S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition, available from
S1: July the 23rd, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
S1: you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
S1: stations of RPA Australia or perhaps 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 download can all come usually on a Tuesday
S1: afternoon just after it's been produced with me. Someone who
S1: can explain all this tech stuff really well. Vision Australia's
S1: national advisor on access technology, David Woodbridge. David, let's start
S1: with the Product Minute segment where we talk about Vision
S1: Australia's Vision store. And a point that you suggested we
S1: cover today is that the store is perhaps of interest
S1: to more people than many of us might realise. realize.
S2: Exactly. My wife works in an optometrist. Now, what do
S2: you assume in optometry? Who deals in glasses and, you know,
S2: eye checking? Everything else would would actually have more things
S2: in their shop than just glasses and so on. And
S2: the fact of the matter is that they don't. So
S2: if you're looking for things like, you know, a little
S2: manual magnifier or let's say a magnifier. It's got a
S2: torch in it or extra magnification or things to make things,
S2: you know, the old three B's bigger, bolder, brighter. Then
S2: you're not going to find that at an optometrist. However,
S2: the vision store and I want to make an exclamation
S2: on on mark on the word vision. That's exactly what
S2: we do. Of course, all the other stuff for blind
S2: people as well. But as far as vision goes, we've
S2: got all the stuff that anybody would need. And there
S2: was that classic thing we used to run in the
S2: late 90s was when glasses don't help and that's when
S2: you need extra magnification. Things need to be bigger, bolder, brighter,
S2: all that sort of fantastic stuff. And that's exactly where
S2: the vision store goes in, because sometimes, you know, for
S2: us have been around for a long time, we associate
S2: Vision Store or Vision Australia with the Old Royal Blind Society,
S2: Royal Victorian Institute for the blind. And you sort of
S2: think in the back of your head, well, well, maybe
S2: it's sort of, you know, more for blind people than
S2: people who have just general vision issues. But it's not
S2: it's equally important for both people with, you know, party sidedness, blindness,
S2: but also just that niggling thing where you think, oh my,
S2: my glasses just aren't strong enough or I just can't
S2: see enough contrast, or I just can't do this and
S2: I just can't do that. I can't use the telephone anymore.
S2: All those little things. So what do you reckon?
S1: Visit one of our stores or start with the website?
S2: No, I would certainly start with going into the vision store,
S2: because then you can actually talk with staff that are
S2: there and you can get your hands on things and
S2: literally try them out, because for low vision in particular,
S2: or for people who've got vision issues, it's really good
S2: to try things out. Maybe then when you've had a
S2: bit of a look around the store, that's when you
S2: would go onto the shop Vision Australia. Org website, but
S2: I would certainly visit. I think we've got 23 stores
S2: around Australia. Uh, pop in, have a look, have a play,
S2: have a chat and then see what you can do
S2: after that.
S1: Shop Vision Australia. Org is the website for Vision Australia's
S1: Vision store. Now last Friday afternoon, I turned the radio
S1: on for the first time in about two hours because
S1: I was doing other stuff and the broadcaster said, we're
S1: bringing you coverage of the global IT outage. Well, like
S1: anybody else who put their radio on about the same time,
S1: I was astounded. Just explain what happened.
S2: A good old Australia because we were the first to
S2: actually encounter the the global outage. Uh, so windows computers
S2: that were in a corporate environment. So, you know, an
S2: enterprise environment started displaying the dreaded blue screen of death.
S2: And once that happens, you know that, um, you're at
S2: the end of the line. And lots of people tried
S2: to restart their computers and it still wouldn't work. And then,
S2: of course, everyone originally thought there'd been a cyber attack. And,
S2: you know, it's going to be the end of the
S2: end of the world. Or most like things were just
S2: quite awful. But as we found out late afternoon on
S2: Friday that it was actually a buggy updated file from
S2: a company called CrowdStrike, who a cyber security company, to prevent,
S2: you know, malicious things happening to your computer. So one
S2: of the control files had a bug in it. And
S2: unfortunately for Microsoft Windows operating system, uh, that file completely
S2: stuffed up the whole operating system, to put it bluntly.
S2: And you had to wait until CrowdStrike actually released a
S2: fix for it. And what they've been saying over the
S2: weekend and what they're even saying, um, yesterday, Monday and today,
S2: Tuesday is absolutely do not try and fix this yourself
S2: because you'll probably get yourself in more water or hot water,
S2: as the case may be. Uh, wait for your IT
S2: department to contact you. You really do have to log
S2: in again to your network, on your proper network, in
S2: your enterprise. And then normally an identified person, if you
S2: don't have a local IT support identified person in your
S2: workplace will then go through the fixes. And of course
S2: for us that are blind and low vision and rely
S2: on access technology, there is no way that you could
S2: even try and do it with your own access technology,
S2: because this is part of the boot sequence into the system.
S2: So it's not the fact that Jaws or Zoomtext would
S2: even be running. Um, so again, you'll have to wait
S2: for sighted support, uh, to intervene.
S1: Let's hope everybody's back to normal now. But it was
S1: amazing that around the world it affected health systems. Um, finance,
S1: travel media was amazing.
S2: Correct. And I did see a a message from the
S2: ministry with this sort of stuff over the weekend. And
S2: apparently we're seeing it's going to take about a week
S2: or two for things to come back to normal. So yeah,
S2: it was it was a bit of a taste of
S2: what could happen with, you know, a very serious issue
S2: that can bring things down like we just discussed.
S1: Now let's talk about a product called Biped Noah, a
S1: very interesting one that you've been playing with.
S2: Yes. Biped is actually the name of the company. So
S2: it's Biped Robotics. And the system itself is called Noah,
S2: which actually stands for navigation, obstacle detection and artificial intelligence. So, Noah,
S2: and if you can imagine wearing almost like a bit
S2: of a vest over your shoulders, so on the left
S2: hand side, on the top of your chest, you've got
S2: a camera module which contains nine cameras. On your right
S2: hand side, you've got another little control rectangular unit that's
S2: got your buttons to control it, and then it goes
S2: up and around the over your shoulders, round the back
S2: of your neck, and you've got a very lightweight battery.
S2: What it does is it's only interested in obstacles that
S2: you will collide with or that will collide with you.
S2: So if a fixed obstacle or obstacles that are moving
S2: towards you or away from you, um, it does have
S2: standard cane mode. It's also got a guide dog mode.
S2: And one thing that I've always wanted, uh, two things
S2: in mind to do with is it does holes and
S2: it does stairs. And when I say holes, it also does.
S2: It is a platform that railway stations properly. Uh, it'll
S2: tell you about stairs, whether they're going up or down.
S2: And by the way, this is all audio. Um, so
S2: it's not saying there's stairs there, but by the audio
S2: tones you're getting back from the system, you know what
S2: those are. And the app that comes with it actually
S2: teaches you about these different sounds, which once you've done
S2: the training is pretty amazing.
S1: So did you find it sort of comfortable using it?
S1: You were getting useful information from it, I did.
S2: I found the obstacle detection amazing. The artificial intelligence function
S2: was also pretty incredible as well. Um, it's currently being
S2: worked on overseas. I would say there's a high likelihood
S2: that Vision Australia will be selling it later on this year,
S2: but that's only a hoping one at the moment. So
S2: we'll see what happens. Because you're wearing this on your
S2: chest or over your shoulders. It's a very stable platform
S2: versus I always find it when I'm using smart glasses.
S2: I tend to always look down because I've, you know,
S2: I've been blind since I was eight, so that's always
S2: been an issue. But having it over your shoulders, it's
S2: a nice stable platform for the cameras to work properly.
S1: I guess it'll cost a fair bit.
S2: So it's €4,200 currently. So if we do indeed decide
S2: to sell it, I guess it's going to be between,
S2: I don't know, let's say around about $7,000 and let's
S2: see if it's a bit below or a bit above.
S3: Mhm.
S1: And it's called the Noah. Noah from Biped Robotics. Well
S1: watch out for that one David.
S2: Indeed. Stay tuned.
S1: Now there's a product called Ipx8 Ipx8 E which shall
S1: we say max up scammers.
S2: It does. So this was developed by some folks at
S2: Macquarie University. So I don't know if it's sort of
S2: deployed in the real world. They were just showing some
S2: examples of it. But what it does is it listens
S2: to the scammer in a core and effectively just wastes
S2: their time. So it does different types of phrases to
S2: what the person is saying. So, you know, and they've
S2: got different voices like an older person, a media middle
S2: aged person, etc., etc.. And so when the scammer says
S2: something like can you get your credit card for me
S2: because I'm here to fix your IT issue. Then you know,
S2: some of the systems go, oh, my credit card. Is
S2: that the same as my bank card? Because I don't
S2: know if I've got a credit card. And it'll just
S2: keep going on and on. And the different questions and
S2: the scammers, it'll do different things. So in effect, it
S2: actually tricks the scammer into just completely wasting their time.
S1: I'm reminded of the classic one where the scammer asks
S1: you to open windows and you say, ah, sorry, there
S1: are no windows in this room.
S2: The other one that I sometimes used is, oh hang on,
S2: I've got um, I've got about 13 windows. Which one
S2: should I open? And of course, they think you're talking
S2: about the computer. And what I'm really talking about is
S2: how many windows is actually in the main part of
S2: my house. So yeah, but look, it's a really good idea.
S2: And just as a matter of thing going back to
S2: our global internet outage. Please only talk to your proper IT.
S2: People don't think that people are going to ring you
S2: up and say, we've got a fix for you right
S2: now about CrowdStrike are going to be from reputable people
S2: because they won't be. Mhm.
S1: Um, let's talk about AI visual models now. They're blind.
S2: Yeah. This sounded really weird. And it caught my attention
S2: because I thought hey wait a minute there, how can
S2: they be blind when they're looking at imagery? Basically what
S2: it's talking about is the fact that when the systems
S2: get an image, they're comparing that image to a database
S2: of that what they've been trained upon. So that's when
S2: you get what they call the hallucination by AI systems
S2: that for some reason or another, it can't map what
S2: the image is to its database. And it was interesting
S2: because I was talking to a person during the week
S2: who's a data analysis type person and is working with
S2: AI and computer vision and everything else, and apparently there's
S2: a classic one where you can change one pixel in
S2: a picture of a bird and it becomes a camel.
S2: That's just a good thing to think about that when
S2: our systems do object recognition, as in that's a bus
S2: or that's a car or whatever else, take it with
S2: a grain of salt and a bit of common sense,
S2: because it's only matching the image, uh, to a database.
S2: It's not a real person going, yes, this is a
S2: so and so. And the other one example they had
S2: quickly was if you do separate rings like five rings,
S2: it'll get them. If you then cross over those rings slightly,
S2: it can't determine that there's still five circles on the page.
S1: So it's mapping what is detecting with something in a database.
S1: So if the two aren't exactly the same it's got
S1: no idea really what it is. Correct?
S2: Yeah. It's not like a us humans that can sit
S2: back and go, well hang on a minute. That's obviously intersecting,
S2: intersecting circles on a page. And yes, there's still five
S2: circles there.
S3: Um, you.
S1: Have some encouraging news for those who need to use
S1: a smartphone with one hand.
S2: Yes. And this is a good reminder because as phones
S2: get bigger. So we've got you know six plus inches
S2: diagonally phones now and you think well hang on a minute.
S2: If I'm using one hand like I've got my cane
S2: on my guide dog in my left hand, how can
S2: I possibly navigate my smartphone? Then there's an option where
S2: you can actually pull down the screen. And this is
S2: like from a sighted concept, but it's also accessible as well.
S2: You can pull down the top part of the screen
S2: to bring it down towards the bottom part of the screen,
S2: so then you can access all the icons on the
S2: screen at the same time, and you can find it
S2: in basically settings under both iOS and Android. And it's
S2: just a good reminder. So the link I've got in
S2: the show notes explains it how to do for vanilla
S2: Android and Samsung in particular. And of course the reachability
S2: function under Accessibility settings for your iPhone.
S1: It does work with VoiceOver or Talkback certainly does.
S2: So literally the way you use it quickly is that
S2: you would use, say, the bottom icons down the bottom,
S2: and you think, oh, I need to get to the
S2: back button at the top. Well, this is where you
S2: would perform the reachability function to pull those icons from
S2: the top of the screen down towards the bottom, and
S2: then you can reach exclamation mark the back button. Then
S2: that's basically effectively in the middle of the screen.
S1: Very interesting. 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. Indeed.
S2: So as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David Woodburn Podbean bad Ben.
S1: Com David would be our dot podbean pod b e
S1: a n.com to write to the program.
S2: You can write to me at Business Row where I work,
S2: which is David Woodbridge at Vision australia.org.
S1: David Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org. This has been talking
S1: tech with me has been Vision Australia's national advisor on
S1: access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolly. Take care. We'll
S1: talk more tech next week. See you.