No Internet? No problem!

00:08

S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from July the 25th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us wherever you're listening, perhaps through Vision Australia Radio associated Stations of Australia or the Community Radio Network, there is also the podcast. If you haven't caught up with that yet, all you need to do is search for the two words talking tech and Dan can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask a 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 pretend today that the internet is out of the way. Maybe you're on an aeroplane or somewhere. There are lots of options though, aren't there?

S2

There are because when you think when you you're not in cellular contact or you're not in internet range where I said you're in the sky and you've got airplane mode turned on, you sometimes think, Oh, you know, I can't do anything with my devices. But I spent the weekend going through my devices that I use in plus a few more ones at Vision Australia Vision store cell. And it's amazing what you can actually do if one if you're prepared and two, if the actual device you're using can work quite happily when it's not connected to the, you know, the vast superhighway.

S1

Let's start with some human wear products. The Victor Reader Stratus.

S2

This is one of these products that it's been around, would you believe, since about 2011. So it's been around for a long time. And what it is, it's basically a daisy player that still has wait for it a CD slot to put CDs into it, including Daisy CDs, audio CDs, music and or commercial audiobooks. And you can also plug in a SD card and a USB stick and get access to that content, including documents the WI fi portion of the player allows you to access the Vision Australia Library if you want to, but if you don't want to and you want to sit back and listen to your good old audio CD collection and other stuff, it's an absolutely amazing player.

S1

Now to a very current device, the Victor Reader Stream three.

S2

I know this is always one of my favorite players, these ones. So the Victor Rita stream, of course, you've got two modes. You've got an online mode which will leave at the moment. The offline mode, though, allows you to read existing daisy books on the player, off an SD card or a USB stick. Yet again, you can record and playback audio notes, you can access documents. So again, you can do quite a huge variety of having the player just by its little self.

S1

And one of my favorite devices, the sense player from hymns.

S2

Yeah. And look, I must admit that this thing is also one of my favorite things as well. It's probably more favorite than the Victor Stream three, mainly because it does all the things that we just talked about for the Victor Reader Stream itself. Plus you can also do text notes so you can actually use, you know, the little little number pad keyboard to take text notes for yourself. You can also use and I know I keep banging on about this, Stephen, every now and again, but if you plug in a pair of headphones, you've got access to an FM radio with me for emergencies with floods and fires is also important. 

And plus, don't let me forget to mention the fact that you can connect it as a smart keyboard up to your smartphone or tablet. So it really is an extremely versatile, portable daisy player, etcetera.

03:47

S1

And we won't talk about the online or web radio facility built into it. The podcasts are very good. If you download your podcast before you lose your internet, very easy to navigate around those. Yeah. Now back to Human, where the brilliant Braille display series, the 20 X and the B 40 x.

S2

Yeah. So of course these are the 20 cell version, the 40 cell refreshed mobile display version. And the reason why I like that is, I guess is because they're not just dumb Braille displays. So dumb displays are where it just displays brown. There's nothing you can do unless you plug it into a, you know, a PC or a mobile device. These ones have also got built in applications. 

So and what I like in particularly about both of these units is the fact that you've got a little editor in it so you can, you know, take notes whenever you need to. And you can also, again, if you've downloaded a, you know, a daisy book to it, particularly, you know, a daisy text book to read offline. And of course, again, because it's a hybrid Braille display again, you can also link it up again to your smartphone or tablet or PC.

S1

So that's the brilliant Buy series from Human, where the 20 X and the 40 x also from Human, where the Mantis Q 40. This is a quirky keyboard with Braille.

05:05

S2

That's right. So you've got your traditional. Bit like a laptop. And then underneath that you've got the 40. So Braille display, similar functionality. What the brilliant Bics and 40 X gave you as far as the, you know, editor and Daisy book, but you are using a cruder keyboard. 

So the main thing I like about this is normally when you use Braille, you have a, you know, your separate Braille display with your Perkins style keyboard to your query keyboard. This allows you to have one device that does both your keyboarding and also does your bar display. So so you're actually almost getting rid of what you are getting rid of one device, which is the keyboard.

S1

Mm Yeah. Let's move now to getting around, maybe moving around. We'll start with how we walk.

S2

So this is called a smart cane and people get a bit confused because the smart cane itself is a sonar based cane. So that's the handle that you attach to the cane. And then it's got a little sonar unit on it which sends out a pulse. So a sound pulse comes back and it vibrates depending on how close or far away an object is. Now, that sonar function is independent of the rest of the smart stuff, which comes off the We Walk app, which you then run on your Android phone or your iPhone, which does all the the map type stuff and navigation stuff. 

But the walk itself as far as a sonar based device is completely independent. I've been connected to a smartphone because you don't need the app to use the sonar function.

S1

Yeah, very interesting. And now let's go to more human wear stuff, the Vector Reader Trek and Stellar Trek.

S2

So what I like to say about both these devices. So in a nutshell, both of them are GPS-based. And again, they don't need to be online to get access to the maps like you do and most of the time on your smartphone. So they're completely offline for the map. So you can download the maps and off you go. The main differences between the two of these is the Victoria Trek is is a little bit old. Some of it's GPS scanning technology is a bit old. So particularly if you are using it in a high populated environment with tall buildings, I always recommend going to the stellar trek. 

And the other major difference of course, is the fact that the Victor Trek also has the victor Strain pointed into it as well. So it's got both the offline and online versions of all the stuff you get in a normal vector reader Stream three. And the other thing about the stellar trek is it's got a little built in camera. So if you want to do a bit of optical character recognition while you're out and about, you can also do that as well on the the stellar trek. 

But they're both extremely good. I have both of the units and I know if I'm travelling to Sydney on the train, I tend to use the Victoria Trek itself because I won't also listen to, you know, podcasts, check out documents, that sort of stuff, while I also got access to a GPS unit as well.

S1

Let's go now to the wearables, the glasses, the Orcam has been around a while now. Describe that one to people for non-smokers.

S2

You may not get this, but it's the size of a little cigarette lighter that people to use back in the old days, or maybe they still use them now. So it's very tiny, eclipsed to the side of your glasses via a magnetic connection. And it does things like optical character recognition of things that the camera or you are looking at. It also does face recognition, barcode identification, color identification, currency identification and so on and all that sort of stuff is actually done offline. So again, no internet required in this tiny little device. 

And again, what I like about it is that you do not have to use it connected to absolutely anything. It's a standalone unit completely. So if you're worried again about all this sort of stuff these days about getting, you know, traced and tracked, you physically cannot do it with the orcam. So it's a really great secure device, particularly for employment. Stephen Where you've got things to do in high security situations.

S1

Now let's move to the Envision glasses.

S2

So these are pretty spectacular. They do similar things to what the Orcam does. But I should say one of the intriguing online things to keep in mind with the Envision glasses now is that it's using ChatGPT for so the AI to ask interesting questions and you can also use it for contacting the IRA online video service. So I know I'm only talking about offline today, but I just wanted to remind people about that functionality. 

But as far as the the offline stuff is, it's very powerful and most of the functions these days, particularly with the current update to the Envision glasses, is most of its functionality now is pretty much offline, including all the the OCR stuff, facial recognition and so on.

10:02

S1

And that continues to evolve, doesn't it, because of the technology. That's there that can take the software upgrades.

S2

Yeah, I keep saying, you know, we're on a bit of a wave at the moment. We haven't stopped developing and we haven't even hit the crest of the wave yet. So let's just keep riding the wave and see where it takes us.

S1

Michael the cost of those devices that you all came in, the envision, they are in the vicinity of $5,000. It sort of varies depending on what you purchase.

S2

That's right. And you can get, you know, based on reports and assessments and that's the stuff you can get them both funded, you know, for such things such as the NDIS or job access workplace assessments as well. So I know a lot of this stuff sounds very expensive, but you can actually usually get some sort of funding for them as well.

S1

If you qualify for that.

S2

Indeed, yeah.

S1

Now let's talk about the Kinect 12 for low vision people.

S2

What this is, it's a basically based on an Android tablet, but when you use it, it comes with a little external camera and it allows you to do knee and distance viewing. And this is particularly of use for students at school or university or TAFE, because what you can do is use a video magnifier and then hey presto, you can switch back to that quote Android part of it and you can take notes and all that sort of other cool stuff. So it's a really good device for having basically a 2 in 1 video magnifier and a night tracker in one device.

11:30

S1

That's available through the Vision Store of Vision Australia, isn't it?

S2

Correct. So all the stuff that we've talked about so far in this show, well, actually everything we've talked about, it's all available from the Vision Australia Vision Store. Yes.

S1

So staying with low vision devices, tell me about the Mercury 13 Pro.

S2

Yeah, this is an intriguing one because this is actually a surface pro laptop. So again, it's running the Mercury magnification software again with a really, really, really, really good distance and near viewing camera again for using whiteboards and lab work at, you know, school, TAFE, uni, whatever else. And the fact it's running windows is very important because if you're using other applications such as, you know, Microsoft Word, Excel Outlook, all that sort of cool stuff, then you can do that as well. 

So primarily it's the it's a focusing of the magnifier as it does with the Kinect 12. But because it's running Windows, in some ways you've got a lot more flexibility than you are with the Kinect tool, which is Android. But again, it's different courses for horses and you can choose which one fits you most appropriately.

S1

For those who particularly like the physical buttons, the Blind Shell Classic two phone is very popular, isn't it?

S2

It is because it's basically custom made apps for us blind and low vision folks. So there's no complicated stuff. It's all really done with basically up and down and the select key on the blind shell. And because there's a lot of stuff on there, such as your contacts, your calendar games, the magnifier that's built into it, using the camera, the flashlight, looking in the pantry. There's quite a lot of things that you can do with the phone when you're not connected to a cellular network or the Wi-Fi network.

S1

We haven't got time to go through everything that's on your list, but smart watches should be paid some attention.

S2

That's right. So when you think about it, smartwatches normally come off your smartphone. So there's quite a few things that you can do if you've just got your smartwatch by itself. And there are things like keeping track of your health and wellbeing, time and date, checking your calendar, because most of the stuff's already synced up from your smartphone, including even books and music.

S1

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

S2

It needs, and including all the links that we've talked about today For all the products, you can check out my website, which is David, would it be a dot podbean Podbean.

S1

Com David would be dot podbean podbean to right to the program.

S2

You can write to me at Vision Australia where I work, which is David Dot Woodbridge at Vision australia.org.

14:12

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.