S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: June the 20th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
S1: you with us wherever you're listening, perhaps through Vision Australia Radio,
S1: associated Stations of Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network,
S1: there is also the podcast to get hold of that.
S1: All you need to do is search for the two
S1: words talking tech and Dan it can all come usually
S1: on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another
S1: option is to ask your Siri device or smart speaker
S1: to play Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech Podcast. Vision Australia
S1: Radio Talking Tech podcast. With me someone who can explain
S1: all this tech stuff really well. Vision Australia's National Advisor
S1: on Access Technology, David Woodbridge.
S2: Now I suddenly realize too, with all the stuff that's
S2: been going on in technology in the last couple of weeks,
S2: we haven't had time to catch up with your overseas trip.
S2: So a couple of questions I had for you. I
S2: believe you went and visited Louis Brough's house, I believe.
S1: Yes, we did. I travelled in May in very early
S1: June with my wife and a friend of ours, and
S1: we did spend some time in France, in Paris, and
S1: one morning we went about 50 K out of Paris
S1: to a little place called Cobra Coupe v r a Y.
S1: And then we visited the Louis Brown Museum, which is
S1: based at the family home where he grew up as
S1: a child before going off to the Institute for Blind
S1: Children and progressed to become a very famous man. So
S1: that was quite something. Visiting the museum and getting a
S1: feel for where the family were, what the rooms were
S1: in the house. And our tour guide, Stephan, who was terrific,
S1: he's really the curator of the museum there, he took
S1: us into the dining room and explained it or family
S1: room and said, Now let's sit down here and have
S1: a talk. So we sat down at the at the
S1: dining room table and talked about Louis Braille. And then
S1: we went over to the museum area and saw some
S1: of the very early Braille equipment and other tactile equipment
S1: like the the old Taylor Slate. Do you remember the
S1: Taylor Slate? I do. I do. So there was a
S1: usually a metal slate with little holes in it and
S1: little pieces of lead that you put in these holes.
S1: And the what we call figures could be put in
S1: in eight different ways because they were octagonal holes. They
S1: had eight sides to the holes and they had a
S1: bar on one end and two little points on the
S1: other end. So that was very interesting. I also saw
S1: an abacus and hello to all those people who still
S1: have an abacus. I used one at school. I don't
S1: know what I did with it, I'm ashamed to say,
S1: But marvelous little thing for arithmetic, but very much the
S1: old Braille and tactile stuff. And what really impressed me
S1: was the thing about Braille. It really hit home and
S1: I hadn't thought about it as much is that though
S1: there were tactile systems around, Captain Charles Barbier, for instance,
S1: developed a tactile system meant to be for the use
S1: of the blind. Braille was so simple that it really
S1: was the breakthrough one because it's based on just six dots.
S1: Other systems are using dots to try and represent the
S1: printed character. Louis Braille said, Put all that away. Let's
S1: just work on basic six dots, which is easier to
S1: feel and it's easier to produce Braille both for many
S1: people to use or for one person to write for
S1: their own personal purposes, because that was a difficulty in
S1: the early days with the tactile systems. How do you
S1: reproduce it? So a lot of learning, but great memories.
S1: And it was a privilege to be there at the
S1: home of and the Museum of the Great Louis Braille,
S1: who's made such a difference for so many of us.
S1: Born in 1809, died in 1852, so a couple of
S1: hundred years ago now.
S2: Yeah, pretty amazing sort of stuff. Did you visit any
S2: other museums that had more accessible type up to date
S2: stuff in at all?
S1: We did visit a number of museums in London and
S1: in Paris, and what I was struck with was the
S1: effort that they do go to to be accessible these days.
S1: You can often go to places now where you get
S1: an audio guide that you download as an app. Some
S1: of those in Australia as well as in other parts
S1: of the world to varying degrees of accessibility with some
S1: of those apps. There's a little work still to go
S1: on with them to get them right. A lot of
S1: places have devices that you hire. Some of those are
S1: just touch screen ones. So you need someone who can
S1: see a bit to be able to help you navigate that.
S1: But there are some now and. Use one of them
S1: in the Churchill war rooms in London when we had
S1: a tour of that. Have the buttons on them So
S1: the physical buttons make such a difference, you can actually
S1: move around from section to section. ET cetera. And some
S1: have gone out of their way to be more descriptive.
S1: So not just the audio guide for, shall we say,
S1: mainstream use, but particular added descriptive bits to make it
S1: easier for a blind person to know their way around
S1: and orientate themselves. Really good stuff. So they were interesting.
S2: Okay. And what about transportation? Because I know we're slowly
S2: improving over here in Australia, but how did you find
S2: the transport system over there?
S1: We're doing pretty well here. There are some things in
S1: the UK which are probably better. They've got a terrific
S1: public transport system, particularly the rail system I had a
S1: lot of experience with and audible announcements were just automatic.
S1: You didn't have to worry about whether they were going
S1: to announce the stops or not. The traffic signals, the
S1: audible traffic signals, doesn't matter what city you go to,
S1: the traffic signals are the same. They're consistent. Not like ours,
S1: where sometimes they're adequately loud and other times they're a
S1: bit soft, none of that sort of thing. They were
S1: very consistent. And the other thing that impressed me was
S1: the very familiar tactile ground surface indicators, you know, those
S1: sort of tactile markings as you cross streets, even the
S1: famous Abbey Road is just like a normal street. It's
S1: got its tactile indicators as you walk off the footpath
S1: as well. So that was pretty good.
S2: It's nice to know this stuff is getting more universal
S2: access across the world. These devices, I know in one
S2: of my sort of friends went to Japan a month
S2: or two ago. She was absolutely amazed that how things
S2: were accessible in transportation, in hotels, in restaurants. And it
S2: was really funny because she started taking pictures of Braille
S2: and tactile markers. Then she suddenly realized that I wouldn't
S2: be able to see them, but at least it was
S2: the thought that counts. Yeah. All right. So speaking of overseas,
S2: have you been listening to the cricket Ashes in England?
S2: At the moment?
S1: I have been tuned in a little bit like every
S1: night and losing a bit of sleep. The ABC Listen
S1: app is the way to go, isn't it?
S2: Oh, it is. It's absolutely brilliant. I've been using that
S2: every night. And yes, like you, I've been thinking, Oh, look,
S2: come on, 1:00, 2:00 in the morning is not really
S2: going to kill me the next day because it is
S2: overseas in England. But no, it's it's really great. And
S2: it just even now, in 2023, it still amazes me
S2: that here I am sitting in or laying in my
S2: nice comfy bed and I can still listen to something
S2: that's happening on the opposite side of the world. Crystal clear.
S2: You can hear the crowds, the commentary, the ball being hit,
S2: all that sort of really cool stuff. So, you know,
S2: you people, they may not follow cricket. It's a five
S2: test series. So I'm really looking forward to listening to
S2: more tests as we keep moving forward.
S1: And the women's Ashes is going on at about the
S1: same time to be able to catch that. So David,
S1: let's talk now about the Vision Australia's library and the
S1: VA Connect app. We haven't talked about those for a while,
S1: but it's a good way of getting access to content,
S1: isn't it?
S2: It is, because it's one of these things that I
S2: just take for granted and I assume that everybody knows
S2: about them. But you're right, we haven't mentioned it for
S2: a while, and these are two apps that you run
S2: on your smartphone so you can run them on your iOS,
S2: your iPhone or iPad or on your Android phone or tablet.
S2: And it's a way of getting access to the Vision
S2: Australia Library to access Daisy Books. So talking books, newspapers,
S2: magazines and most of the podcast that Vision Australia Radio produces,
S2: including Talking Tech, you can basically log into the app,
S2: you can search for and subscribe to newspapers, podcasts I've
S2: already mentioned, and down they come whenever they're available, like
S2: the Sydney Morning Herald or the Age of Melbourne or
S2: Talking Tech every Tuesday and so on. So it's a
S2: really great way of having your own personal information service
S2: that's curated for people that are blind and low vision.
S2: So you don't get all the sort of, I guess
S2: the non visual stuff too much. But this is curated for,
S2: for blind and low vision people and I just find
S2: it a fantastic resource.
S1: Now, talking about your own personal News and information service,
S1: explain to us, because some people might not be familiar
S1: with this, what an RSS reader is.
S2: So RSS stands for really simple syndication, so if you
S2: could imagine you put a link in to access a
S2: podcast feed. Well, this is a link to access tech
S2: and other type of media type stuff. So what it
S2: does is you put this link in. So for example,
S2: I subscribed to, let's say the cricket one from overseas
S2: and every time any information gets updated in that feed.
S2: It means that every time I run my RSS app,
S2: like a podcast app, the one that I is is
S2: called Leary RSS Reader, which is Leary pronounced Leary. Every
S2: time I run that one, it doesn't update. It scans
S2: all the different types of RSS feeds that I've got
S2: on that, and I've got about 35 of them at
S2: the moment. And because I can go into each category
S2: or each topic and it starts at the most recent
S2: at the top and keeps going downwards, I can actually
S2: save things for later reading. I can share things out
S2: to Mastodon and Twitter, but I always find because I'm
S2: getting exactly what I'm after and I can just have
S2: it flagged to only give me the unread items. It's
S2: a really great way of me keeping up to date with,
S2: you know, technology, martial arts, the Formula One, cricket music
S2: and all sorts of other things that I that I
S2: do outside of work. And I just find it's a
S2: great way. So if you're a bit over Mastodon in Twitter,
S2: Leary or any other RSS reader is a really great
S2: way to keep up to date with what's going on
S2: in the world.
S1: So how do you set yourself up to use one
S1: of these RSS readers?
S2: So you download the app. So in this case it's
S2: literally for iOS. I'll have to check one that would
S2: be useful for for Android. But remember, there's also Google News,
S2: which is also an RSS reader for Android anyway, that
S2: you can also use an iOS and you go in
S2: there and you can actually either search for tidal keywords
S2: or you can go and say, Look, I'll look at
S2: the technology section or the lifestyle section, and then out
S2: of there you can choose ones that are there, they're
S2: trending ones or their top ten, whatever else, and that's
S2: the best way to start.
S1: Very good. Well, we wish people luck with getting into
S1: that sort of thing. That sounds a bit complex at
S1: the start, but once you get into it, it's pretty straightforward. Yeah, it's.
S2: One of those things. It's once it's set up, it's
S2: a piece of cake to use. Yeah.
S1: You had another exploring tech webinar back in May.
S2: We did, and it's now up on the YouTube channel.
S2: So if you want to see the lovely Sam or
S2: the lovely Ramona from Pacific Vision and Human Wear respectively,
S2: then you can check out that YouTube channel for Virgin Australia.
S2: And by the way, you can also access the Virgin
S2: Australia Library on either the Victoria Stream or the Sense
S2: player from Pacific Vision. So another way of grabbing content
S2: for yourself as well.
S1: Yeah, they both do a great job. Sam Taylor from
S1: Pacific Vision and Ramona Mandi from Human Wear. What's RIMM about?
S1: I am.
S2: RIMM is remote incident manager, so it's a fully accessible
S2: way of you as a support person remotely accessing somebody
S2: else's computer, whether it's a mac or a Windows machine.
S2: Because up until this point we can use other applications
S2: which sort of work. This one means that it's 100%
S2: accessible and it's been in beta. I think we mentioned
S2: it earlier this year, it's now out of beta, so
S2: you can actually fully use it and subscribe to it.
S2: And it's one of the best things that I have
S2: in my toolbox, so to speak, for supporting family and friends.
S2: If they have trouble with their machines.
S1: Windows and Mac.
S2: Correct? Yep. So you can download both clients and I
S2: won't go into how you use it, but you basically
S2: send a person a link and then you log in
S2: together and then you can share each other's information, you
S2: can copy files or that sort of really cool stuff.
S2: So a great utility.
S1: Now just before we go, a reminder of where people
S1: can find details of what we've been talking about in
S1: this and previous editions of the program.
S2: Indeed. So as always, you can check out my show
S2: notes on my blog site, which is David would be
S2: r dot podbean pad bn com.
S1: David would be dot podbean podbean.com. To write to the program.
S2: You can write to me at Vision Australia where I work,
S2: which is David Dot Woodbridge, a Division australia.org.
S1: David Dot 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. Take care.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.