S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition, available from
S1: May the 21st, 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 Daniken, or come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
S1: just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
S1: your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia
S1: Radio talking tech podcast Vision Australia Radio talking Tech podcast
S1: with me, someone who can explain all this tech stuff
S1: really well. Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology, David
S1: Woodbridge David, let's start with our product from the vision
S1: store of Vision Australia. It's one that's not quite here yet,
S1: but it will be soon. The we Walker tell us
S1: about it. It's been around for a little while and
S1: there's a new version coming.
S2: That's correct. What we're talking about is version two of
S2: the We Walk and for people that may not remember,
S2: the we walk is a cane which has a handle,
S2: which is actually the We Walk, which contains a lot
S2: of electronics that actually does sonar detection of obstacles, of course,
S2: in front of the handle, if you like. So pointing forward.
S2: And it's got a few touch controls on it that
S2: links up via Bluetooth to your smartphone, whether it's iPhone
S2: or Android. And then you've got different functions such as
S2: mapping and that sort of stuff that you can run
S2: on the on the smartphone. So it really is a
S2: handy device. Now with version one of the, the we
S2: walk a couple of things that people found a little
S2: bit hard with. It was, number one, the way the
S2: handle was designed was a bit awkward and a bit heavy.
S2: So with the new version, version two, it's now like
S2: you're pretty much like your standard golf club, what I
S2: tend to call it, um, handle on a standard cane,
S2: so it's much more slim lined. The second one was
S2: they had this sort of touch pad on version one,
S2: which you could, you know, flick left and right and
S2: swipe up and down and so on. Well, that's now
S2: turned into push button controls that you can assign different
S2: functions to. So that's much more effective than trying to
S2: use this sort of capacitive touch screen. Number three is
S2: got a better sound system in it. So people that
S2: have ever heard the the built in speech for the
S2: basic functions of the we walk cane itself version one
S2: was actually fairly faint. So this one has extremely good
S2: sound quality coming out of it. And the app that
S2: drives again the we walk cane. So the same we
S2: walk Apophyllite that drove version one. That's been amazingly enhanced
S2: also to do with wait for it artificial intelligence. So um,
S2: that will be able to do a lot of things
S2: based on your GPS location, which is course is coming
S2: off your your smartphone. So if people have had a
S2: version one of the walk or I've never experienced a
S2: WI walk and want to have a look at version two,
S2: then that's probably going to be coming into Australia probably
S2: sooner than later, but it's certainly worthwhile having a look
S2: at the new version and like everything, have a go
S2: of it and then make up your own mind, talk
S2: to people about it and then see what you think.
S1: What's it going to cost?
S2: Roughly, I want to say about 1300, which was roughly
S2: the same price as the as the older one. And
S2: I think the other thing is this can actually use
S2: a standard cane. So you can actually take a standard
S2: cane and whack it into this one a lot easier
S2: than you could with version one. So that price tag
S2: is probably a little bit more flexible because it does
S2: use a standard cane.
S1: The we walk version 2.0 coming soon to the Vision
S1: Australia store, a big occasion for open AI last week
S1: when they announced GPT 4OO for Oscar.
S2: Yes, now this was very scary. I listened to the
S2: the live announcement going on, and I had to keep
S2: reminding myself that the A in AI stands for artificial
S2: and the whole two words artificial intelligence, meaning it's artificial intelligence.
S2: This is not an intelligent human based system. It's based
S2: on predictive text and so on. But listening to this
S2: demonstration on the AI system, being able to quote, look
S2: at the real world via the camera, to look at
S2: a person's graph or chart and had a conversation about.
S2: A chart to look at photos and decide that, you know. Yep,
S2: I can see a birthday cake and some candles. So
S2: therefore I think it's somebody's birthday to give suggestions on
S2: an equation that was written down. Uh, person was trying
S2: to work out an equation that was actually really interesting. Um,
S2: and then sort of what I consider to be sort
S2: of more novelty things like to get it to talk
S2: in a more robotic voice, to flirt a little bit
S2: with the person, um, to speak faster, speak slower, to
S2: give more animation to the voice, that sort of stuff.
S2: But the way this thing was doing on real live
S2: camera view, image processing and that sort of stuff, it
S2: was amazing. It was just so scary that I just
S2: had to keep rethinking myself that this is a computer system. Um,
S2: it's got lots of power behind it, but it was
S2: just amazingly scary. And I think when 4.0 becomes more
S2: widely available, uh, when they bring more online, it's going
S2: to be absolutely incredible. So at the moment, it's only
S2: available for people are still on the plus plan, which
S2: is the one you've got to pay for. Um, and
S2: that's where you get access to 4.0. You certainly don't
S2: get access to most of the stuff they demonstrated at
S2: the open AI conference presentation and the Mac version of it.
S2: You know, you press option spacebar, you can talk to it.
S2: It's not that spectacular yet. It's more spectacular when, you know,
S2: I'd love it, Steven, if I could do what they
S2: were doing and literally hold up something in front of
S2: the camera and say to it, can you tell me
S2: more about this product? That's going to be absolutely amazing.
S1: Yeah, it really was exciting to listen to the way
S1: it responded very quickly, and I was thinking about the
S1: way it could analyze charts and things that I might
S1: want to have somebody tell me about could do that
S1: sort of thing. Really. Well, that's ChatGPT for O for Oscar.
S1: Not the number, not the zero. Um, and it's part
S1: of the GPT plus, if you have that and it's
S1: being rolled out progressively around the world, the the app
S1: was telling me, yeah, Google I o happened last week.
S2: Uh, yes. May I say it was very confusing. They
S2: used the word I, of course, I think according to
S2: some articles about 125 times, the problem with Google is
S2: that they tend to research so much stuff and throw
S2: everything against the wall, like having a mud competition to
S2: see what sticks. When you try and summarize or have
S2: a think about what they talked about, you sort of
S2: start going, well, I don't quite know what direction Google's
S2: actually going in, because they were talking about things like
S2: the AI being able to listen to your phone calls
S2: and determine whether it's a scam call or not. And
S2: of course, terminate the phone call for your own protection, uh,
S2: doing theft. So if somebody steals your phone, depending on
S2: how it gets grabbed out of your hand, um, it
S2: might be trying somebody stealing, stealing your phone so it'll
S2: shut down the phone or do stuff like that. Call
S2: emergency service and so on. They talked about AI, accessing
S2: Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Photos. They talked a bit
S2: about Gemini itself. They talked about the voice assistant giving
S2: commands to smart homes versus AI versus search.
S1: Now you say Gemini itself. Just remind people what Gemini is.
S2: Yeah. So Gemini is basically Google's answer to open AI.
S2: So our friends at the moment in the AI world,
S2: we've got open ChatGPT, which is basically ChatGPT, um, we've
S2: got copilot and then we've got Gemini from Google. It's
S2: the large language model, so it's not the personal assistant
S2: we know and love is, you know, the okay Google bit.
S2: And then of course, sooner or later, uh, that stable
S2: of our friends will be joined by Siri. But I've
S2: got the link in the show notes to the Google one.
S2: I would suggest to have a read of it several times,
S2: and then you might actually understand. But anybody that I've
S2: seen on the social media verse has just said it
S2: was a very messy presentation. They were just trying to
S2: work too hard on saying how good their AI currently is.
S1: Every year, in conjunction with Global Accessibility Awareness Day Guard,
S1: Apple announces new accessibility features.
S2: They did. So basically this will be within iOS 18.
S2: And of course it'll be the beta when it comes
S2: out in June. After we hear from WWDC Worldwide Developers conference,
S2: they're looking at very much to do with physical motor
S2: control of your iOS or iPad OS, including actually. For
S2: that matter. So what they were talking about is eye
S2: gaze technology. Now, normally you'd need a third party to
S2: track your eyes, to see what your eyes are looking
S2: at on the screen, and then be able to actually
S2: activate that item. Well, this is now built into the
S2: actual software using the camera. So the hardware as well.
S2: They also talked about the fact that you can assign
S2: sounds to do different types of functions. So particularly with
S2: people with cerebral palsy where you you can't talk properly
S2: due to the cerebral palsy. If you can reliably make
S2: different sounds, you can actually generate, if you like, voice
S2: shortcuts to do exactly what you need to do, that's
S2: pretty cool. And then the other one, which I thought
S2: was actually really, really good, and I think it should
S2: have been in part of Vision Pro before it even
S2: came out, was closed captioning. So when you're watching a
S2: movie or a TV show, it'll have closed captioning on
S2: the screen as well. So really not much to do
S2: with blind or low vision folks. This time around. But
S2: I'm really pleased to see the things about the cerebral
S2: palsy sound type utterances and also the eye gaze technology
S2: being built into the device.
S1: Yeah, it's very interesting that one, the International Council on
S1: English Braille is holding a General assembly, its eighth General Assembly,
S1: and has them every four years in Auckland starting next weekend,
S1: Saturday going through to Thursday. So it brings together eight
S1: nations who are leaders in English Braille, including the UK, Australia,
S1: the United States and New Zealand. Of course, Canada. Proceedings
S1: will be available from the website I seeborg. It's good
S1: that these events are available way beyond the venue these days.
S2: It's fantastic because I remember. You know, a few decades ago,
S2: when these things were on, you'd actually only find out
S2: about stuff in dribs and drabs. So I'd be able
S2: to find this stuff directly from the source is amazing.
S2: And it's also interesting that, you know, as we're moving
S2: into multi-line braille displays, um, electronic braille resource file type
S2: formats and so on, then being able to make sure
S2: that the braille type of coding keeps up with what
S2: we're going to be experiencing in the next five years
S2: or so, is going to be kept up by the,
S2: you know, the unified English Braille code in particular. So
S2: even though this might sound a bit dry on the surface,
S2: I think the underlying thing is it's always a live
S2: system and it's not going to stop. So, you know,
S2: as far as I'm concerned, you know, Braille is here
S2: to stay.
S1: If you want to keep in touch with those proceedings,
S1: I Seaborg, International Council on English Braille, icb.org. We've been
S1: talking about glide, one of those devices on the horizon,
S1: which is likely to be of great interest to people
S1: wanting to get around to it. Different ways to what
S1: we currently do. Glide is progressing.
S2: It is progressing. It's basically a little two wheeled robot
S2: with a handle that you hang on to, and it
S2: will glide around the place of the two wheels and
S2: basically guides you wherever you're moving safely. So I got
S2: an email from the folks last week about the pre-order
S2: for glide. Now remember, this is only going to be
S2: sort of basically launched in I think it's North America
S2: and the UK end of next year. So 2025. It'll
S2: be rolled out to the rest of the world after that. 40%
S2: off for the pre-order sounded pretty cool. It's looking very
S2: interesting that the more I read about it, the more
S2: I'm intrigued by it. Perhaps Vision Australia will be testing it,
S2: who knows yet? I'm pretty sure we might be gliding outside.
S1: Oh. Glide inside. Oh, just before we go, a reminder
S1: of where there are details of what we've been talking
S1: about in this and previous editions of the program.
S2: You can check out my blog site, which is David
S2: Woodburn Dot Podbean pod ban.com.
S1: David would be r dot podbean pod b e a
S1: n.com to write to the program.
S2: David Dot Woodbridge out sounds at Vision Australia.
S1: Org David Dot Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org. This has
S1: been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national
S1: advisor on access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolly stay safe.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.