S1: Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: December 12th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have you
S1: with us listening maybe through Virgin Australia Radio, Associated Stations
S1: of Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network. There is
S1: also the podcast to catch that. What 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 bridge in Australia.
S1: Radio talking tech podcast Virgin Australia Radio talking tech podcast
S1: with me, someone who knows all this tech stuff really well.
S1: Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology, David Woodbridge David,
S1: let's start with an interesting little set of apps. You've
S1: found that test one's listening skills.
S2: And I wish I had had these apps when I
S2: was actually growing up at school, when I was doing
S2: orientation mobility about listening and paying attention to my environment.
S2: These apps basically test exactly that, so they test what
S2: you're listening to for both general sounds and your environment
S2: and of course, traffic sounds, movement and that sort of stuff.
S2: So there's three apps. So in the App Store and
S2: also the Google Play Store, if you search for one
S2: word echo viz, so that's EQ Hovis, then it'll end
S2: up giving you three applications. And one is called echo
S2: vs game, echo vs quiz and echo vs straight. Now
S2: the echo vs game one. I got a bit sick
S2: and tired of it. This one costs about $2 and
S2: the other two are free. But the the Echo game
S2: one is about you're in a maze and of course
S2: you've got to listen to echos and the steps of
S2: that your feet make and echoing that sort of stuff.
S2: So it was a little bit annoying because I hate
S2: maze games. Um, so I bypassed that one fairly quickly.
S2: The Echo Quiz one was amazing because what it has
S2: is about 75. I think it's about 75 to 80.
S2: Fun questions and you've got multiple choice. So for example,
S2: it'll say you're on a busy street. Which side of
S2: you did the bus turn up on. And then it
S2: calls it plays about I think it's about a 5
S2: or 6, 7 or 8 second audio track. And of course,
S2: because you've got to wear headphones with left and right
S2: stereo channels on them. Or it might say, which way
S2: is the cyclist coming towards you? Is it coming from
S2: your left going to your right, or is it going
S2: from your right, going to your left, or is it
S2: coming behind you and going forward so that that's really fine?
S2: And of course, at the end of it all, it
S2: gives you a bit of a bit of a score
S2: because it'll always say if you're correct or incorrect out
S2: of you have three multiple choices, and then you can
S2: go back and play them again. So the one that
S2: I found was really annoying was the, you know, you
S2: can hear a humming noise. What are you standing in
S2: front of a dishwasher, a washing machine or a fridge? Um,
S2: and I'll let you guys have a play of that
S2: and see which one you came up with. I got
S2: it wrong the first time, I might say. And then
S2: the third game, which is again, my interesting one. It's
S2: the echo vs straight one, and this sounds like exactly
S2: what it is you're crossing is straight, but you have
S2: to listen to the traffic sounds. So a couple of
S2: the questions are you're crossing a pedestrian crossing on a
S2: dual carriageway. So you know one carriageway each way. So
S2: two lanes. When is it safe to cross. So you've
S2: got to listen to the cars waiting to stop and
S2: start idling. And then you cross. And then it gets
S2: more and more complicated because then you've got background sounds,
S2: you've got roosters crowing, um, and you've got other noises
S2: going on and it gets more and more complicated. The
S2: only thing I think I worked out is because it's
S2: an overseas European type street, set up the cars near you.
S2: I go in the opposite direction. So when we're standing
S2: on the side of the road, the the cars are
S2: normally going one direction that are closest to you. We'll
S2: just remember in this game that the cars that you
S2: would think will be going right, right the normal way
S2: in front of you are on the actual opposite side
S2: of the road because of the way the traffic goes, um, overseas.
S2: But besides that, really, really fun to play. And of course,
S2: I had other questions about if you heard a truck
S2: pull up, uh, where is it? Or a bus or
S2: whatever else it might be. So the two main ones
S2: that I really would let ask people to actually check out,
S2: particularly if you've got, um, young people or teenagers learning
S2: a bit more about echolocation and taking account of sounds.
S2: Really go through the quiz particularly, and then the straight
S2: one following that.
S1: So it's called echo vs.
S2: Yeah. So echo is to find all three of them.
S2: But if you want to get specific ones in its
S2: echo vs new word quiz, echo vs New Word Street.
S1: And they're in the Apple Store as well as the
S1: Google Play Store. Seeing I that's been around quite a
S1: few years, let's talk about it.
S2: Yes, I think we should do a drumroll. This one. Um,
S2: let me just explain. If you don't know what seeing
S2: AI is, particularly Android users out there saying that AI
S2: is a suite of applications that when you run the
S2: application particularly, which is free, of course, you get lots
S2: of different quote channels or options, so you get a
S2: short text for just pointing your camera at something and
S2: having it read quickly. You sort of get a proper
S2: document scanning option. You get product info, which is barcoding,
S2: you get facial recognition, object recognition, hand recognition, light detection,
S2: and so on. This is a.
S1: Product from Microsoft.
S2: Correct? That's right. And it's been available in on iOS
S2: for a very long time. Well finally this is what
S2: I said about the drum roll. It's now available in Android.
S2: If you like me and you use iOS and Android,
S2: it's a little bit different because on iOS you've got
S2: a slider, um, that you can flick up, up and
S2: down between the different options. Well, I think they've had
S2: to do it a different way on Android. So the
S2: main screen gives you the option. So you've got short
S2: text document reader and someone. So you flick between them
S2: like you would normally do on a normal application. Then
S2: you double tap to activate it. Then you choose the
S2: back button to go back. So it's slightly different in iOS.
S2: But the other thing that's exactly the same is initially
S2: this is for Android users that haven't seen it before.
S2: When you first go into a quote channel or an option,
S2: it brings up a little help thing that explains to
S2: you how to use it and what it's for, and
S2: that sort of stuff. Then once you have done that,
S2: it won't come up a second time unless you're specifically
S2: going to help and have a look at it again. Uh,
S2: so that tends to drive you crazy when you want
S2: to explore the app and you go into different options
S2: and it keeps coming up, but once you've done it
S2: the first time, it'll then go away and you can
S2: operate it normally. But no, this is one of those
S2: things to me. The Seeing Eye app on iOS and
S2: Android is my Swiss Army knife of AI apps to
S2: assist me in my environment, and it's absolutely amazing. So
S2: there you go. Everybody who uses iOS and Android now
S2: can enjoy the freedom that AI gives you.
S1: Now it must be Christmas early for the Android environment
S1: because be my eyes. The AI feature, which has been
S1: around in the iOS environment for a little while, it's
S1: come to Android. That's right.
S2: So this caused a bit of confusion. Um, last week,
S2: because what happened was they announced seeing AI and then
S2: that's been my eyes. And it was I thought, well,
S2: hang on a minute. Be My Eyes is an app
S2: where you contact a volunteer and like the IRA paid service,
S2: someone who can tell you what you're looking at and, uh,
S2: read out information on a teen or read out a
S2: letter through the camera and so on. But what's happened,
S2: of course, for us iOS users this year is that
S2: we've had the the public beta version of the virtual
S2: AI assistant, which basically you take a picture of whatever
S2: you might be taking a picture of, let's say, um,
S2: a backyard or a playground layout or a building layout inside,
S2: like reception and chairs and lifts and so on. And
S2: then it will tell you what's in the photo, and
S2: then you can actually interrogate it a little bit more
S2: so that that option, which is the virtual AI of
S2: Be My Eyes, has now come into the Be My
S2: Eyes version on Android. So when they were saying be
S2: my eyes comes to Android, what they were saying is
S2: that the be my eyes virtual AI is now in
S2: the public initial request feature, so I'm going to run it.
S2: Last week I was able to put a request in,
S2: so when I tapped on virtual AI, it said, your
S2: request has been logged. Uh, we'll let you know when
S2: it's going to be available for testing. So now for
S2: Android users, not only do you have a full blown
S2: scene AI, which also does scene detection for taking photos,
S2: but you've also got that option on being my eyes.
S2: When you request to be part of the beta testing service.
S1: We'll switch to the Mac now, Audible and Kindle, those
S1: apps both available on the Mac.
S2: I should say, up front, because I ran an Apple
S2: Silicon chip mac, which is basically all new Macs these
S2: days anyway, so it's the M1 chip and upwards. I
S2: can run the course iOS apps through a thing called Rosetta,
S2: and I thought for a while the audible app would
S2: allow you to run on an Apple chip computer. I
S2: don't know why, but I tried it the other day
S2: just because I felt like trying. I thought, my goodness,
S2: I can actually use and listen to all my books now,
S2: which I've got about 1300 off. So that was really exciting.
S2: But the second thing that got me really, really, really,
S2: really excited was that never have you been able to
S2: read Kindle books on your Mac with the Kindle Mac app,
S2: and since they updated it, I think it's about a
S2: month or two ago now. So they rewrote the thing.
S2: It's now become completely accessible. Now you can't read in
S2: continuous mode that we've been used to in in iOS,
S2: on Kindle and Android, but you can definitely read page
S2: by page. You can jump around your contents, you can
S2: do all the stuff you can probably really do on
S2: iOS and Android, and it's just. Amazing in my book
S2: library at the moment on my Kindle is probably got
S2: a couple of thousand books in it, so it's really
S2: fantastic that I've now I've got availability of both my
S2: audible library and my Kindle library on my Mac.
S1: For those who have a blind show. Classic two phone.
S1: It's got nice buttons on it. You can't run messenger
S1: Light on it anymore.
S2: No, now it doesn't tell you that it's Mission Delight,
S2: I should say, until you try and run the thing
S2: because it just says messenger. So I, you know, I
S2: use messenger all the time with my family. So I
S2: popped in there and read it and it went. Messenger
S2: light is no longer supported. And I went, oh. So
S2: then it took me to a web page which was
S2: not particularly accessible on the blind show. So what I'm
S2: trying to let people know about is the positive thing
S2: about the Blind Shield Classic two is that you're using
S2: a quote launcher, which is basically in Android. So it's
S2: taking you to a nice, safe, menu driven environment, and
S2: they take care of all the applications running in the background,
S2: which is why I said I didn't realize it was
S2: a messenger light, but once those apps ever get updated
S2: or get broken because, you know, in this case meta,
S2: Facebook has taken it away, then there's nothing you can
S2: do about it. So just keep in mind until either
S2: the blind shield code is changed to the updated application,
S2: which is the full messenger, or they just take it
S2: away completely. From that point of view, there's nothing you
S2: can do about it because you can't come out of
S2: the Blind Shield. Classic two menu. Run talkback and go
S2: and run your normal messenger like the rest of us
S2: can do on a smartphone, whether that's Android or iOS iPhone.
S2: So I was a bit disappointed by that because it
S2: was such a great thing that it works so well.
S2: So here's fingers crossed that the developers will know about.
S2: I've already contacted quantum and let them know and we'll
S2: see what happens, probably in the new year.
S1: Tell us about copilot.
S2: Copilot is basically the AI system produced by Microsoft in particular.
S2: And it sort of combines what does combine Bing, which
S2: is their big search engine and ChatGPT for. And if
S2: you're on Windows 10 and of course, Windows 11, the
S2: copilot button is actually on your taskbar. So it means
S2: you can access the AI chat system to, you know,
S2: ask for coding or ask for travel travel plan information,
S2: or ask basically anything you can ask of quote chat GPT.
S2: But the main difference is one, because it is. It's
S2: also using Bing as its search engine. It's live. So
S2: I can actually ask it, you know who won the
S2: the formula one this year or who are the top
S2: ten drivers for formula One this year? And I'll give
S2: you that information. The chat GPT one will only go
S2: up to 2022. The free version, at least the reason
S2: why I like it running on the Mac is because
S2: of course I'm not using windows, so I have to
S2: use the web version of Copilot, but I can still
S2: use my microphone to speak into the microphone button to
S2: ask it questions. And it comes back to me with
S2: this beautiful sounding, um, female voice. And it sounds really nice.
S2: The only thing I wish it would do is like
S2: ChatGPT now where you can basically ask it questions and
S2: it speaks back to you and you're having a continuous
S2: conversation without speaking any buttons. This feels a bit primitive now,
S2: because with copilot I've got to press the microphone button,
S2: asked the question, and then it comes back and gives
S2: me the answer. Then they've got to press the button again.
S2: But the two way conversation in, um, the open ChatGPT
S2: on both iOS and Android is just flawless. So here's
S2: fingers crossed. I don't know what it's like on windows
S2: of Copilot with the continuous chat function. Um, but yeah,
S2: at the moment it does feel a little bit primitive.
S2: It feels like the old days, even if like one
S2: a year ago.
S1: Yes. It's amazing. It's moving so fast. Before we go,
S1: a reminder of where people can find details of what
S1: we've been talking about in this and previous editions of
S1: the program.
S2: Indeed. So as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David would be dot podbean pad Bayon com.
S1: David would be our podbean pod be a incom to
S1: write to the program.
S2: You can write to me at Vision Australia, where I work,
S2: of course, which is David Woodbridge how it sounds at
S2: 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 Jolley. Stay safe.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.