Most Interesting Device of 2023

S1 (Speaker 1)

Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from November 14th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have you with us listening through maybe Virgin Australia Radio associated sessions of Australia or maybe 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 a canal 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, let's start with a bit of an update to a conversation we had last week about the vision store, where you were talking about the great reservoir. It is for Christmas gifts, but people have got to make sure they make the last order date to get it to their friends by Christmas.

01:13

S2

So the order cutoff date is in two parts, actually. So if you're anywhere else in Australia except for Western Australia, then the cutoff date is actually 8th of December. And if you are in Western Australia then the cut off date is the 1st of December. So again, Western Australia is actually the 1st of December. Anywhere else in Australia, including Tasmania is actually the 8th of December.

S1

And those dates are Fridays. We did mention last week the brilliant and the major update to version 2.1, and you've been playing with those updates.

S2

I have, as we pointed out, that our will now connect with the Vision Australia library. So in in iOS or Android terms, the connect. And it was absolutely amazing because I was able to listen to everything that the visual library offers. So I was enjoying a couple of my already on my bookshelf Daisy audio books. Then I was able to read the Sydney Morning Herald in Braille, actually on the Braille display of the Bryant, and also was able to listen to a few podcasts, including Talking Tech from Vision Australia Radio, which was also very awesome. 

And just to note for people that for what I've got is that if I return a book on my bookshelf, which you can do on the Bryant, I've actually got my profile set up on Vision Australia Library to automatically suggest another book to me once I've returned one. Now, if you don't have that turned on in your profile, what would have to happen is that you'd have to log in either on the connect app on Android or iOS, or on the web page for Vision Australia library, and actually search and add a book there so you actually can't add a book inside the online Daisy Vision Australia library service. But like I just said, if you've got an automatic update once you've returned to book, then you should be fine.

S1

But it's pretty good how the newspapers tumble down as they're published, don't they?

S2

It's incredible. Yeah, and the one nice thing about Brown, which we always keep getting caught out with speech, is that you really get to learn how people spell their names or other things going on in the world that you're actually literally reading in under your fingertips. So that's one of the things I miss about Braille in particular, is that you don't have that sort of one on one correspondence for literacy.

S1

Leader has been with us now as a technology in the iPhone for three years. It came out with the iPhone 12. More and more work is being done to make use of this technology. And there's an app that you discovered recently called Obstacle Detector. What do you reckon?

S2

It's a very good start. I mean, there's been a few of these apps over the years that have work with, you know, the 12 Pro, 13 Pro, 14 Pro and of course the 15 Pro. And look, it has it has vibration, it has audio and it has speech, which what I would advise not to use because it all makes make the app unusable because it keeps talking at distances and so on. But as a good starting point to tell you how far you're away from an object. So of course, in the old terms, the closer the clicks, the closer you are, the lower the slower the clicks, the further away you are. 

And I think if I was going to test this absolutely properly, then I would suggest maybe wearing a chest harness or a lanyard around your neck, which sort of may or may not work because it still moves when you're walking around. But look, I think it's a good start because rather than spending, I don't know, six. $700 on a on a sonar device you're spending. If you want to buy the full version, $7 on something that you know may work for you and may not. 

Keeping in mind that you've got all the other lead functions such as door detection and so on in the camera app on iOS, but it's one of those apps where I think because somebody has gone to the trouble of writing and developing such an app, I would love it if people gave the developer feedback and constructive feedback. So saying, look, this is really fantastic. It would it be possible to do A, B, C, and D and really encourage this developer and perhaps other developers to take on this type of orientation mobility software on your smartphone, in this case, the iPhone.

S1

That's obstacle detector, very easy to find in the App Store. As Christmas approaches, we start to think about how we might treat others, or even ourselves. And maybe the device of the year is the sense player from hims.

S2

You know, look, I was looking back over all my gadgets. Now I've got two shelves that are four meters long, practically with lots and lots of tech on them, including other areas of this room. And I was thinking, if I had to really sit down and work out what the most interesting, innovative, good looking, easy to use, most productive little piece of hardware that I could possibly have in my hand, of course, besides my iPhone, then I really think it really does need to be the sense player OCR 80. 

And the reason for that is because we've got the FM radio. We can use it as a custom keyboard to your smartphone iPhone in particular. We can listen to podcasts, Daisy books, the web, radio in particular, use it as a recorder and so on. And the fact that it looks like a really cool little device in your hand, plus the fact that it's got stereo speakers, which to me is actually a really cool thing. When you're listening to good audio, then I don't think there's anything not in the device. 

And one really cool thing, I came across this really lovely thing that was mentioned on Vision Australia as part of our workplace web hub, and that is the light that cannot be seen. And it's an audio described miniseries about a blind girl meeting a German soldier during the last part of the Second World War. And it's beautifully done. The actress is absolutely amazing portraying a blind person, and I listen to that on Netflix on my sense player. How cool is that? Listening to an absolutely beautiful little miniseries and being able to listen to it on my little handheld device.

S1

And it's great with Connectable headset, 3.5 mil connection, or of course, the Bluetooth. And it's very good with the Apple AirPods. Great little device. I Bluetooth that yesterday to my speakers in the lounge room, and could quickly change from one web stream to another, and it worked beautifully. It was like a remote control.

08:26

S2

Nice little device.

S1

Tell me about Octo Studio.

S2

Over the last several years or so, we've had a number of apps brought out by, in particular, places like the emerging printing house for the blind to do with teaching blind or low vision children how to code. And most of it's been around the sort of concept of block programming where you basically add blocks or code chunks into a stack, and you can change them around and you can do sounds or pictures or images and that sort of cool stuff. 

And what Perkins School for the blind have done in conjunction with MIT, who really knows what they are? They actually have an app called Octo Studio, which again is for seven years and above, teaching blind and low vision and sighted children originally sighted how to do block coding. And what they've done is they've made the app on iOS and Android screen reader friendly. So if you're on iOS, VoiceOver works. If you're on Android, talkback works. And look, I wouldn't say the apps and they admit this. It's not 100% accessible, but 90% of it is fine for doing basic block coding so you can pick your image, sound, etcetera. And you can build this little program, and then you can run the program. 

And the video that they had was a strawberry on a plate getting squashed. Remember this is for children. So that's why the strawberry got squashed. But no, it's really, really cool. It's free. So octo as it sounds studio and I think it's really worthwhile. It's again another tool in your toolbox for getting your young folks into Stem science. Technology, engineering and mathematics.

S1

There was an article on VS which is the Blindness Community Forum for Apple Stuff, an article there are a few weeks ago about the Mac and how well Apple is playing the game, supporting the Mac for blind users. Tell us about the article.

S2

Yeah, the article was basically entitled I can no longer recommend the Mac for people who are blind in particular. And this was all based around Safari. So when using Safari on some web pages or maybe lots of web pages, for this person that wrote the article, you would get Safari not responding. And this person said that this got to such a state of irritation that he now can no longer recommend the Mac, particularly if using web browsing in good conscience to people actually using Safari. And he said, I know you can do workarounds. I know you can go and use another app, but, you know, honestly, VoiceOver should be fixed so it works with the application that's built in, which is Safari.

S1

What's your reaction?

S2

My reaction is it's that old thing about chucking out the baby with the bathwater. I haven't had the safari not responding now for quite a long time, but even on windows, when I had issues with Microsoft Edge or Firefox or Chrome and one of them didn't work, I just went and switched to another browser. I mean, at the end of the day, it was no big deal. 

And I really think that's the attitude we need to take with the Mac. Just because VoiceOver is built in and just because it supposedly crashes all the time with Safari. That's one program that I use out of about 20 programs on the Mac. So just because one program doesn't work doesn't mean you should stop using the Mac. So that's sort of my argument against that particular article.

S1

But let's hope the issue is dealt with so that you don't have to go another way around. Don't stop yourself having the benefit of pretty good technology. Just like windows technologies. You've had an interesting experience using audible because you're one of these people who uses the same app on different platforms. Tell us about it.

S2

I've been listening to see if other people have this issue. So when I'm using the audible app on iOS or on my iPhone 14 Pro, when I go down the main home tab where you've got suggestions of titles or books, what VoiceOver says is details button, and then practically almost like it's reading an image of the title of the book, and sometimes it reads it properly and sometimes it doesn't. And if it doesn't read it properly, I just get details button. Now, when I use the exactly same app cause different coding was on Android, when I go down the home tab on suggested titles, it reads out that all the titles of the books properly, you know? 

So I get Harry Potter, Philosopher's Stone and then a bit of a little summary who the author is and so on. But I definitely don't get anything about details. Button and you, you know, you feel like it's sort of reading half of the screen and half the time it's all jumbled up. So what? I'd love to know. And you can email David Woodbridge at Vision Australia at org. Are other people experiencing this very annoying issue on iOS? Because if you are, I'd love to hear from you. And in that way I can email or you can email, particularly us in Australia, audible, Australian Audible and just give some feedback to them because, you know, I've got lots and lots of books and audible. I'd I'd love to read my title suggestions properly.

13:41

S1

Just before we go, a reminder of where people can find details of what you've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program.

S2

So as always, you can check out my blog site, which is David Woodbine dot Podbean podbean.

S1

Com David would be dot podbean pod b e a n to write to the program.

S2

You can write to me at vision where I work which is David Woodbridge hot sounds at vision australia.org.

14:09

S1

David-dot-Woodbridge at Vision australia-dot-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.