S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: November the 5th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolly, great to have
S1: you with us listening through Vision Australia Radio associated stations
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S1: tech and Dan can all come usually on a Tuesday
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S1: ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision
S1: Australia radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast.
S1: With me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. Hey, Damo. Hi, Stephen. Damo.
S1: It's been a big week for software upgrades, particularly in
S1: the screen reader and screen enhancement area. Before we go
S1: into the details of what's been released, let's perhaps explain
S1: what a screen reader is and what screen enhancement is.
S2: Yeah, sure. So screen readers are really designed to give
S2: you access to your computer through synthetic speech output. But
S2: also if you have a refreshable Braille display connected, it'll
S2: give you the same sort of access through Braille. So
S2: for people who are totally blind, like you and I,
S2: or people who have either very low vision or suffer
S2: from a lot of vision fatigue, they will often use
S2: a screen reader as their primary means of access. For
S2: those people who have some hearing loss as well, they
S2: may rely more on the Braille output side of things
S2: rather than the speech output. Screen enhancement, on the other hand,
S2: is more of a visual enhancement. So for people who
S2: have some usable vision, a lot of people think that
S2: it's just magnification, but it goes a lot further than that.
S2: There are things like high contrast mouse pointers and cursors.
S2: You can change the screen contrast. So for example, if
S2: your vision works in such a way that having everything
S2: as white on black or black on white works best
S2: for you, then you can adjust those sorts of things
S2: as well as the text size. A lot of screen
S2: enhancement tools also provide some speech so that you can
S2: use it for reading emails, long documents, that kind of
S2: thing so that you can give your vision a break.
S2: And then of course, there are products like Supernova Magnifier,
S2: Screen Reader or Zoomtext Fusion, which actually include a full
S2: screen reader and all of the screen enhancement tools. So
S2: they are often used if someone is transitioning from being
S2: perhaps predominantly a magnification user, a screen enhancement user to
S2: becoming more of a screen reader user as their vision
S2: deteriorates or depending on the day. You know, people's vision
S2: can change day to day, and if you're having a
S2: bad day visually and your eyes just aren't cooperating, you
S2: may rely more on your screen reader component in that instance.
S2: Whereas if you're having a good day and you want
S2: to do things visually, or you're dealing with a lot
S2: of graphs, or you're looking at photos or things like that,
S2: you would rely more on the screen enhancement side of things.
S1: So let's talk about vespero, still quite often referred to
S1: as Freedom Scientific. They have the Jaws product, the Zoomtext product,
S1: and the fusion product. And they're 2025 upgrades came out
S1: last week.
S2: They did last Thursday. Australian time. The big new feature
S2: in jaws is a thing called PFS companion. It's essentially
S2: an AI tool that allows you to ask questions, particularly
S2: around Jaws usage, Microsoft Windows usage, and use of office applications.
S2: So you could, for example, type in how do I
S2: change the volume in Jaws? How do I have jaws?
S2: Read the column headers in Excel, something like that. And
S2: it will analyze a number of different resources training resources, documentation,
S2: help files, all of those kinds of things and produce
S2: a nice step by step guide for you on how
S2: to do the thing that you're trying to do.
S1: I asked it recently to tell me how to delete
S1: a block of rows in a Microsoft word table. It
S1: told me exactly as an access trainer and a shout
S1: out to Ken Baker, who used to do this for us,
S1: would tell you there are five steps step one, step two,
S1: step three, etc. it's fantastic.
S2: Yeah, it really is. And there are a couple of
S2: different ways of accessing it too. You can access it
S2: from the device that's running jaws. You can go your
S2: jaws key and space followed by F1. Or you can
S2: actually if you want to look something up on your
S2: phone because you're not near the computer or you don't
S2: want to change focus, you can in any web browser
S2: go to FS companion I and access it from your
S2: phone or another computer or something like that.
S1: So it's a matter of fact. What I've done is
S1: put the shortcut to FS companion I on my desktop.
S1: It's very easy to go to it that way at
S1: any time.
S2: Yeah. That's a that's a really good idea. There are also,
S2: as is often the case, a number of other enhancements.
S2: So there are some improvements in office applications. There's also
S2: some improvements with the new outlook. And this is a
S2: little bit confusing Microsoft have done away with or are
S2: in the process of doing away with the old Windows
S2: Mail windows calendar, and they've amalgamated all of those into
S2: a new version of outlook, which will eventually permeate through
S2: office 365 and so on as well. But for the moment,
S2: I think they're calling the office 365 version Outlook Classic.
S2: So there are some improvements there because a lot of
S2: people were finding the new outlook quite difficult to deal with.
S2: The other big one is some improvements in Epub files.
S2: So a lot of electronic books and so on come
S2: out in the Epub format. And there's a whole range
S2: of new navigation features for Epub documents. And this is
S2: just sort of the beginning. They do incrementally release updates
S2: throughout the cycle during the year. So usually between sort
S2: of October and July. So I think that we will
S2: continue to see some more enhancements throughout the the 2025 cycle.
S1: Any comments about fusion and Zoomtext?
S2: Yes. So most of the improvements in Zoomtext are sort
S2: of under the hood improvements, if you like. They have
S2: made some changes to things like the dual monitor behavior.
S2: It used to put a sort of an artificial boundary,
S2: so that you knew when you'd changed from one monitor
S2: to another. That's now defaults to being off so that
S2: you can span your desktop across multiple monitors. They have
S2: also improved the sort of font smoothing and that type
S2: of thing in office applications. So yes, there are some improvements,
S2: there's some improved start up times and general performance improvements
S2: and those kinds of things. And again, I think we'll
S2: probably see a number of improvements throughout the the cycle
S2: with Zoomtext. Obviously with fusion being an amalgam of both products,
S2: you will get the Jaws improvements and the zoom text improvements.
S2: So you'll get things like PFS companion if you are
S2: a fusion user as well.
S1: If you're a regular user, you just need to go
S1: to the help and check for updates, and you'll find
S1: out that these are available and you can download them.
S1: And off you go.
S2: That's right, that's right. And it's always a fairly seamless process.
S2: It generally brings all of your settings and things across.
S2: The only thing, if you do use any additional jaws scripts,
S2: you may need to reinstall those. So if you use
S2: something like Lisa from Arjun Consulting or any of the
S2: other sort of freely available jaws scripts that are out there,
S2: you may need to reinstall those.
S1: So that was the freedom Scientific or Vespero package of products.
S1: Jaws fusion and Zoomtext upgrades came out last week. And
S1: let's talk about our own Aussie product, which is very
S1: popular around the world. From Envy Access, Nvda.
S2: Yes. So they have this week released version 2020 4.4.
S2: So this is an incremental update and it is one
S2: that they recommend that everyone updates to. They have made
S2: some fairly significant improvements in access through Braille, particularly, um,
S2: things like word comments and those sorts of things. The
S2: ability to configure, um, you know, showing the things like
S2: font changes, style changes in braille as well as using speech.
S2: So you can sort of configure those independently now, and
S2: the usual massive array of bug fixes and improvements. So
S2: definitely worth doing that. And if you are an Nvda
S2: user and you benefit from the product, it's also a
S2: nice thing to donate when you can as well. Because
S2: they are a not for profit. Their aim has always
S2: been to make the product free, but they do rely
S2: on grants and donations to keep developing it. So if
S2: you are a regular user of Nvda and you find
S2: it helpful, I would encourage you to donate and give
S2: our friends over here in Australia a bit of a
S2: helping hand.
S1: Yes, they've made terrific headway over the years there on many,
S1: many machines around the world. A busy week for Apple again.
S2: Yes. So we had the update of the Mac operating system,
S2: Sequoia to version 15.1. And we also saw an update
S2: to the iOS operating system for iPhones and iPads to 18.1. Now, unfortunately,
S2: here in Oz, we don't get Apple intelligence yet unless
S2: you set your region, I think to us. But we
S2: do get a couple of nice features, including the ability
S2: to record phone calls. If you're dealing with a business
S2: and you think they're going to give you, you know,
S2: perhaps a reservation number, or you want to have a
S2: record of the fact that you've registered a complaint or
S2: something like that. Uh, this is quite a handy feature.
S2: And I we were talking about this off air, weren't we, Steven?
S2: That really given that every time you call a business,
S2: they tell you that your call may be recorded for
S2: coaching purposes. You should therefore feel comfortable to have the
S2: right to also record a call if you need to
S2: for note taking or or records purposes.
S1: And when you start the record process, there's an announcement
S1: so that everyone on the call can hear that it
S1: is being done.
S2: So that's right. The other thing that this feature offers
S2: is the ability to have a text summary generated where
S2: it'll capture sort of the the essence of the phone
S2: call and provide you a summary of the salient points
S2: in text format. So that might be quite helpful as well.
S2: If you're conducting business over the phone and you, you
S2: discuss a number of things. It saves you having to
S2: try and note, take or do that weird thing where
S2: you hold the phone against your shoulder and try and type. So, um,
S2: that's quite a useful feature as well.
S1: Any other things? About 18.1 for those.
S2: That do decide to experiment with the Apple Intelligence feature,
S2: there are currently some accessibility issues with that in that
S2: if you have it, generate summaries of emails and those
S2: sorts of things, they aren't accessible with VoiceOver. So at
S2: the moment, the workaround is to copy that out into
S2: another document to make it accessible, which is certainly not ideal.
S2: And it is disappointing that at launch we don't have
S2: full access to this. I have had a couple of
S2: funny bugs with 18.1 with Braille screen input. That's where
S2: you type braille on the screen, but I haven't worked
S2: out if that's just my particular setup or whether it's
S2: happening for other people. But a couple of people that
S2: I've asked haven't experienced it, so maybe I'm just lucky.
S1: So that's updates for iOS. Also for the operating system,
S1: for the watch, for the iPad and Sequoia, the Mac
S1: operating system.
S2: It's been a big week for Apple.
S1: This is a great place to go to to find
S1: out what's being discussed in the blindness community around Apple accessibility.
S2: It really is. And I was really pleased that it
S2: is now being supported by Be My Eyes. There was
S2: a concern that it might disappear when its founder, his
S2: health deteriorated and he needed to step back from it.
S2: It's really great that be my eyes have picked this
S2: up and are supporting the sort of ongoing development of content,
S2: but it's a great resource for you if you want
S2: to check out things like what's new in a particular version,
S2: what bugs they've found, that kind of thing. There are podcasts,
S2: there are demonstrations, there are forum posts where people can
S2: ask questions. So it really is a good resource for
S2: those of us who use Apple products extensively.
S1: The demo podcasts are fantastic, aren't they?
S2: They really are. Yes. Yeah.
S1: Apple Vice.com. Before we go, a reminder of where you
S1: can find details of what we've been talking about in
S1: this and previous editions of the program, all you need
S1: to do is go to VA radio.org/talking tech. VA radio.org/talking tech.
S1: To write to the program you can email me.
S2: Damo Damo dot McMorrow m c m o r o
S2: w at Vision australia.org. And I really appreciate the feedback
S2: and the comments from those who have emailed me, so
S2: thank you very much.
S1: Damo McMorrow at Vision australia.org. This has been talking tech
S1: with me has been Vision Australia's national Access technology manager
S1: Damo McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Take care. We'll talk more
S1: tech next week. See you.