S1: Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: September the 24th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolly, great to have
S1: you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
S1: stations of the Radio Reading Network or 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 Dan O'Connell. 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 for his second week in the chair. Vision
S1: Australia's national access technology manager Damo McMorrow. Welcome again. Damo.
S2: Hi, Stephen. How are.
S1: You? Very good. And what sort of a week have
S1: you had playing with the new Apple software?
S2: Yeah, I have been taking iOS 18 for a little
S2: bit of a test drive, and I have to say,
S2: overall I'm pretty impressed with it. I'm really liking the
S2: updates to Braille screen input because I tend to use
S2: that a lot, and they've really made some significant leaps
S2: forward with that in terms of being able to activate
S2: it using a dedicated gesture so you don't have to
S2: have it in your rotor anymore. You can now use
S2: it in command mode, which means that you can almost
S2: drive your phone as you would if you had a
S2: Braille display with the space key held down. So you
S2: can do sort of swipes and those kinds of things.
S2: From within the Braille screen input mode, you can do
S2: your rotor gestures and all of those kinds of things.
S2: So Braille screen input is a mode that allows you
S2: to type text. So if you're writing an email or
S2: a text message or something like that um, using a
S2: Perkins style of entry. So what you do, there's a
S2: couple of different modes, one that they call tabletop mode,
S2: where you, uh, put the phone on a table or
S2: on your lap, and you put, um, the three fingers
S2: from each hand on the screen as though you had
S2: a Perkins brailler in front of you the other way.
S2: And the way that I use it is what they
S2: call a way mode. And that's where you actually point
S2: the screen away from you. You have the volume buttons
S2: pointing upwards, and you hold the phone sort of with the, um,
S2: the two short ends of it in the palms of
S2: your hands, and you use three fingers from each hand
S2: on the screen to, to type the Braille letters. And
S2: it's much quicker than, um, the sort of using the,
S2: the virtual on screen keyboard and also a lot more
S2: private than, uh, using Dictation or.
S3: Siri.
S2: Or those kinds of things. And now, as I said,
S2: you can do so much more with it. You can
S2: even pop have it pop up in Braille screen input
S2: mode automatically every time you double tap an edit field
S2: now so you can, you know, pretty much do everything
S2: in braille now without having to select it each time,
S2: which is very nice.
S1: Any other iOS features that are really jumping out at you?
S2: Yes, you can now make some pretty significant customizations to
S2: the voices. So for those people who have a little
S2: bit of hearing loss, you know you can alter the
S2: bass or the mid or the high frequencies in the
S2: voice to make it more listenable and more understandable. And
S2: the what used to be the language rotor is now
S2: called the voice rotor. And you can add almost an
S2: infinite number of voices to that. So you can you
S2: can switch voices, you can adjust things like the inflection
S2: and how the voice speaks. And you can actually also
S2: now use personal voice as the voice for voiceover, so
S2: you can record essentially yourself as a text to speech
S2: engine and use your own voice on your phone if
S2: you if you really wanted to. It's something I'm planning
S2: on trying. I haven't done it yet, but it's it's
S2: on the list of things to tinker with over the
S2: next week or so.
S1: Yes, it's an interesting one that might appeal to a
S1: lot of people. I think I hear enough of my voice, actually.
S2: Yeah, you and me both.
S1: Tell me about messaging. I find this attractive. The send
S1: later feature, so you can schedule a message to go
S1: off at a particular time. Not at the time that
S1: you compose it.
S2: That's right. Yes. There's a couple of nice features in
S2: the In the Messenger app. That's one of them. So
S2: with messaging you can text someone, you know, at 6:00
S2: in the morning or something like that, or you want to,
S2: you know, send them a message tomorrow for their birthday.
S2: And you've you've remembered now. So you think, okay, I'll
S2: type that now. And they can it will we can
S2: have it send to them at 7:00 in the morning.
S2: You can do that with the send later feature. The
S2: other nice one is the RCS or Rich communication system,
S2: which means that you will be able to message someone
S2: even if they're using Android. You'll still know things like
S2: have they read it? Are they typing me a message back?
S2: So you know, you're typing indication. All of the things
S2: that I message currently gives you when you're messaging from
S2: one iPhone to another, you'll have that regardless of whether
S2: the person is on an iPhone or an Android phone.
S1: For those with iPhones that are not the iPhone 15
S1: Pro or higher, iPhone 15 or the 14, etc., they
S1: won't have all the features that we hear about in
S1: the new iOS, will they?
S2: No. That's right. So some features are only available on
S2: the for example, the 15 Pro and the newly released
S2: iPhone 16 models. So things like, for example, you can
S2: now have live recognition added to your rotor. So that
S2: is the feature that allows you to do door detection
S2: and people detection and those sorts of things. But some
S2: of those features require a lidar camera. And so that
S2: pretty much means it's only the, uh, the pro models
S2: of phone that will have that option. So not every
S2: feature is available on every phone, unfortunately. Um.
S1: Now in addition to the iOS, there was the new
S1: software for the watch OS 11 and the new software
S1: for the Mac. Have you played with either of those?
S2: I have upgraded the watch, but I haven't really taken
S2: it for a good test drive. I haven't noticed a
S2: lot of difference. Certainly the upgrade went pretty smoothly and
S2: the Mac. I'm planning to upgrade my MacBook air this weekend,
S2: so I'll know more about that then. The only thing
S2: that is holding me back, and it's probably worth our while.
S2: Mentioning this one, is that I do use Remote Incident
S2: Manager or remote from Numa solutions. Um, for those that
S2: are not familiar with that, it is a remote control
S2: software so that if you, for example, need to provide
S2: help to someone else, you can do that regardless of
S2: whether they're on a mac or a windows machine. Or
S2: you might use Rim to so that someone can connect
S2: to you so that if, for example, you use a
S2: service like IRA, you and you're having problems with an
S2: inaccessible web checkout, you can use Remote incident Manager and
S2: have the IRA agent connect to your computer and help
S2: you through it. Now, I use Rim in all sorts
S2: of different ways when I'm helping family members, but also
S2: for controlling my home machine when I'm out and about
S2: and those kinds of things. And there is currently an
S2: issue with Sequoia and the Rim product, and Mike and
S2: the team at Pneuma Solutions are advising people, if you
S2: are a heavy user of the Rim product, they're suggesting
S2: you delay upgrading to Sequoia until they resolve that issue.
S2: There's some issues around permissions, I think, and unattended access
S2: to systems. So at this stage, their advice if you
S2: are a Rim user. So if you use it with
S2: IRA or you help other people at this stage, the
S2: advice is to delay the upgrade to Sequoia for a
S2: couple of weeks until they have that issue sorted.
S1: We'll put Apple aside now because we can think about
S1: the freedom scientific upgrades, which come out from the end
S1: of October onwards with the jaws, the screen reader, the
S1: fusion and the Zoomtext Zoomtext being the screen enhancement and
S1: the fusion being really the combination of screen reader and
S1: screen enhancement, isn't it?
S2: That's right. Yes, yes. So fusion is the email. I
S2: always describe it as an amalgam of zoom text and jaws.
S1: And there are betas available for those already.
S2: Yes. So for people who like to be on the
S2: cutting edge, the beta versions for the 2025 updates are
S2: available for people to road test, and you can do
S2: that by simply going to Freedom Scientific Comm. And there's
S2: a 2025 betas link. And you can then select your
S2: your versions, um, depending on which product you want to test.
S2: There are a couple of caveats. Obviously, the support for
S2: beta versions is limited, and if you have some jaws
S2: scripts and things like that. So if you use the
S2: Lacie product from March and consultancy or the station playlist
S2: scripts or, um, other, other jaws scripts that you might
S2: be using in a previous version, they may or may
S2: not work. Um, with the beta version of, uh, of
S2: jaws 2025.
S1: We talked last week about the SMA process. Perhaps you
S1: might go over that again and explain how people can
S1: check what they're up to with their SMAs. Sure.
S2: So a software maintenance agreement, or SMA is something that
S2: you can purchase, and it's essentially pre-purchasing the next two
S2: major version releases ahead of time. So if you were
S2: buying jaws 2024 today and you bought an SMA, you
S2: would have access to 2025 and 2026 when when they're released.
S2: That's essentially how an SMA works. So if you don't
S2: have any upgrades remaining, I would strongly encourage you to
S2: renew your SMA before jaws 2025 is officially released sometime
S2: in late October. And the reason for that is that
S2: if you wait until after 2025 is released, you'll have
S2: to purchase the upgrade to jaws 2025 and then the SMA. So, um,
S2: you can save yourself some money by doing that. Update
S2: before 2025 comes out. What's the best way.
S1: To check how many of those updates you've got left?
S2: There's a couple of ways you can do it. You
S2: can just go into the help menu and go to about,
S2: but a more accurate and more detailed way of doing
S2: it is to pop over to FS, activate. That's Foxtrot Sierra, activate.com,
S2: and there's a link there that you can select, which
S2: is check the number of activations remaining. They'll then be
S2: an edit box where you can type in your serial number.
S2: Press enter and you'll get a bunch of information will
S2: come up. It'll tell you how many activations you've got.
S2: So in other words, how many more times you can
S2: install Jaws, because when you purchase a license, there's three.
S2: You're allowed three activations or three installs, in other words.
S1: On three different machines.
S2: Correct. Yes. Yep. Um, and you'll also be able to
S2: find out what's the the latest version allowed. So if
S2: I look at mine, the latest version allowed is 2024.
S2: So that tells me that my SMA has run out
S2: and that I need to renew it, um, and practice
S2: what I'm preaching and do it sometime in the next
S2: couple of weeks. And that'll give you other details, like
S2: it'll tell you, you know, whether you've got things like
S2: remote access enabled and whether it's a pro or home
S2: license and a whole bunch of things.
S1: Let's talk about the tactile braille displays that are being
S1: developed around the world. There's one called the monarch, which
S1: is attracting a lot of attention.
S2: And understandably so, because, um, it does allow you to
S2: view things like tactile graphics, and it is a multi-line display.
S2: So it's about the size of a large gaming laptop
S2: and probably a similar weight. Um, it has a suite
S2: of applications like most of the Humanware products. So we
S2: have things like the the Kingsoft suite of applications, key
S2: word and so on. But we also have a graphics viewer.
S2: So if you were reading a Braille book on the device,
S2: you could view. Instead of having to scroll the display
S2: line by line, you can view a page at a
S2: time because it's a multi-line display, but you can also
S2: use it to view and zoom in on graphics. So
S2: for those people into the sort of science, technology, engineering, maths,
S2: those sort of Stem subjects, it really is quite an
S2: interesting tool because it would enable you to, to to
S2: view diagrams and those sorts of things as well, in
S2: much more detail than we've been able to in the past.
S1: It's not going to be cheap, is it?
S2: No it's not. I don't have the exact figures, but
S2: the last I had heard was around about $27,000. So
S2: it's not something that you, you know, you would buy
S2: unless you were really serious about needing it and had
S2: a genuine use case. But for those that do, I
S2: think it has the potential to be quite a game changer.
S1: There's going to be an event to launch this product
S1: in Australia in October.
S2: That's right. The 10th of October at 11 a.m. Eastern
S2: Daylight Time.
S1: We'll put the link to that in the show notes
S1: so you can register for it. Just before we go,
S1: a reminder of where there are details of what we've
S1: been talking about in this and previous editions of the program,
S1: and that link is VA radio.org/talking tech. VA radio.org/talking tech.
S1: And to right to the program demo.
S2: You can email me Damo Dot McMorrow. That's Damo dot
S2: McMorrow m c m o r o w at Vision Australia.
S1: Org Damo dot McMorrow at Vision Australia. Org. This has
S1: been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national
S1: access technology manager Damo McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Stay safe.
S1: We'll talk more tech next week. See you.