00:04 S1
This is Studio 1 on Vision Australia Radio.
00:10 S2
As we were preparing for this show, it struck me that... well, there's a distinct lack of technology as far as you're concerned. It's like, well, we needed to work out what the questions were. And I was like, well, you stole Peter Greco's Brailler to type all this stuff out. What gives?
00:28 S3
Oh, yes. I don't have a Braille computer. I would love one. I'm thinking probably the Braille Note Touch or something in that line. It has to be able to do note taking.
00:40 S2
Well, you don't want the monolithic Monarch.
00:44 S3
Like I said, just ten lines of Braille is way too much for my brain to handle. I do like good old fashioned paper, but I suppose I have to, you know, advance with the ages, don't I?
00:55 S2
Well, we had more of an old fashioned paper. This was stuff from stolen from the photocopier. This was theft. I mean, goodness me, mind you, I mean, what did you think?
01:03 S3
Hey, hang on, I work here. I didn't steal it.
01:06 S2
What did you think of... Peter's aging Perkins Brailler, though?
01:10 S3
It works better than mine. I'm so jealous. My kids hammered it to death. I'm so jealous, Peter. I might just steal your Brailler.
01:20 S2
Yeah. So... well, he hasn't been in for the last four years.
01:24 S3
You don't need it.
01:25 S2
It's mine now. We might just swap them. So, yes, this might be a good reason for you to re-materialise into the studio once or twice. But anyway.
01:48 S3
Hello. I'm Lizzie.
S2
And I'm Sam. And you're listening to Studio 1, Vision Australia radio's weekly look at life from a blind and low vision point of view. On this week's show...
01:58 S3
We talk to Sean from SPO Solutions about his work teaching people how to use adaptive technology, and we discuss the role that technology plays in his life.
02:07 S2
Plus a few things we didn't get around to playing from the last two weeks of Studio 1.
02:14 S3
As we always say, please get in touch with the show. Whether you have any experience with the issues covered in this week's episode of Studio 1, or if you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know - your story and insight may help someone who's dealing with something similar.
02:30 S2
You can email us - studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org.
02:35 S3
Or perhaps you can drop us a note on our Facebook page at facebook.com slash VA Radio Network. Hello, Sam.
02:54 S2
Hello, Lizzie. Now you're going about at the moment, minus one.
03:01 S3
Minus one. Indeed. Yes. I sadly had to retire my seeing eye dog, Lacey. She is getting old, nearly 11, but also she's losing a lot of her focus and she's becoming quite distracted. And it's been a bit unsafe to work with her out in the community. So actually the day we went to Techfest was her last working day.
03:22 S2
Oh it's amazing. I got to admit. I mean, we did work a very, very hard that day.
03:28 S3
We did? Yes. And, you know, there were other incidents before that that led up to my decision. It wasn't just one day, but yes, sadly, she will no longer be working with me, but she's still a part of my life. I'm keeping her.
03:42 S2
Okay, I was going to ask that. I mean, how does that work? You know, does she go off to that mysterious farm or do you get to... does she just become a pet?
03:50 S3
She just becomes a pet. I know you do have the option to palm them off to somebody else, as it were, which is not what I want. You know, Lacey's been my best friend. She's been a major part of my life for the last nine years. And I'm certainly not going to just let her go to somebody else. So I'll keep her. And I will probably go into the process of getting another dog early next year. And then hopefully those two get along well.
04:14 S2
That opens a whole different can of worms as well, doesn't it?
04:17 S3
Yeah. Well, I mean, Lacey's always quite keen to go out wherever I go, even now that she's retired. It certainly wasn't her decision to retire. So I don't know how she's going to go with another dog and, you know, wanting to go out and work at the same time. And, oh, I imagine she'd be quite heartbroken. I'm... a little bit sad about it, but, yeah.
04:39 S2
That's the difference, I suppose, between having a living creature that works with you, as opposed to the rather snazzy white cane you're sporting at the moment.
04:48 S3
Actually it's pink.
04:49 S2
Oh it's pink.
04:50 S3
Well, the end is pink anyway. Yeah... it's not as pretty, I have to say. It doesn't get as much attention, and I can't just bend down and pat it whenever I'm feeling anxious, which seems to be the norm for me at the moment without my trusty four legged buddy. So I'm struggling to adapt, but I'll survive.
05:10 S2
So... changing the subject slightly... I mean, we have another four-legged buddy coming by a bit later on, but... there were... well, there was one segment that I wasn't quite able to squeeze in to the last two weeks of Studio 1. If you're coming through us on on podcast, then you've got it all in one episode. But if you've listening via radio, the, it will essentially cut the two in half. And so we've had two weeks of Tech Fest. Woohoo! But there was still stuff we couldn't fit in. So this... the first bit we're going to play is the guys from Wisetech, and we learn all about what used to be called visual techs, actually, and that is like electronic magnifiers. So it's completely off from what we're dealing with afterwards. But we'll come back and introduce Sean after this.
06:06 S2
Okay, so we're now in the far corner of the room and we're over to Wisetech. And who am I talking to today?
06:13 S4
So you're speaking to Ranjeet Jakob from Wisetech.
06:14 S2
So what have we got here in front of us?
06:17 S4
Okay, so visited magnifiers is the Australian distributor for enhanced vision and freedom. Scientific low vision range of products. So they've got products like the Pebble 4.3. We've got the Ruby range.
06:34 S2
I know the Ruby.
06:35 S4
Yes. And the Amigo 8. And we've got the enhanced Vision Merlin range for the Merlin Elite and the DaVinci Pro, the Acrobat range. Then we've also got the Onyx range and the Topaz range, and then we've also got a scanning reading solution called the Smart Reader, which is an enhanced vision for Elastic World.
06:56 S2
Right. So these are mainly... magnifications.
S4
That's right.
S2
So do you have anything that like that... with audio or things like that as well, or... ?
07:07 S4
Some of the devices here have got OCR in them. So that is an optical character recognition. So that means you can put a document under the OCR camera and that will scan the document and read it back to you. So you can save the document onto USB as well. Or you can save it on the device as well. So yeah, so it has scanning and reading options there.
07:32 S2
So I'm familiar with the Ruby. I've seen them before. Okay. Um we've got everything from the smallest to the largest here. So this is what I'm trying to describe it for our listeners. We bought back in our day at school we'd call a visual test, but... so what is this thing on a stand over here?
07:50 S4
Okay, so let's start from here. So this what we've got is called the Merlin Elite Pro, right. So this has got a 24 inch screen. It's got a wired remote. And you've also got the control panel in front of the device. A built in X-Y table and also a built in LED lights.
08:10 S2
Right. So the magnifier is actually the camera is actually fixed to the bottom of the screen. Correct.
08:15 S4
So in this model the camera is fixed up onto this device and it's focusing on the XY table. So you would put your document or whatever you want uh magnified on the XY table. And it will come up on the screen. These devices on the right hand side, this is the Acrobat range. And we've got the Onnx range. These have movable cameras. So you can move the camera down or up sort of directions. Yes you can take it up. So for self viewing, for makeup, for, you know, shaving etc., you can use it. You can use it to look at... things in the distance. You can look at... you know, pictures, you can do crafts under it because it's got a lot of working distance under the camera. So you, you can do crafts, etc. with it.
You can also take it from left to right so it has got a rail behind. And so you can so you can go left to right. You also have controls on the camera. So you can magnify. You can change your color modes. All that you can do on the camera itself. It also has a wireless remote control as well. So you can control the device using the wireless remote control. This particular model is has got a 27 inch screen. So it's got a. So you've got the capability of having a lot of text on the screen. So you don't have to keep magnifying and going left and right. You can just have all the text magnified on the screen and visible.
This one here next to it is the Onyx OCR. And this model has again got a movable camera. It's got a wired remote. And it's also got an OCR camera on this left hand side. This here is an XY table. So you could actually place a documents on it. And you can move the XY table instead of moving the camera.
10:16 S2
So this basically is a combination of the other two, really. The...
10:21 S4
Correct, yes. And this one here is your OCR camera. So you can put a document under that and it will scan and start reading back to you. And this one will magnify up to 121 times. So very very good magnification and very stable. It also has an enhanced color feature. So if you're using it for crafts etc., the colours are all enhanced as well. And the device, if I just tap the bottom right of the screen... so window and tablet screen... this is where the OCR camera will start functioning. So all I need to do... so let me just move this camera out of the way...
S2
So this has got two cameras.
11:03 S4
Yes. So one is the OCR camera for text to speech. So when you tap the screen here. So it's going to take a picture. Now it's going to break it into various paragraphs. And it gives you the option, so it gives you the option as one desktop video magnifier, to select what paragraph you want to read to you. You can increase the magnification. And now you can select. You can search for word where you want it to start reading from. So let's say if I press this the start reading from here, if I press another button, it goes back into the high contrast color mode. And again you can start, you can select where you want it to start reading from.
11:43 S2
Certainly a long way since the old days. Visual text back.
11:46 S4
Yeah. Yes. So this is... quite a useful device for people who want a versatile device. They want to read under it, they want to write under it. They want to watch their telephone under it. So you can watch pictures and all that as well. We can save documents onto the device as well. So quite versatile.
12:06 S2
What sort of price range we're looking at for these?
12:08 S4
We start with a handheld Magnifier. This starts at $6.95. And the Onyx OCR and the Topaz OCR, they are at $79.95.
12:19 S2
Right.
12:20 S4
Line markers and go.
12:28 S1 (ID)
This is studio one on Vision Australia Radio.
12:45 S3
Was it just me Sam, or did there seem to be an oversaturation of magnifiers at Techfest? I felt a bit left out.
12:51 S2
There are an awful lot of magnifiers around. It was rather overwhelming to me as well... I was rather worried that it would be sort of repeating ourselves a lot, but I think we've got a good variety of things there, but we seem to have missed out a lot on all the talking kitchenware, for example, which I suppose maybe sometime next year we should be seeing if we can go out somewhere and sample all the talking stuff like microwaves and air fryers and other things that or spoons or whatever, whatever talks nowadays.
13:23 S3
Or I could just record my talking hair dryer if you like.
13:25 S2
Well, yeah, well, anything's possible because, I mean, we were looking for hair dryers last night, me and Heidi and I noticed one of them actually had WiFi access. So what would you need WiFi access on a hair dryer for? Oh. Anyway, enough. Enough of that. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about Sean.
13:43 S3
Yes. So Sean is an adaptive technology specialist. So this means that he trains people on how to use their bits of adaptive technology. He's been working with me recently with my computer or laptop, but I know he's also trained people on how to use the Polaris, the focus 40 and some other products as well. So he started up a business called SPO Solutions, and that's what he's going to talk about. Today in the studio, we are joined by Mr. Sean Oliver. Sean, how are you today?
14:27 S5
I'm upright. I'm breathing. The sky is singing. The birds are shining and there's not a sun in the sky. Wait a minute. That's not right.
14:34 S3
So when did you first know that you had a passion for technology?
14:39 S5
When I got my first Windows 98 computer back in 2000. And then I discovered the joys of Linux. So it was a case of teaching myself that. Then I went and did a course in IT, Network Management, which was a certificate for course V-tab recognized. And from then on the rest, as they say, is history.
15:04 S3
So in your lifetime, how many technological devices do you think you've owned?
15:07 S5
Oh, more than I care to count, if I'm being honest.
15:11 S2
You now run your own company. How did you go out in the big bad world with your IT qualifications?
15:18 S5
Haltingly, at first - it started out by me doing jobs for people, you know, setting up their phones and all that sort of thing. I thought, you know what? Why don't I make a business model of this and then go out and do it? Get a couple of bucks for it. People will get the the benefit of my expertise, such as it is. And I get the benefit of getting paid. Yeah.
15:47 S3
I believe before you started Space Illusions, which is your company, you were doing volunteer work at Beyond Blindness with the Tech Corner.
15:55 S5
I was, I was, I was helping you out occasionally. And when I wasn't doing that, I was head down, bum up in the computer room. There was the mini Pierce lounge at the time when we were over at Gillis Plains, and I was in there poking and prodding, setting up stuff that they actually bought. They bought a couple of Braillesense Polaris and they, I believe they bought a Braille embosser, and I got rather good at working with that. And Duxbury also.
16:27 S3
Duxbury is really hard to use.
16:29 S5
It is and it isn't.
16:30 S2
I've looked at the price of it on the internet. It's also very expensive.
16:33 S5
It's very, yeah, it's very hard on the pocket. Yes.
16:37 S2
There might be some listeners out here who do not know what Duxbury is. So how would you describe what it is?
16:42 S5
Duxbury, in short, is a Braille translation software. So you import your document into Duxbury, which translates it into Braille, particular code of your choice, be it UEB or... any other locale. And you use that then to send the document to the embosser, which then Brailles it out.
17:06 S2
So this was a surprise to me, because I just assumed because we have Braille computers, that you can just simply type out what you want and away you go. Then send it off on an email, or send it off into a word document or something like that. But it's not quite as straightforward as it, is it?
17:21 S5
No. Not quite, not quite. You have to then import that word document into Duxbury and make sure that your formatting is correct and that your spacing is correct, and you then send that to the embosser.
17:35 S3
If we are talking about other companies that are NDIS providers, they charge quite heavily. How does your company compare?
17:42 S5
For that very reason? Because I don't.
17:44 S2
So you don't charge the standard 200 and whatever dollars an hour for example?
17:49 S5
Not on your life. And people can't necessarily afford that, even with their plans.
17:54 S3
No, because I mean, that means that they'd get half the training or none.
17:58 S5
It's usually more geared towards assessment for a particular technology and the occasional bit of support with your company.
18:07 S3
Are you able to do those assessments?
18:08 S5
I can. I haven't done them as yet. Usually people have got established technologies that they want me to work with. For the most part, I've been doing a lot more of the IT side of things, setting it up and occasionally, you know, pointing them in the right direction as to where they can go to learn keystrokes and things like that. And if I know them, I'll tell them what they are. I don't charge extra for that.
18:30 S3
If, for example, there was someone that wanted to take up some of your services, but they didn't live in an area that you could get to, is there a way that they could then do something over Zoom or TeamTalks or anything like that? Do you have any sort of remote?
18:45 S5
Yeah, I can, I can do remote. I have Zoom, I have TeamTalk, I have Microsoft Teams.
18:50 S3
Do you think that that would impact the ability for you to be able to help them with their enquiries?
18:55 S5
Not in so much as the... inquiry. It's dependent upon what they need done. If it's a, you know, help with a bit of configuration or something like that. I can just remote in and do that and call it good. If I actually have to go and do anything with their hardware, that's going to be a little bit harder to do. But around the metropolitan area, I can pretty much get around there and see what's going on and make sure that somebody has their hardware up to snuff.
19:20 S3
So let's go back to your old school days. Let's let's rewind the clock.
19:23 S5
Yes. Way back when!
19:25 S3
Back when you were in primary school and high school, what sort of technology were you using to do your schoolwork?
19:32 S5
Back then? It was an old Perkins Brailler. The only other device that I used in that time was a Braille and print machine.
19:39 S3
Was that a Mountbatten?
19:40 S5
No, Mountbatten didn't come until 1990, before the Mountbatten was the Eureka A4, and I had access to at least three of them because our school bought three of them, and I got okay with them enough to be able to get around and, you know, poke and prod and make sure they worked right. Then we also had the Keynote PC plus in my secondary school days.
S3
What's that?
S5
That was a DOS machine put out by the then pole starter international, if I remember correctly. And it was a it was a step up from the Keynote XL, which I believe both systems ran DOS, which was good because it was then compatible with most other IBM-compatible units.
20:22 S2
The beauty of DOS is you can't click on the wrong thing, so if you type in an incorrect command, chances are the machine won't recognise it in the first place and say This is an invalid command. So it's a lot harder to stuff things up, from memory.
20:35 S5
Unless your name is Jeff Chang and you deliberately remove Command.com.
20:40 S2
I actually thought that was an old IT joke as well. How to solve all your problems: type in a simple command format. I see you've been helping Lizzie out recently..
20:51 S5
I have. Lizzie's been learning how to work with Reaper and NVDA, and she's been learning how to edit files, and she's been having a lot of fun doing it.
21:03 S3
I've had so much fun.
21:04 S2
I find it interesting that it's obviously a completely different thing to do what we do when you can't actually see the screen. So a lot of what I will tend to do when I'm editing something is I can see where there are gaps. I'm assuming if you actually don't have that access, there's nothing really quite that would compare and you would not be able to run something like that on a Braille display, for example.
21:25 S5
No, I think people have tried, but there is no accounting for what your ears can do. And the thing with editing is you've got to make it not sound so choppy. You've got to make it sound as natural as if the person was continuing the conversation without verbal tics.
21:42 S3
You are also a musician, and you record quite a lot of your own music using software such as Reaper. Do you think that there is anything that blind or visually impaired people can't do with technology?
21:55 S5
I don't think there's anything they can't do. It just hasn't been done yet.
21:59 S3
For example, if someone wanted to hack into the Matrix, could they do it?
22:04 S5
You're asking questions that I should by rights, not answer.
22:08 S2
Oh, no. We'll get you out there doing some computer aided design, for example. That would be... oh, dear. We don't quite have the 3D renderer yet available to do that.
22:17 S5
Yeah, working with CAD is is probably one of those virtual. I say virtual impossibility because you've got the... what was that that thing that Orbit put out... some sort of... tactile graphic reader. But I'm not quite sure how that would work with something like CAD.
22:37 S2
Well, one of our guests recently... he did an accountancy course, and it was a rather fairly complicated one. And he said this was before the days of Braille computers and things like that. So everything had to be done on cassette.
22:51 S5
Oh.
22:52 S2
So he said that quite often there were... single equations that would take up a single side of a 60 minute cassette, for example.
23:01 S5
Yeah.
23:03 S2
So, yeah, he said that was quite a challenge. So I'm presuming though things like mathematics and things like that can be handled if you do understand Braille.
23:11 S5
Yeah. And depending on the year, because you've got the Nemeth, Nemeth code and various other math codes and, and what have you. Not stuff that I go into, to be honest.
23:25 S2
So do you have a most common thing that you deal with, and do you have something that you absolutely loathe dealing with?
23:35 S5
Oh, that's a bit of a loaded question, because the most common thing I'm dealing with is usually getting people's computers up to snuff. What I absolutely loathe doing, but it pays well, is resetting the whole box and dice and setting it back up, doing a complete rebuild, factory settings. Yeah. But yeah, because then you've got to put the screen reader back on. You've got to put the programs they want back on. You've got to log in to the business that they want, you know, the various like Dropbox or something else, and then you've got to have them there so that they can supply you with usernames, passwords, shoe sizes, whatever else, you know.
24:23 S3
So the what sort of pieces of technology do you use to help you live independently around your home?
24:34 S5
Well, I've got my various computers. Of course I have my iPhone. I have an OrCam Read 3, which comes out when I really need to read a printed document. And I've got my Braille by 40 x braille display... and that's about it.
24:56 S2
Is there a piece of kit that you honestly really, really want at the moment?
25:00 S5
At the moment? Well, That's...
25:04 S2
I mean, we had a bit of a play with the Monarch, for example.
25:06 S5
I've not seen one of those.
25:09 S3
I love it, like I love the idea of it, but I don't think it's something that I could handle. Ten years. Ten years? Ten lines of Braille is just too much for my brain.
25:19 S5
Ten a lot?
25:20 S3
Oh, it's a ten line Braille display.
25:23 S5
Mm.
25:24 S3
Yes. It's great.
25:27 S5
Oh, I need to get a look at these things.
25:30 S3
Do you have a talking air fryer?
25:32 S5
No, I don't have an air fryer. Full stop.
25:37 S3
Mate. What do you...?
25:39 S5
I did have one, but it died.
25:42 S2
They do that?
25:43 S5
Yes.
25:44 S2
Oh, it doesn't pay to drop them as well. That's the thing.
25:48 S5
No, I didn't do that. It just. Just died of death because it got well used.
25:53 S3
Well, that's a relief. At least you had one. Mm.
25:58 S2
Anyway, Sean, thank you for joining us. It is. We have... I have not seen you since 1990, I believe, at the Melbourne Nationals.
26:07 S5
So at the beginning of 1990, I remember it well.
26:10 S2
So I suppose the less said about that, the better.
26:13 S5
But oh... It's all right. Well go on Sam.
26:16 S3
Can he run fast!
26:17 S2
He can run.
26:19 S5
Oh, yeah.
26:20 S2
Especially when certain people are after him.
26:23 S5
That had nothing to do with that. In fact, my best 100 metre sprint was, I think it was well under 15 seconds.
26:32 S3
Usain Bolt in the making. Well, not anymore.
26:35 S5
No, no. I'm lucky if I can take a couple of steps before I'm puffed out these days.
26:43 S3
Righto.
26:51 S2
Right. That's a wrap for this week. A big thank you to Sean and to the guys from Wisetech. Yes, we finally did include you somewhere. Next week. Well, Lizzy, who are we talking to?
27:03 S3
We talk to Bobby Robinson, the author of Molly and Maple, the Guide Dogs that Change Nettie's World, which is a book about Annette Holden, we will also be talking to her as well.
27:13 S2
But between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this week's episode of Studio 1, or if you think there is something we should be talking about, you never know - your story and insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
27:27 S3
You can contact us via email at studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org - or perhaps you can reach out to us on our socials on Instagram, Facebook and X. Just look up VA Radio Network. We want to hear from you.
27:45 S2
But until then, bye for now.
27:53 S1
Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.
