S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: August 22nd, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have you
S1: with us, wherever you're listening may be through Virgin Australia
S1: Radio associated Stations of Australia or perhaps the Community Radio Network.
S1: There is also our podcast. All you need to do
S1: is search for the two words talking tech and down.
S1: It will all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just
S1: after it's been produced. Another option is to ask your
S1: Siri device or smart speaker to play this in 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: a couple of AI stories to start. The first one
S1: relates to Be My Eyes Now Be My Eyes has
S1: been around for a while, hasn't it?
S2: It is, and for people that don't know what it is,
S2: it's a video support service. So you get the app
S2: running on iOS or Android. You can then contact any
S2: volunteer around the world for assistance in what you may
S2: need help with through a sort of person looking through
S2: a video camera and of course talking to you as well.
S2: Things like, you know, finding out what's in the pantry,
S2: finding out that what that mystery jar is, checking your mail.
S2: And of course, with all these video type services, always
S2: be prepared to make sure that you don't give out
S2: any confidential information, your location if you don't feel safe
S2: and so on. So just view it like you've got
S2: a real person in your help helping you. But from
S2: all tents and purposes, it's a stranger helping you. They're
S2: just there because they can see and they can support you.
S2: But I've always heard very positive things from my eyes
S2: I've never heard of. Well, so far I've never heard
S2: of any negative things happening. But like with everything on
S2: the Internet and video wise, like I just said, use
S2: it with common sense.
S1: Yeah, but wonderful people, the ones I've engaged with anyway. Indeed.
S2: And and of course, the reason why we're mentioning it. Oh,
S2: do you want to say something or not?
S1: I did, yes. I wanted to ask you about the
S1: virtual assistant that's gone into public beta. Tell us about that.
S2: I know I was too excited to get onto the
S2: main the main part of it. All right. So what
S2: they've done is and this has been available in a
S2: beta for quite a long time, so it's called the
S2: Be My Eyes AI Assistant. So effectively what you do
S2: is so rather than quote, talking to a real person,
S2: you take a photo of anything and then it sends
S2: off that photo slash image off to the servers and
S2: then it comes back and gives you a overall summary
S2: of what the actual photo or the image contains. Where
S2: the AI comes into it is that you can then
S2: interrogate the image. So you can say, Tell me more
S2: about the third jar that you saw on my bench
S2: or tell me more about this shed. So when I
S2: did it in my backyard on the weekend, it said
S2: Your shed doors open. Now, I didn't know that because
S2: I forgot to close it. I thought, Oh gee, that's
S2: pretty good. So the difference between I guess using what
S2: we've previously used on sort of our iPhones and Android
S2: phones about taking a photo and give us the information
S2: back to us in general, This one I think is
S2: a lot, lot more detailed. It really is absolutely amazing.
S2: And the fact that then you can interrogate the image
S2: and you can ask multiple questions so you get in
S2: a bit of a chat and then of course, right
S2: down the bottom it always says something like, look, if
S2: you're not finding the information you want from the AI
S2: or from the photo slash image, here's a button to
S2: call a real sighted person. Now, the thing about this stuff,
S2: and I'll mention this again in the next story, this
S2: is absolutely amazing what it does. It's very detailed, but again,
S2: it's object recognition and it's artificial intelligence, object recognition, which
S2: means it's the system deciding what's in the picture. Now,
S2: when I took a picture at karate over the weekend,
S2: it informed me that there was this beautiful banner on
S2: the opposite side of the dojo. It got everything else
S2: correct except the banner, because there's actually no banner. But
S2: what there is, is a glass wall with mirrors in it.
S2: And above that glass wall with the mirrors in it
S2: is a long white part of the wall. And then
S2: it's got a gap at the top. Now, I can
S2: quite easily think about why that sort of thought. It
S2: was a big white banner because it's a big white
S2: part of the wall. So with everything that we talk
S2: about object recognition moving forward in the next two years
S2: or so, please remember that this is recognition or object recognition.
S2: So if you remember back in the old days of
S2: OCR where it was sort of garbage in, garbage out,
S2: we're sort of still getting a little bit of that
S2: with object recognition, even though it is getting better.
S1: So is that your understanding, David That. This be my
S1: eye feature of Be my eyes actually identifies elements in
S1: a photograph and then goes to other resources. So it
S1: goes to databases somewhere to get more information. Not actually
S1: what is in the photograph, but what the photograph relates to.
S2: It's hard to say because when it bombs out, because
S2: it is still in beta and for people that signed
S2: up for this beta, yes, it's coming. Just waiting to
S2: your turn comes. I signed up straight away when I
S2: first heard about it. So that's why I've got it
S2: fairly quickly when they announced it. But when it bombs out,
S2: it actually says cannot contact service. I don't know what
S2: the server ends actually doing, but I don't know what
S2: sort of database it's accessing because it came back and
S2: said that my clothes basket, you know, you close baskets
S2: got holes in it. So you know for the air
S2: to breathe when you've got your dirty clothes in there
S2: and so on, it came back and said, I had
S2: a heater in my room, which it described as a radiator. Now,
S2: I'm assuming in America people must have lots of these
S2: things with holes in it that are square, that look
S2: like a radiator. So it got that one wrong. It
S2: also did my famous one of calling my red garbage
S2: bin because I put it in the garbage. It called
S2: that a fire hydrant. So it's still got a long
S2: way to go. But may I say, let's say I
S2: gave object recognition a score of a 50% a year
S2: and a bit ago. I'd say this is about 70
S2: to 75% now. So it definitely is improving. And, you know,
S2: I'm assuming, Steven, the more photos and images it takes,
S2: you would assume they've got some algorithm that says, well,
S2: somebody said they didn't have a good experience because you
S2: can mark it up when you do it. And hopefully
S2: on those things where you say, no, it wasn't correct,
S2: they can go back over those images and say, Yeah, look,
S2: that was obviously a garbage bin. It was not a
S2: fire hydrant and so on.
S1: I understand that if it recognized in the photographs, say,
S1: the Sydney Opera House, it would then be able to
S1: tell you more about the Sydney Opera House from places
S1: that it goes to in the Internet. And it's pretty smart, correct?
S2: Yeah. And I'm assuming like even looking at something like
S2: a bus, it says there's a bus and said, well,
S2: where's the door on the bus? Is it at the
S2: front is at the back. So what I'm going to
S2: do actually this week, I'm dragging one of my friends
S2: out into the countryside, so to speak, and we're going
S2: to be looking at trains and railway platforms and shops
S2: and all sorts of stuff. And I just want to
S2: get an idea of what this image processing really does.
S2: So hopefully I can give you a lot more information
S2: about what this image processing does. But like I said,
S2: this is really exciting times.
S1: Now, I've got to tell you that I yawned a
S1: bit when I read the headline for this next one
S1: the other day, Australian Invention to Help the Blind. And
S1: it's about smart glasses due out in 2025, I think.
S2: Hmm. Yeah it is. And look, must I say, I
S2: got a bit underwhelmed by it because yes, it is
S2: smart glasses. It just does do object recognition. Exactly the
S2: same thing that, you know, be my eyes I does
S2: and other things including, you know, seeing eye in the
S2: world support channel even your camera on your iPhone and
S2: your Android phone does all this sort of stuff. Now,
S2: what I noticed in the demo on the television that
S2: they had on this link was that they only did
S2: the stuff that it recognized correctly because again, we're talking
S2: about object recognition. It's artificial intelligence. It's to do with
S2: all sorts of things. And again, we've already talked about this,
S2: about what sort of databases or what the server is doing.
S2: So I'll be interested to see what happens in 2025.
S2: So I'm not currently getting too excited about it because
S2: we're going to have other things on the market by then,
S2: like the Vision Pro, and you can imagine, you know,
S2: if BMI, AIS and that sort of stuff, you can
S2: even run them or you should be able to run
S2: them on the Vision Pro What's.
S1: The vision Pro.
S2: The vision Pro sorry, Is this for the people that
S2: don't remember? That's the smart glasses or the wearable AI
S2: virtual reality headset that Apple's going to be selling next
S2: year and it's going to be about, you know, 3000
S2: or 3600 us. So it's going to be quite expensive. But,
S2: you know, there were all these I mean, remember, we've
S2: got we've got the end vision glasses out there, we've
S2: got the Orcam, so we've got all these plethora. I
S2: said that correctly of different devices out there. So this
S2: one's going to have to be absolutely outstanding to compete
S2: with not only other assistive technology devices, but also mainstream
S2: devices coming on board like the Vision Pro.
S1: We will await with interest Les Brillo. Now that's a
S1: GPS app that's been around for quite a few years
S1: now and it's coming to the blind cell phone. I
S1: use laser a lot.
S2: For general use. It's on both iOS and Android and
S2: like you, Steve and I tend to use it for just.
S2: Keeping track of where I am, and then I know
S2: when I'm on the bus normally or the train. I
S2: tend to use Blind Square, but if you do a
S2: app update on your Blind Child Classic two, you'll get
S2: a notification that Letsoalo is now on your phone and
S2: you can update it. And then of course, when you
S2: go out and about, if you're up and down arrow
S2: keys and your selector and your back buttons on your simple,
S2: lovely physical keyboard or your blind show classic two, you
S2: can use it to your heart's content. So it's a
S2: real g-p-s application rather than the very, very, very, very,
S2: very cut down version of the localisation, which is almost
S2: useless on the on the blind shelf. Classic two. So
S2: if you want a full functional GPS set that everybody
S2: else uses, then go for this and I think you'll
S2: be pleasantly surprised.
S1: Now tell us about V0 starter.
S2: So VR starter is an app that came out. JS
S2: I want to say almost maybe ten years ago maybe,
S2: but it's a it's a voice over starter kit, if
S2: you like. So what it does is it teaches you
S2: how to use all the different gestures in voice over.
S2: So if you're a beginner user, or maybe you might
S2: want to rediscover some gestures that always gave you pain
S2: in the past, then you can rediscover that. And of
S2: course it's going to have all the what I tend
S2: to call the iPhone ten gestures, such as dragging it
S2: from the bottom, dragging down from the top and all
S2: that sort of interesting stuff, plus your router and so on.
S2: So if you know someone that's starting off using a
S2: voiceover on the iPhone, the iPad and so on, including
S2: the iPod Touch that still got one, then this is
S2: a really good app and of course it's free. So again,
S2: it's called Vo, as in voiceover space starter. And like
S2: I said, it's really pleasing to see it back on
S2: the App store again.
S1: Very good. You have been playing with the Braille Doodle
S1: from Touch Pro Foundation. What's this doodle concept? I have
S1: heard of it before.
S2: The Pebble with sighted children. Back in the day there
S2: was a thing called the Magna Doodle and the manga
S2: doodle is actually a flat plastic tray with magnets underneath it.
S2: And you grab your little magnetic pen and as you
S2: draw all the magnetic filings come up and you can
S2: see lines happening on the actual underneath the plastic of
S2: the magna doodle on top. But what they've done for
S2: this one, the brow doodle, similar thing. You've got all
S2: these little magnet pins this time and they come up
S2: as you draw your stylus or pen across the magnet.
S2: The one that I've got is the brow doodle mini.
S2: You can also get a full size one, but this
S2: one's probably about, I'd say about 30 characters by 30
S2: characters wide. And I said lots and lots of pins.
S2: You can do lots and drawings, shapes. You can do
S2: bar charts, you can even do your own Braille if
S2: you really want to, as in proper Braille, but really interesting.
S2: And the reason why I brought it up today is
S2: because they've now sold up to $40,000 worth of Braille
S2: doodles as I pre-release in 18 countries, and you get 40%
S2: off if you put in a pre interest order before
S2: October 31st. And I think it's certainly worthwhile. You don't
S2: have to spend any money up front. It's just to
S2: put your name down for interest. And then when they
S2: start selling it, you'll get 40% off. And considering that
S2: it sells for $150, I'm certainly going to put my
S2: name down to get one for that 40% off.
S1: Yeah. So just to get this right, it's for doing
S1: sort of temporary Braille, isn't it?
S2: Correct. Yeah. So, you know, particularly in a classroom, like
S2: if a teacher just wanted to quickly say, look, here's
S2: what a cell looks like, so here's the membrane, here's
S2: the nuclei and so on. Or, you know, this is
S2: what a red cell shape looks like or a white
S2: cell and anything else you can possibly think of that
S2: you can just do a quick draw up. Then the
S2: Braille doodles, perfect for that sort of stuff.
S1: Terrific. Before we go, a reminder of where people can
S1: find details of what we've been talking about in this
S1: and previous editions of the Program.
S2: And Data Reservoir. You can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David Wood beer dot podbean pad com.
S1: David would be dot podbean pod b e a n
S1: to write to the program.
S2: You can write to me at Vision Australia where I work,
S2: which is David Woodbridge. How it sounds at Vision 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. Stay safe.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.