Latest on DeepSeek, Access On, SeeingEye, Invites... and more

00:08 S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from February the 11th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated stations of the Radio Reading Network 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 it can all 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: Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. Hey, Damo.

00:50 S2

G'day, Stephen.

00:51 S1

You were ahead of the rest of the country last week. Maybe. Let's catch up with what the country's been advised by the government in relation to DeepSeek.

01:02 S2

Yes. So we talked a little bit about DeepSeek last week. It is the Chinese-developed AI tool. And I mentioned that there was, you know, a little bit of concern around Silicon Valley because they've said that they can do it with much cheaper infrastructure than platforms like ChatGPT and so on, but that there were some concerns around its security. And as a follow up to that, I saw earlier this week that the Australian federal government has blocked access to DeepSeek on all of their devices and from all of their networks. So I suspect their concerns are probably well-founded, or at least serious enough that they've felt it necessary to implement that.

01:49 S1

And in that statement announcing that they were making sure it couldn't be on any government devices, they're advising people not to have it on their own private devices as well. I think the message is, don't swim outside the flags where it's not being patrolled.

02:04 S2

Absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, certainly it is a bit of a venture into the unknown.

02:09 S1

So that's DeepSeek. Many people may not yet be aware of a recently commenced podcast, a technology podcast from the National Federation of the Blind in the United States called Access On. It's hosted by Jonathan Mohsin, and in last week's edition, he had a feature conversation with representatives from Blazie Technologies. You heard it.

02:39 S2

Yes, yes I did. Some of the stuff, obviously, you know, some of us were already aware of. Those of us who have been experimenting around with the BTspeak for a while. So they talked about its history and a little bit about the company and the fact that it is a family company. But the thing that was potentially quite exciting was their plans to release a almost like a modern day Braille light. So they're calling it the BT Braille. So it'll have similar functionality to the BT speak, but it will have refreshable Braille. 

So they are saying that initially they'll have a 20 cell version, and then later on they'll release a 40 cell version. It'll still be Raspberry Pi based, although it'll use a slightly more up to date module than the BTspeak. And they're aiming at a price point of around about 3,500 USD, which will probably be substantially more by the time it's landed here. But, you know, interesting that, you know, that it's something that they are looking at and that they have in development - because they do say that whereas most of the other Braille products that are on the market are either a Braille display or a Braille note taker, they describe these as a pocket computer because of all of the things that you can do with it. 

So I think, you know, it'll be interesting to see how that one develops and the level of interest in it. You know, it won't be for everybody because it's, it'll be Linux-based as the BTspeak is. And that tends to, you know, put some people off. But... yeah, I think it has the potential to be an interesting product. And I'm hoping that at some point, perhaps when I go to Access On, I can have a look at one and report back.

04:28 S1

Yes. That'll be very interesting. A fascinating company, really. Blazie Technologies, a company founded by Dean Blazie and his three sons, Chris, Steven and Brian, worked for him. We say sons, they're '70s babies, so they're they're quite experienced. And it was Brian Blazie who was a guest, along with David Goldfield, who also works for Blazie Technologies. And it was interesting how they talked about their approach and the features they're looking at introducing and various things, including, as you say, the BT Braille, which is maybe a year or so away.

05:09 S2

And well worth a listen, I think if you're curious about the BTspeak and potentially the BT Braille.

05:16 S1

That was on Access On, from the National Federation of the Blind - you can find it the usual way that you seek out your podcasts. 

Now let's talk about SeeingEye, for one, haven't visited it for a little while, but you sent me there recently. It's certainly changed from its earlier days.

05:39 S2

It has. It's evolved quite a lot. We talked a couple of months ago on the program about, you know, the feature that you could use to have videos described to you. So it is still actively being developed. But one of the things that I wanted to mention is the fact that the... interface or the layout of the program has sort of had a bit of a makeover.

06:03 S1

So this comes from Microsoft, doesn't it?

06:05 S2

That's right. It's a free application from Microsoft. A lot of people use it. It has, you know, short text mode, a document mode... you know, for reading... printed text. It has the ability to describe people. It has a photo and video description function. It has a light detector, a colour detector, a whole bunch of different features. And the way it used to work was that as you swipe through the screen, you had a selector where you could swipe up and down and select different channels. They call each feature a channel rather than a, you know, a function or a feature. 

What they've done now is they've changed the layout of the product. So when you first run it, after you've done the update, you'll notice there are three tabs. So there's a Read tab. And what they've done is they've combined all of the reading features into that tab. So you have the short text mode, but if you want it use the document mode. You can tap the Take Picture button. And also the handwriting recognition has been added into or combined into that tab. You've then got the Describe tab, which has all of the sort of image description features available there. So things like the photo and video description, the AI feature where you can ask it about the image, that kind of thing. 

And then there's a More tab, and the More tab is laid out, much like the... sort of the previous layout. So there's pretty much, anything that doesn't fit into either reading or description... it gets put into the More tab and you can swipe up through the different options. There's the things like the world thing, which allows you to pan around with the camera and have things described to you. There's the light detector and the colour detector and so on. 

So it's well worth sort of having a bit of a look around because the the layout has changed, the functionality hasn't. But what they've tried to do is just group all of the features that sort of do similar things or are complementary to one another into these different tabs. So it does. It is a much cleaner interface. It does make a lot of sense, but the first time I looked at it, I thought, Hang on, what's going on here? And it confused me for a couple of minutes. So well worth a bit of a look around before you sort of need to use it in a hurry, just so that you know what's happening.

08:29 S1

I found it interesting going back to seeing AI after not having been there for quite some time, and I was reminded that it's very important when we see these things to go back to them, because you can forget about all the wonderful tricks that are buried away in there.

08:45 S2

Absolutely. You know, and these things are evolving at a quite an alarming rate. So even if you look at an app and you think, Well, maybe that's not for me at the moment, it's always worth checking back every now and then because things do change. And seeing AI particularly is one that is evolving quite rapidly.

09:03 S1

So that's seeing AI from Microsoft. There's a new Apple app that you discovered a thing called invites... I N V I T E S.  

09:15 S2

That's right. And this one is for those of you who like to party, which, incidentally, isn't this grey haired old bloke. But... the concept is interesting nonetheless. So the idea of this is if you're having an event, you know, like a, you know, I don't know, an engagement party, a birthday party, whatever it might be... you can use the app to send out your invites and you can, you know, import photos and sort of personalise the invites. Or you can develop something using the new Image Playground feature if you want. 

So you can... send out the invites, you can track the... replies as to who's coming and who's not. You can... send out directions and weather and things like that so you can send out like a, you know, a map to help people... find the place. You can set up a playlist that people can add songs to. So an Apple Music playlist so people can, you know, add their... choice of music for the party and all of that kind of thing. So very useful potentially for those of you that have a busy social life and have lots of gatherings of one form or another. 

There are a couple of caveats, as there often are with these things. So in order to actually send out the invites and have all of the the features available, you do have to have an iCloud Plus subscription. And if you want to do the collaborative playlist thing, obviously you need access to Apple Music. However, you don't need that iCloud Plus subscription to receive the invites, to respond to them. Those kinds of things you don't even need to be... I think on the Apple ecosystem, you can be an Android user and still respond to the invite and say whether you're going and view the maps and those sorts of things. 

So, yeah, for the socialites among you, it might be something well worth having a look at. As one would expect from Apple, it is very accessible. I haven't obviously had a chance to test it out in a practical sense yet. If I'd had it 3 or 4 weeks ago when I when I had my 50th birthday party, it might have been useful, but... it'll be another ten years before I need to do that. But, I've had a bit of a look at it, and it certainly looks very accessible and quite interesting.

11:29 S1

I must say, it can be a bit challenging when you receive an invitation and it's come from Messenger or somewhere, and you think, How am I supposed to respond to this? Sometimes it's a bit hit and miss whether you pick up those sorts of invitations, but not everybody's going to be using this app, of course, but it seems an interesting step forward. The Invites app from Apple.

11:48 S2

That's right. And you can of course download that just from the Apple App Store as you would any other iOS-type app.

11:55 S1

Damo, we haven't for a while reminded people about a very useful service from Vision Australia, which is the Help Desk.

12:02 S2

Yes, that's always worth keeping in mind. So the At Help Desk is a free service for people to access... phone and email support. You can ring the main Vision Australia number, 1300 847 466. Or you can email ATC help at Vision Australia dot org and the team are all themselves blind or low vision. They all use all of this tech on a daily basis. And so for any, you know, just general tech advice or if you know, all of a sudden your assistive tech stops working and you need some help, well worth giving the At Help Desk a try. They're available Monday to Friday, 8:30 till 6 Australian Eastern Daylight Time.

12:47 S1

So you've got some boundaries around the scope. It's got to be an eight or assistive access technology issue.

12:54 S2

That's right. You know we can't help you with your, you know, perhaps your printer or your internet or your router, those kinds of things. But if it's to do with, you know, your screen reader, your screen magnifier, your... the accessible features on your phone, even Braille devices and those sorts of things, we can definitely do our best to help.

13:15 S1

We must talk some time about the challenge of that broader problem of getting IT support for your home system, because it is challenging for people sometimes, isn't it?

13:26 S2

Yes, we are lucky that we have things like Be My Eyes and IRA that can help us in that situation, but it's still a frustrating experience.

13:34 S1

A lot better than a few years ago.

13:36 S2

Definitely.

13:37 S1

Before we go, a reminder there are details of this and previous editions of the program available by going to VA radio, Talking Tech... VA radio, Talking Tech. And to write to the program...

13:52 S2

You can send me an email - Damo dot M C M O R R O W at Vision Australia dot org - and I really appreciate those that have emailed in.

14:05 S1

damo.mcmorrow@visionaustralia.org ... This has been Talking Tech, with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolley. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.