By Beth Deer

Here at AMI, we work with many inspirationally people that have very amazing stories and this weeks segment is no different.

I was able to interview SpiderMable, and her mum Lisa. SpiderMable is a young lady who took the City of Edmonton by storm when she was granted her one wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation. While she was having treatment for cancer she was introduced to Spider-Man which is where her alternate personality, Spidermable, was born.

This little girl got to go around the city with Spider-Man and meet the mayor, members of the Edmonton Oilers and so much more! Mable's story will really bring a tear to your eye and make you grateful for everything you have. This is a must-watch segment and a precursor to the SpiderMable documentary that will be airing on AMI-tv in early 2021. Have your tissues ready!

Join me tonight on AMI This Week at 8 p.m. ET on AMI-tv!

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Our first shoot back in the field!

For tonight’s episode of AMI This Week, you’ll join myself and Alan Nursall at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton. This has been our first and only shoot back in the field since all this craziness has started ... and by that I mean COVID-19.

Not only was it our first time back in the field, but it was also the first time Patronus and myself got to meet our "new" producer Lance, although he’s not really new anymore considering he started at AMI in May (COVID-19 has just messed everything up). 

Some of you know that Alan and I started a new segment called "Simple Science." As the first few were filmed from home they were much more basic, but these ones involve fire, small amounts but fire nonetheless. We also needed orange peels; this was music to Patronus’s ears because he loves oranges - we obviously needed someone to eat the insides. Join me tonight at 8 p.m. ET on AMI TV!

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By Beth Deer

On this evenings episode of AMI This Week, I talk to a young musician named Matthew Monias.

Matthew is a very talented music producer/artist from Garden Hill First Nation, and is very quickly making a name for himself through his music. I was lucky enough to hear about his new single, "Paradise," and where the inspiration for the song came from. Watch this evening's episode to hear for yourself. 

Something I really took away from my conversation with Matthew was that I'm so proud of the community I belong to. I love hearing stories of people like him making an impression on an area that, for the most part, is very mainstream. I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for this guy and the incredible music he produces.

Tune in to AMI This Week tonight at 8 p.m. ET.

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By Beth Deer

This week's AMI This Week segment is one I’ve been working on for quite some time.

I wanted to write a script about all the questions I get asked as a person who is blind, and how it makes me feel.

What I wanted people to take away from it was the answers and the understanding that it's OK to ask. To begin with, this was something I was planning to work on alone but when Lance, my Bureau Producer, had the idea of adding in some other reporters, I thought that would be a great way to mix things up.

"Questions Blind People Get Asked" is meant to be a light-hearted segment with some seriousness behind it. I love it when people are genuinely interested in my vision but sometimes some of the answers to the questions I get asked seem pretty self-explanatory.

If you’re interested in what I mean by that, tune into AMI This Week!  

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By Grant Hardy

This fall, we’ll be running a series on AMI exploring the latest and greatest accessibility features for Android smartphone users. As a tech lover, I felt incredibly excited to speak to Brian Kemler, Product Manager of Android Accessibility with Google, to familiarize myself about what’s new and chat about the latest and greatest and why it’s important for Google to make their devices as accessible as possible.

If you’re interested in delving into Android regardless of your accessibility needs, there’s something for everyone in this series. For example, for blind users, you can learn about the new Braille keyboard built right into Android that allows you to type on the touch screen as if you were using a Braille display. It supports full Unified English Braille including contractions. I’ve played around with it and it really does seem to work well. When this feature was announced, I was excited to see discussion about it on mainstream mobile phone forums and it was a great opportunity to educate the sighted public about how awesome features like this are. The reality is a person who is blind can type extremely quickly using a Braille keyboard, faster than many sighted users type on the touch screen.

For users in the hearing community, Brian tells us about features like Live Transcribe which can convert dialogue happening around you into text, even vibrating the phone when your name is announced and allowing you to add custom vocabulary that the speech to text may not know about. Live Listen, which lets you use an Android phone like a hearing aid to amplify sounds, has been enhanced with support for Bluetooth headphones.

And for people with mobility or cognitive disabilities, there are features like Action Blocks, which let you set up quick shortcuts to perform a variety of functions on your smartphone, as well as info pertaining to wheelchair users being rolled out to Google Maps.

To hear more about these features, as well as why they’re important and why Google is passionate about accessibility, stay tuned for our Android accessibility series on AMI-tv, AMI.ca and in the Ami-tv app. Personally, I’m thrilled to see Android becoming more accessible for everyone, regardless of their ability.

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