as many people know about it as would be ideal.
ERIC: Yeah. And we’ll be getting that socialized a little better on social media and I think get the word out. But, yeah, that’s a lot of people that would qualify for that. So can we try Lino Luis Morales? Are you there?
LINO: Yeah. How you doing, Eric?
ERIC: Very good.
LINO: It’s been a while. Listen, are you guys, well, first, of all, let me preface by saying I am running the Public Beta 2020. I downloaded it through the night. And I do like that scan feature. I was messing with the iHeartRadio app, which is a bear of an app on Windows to begin with, anyway. And I was able to read some material on there using that thing. I went, oh, wow, I wouldn’t be able to do this before. Anyway, my...
ERIC: That’s great.
LINO: Go ahead. I’m sorry.
GLEN: No, that’s good, go ahead.
LINO: Yeah. Question I have is, are you guys going to add any more Vocalizer voices in 2020? And second of all, I was told by an employee of y’alls that’s going to remain anonymous, you guys took out years ago – because when I downloaded 2019, like mad I was looking for the setting to use the Vocalizer voices with the INSERT+DOWN ARROW like you guys used to have. I heard you guys took that out years ago. I’d love to see that come back again.
ERIC: So I can answer both of these questions. The first one you asked, are we going to have more voices. So one of the things on our radar for the 2020 release is to update to the very latest and greatest version of Vocalizer Expressive. And there are going to be some more voices in some particular languages. I’m not sure if there’s more voices on the English side or not. But Vocalizer is, you know, they’re continuing to drive the technology and making a lot of improvements, and I’m really looking forward to see what we’re going to get out of this newer version of Vocalizer Expressive. So watch for that during the second quarter probably of 2020.
Now, the thing that you’re referring to was something that we had put into the product a number of years ago called the Say All voice. So the idea here was your navigation cursor and the cursor that you would use as you’re typing a document or whatever you’re doing as you’re moving around could remain eloquent and be very responsive, but then you could set up a Say All-only voice using the RealSpeak or the Vocalizer Expressive before we had the very quick access to it. And the voice worked okay in a Say All, but you wouldn’t want to navigate all day with it. And we did take that out, mainly because Vocalizer Expressive has become so responsive that, even for navigating, it’s not that bad. And to try and keep up with the Say All voice there were some technical challenges. I forget what it was. I mean, we dropped that about six or seven years ago, I think.
LINO: Wow.
ERIC: And there were some technical challenges with trying to keep it. So we dropped it because we got away from the RealSpeak and the direct solution, and the latest and greatest Vocalizer Expressive is very, very responsive. So, okay?
LINO: All right-y, thank you.
ERIC: All right. Thank you. Well, we’re getting close to the time here. Why don’t we try and sneak in another one?
RACHEL: Yeah, I think we can sneak in another one.
ERIC: Can we try Martin, Martin Nelson.
MARTIN: Yes, hi.
ERIC: Hi there.
MARTIN: I’m wondering about the weather and Research It.
GLEN: It’s a sad tale.
MARTIN: Weather is one of the issues, I think.
GLEN: Yeah, that’s correct.
ERIC: One of the most recent ones, that’s correct, yeah.
RACHEL: Yes.
ERIC: So we have, you know, we get a lot of requests for Research It. We know a lot of people use weather. They’ve used the sports in the past, which I really miss. And these are difficult because the websites change, and they really prevent us from being able to use some of the techniques that we did before in order to get that information. So we are trying to come up with some solutions to get around it. And I think, you know, we continue to hear about it, and Research It’s a great feature in the product, and I think we’re going to do everything we can to bring that back. So be patient with us.
MARTIN: Okay, thank you.
ERIC: All right. Michael is – we’ve talked to Michael once. Michael, are you there?
MICHAEL: Yup, you sure did. I just had another quick suggestion. Let’s say I’m helping somebody install a program via Tandem, but I have the executable. Is there a way that I can get it from my computer to their computer via, I don’t know, without having to send it through Dropbox or something like that?
ERIC: There isn’t currently. We do allow for copy and paste of text, but we do not allow you to pass a file back and forth that way.
MICHAEL: Okay. And that’s for security purposes.
ERIC: And it’s as much a security issue as anything else.
MICHAEL: Right, right.
ERIC: We don’t want to ever be accused of moving a file off someone’s machine.
MICHAEL: Okay. No, that’s fair, that’s fair. That was just, you know. And another thing is, when you’re using a 101-key keyboard, it’s a stretch to, you know, INSERT+ALT+TAB to suspend the session and go back to one’s computer. Is there any way we can, you know, narrow that down somehow?
ERIC: You know, that’s a great question. And I think that may be one of those ones that you can’t even go to the keyboard manager and reassign. I think that one’s a fixed one.
GLEN: I’m thinking the same thing, actually.
ERIC: Yeah. And if you’re using a keyboard with a numeric keypad, the way I do that reach is I just use my right hand on the INSERT key on the numeric keypad, and I use my left hand, I drop my thumb down on the ALT key, and I do it that way. Like I do an ALT+F4 with the left hand.
MICHAEL: Okay, okay, all right.
ERIC: It’s not too bad. Once you’ve done it a few times, you get into...
MICHAEL: Yeah, once you get used to it, sure.
ERIC: Sometimes you’ve got to stretch before you do it, but...
MICHAEL: Thank you.
RACHEL: Don’t want to pull a muscle.
MICHAEL: Yeah, thanks a lot.
ERIC: All right. Thank you, Michael.
GLEN: Thanks, Michael.
ERIC: All right. Well, I think...
RACHEL: You ready to wrap?
ERIC: Yeah, I think we’ve reached our time limit.
RACHEL: Yes, we have. Thank you, everyone who joined us and asked questions. We really appreciate it.
GLEN: I do want to mention that we’re having a slightly lopsided schedule for the next FSOpenLine. Normally it would be three months from now, but three months from now is right before the winter holidays, whichever ones you celebrate or don’t celebrate. So we’re going to do it – Rachel, you probably now remember the date.
RACHEL: Sure. The date is November 21st. And I believe we agreed we were going to keep it at this time, as well.
GLEN: I think that’s what we agreed.
RACHEL: So that will be November 21st at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. We will be right back here, trying to get in before the many various holidays.
GLEN: It’s great to seem like we have a studio audience. I don’t know who said “Good,” but thank you. Thank you for the positive acclaim there. It’s been fun. This was – Eric said this was going to be an active FSOpenLine. And none of you disappointed. I think it was quite the array of calls.
RACHEL: Yeah, very good.
ERIC: Yup. Every time we’re putting a Public Beta out, it seems like we get a lot of activity with it. So everybody, watch for Public Beta 2 on the JAWS 2020. Should be coming along in about two weeks.
RACHEL: Thanks, Eric; and thanks, Glen. You guys have a great night.
ERIC: All right.
GLEN: You, too. Thanks a lot.
RACHEL: Bye.
ERIC: Bye, everyone.