S1: Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: March the 5th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have
S1: you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia, Radio, Associated
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S1: Australia Radio talking tech podcast Vision Australia Radio talking tech
S1: podcast with me, someone who can explain all this tech
S1: stuff really well. Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology,
S1: David Woodbridge. David, we're not starting really high tech this week,
S1: but it is something from the vision store as we
S1: talk about a product from the vision store of Vision
S1: Australia each week, coloring books.
S2: So the whole series is called my first coloring book.
S2: And at the moment we've got three online. We've got animals,
S2: fruit and vehicles and basically what they are, they're a
S2: tactile raised drawing of, let's say, for example, an animal.
S2: And then on that page you've also got the name
S2: in braille and as well as print of the actual
S2: animal in this case. So the nice thing is you
S2: can ever use that to if you want to and
S2: you don't have to, you can colouring in for your
S2: heart's content on that front part of the page. Or
S2: you can turn it over and then if you like,
S2: because it's a raised drawing on the other side, you've
S2: officially got an indented or an engraved version of the
S2: picture that you can also colouring in on the back.
S2: So I guess I haven't seen these yet, Steve, because
S2: I only ordered mine over the weekend, but I've been
S2: assuming the maybe the animal's also been colored in properly
S2: on the front. So I'll talk about next week when
S2: I get my hands on it and show it to
S2: my daughter with her grand well, with my grandson and
S2: her grandson. Um, so I'm assuming it's probably pre colored
S2: on the front, and then you do your own coloring
S2: on the back of it. I would have loved this
S2: with my own children as a blind dead when my
S2: kids were young, being able to enjoy coloring in and
S2: talking about the animals or the vehicles, whatever your essay
S2: might be doing, and the reason why I brought up
S2: the other two at the moment for the fruit and
S2: the vehicle ones, is because on the website, the moment
S2: right down the bottom, the animal one says this is
S2: also a purchase with either the fruit one or the
S2: vehicle one. So if you if you're not scrolling down
S2: for her and look far enough, you miss that. So
S2: be aware of that. And secondly, there's going to be
S2: about 20 of these books in this coloring series. So
S2: I think this is absolutely amazing. And of course, at
S2: the end of the day, it teaches children about shapes
S2: and so on.
S1: That's from the vision store of Vision Australia. What are
S1: loop earbuds.
S2: These are basically acoustic earbuds. Now when I say earbuds
S2: I'm not talking about earphone type electrical ones. I'm talking
S2: about those little foam stopper things that in the old days,
S2: you're stuck in your ear so that you could walk
S2: past the jackhammer or go to sleep on an aircraft. Well,
S2: these are actually like that, but they're much, much, much
S2: more advanced. So, for example, depending on the silicone tip
S2: that you attached to the primary loop earbud, it can
S2: cancel out. And this is again all acoustic. No electronics involved,
S2: different types of sounds from harsh drumming sounds in a
S2: musical festival, uh, to other weird noises in an aircraft
S2: and so on. Now, the ones that I bought were
S2: very basic. So you literally you got the stem of the,
S2: of the loop by itself, and then you could attach
S2: 3 or 4 different sizes depending on how big your
S2: hole is. And these were basically ones for speech and uh,
S2: general noise. I think it was blow at 24dB, but
S2: the one that's $96. And the reason why I mentioned
S2: the price roughly, is because that one is the one
S2: that I really want to get, and this one has
S2: got some sort of acoustic ring mechanism where you can
S2: adjust it between the different types of sounds that you
S2: want to filter out, whether it's sort of, you know,
S2: brown noise, white noise, jackhammers, aircraft noise and so on.
S2: So my wife has given me full permission to go
S2: and buy the more expensive one. But as a starter,
S2: these things are absolutely amazing. Now what I haven't tried
S2: out myself personally, I haven't tried to wander outside and
S2: walk down the road with these in my ears because
S2: I'm a bit worried about how would I hear what's
S2: around me, but you can definitely wear them inside. But
S2: for me personally again, and listen to people talking to you,
S2: but all the other sounds have that sort of slightly deadened.
S2: A sound, so it's not so overwhelming.
S1: Amazon Echo A new smart speaker. Just a little one.
S2: I think this has been around for a little while.
S2: I think it's just only because it's now noticeable in
S2: Australia via the Amazon.com website. So basically what it is,
S2: if you can imagine a round Amazon Echo third generation,
S2: which was the round one, which had the, you know,
S2: the volume up and volume down, and then on each
S2: side of that cross, it had the the actions button
S2: and the mute button. Well, if you cut that thing
S2: in half and put a speaker on the front of it,
S2: take away the 3.5mm headphone jack. Uh, take away the
S2: actions button and the mute button. So literally you've just
S2: got to play pause, volume up and volume down. That's
S2: the echo pop. So it's meant to be for those
S2: people that just want a little smart speaker to control
S2: their home and to get relevant information about the time, date,
S2: and weather. Uh, I would suggest personally, if you've already
S2: got an echo two or echo three hanging around as
S2: a bit of a spare, um, you are not going
S2: to get any more extra advantage in buying one of these,
S2: particularly because for me, with my echo three, I can
S2: still plug in a external wired speaker if I wish,
S2: not just Bluetooth.
S1: There's a new accessible recorder around the zoom H6 essential,
S1: and Jonathan Mohsin speaks well of it and speaks very
S1: well explaining it.
S2: He does. So I did this on the Blind Pod
S2: Makers podcast. This zoom recorder actually does speak the menus,
S2: which is number one, pretty amazingly fantastic. And the way
S2: he went about talking about XLR mics being plugged in,
S2: cables being plugged in, using the built in microphone versus
S2: an external microphone, linking up as an audio device to
S2: your computer, transferring files backwards and forwards, all that sort
S2: of stuff is 100% accessible. He did point out a
S2: few things which are not that great. For example, when
S2: you arm or disarm a track, the beeps exactly the same.
S2: But he said, as a, you know, as I go
S2: at accessibility for, you know, a first release, it's pretty amazing.
S2: So this is a full blown six track make your
S2: breakfast and coffee type thing in the morning. Um, but
S2: he will be reviewing two other essential units in the
S2: Zoom Essential series. So this is the top end one,
S2: I'm assuming. Then he'll then do the medium one and
S2: the low end one. But I just think it's amazing, Steven,
S2: that now we have a fully accessible by itself recorder
S2: that you can independently use with speech output. And the
S2: fact that is, when you take this out of the box,
S2: the first option is guide on or off. Now by
S2: default it's on. So for all sighted people, they just
S2: know how to turn it off because it just says
S2: on off toggle on the screen I reckon that's amazing.
S2: That really is like an Apple product when it first
S2: comes up. When you set up your Mac or your iPhone,
S2: you've got speech first and then you choose to ignore it.
S1: And most people have to get that annoying thing out
S1: of the way first. The annoying speaking thing. It's more
S1: than a recorder, though, isn't it? It's an audio interface.
S1: It's a playback mixer. Literally.
S2: It's like a having a recorder, let's say a vector
S2: read a stream, which has got all these other amazing
S2: features with it. I'm probably going to get my hands
S2: on one of them. Um, I'm not sophisticated enough to
S2: use this H6 essential one. Um, so hopefully I'll be
S2: looking at the other ones, but it's amazing. This one's
S2: about $499 Australian. Um, so let's see what the other
S2: one's coming out later on this year.
S1: Physically, what is it?
S2: If you take the size of, let's say, my hand,
S2: my current recorder, which is the track P4 from zoom,
S2: the recorder is slightly shorter from my wrist to my fingertips,
S2: and it's the same width as my hand. Now that's
S2: about the size of the zoom H6 essential. So it's
S2: not enormous. It's not small. What Jonathan said is that
S2: you could probably try and fix it in your pocket
S2: if you really, really pushed. But it's not. It's not
S2: a pocket recorder. You've still got to carry it around
S2: in your hand.
S1: So for people who are Braille users, those braille displays
S1: like the brilliant by 20 x, it's sort of in
S1: that area. Correct. Right. Exactly.
S2: Yeah, exactly.
S1: Very interesting to see how that goes. Now, you read
S1: something recently on the microphone for speech recognition you need
S1: a reasonable one.
S2: Correct. So this was written by a person who has mis.
S2: And what he said was that over the years he's
S2: used different microphones because I think he said he was
S2: a retired BBC presenter or journalist. And because when you've
S2: got a mess, your voice is not as loud sometimes
S2: or soft depending on how you're feeling, you're not always
S2: pronouncing words clearly and so on. But what he found
S2: was that the better the microphone the. Better. It was
S2: for the software in the background to actually work out
S2: what he was saying, and he said there was two
S2: important things to remember in doing this is that, number one,
S2: when you're using voice dictation, the clearer the microphone, the
S2: more accurate your voice dictation is going to be. Um,
S2: and I've been finding that a lot with Siri at
S2: the moment. I've been trying to use it, um, with
S2: another different type of headset. And what can I say,
S2: my voice dictation has been absolutely appalling. That's number one.
S2: The second one is to control your system. Now, I'm
S2: not talking about Siri or a lady or Google or
S2: anything else. I'm talking about controlling your computer from your voice,
S2: such as opening up documents, going back to your desktop,
S2: all that sort of stuff again, where the system has
S2: to be able to hear what you're saying. Uh, so
S2: what is at the end of the day is the
S2: clearer the microphone is, the closer this to your mouth,
S2: the more powerful the microphone is, the better off you are.
S2: And if anybody tells you that you can use your laptop,
S2: microphone or a cheap microphone to use voice dictation or
S2: voice control, um, they're living on a different planet. So
S2: if you want to get the best out of a
S2: voice system that you're using your voice to control it,
S2: then at the very least, the microphone needs to be
S2: right near your mouth, and it needs to be a reasonable,
S2: good quality. So have a really this linked article in
S2: the show notes. And it's quite interesting.
S1: Let's talk now about the envision AI app and that
S1: it's available on the blind show classic two phone. Tell
S1: us what the app is about.
S2: So the envision AI app, it's a Swiss Army knife utility.
S2: So it actually gives you things like barcode reading, QR
S2: code reading, face recognition, object recognition, uh, cash or currency notification.
S2: So it's sort of similar to what's seeing. I actually does, uh,
S2: it's available on Android, iOS. And of course now the
S2: blind show classic two as an application that you can
S2: install and remember also that all three of these different
S2: types of phones, of course, support the envision AI glasses,
S2: which is, of course, the ones you wear with the
S2: camera that does everything that the app can do, except
S2: it's much more usable because you're wearing them on your face. Um,
S2: I personally still have concerns about a lot of this
S2: stuff to do with face recognition, object recognition, and scene detection. Uh,
S2: and of course, the difference between object recognition and scene
S2: detection is object detection is just one object. Saying detection
S2: is telling you what's the whole range of objects in
S2: your environment. And number one, it's still a bit slow.
S2: And number two, it still doesn't get it quite accurately correct.
S2: So I personally think we're about a couple of years
S2: away from this thing being 100% accurate. Um, I still
S2: have to double check with people to say, is it
S2: really seeing an X, y, and z object in front
S2: of my house? Or is it something different? And you know,
S2: 5 to 10% of the time it's inaccurate. But as
S2: a an option for people particularly to use on your iOS,
S2: Android or blind or Classic two and it's free, you
S2: don't need to buy the class with it. It's a
S2: great option to have in your toolkit.
S1: I'm curious about it on the Blind Child Classic because
S1: that's a very different kind of phone. It's got physical buttons,
S1: so the way.
S2: It works on the Blind Show classic two is the
S2: way you interact with it is not so much, well,
S2: there's no touch screen, so you can't touch the screen.
S2: You literally use your up and down arrows and then
S2: press the okay button, uh, to select different options with it.
S2: And it talks about the results to you when it
S2: goes off and does its little business about object recognition
S2: or facial recognition and so on. It plays a cute
S2: little really relaxing sound, and then it comes back with
S2: the result. So from beginning to end, it's a very straightforward,
S2: simple interface, but also quite powerful.
S1: Before we go, a reminder of where there are details
S1: of what you've been talking about in this and previous
S1: editions of the program.
S2: Indeed. So as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David would be a Podbean pod band comm.
S1: David would be a pod bean pod b e a
S1: incom to write to the program.
S2: You can write to me in Australia where I work,
S2: which is David Woodbridge how it sounds at Vision Australia.
S1: Org David 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 Jolly stay safe.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.