Hindsight Is #CSUNATC20: Or, How The Top Stories Of The Past Can Shape The Future

Joe Steinkamp Feb 24, 2020 10:43 PM ET

Long time readers, and listeners of the podcast, know that the staff are now deep in the process of planning out our event and convention coverage for the year. CSUN, Google i/o, WWDC and the summer Blindness conventions are some of the annual happenings that capture our attention as we follow the yearly migratory pattern of possible A.T. related topics on their unpredictable flight plans. While a Farmer s Almanac for tech would help, we do consult our articles and interviews from the past to help us guess what might make good content during these planning stages.

In December 2019,during our Year In A.T. Wrap up show, J.J. joked that we had enough retro roundabouts on the site for the requisite Decade In A.T. presentation. And last year, pre CSUN, we did look back at the tech that was From 2009. So with that said, and the peer pressure of RNIB Doing it as well, we sat down to compile the top stories of the last 10 years on Blind Bargains.

2009

Our first list appeared on Main Menu And notably went to 11 instead of 10 entries. You can go back in time by hearing the broadcast Or read the list in ascending order below.

2010

The year found us on the second, of three, broadcast platforms Along with a list that contained some influential stories.

2011

The second list in a row we mourn the loss of an A.T. pioneer, we note the possible return to form for a long time player and Amazon brings the wrong kind of fire to the conversation

2012

Connections and the mobile media landscape took the focus for the year s dialogue And the list

2013

A tie, a tap and a turn of fate took the talk Of the Top 10

2014

Interesting fact for BBQ fans, this was the official pilot for what would eventually become the podcast you know today. Also, longtime friend of the site, Easter Seals Crossroads's Wade Wingler had some thoughts about A.T. outside of Low Vision and Blindness for that year.

2015

We experimented with BBQ 48 By announcing the top stories of the year during the podcast. Not only did we abandon this idea in subsequent wrap up shows, we ignored posting the stories on the site and condemned any curious parties to the audio in order to learn what they were until now.

Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 10. A Fusion of Screen Access Flavor
Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 9. NVDA Gets a New Voice, and More
Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 8. Apple Watches iOS 9 Like a TV Pro
Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 7. The Time for Repentance is Now
Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 6. These Are The Droid Apps You Are Looking For
Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 5. The Year of the Helpful Cloud
Blind Bargains Top 10 Stories of 2015: 4. A Perfect 10?
3 Vector Capital Combines Freedom Scientific and Optelec to create Assistive Technology Juggernaut
2 Netflix Originals with Audio Description
1 The Power Of The Crowd
NVDA Remote Campaign Wraps Up with Over 13K in Donations, Beta Testing in progress
64 Oz. games Crowdfunds over $8k to Purchase New Machines to Expand its Accessible Gaming Empire
Three Monkeys Kickstarter Collapsed

2016

Some would say that tampering with a formula for success is an invitation to flirt with disaster. Others would say that New Coke was an idea worth the time and investment because it had not been tried before. In either case, we broke up the list into parts one And two Once. And vowed never to do it again.

Number 10: Bill Passes in the Senate and House Opening up Greater Access to Braille Technology
Number 9: Mac's with Touch Bar replacing function keys
Number 8: Amazon expands VoiceView accessibility tool for visually impaired users to the Kindle
Number 7: BrailleNote Touch Now Shipping at $5,495
Number 6: Google Home and Amazon Echo: voice assistants on the rise
Number 5: object identification tools, including Facebook, AIPoly, Microsoft CaptionBot
Number 4: Accessible TV and set-top box movement/movies
Number 3: The Orbit Reader 20
Number 2: Microsoft products accessibility: What to expect in 2017
Number 1: VFO Group, owners of Freedom Scientific and Optelec, Acquires AI Squared

2017

Elder competitors fall, old companies rise and new players emerge in this year s discussion

10. The "Year In Braille" takes many forms
9. HIMS, the release of the Polaris
8. Baum VarioUltra Shipping Issues and bankruptcy protection
7. VFO Acquires Paciello Group
6. Firefox, Version 57
5. Apple, iPhone X, iOS11 issues
4. Window-Eyes is No More, How We Got to This Point and What's Next
3. Orbit Reader
2. AIRA explodes on the scene
1. SeeingAI

2018

We broke with tradition in 2018 by having a :back and forth: about what our audience found to be the bigger stories of that year. In the spirit of full disclosure, the major mainstream companies managed to land on the list each year and this was crowding out stories from more dedicated A.T. companies. Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft inevitably entered the conversation, but we hoped it was in a more diverse way than they had on previous lists.

2019

Last year s edition of the wrap up show Was another attempt in striking a balance between a list of stories, listener feedback plus some text to go with all that audio commentary. It was a nice blending of the past with some acknowledgement of a more modern way of encapsulating the events of 2019. We aren t ruling out a return to the classic list, however, we don t want to stray to far down the path of a road previously traveled. And we hope that breaking things out, like Off The Shelf Growing Pains and When Cameras Took More Than Pictures , summarizes the need for a focus on the mainstream while living in the realm of A.T. relevancy.

Category: News

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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.