WEBVTT - Talking Tech 21st May 2024 0:00:21.308 --> 0:00:25.208 Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition, available from 0:00:25.208 --> 0:00:29.528 May the 21st, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have 0:00:29.528 --> 0:00:33.068 you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia radio, associated 0:00:33.068 --> 0:00:37.088 stations of RPA Australia or perhaps the Community Radio Network. 0:00:37.808 --> 0:00:40.298 There is also the podcast to catch that, all you 0:00:40.298 --> 0:00:43.298 need to do is search for the two words talking 0:00:43.328 --> 0:00:46.808 tech and Daniken, or come usually on a Tuesday afternoon 0:00:46.808 --> 0:00:50.408 just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask 0:00:50.408 --> 0:00:53.978 your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia 0:00:53.978 --> 0:00:59.528 Radio talking tech podcast Vision Australia Radio talking Tech podcast 0:00:59.528 --> 0:01:02.498 with me, someone who can explain all this tech stuff 0:01:02.498 --> 0:01:07.748 really well. Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology, David 0:01:07.748 --> 0:01:12.008 Woodbridge David, let's start with our product from the vision 0:01:12.008 --> 0:01:15.908 store of Vision Australia. It's one that's not quite here yet, 0:01:15.908 --> 0:01:18.638 but it will be soon. The we Walker tell us 0:01:18.638 --> 0:01:20.438 about it. It's been around for a little while and 0:01:20.438 --> 0:01:21.848 there's a new version coming. 0:01:21.848 --> 0:01:24.248 That's correct. What we're talking about is version two of 0:01:24.248 --> 0:01:27.578 the We Walk and for people that may not remember, 0:01:27.848 --> 0:01:32.828 the we walk is a cane which has a handle, 0:01:32.828 --> 0:01:34.958 which is actually the We Walk, which contains a lot 0:01:34.958 --> 0:01:39.998 of electronics that actually does sonar detection of obstacles, of course, 0:01:39.998 --> 0:01:43.268 in front of the handle, if you like. So pointing forward. 0:01:43.628 --> 0:01:47.798 And it's got a few touch controls on it that 0:01:47.798 --> 0:01:50.978 links up via Bluetooth to your smartphone, whether it's iPhone 0:01:50.978 --> 0:01:55.658 or Android. And then you've got different functions such as 0:01:55.658 --> 0:01:57.488 mapping and that sort of stuff that you can run 0:01:57.488 --> 0:02:00.668 on the on the smartphone. So it really is a 0:02:00.668 --> 0:02:04.088 handy device. Now with version one of the, the we 0:02:04.088 --> 0:02:08.078 walk a couple of things that people found a little 0:02:08.078 --> 0:02:11.078 bit hard with. It was, number one, the way the 0:02:11.078 --> 0:02:16.508 handle was designed was a bit awkward and a bit heavy. 0:02:16.688 --> 0:02:20.288 So with the new version, version two, it's now like 0:02:20.288 --> 0:02:24.008 you're pretty much like your standard golf club, what I 0:02:24.008 --> 0:02:26.888 tend to call it, um, handle on a standard cane, 0:02:26.888 --> 0:02:31.928 so it's much more slim lined. The second one was 0:02:31.928 --> 0:02:35.138 they had this sort of touch pad on version one, 0:02:35.138 --> 0:02:37.568 which you could, you know, flick left and right and 0:02:37.568 --> 0:02:40.388 swipe up and down and so on. Well, that's now 0:02:40.388 --> 0:02:44.228 turned into push button controls that you can assign different 0:02:44.228 --> 0:02:48.728 functions to. So that's much more effective than trying to 0:02:48.728 --> 0:02:52.898 use this sort of capacitive touch screen. Number three is 0:02:52.898 --> 0:02:56.078 got a better sound system in it. So people that 0:02:56.078 --> 0:02:59.138 have ever heard the the built in speech for the 0:02:59.138 --> 0:03:02.528 basic functions of the we walk cane itself version one 0:03:02.768 --> 0:03:08.258 was actually fairly faint. So this one has extremely good 0:03:08.258 --> 0:03:11.888 sound quality coming out of it. And the app that 0:03:11.888 --> 0:03:15.578 drives again the we walk cane. So the same we 0:03:15.578 --> 0:03:20.048 walk Apophyllite that drove version one. That's been amazingly enhanced 0:03:20.048 --> 0:03:24.698 also to do with wait for it artificial intelligence. So um, 0:03:24.698 --> 0:03:26.858 that will be able to do a lot of things 0:03:26.858 --> 0:03:29.798 based on your GPS location, which is course is coming 0:03:29.798 --> 0:03:33.248 off your your smartphone. So if people have had a 0:03:33.248 --> 0:03:36.878 version one of the walk or I've never experienced a 0:03:36.878 --> 0:03:39.878 WI walk and want to have a look at version two, 0:03:40.118 --> 0:03:43.478 then that's probably going to be coming into Australia probably 0:03:43.478 --> 0:03:47.558 sooner than later, but it's certainly worthwhile having a look 0:03:47.558 --> 0:03:50.678 at the new version and like everything, have a go 0:03:50.678 --> 0:03:52.748 of it and then make up your own mind, talk 0:03:52.748 --> 0:03:55.118 to people about it and then see what you think. 0:03:55.118 --> 0:03:56.378 What's it going to cost? 0:03:56.378 --> 0:04:01.298 Roughly, I want to say about 1300, which was roughly 0:04:01.298 --> 0:04:04.388 the same price as the as the older one. And 0:04:04.388 --> 0:04:08.258 I think the other thing is this can actually use 0:04:08.258 --> 0:04:10.658 a standard cane. So you can actually take a standard 0:04:10.658 --> 0:04:13.058 cane and whack it into this one a lot easier 0:04:13.508 --> 0:04:16.748 than you could with version one. So that price tag 0:04:16.748 --> 0:04:19.778 is probably a little bit more flexible because it does 0:04:19.778 --> 0:04:21.008 use a standard cane. 0:04:21.218 --> 0:04:25.508 The we walk version 2.0 coming soon to the Vision 0:04:25.508 --> 0:04:30.818 Australia store, a big occasion for open AI last week 0:04:30.818 --> 0:04:36.518 when they announced GPT 4OO for Oscar. 0:04:36.788 --> 0:04:40.808 Yes, now this was very scary. I listened to the 0:04:40.808 --> 0:04:44.888 the live announcement going on, and I had to keep 0:04:44.888 --> 0:04:49.388 reminding myself that the A in AI stands for artificial 0:04:49.568 --> 0:04:55.388 and the whole two words artificial intelligence, meaning it's artificial intelligence. 0:04:55.388 --> 0:04:59.858 This is not an intelligent human based system. It's based 0:04:59.858 --> 0:05:04.928 on predictive text and so on. But listening to this 0:05:04.928 --> 0:05:11.228 demonstration on the AI system, being able to quote, look 0:05:11.228 --> 0:05:15.008 at the real world via the camera, to look at 0:05:15.008 --> 0:05:19.778 a person's graph or chart and had a conversation about. 0:05:19.908 --> 0:05:24.168 A chart to look at photos and decide that, you know. Yep, 0:05:24.408 --> 0:05:27.228 I can see a birthday cake and some candles. So 0:05:27.228 --> 0:05:31.668 therefore I think it's somebody's birthday to give suggestions on 0:05:31.668 --> 0:05:35.148 an equation that was written down. Uh, person was trying 0:05:35.148 --> 0:05:39.198 to work out an equation that was actually really interesting. Um, 0:05:39.408 --> 0:05:41.748 and then sort of what I consider to be sort 0:05:41.748 --> 0:05:43.938 of more novelty things like to get it to talk 0:05:43.938 --> 0:05:47.688 in a more robotic voice, to flirt a little bit 0:05:47.688 --> 0:05:52.608 with the person, um, to speak faster, speak slower, to 0:05:52.608 --> 0:05:56.298 give more animation to the voice, that sort of stuff. 0:05:56.298 --> 0:06:01.668 But the way this thing was doing on real live 0:06:01.668 --> 0:06:07.548 camera view, image processing and that sort of stuff, it 0:06:07.548 --> 0:06:10.878 was amazing. It was just so scary that I just 0:06:10.878 --> 0:06:15.588 had to keep rethinking myself that this is a computer system. Um, 0:06:15.588 --> 0:06:19.518 it's got lots of power behind it, but it was 0:06:19.518 --> 0:06:24.798 just amazingly scary. And I think when 4.0 becomes more 0:06:24.798 --> 0:06:29.598 widely available, uh, when they bring more online, it's going 0:06:29.598 --> 0:06:33.858 to be absolutely incredible. So at the moment, it's only 0:06:33.858 --> 0:06:36.468 available for people are still on the plus plan, which 0:06:36.468 --> 0:06:38.688 is the one you've got to pay for. Um, and 0:06:38.688 --> 0:06:41.808 that's where you get access to 4.0. You certainly don't 0:06:41.808 --> 0:06:44.898 get access to most of the stuff they demonstrated at 0:06:44.898 --> 0:06:50.658 the open AI conference presentation and the Mac version of it. 0:06:50.658 --> 0:06:53.718 You know, you press option spacebar, you can talk to it. 0:06:53.958 --> 0:06:58.788 It's not that spectacular yet. It's more spectacular when, you know, 0:06:58.788 --> 0:07:00.708 I'd love it, Steven, if I could do what they 0:07:00.708 --> 0:07:02.748 were doing and literally hold up something in front of 0:07:02.748 --> 0:07:05.838 the camera and say to it, can you tell me 0:07:05.838 --> 0:07:09.108 more about this product? That's going to be absolutely amazing. 0:07:09.438 --> 0:07:12.978 Yeah, it really was exciting to listen to the way 0:07:12.978 --> 0:07:17.178 it responded very quickly, and I was thinking about the 0:07:17.178 --> 0:07:20.358 way it could analyze charts and things that I might 0:07:20.358 --> 0:07:23.058 want to have somebody tell me about could do that 0:07:23.058 --> 0:07:29.448 sort of thing. Really. Well, that's ChatGPT for O for Oscar. 0:07:29.448 --> 0:07:33.228 Not the number, not the zero. Um, and it's part 0:07:33.228 --> 0:07:35.298 of the GPT plus, if you have that and it's 0:07:35.298 --> 0:07:38.448 being rolled out progressively around the world, the the app 0:07:38.448 --> 0:07:42.588 was telling me, yeah, Google I o happened last week. 0:07:43.338 --> 0:07:46.518 Uh, yes. May I say it was very confusing. They 0:07:46.518 --> 0:07:49.728 used the word I, of course, I think according to 0:07:49.728 --> 0:07:54.978 some articles about 125 times, the problem with Google is 0:07:54.978 --> 0:07:58.248 that they tend to research so much stuff and throw 0:07:58.248 --> 0:08:01.068 everything against the wall, like having a mud competition to 0:08:01.068 --> 0:08:04.938 see what sticks. When you try and summarize or have 0:08:04.938 --> 0:08:07.458 a think about what they talked about, you sort of 0:08:07.458 --> 0:08:12.438 start going, well, I don't quite know what direction Google's 0:08:12.438 --> 0:08:15.558 actually going in, because they were talking about things like 0:08:15.558 --> 0:08:19.218 the AI being able to listen to your phone calls 0:08:19.518 --> 0:08:21.918 and determine whether it's a scam call or not. And 0:08:21.918 --> 0:08:25.698 of course, terminate the phone call for your own protection, uh, 0:08:25.698 --> 0:08:30.018 doing theft. So if somebody steals your phone, depending on 0:08:30.018 --> 0:08:33.798 how it gets grabbed out of your hand, um, it 0:08:33.798 --> 0:08:36.678 might be trying somebody stealing, stealing your phone so it'll 0:08:36.678 --> 0:08:39.348 shut down the phone or do stuff like that. Call 0:08:39.348 --> 0:08:43.998 emergency service and so on. They talked about AI, accessing 0:08:43.998 --> 0:08:48.408 Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Photos. They talked a bit 0:08:48.408 --> 0:08:53.088 about Gemini itself. They talked about the voice assistant giving 0:08:53.088 --> 0:08:57.708 commands to smart homes versus AI versus search. 0:08:57.708 --> 0:09:00.978 Now you say Gemini itself. Just remind people what Gemini is. 0:09:00.978 --> 0:09:05.388 Yeah. So Gemini is basically Google's answer to open AI. 0:09:05.418 --> 0:09:08.898 So our friends at the moment in the AI world, 0:09:09.048 --> 0:09:13.878 we've got open ChatGPT, which is basically ChatGPT, um, we've 0:09:13.878 --> 0:09:17.598 got copilot and then we've got Gemini from Google. It's 0:09:17.598 --> 0:09:20.688 the large language model, so it's not the personal assistant 0:09:20.688 --> 0:09:23.808 we know and love is, you know, the okay Google bit. 0:09:23.808 --> 0:09:26.748 And then of course, sooner or later, uh, that stable 0:09:26.748 --> 0:09:29.598 of our friends will be joined by Siri. But I've 0:09:29.598 --> 0:09:31.998 got the link in the show notes to the Google one. 0:09:32.208 --> 0:09:35.088 I would suggest to have a read of it several times, 0:09:35.088 --> 0:09:38.118 and then you might actually understand. But anybody that I've 0:09:38.118 --> 0:09:42.528 seen on the social media verse has just said it 0:09:42.528 --> 0:09:45.168 was a very messy presentation. They were just trying to 0:09:45.168 --> 0:09:49.308 work too hard on saying how good their AI currently is. 0:09:49.308 --> 0:09:54.348 Every year, in conjunction with Global Accessibility Awareness Day Guard, 0:09:54.648 --> 0:09:57.918 Apple announces new accessibility features. 0:09:58.128 --> 0:10:01.998 They did. So basically this will be within iOS 18. 0:10:01.998 --> 0:10:03.528 And of course it'll be the beta when it comes 0:10:03.528 --> 0:10:08.958 out in June. After we hear from WWDC Worldwide Developers conference, 0:10:09.408 --> 0:10:14.178 they're looking at very much to do with physical motor 0:10:14.178 --> 0:10:19.978 control of your iOS or iPad OS, including actually. For 0:10:19.978 --> 0:10:22.348 that matter. So what they were talking about is eye 0:10:22.378 --> 0:10:25.258 gaze technology. Now, normally you'd need a third party to 0:10:25.258 --> 0:10:28.558 track your eyes, to see what your eyes are looking 0:10:28.558 --> 0:10:30.418 at on the screen, and then be able to actually 0:10:30.418 --> 0:10:33.658 activate that item. Well, this is now built into the 0:10:33.658 --> 0:10:37.198 actual software using the camera. So the hardware as well. 0:10:37.498 --> 0:10:40.858 They also talked about the fact that you can assign 0:10:40.858 --> 0:10:45.538 sounds to do different types of functions. So particularly with 0:10:45.538 --> 0:10:49.288 people with cerebral palsy where you you can't talk properly 0:10:49.288 --> 0:10:53.248 due to the cerebral palsy. If you can reliably make 0:10:53.248 --> 0:10:57.328 different sounds, you can actually generate, if you like, voice 0:10:57.328 --> 0:11:00.688 shortcuts to do exactly what you need to do, that's 0:11:00.688 --> 0:11:02.968 pretty cool. And then the other one, which I thought 0:11:02.968 --> 0:11:04.798 was actually really, really good, and I think it should 0:11:04.798 --> 0:11:06.868 have been in part of Vision Pro before it even 0:11:06.868 --> 0:11:10.378 came out, was closed captioning. So when you're watching a 0:11:10.378 --> 0:11:14.068 movie or a TV show, it'll have closed captioning on 0:11:14.068 --> 0:11:17.038 the screen as well. So really not much to do 0:11:17.038 --> 0:11:20.608 with blind or low vision folks. This time around. But 0:11:20.608 --> 0:11:24.058 I'm really pleased to see the things about the cerebral 0:11:24.058 --> 0:11:28.618 palsy sound type utterances and also the eye gaze technology 0:11:28.618 --> 0:11:30.028 being built into the device. 0:11:30.028 --> 0:11:34.318 Yeah, it's very interesting that one, the International Council on 0:11:34.318 --> 0:11:39.448 English Braille is holding a General assembly, its eighth General Assembly, 0:11:39.448 --> 0:11:43.768 and has them every four years in Auckland starting next weekend, 0:11:43.768 --> 0:11:47.728 Saturday going through to Thursday. So it brings together eight 0:11:47.728 --> 0:11:53.698 nations who are leaders in English Braille, including the UK, Australia, 0:11:53.728 --> 0:11:57.358 the United States and New Zealand. Of course, Canada. Proceedings 0:11:57.358 --> 0:12:02.878 will be available from the website I seeborg. It's good 0:12:02.878 --> 0:12:06.928 that these events are available way beyond the venue these days. 0:12:06.928 --> 0:12:10.898 It's fantastic because I remember. You know, a few decades ago, 0:12:10.898 --> 0:12:13.418 when these things were on, you'd actually only find out 0:12:13.418 --> 0:12:15.428 about stuff in dribs and drabs. So I'd be able 0:12:15.428 --> 0:12:18.458 to find this stuff directly from the source is amazing. 0:12:18.698 --> 0:12:21.698 And it's also interesting that, you know, as we're moving 0:12:21.698 --> 0:12:29.138 into multi-line braille displays, um, electronic braille resource file type 0:12:29.138 --> 0:12:33.188 formats and so on, then being able to make sure 0:12:33.188 --> 0:12:36.968 that the braille type of coding keeps up with what 0:12:36.968 --> 0:12:40.028 we're going to be experiencing in the next five years 0:12:40.028 --> 0:12:43.058 or so, is going to be kept up by the, 0:12:43.088 --> 0:12:47.498 you know, the unified English Braille code in particular. So 0:12:47.498 --> 0:12:50.138 even though this might sound a bit dry on the surface, 0:12:50.138 --> 0:12:54.758 I think the underlying thing is it's always a live 0:12:54.758 --> 0:12:57.158 system and it's not going to stop. So, you know, 0:12:57.158 --> 0:12:58.958 as far as I'm concerned, you know, Braille is here 0:12:58.958 --> 0:12:59.648 to stay. 0:12:59.858 --> 0:13:02.318 If you want to keep in touch with those proceedings, 0:13:02.318 --> 0:13:10.928 I Seaborg, International Council on English Braille, icb.org. We've been 0:13:10.928 --> 0:13:15.338 talking about glide, one of those devices on the horizon, 0:13:15.338 --> 0:13:18.098 which is likely to be of great interest to people 0:13:18.098 --> 0:13:20.858 wanting to get around to it. Different ways to what 0:13:20.858 --> 0:13:24.548 we currently do. Glide is progressing. 0:13:24.608 --> 0:13:27.548 It is progressing. It's basically a little two wheeled robot 0:13:27.548 --> 0:13:30.098 with a handle that you hang on to, and it 0:13:30.098 --> 0:13:33.338 will glide around the place of the two wheels and 0:13:33.338 --> 0:13:37.868 basically guides you wherever you're moving safely. So I got 0:13:37.868 --> 0:13:42.428 an email from the folks last week about the pre-order 0:13:42.428 --> 0:13:45.608 for glide. Now remember, this is only going to be 0:13:45.608 --> 0:13:48.908 sort of basically launched in I think it's North America 0:13:48.908 --> 0:13:53.438 and the UK end of next year. So 2025. It'll 0:13:53.438 --> 0:13:56.768 be rolled out to the rest of the world after that. 40% 0:13:56.768 --> 0:14:00.818 off for the pre-order sounded pretty cool. It's looking very 0:14:00.818 --> 0:14:02.828 interesting that the more I read about it, the more 0:14:02.828 --> 0:14:06.098 I'm intrigued by it. Perhaps Vision Australia will be testing it, 0:14:06.098 --> 0:14:10.268 who knows yet? I'm pretty sure we might be gliding outside. 0:14:10.388 --> 0:14:15.008 Oh. Glide inside. Oh, just before we go, a reminder 0:14:15.008 --> 0:14:17.048 of where there are details of what we've been talking 0:14:17.048 --> 0:14:19.568 about in this and previous editions of the program. 0:14:19.568 --> 0:14:22.208 You can check out my blog site, which is David 0:14:22.208 --> 0:14:25.928 Woodburn Dot Podbean pod ban.com. 0:14:26.078 --> 0:14:30.458 David would be r dot podbean pod b e a 0:14:30.458 --> 0:14:32.978 n.com to write to the program. 0:14:32.978 --> 0:14:36.878 David Dot Woodbridge out sounds at Vision Australia. 0:14:37.058 --> 0:14:41.978 Org David Dot Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org. This has 0:14:41.978 --> 0:14:44.768 been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national 0:14:44.768 --> 0:14:49.448 advisor on access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolly stay safe. 0:14:49.448 --> 0:14:51.128 We'll talk more tech next week. See you.