S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: February the 18th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
S1: you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
S1: stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network.
S1: There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you
S1: need to do is search for the two words talking
S1: tech and Denikin will come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
S1: just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
S1: a Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia
S1: radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast
S1: with me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo. G'day, Stephen.
S1: Let's talk today firstly about a mobility device. And for
S1: some time, I guess for several years now we've been
S1: waiting for a cane or something like it with some
S1: intelligence in it. and at last one seems to have dropped.
S2: Yes, this is the walk. Smart cane two. They did
S2: do a sort of a previous iteration of it, but
S2: this one is quite impressive for a number of reasons.
S2: First of all, it looks and feels like a standard
S2: white cane. Some of the others that I've seen in
S2: the past have either been insanely heavy and clunky looking,
S2: or they've been a little bit light and a little
S2: bit flimsy, whereas this really does feel a lot like
S2: a conventional long cane. There are a couple of notable differences.
S2: All of the smarts are kind of built into the
S2: handle of the cane, but the previous version of the
S2: walk had a sort of a touch surface, whereas this one,
S2: they've actually gone with tactile buttons, which I think is
S2: quite nice given the way that most of us would
S2: would use a cane. Now, I would stress that I'm
S2: predominantly a seeing eye dog user, but having said that,
S2: I am actually quite intrigued by this one myself.
S1: You've held one in your hand, haven't you?
S2: I have, yes, yes. I haven't actually had a chance
S2: to put it through its paces, per se, but I
S2: have actually had my hands on it. Yes. So we've
S2: got a series of buttons on the the grip, if
S2: you like. At the end of the grip, there is
S2: a Harman Kardon speaker which gives you audio feedback. And
S2: there is also a sensor for the overhead obstacle detection.
S2: The device pairs to your phone via the WI Walk app,
S2: and you can then use it for things like GPS directions.
S2: And also it has a what they're calling an intelligent assistant. Um,
S2: so you can ask it, you know, about your surroundings
S2: and those kinds of things. And you can also get
S2: public transport information, which utilizes the the Moovit app and
S2: the information that it has. So it I think it
S2: has the potential to be quite an impressive and very
S2: useful travel companion.
S1: It looks good when you read about it on the
S1: On the website and there's a few demos available. I
S1: haven't seen a lot of them yet. The place to
S1: go to with Dot zero. Zero. And normally when it's
S1: written down, it's capital W and capital W, but all
S1: the one word, if you know what I mean. So
S1: that's worth exploring. Uh, it looks like it's going to
S1: cost somewhere over $1,000, but not too bad.
S2: No, not too bad, considering what they've packed into it.
S2: I think that's probably pretty reasonable.
S1: Um, and, uh, you can order it online, but go
S1: to the website. Well. And good luck.
S2: Yeah, I'm looking forward to putting one through its paces
S2: properly and taking it for a walk and seeing what
S2: I think of it.
S1: So that's the we walk w. Let's talk YouTube now.
S1: YouTube's been around for years, and for many of us
S1: it's a go to place. If you think there might
S1: be some audio about such and such, maybe even from
S1: a long time ago. And that's where you go is
S1: to YouTube. But now people like Damo McMorrow and many
S1: others are creating their own content for YouTube. Tell us
S1: about all that, Damo.
S2: Sure. So you can access YouTube, obviously through a website.
S2: So you can just go to youtube.com, or you can
S2: download the YouTube app on your smartphone and access it
S2: that way. And some of the Braille devices also have
S2: a dedicated YouTube streaming app. For years it's it's been
S2: a platform where people could create video content for others
S2: to watch. And there's all sorts. There's millions and millions
S2: of videos available there on all manner of things. But
S2: I sort of got interested in creating content a little
S2: while ago, and it sort of became a bit of
S2: a holiday project. What I wanted to do was to
S2: show some of the things that my wife and I
S2: do with our caravan and our boat and our meat
S2: smoker and things like that, because a lot of people
S2: ask us, you know, how do you as a blind couple,
S2: how do you manage a caravan and that kind of thing?
S2: So that's sort of what I wanted to do. But
S2: there was a bit of a learning curve in terms of,
S2: first of all, how do you get your content there?
S2: And you can do that a couple of different ways.
S2: There's a white studio app for your phone. Um, or
S2: you can do it via the the website as well. Um,
S2: by going to the there's like a number of tabs,
S2: there's subscriptions and there's a home tab and whatnot. And
S2: there's one of those tabs is called you. And you
S2: can go and set yourself up a YouTube channel and
S2: add content. And you can also stream live as well
S2: as showing sort of videos that you've made. So I
S2: sort of had to figure that out. But then the
S2: next challenge was sort of filming. As a blind person,
S2: how do I know what I'm filming? How do I
S2: make it work? And then sort of how do we
S2: put it together?
S1: Um, so tell us about all that.
S2: Okay, so I've been experimenting with a few different, um,
S2: ways of filming things. The simplest is using my Ray-Ban
S2: meta glasses. That works extremely well in that the audio
S2: quality is good and I and I can be reasonably confident.
S2: That sort of where my face is pointing is where
S2: it's filming. The limitation of using the glasses, though, is
S2: that you've you can only record a three minute video
S2: at a time, and sometimes you obviously want to do
S2: a longer video than that. But for for short little clips,
S2: using the Ray-Ban meta glasses works pretty well. And you
S2: can stitch the video clips together, and I'll talk a
S2: little bit about that in a moment. The other thing
S2: I've experimented with is using a gimbal, which is a
S2: essentially a holder that your iPhone fits into, and it
S2: clips onto this device, and it has a sort of
S2: a handle that you can hold onto, or you can
S2: screw a tripod onto the bottom of it. And the
S2: idea is that the gimbal keeps the phone level. So
S2: you can do you can use that in a couple
S2: of different ways. You can walk along and film. The
S2: gimbal itself has little motors, which keep the phone steady
S2: and keep it level and remove any sort of, you know,
S2: shake from your hand and that kind of thing. But
S2: the other thing that you can do with it is
S2: if you want to be in shot, you can set
S2: the gimbal up so that it follows you. So there's
S2: a feature in the app you can turn on called
S2: gesture mode, where you can start it recording by raising
S2: your hand in like a stop gesture. And then when
S2: you start it, if you're in shot, you can then
S2: move around, you know, perhaps walk over and grab something
S2: off another bench or a shelf and the the phone
S2: will kind of pivot around on the gimbal and follow you.
S1: And what about your voice? Will that come through clearly
S1: enough seeing you're away from the microphone?
S2: Yes, you can use the phone or you can Bluetooth
S2: some additional microphones to it. There are a number of
S2: different lapel mics and different ways of configuring microphones. Um,
S2: so that that works. There are a couple of funny
S2: things with the DJI app, which is the one I've got.
S2: It's a DJI Mimo gimbal. There are a couple of
S2: gotchas with it that I've had to figure out ways
S2: of working around where if you tap on the wrong thing,
S2: you can very quickly end up doing a slo mo
S2: video or something instead of a normal speed. So you
S2: do have to be a little bit careful, but it
S2: does work and I use that for when I want
S2: to talk to camera and introduce the video and talk
S2: about what I'm going to be doing. Um, the other
S2: bit of equipment I'm using is a GoPro, um, which
S2: is a little action camera. They're they're only quite small.
S2: They're sort of a little square box. And you can
S2: mount them on a number of different things. I use
S2: mine on a head mount, so it sort of sits
S2: on my forehead. But you can also use them in
S2: a chest harness. You can use them on a, you know,
S2: a bike helmet, um, or you can attach them to
S2: the front of your boat or your jetski or your car.
S2: They work quite well because they're a one touch sort
S2: of thing to turn them on and off, and they
S2: are very good at sort of capturing stuff where you're
S2: moving around and that kind of thing. And there's hundreds
S2: of different ways of, of mounting those so you can
S2: start them recording and then forget about them. And I
S2: use that if I'm recording a video where I'm cooking
S2: or I'm walking around the caravan demonstrating something, you know,
S2: that kind of thing. Um, so that's the technology that
S2: I've been playing with so far. The challenge has been
S2: just in in learning how to position things so that
S2: I know that what I think is in shot is
S2: actually in shot. And that's just been a little bit
S2: of practice and getting some feedback from people on what
S2: I'm filming and whether it's worked or not, but I
S2: feel like I'm getting more confident.
S1: That was going to be. My question, too, is how
S1: do you get that feedback from people quickly? If you're
S1: out on your own with your wife, who's also blind,
S1: how do you get that feedback?
S2: Um, well, my brother is also a YouTuber, and he's
S2: been very helpful and actually got me the gimbal for
S2: Christmas and helped me sort of set things up. So
S2: I've kind of been sending him a link before I
S2: publish the content and saying, can you just check this
S2: and make sure I haven't done anything silly? I'm finding
S2: as I get used to it and I understand the
S2: camera angles, I need to ask him less and less.
S1: Um, any other software you want to tell us about?
S2: Yes. So obviously, once you've recorded your video clips, the
S2: thing is being able to put them all together and
S2: there are a couple of really accessible options for us.
S2: One is iMovie, which is available on the Mac and
S2: on the iPhone. If you're using the GoPro or the
S2: gimbal Bull or the meta glasses. Everything gets sort of
S2: sent to your phone so you can grab all your
S2: different clips and put them in the order you want,
S2: and then export it out to YouTube or export it
S2: out to a file, depending on what you want to do.
S2: The other one I've been using quite a bit and
S2: it's very nice as well, is Clipchamp for windows, which
S2: is a free Microsoft app, and I've only just sort
S2: of tapped into a couple of the things that it
S2: can do, but it works really well as well for
S2: stitching your content together, your clips together. It works very
S2: nicely with jaws and Nvda and even. Narrator if you're
S2: a screen reader user. So yeah, it's nice that there
S2: are some accessible tools out there and you can set
S2: it up now using AI. There are features where you
S2: can get it to transition nicely from one clip to another,
S2: so that all the transitions are nice and smooth and
S2: that sort of thing.
S1: People will be curious to find out how all this
S1: comes out. So where can they go to catch up
S1: with it?
S2: You can go to youtube.com and then the At sign
S2: and the blind test drive. All one word. So that's
S2: at the blind test drive. Or you can just search
S2: for at the blind test drive in the YouTube app.
S2: And then when the channel comes up, there's an option
S2: there to subscribe. And that way whenever I put new
S2: content up, you'll be able to find it easily.
S1: Thanks for telling us about that, and we will keep
S1: watching out for what you're doing, and perhaps have another
S1: chat sometime about what you're up to with your YouTube
S1: creation amongst the thousands, if not millions of others out
S1: there who are doing it.
S2: It's been a real learning curve for me though, so
S2: I'm happy to sort of share what I'm learning, you know,
S2: in the hope that it might inspire other blind or
S2: low vision content creators out there. So as I learn
S2: more about what to do and what works and what doesn't, um,
S2: I'm happy to check back in, you know, from time
S2: to time and share that information around.
S1: We were talking last week about keeping in touch with
S1: apps that have been around for a little while. Be
S1: My Eyes has had a facelift.
S2: It has, and I haven't had a chance to have
S2: a really good look at that yet. But one of
S2: the quite interesting features is that it now has a
S2: read aloud feature, which means that if you don't use
S2: a screen reader, you know, perhaps you use your phone,
S2: but you use things like speak selection, or you might
S2: use zoom or that kind of thing. Some of the
S2: other accessibility features. There is a read aloud feature to
S2: speak out, descriptions and and those sorts of things now.
S2: So it does make the app potentially more useful to
S2: someone who maybe doesn't want to turn VoiceOver on in
S2: order to be able to use it.
S1: It won me over with the Be My Eye feature
S1: when that came out, or about 18 months or so ago.
S2: Yeah, I really love that too. Um, and of course,
S2: now you can also access the Be My Eyes caller
S2: volunteer feature through. If you've got a set of Ray-Ban
S2: meta glasses, you can access that hands free rather than
S2: just through the camera on your phone, which is nice
S2: if you're navigating airports and those sorts of things.
S1: And we should explain be my eye is where you
S1: can submit a photograph, or it can even take the
S1: photograph for you, and then it'll give you a very
S1: detailed AI description of that photograph.
S2: And you can also ask questions so you can say
S2: things like, is this photo straight? Is the is the
S2: cat in this photo clearly in shot?
S1: That's been my eyes. Go and have another look at
S1: it before we go. A reminder that there are details
S1: of what we've been talking about in this program and
S1: in previous editions on VA. VA. And to write to us.
S2: Damo. At.
S1: Damo at this has been talking tech with me has
S1: been vision Australia's national access technology manager Damo McMorrow I'm
S1: Stephen Jolly. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week.
S3: See you.