WEBVTT - Talking Tech 4th February 2025 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.840 Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.720 February the 4th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.040 you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:22.560 stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network. 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:25.320 There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:28.320 need to do is search for the two words talking tech. 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.640 And it can come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.839 after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your 0:00:34.839 --> 0:00:38.839 Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia radio 0:00:38.839 --> 0:00:45.080 talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast. With me. 0:00:45.279 --> 0:00:50.479 Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. Hey, Damo. 0:00:50.519 --> 0:00:51.279 G'day, Stephen. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.440 A lot to talk about today. Let's start with some 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:59.279 Apple news. Another release of software across all its devices 0:00:59.279 --> 0:00:59.959 last week. 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:05.839 Yes that's right we had iOS 18.3 and we also 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:12.750 had updates to the Apple Watch OS, tvOS, and the Mac. 0:01:12.789 --> 0:01:16.669 The latest version of Sequoia, and also the software update 0:01:16.750 --> 0:01:21.470 to the HomePod speakers. There's not a whole lot that's 0:01:21.470 --> 0:01:24.429 hugely exciting in these updates, but there are a couple 0:01:24.429 --> 0:01:28.230 of little fixes that I did want to mention. The 0:01:28.230 --> 0:01:32.589 first one is with the watchOS, so in the previous 0:01:32.869 --> 0:01:35.709 version of the watch operating system, there was an issue 0:01:35.709 --> 0:01:40.910 for VoiceOver users where you would turn the volume up 0:01:40.910 --> 0:01:44.990 or down and it wouldn't appreciably change. And generally the 0:01:44.990 --> 0:01:47.510 audio was either way too loud or way too quiet, 0:01:47.510 --> 0:01:50.350 and there didn't seem to be kind of any middle ground, 0:01:50.990 --> 0:01:53.390 regardless of what value it said was set, that, you know, 0:01:53.390 --> 0:01:56.670 the volume didn't change. So that has definitely been fixed, 0:01:56.670 --> 0:02:01.590 which is a welcome change. The other one that I 0:02:01.590 --> 0:02:04.190 don't think it affected everybody, but it certainly annoyed me 0:02:04.190 --> 0:02:07.750 for a couple of weeks, was an issue where if 0:02:07.750 --> 0:02:10.769 you were using an Apple Watch and you also had 0:02:10.770 --> 0:02:14.250 a set of AirPod pros, I've got a series two, 0:02:15.090 --> 0:02:18.130 AirPod Pro. The audio. As soon as I put the 0:02:18.130 --> 0:02:21.170 AirPod pros into my ears, it would take audio from 0:02:21.170 --> 0:02:25.290 my watch rather than from my phone. And that seemed 0:02:25.290 --> 0:02:27.930 to happen regardless of what setting I had. Because there's 0:02:27.930 --> 0:02:30.130 a setting on the iPhone that you can say always 0:02:30.130 --> 0:02:32.290 connect to this device or connect to it. When it 0:02:32.290 --> 0:02:34.610 was the last thing that was used, didn't matter what 0:02:34.610 --> 0:02:37.330 I did with that, it would always connect to my watch, 0:02:37.330 --> 0:02:39.010 and the only way to get around it was to 0:02:39.050 --> 0:02:44.810 restart the phone or to open the AirPods Pro case. 0:02:45.170 --> 0:02:47.250 Wait till the little dialog came up on the screen 0:02:47.250 --> 0:02:49.250 of the iPhone that showed the battery level, and then 0:02:49.250 --> 0:02:53.850 put the AirPods into my ears. Now that has been fixed. 0:02:53.890 --> 0:02:59.210 Touch wood. So, uh, my AirPods are working once again, 0:02:59.210 --> 0:03:00.730 as they should. As I say, that one I think 0:03:00.730 --> 0:03:03.650 was a little bit more unusual, but it certainly was 0:03:03.690 --> 0:03:06.170 annoying to those of us that were impacted by it. 0:03:06.250 --> 0:03:09.760 I've also found with my phone that the face ID 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.120 that you need to use to unlock your phone seems 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.000 to be even more reliable than before. There's less times 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:18.720 that I seem to have to be reverting back to 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:23.520 be entering my passcode. That might vary from individual to individual, 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.160 but you might want to keep that one in mind 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:25.840 as well, which is good. 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.040 I have. I haven't seen that myself, but I have 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.240 heard that from a couple of other people. So yes, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.520 any improvement I think with face ID is a welcome one. 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.240 Certainly is. We've got a bit of AI stuff to 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.560 talk about. Surprise, surprise this week. 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:40.920 Yes we do. Once again. 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.480 Let's talk first about notebook LM. You've been playing with that. 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.000 I have. So notebook LM just to sort of recap 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.840 a little bit is one of Google's AI products, and 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.880 it's a product that calls itself your AI powered research assistant. 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.840 So the idea is that you can load sort of 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.560 several different sources into it, whether it be websites, whether 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.680 it be documents of various kinds. And then you can 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:10.830 do a number of things with that content. You can 0:04:10.830 --> 0:04:14.310 ask questions, but you can also generate things like a 0:04:14.310 --> 0:04:19.150 study guide. Frequently asked questions, and even a conversation that 0:04:19.150 --> 0:04:22.950 sounds like two people discussing the content. One thing, though, 0:04:22.950 --> 0:04:25.990 that I discovered recently, and it was sort of actually 0:04:25.990 --> 0:04:27.909 I did it as a bit of an experiment because 0:04:27.910 --> 0:04:31.550 of me messing about with my YouTube channel that I 0:04:31.590 --> 0:04:34.469 set up over the break, but you can actually load 0:04:35.230 --> 0:04:38.670 YouTube URLs in and then ask questions, or have it 0:04:38.670 --> 0:04:42.230 generate a summary or a sort of a quick conversation 0:04:42.230 --> 0:04:46.590 or podcast type overview of those videos, which is quite helpful, 0:04:46.590 --> 0:04:50.750 particularly sometimes if you've got content that is, you know, 0:04:50.750 --> 0:04:53.350 perhaps there's something in the video that you haven't been 0:04:53.350 --> 0:04:56.909 able to pick up from the dialogue, you know, maybe 0:04:56.910 --> 0:04:59.430 wanting to try and find out if it says anywhere 0:04:59.470 --> 0:05:03.030 what model of product is being demonstrated or how they're 0:05:03.030 --> 0:05:05.669 using it in some way. So you can add those 0:05:05.670 --> 0:05:09.630 URLs into notebook LM, and then you can ask questions 0:05:09.630 --> 0:05:13.219 about the video or videos if you've got a number 0:05:13.220 --> 0:05:15.740 of them. You know, I gave it three videos on 0:05:15.740 --> 0:05:19.220 a particular topic and, um, then asked it to sort 0:05:19.220 --> 0:05:22.180 of generate a sort of a conversational style bit of 0:05:22.180 --> 0:05:25.660 audio and two things that surprised me. One is the 0:05:25.660 --> 0:05:27.780 level of detail that it goes into and its ability 0:05:27.780 --> 0:05:31.780 to sort of pick out the salient points, but also 0:05:31.780 --> 0:05:35.580 just the sort of human sounding nature of the audio 0:05:35.580 --> 0:05:38.580 that it it generates. It literally does sound like two 0:05:38.580 --> 0:05:42.500 people discussing it. And with some of the videos that 0:05:42.500 --> 0:05:46.020 I tried of my own, while it misunderstood what my 0:05:46.020 --> 0:05:48.940 name was, which was kind of odd, it certainly did 0:05:48.980 --> 0:05:52.020 accurately describe the products that I had talked about in 0:05:52.020 --> 0:05:55.540 the video. Like all I, it's not perfect, but it 0:05:55.580 --> 0:05:57.020 it did a pretty impressive job. 0:05:57.620 --> 0:06:01.180 This is notebook Elm. What platforms does it run on? 0:06:01.180 --> 0:06:04.100 It's a Google based product. There is a notebook Elm 0:06:04.180 --> 0:06:07.539 app for iOS or Android, or you can simply access 0:06:07.540 --> 0:06:10.380 it from google.com and going into the suite of apps, 0:06:10.380 --> 0:06:13.920 if you signed into it, you can find Notebook LM there, 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:18.680 and you can also organize your notes into different notebooks 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.719 depending on the topic and things like that for for reviewing. 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:23.520 So that's quite helpful as well. 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:28.880 Mm. Very interesting notebook. LM something else has come out 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.479 of China recently, a thing called deep seek. 0:06:32.840 --> 0:06:35.720 And it has taken the big tech companies in Silicon 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:40.200 Valley in the US a little bit by surprise. And 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.800 the reason for that is that they've changed the way that, um, 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.840 you know, the model works. So generally what we're seeing 0:06:47.840 --> 0:06:52.200 with things like ChatGPT and meta AI and so on 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:56.120 is that the multi-billion dollar investments in, you know, like 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.880 server infrastructure and power infrastructure and those sorts of things 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:04.120 to be able to process the requests and deep seek 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:06.320 claim that they've done it in a way that uses 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.440 a fraction of the processing power, which has companies like 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.680 Nvidia who make a lot of the the chips that 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:18.350 are utilized in these sort of AI type platforms. Um, 0:07:18.350 --> 0:07:21.790 a little bit by surprise has them a little bit concerned. Now, 0:07:22.230 --> 0:07:25.310 there are some caveats, if you like, or some things 0:07:25.310 --> 0:07:29.990 to be aware of with deep seek the responsiveness. From 0:07:29.990 --> 0:07:32.670 what I've seen of it is quite fast, but it's 0:07:32.670 --> 0:07:39.150 not entirely accurate and it does seem to self-censor. So, uh, 0:07:39.150 --> 0:07:43.870 if you, for example, ask questions about Tiananmen Square or 0:07:43.910 --> 0:07:47.910 anything else that might paint, uh, the Chinese government in 0:07:47.910 --> 0:07:51.470 an unfavorable light, it either chooses not to answer or 0:07:51.470 --> 0:07:53.790 to give you a, you know, a very, very cut 0:07:53.790 --> 0:07:58.550 down and very limited response. The other question, there are 0:07:58.550 --> 0:08:02.030 some concerns around the sort of the security of the platform. 0:08:02.030 --> 0:08:05.030 And if you if you register with it, you know, 0:08:05.070 --> 0:08:08.870 where where does that data go? Is it handed to 0:08:08.910 --> 0:08:13.150 perhaps Chinese government or somewhere else. And that hasn't been 0:08:13.270 --> 0:08:18.220 made entirely clear. So some of us, including me, are 0:08:18.340 --> 0:08:20.780 a little bit reluctant to sort of register and provide 0:08:20.780 --> 0:08:23.620 too many details. I think for the moment, if I'm 0:08:23.660 --> 0:08:27.140 going to experiment further with it, I'll probably use, you know, 0:08:27.180 --> 0:08:30.580 something innocuous like my Gmail account or something, and I'll 0:08:30.580 --> 0:08:33.420 probably access it from behind a VPN, just to be sure, 0:08:33.420 --> 0:08:36.860 because there are too many unknowns about where where the 0:08:36.859 --> 0:08:40.500 traffic goes. But certainly the interesting thing about it, from 0:08:40.500 --> 0:08:42.819 a tech point of view, is the fact that they 0:08:42.859 --> 0:08:46.459 claim that they can, you know, process this information and 0:08:46.459 --> 0:08:50.579 these requests with a fraction of the the the infrastructure. 0:08:51.140 --> 0:08:52.900 I think it was for January. It was the most 0:08:52.900 --> 0:08:55.780 downloaded app in both the Apple App Store and the 0:08:55.780 --> 0:08:57.820 Google Play Store. So there's certainly a bit of interest 0:08:57.819 --> 0:09:00.379 in it, but I would suggest just approaching it with 0:09:00.380 --> 0:09:03.620 a small degree of caution. If you're concerned about privacy 0:09:03.620 --> 0:09:05.699 and where your information is going and all of those 0:09:05.699 --> 0:09:06.540 sorts of things. 0:09:06.979 --> 0:09:08.339 How's the accessibility? 0:09:08.780 --> 0:09:11.579 It seems okay from the small amount of experimenting that 0:09:11.579 --> 0:09:13.740 I've done. But as I said, because I have some 0:09:13.740 --> 0:09:17.000 reservations about it, I haven't really spent enough time with 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.800 it to comment, but in the brief look that I had, 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.520 I didn't sort of run into any really significant issues. 0:09:22.839 --> 0:09:27.040 So we're talking there about deep seek, which the AI 0:09:27.079 --> 0:09:29.520 world has been talking about a lot over the last week. 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.400 I want to put in a quick cheerio for ChatGPT. 0:09:34.439 --> 0:09:39.640 ChatGPT is what I've been using on my windows machine, 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:41.599 and I imagine would be the same for the other 0:09:41.599 --> 0:09:45.400 desktop platforms. Just a little application of it that I've 0:09:45.439 --> 0:09:51.639 found really useful recently is around accessing other software products. 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:55.840 So I was able recently to ask it how I 0:09:55.839 --> 0:10:00.880 could invoke a URL in Linux. Then I asked it 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.440 for the command to invoke a particular URL, and then 0:10:05.439 --> 0:10:08.360 I asked it to generate the script so that I 0:10:08.359 --> 0:10:13.400 could then have a command to execute that script and 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.160 invoke the URL. And it was able to guide me 0:10:16.319 --> 0:10:21.429 very clearly. And the thing about ChatGPT is that it 0:10:21.429 --> 0:10:25.630 keeps a history of your conversations with it, and also 0:10:25.870 --> 0:10:29.829 at any time you can copy its response and save 0:10:29.829 --> 0:10:32.670 some of them away somewhere in a file, maybe where 0:10:32.670 --> 0:10:36.470 you have a number of interrogations to it on a 0:10:36.469 --> 0:10:39.550 particular topic, and you can have them all grouped together. 0:10:39.550 --> 0:10:41.509 So it's pretty good. ChatGPT. 0:10:42.309 --> 0:10:44.469 Just on that too, I should also mention that one 0:10:44.469 --> 0:10:48.270 of the big differences between Deep Seek and ChatGPT is 0:10:48.270 --> 0:10:50.589 that deep seek at this point in time does not 0:10:50.589 --> 0:10:55.030 provide the voice mode, the sort of conversational voice mode 0:10:55.030 --> 0:10:58.990 that ChatGPT does. The only way to work with it 0:10:58.990 --> 0:11:01.709 is to type to it. So that's something to note 0:11:01.709 --> 0:11:03.469 as well. If you use it in that way, which 0:11:03.469 --> 0:11:05.150 I quite often do. 0:11:05.429 --> 0:11:07.469 Yes, it can be convenient to do it that way 0:11:08.390 --> 0:11:11.710 though the voice is also very good. I'd like to 0:11:11.709 --> 0:11:15.350 talk to you about Amazon Amazon Fire TV. Perhaps you 0:11:15.349 --> 0:11:18.749 could explain what that is and the Omni Mini product. 0:11:18.990 --> 0:11:21.059 There are there are a number of these sort of, um, 0:11:21.099 --> 0:11:25.300 Amazon Fire TV type devices. So they're a media type 0:11:25.300 --> 0:11:27.979 device that attaches to your TV and allows you to 0:11:28.020 --> 0:11:33.020 stream content from Amazon Prime and other things, you know, 0:11:33.059 --> 0:11:36.179 similar in some respects to things like the Apple TV 0:11:36.339 --> 0:11:41.699 or the Google TV product. But in their next iteration, 0:11:41.699 --> 0:11:46.740 which is the fire TV Omni mini, they're including a 0:11:46.740 --> 0:11:50.579 feature which allows you to have two simultaneous audio streams. 0:11:50.979 --> 0:11:54.780 If you had one family member who uses hearing aids 0:11:54.780 --> 0:11:58.540 and wants the audio from the TV stream to their 0:11:58.540 --> 0:12:01.780 hearing aids, they can do that while simultaneously having it 0:12:01.780 --> 0:12:04.420 streamed to the lounge room for the rest of the family. 0:12:04.420 --> 0:12:07.500 At the moment, with most of these things, it's an 0:12:07.500 --> 0:12:10.660 either or scenario, or you have a situation where what 0:12:10.660 --> 0:12:13.339 gets sent to the hearing aids, there's a significant latency 0:12:13.339 --> 0:12:18.219 or delay, whereas there's now a new protocol which they're including, 0:12:18.219 --> 0:12:20.849 which allows you to simultaneously have the Have the audio 0:12:20.849 --> 0:12:23.250 streamed to two different devices. 0:12:23.609 --> 0:12:26.250 So how do you get involved with something like fire TV? 0:12:26.290 --> 0:12:27.170 How do you start? 0:12:27.650 --> 0:12:30.450 You can simply order them from Amazon. I would normally 0:12:30.449 --> 0:12:32.890 recommend waiting until they have a, you know, Prime Day 0:12:32.929 --> 0:12:34.849 sale or something because you can pick them up fairly 0:12:34.849 --> 0:12:39.169 cheap and then they just generally plug into your HDMI 0:12:39.250 --> 0:12:41.849 port on the back of your television. They do have 0:12:41.849 --> 0:12:45.370 a built in screen reader. I do find with all 0:12:45.370 --> 0:12:48.209 of these TV platforms, there are some limitations with some 0:12:48.209 --> 0:12:50.770 of the third party streaming apps. Some of them work 0:12:50.770 --> 0:12:53.890 better than others, and some of them they'll work well 0:12:53.929 --> 0:12:57.129 on one platform, but not the other. I had a 0:12:57.170 --> 0:13:00.250 recent experience buying a TV for my caravan. It was 0:13:00.250 --> 0:13:03.370 a Google TV had, you know, the Chromecast and things 0:13:03.370 --> 0:13:06.370 built into it. But for some reason that particular TV 0:13:06.370 --> 0:13:10.170 manufacturer had disabled all the accessibility features. So it is 0:13:10.170 --> 0:13:13.050 a little bit hit and miss in that way. But yeah, 0:13:13.050 --> 0:13:16.490 the Amazon experience is probably comparable to what you might 0:13:16.490 --> 0:13:19.530 get on something like Google TV if you've already got 0:13:19.530 --> 0:13:22.069 an accessible box of some sort, whether it's an Apple 0:13:22.069 --> 0:13:25.670 TV or a Google TV for watching content, there's probably 0:13:25.670 --> 0:13:28.710 no compelling reason to race out and buy the Amazon 0:13:28.709 --> 0:13:32.150 Fire TV, except that you, of course, could control it 0:13:32.150 --> 0:13:34.950 from your Alexa device so you can tell it to 0:13:34.990 --> 0:13:37.749 stream things and that sort of thing. So that may 0:13:37.790 --> 0:13:41.189 be of interest, but it's essentially Amazon's TV streaming device. 0:13:41.469 --> 0:13:45.110 Before we go, a reminder to everyone listening that you 0:13:45.109 --> 0:13:47.110 can find details of what we've been talking about in 0:13:47.109 --> 0:13:49.790 this and previous editions of the program by going to 0:13:49.829 --> 0:13:56.429 VA radio, Talking Tech, VA radio, Talking Tech to write 0:13:56.429 --> 0:13:57.350 to the program. 0:13:57.510 --> 0:14:04.790 Damo. Damo McMorrow McMorrow at Vision Australia. 0:14:05.870 --> 0:14:10.830 Damo McMorrow at Vision Australia. This has been talking tech 0:14:10.829 --> 0:14:14.469 with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager 0:14:14.630 --> 0:14:17.829 Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Take care. We'll talk more 0:14:17.829 --> 0:14:18.630 tech next week. 0:14:18.670 --> 0:14:19.110 See you.