Midway through 2025 and glide only Alpha 2.0?

This is the email I got from them on 30th April:

For those who had planned to join our Gliders Monthly Zoom call today, we are deeply sorry to share that we have had an unexpected and last-minute technical issue, and will have to reschedule.

We will be working on a new time as soon as possible, and are truly sorry for this unexpected change. We know your time is incredibly valuable, and are sincerely grateful for your patience and understanding.

We will be sending out a new link and time as soon as we can confirm for either later this week or next week!

Not had a follow-up yet but no doubt it will be scheduled again soon. My guess is that they are out and about doing demonstrations and probably had some internet connectivity issues.

Personally I give them the benefit of the doubt - I'm sure they have a lot of spinning plates right now.

I got the email from glidance last week. It was to reschedule the webinar. Here is a snippet from that email:
5/7/25
Date & Time (New) May 7, 2025 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
If you don't have it, perhaps email them?
I would also like to say that people have been getting very angry with you on this thread. I think it's a good thing that you're asking these questions. If you do join the zoom tomorrow, I'd love to see you asking these live to them.
To everyone else, yes, we must have the negatives and hard questions as well. We all want the same thing, after all and glidance can't sail through with a cloud of positivity and rainbows. I believe they would agree with such a statement.

bingo, for one, is on Team Ash Rein here!

My humble apologies Binggo. I suppose what I meant to say was:
to everyone who has given Ash Rein a little stick for the opinion expressed against glidance.
@Everyone else was somewhat lazy on my part I think.

Bingo and his big wallet flex is my favorite part of this thread.

I'm excited, though am happier to pay full price for a known quantity. I really hope it is outstanding, I'm just sorry all you backers have to wait so long, and thank you for funding it so cowards like me can benefit from your faith.

The weird thing is that as I paid for this in July of last year I've kind of forgot about the money side. So, if it doesn't come out this year it wouldn't be such a big hassle as it might of been. Think that makes sense in some way. To Ash don't forget two BBC reporters tried this out at the CSUN event and they were overall impressed with the potential. So assuming the BBC are impartial which maybe up for debate they are possibly the highest profile people I know who have tried it.So as people have said lets wait and see. They have already lowered expectations by telling us that the mapping ability will not be released at launched but in a future update so they are being transparent with our needs I believe.

Otherwise known as the Biased Broadcasting Corpporation? The same BBC that has had to issue an alarming number of apologies over partial coverage in the last year or so? Stick to giving us unrivaled coverage of the County Championship including Middlesex's fantastic chase of 365 against Kent yesterday, and Bingo will continue to acqiesce in paying his licence fee.

But to be serious with you, I'd be wary of mainstream outlets' conclusions about how amazing such tech as this actually is. Quite often, said outlets set the bar rather low and are therefore amazed rather easily, especially if their reporters don't actually have to use the tech themselves. True, the BBC's a bit better at this than other outlets thanks to the input of the likes of peter White, but I'd still be cautious.

Agree Bingo. However, both reporters are blind so think it more likely they would be telling the truth. Oh and that is a good 4th innings chase.

They replied to me today.

They did tell me that they'd prefer I keep the email to myself but they said that they sent out a email explaining that something went wrong but then sent out another email a couple of hours later explaining it in more detail.

All I'll say on that end is that someone on the team got some bad news and leave it at that.

They did say that ash is more than welcome to email, and they don't know why you didn't get the emails as your signed up to the list.

I explained that I didn't get the email about the alpha 2 build either so asked if they could check their mailbox.

If I get any updates from them about anything to do with the mailbox, i'll post it here.

@ash rein, sorry for being snappy, I'm going through my own stuff at the moment but shouldn't take it out on you.

I love the BBC, channel 4 on constantly but, when it comes to critiquing such things as developments in the disability space, its a little lack luster. I suspect there is a reluctance to appear ungrateful which is a wider issue in society. Be grateful whilst blind is the drill even if that's a fiction. The truth, bursting into tears every time someone asks who you are, or beating the heck out of an iMac with a cricket bat because of SNR, doesn't support the advocacy for the team we never signed up for.

Sorry, went off on one there...

Further apologies...

I mention a violent act toward an apple product in previous post. My intent was to verbalise frustrations we all face but also understand that language needs to be inclusive and without spice to avoid offence.

Standards of language vary across cultures and maybe, here in the UK, language that is considered mild is not considered mild in the US.

Thank you to Michael and the team for flagging this.

Hi,
Sometimes difficult questions need to be asked. I wouldn't put a deposit down just because it's too much money for me to justify. £800 is a lot of money. But this product certainly interests me. At Ash, got no problem with you asking difficult questions, but inferring this might be a scam is going too far. But I get it, you care, so do I, I'm following this space very closely, and I'm the first one to be sceptical about the vast majority of blindness products. I won't even use or follow the development of the vast majority of blindness products. They're overpriced, don't work in the way I want or have the features I want, and for me personally, mainstream products can do what I want just as well if not better. But Glide is different. I could actually see myself using something like this, especially if it had turn-by-turn directions. Glide has been going around demoing it a lot. Would I go to a demo and try it? Maybe. I'd certainly want to actually demo the thing before putting a deposit down. Being able to move around obstacles in a very specific controlled environment is only part of it. Can it handle busy streets? Can it avoid someone just about to kick it out of the way? The thing that gives me hope for this is that Amos, the CEO is blind, and I'm much more willing to believe that a blind person at the helm is going to make sure this product is relevant and can actually cope in real life scenarios. I'd be far more sceptical if there were no blind people involved in the development, and it was just some sighted people who had a great idea on the surface, but hadn't thought through the finer details because, let's face it, they'll never need to use this. Amos from Glide is apparently using this around his local area. That says a lot. At Travis, yes, totally agree. Blind people should have as many good quality, affordable and possibly subsidised if necessary, choices.

I don't like blindness products and prefer to use mainstream stuff as much as possible but this? I can see this device making a huge change.

I invested in this exactly because I want to see how turn by turn directions will work on this thing, I think they'll work great with the way glide follows the line.

The more I read about this, the more I want to try it out. I'll have to start looking out for demo days available where I can get to relatively easily.

Go for it, I don't think you'll be disappointed at all.

I know, I know - you're gonna read this comment and think: will the bleeder ever be satisfied? The problem with demos is that, at least in my experience, they're sometimes very carefully choreographed to showcase the equipment in superoptimal conditions. I use the word superoptimal advisedly there. My mind is cast back to a braille Sense demo done for me in 2005 where I was given no chance to ask questions to the rather aggressive lady who ran it, then a demo of the KNFB Reader (the original hand-held one) where the sighted representative insisted on taking the picture to be scanned...what the bleedin' good was that?
Such demos are certainly better than nothing, but I keep going back to the point ash Rein made earlier about the flaws. I want to hear from these chaps about the limitations as well as the positive stuff. now, to be fair to them, it's quite possible that they don't know as much about limitations yet and that such data will only emerge as folk road test it. I'll be keeping an eye on it and I hope that data is shared.

Sight Village in Birmingham might be quite a good environment to put Glide through its paces. How will it navigate the 26,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish in the streets?

I must say the way people have described the Glide demos, they don't sound all that choreographed. I mean, people were walking with the device on their own. Yes, the environment itself was controlled, but at least people were able to walk on their own and move round obstacles. But yes, I want to hear about the flaws too. But surely not being able to go up and down stairs without having to lift the device is a flaw. It sounds like a flaw to me. But yes, more flaws would be useful to know about. I must say, if people were either agressive, didn't give me a chance to ask questions, or operated parts of the product for me, that would automatically put me off the device anyway, and especially buying from that particular company! But I get what you're saying, demos can be staged.

I haven't said aught about stairs! Or perhaps you meant someone else? anyway, just to be clear, Bingo OS 43.0 has a number of flaws. I daresay some of 'em have crept in since version 20.0 which was probably when the OS was most efficient in terms of resources and most adventurous in terms of its feature set. Those were the days when one could enjoy 13 glasses of wine and then write one's tutorial essay, or come straight back from giving the students at Lincoln's Inn a good thrashing in a mock trial with attendant refreshments and somehow pass for knowing what one was talking about in a legal philosophy tutorial. Such capabilities have, alas, sailed off into the Oxonian sunset. Luckily, going up and down steps, stairs, ramps or hills, with or without a device akin to the glide or, indeed, the Glide itself, is not a currently identified Flaw in bingo OS 43.0, nor do I anticipate it in July's 44.0 release, though I imagine these days I'd draw the line at mountains. anyway, back to work...

Hi Tara, Why a flaw? This weighs about 2.5KG or 8LB in old money so easy to pick up. A suitcase weighs more. Would be impossible to create something with wheels to go up and down stairs. Even guide dogs have to be careful with escallators. Of all the things I'd think of as a flaw this isn't one of them. Remember, once it has the line it picks up from where it left off so once you get to the top or bottom you just carry on walking.