S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: June the 18th, 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 tech.
S1: And it can all 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 Woodbridge. David,
S1: let's start with the product from the vision store of
S1: Vision Australia. What have you got for us today?
S2: I have the Orcam read three. That's Orcam Orcam read three.
S2: And this is a little handheld device. And if people
S2: that know about the orcam in general are the ones
S2: that normally go on your glasses, basically you point the
S2: little camera at handwriting or any text, what it might
S2: be on a piece of paper or even on a
S2: computer screen, and it will read it back to you.
S2: So it sort of does very similar things. It also
S2: reads handwriting, which is for me, very cool, but the
S2: really exciting stuff to do with the the read three,
S2: they'll can read three is the fact that it actually
S2: comes with a stand. So it literally turns your little
S2: portable handheld reading device into a standalone reading machine, which
S2: we used to call them back in the old dark days.
S2: And the third really cool thing, and this is the
S2: one that I like about it, is that if you
S2: link it up to your windows computer or your iPad
S2: via a web browser, you can run some. So I'm
S2: going to use the word artificial intelligence to do things
S2: like summarize the page you're looking at, or perhaps ask
S2: it how much an item costs, or to search for
S2: particular things. It does quite a few different types of things,
S2: and you can also use it as a video magnifier
S2: as well. So not only does the camera do the
S2: optical recognition and the eye stuff, you can also use
S2: it as a video magnifier. So you're really getting around
S2: about three machines in one. So it's one of those
S2: great improvements that I've been thinking about for 2024, where
S2: sort of AI meets assistive or mainstream technology for us,
S2: blind and low vision folks.
S1: It is quite amazing how small it is.
S2: I would say it's about the size of those very
S2: sort of thick marker pens. So it when I say tiny,
S2: it's very tiny and literally you potentially where you can
S2: hold it like a pen. Um, and it's just one
S2: of those things that you can just, you know, have
S2: in your pocket, pull out when you need to. Um,
S2: it's also got LED lights, I might say, too. So
S2: if you want to have a quick read of something
S2: in your pantry which is normally fairly dark, um, you
S2: can do that as well. But yes, the size of it, um,
S2: is like a marker pen. Or if you ever had
S2: an orcam myeye, which is the one that mainly connects
S2: to glasses, but at the same size as that as well.
S1: It's available through the vision store of Vision Australia. It's
S1: a quantum reading learning vision product, isn't it?
S2: It is. So if you want more information or you
S2: want to demonstration, you can either contact the Vision store
S2: locations around Australia or you can also contact quantum, which
S2: has also got different places around Australia as well and
S2: have a bit of a hands on play with it.
S2: It's about $4,000, but in this case, I think the
S2: technology in it and what it's going to do now
S2: and into the future is pretty amazing.
S1: That's the Orcam read three from the vision store of
S1: Vision Australia. We'll spend time now just whetting the appetite
S1: about what we can expect from the new Apple operating
S1: systems when they come out in September. You've been playing
S1: with the beta version.
S2: Yes, I'm doing Mac OS, iOS, iPadOS and the watch
S2: one as well.
S1: Okay. What have you got across the whole Apple ecosystem
S1: to tell us about?
S2: One of the major things is, and I know this
S2: sounds a bit boring a bit, but your Apple ID
S2: account now, anything associated with it is now called your
S2: Apple account, which makes more sense. Apple ID was getting
S2: a bit weird because it was associated with so many
S2: other things. It didn't make sense, and probably the overall
S2: other one is the fact that we've now got, well,
S2: they call it music recognition. Back in the old days,
S2: we used to call it Shazam, and that's your way
S2: that you can get your phone, Siri, to listen to
S2: music and tell you what the song is.
S1: Anything with passwords.
S2: Passwords is normally built into your system preferences, uh, particularly
S2: on the Mac. Well, now there's a separate passwords app
S2: on both iOS. And Mac OS, and I must say,
S2: just be able to run an application, then you can
S2: just search for your passwords is a lot easier than
S2: having to keep going into system preferences and try and
S2: find it in there. So I really think that's actually
S2: a huge improvement.
S1: Let's look at each device now, the Apple Mac and
S1: the new operating system 10.15 A new tips app.
S2: People might not remember, or maybe you've just got bored
S2: of it, but iOS has a tips app. So does
S2: iPad OS. Well, now you've got it on the Mac
S2: as well, and it's just a little application that will
S2: pop up. Or you can go and have a look
S2: at it, and it will give you tips and tricks
S2: on how to use your system better, in this case,
S2: how to use Mac OS better. So it's just one
S2: of those little things that's quite handy to have.
S1: And what about all those sounds you can hear?
S2: To me, this is a huge improvement because when you
S2: turn on hearing on your extras menu before, when you
S2: turn background sounds on like rain and ocean and Brooks,
S2: that sort of stuff, it just said enable sound for
S2: each one of them. Well, now it actually has proper
S2: names of each sound, so if I feel like rain
S2: or ocean or brook, then I can turn the appropriate
S2: one on. So it's just a little change, but I
S2: think it's actually quite nice.
S1: And there's a new voiceover tutorial.
S2: This is just not a slight improvement to the VoiceOver
S2: practice tutorial. This is a wholly rewritten tutorial which is
S2: highly interactive, and it's a lot more extensive than the
S2: old one used to be, so that is actually very worthwhile,
S2: even for um experienced users. It's worthwhile having a play
S2: with even in the beta or when it comes out
S2: in September October.
S1: What about with shortcuts on the Mac?
S2: I'm going to cheat slightly and say this is also
S2: available on iOS, so you can assign any voice command
S2: to an action as long as it's supported by the
S2: operating system. Of course, it's more extensive on iOS and
S2: on the Mac. For example, I can say turn on
S2: background sounds now to my Mac. And because that's a
S2: command shortcut, it will turn my background sounds on or
S2: off rather than me having to go and do it manually.
S2: So they're the little things that you can assign voice
S2: commands to.
S1: Let's talk more about iOS now and some interesting things
S1: in iOS 18. Firstly, you can power it off a
S1: slightly different way.
S2: We had a chat about this before he went on air.
S2: I don't do it your way, Stephan. I do it
S2: a weird way. Yes, the power button where you can,
S2: you know, power off your device that's now available in
S2: the control center. So if you're one of these control
S2: center people that use the control center all the time,
S2: right down the bottom of the screen, or you can
S2: always change them around is the power off button now.
S2: So if you've done it the long way, which I do, um,
S2: then that's actually a huge improvement for productivity.
S1: Here's one that I'm looking forward to in settings. And
S1: it's about the settings for a specific app.
S2: So you know your current version of iOS, you can
S2: imagine your settings folder having all these applications. I've got
S2: about 450 of mine, but what they've done now is
S2: they've put all those apps in a folder called apps.
S2: They're alphabetized and you've got your vertical scroll down the
S2: right hand side where you can flick through A, B, C,
S2: D and so on. So it's a much more efficient
S2: way to find an app when you want to adjust
S2: its settings.
S1: Um, just a little thing when you're turning VoiceOver on, um,
S1: there's a haptic indication as well.
S2: It does. It vibrates now and then. That's particularly good
S2: for deaf blind people if you're using a Braille display,
S2: because before it would just say voiceover on and the
S2: braille display didn't work, you didn't know that voiceover was on.
S2: So adding vibration to it is a really nice little feature.
S1: Tell us now about the rotor and what we called
S1: the language rotor.
S2: Let's now change to voices, because you can do a
S2: lot more things to do with your primary and different
S2: voices now. So I think they're trying to make it
S2: to say that it's much more than just languages. It
S2: does everything else for you.
S1: Yeah. So there's lots of little accessibility changes, isn't there?
S1: Particularly with iOS.
S2: They're more sort of tweaks under the hood type stuff.
S2: So they're not you know, they're not horrendously amazing. But
S2: I think as you know, as in iOS improves, they're
S2: always just little changes that do make our lives a
S2: little bit better.
S1: Live detection is an example of a change that will
S1: make it easier to get to it.
S2: That's right, because normally when you want to use things
S2: like door detection, people detection, scene detection, etc., you had
S2: to bring up magnifier. Well, now if you turn it
S2: on in your rotor, um, you can turn on all
S2: those ones that just mentioned scene door people, etc. clearing
S2: text OCR. And then you've also got a four finger,
S2: I'm going to say double tap. You can turn that
S2: function on or off which makes it very very handy indeed.
S2: So I love the fact that live detection has now
S2: come to the voiceover rotor.
S1: Um, tell us about the big one for Braille users.
S2: Can I say I've been dying to talk about this one?
S2: All show. So this. One is the Braille screen input,
S2: or as people in the know like to say, the BSI. Uh,
S2: so normally when you turn Braille screen input mode on,
S2: you use your the soft keys on your screen to
S2: braille in to an edit fill, which is all well
S2: and good. But now if you switch over to what
S2: they call command mode, it turns those keys into your
S2: navigation keys for the whole operating system. So it's as
S2: if you were using your, say your brilliant by 20
S2: or 40 keyboard. So you know, normally when you do
S2: like space one to go left and space for to
S2: go right, well that's exactly what you can do with
S2: the command mode. If you put it in command mode,
S2: it knows when you press one, it's like pressing space
S2: and one, um, if you want to go home, you
S2: just press H rather than doing space H and so on.
S2: And whenever you like to, you can very quickly switch
S2: between Braille input mode and command mode. And the other
S2: thing you can do is the way you can turn
S2: on the BSI now is much easier. You simply touch
S2: one finger on each side of the screen. Um, so
S2: like you're doing a letter C in Braille. So dots
S2: one and four and that will toggle it on or off.
S2: So they've even made the way you can turn BSI
S2: on and off far easier as well. I haven't extensively
S2: used it so far, but I've used it enough to
S2: think this is just amazing. And I have a funny
S2: feeling this is probably going to turn into one of
S2: my ways of navigating on. Of course, the iPhone or
S2: the iPad is the braille on screen mode. So so
S2: two modes keyboard input or Braille keyboard input and the
S2: command mode. And it's just like I've already said several times. Incredible.
S1: Looking forward to that. Um, let's talk about the watch now.
S1: A couple of little changes.
S2: There's a few things to get excited about if you're
S2: an exercise person, but the one that I've definitely used
S2: is the vitals app. It's like a sort of a
S2: cut down version of the health app to give you
S2: your main biometrics like heart and exercise and calorie burn
S2: and everything else. So that's pretty cool. You can pause
S2: your rings. So me, like a fanatic karate person who
S2: always trains every day. If I want to be slack
S2: and take half a day off, um, I can turn
S2: off my rings for the rest of the day. But interestingly,
S2: what they've actually got rid of, which is probably a
S2: little bit sad, is they've got rid of the Siri face.
S2: So if you used to use the Siri face on
S2: your Apple Watch, um, they've got rid of it. And
S2: I have a funny feeling they've got rid of it
S2: because hardly anybody used it. It was always talking. It
S2: was annoying. So I just think they went well. We tried.
S2: That didn't work. We'll take it away.
S1: I just hope Mickey Mouse is still there for my granddaughter.
S2: Mickey Mouse is still there. And I think there's one
S2: called Snoopy. But I think Snoopy might have been there already.
S1: You haven't discovered anything about Apple I yet. There is
S1: something for people to know though, and that is that
S1: that's not happening in the watch world.
S2: No, it's not happening in the watch world and it's
S2: not happening in the HomePod world either. And remember that
S2: they're not even really going to touch upon this stuff
S2: until probably middle of spring our time. Um, and then
S2: it's going to be a gradual implementation. I did see
S2: on a day where they did say that Siri will
S2: probably get more of a conversational mode, but it certainly
S2: won't be any other Apple intelligence stuff going on. So
S2: that's something to look forward to. I wouldn't be surprised.
S2: Maybe next year, Steve, we get an updated HomePod and
S2: an updated Apple Watch that can definitely do, uh, the
S2: AI stuff from Apple. Um.
S1: Thank you, David, for giving us your initial impressions of
S1: the betas for the new Apple operating systems. Before we go,
S1: a reminder of where there are details of what we've
S1: been talking about.
S2: Indeed, as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David Woodburn Dot Podbean pod Cbn.com.
S1: David would be r dot podbean podbean for.com to write
S1: to the program.
S2: You can write to me at Vision Australia, where I work,
S2: which is David Dot Woodbridge how it 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.