S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: February the 4th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
S1: you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
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S1: after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your
S1: Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia radio
S1: talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast. With me.
S1: Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2: G'day, Stephen.
S1: A lot to talk about today. Let's start with some
S1: Apple news. Another release of software across all its devices
S1: last week.
S2: Yes that's right we had iOS 18.3 and we also
S2: had updates to the Apple Watch OS, tvOS, and the Mac.
S2: The latest version of Sequoia, and also the software update
S2: to the HomePod speakers. There's not a whole lot that's
S2: hugely exciting in these updates, but there are a couple
S2: of little fixes that I did want to mention. The
S2: first one is with the watchOS, so in the previous
S2: version of the watch operating system, there was an issue
S2: for VoiceOver users where you would turn the volume up
S2: or down and it wouldn't appreciably change. And generally the
S2: audio was either way too loud or way too quiet,
S2: and there didn't seem to be kind of any middle ground,
S2: regardless of what value it said was set, that, you know,
S2: the volume didn't change. So that has definitely been fixed,
S2: which is a welcome change. The other one that I
S2: don't think it affected everybody, but it certainly annoyed me
S2: for a couple of weeks, was an issue where if
S2: you were using an Apple Watch and you also had
S2: a set of AirPod pros, I've got a series two,
S2: AirPod Pro. The audio. As soon as I put the
S2: AirPod pros into my ears, it would take audio from
S2: my watch rather than from my phone. And that seemed
S2: to happen regardless of what setting I had. Because there's
S2: a setting on the iPhone that you can say always
S2: connect to this device or connect to it. When it
S2: was the last thing that was used, didn't matter what
S2: I did with that, it would always connect to my watch,
S2: and the only way to get around it was to
S2: restart the phone or to open the AirPods Pro case.
S2: Wait till the little dialog came up on the screen
S2: of the iPhone that showed the battery level, and then
S2: put the AirPods into my ears. Now that has been fixed.
S2: Touch wood. So, uh, my AirPods are working once again,
S2: as they should. As I say, that one I think
S2: was a little bit more unusual, but it certainly was
S2: annoying to those of us that were impacted by it.
S1: I've also found with my phone that the face ID
S1: that you need to use to unlock your phone seems
S1: to be even more reliable than before. There's less times
S1: that I seem to have to be reverting back to
S1: be entering my passcode. That might vary from individual to individual,
S1: but you might want to keep that one in mind
S1: as well, which is good.
S2: I have. I haven't seen that myself, but I have
S2: heard that from a couple of other people. So yes,
S2: any improvement I think with face ID is a welcome one.
S1: Certainly is. We've got a bit of AI stuff to
S1: talk about. Surprise, surprise this week.
S2: Yes we do. Once again.
S1: Let's talk first about notebook LM. You've been playing with that.
S2: I have. So notebook LM just to sort of recap
S2: a little bit is one of Google's AI products, and
S2: it's a product that calls itself your AI powered research assistant.
S2: So the idea is that you can load sort of
S2: several different sources into it, whether it be websites, whether
S2: it be documents of various kinds. And then you can
S2: do a number of things with that content. You can
S2: ask questions, but you can also generate things like a
S2: study guide. Frequently asked questions, and even a conversation that
S2: sounds like two people discussing the content. One thing, though,
S2: that I discovered recently, and it was sort of actually
S2: I did it as a bit of an experiment because
S2: of me messing about with my YouTube channel that I
S2: set up over the break, but you can actually load
S2: YouTube URLs in and then ask questions, or have it
S2: generate a summary or a sort of a quick conversation
S2: or podcast type overview of those videos, which is quite helpful,
S2: particularly sometimes if you've got content that is, you know,
S2: perhaps there's something in the video that you haven't been
S2: able to pick up from the dialogue, you know, maybe
S2: wanting to try and find out if it says anywhere
S2: what model of product is being demonstrated or how they're
S2: using it in some way. So you can add those
S2: URLs into notebook LM, and then you can ask questions
S2: about the video or videos if you've got a number
S2: of them. You know, I gave it three videos on
S2: a particular topic and, um, then asked it to sort
S2: of generate a sort of a conversational style bit of
S2: audio and two things that surprised me. One is the
S2: level of detail that it goes into and its ability
S2: to sort of pick out the salient points, but also
S2: just the sort of human sounding nature of the audio
S2: that it it generates. It literally does sound like two
S2: people discussing it. And with some of the videos that
S2: I tried of my own, while it misunderstood what my
S2: name was, which was kind of odd, it certainly did
S2: accurately describe the products that I had talked about in
S2: the video. Like all I, it's not perfect, but it
S2: it did a pretty impressive job.
S1: This is notebook Elm. What platforms does it run on?
S2: It's a Google based product. There is a notebook Elm
S2: app for iOS or Android, or you can simply access
S2: it from google.com and going into the suite of apps,
S2: if you signed into it, you can find Notebook LM there,
S2: and you can also organize your notes into different notebooks
S2: depending on the topic and things like that for for reviewing.
S2: So that's quite helpful as well.
S1: Mm. Very interesting notebook. LM something else has come out
S1: of China recently, a thing called deep seek.
S2: And it has taken the big tech companies in Silicon
S2: Valley in the US a little bit by surprise. And
S2: the reason for that is that they've changed the way that, um,
S2: you know, the model works. So generally what we're seeing
S2: with things like ChatGPT and meta AI and so on
S2: is that the multi-billion dollar investments in, you know, like
S2: server infrastructure and power infrastructure and those sorts of things
S2: to be able to process the requests and deep seek
S2: claim that they've done it in a way that uses
S2: a fraction of the processing power, which has companies like
S2: Nvidia who make a lot of the the chips that
S2: are utilized in these sort of AI type platforms. Um,
S2: a little bit by surprise has them a little bit concerned. Now,
S2: there are some caveats, if you like, or some things
S2: to be aware of with deep seek the responsiveness. From
S2: what I've seen of it is quite fast, but it's
S2: not entirely accurate and it does seem to self-censor. So, uh,
S2: if you, for example, ask questions about Tiananmen Square or
S2: anything else that might paint, uh, the Chinese government in
S2: an unfavorable light, it either chooses not to answer or
S2: to give you a, you know, a very, very cut
S2: down and very limited response. The other question, there are
S2: some concerns around the sort of the security of the platform.
S2: And if you if you register with it, you know,
S2: where where does that data go? Is it handed to
S2: perhaps Chinese government or somewhere else. And that hasn't been
S2: made entirely clear. So some of us, including me, are
S2: a little bit reluctant to sort of register and provide
S2: too many details. I think for the moment, if I'm
S2: going to experiment further with it, I'll probably use, you know,
S2: something innocuous like my Gmail account or something, and I'll
S2: probably access it from behind a VPN, just to be sure,
S2: because there are too many unknowns about where where the
S2: traffic goes. But certainly the interesting thing about it, from
S2: a tech point of view, is the fact that they
S2: claim that they can, you know, process this information and
S2: these requests with a fraction of the the the infrastructure.
S2: I think it was for January. It was the most
S2: downloaded app in both the Apple App Store and the
S2: Google Play Store. So there's certainly a bit of interest
S2: in it, but I would suggest just approaching it with
S2: a small degree of caution. If you're concerned about privacy
S2: and where your information is going and all of those
S2: sorts of things.
S1: How's the accessibility?
S2: It seems okay from the small amount of experimenting that
S2: I've done. But as I said, because I have some
S2: reservations about it, I haven't really spent enough time with
S2: it to comment, but in the brief look that I had,
S2: I didn't sort of run into any really significant issues.
S1: So we're talking there about deep seek, which the AI
S1: world has been talking about a lot over the last week.
S1: I want to put in a quick cheerio for ChatGPT.
S1: ChatGPT is what I've been using on my windows machine,
S1: and I imagine would be the same for the other
S1: desktop platforms. Just a little application of it that I've
S1: found really useful recently is around accessing other software products.
S1: So I was able recently to ask it how I
S1: could invoke a URL in Linux. Then I asked it
S1: for the command to invoke a particular URL, and then
S1: I asked it to generate the script so that I
S1: could then have a command to execute that script and
S1: invoke the URL. And it was able to guide me
S1: very clearly. And the thing about ChatGPT is that it
S1: keeps a history of your conversations with it, and also
S1: at any time you can copy its response and save
S1: some of them away somewhere in a file, maybe where
S1: you have a number of interrogations to it on a
S1: particular topic, and you can have them all grouped together.
S1: So it's pretty good. ChatGPT.
S2: Just on that too, I should also mention that one
S2: of the big differences between Deep Seek and ChatGPT is
S2: that deep seek at this point in time does not
S2: provide the voice mode, the sort of conversational voice mode
S2: that ChatGPT does. The only way to work with it
S2: is to type to it. So that's something to note
S2: as well. If you use it in that way, which
S2: I quite often do.
S1: Yes, it can be convenient to do it that way
S1: though the voice is also very good. I'd like to
S1: talk to you about Amazon Amazon Fire TV. Perhaps you
S1: could explain what that is and the Omni Mini product.
S2: There are there are a number of these sort of, um,
S2: Amazon Fire TV type devices. So they're a media type
S2: device that attaches to your TV and allows you to
S2: stream content from Amazon Prime and other things, you know,
S2: similar in some respects to things like the Apple TV
S2: or the Google TV product. But in their next iteration,
S2: which is the fire TV Omni mini, they're including a
S2: feature which allows you to have two simultaneous audio streams.
S2: If you had one family member who uses hearing aids
S2: and wants the audio from the TV stream to their
S2: hearing aids, they can do that while simultaneously having it
S2: streamed to the lounge room for the rest of the family.
S2: At the moment, with most of these things, it's an
S2: either or scenario, or you have a situation where what
S2: gets sent to the hearing aids, there's a significant latency
S2: or delay, whereas there's now a new protocol which they're including,
S2: which allows you to simultaneously have the Have the audio
S2: streamed to two different devices.
S1: So how do you get involved with something like fire TV?
S1: How do you start?
S2: You can simply order them from Amazon. I would normally
S2: recommend waiting until they have a, you know, Prime Day
S2: sale or something because you can pick them up fairly
S2: cheap and then they just generally plug into your HDMI
S2: port on the back of your television. They do have
S2: a built in screen reader. I do find with all
S2: of these TV platforms, there are some limitations with some
S2: of the third party streaming apps. Some of them work
S2: better than others, and some of them they'll work well
S2: on one platform, but not the other. I had a
S2: recent experience buying a TV for my caravan. It was
S2: a Google TV had, you know, the Chromecast and things
S2: built into it. But for some reason that particular TV
S2: manufacturer had disabled all the accessibility features. So it is
S2: a little bit hit and miss in that way. But yeah,
S2: the Amazon experience is probably comparable to what you might
S2: get on something like Google TV if you've already got
S2: an accessible box of some sort, whether it's an Apple
S2: TV or a Google TV for watching content, there's probably
S2: no compelling reason to race out and buy the Amazon
S2: Fire TV, except that you, of course, could control it
S2: from your Alexa device so you can tell it to
S2: stream things and that sort of thing. So that may
S2: be of interest, but it's essentially Amazon's TV streaming device.
S1: Before we go, a reminder to everyone listening that you
S1: can find details of what we've been talking about in
S1: this and previous editions of the program by going to
S1: VA radio, Talking Tech, VA radio, Talking Tech to write
S1: to the program.
S2: Damo. Damo McMorrow McMorrow at Vision Australia.
S1: Damo McMorrow at Vision Australia. This has been talking tech
S1: with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager
S1: Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Take care. We'll talk more
S1: tech next week.
S3: See you.