S1: Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: March 26th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you
S1: with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, Associated Stations
S1: of Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network. There is
S1: also the podcast. To catch that, all you need to
S1: do is search for the two words talking tech and
S1: downer can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just
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: someone who can explain all this tech stuff really well.
S1: Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology, David Woodbridge. David,
S1: let's start with our Product Minute, an item from the
S1: vision store of Vision Australia. And this week it's the
S1: zoom max. No 12 inch video magnifier.
S2: Indeed. So if you can imagine a 12 inch tablet
S2: that you carry around with you and it's number one,
S2: the video magnifier. So you point the camera at the
S2: back of the unit at anything you want to read
S2: in large print. And of course, the number up on
S2: the screen. You've got control over that screen about brightness
S2: and contrast and that sort of stuff. But it's also
S2: got a speech mode. And what the speech mode is,
S2: is optical character recognition or what people say is OCR.
S2: So that means if you're looking at a restaurant menu
S2: and you can't quite read it, uh, even with the
S2: large print on the screen, you can get the optical
S2: character recognition to recognize the print and read it out
S2: to you through speech. So you really do have the
S2: best of both worlds. And it's also got a little
S2: detachable writing stand. So if you want to fill something
S2: in like a form, you can actually pop this thing
S2: on a stand right underneath the camera, and then you
S2: can see exactly what you're signing or filling out. So
S2: it really does have quite a few different uses. And
S2: the fact that it's a nice, lightweight little tablet means
S2: it's very portable.
S1: What sort of money are we talking about?
S2: It normally retails for around about $2,600. At the moment
S2: it's around about $1,100. So if you were after a
S2: very cheap but good low vision speech output for character
S2: recognition handwriting type device, then this one's pretty good, I
S2: might say. Also just in morning with a lot of
S2: these things that are for low vision people, it's always
S2: best that you try before you buy because it really
S2: is dependent on your your vision, what your fields are like,
S2: all that sort of stuff. So if you can pop
S2: into a local vision store and have a look, that's
S2: always your best way to go.
S1: And the world changes quickly, doesn't it? There can be
S1: products come out that supersede previous ones that were looking
S1: pretty good indeed.
S2: Yeah, it's like buying a car one week and they
S2: bring out one the following week.
S1: Let's talk about the season event now, California State University,
S1: the big gathering, the international gathering of technologists relating to
S1: disability and accessibility. What are your reflections on the 2024 event?
S2: Well, I think we sort of as we thought we
S2: sort of predicted a little bit a lot of stuff
S2: to do with artificial intelligence. So I and quite a
S2: few of other things were also announced, as well as some,
S2: you know, robot orientation, mobility stuff as well. So there's
S2: lots of stuff coming out. Um, quite a few things
S2: that we might talk about today, but there's a lots
S2: and lots of stuff to talk about. So I have
S2: a funny feeling we're probably going to be talking about
S2: Sea Sun a little bit this weekend, next week.
S1: So you have in your hands the BT Speak Pro
S1: very interesting little device. There were two of them, the
S1: BT speaker and the BT Speak Pro that were released
S1: just recently. Tell us about them and what your experience
S1: has been.
S2: So for people that are in their mature years that
S2: were around in the 1990s might remember a thing called
S2: the Braille and speak. It was simply a back then
S2: it was a six dot braille input keyboard and a spacebar.
S2: It spoke out to you and it was mainly all
S2: designed around a document. So that was the original Braille
S2: and speak. So the new version of the BT speak,
S2: it works about the same premise. So you've got your
S2: main editor and then you can access files and copy
S2: things around. You can have multiple files open and so on.
S2: Plus it also has other applications such as scientific calculator. Um,
S2: if you link it up to the internet you've got
S2: weather and so on. Connects to Bluetooth. You can plug
S2: it into a monitor, and you can also plug in
S2: a query keyboard. And it actually takes a micro memory card.
S2: It's very tiny. It's got eight keys because we've got
S2: seven and eight and the spacebar, it's speech output. People
S2: might remember the old dick talk. So we've got dick
S2: talk speech back. So that's the that's the basic version,
S2: the pro version. Because this thing's based on Linux which
S2: is a Unix. Type of operating system. You've got a
S2: full desktop version in the Pro version, which is basically
S2: a full graphical user interface with all the associated applications
S2: like Chrome and Thunderbird and so on. Plus, you are
S2: using the Orca screen reader, which is a full blown
S2: screen reader for Linux, so it's pretty amazing. At the moment,
S2: it's still a little bit under development, especially with the
S2: note taker function on both the basic and the Pro.
S2: Not all the documentation is completed, and I understand they're
S2: still looking at how they're producing the physical casing for
S2: the unit. So if you're a pro type person and
S2: you wanted one of these now, then that's fine. But
S2: if you wanted a good general solid note taker that
S2: you didn't have to worry about, maybe some documentation missing
S2: or some features not quite finished, I would probably wait three,
S2: maybe six months until the dust settles a bit more.
S1: Yes, we talked over the last few weeks about the
S1: new range of zoom digital recorders, the zoom H1, the
S1: zoom H4, and the zoom H6 essential recorders. You've had
S1: a zoom H1 for a little while. You now have
S1: a zoom H4. What are your first impressions?
S2: I think I personally fell into the accessibility trap of
S2: thinking that, and we did talk about this, about the
S2: the zoom H1. Just because something is accessible doesn't mean
S2: it's actually easy to use. So you do have to
S2: read the manual to really get the best out of
S2: it or listen to tutorials. But the second thing that
S2: caught me up because I knew about the first one,
S2: is I thought it was going to offer exactly the
S2: same functionality that I'm already using in my zoom pod
S2: track P4, and unfortunately, at the moment it seems to
S2: be a bit of a work in progress because I'm
S2: not getting the same level of functionality that I am
S2: with my P4. So I think what I've learnt out
S2: of this process at the moment is I really have
S2: to look at not only the accessibility stuff, but the functionality.
S2: I think in the future, what I'm really going to
S2: focus on about new stuff coming out is does this
S2: really change my current work pattern? Will it add more
S2: to my current process, and what does the accessibility on
S2: top of all that functionality then add rather than going
S2: accessibility first and functionality? I should have really gone functionality accessibility,
S2: put them both together and have a really good workflow.
S1: It'll be interesting to know what you're telling us about
S1: this in about 3 to 6 months time. Indeed, yeah.
S1: Human wear announced last week some updates to its Mantis
S1: and Brilliant products. The Brilliant Box series 20 and 40.
S1: Tell us about those.
S2: So the update was basically aimed at two things. One
S2: was power management, which I think is really good because
S2: particularly when you're using a broad display all day, which
S2: the Bryant is, you don't want to drain your battery
S2: too much. So this is a way of being able
S2: to manage the power management in your battery on your
S2: Bryant 20 or 40. So that's really cool. Plus your
S2: mantis of course. The other function, which I thought was
S2: interesting was a new mode for terminal mode and terminal mode.
S2: That's a function where it's used to connect to a
S2: host device, whether that's your your PC or your mobile device.
S2: So rather than having the Bryant and the mantis being
S2: connected to multiple devices, you can have it just automatically
S2: connect to one USB or one Bluetooth device, which makes
S2: it a lot more stable connection to some extent. The
S2: only problem I've got staying with it is that you
S2: go into this thing called diagnostic mode to change the settings. Now,
S2: I don't know if they rush it out a little bit,
S2: but I would have thought for general users you'd want
S2: to go into some sort of user setting mode, terminal mode,
S2: and then maybe change, you know, multi-device support for terminal mode,
S2: back to single device support for terminal mode. So hopefully
S2: that might change in the future because yeah, I just
S2: get worried when you've got to start going to some
S2: sort of diagnostic mode to change settings on a device.
S2: Sounds a.
S1: Bit scary. Sure, it's fine though.
S2: Indeed.
S1: Tell us about arks and their wearable device and their
S1: collaboration with Microsoft. Seeing AI and also the navigation and
S1: information app Navi Lens.
S2: This is actually quite interesting. So people that don't know
S2: what the AR vision is, it's a wearable device that
S2: literally sits sort of on one side of your face and.
S2: If you like, because you can also, you know, of
S2: course you can listen to the sound coming out of it.
S2: And the camera is designed to look to, of course,
S2: what's around you. So scene detection, text detection, all the
S2: stuff you could imagine that you would get out of
S2: other wearable type artificial intelligence devices. And when you're considering
S2: that they've just linked up that hardware, with Microsoft seeing
S2: eye on Android and also Netherlands and Android, what you're
S2: getting is the power of the camera hardware, then linked
S2: up to the power of the software running in Microsoft,
S2: AI and Netherlands. So you're certainly getting the best of
S2: both worlds. I should also say that this is a
S2: bit of a trial run. I believe in the States initially,
S2: and then we're sort of looking for a full release,
S2: maybe 6 to 12 months down the track. But I
S2: like it when you see these third party hardware devices
S2: linking up with established software, because, as I just said,
S2: you're getting the best of both worlds. So I think
S2: this is a spot to watch not just for the vision,
S2: but also for other hardware devices coming out in the future.
S1: I is coming to IRA. IRA is the system where
S1: you can get human support via an audio video link.
S1: That person might be in another part of the world
S1: or anywhere they're introducing AI into their offerings with access.
S2: I yeah, I thought this was a really great idea, actually.
S2: So you can take a photo and you can get
S2: the AI engine to describe the photo to you, but
S2: then if you're not 100% sure that the photo is
S2: accurate based on what AI is telling you, because we
S2: always know it can get a little bit extravagant, you
S2: can get your IRA agent to then further describe the
S2: photo to you. So if you have taken a beautiful
S2: snapshot of your grandchildren, for example, um, you know, maybe
S2: their first time jumping into a pool, um, then you
S2: can ask the, the IRA agent, did it get the
S2: the photo description correct? And then you can store it
S2: or take the photo again. So I think this is
S2: a great combination of artificial intelligence. Plus using a quote human.
S2: Then to double check and verify that the photo is correct.
S1: There's a lot happening since we first started hearing of
S1: the possibility of be my eyes AI about a year
S1: or so ago, and now of course, Freedom Scientific with
S1: its jaws and zoom picture. Smart. Um, also doing very well. Absolutely.
S2: Yeah. It's getting more and more amazing. And I still
S2: keep saying, you know, I think we've also barely scratched
S2: the surface of this. Let's see what happens in 2025
S2: and beyond.
S1: There's a new braille device coming from Hims.
S2: That's correct. It's basically, uh, in pre-order state at the moment.
S2: It's called the Brow Emotion. Basically, it's an updated version
S2: of all the range of what I like to call
S2: the brow sense line of note takers. So you've got
S2: speech output, you've got a brow display, you've got all
S2: these wonderful built in applications such as a daisy reader, uh,
S2: note taker, all that sort of cool stuff. You can
S2: also link up to multiple devices. So it really is
S2: a full on blown note taker that you can use
S2: as a quote note taker, or link it up to
S2: your mobile or desktop device online. I saw it was
S2: for us 3595. So I guess by the time it
S2: comes into Australia and everything else, it should be around
S2: about the $6,000 mark.
S1: All the additional features that come with those now indeed
S1: quite amazing. Before we go, a reminder of where there
S1: are details of what we've been talking about in this
S1: and previous editions of the program.
S2: Indeed. So as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David would be AirPod Bean Pod Barn Comm.
S1: David would be our podbean podbean. Com to write to
S1: the program.
S2: You can write to me at Vision Australia where I work,
S2: which is David Woodbridge how it sounds at Vision Australia.
S1: Org David Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org this has been
S1: talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national advisor
S1: on access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolly stay safe.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.