S1: Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: June the 25th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolly, great to have
S1: you with us listening through Vision Australia Radio associated stations
S1: of RPA Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network. There
S1: is also the podcast. To catch that all you need
S1: to do is search for the two words talking tech.
S1: And then it can all come, usually on a Tuesday
S1: afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to
S1: ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision
S1: Australia Radio talking tech podcast Vision Australia Radio talking Tech
S1: podcast with me, someone who can explain all this tech
S1: stuff really well. Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology,
S1: David Woodbridge. David, let's start with the product minute from
S1: the vision store of Vision Australia. It's not really high
S1: tech this one, but pretty useful.
S2: What this product is is called the mesh gloves. And
S2: you can buy them for both your left and your
S2: right hand. You can buy them for small, medium and
S2: large hands. What caught my attention about this? And by
S2: the way, when we say mesh gloves, we're not thinking
S2: about sort of like gauntlet type stuff that you'd wear
S2: in the medieval days. Um, when we say mesh, it's
S2: very fine mesh the same way that steel wool feels.
S2: That's the the type of mesh that's on this glove.
S2: And they've got like an inner glove. Um, because you
S2: don't want sort of the scratchy surface scratching your hand.
S2: But as I said, what caught my attention was the
S2: fact that it prevents your hand getting things like cut
S2: when you're using a very sharp knife. So the trick is,
S2: normally you normally would just buy one glove to have
S2: on your non-dominant hand, because that's normally the hand that's
S2: holding something like a, like an apple or a banana
S2: that you're cutting up with a knife. So the mesh
S2: gloves on that hand, and then you've got the knife
S2: in your dominant hand and you're cutting. And the thing
S2: is that if that knife then slips onto your, your
S2: finger or the palm of your hand or the back
S2: of your hand because you're wearing the, quote, mesh glove, um,
S2: you're not going to slice or cut yourself. But the
S2: other thing that I realized, what I can do with it,
S2: which is also recommended as well, is you can use
S2: it for gardening, because when I use my pruning shears,
S2: which are quite sharp, my pruning saw, which is even sharper,
S2: I sometimes slip and I'll just sort of gradually, like
S2: almost nick the side of my fingernail, which I've done
S2: quite a few times, or I'll get my knuckle on
S2: my hand and that sort of stuff. And that's the
S2: type of stuff that this mesh glove would certainly protect against.
S2: So again, really, really, really good. And price wise they're
S2: $15 from the Vision store.
S1: The vision store of Vision Australia, the mesh gloves. One
S1: of the things we didn't cover when we were reviewing
S1: the Apple event at WWDC worldwide, developers conference a couple
S1: of weeks ago. TV, the TV app, which of course
S1: is related to Apple TV. Just tell us how all
S1: that fits together and what's happened with the TV app
S1: this year.
S2: Yes. So the original Apple TV itself is actually the
S2: little box that you plug in via a HDMI cable
S2: into your back of your TV. So that actually is
S2: the Apple TV. Um, it's like plugging your, you know,
S2: your Foxtel box into your, your big TV screen, but
S2: where it gets a little bit more interesting for us,
S2: iOS and Mac and iPad users is there's also an
S2: app running on those platforms. So like you've got the
S2: Foxtel Go app that runs on Android and iOS and
S2: so on. You've also got that TV app that runs
S2: on iOS, and the reason why you can choose to
S2: do either one is that, you know, when you're out
S2: and about and you've got your iPhone or your iPad,
S2: you can watch it quite nicely on your own little
S2: screen or your big screen. But then when you're at
S2: at home, of course, you want to watch it through
S2: the the Apple TV box plugged into your, as they
S2: say in the States 80 inch screen, which is huge. Uh,
S2: to enjoy it. Now, what WWDC was talking about is
S2: they've done a few things. So the Apple TV box itself,
S2: so not so much. The app is compatible with projectors.
S2: And there they're the projectors that can put the whole
S2: picture up on your whole wall of your lounge room.
S2: So very, very, very big. The second one is that
S2: they're making Airplay compatible with more external type speakers, not
S2: just HomePods. And the third thing that applies to both
S2: the Apple TV box and the TV app is that
S2: the dialogue in movies and TV shows, which can be
S2: quite quiet sometimes, um, compared to what else is going on,
S2: you can actually set it so it's a lot louder,
S2: so you can quite easily hear what the actors are
S2: saying over. You know, the action background type sound. So
S2: those three things have made a huge improvement to both
S2: the Apple TV box itself and of course, the TV
S2: app itself as well.
S1: And with all the other products announced at the WWDC event,
S1: we can look forward to that later this year, maybe
S1: around sometime in spring. Correct. Let's talk about vision technology now,
S1: and this will probably need a series of conversations to
S1: cover it thoroughly. It encompasses software or applications as well
S1: as devices. Should we start talking about devices today, the
S1: wearables that are available in Australia?
S2: Indeed. And we're specifically talking about Australia, because I don't
S2: want to talk about ones that you can only get
S2: from overseas or you can use in Australia if you
S2: start doing weird and wonderful things with them. So the
S2: three main ones I want to talk about is the
S2: AR vision. The vision smart glasses and the Orcam Myeye three.
S2: So the AR vision is literally a camera with a
S2: USB-C cable that plugs into at the moment your Android phone,
S2: your Blind shell classic two, and then hopefully in about
S2: another couple of weeks or so, your iPhone. And I've
S2: got a funny feeling it's going to be the iPhone
S2: 50 and above because it needs USB-C. The second one
S2: is the end vision glasses. Now of course, they're actually
S2: based on the Google Enterprise Google Glass. They're like wearing
S2: a sort of a weird pair of frames without any
S2: glass in them. And you've got a little camera on
S2: the side that, you know, points forward the same way
S2: the vision does. And then you've got, of course, different
S2: software that you can run via touch or voice. And
S2: then the third one, which is the very famous one
S2: that lots of people have heard about, is the Orcam
S2: Myeye three. That's a dedicated little camera that magnetically attaches
S2: to the side of your glasses, and that can be
S2: put on any glasses, whether it's, you know, reading glasses
S2: or whatever else, and the new version of that which
S2: wasn't available previously, that's also on the internet or access
S2: to the internet. The same with the other two.
S1: What sort of money are we talking about for these devices?
S1: They go into thousands of dollars.
S2: They do. And these are only very rough figures. The
S2: RCS vision is probably going to be around about $1,600. Australian.
S2: The envision glasses is probably around about $5,000. And then
S2: the my eye, the Orcam one is close to up
S2: to between 7.5 to $8000. They're not particularly cost effective
S2: in some ways, except, of course, for the vision one.
S2: But what it boils down to is, and I've got
S2: all the pages in the show notes, but it really
S2: boils down to what type of features you want out
S2: of these types of hardware technology.
S1: So let's go through some of these features. Now we'll
S1: start with the R.
S2: So the R it's interesting because it's a wired connection
S2: to both your Android phone. And like I said later
S2: on your iPhone it's a lot faster in processing information
S2: because it's directly attached to your smartphone like all the
S2: other ones. It does instant text reading. So as soon
S2: as the camera sees some text starts reading it out
S2: to you, it'll do whole document reading. Uh, it will
S2: do face recognition. It'll also do QR code detection. And
S2: then and here's where it gets very interesting. If you
S2: then team it up with the Seeing Eye app currently
S2: on Android, then you've got all the functionality of the
S2: Seeing Eye app from Microsoft. So of course that's things
S2: like short text again, document reading, barcode reading, handwriting, light detection,
S2: color detection, all that sort of stuff that you would
S2: normally get or do get in the Seeing Eye app. Uh,
S2: it's just the fact that it's using the AR vision camera,
S2: not the smartphone camera. So that makes it very flexible.
S2: So I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on that. Um,
S2: hopefully in a month or two.
S1: The Navy Lens app also interacts with this.
S2: It does. And that's sort of like a fancy, uh,
S2: QR code that can be detected from quite a long
S2: way away. I believe it's up to about 4 or 5m,
S2: because normally with QR codes you've got to be very close.
S2: This one will guide you in or let you know
S2: what QR codes are around you for the Navy lens.
S2: So particularly for shops and public places, they're really, really useful.
S2: So I might have some news on that for the
S2: vision store later on or next year.
S1: The Envision Eye smart glasses.
S2: I won't go through the items that I've just read
S2: out for the AR vision, because it's exactly the same.
S2: But what the envision glasses do, which is the AR
S2: vision doesn't do, is that it's also got artificial. Intelligence. So, um,
S2: you can get it to interrogate documents that it's read
S2: so you can say, you know, what's the price of
S2: my electricity bill? Um, you can get it to ask
S2: general questions for AI itself. And of course, it's also
S2: got a thing called smart reading, where it will try and,
S2: you know, smartly summarize a document for you. So it's
S2: a lot more advanced than the IR vision, precisely because
S2: the fact it does use the AI, which is actually ChatGPT.
S1: Tell us about Orcam Myeye three.
S2: Again, it sort of builds upon what ARX and what
S2: envision does. So for example, we've still got all that
S2: text reading, but we've also got, um, besides the AI,
S2: artificial intelligence, we've also got a few other features. One
S2: of which is, um, you can link it up via
S2: a browser to a basically an electronic video magnifier. So
S2: whatever the camera is looking at is going to come
S2: up in the browser, on your Mac, on your windows,
S2: or on your your other iPhone or your iPad or
S2: your Android tablet, because it's just a it's just a
S2: web browser magnification. So that's looking extremely interesting. And the
S2: other thing that I found with the orcam itself in particular,
S2: it's very good at barcode reading. So the other ones
S2: I mentioned, QR code reading. Um, Kiap also does barcode reading,
S2: of course, but with the Orcam it's very good on
S2: barcode identification. It's also very good on face recognition. So
S2: if you tell it to recognize a person's particular face,
S2: it works extremely well. So as you can tell each
S2: one of these, the AR vision, the envision and the
S2: Orcam all do slightly different things. And as I said
S2: in the beginning of our chat about this, it really
S2: depends on what you want to do. Now, the thing
S2: that concerns me, though, uh, with all three of these
S2: is this seam detection. And I purposely didn't mention this
S2: when I was talking about them, because this is the
S2: one that I've got concerns about because all of them
S2: do scene detection. So when you walking down the street,
S2: it'll say, you know, there's a tree to our left
S2: in front of you, there's a pole, there's a red
S2: postbox coming up, um, there's a shop, etc., etc.. The
S2: problem with scene detection, because it's actually generated through artificial
S2: intelligence and machine learning, it's comparing what that image is,
S2: is to lots of other trained images. And if the
S2: camera can't get the image nice and clear, it's going
S2: to give you the wrong information back. So I'll give
S2: you an example. My wife drives a red Subaru Forester
S2: now in certain conditions, because it's looking at the back
S2: of the car, it thinks it's the back of a
S2: red bus. Other times it thinks that my red bin
S2: is a fire hydrant. So I guess what I'm concerned
S2: about is if you want these things for object recognition
S2: and scene detection and be able to rely upon it,
S2: I would still say at the moment, and this includes
S2: all three of them. The answer is do not depend
S2: upon them because it's not accurate enough to be that safe.
S1: Now, one interesting area of application for these devices is
S1: for people with low vision, isn't it? Because we tend
S1: to think of them as for people who are totally blind,
S1: but if you're out there having trouble reading the signage
S1: or the packaging in the stores, etc., but you do
S1: have some vision, these devices could offer the solution.
S2: That's right. And they're also effectively hands free. So you
S2: can point the camera at whatever you want to have
S2: a look at. Um, or pick up something and just quote,
S2: look at the actual item and it'll tell you what
S2: it is. So from a low vision point of view,
S2: it's great.
S1: I know of people using these devices at museums and
S1: exhibitions to read signage. Hmm. Very interesting. Now, before we go,
S1: a reminder of where there are details of what we've
S1: been talking about in this and previous editions of the program. Indeed.
S2: So as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David Woodburn, Dot Podbean pod Cbn.com David.
S1: Woodburn Podbean podbean.com. To write to the program you can.
S2: Write to me at Vision Australia where I work, which
S2: is David Woodbridge, how it sounds at Vision Australia.
S1: Org David Dot Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org this has
S1: been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national
S1: advisor on access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolly take care.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.