Vision Store prezzies, Apple updates, wearables... and a talking thermometer!

00:08 Stephen

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from December the 10th, 2024. 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 [?Anakin]. 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 Damo

Hi, Stephen.

00:50 Stephen

Let's remind people about the Vision Store of Vision Australia, which is a very useful resource, particularly this time of the year, with Christmas only two weeks away.

01:01 Damo

Yes, definitely. If you're looking for gifts or you're looking for gift ideas for people to buy for you? Oh, definitely worth having a look at the various things on offer at the vision store. There's, um, all kinds of products, everything from sort of daily living aids to help with, you know, cooking and personal care, those sorts of things right through to, you know, tech products, magnifiers. There's games. So if you're going away camping or you've got a bit of time just to sit and relax, things like Braille, you know, playing cards and board games and all those kinds of things, there's some new products that we have for kids. 

If you're a handyman kind of guy, there's things like the talking tape measure that we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the tape king. So lots of good stuff. But if you're going to order online particularly, you need to do that fairly soon so that you can get things shipped to you in time for Christmas. There is also the stores though, so if you if you have a vision store in your area, you can come in, have a look around and look and feel of the products that are on display so that you can make sure that they're right for you.

02:08 Stephen

A lot of low vision equipment isn't there. Stuff that could be very handy. Maybe for mum or dad.

02:13 Damo

Yeah, absolutely. Even sometimes, just a simple, uh, magnifier that you can put on a page just to make something easier to read right through to your big, um, video magnifiers that allow you to, you know, sit there and read the newspaper or do the crossword. There's also task lighting, which is really important. You know, sometimes just being able to illuminate the thing that you're working on can make a massive difference to how easy it is to do.

02:40 Stephen

Mm. So that's Vision Australia's Vision Store. shop.visionaustralia.org - shop dot vision Australia dot org. Around now, people will be seeing the latest Apple updates on their devices.

02:56 Damo

Yes. So iOS 18.2 - possibly by the time this goes to air a lot of people will already have it. This is quite a big update because it's the first one that gives us the Apple intelligence, and there's been a bit of a buzz about that, but it really is a sort of the most significant makeover that Siri has had in quite a long time. But it's not just Siri. It affects a number of other things as well. So it gives us the ability to do things like summarise your emails and text messages, your notifications on your... lock screen. You know, if you've got a multi email sort of thread you can summarise that. You can also access things like ChatGPT. 

So if Siri doesn't know the answer to something, it'll say, Do you want me to use ChatGPT for that? And it'll go and give you a much more detailed answer than it might otherwise. They've changed some of the voices a little bit as well. The male Siri voice Australian one I'm not sure I like. It almost sounds a bit more sulky than it used to. You know, it'll say, Do you want me to use ChatGPT for that? And I'll say, No, and it'll say, All right, I won't. It just sounds grumpy. I don't know why they did that, but it is quite a significant update. 

And, you know, having played with some of the beta versions and things, Siri is finally getting back to the point where it's actually useful. I used to get really frustrated with it, but I'm finding now I'm going to it more so than my smart speaker devices, because I can get more detailed answers.

04:28 Stephen

And there are updates to other Apple operating systems, such as watchOS, the iPad, and the Mac OS. Let's delve into this in more detail next week.

04:40 Damo

Yeah, sure. Definitely. But I'm quite excited about about this release.

04:45 Stephen

iOS 18.2. You do a lot of cooking, don't you, Damo?

04:52 Damo

I do, Stephen yeah, particularly outdoor cooking. I've got a meat smoker. So around about this time of year, I do sort of my own Christmas ham from scratch. So I actually cure all the the pork and then put it in the smoker and do a double smoked Christmas ham. But I also do the the Christmas turkey. I have English heritage, so even though it's boiling hot, we still do the roast turkey on Christmas Day with the the brussel sprouts and the roast potatoes and the mushy peas and all of that sort of thing. So... yes, very much into my outdoor cooking.

05:24 Stephen

Okay. Tell me about your latest toy for managing the cooking of the meat.

05:30 Damo

Yes. So this is a mainstream product. It's not an assistive tech product as such, but it is extremely accessible, which is one of the reasons I like it. It's a meat thermometer called the Meater, spelt m e a t e r. It comes in various forms. There are sort of single probe versions, which is the one I have. And then there's the the meter block which is allows you to have up to four probes. Now the way that these work is the probe itself... probably looks a little bit similar, to... perhaps a ballpoint pen. So it's a long, thin metal probe, unlike a lot of other devices of this type, there are no wires, so the thermometer that I was using previously had a sort of a heat proof cable that went from the meat probe to a little box. 

This one doesn't have that. So it has a wooden cradle that the probe sits in when it's charging. But then you take that out and you insert it into the piece of meat that you're cooking. It has a nice tactile notch partway along the body of the probe, and that lets you know how far to insert the probe into the piece of meat. So you want to insert it to the point where you can no longer feel that notch, and there'll be a little bit of the probe sort of poking out of the end of your joint of meat. So it does the meat temperature, but it also does the ambient temperature of your oven or smoker or whatever it is that you're you're using, and it pairs to an iOS device or an Android device. 

And the app is fully accessible. So you can go through and say, I'm cooking beef. It's this type of cut, a rib fillet or a topside or something like that, and I want it cooked medium rare and it will monitor the temperature. It'll give you an estimate of how long the meat's going to take to cook. That takes a little while to come through, and then it will let you know when the food's almost ready. And then when it is ready, because cooking to temperature is often really important, particularly with things like pork or poultry. You don't want to undercook it, because that's a good way to give yourself a dose of botulism or salmonella or something very nasty. So being able to cook to temperature rather than time is often a good idea. 

The other thing that you can do, you can save your cooks so that you can you can go back and sort of review what you did. And you can also monitor from anywhere. So if you've got a device like an iPad, for example, you can leave that within Bluetooth range of your thermometer. So on your patio table or your kitchen table or something like that, but then you can monitor it from any other device. So what that allows me to do is if I'm doing something like a brisket, which might take 12 or 14 hours to cook, I can set that up. The iPad talks to the thermometer. 

I can then go out to the shops and still monitor from my iPhone what my cook is doing, you know. So if it's getting close, I know, right? We better get home and get this off. Um, so it does allow you to monitor it from anywhere. And the app is extremely accessible. There's a bunch of tutorials as well to demonstrate how to do different things. So I really like it. It's been a big step up for me from my previous Maverick wired thermometer that I was using.

08:47 Stephen

So where can you get this talking thermometer?

08:50 Damo

I got mine from off Amazon, but they are also available from most barbecue shops.

08:56 Stephen

What sort of money are we talking about?

08:58 Damo

So the one that I have, which was the metre plus was 199. I think the the four probe version, the metre block was around about 400 or 450.

09:10 Stephen

So that's Meater - m e a t e r, as in.

09:13 Damo

That's right. Yes. Yeah.

09:15 Stephen

Meater Plus or Meater Block? You went for the Meater Plus. 

Let's talk about getting around now. Shall we say mobility technology, whether it be hardware, devices or software. It's a changing field, isn't it?

09:29 Damo

It really is. And we're kind of spoilt for choice in some ways, I think, in that there are a bunch of phone based mobility solutions, and then there are sort of standalone devices and which one you would go for really kind of depends on your use case and what you do, how often you use it, that kind of thing. We're talking secondary aides here. We're not talking cane or dog, which is what you would class as a primary mobility aide. I do use a stellar Trek device as my sort of main GPS unit, and there's a couple of reasons for that. 

One is that I like to have tactile buttons rather than having to navigate a touch screen, because I figure I have one hand tied up working my seeing eye dog and I don't want to have to use, you know, face ID, unlock my phone, swipe around the screen to figure out what direction I'm travelling, what house number I'm outside of. Those kinds of things. So I find that with the stellar track, I can just pop it on my belt. And if I want to know where I am, I can just sort of hit the where am I? Button. 

And also, it has some really good features for map browsing virtually so that you can figure out how you might get from point A to point B, you can easily record landmarks and you can use it in open areas. So Marion and I have a caravan and we go away for sort of three weeks over at Christmas, usually in January, and we do a few trips throughout the year. So to be able to mark things like your caravan site or the exit off the beach or open area travel where you're you're not necessarily on a street map. I find that really helpful. But then I do use other things. 

So I use my metal glasses paired to my phone. So I might use that in conjunction with the tracker. So I'll use the stellar track to get me to where I want to be, but then I'll use the glasses to perhaps help me locate a shop or a particular sign or something like that, or another landmark. And I'll also use the phone for things like public transport apps. So TransLink, which is the one up here in Queensland, you know, public transport information. Next, there is another one that gives you sort of idea of the next buses and trains that are in your area. 

There are also free GPS apps though. So for people who don't necessarily want or need a standalone device, there are apps like Lazarillo, which is a good free solution. That's l a z o r I l o, and that is available for both Android and iOS. And that'll give you sort of basic navigation and allow you to set landmarks and do some of those things. And if you just, you know, if you're in a taxi or an Uber and you're not quite sure where you are, those sorts of apps will will also allow you to just fire up your phone and check. 

But I do find for my particular use case, not having the touch screen and having buttons that I can press when I'm walking around. It just makes it a little bit easier to navigate. I also use the stellar track when I'm riding my tandem as well. So, um, you know, I can sort of see what speed we're doing and where we are and that kind of thing. And just to be able to have that information given to me without having to press a button or interact with the device and just leave it on my belt is sometimes pretty handy.

12:39 Stephen

And the future looks rosy for further devices, doesn't it, to help with getting around.

12:45 Damo

It really does. You know, I think, you know, particularly with some of these wearable devices, you know, the things like the meta glasses and some of these other things. If we can get to a point where you can use your wearable device to help with GPS navigation and some of those things, I mean, we can already sort of read signs and do text recognition and that sort of thing. But if you can have a something hands free where you can sort of do your GPS through your glasses, that to me would be the next big step. 

But there's also lots of other things. You know, we have things like the guidance device on its way that we talked about a couple of months ago. That's sort of the robot guide type device, I think with AI and camera technology improving. There's there's definitely a lot of potential there for further growth and further improvement.

13:32 Stephen

Before we go, just a reminder that you can find details of what we've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program by going to varadio.org/talking tech. VA radio dot org slash talking tech. To write to the program... 

13:49 Damo

You can email me, Damo, Damo dot McMorrow [spells it] at Vision Australia dot org. And I really appreciate the people who have emailed in and given me feedback. Thank you very much.

14:02 S1

damo.mcrorrow@visionaustralia.org - This has been Talking Tech, with me has been Vision Australia's national Access Technology Manager Damo McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolley. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.