Braille labeller, stopwatch app, Google Gemini, NBN upgrade and more!

00:21S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from March the 19th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolley, great to have you with us. Wherever you're listening, perhaps through Vision Australia Radio, Associated Stations of Australia or the Community Radio Network, there is also the podcast. To catch that, all you need to do is search for the two words talking tech and down. It can come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia Radio talking tech podcast... Vision Australia Radio talking tech podcast.

With me, someone who can explain all this tech stuff really well: Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology, David Woodbridge. David, you can explain the tech stuff really well, but we're going to start with something that's not really high tech, but very useful a way of labeling items in Braille. And this is the the product that we're going to talk about this week from the shop, the store of Vision Australia.

01:23S2

Indeed. So this is the Dymo Braille Labeller. And if you haven't may have not have had one before. It's boasting a little Dymo label, a type thing that you of course put tape into. And then you've got this sort of rotary dial thing that's got Braille and print on it. So somebody who's sighted that doesn't know Braille can actually use it as well. And then you simply push the little handle in underneath the unit where the tape goes in. And every time you press it, and of course, it makes a little character or punctuation mark or whatever else, it's actually on the little round rotary thing and you can do labeling stuff. 

So this came in very useful because a what, I don't know, ten years ago maybe or more, I decided to Braille label on my DVD collection, of which I've got about 500 little cases of them. And it just so happened that my daughter decided to get a loan or a permanent loan of another little DVD player that I haven't had this in this house for about five years, and I was able to go through a whole DVD collection and grab out the one she wanted because it was labeled in bra with my Dymo label. So it really does have good purposes. If you're still going to C D collection, you can do that. In fact, anything you can stick, you know, a label onto, you can label in Braille. And if it's stuff in the pantry and so on. So nice little good simple manual device for labeling available.

02:44S1

From the Vision store shop in Australia. Borg. Let's talk again about the label one. This is the little device which is Braille oriented and enables one to use this keyboard device as an input device for maybe a smartphone or some other device. Tell us about it.

03:06S2

Yeah. So basically you've got... six standard boxes. And of course, if you're a brown user, you've got ..7.8 with combination of those keys, you can navigate your smartphone, and you can also input in braille into an edit field. Now it works extremely well on the iPhone. Um, so you link it up and you can start navigating and doing all sorts of really cool things with VoiceOver. Now, when it comes to talkback on Android, because Android is so open and so flexible, I've been finding that some of the things that are supposed to work, particularly on my Samsung Z flip three, which is now effectively I want to say about four years old, I'm still using the current OS. Some of the commands in it don't work, but then I've had discussions with other people that have a different Android phone and a different version of the operating system. And it works perfectly fine. 

So what I've come to think about, because I did post a podcast on using the hybrid one on my iPhone last week on my podcast feed. When I'm going to do a podcast on Android this week, I'm probably really going to say to people, Look, there is no overall issues in using it with Android for Android users, in particular for phones and tablets. What I would recommend is that you try it before you buy it, just to make doubly sure that your specific model of your phone or tablet, and your specific way you've got your Android OS set up, is going to work with the other one. So it's not the fault of the Hable One that's the issue. It's the complexity of having such an open ended system. That's always been the issue when you try and use anything from an assistive technology point of view with Android.

05:00S1

Now, recently we talked about the new range of zoom digital recorders. Um, you and I have ventured into the purchasing area and we each have a zoom H1 essential recorder. You've had yours about a week. What do you reckon?

05:20S2

So the zoom H1 essential recorder is a little sort of, like a chocolate bar-sized recording device. Now, I should add in the beginning, this is the professional recorder. This is not something that you would just pick up and do a, you know, a bit of a dictation or a memo if this is a full blown professional recorder, that's number one. Number two, it is fairly well laid out as far as the buttons and ports and that sort of stuff is concerned. The only thing that I would point out between this recorder and, you know, things like the, the stream and, uh, the sense player, custom devices tend to sort of like take you through and hold your hand a little bit to do recordings and that sort of stuff. 

The H1 is part of the essential series. So the H4, the H6, these assume that you know what you're doing. So I always say to people, if you want to get your best out of something, then you must read the manual. Listen to tutorials, or talk to other people because otherwise you won't get the full benefit out of the H1, in particular the basic recorder. And if you don't use it to its full potential, then I guess in some ways you might have not bothered. You might just go and get a nice custom device, like a stream or a sense play, and just to be more comfortable with.

06:38S1

It's high on accessibility, but it's not made for blind or low vision people to use. That's the point, isn't it?

06:44S2

Correct. So you've had a mainstream company spend 25% of their budget for development on accessibility, but it's making a reasonably technical device accessible. But that does not mean it's actually easy to use as far as functions are concerned. And I've been watching a few mailing lists and, you know, people have actually said, I found that I couldn't do this. And somebody else says, Oh, that's because you haven't turned that on. So its basic form is fine. But if you really want to start using as a professional recording device, then you really do need to get to a point when you're taking full benefit of it.

07:20S1

A very impressive little machine to use, and you can just hold it in your hand.

07:24S2

You can and look because the the XY microphones attached to the top of it, you've got to be a little bit careful in not moving your hand too much, because when you move your hand on the plastic casing, it'll come through the mic. You can put it on a stand if you really want to, but I've done recordings of, you know, a train and a bus and a few other things when I've been out and about and I'm literally holding it. It's so light. I've been holding it between my thumb and my index finger, finger pointing in the right direction, and it's picked up beautifully. I'm not getting any wind noise, any hum in the background. It's been really fantastic. 

So I spent the whole day travelling to and from Sydney yesterday as we did the recording today, and it was just lovely because I was able to quickly make different sound recordings that I haven't done for a long time. On just the environment I was going through.

08:13S1

The zoom H1 Essential Recorder, the baby of the three recently released by zoom. In 2020, Apple came out with its Big Daddy AirPods Max machine or headset? You got one.

S2

I did. 

S1

How's it going? 

08:34S2

Badly. Mine's effectively died, so I bought mine in December 2020. And now three years and basically three months later, the battery in my AirPods Max is officially dead. No lights, no nothing on the device. So you think for something at the time cost me $999 would last a bit longer, at least the batteries concerned for three and a bit years. So what I'm probably going to do this week is contact my local Apple reseller, take the AirPods Max in, and then see how much it will cost me to get the battery changed in the device. I did watch a quick YouTube on it and it's just amazing. Steven. It took a guy with four different implements to actually take the battery out of the unit, and it was a bit scary because it actually said if you do certain things, you'll actually ruin the whole device. So my motto is if you want something, things like this with a battery, take it to the professionals and let them do it.

09:34S1

Yes, probably. Good advice. Now some AI news. Google Gemini can be accessed easily. 

09:42S2

Indeed. So this was a drawback that when Gemini was released it was saying, Oh no, look, you can only use it on Android or certain smartphones and that sort of stuff. Well, now you can access Gemini, Cosmo, or-  and this is really, really cool - if you just go into your web browser and type in ai.com that'll reroute itself to gemini.com, which means you can then use the Google AI. So we now have on web based stuff. Now we've got Co-pilot, we've got ChatGPT, and now you can have a really good play with Gemini - and as far as I can tell at the moment it only gives text based chitchat out to you. I haven't found a way on the website. Mind you, I've only spent about ten minutes with it so far, but I haven't found like a voice output option yet. So if people do find out that I find out about that, please let me know at work.

10:37S1

Some good news coming towards the end of the year for many of Australia's NBN broadband users.

10:43S2

Indeed. So what this is all about is literally well, as far as I'm concerned, it's two things. It's bringing more houses online to fibre to the house, which is unfortunately what you've got Stephen, for as far as I'm concerned, versus a fibre to the street, which just means I've got copper wire running from my node at the end of the street to my house. So that's number one. So more people have got access to fibre to the house. And then the second one is,  which is what this article really talked about, is increased speed. Because when you consider that the normal household on average has 23 devices in it, and you and I have probably got more... anyway, that's a lot of a load. 

So when you can increase the bandwidth and data speed, that impacts upon how your use of your smart technology at home, whether it's smart home devices, smart TVs, your phones, your tablets, all that sort of stuff. So towards the end of the year, we might have speeds, maybe or maybe not, that people get in New Zealand and take it for granted.

S1

So at the moment, if you're on 120 megabit plan, uh, you can anticipate maybe 550, they say. And for people on a 250 megabit plan could be up around the 750. So something to look forward to.

12:07S2

Indeed. Yeah. Bits of hell over a 300 baud modem from about 1986, that's for sure.

12:12S1

Now, a little technique you've heard about recently on Apple Viz for turning off predictive text when you're writing on your Mac?

12:20S2

Yes. Now, this has been driving me barmy for a little while now, because when you type on your Mac and it seems to be more relevant in the latest Mac OS cinema, the assistant keeps trying to make recommendations to you. And if you're using speech, not only can you hear the word that you're typing in, you also get the word of the suggestion that it's trying to suggest to you. So turning this off in Keyboard Preferences, and it's a very straightforward tip podcast. You can just turn that off and then hey presto, you can type in without getting annoyed by this suggestion system, basically overwriting and stopping what you're listening to. So for us as blind people and screen reader users, we're going to be more productive at the end of the day.

13:03S1

You've found a great stopwatch app for the Mac.

13:06S2

I did, it's called The Good Stopwatch, which is a really cool name for an app, I think. And what happens is it's got simply it's got a stop, a start, a pause, and the timer itself. And if you set a hotspot on it, in voiceover terms, which basically monitors a certain part of the screen, you can be in any other application, do your hotspot command, and you can double check how much time you've taken up outside doing a show like talking tech for the radio for Stephen in particular, or me doing a quick five minute podcast to make sure I can keep talking precisely enough to get it within five minutes if I'm doing a specific demo for work and so on. So it's a really great little nifty app that if you're a mac user, you can use for timing.

13:52S1

So how do you get hold of that?

13:54S2

From the Mac App Store. So if you just go to the Mac App Store, go to search, type in good stopwatch, three words, then it'll come up straight away.

14:02S1

Now, before we go, a reminder of where there are details of what we've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program.

14:09S2

Indeed. So as always, you can check out my blog site, which is David Woodbridge dot podbean - dot- com.

14:17S1

David Woodbridge at Podbean dot com to write to the program.

14:23S2

You can write to me at Vision Australia at work, which is David Dot Woodbridge - how it sounds - at Vision Australia - dot - org.

S1

david.woodbridge@visionaustralia.org ...  This has been Talking Tech, with me has been Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology David Woodbridge. I'm Stephen Jolley - stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.