Assistive Tech for People Who Are Blind

00:08

S1

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from August 8th, 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. If you haven't caught up with that yet, all you need to do is search for the two words talking tech and Diana 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 the tech stuff really well. Vision Australia's national adviser on Access Technology, David Woodbridge. And David, you've got a bit of technology to explain today because we thought it might be an idea to just talk about what technology would be useful for someone in various life situations, such as at home, as a student or in the workplace. And today we'll look at the situation of people who are blind, and maybe low vision users next week.

S2

We certainly will. Yeah. So we'll do it both because it was going to be too complicated to try and fit both into one show. So hence while we're doing part one and part two.

S1

So let's start with the home technologist or the home user that needs to use technology. They mightn't love it as much as some of us do.

S2

True. So I'm just going to go through this fairly quickly because some of the stuff that will basically keep repeating some of it anyway. So my first recommendation is always to get a computer. Now most people get a Windows computer and these days it's Windows 11. I always say i7 processor and 16 gigs of memory because that's a good one to have. Nice and solid. But do you for a long, long time. And then for home users, you've got the choice of having the Free Australian screen Reader Nvda or the built in screen reader in the reader or Jaws for Windows. And then if you're a mac user, I tend to just these days go straight for the MacBook Pro 14 inch and of course you use that with voiceover. There's no other screen reader. 

So that's the basically the, the PC and the Mac stuff. And as far as the sort of the, the other stuff goes, that's more assistive tech and mainstream. Of course, we've got the Perkins Brailler. And yes, you can still get a Perkins Brailler because there's nothing like having a manual backup iPhone 14 Pro. And the reason why I recommending that one is because we've got all the LiDAR stuff to do with orientation mobility, Bluetooth keyboard, which is lovely because you can use that either with your laptop, your mac or as a keyboard for your iPhone, smartphone or tablet stand. 

Because remember, your iPhone can replace lots and lots of gadgets. So if you want to do optical character recognition, then you can use that. And the last three final ones is a mini guide that comes in handy for sonar detection. If you're kind of a guide dog user, let's not forget The Apprentice scanner because you want to be able to print stuff at home much as a shopping list or you want to be able to scan stuff in with a flatbed scanner. And then finally, one of my all favorite things is the Shox Bone conduction headphones. So that's my quick list for home users.

S1

Now, before we go to the next category, you talk about the iPhone 14 Pro. That's a good idea today. In two months time, there'll be another range of iPhones out. Should people be going for those? Or if you buy this one, the 14 at the moment, is that going to do you for enough years? Et cetera.

S2

Look, I think so. I mean, I just I've just got an iPhone 14 Pro this week and I've had my iPhone 12 Pro since it first came out. So I think most fans can last year for a good, you know, three, 4 or 5 years. So but you're right, we're getting that close to September. And if you have haven't upgraded, say, from 11 or below, then two more months is not going to be that big a deal. And so, yep, go and get an iPhone 15 pro.

S1

Yeah. If you haven't already got a model near that, correct? Yeah. Okay. So you talked about the home user there. What should the student think about?

S2

So we'll start off again repeating the same stuff. So of course we're talking about the same Windows stuff, except this time for school users. I would recommend Jaws first as your commercial screen where like Jaws is. If you can't get that, then Nvda And then if you can't that at the ultimate limit, then yes, get. Narrator The MacBook Pro again is certainly good for school. And of course that's the the voiceover one. 

As far as the other stuff goes, this is where it starts getting a little bit more expensive because you want to be as flexible and, you know, different backup mechanisms as possible. So I've still got the Perkins Brailler in there, but now I've got the Bryant by 40 X, and that's the refresher Braille display for your Mac windows or your iPhone that can also be used to edit as well. Then they've got a Braille embosser because sometimes I just like, you know, printing or embossing things out and Braille. Victor Registration for again, either recording notes or reading back documents whenever you want to. 

And of course. Him listening to Talking Tech podcast. iPhone 14 Pro again remember the fifteens coming out iPad? Now it's going to sound a bit weird, but the reason why I put that in there was because some apps will only run on an iPad, particularly if you're learning coding like Swift Playgrounds. Again, we've got the Bluetooth keyboard smartphone stand. Mini guide, printer scanner shocks and and that's it. So again, remember, these are just recommendations. They're not the be an end all of a list.

S1

What about in the workplace?

S2

So in the workplace the majority of like probably going to end up honestly using a Windows computer. And you know, for the workplace, I would effectively just go straight for jaws. You need the flexibility and the scripting ability to be able to customize the screen to fit your application of choice. Mac I'd still recommend basically what I've got in there already, keeping in mind that if you go for a job at a place that have got Macs, you're likely to be using their Macs anyway, so you may not need to buy one yourself or get the government to buy it for, but you're going on to in a minute. 

And then the other ones again, we've got Perkins Brailler, the brilliant. Now this time I've got the Orcam, which is the wearable device that you can just use for just quickly picking up a document and having it read. Quickly, back to you. And that's really good in the workplace because what you want to be is efficient and productive as possible. We still have the victory stream in there, the Braille embosser, the iPhone, the iPad only if you need it for some particular reason. So are still stuck in their Bluetooth keyboard smartphone tablet stand and another added on the stellar track for GPS. 

And the reason why I put that one in there is because you don't want to run or rely on your iPhone in this case to do your GPS. There's nothing worse than getting to work. Going to check your calendar for the day on your iPhone, and it's flat because you've been using your GPS to navigate to work. Mini guide, printer slash scanner and Shock's. So I hope that made sense to people that I've sort of been adding on a little bit more. From home school to employment.

S1

Some people may be able to get assistance with funding for their devices even at home if they're NDIS participants. What other ways can people get support?

S2

So for students, particularly going into later study like Certificate three and Above and University, remember we've got our Bursary Awards currently running at the moment that you can apply for, so you can get more information that from Virgin Australia. And remember, if you're going for a job, you can get an assessment like you can for any of this stuff for three job access, which is Commonwealth funding to pay for mainstream or assistive technology. If you're able to do your job.

S1

And what's the best way to get support with your technology? Firstly in selecting it and then ongoing support when things don't work the way you expect them to?

08:36

S2

Yeah, but particularly for this sort of stuff, particularly for, you know, education or employment, I would always have a bit of a chat with the At Help desk at Vision Australian that's adaptive technology or assistive technology Help Desk get an assessment done through an assistive technology consultant for our technology service and of course for both the bursaries and job access to even access that funding scheme, you will need to have a proper assessment done. So again, that's why I said that this is a recommendation generalist. This may not meet or some of your needs, so it's always important to get an assessment done properly.

S1

It is application for bursary time. Who does someone who's going to be studying next year talk to about getting involved in the Vision Australia bursary scheme?

S2

Yep. So literally the best way to do it is just bring the Vision Australia number - 1300 847 466 and asked to speak to the person in charge of the Bursary awards.

S1

1300 847 466, Vision Australia's main telephone number. I'd like to talk with you now about an app that we've both been playing with a little bit over the last week or so. It's called Weatherology.

S2

Yeah, look, this is actually really interesting. So what it is, it's a funny enough, it's a weather app, but what they've done, they've recorded weather people, real, real human being, weather broadcasters, and they've selected different phrases and words to build up this way of being able to give you the weather with these folks talking to you. And it's amazing to sit back and listen to these people, give you the weather quote in real time, even though what you're really listening to is different chopped up words and phrases that they've pre-recorded. But it really feels like and sounds like you're listening to that person live all the time.

10:35

S1

So they are American voices you're hearing. And it's strange hearing your local weather from these voices, but it's quite an amazing technology and worth just dabbling with so you can get the feel of it.

S2

Yeah, I just wish they could make it a bit more local and you could I don't know, you could listen to different ones from Australia because there was some weather people that I just love to listen to as well. And some of the old ones at the past, which now I think about it, we could probably use 11 labs to get snippets of the past of their voices and make up arrangements, but who knows? Sky's the limit. Let's see what happens in the future.

S1

ChatGPT One of the applications of AI, it's come to Android.

S2

Indeed, this has been available in Android towards the end of July, and for some odd reason I completely forgot to mention it. But yes, so it's basically where you can ask questions of the AI and it comes back and gives you answers and you can ask it to rewrite emails, you can ask it fairly complicated questions. So it's far beyond what our traditional, you know, Siri, a lady and Google type stuff, does. 

Keep in mind, though, that I always say with this is that some of the information you get back, you always need to verify because it's not always correct. So yeah, so don't don't take it on face value. But yes, if you're an Android user, you can now use ChatGPT.

S1

And talking of AI, a little tip for those who haven't done it, you might be interested in playing with the Bing search app in iOS, the voice controller. That is really good and you can get some quite useful sorts of information just by asking these days. It's amazing.

S2

Yeah, it's pretty impressive. I'm looking for today and apparently Apple's has said so. So is Google. And so I was Amazon that all the standing personal assistants they'll actually morph into an AI large language model system as well. So that's what I'm sort of looking forward to in the next year or two.

S1

Hmm. Very interesting. Let's go back a bit now. The old IBM mainframe still around.

S2

I know. I saw this on on. Sorry. I was going to say Twitter. I saw it on the X the other day, which sounds bizarre. And major companies are still using IBM mainframes and they're basically the size of a couple of fridges with lots and lots of storage, lots of memory and lots of data processing. Because when you think about when you're going to do banking, financial transactions, all that sort of stuff, the system has to work on, you know, maybe 50 to 100 applications churning away all at the same time and have an instant response. 

So yes, IBM mainframes are still around. I'll put a link in the show notes. And it's really interesting to realize that mainframes have been around, you know, for in one way or another for a good 60 years. And it's like comparing an elephant to a PC mouse as such.

S1

Yeah, quite amazing. Just before we go, a reminder of where there are details of what you've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program.

S2

Indeed. So as always, you can check out our show notes on my website, which is David, would it be a dot podbean pad?

S1

And David would be dot podbean pod B n to write to the program.

S2

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

14:07

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.