Global Accessibility Awareness Day and other news

00:21S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition, available from May the 14th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia radio associated stations of RPA Australia or perhaps 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 Dan O'Connor 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 back again. After a bit of a break. Vision Australia's national advisor on access Technology, David Woodbridge. David welcome back.

01:07S2

It's nice to be back. And if my voice sounds different, it's because I'm actually still sick, so hopefully I won't sound too bad.

01:15S1

Let's start with a product from the Vision Store of Vision Australia. You've got some pretty exciting news actually about an old one returning.

01:23S2

I do... this one has not been away for that long. It's only been about 2 or 3 years. And the device, when it came out in the early 90s, it was called the Mountbatten. And then it went through different variations of being called different things. And now the new version, which is now available from both the Vision Store and Quantum technology, are l've reading learning vision is the Mountbatten tutor. This device to me is like the Swiss Army knife of Braille slash print. Because what you have is. Yes, you've got a Braille device and yes, it is electronic. You've got a detachable Braille keyboard in the new one. So it's like a little wireless keyboard. You can browse slash type on that. So your Braille into the Mountbatten. It comes out on Braille on the, the piece of paper. You're sticking to it. 

That's number one. Number two, you can also stick in a QWERTY keyboard via USB and whatever you type on that Qwerty keyboard. So you're doing standard typing comes out in Braille number three, which is amazing for me, is that if you're a parent, you're a support person, you're an itinerant teacher, a teacher in a classroom, etc. the Mountbatten tutor has a built in screen so you can see whatever's being done on the Mountbatten, either via the Braille input keyboard or via the Qwerty keyboard. What's being done on the Mountbatten in Braille? So that's three. Number four is that you can what's called back translate from Braille back to print. So the reason why you'd want to do that is because you can connect the Mountbatten to your personal computer, primarily. Windows also does work on the Mac, but you can also link it up to your Android or your iPhone or iOS device via Bluetooth with the mimic app. 

And it's also got things like built in games. You can compose music on it, and because you're dealing with your bit of braille paper, of course you can do Braille mathematics on it. And the thing I used to always love, even back in the early 90s, is that you can do graphics on it. When you put it in graphics mode, it makes the dots very close together and you can draw all these little, you know, embossed, all these really cool drawings. So it's just an incredibly flexible device. Um, because it's got built in translation. You can also code into your document about what stuff you might want in contracted braille, uncontracted braille, mathematical braille, and so on. So if you want more information about it, um, have a chat to quantum because it is really their device in the beginning, and they're very well known to support the Mountbatten. Absolutely, fantastically well. Um, but you can also, as I said before, you can also buy it from the vision store. But if you wanted to really dig into the nitty gritty of it, uh, have a chat to the people at quantum, and they can certainly take you through the whole stuff to do with the Mountbatten. But like I said, an absolutely brilliant, fantastic device and it's great to see it up and running again.

04:26S1

So this is really a student tool, is that right?

04:28S2

Yeah. Look, it's a student tool because even though it embosses, it actually doesn't really emboss that fast. So I'd say if you're doing short bursts of Braille so, you know, 1015 pages or whatever else, it's fine, but if you're going to be expecting it to do, you know, very rapid Braille embossing. It's not... so it's meant to be a personal braille device. But again, the reason why I like it so much is not so much how fast it does all the Braille and everything else. It's that the interactivity between the person using Braille and then a print-abled person being able to also access that same information as well.

05:05S1

Tell us about it physically, the size, weight, etc..

05:08S2

It looks like a musical device because it's sort of like this little rectangular thing. I think it's about like 45cm across, about 15cm from front to back and about the same height. It's not that heavy when you pick this thing up, you can pop it in a backpack. And, you know, I mean, you wouldn't want to use it all the time with other your other stuff in your backpack, but it's certainly portable. It's also very quiet. So we know the amount of horrendous noise that Braille embossers can, can do. This one's actually fairly quiet. And you can actually change the impact of the embossing head on the paper. So if you can think about things like, you know, the clack clack clack of the actual embossing head, if it's thick paper, it's going to hit it harder. If it's thin paper like printer paper, it's going to hit it very softly. If you adjust the...

And so for years in schools it's very, very good because you're not going to get the enormous amount of noise. It's even, I'd probably say about two thirds as quiet as using a Perkins Brailler. So just an all around great device. But you're quite right, Stephen. It's a great school device. I'd also have to maybe doing short notes, for, you know, TAFE or university study. Fine. But you wouldn't want to do, you know, 50 to 100 pages each time you had to emboss something out.

06:27S1

And you're going to have to find somebody to pay the money for it, though, aren't you? It's not cheap.

06:32S2

It's around about $8,000. So it's one of those things that you would have to go and get funding for to be able to afford it. But anybody that wants to look at it, I'd say go, go and get a proper demonstration of it. You would absolutely have to get assessed for it, to get any sort of funding for it. As I said, have a chat to Quantum and they can certainly fill you in with it.

06:55S1

The Mountbatten Tutor... a few other points to whip through now. There was an Apple event last week, May the 7th.

07:03S2

Simply put, the Apple event, which went for 42 minutes, could be actually resolved down to about, I guess about four minutes if you really wanted to. Apple announced two iPads, the iPad air and the iPad Pro, both of them coming in a 11 inch and a 13 inch version. The Pro version actually comes with the M4 chip, so Apple's sort of jumped in the deep end with announcing the M4 chip and the iPad Pro. So of course everybody's now speculating what's going to happen with the Worldwide Developers Conference coming up in June with, you know, Siri and iPad OS 18 and so on. So that's going to be interesting to do if all the generative AI type stuff. 

They also announced an Apple Pencil Pro. What's confusing now, Stephen, is that we've now got several versions of the Apple Pencil, which will only work with certain iPads. They've dropped the iPad nine. We've still got the iPad ten, which is the entry level. We've still got the iPad mini. Um, and it's just getting more and more confusing which iPad to actually go for. My feeling over the last couple of years is that the iPad air is always been the really good thing to look forward to about having a really solid tablet to use. But as with everything, it's really up to you to decide what functionality you want out of either of or all of those different types of iPads. 

So when in doubt, again, go and have a play, have a look, have a chat to people and then try and make up your own mind. But there are available from this week. So if you want to go and have a look in the the Apple Store physically, or you want to go to the App Store app on your iOS device, it'll be all in there and have a look at the technical specifications because they're getting very close together. Besides the fact that the air's got M2 and the Pro's got an M4, uh, all the other specs about cores and that sort of stuff are getting very, very close together.

09:04S1

Now. Robert Carter's Tech Doctor podcast has had two recent editions. You've been on both of them. One of them was about this Apple event, and also there was one a couple of weeks earlier about the BT Speak from Blaze Technologies.

09:18S2

I did, yeah, look, I sort of waxed lyrical on the... BT Speak and I think I reminisced a bit about the old Braille and speak, and I think I even started calling it the Braille and speak halfway through the podcast. So, if you're interested in our take on the recent Apple event last week and my runaway mouth to do with the the BT speak, I'm actually still enjoying the BT speak. So have a listen to it and see what you think.

09:44S1

We did talk on this program last week about the new versions of the Sonos apps, and they're not very good, is what we thought. And we were right. And the feeling about this has spread. It's gone to the Mac 9 to 5 publication that a lot of people read.

10:01S2

It has. And I guess from a positive point of view, it's great when this sort of stuff reaches mainstream media, because then it seems to be taking a little bit more seriously rather than sort of being in our little realm of influence. And I think it's really good on a couple of points, the one that they talked about it and number two, that Sonos has come back to, particularly Jonathan Mason, who started the, um, chat about making it the Sonos app accessible because it wasn't when it came out and got updated. And they're going to be linking up and having discussion with them to see what things can be done to work on accessibility. 

But as we all know, and speaking about Global Accessibility Awareness Day this week, "GAAD", which is really a day, but I always say it's the whole week this week. Everybody knows that when you build accessibility, you build accessibility from the start. You don't add in accessibility at the end because then it becomes horrendously expensive. It's time consuming, it's tricky and so on. So I think what mistakes Sonos has obviously made is that they've produced this fantastic new app, which they said they were very courageous about doing. So besides doing a courageous app which apparently nobody likes anyway, they also completely broke accessibility. So hopefully there'll be just as courageous about now having to go back and retrofit, which is always harder and more expensive and time consuming, and an inaccessible app that, of course, lots of blind and low vision folks use around the world.

11:29S1

And just quickly, for the Sonos leadership team who will be listening. And for everybody else, tell us about Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD).

11:38S2

Yep. So Global Accessibility Awareness Day, it's on the 16th, 16th of May. It's really aimed at accessibility to the web, digital accessibility to do with applications and document access. But what I also like to tell people about is think about everything you do in your life that is digital, and then how you access that digital information. And can you get access to it easily? Can you be independent in doing it? Everything else. So look at, you know, can you get access to the kiosk system in a shop? Can you use the self checkout? Can you access or have other ways of accessing information at public railway stations that don't have staff anymore? Because it's all electronic and things like that. 

So and with those sort of things, give positive feedback because as soon as you start being negative, people will just shut down and you know they don't want to listen anymore. So you say, um, you know, I just want to bring to your attention the fact that I can't access this. I'm wondering if some general things could have actually be done to make this more accessible. And then you start a conversation and hopefully then both parties get something out of it.

12:45S1

Telstra moving to get away from 3G, which served us well for a long time.

12:50S2

It has, particularly in rural areas. So what they've done is that they've extended the shutdown period to the 31st of August. So now they're asking people to check their SIM cards in their devices to make sure they're compatible with the current 4G or 5G network. And the advice I've got for people is contact your supplier, whether it's Telstra, Optus, Vodafone, etc. and just double check. But also remember, it's not just mobile phone SIM cards, it's all the SIM cards that you have in other devices like alarm systems, CPAp machines and other monitoring devices. They also need to be checked as well. 

So if you're not sure, contact your supplier. I've been getting a few queries about the Blind Shaw Classic Two, which I'm fairly sure will be fine, but again, I would contact Quantum Technology reading learning vision and just double-check with them that the wireless cellular stuff in the Blind Shaw Classic Two is compatible.

13:50S1

Just 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.

13:56S2

Indeed. So as always, you can actually check out my blog site, which is David Woodbridge Dot Podbean podbean.com.

Indeed. So as always, you can actually check out my blog site, which is David Woodbridge Dot Podbean podbean.com.

14:04S1

David Woodbridge at Podbean, podbean.com. To write to the program.

14:10S2

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

14:17S1

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.