New tech from Alexa and Linux, and a world conference

00:07 S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from March the 4th, 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 Dan. 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. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo.

00:49 S2

G'day, Stephen.

00:50 S1

Alexa, it's been around for a while. It's going to have a bit of a facelift soon.

00:54 S2

That's right. Amazon have announced Alexa Plus. This is sort of the AI powered version of the Alexa virtual assistant. They're saying that it will be rolled out sort of to in terms of early access this month, but that it will be rolled out progressively over the coming months to varying devices, they'll say. They're saying that it's more conversational. It will, for example, remember the context. So it'll remember the last few things you asked it, that kind of thing, and be able to sort of link those together to to sort of have a more conversational interaction. And obviously all of the other benefits that we've, we're already seeing with things like... ChatGPT and, you know, other other AI platforms like it.

01:47 S1

It's interesting. I'm one of those users who uses Alexa on my standalone device, Alexa devices, but I've also got it with my Sonos system, and it'll be interesting to see how it integrates with that. I guess it won't be the first application of it, though.

02:03 S2

No, at this point, they're saying that it'll work on the Echo Show 8, Echo Show 10. And I think the Echo Show 15. At this stage, it won't be available on your sort of Echo Dot, Echo Pop-type speakers, but it will be later on, I believe. One thing to note is that there is a cost associated with it, unless you're an Amazon Prime member. So if you're an Amazon Prime member, you'll get it for free. If you're not an Amazon Prime member... it'll cost you $20 a month. So Amazon Prime is a much cheaper way to get it, because then you get all of the other benefits of like, you know, next day delivery and all of those things. So... if you're not an Amazon Prime member now and you're likely to want it, it might be a cheaper way to get it than just paying for the Alexa Plus as a standalone.

02:52 S1

And we apologise to all those people whose devices have come on and off in the last two minutes or so when we've been talking about it.

03:00 S2

Yes. Including mine, incidentally.

03:03 S1

So yes, Alexa Plus - a facelift coming there, and it'll hit your device before you realise.

03:10 S2

Probably, probably. It's an interesting thing, though, isn't it, when you think I'm sort of wondering whether they've missed the boat or whether a little bit too late to the party, because we've already got things like conversational mode with ChatGPT, we've got things like our Meta glasses that do that, and I'm not particularly interested in having a conversation with the device, as such. But, you know, the fact that it does remember what you've already asked, it is quite useful. 

But I do sort of think, given that, you know, these things a couple of years ago were really leading the way in sort of voice interaction. It seems to me that it's perhaps a little bit... later than I would have liked. You know, I would have expected them to jump on the bandwagon a little earlier. So I guess we'll see when it comes out how good it is and whether it's something that people decide to adopt.

04:01 S1

And we'll see more with Siri, the Apple Intelligence feature, as the year goes on, too.

04:08 S2

Yes, I think so. I think we'll see some developments with it. Definitely. And probably some of the other platforms that are around as well.

04:16 S1

Yeah. Okay. Now it's been interesting that over the last 12 months or so, amongst particularly the blindness community and Braille users, there's been a bit of an uptake in the interest of Linux. And that's because people have equipped themselves with a BT Speak, which is the device from Blazie Technologies, which has the Braille keyboard input and speech output, works on the Linux platform. And we've been talking about it over the last year or so. You've found an interesting resource.

04:49 S2

Yes, I have. And you and I have both sort of been tinkering a little bit with Linux over the last little while for me, not just the BT Speak, but I've also got some other Raspberry Pi type devices, which is the sort of the underlying hardware that the BT Speak runs on. But I also have half a dozen of them on the desk here running various other, uh, ham radio applications and things. And it's one of those things that with Linux, it's always been a sort of associated with geekery, if you like. And it always felt like you had to have a, you know, a pilot's license and a degree in microelectronics to use it. 

Whereas I think it's moved from sort of being a command line based thing to having a graphical interface as well. Now, so similar to what you would have on windows or the Mac. We've got things like the orca screen reader to make that accessible. But the problem is, because it's open source, there's a lot of different things out there and a lot of lot of different websites, and it's sort of where do you go to get your information? 

So there's a gentleman by the name of Chris Egeland, who has been a Linux user on and off since about 2002, I believe. And he has put together a website called Blind Linux. It's just blind Linux linux.com. And he's sort of trying to pull together a bunch of resources to allow someone who is blind or has low vision to kind of get up and running with Linux. So there's for example, instructions on how to make a bootable USB drive so that you don't necessarily have to dedicate your computer to it or, you know, even a part of your hard disk. You can set your computer up and just boot up Linux from a USB stick and run it that way. 

Or if you've got a, you know, an older computer, perhaps you can use that. Or there's even things that you can do now with virtual machines using something like VMware player, which is an app that almost allows you to run an operating system within an operating system. So you could have your computer running Windows or Mac OS, and you could run another operating system like Linux or an earlier version of windows or something like that. Inside that environment. 

That sort of method is quite useful for testing and those sorts of things. Or, you know, you might have an old program that only ran on Windows XP. You could have a virtual Windows XP machine that you could you could have running on your Windows 11 PC or your Mac or whatever you've got. So there's a number of different ways of doing it, and there's some quite good resources there. And I believe he's sort of trying to build it and increase the available resources over time and sort of welcomes, you know, contributions from people. He's trying to make it a friendly place to get started with Linux. If people want to have a bit of a tinker with Linux and maybe experiment with it... it sounds to me like it would be a good place to start. I suppose I am a bit of a geek at heart, and I've enjoyed messing about with it over the last little while and figuring out what it can do.

07:49 S1

It's an interesting concept that one of the virtual machine, which has been around since the 60s and 70s, actually.

07:56 S2

Yeah. And it's actually quite interesting because a lot of large data centres, that's how they work now. They don't have a sort of a one box, one operating system arrangement. They'll have one physical piece of hardware that might host 20 or 30 different servers, you know, for 20 or 30 different companies, you know, with websites on or the mail servers or whatever they might happen to be. So it's a fairly prevalent sort of technology in the... corporate world in terms of data centres and things as well now. Mm.

08:26 S1

Damo, we're going to lose your company for a week or two as you go across the Pacific to California.

08:33 S2

Don't cheer too loudly. We'll be back. But yes, I am off to CSUN, which is the... California State University's... Assistive Technology Conference. It's one of the premier assistive technology events on the calendar each year. And, so, yes, I'm headed there, to meet with some suppliers and check out some products. It's my first time... attending that particular conference, so I'm quite excited about it.

09:00 S1

Anything special that you're looking at?

09:05 S2

I am looking forward to meeting with some of the suppliers that we already work with, people that I've corresponded with on email for years. I'm interested in whether there'll be some new products that I haven't seen. You know, I'm thinking perhaps the BT Braille might be there and they might have a prototype that we can look at or. But research often have devices to show, you know, they were there was a lot of excitement a couple of years ago about their Braille laptop, the Optima, which hasn't sort of made it to market yet, but keen to have a look at what they have. 

And there's lots of other bits and pieces. I've got quite a list from colleagues around the organisation saying while you're there, have a look and see if these people are here and check them out and let us know what you think. So there's, you know, some other electronic travel aids. There's all sorts of things. I'm told it can take more than a day just to get through the exhibit hall, and that's without attending any of the actual conference presentations, which I'm looking forward to as well.

10:02 S1

We're going to have a lot to ask you about when you get back. Now, one of the things that occurs to me is that being a very organised person, and you use a lot of tech in your daily life at home, you won't want to set all that aside for the time that you're away. How do you prepare yourself with your personal technology for an adventure like this?

10:26 S2

Sometimes it's actually a bit of a challenge because you don't want to end up like the travelling road show. But we do, as you say, we do use technology so much in our daily lives that it will be a question of what do I take and what can I do without for a week or so? Obviously, a couple of things that are given are my my iPhone, some good noise cancelling headphones for the plane flight. I've got a set of Apple AirPods Pro, which I'll be using, probably the Meta glasses because I may need to find out about my my surroundings. I may or may not take a Stellar Trek with me. 

If it arrives in time, I will take a wee walk because I won't have my seeing eye dog Jenner with me. Um, so it'll be a good opportunity to sort of put that through its paces. And so I may use that and its navigation capability rather than the stellar I don't know. I also like to take a Braille device of some sort so that I can note take, and so that I've got access to my email on the go. So I do use a Braillesense 6 Mini, so I'll be using that probably as my note taking device, because I can turn the speech off and, you know, still have Braille access and that kind of thing. And I can respond to work emails, you know, ten meetings remotely if I have to while I'm on the go, that kind of thing. So that's still quite a list. 

The other thing that I do like to take when I travel is a couple of those USB-type power banks at guys in the US actually sell one that's... accessible in that it has haptic feedback to tell you how charged the battery is and whether it's on or off, that kind of thing. So they're quite good because it means you can charge your phone a number of times without having to mess about with power converters and those kinds of things. So I'll probably take 1 or 2 of those little power banks. They're just a sort of a rectangular block, if you like, with... a USB-A and USB-C connector on them.

12:26 S1

What's your go-to recording device these days?

12:29 S2

Oh, yes. I'll definitely be taking that. Good.... point. These days I'm using a Zoom H1 Essentials, because of the fact that it has a bunch of accessible menus. All of the features and functions talk. It's very small and very light. The only thing it's a little bit limited in that you can't plug external microphones into it. And I have been considering getting an H4 just because it's a slightly higher quality recorder, but because of everything else I take, I'm trying to travel light, so it'll either be the Zoom H1 Essentials or the H4 Essentials, which will give me a nice, accessible recording solution. 

And because both of those use 32 bit float as their recording format, you don't have to mess around setting levels. It won't clip. So that's always nice. It saves you having to come back and mess around with things because it's either distorted or way too quiet.

13:21 S1

Very nice. Well, we look forward to hearing what you might pick up over there on your recording device, and certainly to chatting with you about what you've discovered as you go to CSUN. And we'll talk about that in a couple of weeks time here on Talking Tech. Now, before we go, a reminder to everyone that you can always catch up with the details of this and previous editions of the program by going to varadio.org/talking tech - VA radio, dot org slash talking tech. And to write to the program, Damo...

13:55 S2

Damo dot McMorrow - M C M O R R O W at Vision Australia dot org.

14:03 S1

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