WEBVTT - Talking Tech 27th June 2023 0:00:08.218 --> 0:00:12.208 Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from 0:00:12.208 --> 0:00:16.108 June 27th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have you 0:00:16.108 --> 0:00:19.288 with us wherever you're listening, perhaps through Virgin Australia radio 0:00:19.288 --> 0:00:23.848 associated Stations of Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network, 0:00:24.418 --> 0:00:26.488 there's also the podcast. If you haven't caught up with 0:00:26.488 --> 0:00:28.468 that yet, all you need to do is search for 0:00:28.468 --> 0:00:31.858 the two words. Talking tech and DNA can all come 0:00:31.858 --> 0:00:34.948 usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. 0:00:35.278 --> 0:00:38.038 Another option is to ask your Siri device or smart 0:00:38.038 --> 0:00:42.898 speaker to play Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech Podcast. Vision 0:00:42.898 --> 0:00:47.158 Australia Radio Talking Tech podcast. With me someone who can 0:00:47.158 --> 0:00:50.518 explain all this tech stuff really well. Vision Australia's National 0:00:50.518 --> 0:00:55.888 Advisor on Access Technology, David Woodbridge. David, perhaps we might 0:00:55.888 --> 0:00:58.378 start by talking about something that's been around for a 0:00:58.378 --> 0:01:00.598 long time, but maybe some people haven't even heard of 0:01:00.598 --> 0:01:02.188 it yet. The Apple Card. 0:01:02.878 --> 0:01:05.338 No. And this is one of these things that starts 0:01:05.338 --> 0:01:09.208 off in the US and doesn't go anywhere. So the 0:01:09.208 --> 0:01:15.268 Apple Card is, in effect, a credit card that's issued 0:01:15.268 --> 0:01:18.988 by Apple. And besides being a general credit card, which 0:01:18.988 --> 0:01:20.818 has got all the benefits of a general credit card, 0:01:20.818 --> 0:01:24.598 you can also save money. Of course, when you buy 0:01:24.598 --> 0:01:27.778 Apple stuff, you get points which you can cash back 0:01:27.778 --> 0:01:31.108 and get more benefits and so on. So it came 0:01:31.108 --> 0:01:34.228 out in the US in 2019 and of course being 0:01:34.228 --> 0:01:38.308 from Apple, everybody loved it because it was a titanium 0:01:38.308 --> 0:01:41.248 physical credit card, which looked really, really cool. So the 0:01:41.248 --> 0:01:44.908 geek factor was very high. And of course everybody wants 0:01:44.908 --> 0:01:47.158 to know right around the world, well, when are we 0:01:47.158 --> 0:01:52.048 getting it? And part of the problem is the regulations 0:01:52.048 --> 0:01:56.938 for financial institutions in the US are different to the 0:01:56.938 --> 0:02:00.928 rest of the world. And what Apple's finding is that 0:02:00.928 --> 0:02:03.838 it's not as easy to get this credit card out 0:02:03.838 --> 0:02:06.868 to the rest of the world. So even simple things 0:02:06.868 --> 0:02:11.068 like the way they display the information on the card 0:02:11.068 --> 0:02:14.368 in some countries is not enough. You're supposed to have, 0:02:14.638 --> 0:02:16.798 you know, the name of the name of the user 0:02:17.458 --> 0:02:21.028 or the actual number of the credit card and sorts 0:02:21.028 --> 0:02:24.058 of other things as well. So I think they're currently 0:02:24.058 --> 0:02:26.878 having chats with India to see if they can get 0:02:26.878 --> 0:02:30.388 it in there. But I don't know if it's really 0:02:30.388 --> 0:02:32.698 going to end up going anywhere. I mean, four years 0:02:32.698 --> 0:02:36.508 later to me is a fairly long time. And I mean, 0:02:36.508 --> 0:02:38.698 fingers crossed we might get it one day, but I 0:02:38.698 --> 0:02:41.098 wouldn't be surprised if it gets replaced by something else 0:02:41.098 --> 0:02:44.158 because for years in India, industry is getting a little 0:02:44.188 --> 0:02:44.998 bit too long. 0:02:45.478 --> 0:02:47.968 Let's not worry about it. Coming soon, I think, is 0:02:47.968 --> 0:02:53.188 what you're saying, correct? Yeah. A couple of iPhone hygiene 0:02:53.188 --> 0:02:56.758 matters now. Perhaps the best way to describe them. Firstly, 0:02:57.358 --> 0:03:01.738 the latest iPhone, the iPhone 14 range. They are waterproof, 0:03:01.738 --> 0:03:02.278 aren't they? 0:03:02.788 --> 0:03:04.738 Yeah. So what they say in the documentation, I'm probably 0:03:04.738 --> 0:03:07.168 not going to quote this exactly correctly, but if your 0:03:07.168 --> 0:03:09.958 phone gets dropped into I think it's up to a 0:03:09.958 --> 0:03:14.908 meter of water for 30 minutes, it should be perfectly fine. 0:03:14.908 --> 0:03:19.348 And what the article I'm referring to suggests that if 0:03:19.348 --> 0:03:22.588 you do drop it in water, you can get this 0:03:22.978 --> 0:03:28.498 eject water function via Siri shortcuts, which is in the 0:03:28.498 --> 0:03:30.898 article that you can download and install on your iPhone. 0:03:30.898 --> 0:03:33.778 And what it does, it plays a series of tones 0:03:33.898 --> 0:03:39.088 which generates a lot of air movement to get the 0:03:39.088 --> 0:03:42.238 water off the speaker in the iPhone. Now, of course, 0:03:42.508 --> 0:03:45.238 us Apple Watch users have already got this function. It's 0:03:45.238 --> 0:03:49.168 called the eject water function, which is exactly the same thing. 0:03:49.168 --> 0:03:50.638 So this is a way of doing it in your 0:03:50.638 --> 0:03:52.768 iPhone because you might have noticed if your Apple Watch 0:03:52.768 --> 0:03:55.528 gets wet, it's not going to damage it. But you'll 0:03:55.528 --> 0:03:59.668 notice the actual speaker sounds really, really tinny until it 0:03:59.668 --> 0:04:02.188 dries out. And this is the same thing for the iPhone. 0:04:02.188 --> 0:04:04.858 You could leave your iPhone to dry out. Or by 0:04:04.858 --> 0:04:09.898 running this eject water shortcut, you just decrease the time 0:04:09.898 --> 0:04:12.058 that you have to wait for the speaker to completely 0:04:12.058 --> 0:04:12.748 dry out. 0:04:14.368 --> 0:04:18.658 Okay. Also, there's been talk lately I actually do do 0:04:18.658 --> 0:04:22.918 it quite regularly that you should turn the iPhone off 0:04:22.918 --> 0:04:27.088 and it's recommended maybe once a day for five minutes 0:04:27.088 --> 0:04:28.588 to clean itself up a bit. 0:04:29.008 --> 0:04:32.008 Yep. So this is all about the cyber security threat 0:04:32.008 --> 0:04:34.558 that keeps getting worse and worse in the world these days. 0:04:34.558 --> 0:04:38.968 And one of the suggestions is that when you when 0:04:38.968 --> 0:04:43.438 your phone gets exposed to malware and viruses and back 0:04:43.438 --> 0:04:46.378 end attacks and all that sort of stuff, that if 0:04:46.378 --> 0:04:49.768 you completely shut down. Now, this article says iPhone, but 0:04:49.768 --> 0:04:53.698 I think it goes for any smartphone, including Android and 0:04:53.698 --> 0:04:57.298 then you restart. There's probably some code that's running in 0:04:57.298 --> 0:05:02.428 memory that has got into your smartphone in a particular way. 0:05:02.428 --> 0:05:06.388 And of course, when you restart your phone, one hopes that. 0:05:06.498 --> 0:05:08.538 Some of the things that it's got past have been 0:05:08.538 --> 0:05:11.748 reset back to their default settings, if you like, and 0:05:11.748 --> 0:05:16.008 that malware virus, whatever else it might be, then has 0:05:16.008 --> 0:05:19.248 to actually try and get a new way of getting 0:05:19.248 --> 0:05:22.878 into your system on your iPhone or your Android phone. 0:05:22.878 --> 0:05:26.358 So it's from one point of view, it does make sense. 0:05:26.358 --> 0:05:28.428 I actually do it as a matter of course, anyway, 0:05:28.428 --> 0:05:30.708 because some things on my phone get a bit slow 0:05:30.708 --> 0:05:33.978 sometimes and if I restart, it seems to actually pick 0:05:33.978 --> 0:05:35.808 up again and start functioning as well. 0:05:35.928 --> 0:05:37.728 I do the same with my Apple Watch and I 0:05:37.728 --> 0:05:40.758 do notice a difference in its performance when you have 0:05:40.758 --> 0:05:43.008 switched it off for a little while, maybe not five minutes, 0:05:43.008 --> 0:05:47.388 but restart it. It just seems snappier and response to 0:05:47.388 --> 0:05:50.688 the gestures better and all that sort of things. Well, exactly. Yeah. 0:05:51.738 --> 0:05:54.468 The Mac is still pretty important to Apple, even though 0:05:54.468 --> 0:05:57.978 there are lots of other devices like the iPhone. Tell 0:05:57.978 --> 0:05:58.938 us about all that. 0:05:59.778 --> 0:06:01.998 So people just think, you know, because the iPhone is 0:06:01.998 --> 0:06:05.418 sort of the what's it called, the umbrella of the 0:06:05.418 --> 0:06:09.108 whole Apple ecosystem? Well, it might be to a certain extent, 0:06:09.108 --> 0:06:13.548 but the thing that makes the iPhone, the Apple Watch, 0:06:13.548 --> 0:06:17.868 the Apple TV, the HomePod and everything else work is 0:06:17.868 --> 0:06:20.058 the Mac. Because the thing that makes all that happen 0:06:20.058 --> 0:06:24.048 is coding for all those things. And it's called Xcode. 0:06:25.068 --> 0:06:28.638 So when people want to write software for all the 0:06:28.638 --> 0:06:31.368 Apple stuff, it's done on the Mac. So it will 0:06:31.368 --> 0:06:34.338 not be replaced by the iPad because you can write Swift, 0:06:34.338 --> 0:06:38.928 what's called Swift Playground apps, but they don't have all 0:06:38.928 --> 0:06:42.558 the extra libraries and so on that Xcode has on 0:06:42.558 --> 0:06:45.468 the Mac and even the new, you know, the goggles 0:06:45.468 --> 0:06:48.948 coming out, you know, next year, the vision goggles, that's 0:06:48.948 --> 0:06:51.798 also not going to make any difference either because all 0:06:51.798 --> 0:06:55.368 the coding for Vision iOS is again going to be 0:06:55.368 --> 0:06:58.398 done on the Mac. So whilst people may not use 0:06:58.398 --> 0:07:02.358 the Macs in general too much, certainly for coding in 0:07:02.358 --> 0:07:06.228 the huge Apple environment is always done on the Mac. 0:07:06.468 --> 0:07:09.108 So we're going to be around for a while here 0:07:09.108 --> 0:07:13.548 to stay. Yep. Text based games. They've been around for 0:07:13.548 --> 0:07:14.568 50 years. 0:07:14.898 --> 0:07:18.828 Yeah. This was a publication put out and it was 0:07:18.828 --> 0:07:22.308 looking at the development of text based games. Now to 0:07:22.308 --> 0:07:23.988 remind people that are not used to this because it's 0:07:23.988 --> 0:07:27.018 a bit of, you know, old fashioned type stuff. These 0:07:27.018 --> 0:07:29.718 are the games where you see things like, say, go north, 0:07:29.748 --> 0:07:33.018 go west. You know, one of the most famous games 0:07:33.018 --> 0:07:37.068 called Zork was one of the opening paragraphs was you're 0:07:37.068 --> 0:07:40.578 standing in front of a little White House. You have 0:07:40.578 --> 0:07:43.578 a forest to the south, the doors in front of you. 0:07:43.578 --> 0:07:46.008 You're standing in front of a mailbox. What do you 0:07:46.008 --> 0:07:51.198 do now? So it's all written by typing in keyboard commands. 0:07:51.198 --> 0:07:55.278 And they were just saying that from what they could do, 0:07:55.278 --> 0:07:58.848 from a very little sort of programming point of view 0:07:58.848 --> 0:08:03.078 in the 70s as it went through in the 80s 0:08:03.078 --> 0:08:08.538 90s 2000 and so on, they got really clever with 0:08:08.538 --> 0:08:12.078 the way they can manipulate the code. And they even 0:08:12.078 --> 0:08:16.248 said the development of the stories, the hierarchy of things 0:08:16.248 --> 0:08:19.878 you could do in the game in some ways outdid 0:08:19.878 --> 0:08:24.108 console and other games because they were just much more 0:08:24.108 --> 0:08:30.348 clever at creating stories about creating characters and other stuff 0:08:30.348 --> 0:08:32.508 as well. So I just thought it was a fascinating thing. 0:08:32.508 --> 0:08:35.688 I don't know how accessible the book is from an 0:08:35.688 --> 0:08:39.258 epub point of view, but I just thought, you know, 0:08:39.258 --> 0:08:41.328 the fact that text adventure games have been around for 0:08:41.328 --> 0:08:44.268 50 years, it was just a really interesting thing. I'm 0:08:44.268 --> 0:08:46.638 trying to get a hold of the book, so next 0:08:46.638 --> 0:08:49.278 time hopefully we come on here, I'll have a chance 0:08:49.278 --> 0:08:50.388 to hear a bit of a read the book. 0:08:50.808 --> 0:08:53.298 You've been telling me of an article that says that 0:08:53.298 --> 0:08:56.958 smart homes are only as good as the brand behind them. 0:08:56.958 --> 0:09:00.168 Is smart home technology coming to a bit of a crisis? 0:09:00.468 --> 0:09:02.268 Well, I think it is in some ways because there's 0:09:02.268 --> 0:09:04.218 supposed to be well, there is this new standard called 0:09:04.218 --> 0:09:08.478 matter which allows smart home devices to talk to each 0:09:08.538 --> 0:09:13.398 other across platforms. And it's getting to a point now 0:09:13.398 --> 0:09:17.268 where it's still not really working Now. Smart Homes stuff 0:09:17.268 --> 0:09:19.938 has been around for a while. I'm getting to the 0:09:19.938 --> 0:09:22.488 point now where I think I'm just going to use 0:09:22.488 --> 0:09:25.338 the app that comes with my device and I'm just 0:09:25.338 --> 0:09:27.138 going to use it that way. I don't really care 0:09:27.138 --> 0:09:30.258 if it's not going to work across all the different platforms. 0:09:30.258 --> 0:09:33.138 I'm just going to get or stick with one brand name. 0:09:33.138 --> 0:09:35.748 So let's say I stick with Amazon or I stick 0:09:35.748 --> 0:09:40.008 of Google or I stick with Apple because struggling to 0:09:40.008 --> 0:09:44.598 still find something that works across absolutely everything in some 0:09:44.598 --> 0:09:47.748 ways is just getting harder and harder. So I think 0:09:47.748 --> 0:09:50.208 it's almost got to the stage now where I really 0:09:50.208 --> 0:09:53.448 think stick to one brand and then and go for that. 0:09:53.448 --> 0:09:56.418 Don't try and sort of be a holistic, smart home 0:09:56.418 --> 0:10:00.258 because I honestly don't think we're going to get there until, 0:10:00.258 --> 0:10:02.058 you know, a few more years in the future. 0:10:02.448 --> 0:10:06.138 There's another Beatle song that's been released that's more than. 0:10:06.198 --> 0:10:09.738 40 years after the passing of John Lennon and many 0:10:09.738 --> 0:10:12.918 years after the passing of George Harrison, it's said that 0:10:12.918 --> 0:10:17.538 it's using AI. Paul McCartney says it's not artificial. I 0:10:17.538 --> 0:10:21.768 wonder where all this discussions going about artificial intelligence. Is 0:10:21.768 --> 0:10:23.358 it being used a bit loosely? 0:10:23.958 --> 0:10:27.048 Well, I would think so in this case, because what 0:10:27.048 --> 0:10:31.038 they've done with this song off a tape in the 0:10:31.038 --> 0:10:35.198 late 60s is that they took his voice and, you know, 0:10:35.268 --> 0:10:38.628 cleaned it up besides all the background sound and the 0:10:38.628 --> 0:10:42.018 noise of the tape and everything else. And they've obviously 0:10:42.018 --> 0:10:46.728 generated new music track with putting his voice singing that 0:10:46.728 --> 0:10:49.488 on top of that track. Now, to me, that stuff 0:10:49.488 --> 0:10:52.368 that's been around for donkey's ages being able to do that. 0:10:52.368 --> 0:10:57.138 So I don't know whether that's artificial intelligence because it's 0:10:57.138 --> 0:11:00.498 artificial in the sense that, you know, this has come 0:11:00.498 --> 0:11:05.208 from a tape, but audio studio is in general, they 0:11:05.208 --> 0:11:08.028 do that all the time. I mean, they take somebody's singing, 0:11:08.028 --> 0:11:10.698 they alter it, and they do all sorts of wonderful 0:11:10.698 --> 0:11:13.848 things with it. So I just think this word artificial 0:11:13.848 --> 0:11:18.318 intelligence sometimes gets a bit waved around a few times 0:11:18.318 --> 0:11:20.718 just to I don't know, it's almost like we're going 0:11:20.718 --> 0:11:23.478 to incriminate you by saying it's AI and it's not. 0:11:23.478 --> 0:11:25.968 It's just a process that's been done before. And I 0:11:25.968 --> 0:11:27.528 just think it's a bit of a what do they 0:11:27.528 --> 0:11:29.088 call it, clickbait? Sometimes. 0:11:29.748 --> 0:11:34.608 What's NASA doing with voice communication up there in space? 0:11:34.818 --> 0:11:36.768 Yeah. So this is so this is not now this 0:11:36.768 --> 0:11:39.198 is looking towards the future. And when I may have 0:11:39.198 --> 0:11:40.758 been by the future, I mean for the next five 0:11:40.758 --> 0:11:44.928 years or so. So what they're wanting is space ships 0:11:44.928 --> 0:11:51.108 or space stations to talk to their human people, for 0:11:51.108 --> 0:11:53.928 want of a better word, the human partners, so that 0:11:53.928 --> 0:11:56.238 when you rather than saying, you know, do this and 0:11:56.238 --> 0:11:58.848 do that to, you know, a Google type or an 0:11:58.848 --> 0:12:03.768 Amazon type device, which is not a conversational system, what 0:12:03.768 --> 0:12:06.468 they're talking about is having a large language model. And yes, 0:12:06.468 --> 0:12:10.548 I'm talking about things like chat GPT to have a 0:12:10.548 --> 0:12:14.508 conversation between both the human and the AI. So what 0:12:14.508 --> 0:12:18.108 I mean by that is, let's say one of the 0:12:18.108 --> 0:12:20.538 astronauts wants to go for an Ava, so they want 0:12:20.538 --> 0:12:22.488 to go for a walk outside the space station or 0:12:22.488 --> 0:12:26.718 the ship. They could say to the AI, you know, Charlie, 0:12:26.718 --> 0:12:31.698 for example, can you run through the process of getting 0:12:31.698 --> 0:12:34.248 ready for an Eva and now the ship or the 0:12:34.248 --> 0:12:36.828 space station could come back and say, okay, here are 0:12:36.828 --> 0:12:38.688 the following steps. Now it could get I don't know 0:12:38.688 --> 0:12:40.518 how many steps are involved in an Eva, but let's 0:12:40.518 --> 0:12:44.268 say in step 20, they I could say, Well, hang 0:12:44.268 --> 0:12:47.028 on a minute, James, you forgot the check. The pressure 0:12:47.028 --> 0:12:50.388 in your oxygen supply. Can you please do that? And 0:12:50.388 --> 0:12:52.038 once you've done that, let me know and then we'll 0:12:52.038 --> 0:12:54.378 go on to the next step. So it's going from 0:12:54.378 --> 0:12:57.588 that large, you know, let's go for an Eva outside 0:12:57.588 --> 0:13:01.248 the ship or the space station to very specific conversational 0:13:01.248 --> 0:13:04.728 points during that whole thing. So I just think it's 0:13:04.728 --> 0:13:09.258 a really great way because that system can actually access 0:13:09.258 --> 0:13:13.398 lots and lots of data points, lots of information, and 0:13:13.398 --> 0:13:16.458 maybe even bring things up that the human being themselves 0:13:16.458 --> 0:13:21.768 hasn't actually thought about. So, you know, I nobody's scared about, 0:13:21.768 --> 0:13:24.408 you know, the old thing of 2001 Space Odyssey with 0:13:24.408 --> 0:13:28.038 Hal 9000. Hopefully it won't get that bad. But I 0:13:28.038 --> 0:13:31.998 just think relying on this huge knowledge base to prompt 0:13:31.998 --> 0:13:35.568 you in cases where you might have not forgotten something, 0:13:35.568 --> 0:13:38.868 but not taking note of something properly is really quite 0:13:38.868 --> 0:13:42.888 amazing and would be quite safe and secure for people 0:13:42.888 --> 0:13:43.818 to interact with. 0:13:44.568 --> 0:13:46.968 Just before we go, a reminder of where people can 0:13:46.968 --> 0:13:49.668 find details of what we've been talking about in this 0:13:49.668 --> 0:13:51.398 and previous editions of the programme. 0:13:51.648 --> 0:13:53.268 So you can check out my blog site, which is 0:13:53.268 --> 0:13:56.658 David would be.podbean.com. 0:13:56.928 --> 0:14:03.828 David would be dot podbean podbean.com. To write to the program. 0:14:04.128 --> 0:14:06.108 You can write to me at Vision Australia where I work. 0:14:06.108 --> 0:14:10.788 David Dot Woodbridge It sounds at Vision australia.org. 0:14:10.938 --> 0:14:15.648 David Dot Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org This has been 0:14:15.648 --> 0:14:19.008 talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's National Advisor 0:14:19.008 --> 0:14:23.298 on Access Technology, David Woodbridge. I'm Stephen Jolley. Take care. 0:14:23.298 --> 0:14:24.918 We'll talk more tech next week. See you.