Assistive Tech for Low Vision

00:08

S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from August the 15th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us wherever you're listening, perhaps through Virgin Australia radio associated Stations 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 then 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 is someone who can explain all this tech stuff really well. Vision Australia's National Advisor on Access Technology, David Woodbridge. David, last week we spoke about the technology that you'd be recommending. A person who was blind would think about when they'd be using screen readers and Braille, etcetera. We were going to talk today about the situation for people with low vision.

S2

Indeed. So what I thought I might do today, which is slightly different from last week, I talk about the base hardware for everybody, so home, school and employment, and then I'll add on the little bits that will increase your productivity in that sort of stuff. So let's just start with the base configuration stuff for... so again, it's basically the same hardware in a way as last week. 

So it's your Windows 11 laptop or desktop again with 16GB of Ram and an i7 processor. So of course that's for Windows and a mac. I'm still going to stick to the M2, MacBook Pro and of course running on Windows, you'd be running either the Zoom, which is built into Windows itself if you can't afford anything else. And if you can, then I always recommend Zoom because it's been my favorite for a long, long, long, long time. And of course, on the Mac, you've only got a choice between one system like you do with speech, and that's called System Zoom. 

And then for the other things at home, you might want to consider. I always recommend a good size LCD monitor, and I say that because it's a crisper, clearer screen to look at and it doesn't suffer from glare as much as an LCD screen. And you can get effectively whatever size you like because it's going to plug into the Windows computer or the Mac the next thing. And again, this is probably only if you need it, is a monitor arm. So of course that's the pop the monitor on the external one or even your laptop for that matter, if you really want to use it that way and bring the screen closer to you so you're not hunching forward trying to peer at the screen all the time, large print keyboard or large print stickers. 

So again, you can buy a large print keyboard standard with black on white, white on black or yellow on black keys. And of course, the stick on labels just will go on any keyboard. And then the iPhone. Now for low vision people, I'm not too fast for accessibility between the iPhone and a Android phone. So if you if you love Android I still recommend a Samsung phone so you know go for it for Android if you want. 

S1

Which model of iPhone for a low vision person?

S2

 I'd say go for the bigger screen. Think about the iPhone 14 plus because the next version up in the bigger screen is going to be the iPhone pro max, which is going to send you back a lot, a lot more expense wise than the than the lower version. So if a bigger screen suits your vision, because remember, sometimes bigger is not better for people with particular vision conditions, then I'd go for the 14 plus. 

Or if you're not fussed about it, either the 14 or the 14 pro, if you need the the extra pro stuff, which leads me onto my next thing is still get yourself a stand that you can put your phone on. It doesn't matter again, it doesn't matter what it is. And last of all, I always recommend if you want to get a Bluetooth headphones, go for the shocks and of course a printer slash scanner.

S1

So that's really for anybody with low vision. Tell us what you would recommend that students think about.

S2

For schools in particular? What I would tend to recommend, which is a little bit extra, is a Bluetooth keyboard. And yes, I'm saying a separate Bluetooth keyboard because sometimes I don't trust standard large print keyboards, let's just say that. So Bluetooth keyboard and then it will give you access to an iPhone a course as last time. I always recommend an iPad because again, some things won't work on an iPhone, plus an iPad's got a much bigger screen and then the next thing I recommend and I strongly recommend people get an assessments and I'll backtrack to home in a minute. 

But when you're looking at video magnifiers and I mean electronic video magnification, that increases the stuff that you're looking through pretty much for a video camera. That does all sorts of wonderful things for low vision people. Please get an assessment because these things can span from 6 to $800 up to $8,000. I don't want to mislead anybody, but let's just say both employment and for school, you can get hand-held ones that are portable. 

You can get ones that just look at what the camera is looking at directly, or you can get distance viewing ones. You can get desktop ones that you put the piece of paper underneath and then it electronically focus what you're looking at. You can get wearable ones and you can also get ones that do not only video magnification but also do speech. So they'll do optical character recognition. 

So always say to people and this gets back to the home thing I was going to mention when you get past optical video magnifiers so your good old sort of your visual arts and your your torch ones that have got video implication and the light in them, they're fine. But once you get above these very expensive to these very expensive ones, you really, really do need to get assessed by a orthopedist.

06:10

S1

Anything extra for people to think about when they're working?

S2

This is going to sound a bit strange. Clearly, for employment, you need a lighting assessment. So above the video magnification and all the other hardware I've talked about, because lighting is so important for people with low vision, people that do these lighting assessments, look at things like what sort of lights are in the ceilings, what sort of lights coming through the window, blinds recommended, which way your desk is facing. Is there any other source that's splashing onto your screen that's giving you eyestrain and fatigue? 

So all sorts of things can be done with a lighting system, and particularly for job access, the assessor can write recommendations for changing the workplace if possible, such as putting a blind in changing the diffuser and the lights above your desk, maybe even taking out a light above your desk if it's too bright. And you know, for schools, they might suggest that, you know, David, who's low vision, might want to sit down the front of the class, for example, if the lighting's better or worse than the front class versus the back. 

So again, for low vision, you do need to get assess when you're looking at anything to do with your vision. Not so much the hardware, but to do with how your your seeing the screens that you're looking at or the hardcopy print that you're viewing through something like a video magnifying camera type system.

S1

So what are the pathways to getting good advice about the technology?

S2

So a good starting point is always to ring up the adaptive Technology helpdesk at Vision Australia, which is the 1300 847 46 Number.

S1

1300 847 46.

S2

And just gather as much information as you can. And then of course, assessment wise, then you would contact the Vision Australia Adaptive Technology Service to arrange an assessment. Now that assessment can be for home for school and for employment. So it's not just for school and employment, it's also for home, particularly for home. 

If you also want a video magnifier because you might want to read the newspapers on a Saturday morning and your your optical magnifier is not good enough. Or you might want a video magnifier. So again, you would talk to the people and come out and they would give me and show you a range of devices. Just keep in mind, just because you see one device doesn't mean that's the be an end or have a look at at least several and then make up your own mind.

S1

Speaking of Vision Australia, the digital Access team are again conducting an assistive technology survey.

S2

So this is for Australians, for anybody who was blind or low vision or carers of people that use assistive technology. So we're talking about Windows, Mac, iOS, Android. Funnily enough, Linux is not mentioned, which is a bit of a side side point. But look, it really only takes you around about 10 to 15 minutes. It's all sort of checkboxes and radio buttons. 

And I think it's the other thing if you if you choose other, you've got a little bit more. But besides that, it's very straightforward and it'll help Vision Australia look at what we have to put our research into for both web design and application design to be completed by September 1st.

S1

September 1st. And you've got a link to that in the show notes. I do Bindi Maps do some very interesting indoor stuff and they're conducting a survey at the moment.

S2

They have again, because they're doing some work on different types of usage for Bindi Maps moving forward. And what they want to find out is how people really do use their navigation, a hardware and software. So your smartphone plus all your other stuff like your mini guide and your guide dog and really get an idea of both how you travel independently using GPS and then how you indoor navigate using your different piece of technology. And again, that's to be hopefully completed by September 1st. When I did it, it probably took me less than ten minutes, but it's a very thorough survey of navigation. So fill that one in and look. Again, it just helps researchers and developers look at what they need to do.

10:23

S1

For those who use the sense player from Hims, which is the multimedia device that came out earlier this year. Exciting news last week.

S2

Extremely exciting. You I almost fell off my chair when I read it. It's a system 2.0 or sense player version 2.0. And the thing that got me very excited, Stephen, of course, was the fact that we can now access the default apps for Android that hims recommends. And then you can also put in your own apps from a particular service that they explain in the very well done to trial for the sense play version 2.0. But I'm assuming, Steve, you've played with some other bits and pieces in the sense player upgrade and did anything stand out for you in particular?

S1

Well, I must quickly say the Android apps one is very interesting. I can run BBC sounds and was able to go out as advised in the tutorial hunt for ABC. Listen and have got that on board now. In other areas there's done a lot of work with the media playlists and with the what you might describe as the book playlists. The place in the book is maintained more easily and some other very nice features. 

With the streaming of the web radio, one can organise the stations a lot better, grouped them the way you want to have them in the right sequence rather than just in the sequence that you've loaded them on board. So some very interesting tidy ups and I reckon there'll be more to come in the future too.

S2

Yeah, they didn't mention this a while ago, but I think I did ask Sam Taylor from Pacific Vision if if it did have a GPS chip and he didn't really answer me, so I thought, wouldn't that be cool? But as they pointed out in the tutorial, the sense player is not meant to be a smartphone. So, you know, whilst it's got a camera and it can do all sorts of wonderful things, I think they might have mentioned this about several times during the tutorial. It's not a replacement for your smartphone.

S1

Yeah, very good point. Be my. I started talking about a virtual AI assistant back in I think it was around March and they had a closed beta program that's become a lot more open from this week. So people have put their names on the list for that will be invited very soon hopefully to participate in that public beta program. Should be an interesting one.

S2

Look, I think so, because the demo that I saw several months ago was a lady looking at a magazine that had different fashion models in it, and she was able to ask a description of what each model was wearing. So what doesn't effective, you know, for people dressed up or for people wearing a dress? It was much more detailed. So I'm really looking forward to testing this myself. 

And as they said in the notes from Be My Eyes, you'll get an invite email to be part of the beta program. And for those who signed up a long, long time ago, you'll be first off the rank. And if you sign up now, then they'll get to you when they get you. But no, it's exciting times because I've been really, really, really wanting to try this feature out and this is really bringing, you know, things like ChatGPT and another models of artificial intelligence to help us blind and low vision folks quite dramatically.

S1

Before we go, a reminder of where can be found. Details of what we've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program.

S2

Indeed. So as always, you can check out my blog site, which is David would be a dot podbean pad and.

S1

David would be dot podbean podbean. Com. To write to the program.

S2

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

14:07

S1

David-dot-Woodbridge at Vision Australia-org. This has been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national adviser on access technology, David Woodbridge. I'm Stephen Jolley. Take care. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.