WEBVTT - Talking Tech 24th October 2023 0:00:08.208 --> 0:00:11.958 Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from 0:00:11.958 --> 0:00:16.338 October 24th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have you 0:00:16.338 --> 0:00:20.118 with us. Listening may be through Vision Australia, Radio, Associated 0:00:20.118 --> 0:00:24.498 Stations of Australia or perhaps the Community Radio Network. There 0:00:24.498 --> 0:00:27.138 is also the podcast. All you need to do to 0:00:27.138 --> 0:00:29.898 get that is to search for the two words talking 0:00:29.898 --> 0:00:33.018 tech and downer can all come usually on a Tuesday 0:00:33.018 --> 0:00:36.168 afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to 0:00:36.168 --> 0:00:39.558 ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision 0:00:39.558 --> 0:00:44.508 Australia Radio talking tech podcast Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech 0:00:44.508 --> 0:00:48.648 podcast with me, someone who can explain all this tech 0:00:48.648 --> 0:00:53.238 stuff really well. Vision Australia's national advisor on access technology 0:00:53.238 --> 0:00:56.838 David Woodbridge David. There is the old and the new 0:00:56.838 --> 0:00:59.958 devices have their life cycle and eventually it gets around 0:00:59.958 --> 0:01:03.138 to the time of their passing. We're losing the Sunoo 0:01:03.138 --> 0:01:04.668 band we are. 0:01:04.668 --> 0:01:09.528 And just to remind people it was a wearable sonar 0:01:09.528 --> 0:01:11.988 device that you wore on your wrist, and then it 0:01:11.988 --> 0:01:14.148 had this little sort of pointy thing, which was the 0:01:14.148 --> 0:01:18.168 sonar sensor itself. And, you know, it's been around for 0:01:18.258 --> 0:01:23.238 about six years or so, but I got an email 0:01:23.238 --> 0:01:28.038 from the actual company themselves last week, and they said 0:01:28.038 --> 0:01:32.778 that due to capital funding and all that sort of stuff, 0:01:32.778 --> 0:01:36.218 then they're having to stop operations so that soon a 0:01:36.228 --> 0:01:39.528 band is no longer available. What that led me then 0:01:39.528 --> 0:01:44.478 to think about was how technology has come and gone 0:01:44.838 --> 0:01:49.158 over the last, well, basically for me about 50 years. 0:01:49.158 --> 0:01:51.318 So I thought, well, why not have a bit of 0:01:51.318 --> 0:01:54.348 a reflection back into the past and maybe what's currently 0:01:54.348 --> 0:01:56.478 available still and how it's held on a bit. 0:01:56.718 --> 0:01:59.538 So let's look at some of these devices that have 0:01:59.538 --> 0:02:02.658 been in our lives. And some of them still can be. 0:02:02.658 --> 0:02:06.678 I think one of the big breakthroughs was speech technology, 0:02:06.678 --> 0:02:11.688 synthesised speech. Tell us about deck Talk and their accessible device. 0:02:11.958 --> 0:02:14.598 The original deck talk. This was sort of like late 0:02:14.598 --> 0:02:17.508 70s or early 80s, but this thing was huge. It 0:02:17.508 --> 0:02:21.108 was a big box with very clear speech. So it 0:02:21.108 --> 0:02:23.028 was called the Deck Talk Classic. And then we had 0:02:23.028 --> 0:02:25.908 the Deck Talk Express, which was a smaller one. And 0:02:25.908 --> 0:02:28.098 then when, when sort of PC started to grow up 0:02:28.098 --> 0:02:31.548 a bit, we had windows 3.11 that sort of morphed 0:02:31.548 --> 0:02:36.768 into the Accessible Deck Talk software. But that to me 0:02:36.768 --> 0:02:41.178 is always been the classic voice of a speech synthesizer. 0:02:41.178 --> 0:02:44.358 Very clear speech. You used to hear it quite a 0:02:44.358 --> 0:02:47.448 lot on those telephony systems that, you know, would answer 0:02:47.448 --> 0:02:50.208 the phone and, you know, you'd get the press one 0:02:50.208 --> 0:02:53.988 for this, press two for that. So deck talk in 0:02:53.988 --> 0:02:56.148 one way. The other was around for a long time, 0:02:56.148 --> 0:02:59.118 but I think it's been the last 15 years or 0:02:59.118 --> 0:03:02.418 so as we've gone more into software synthesizers, maybe a 0:03:02.418 --> 0:03:03.618 bit longer than that. 0:03:03.618 --> 0:03:07.698 So now many of us would remember attic vision and 0:03:07.698 --> 0:03:09.018 their attic speech. 0:03:09.198 --> 0:03:11.988 Yeah, that was the DOS screen reader. So that was 0:03:11.988 --> 0:03:17.238 back in the old DOS 3.3 etcetera days. But they 0:03:17.238 --> 0:03:20.538 had a really cool device, which was the Arctic Transport, 0:03:20.538 --> 0:03:23.478 which was an external synthesizer, and back then it plugged 0:03:23.478 --> 0:03:25.698 into its serial port. It feels really funny to talk 0:03:25.698 --> 0:03:28.668 about serial ports now, but the cool thing about it 0:03:28.668 --> 0:03:30.948 was that you could do a bit of a tricky 0:03:30.948 --> 0:03:33.858 command in DOS, and you could upload or download what 0:03:33.858 --> 0:03:37.068 you want to call it, the Screen reader Arctic Business 0:03:37.068 --> 0:03:40.428 Vision from the transport or from the hardware itself. So 0:03:40.428 --> 0:03:43.698 no matter where you went onto a, you know, a 0:03:43.698 --> 0:03:46.908 DOS PC, you had access to your screen reader. And 0:03:46.908 --> 0:03:49.098 I thought that was just a really nifty thing. And 0:03:49.098 --> 0:03:52.098 you could imagine some sort of things these days that 0:03:52.098 --> 0:03:55.608 if you did have an external synthesizer, wouldn't it be 0:03:55.608 --> 0:03:57.438 cool to have a current windows screen reader that you 0:03:57.438 --> 0:03:58.968 could just do that with if you needed to? 0:03:59.358 --> 0:04:04.068 Now let's move into the Braille area, the Elva Braille Courier. 0:04:04.068 --> 0:04:06.588 This is the one that I really wish was available today. 0:04:06.588 --> 0:04:09.138 So if you can imagine a little 20. So Braille 0:04:09.138 --> 0:04:12.578 display with a Perkins style keyboard on one side and 0:04:12.588 --> 0:04:16.158 the other side, there was a little tiny little Atari computer. 0:04:16.158 --> 0:04:19.248 So if a screen and a keyboard and it was 0:04:19.248 --> 0:04:22.878 a two way communication device for a deaf blind person, 0:04:22.878 --> 0:04:24.978 so the hearing person would sit on the side where 0:04:24.978 --> 0:04:28.548 the the little Atari computer was, and then the other 0:04:28.548 --> 0:04:30.048 person on the other side of the table where the 0:04:30.048 --> 0:04:33.048 braille display and the Perkins style keyboard was. Now, keep 0:04:33.048 --> 0:04:35.868 in mind that this is all one device, and it 0:04:35.868 --> 0:04:41.178 was just absolutely amazing. And even that device today would 0:04:41.178 --> 0:04:44.028 have its place. But again, it's it's long gone for 0:04:44.028 --> 0:04:45.198 the last 20 years or so. 0:04:45.468 --> 0:04:49.038 The device that came into my life in 1989 and 0:04:49.038 --> 0:04:51.528 made quite an impression because I'm still talking about it. 0:04:51.528 --> 0:04:52.638 Braille and speak. 0:04:52.728 --> 0:04:55.158 Same here. I got my first Braille and speaker, I think, 0:04:55.158 --> 0:04:58.218 in 1990, and it was just one of those little 0:04:58.218 --> 0:05:02.088 things that all it did was text editing. So you 0:05:02.088 --> 0:05:04.638 turned it on, you took notes, you could save it, 0:05:04.638 --> 0:05:07.098 you could have multiple different files, and you turned it off. 0:05:07.098 --> 0:05:09.498 And that was. The end of it. It was a 0:05:09.498 --> 0:05:13.908 simple Braille input keyboard, spacebar speech output. It just did 0:05:13.908 --> 0:05:16.728 what it was designed to do. And again, as I 0:05:16.728 --> 0:05:20.478 kept saying today, just to have a little brown speak 0:05:20.478 --> 0:05:22.548 next to me, which would still be relevant today, would 0:05:22.548 --> 0:05:23.958 be absolutely amazing. 0:05:24.378 --> 0:05:26.118 Tell me about the business memo. 0:05:27.108 --> 0:05:31.098 The business memo was one of these mainstream devices. Because 0:05:31.188 --> 0:05:33.678 remember now when you look at the vision store, you've 0:05:33.678 --> 0:05:38.508 got not only assistive technology devices but mainstream devices. And 0:05:38.508 --> 0:05:43.488 this was a simple nine button mainstream business memo. So 0:05:43.488 --> 0:05:47.448 it was basically a digital recorder. You had a button 0:05:47.448 --> 0:05:50.358 for next, a button for previous, a button for play 0:05:50.358 --> 0:05:53.838 pause and a button for record. And that's all it was. 0:05:54.438 --> 0:05:57.378 It used to record up to a whopping eight minutes 0:05:57.378 --> 0:06:01.278 of information. And then when you went through it, a 0:06:01.278 --> 0:06:03.918 memo by memo, you could also delete the current memo, 0:06:03.918 --> 0:06:06.498 or you could delete all memos. But it was a 0:06:06.498 --> 0:06:10.488 size back in those days, seven of those little transistor radios. 0:06:11.178 --> 0:06:13.518 So it wasn't very big. Then the bottom of it, 0:06:13.528 --> 0:06:15.888 you had this nice little round speaker, but like I said, 0:06:15.888 --> 0:06:17.838 you just had these number of buttons on it. And 0:06:17.838 --> 0:06:20.448 that's all it did was just take little memos for yourself. 0:06:20.538 --> 0:06:22.878 Let's talk about software now. Drag and dictate. 0:06:23.298 --> 0:06:25.668 I remember using a version of Dragon in the early 0:06:25.668 --> 0:06:30.138 90s that again, of course, we're talking about, you know, 0:06:30.408 --> 0:06:32.958 having control over the computer. And back then it was 0:06:32.958 --> 0:06:36.528 in DOS and there was a version of vocalize, which 0:06:36.528 --> 0:06:38.418 was a screen reader for DOS back then that was 0:06:38.418 --> 0:06:42.678 particularly modified to work with Dragon. So when you're giving 0:06:42.678 --> 0:06:44.838 it commands or you're dictating, and now if you bring 0:06:44.838 --> 0:06:48.768 that into the into the future now Naturallyspeaking, which is 0:06:48.768 --> 0:06:51.078 still Dragon, is still around. And of course, people that 0:06:51.078 --> 0:06:54.918 use jaws will be very familiar with the Jason and 0:06:54.918 --> 0:06:58.548 Jay dictate software that sits between Jaws, the screen reader 0:06:58.548 --> 0:07:01.668 for Windows and Dragon Naturally Speaking, so it's still around 0:07:01.668 --> 0:07:05.778 and still extremely good for voice hands free operation of 0:07:05.778 --> 0:07:06.468 your computer. 0:07:06.618 --> 0:07:08.178 Do you remember the Freedom Box? 0:07:08.908 --> 0:07:10.498 The good old freedom box. A bit of a funny 0:07:10.498 --> 0:07:12.388 joke with this one. Originally when it came out it 0:07:12.388 --> 0:07:14.008 was called the Freedom Box, and then they had to 0:07:14.008 --> 0:07:18.028 change it because Freedom Scientific didn't like the name Freedom 0:07:18.028 --> 0:07:20.128 Box because it's too close to the product. But literally 0:07:20.128 --> 0:07:23.608 what it was was a plug in USB stick that 0:07:23.608 --> 0:07:27.658 came up with its own talking interface for browsing the 0:07:27.658 --> 0:07:31.498 internet and so on. And you didn't have to install 0:07:31.498 --> 0:07:33.658 anything on the computer. You just plug in the USB 0:07:33.658 --> 0:07:36.688 stick and off you went. And it's those sort of 0:07:36.688 --> 0:07:40.798 things again, I wish today. So things like the dolphin 0:07:40.798 --> 0:07:43.288 Guide software, that would be really cool if you could 0:07:43.288 --> 0:07:46.018 do a similar thing. Plug a USB stick in. Hey presto! 0:07:46.018 --> 0:07:49.288 You've got a very simple menu driven interface for doing 0:07:49.288 --> 0:07:52.318 things like web browsing, contacts, that sort of cool stuff. 0:07:52.918 --> 0:07:55.648 I don't remember I pad on wheels. 0:07:56.008 --> 0:07:58.648 I've been trying to find out the exact name for 0:07:58.648 --> 0:08:01.678 this thing, so hopefully next week when I pester the 0:08:01.678 --> 0:08:03.388 person at Apple, I'll be able to find the name 0:08:03.388 --> 0:08:08.638 of it. But if you can imagine a device that 0:08:08.638 --> 0:08:11.548 has got a couple of wheels on the bottom, and 0:08:11.548 --> 0:08:14.098 then you've got a long pole sticking up in the 0:08:14.098 --> 0:08:16.078 top of that pole, you've got an iPad. And what 0:08:16.078 --> 0:08:21.298 the iPad is doing, it's controlling this wheeled trolley, if 0:08:21.298 --> 0:08:26.578 you like, that's connected remotely via the internet. Or I 0:08:26.578 --> 0:08:29.428 think back then it was like, you know, 4G or 3G. 0:08:29.698 --> 0:08:34.348 So a person remotely could control the iPad to say, 0:08:34.348 --> 0:08:36.418 turn left, turn right, that sort of stuff. And it 0:08:36.418 --> 0:08:41.128 would actually move the motors on those wheels. So you 0:08:41.128 --> 0:08:43.708 could actually literally walk around when I played to fit 0:08:44.008 --> 0:08:46.948 where I was walking with the iPad and it was 0:08:46.948 --> 0:08:49.678 in Melbourne, this person was in Sydney, and we strolled 0:08:49.678 --> 0:08:51.658 through a whole shopping centre with me, talking to the 0:08:51.658 --> 0:08:55.348 person via FaceTime on the iPad, and they could see 0:08:55.348 --> 0:08:58.438 exactly what the camera was seeing on the iPad, and 0:08:58.438 --> 0:09:00.028 we just had a chit chat. So I was literally 0:09:00.028 --> 0:09:03.598 like having a sighted guide through an iPad sitting on 0:09:03.598 --> 0:09:06.118 this sort of like dolly wheelie type system. 0:09:06.238 --> 0:09:08.368 We've got to talk about mobile phones. 0:09:08.788 --> 0:09:12.748 Yeah. And I caused when we went from, you know, 0:09:12.748 --> 0:09:17.368 traditional Nokia Symbian type phones with talks on them. I 0:09:17.368 --> 0:09:20.128 can remember there was sort of a huge, oh no, 0:09:20.128 --> 0:09:23.158 what's happening to us. Like we went from windows to 0:09:23.158 --> 0:09:27.358 windows or like when we went from text based mobile 0:09:27.358 --> 0:09:31.198 phones to graphics phones like the iPhone and Android phones. 0:09:31.198 --> 0:09:32.698 Everybody thought it was going to be the end of 0:09:32.698 --> 0:09:35.458 the world. But to some extent, I love the old 0:09:35.458 --> 0:09:38.278 talk software on the old Nokia, particularly the new two, 0:09:38.308 --> 0:09:41.458 because it had such a lovely keyboard and of course 0:09:41.458 --> 0:09:44.698 because it was strongly menu sort of DOS menu driven. 0:09:44.698 --> 0:09:47.278 It was such an easy find to use. So in 0:09:47.278 --> 0:09:50.248 some ways, again, I know the Blind Show Classic two 0:09:50.248 --> 0:09:53.128 comes close to it, but it would be really nice 0:09:53.128 --> 0:09:56.038 if we could have that sort of similar interface back 0:09:56.038 --> 0:09:58.678 again that we when we had the first Nokia phones around. 0:09:59.308 --> 0:10:01.828 Two devices from right back in the 70s, we should 0:10:01.828 --> 0:10:06.868 touch on the optical and also the sonic glasses. 0:10:07.318 --> 0:10:10.918 These are two, two devices that I absolutely wish we 0:10:10.918 --> 0:10:12.898 had around today. So the optical people didn't know what 0:10:12.898 --> 0:10:16.678 the object was. You literally had a little handheld camera 0:10:16.678 --> 0:10:20.848 that was connected via cable to the optical hardware. You 0:10:20.848 --> 0:10:24.328 put your finger on a vibrating pad, and then as 0:10:24.328 --> 0:10:27.778 you push the camera across the page, the print would 0:10:27.778 --> 0:10:31.888 come up in vibrating letters on the optical vibrating little 0:10:31.888 --> 0:10:34.828 pad that you had had your finger on, and it 0:10:34.828 --> 0:10:38.518 literally meant that you could read any type of print. 0:10:38.518 --> 0:10:43.078 So it was absolutely amazing. And then the sonic glass, 0:10:43.078 --> 0:10:46.288 which again I wish was around today, there was a 0:10:46.288 --> 0:10:50.278 guy I'll name him because he probably is listening. Andrew Downey, 0:10:50.278 --> 0:10:53.758 who was an absolute amazing user of this technology. The 0:10:53.758 --> 0:10:58.408 sonic glasses basically was a star system, and when it 0:10:58.408 --> 0:11:01.168 hit different objects, it would have different sounds. So a 0:11:01.168 --> 0:11:04.198 sound of a brick wall versus a person versus like 0:11:04.198 --> 0:11:07.558 clean air had all different sounds. And people that got 0:11:07.558 --> 0:11:11.068 very good at using these devices could literally tell you 0:11:11.068 --> 0:11:15.808 what the sonic glasses were hearing or seeing. And again, 0:11:15.808 --> 0:11:18.298 you know, the fact that the cinnamon's gone, I almost 0:11:18.298 --> 0:11:21.088 feel like saying, can somebody resurrect the sonic glasses? Because 0:11:21.088 --> 0:11:22.408 that would be really, really cool. 0:11:22.918 --> 0:11:26.068 Let's look now at some products that have their genesis 0:11:26.068 --> 0:11:29.038 a long time ago, but they still exist, like the 0:11:29.038 --> 0:11:32.698 jaws for windows from For Now or Freedom Scientific. 0:11:32.848 --> 0:11:35.068 When you think about we had jaws for DOS in 0:11:35.188 --> 0:11:37.198 what was at the late 80s, I think, and that's 0:11:37.198 --> 0:11:40.378 now still going strong with job access for speech for 0:11:40.378 --> 0:11:43.678 windows now, I think that's amazing that, you know, the 0:11:43.678 --> 0:11:47.788 company was able to transition absolutely perfectly between the DOS 0:11:47.788 --> 0:11:50.398 and the windows environment. And of course, it's still going strong. 0:11:50.398 --> 0:11:52.648 It's the major screen reader on the planet these days. 0:11:53.038 --> 0:11:54.928 And what about Key Soft, which goes back to the 0:11:54.928 --> 0:11:55.918 mid 80s? 0:11:56.158 --> 0:11:58.018 I have to chuckle when every time I talk about 0:11:58.018 --> 0:12:00.988 keys soft because I had to shape a PC plus 0:12:01.228 --> 0:12:03.388 to keep a laptop back in the 90s that had 0:12:03.388 --> 0:12:08.638 a dedicated keynote gold speech card in it. And. Even today, 0:12:08.638 --> 0:12:11.598 when I think about the monarch, which is the graphics 0:12:11.878 --> 0:12:15.148 tablet that we've talked about, that's got key soft in it. 0:12:15.148 --> 0:12:17.848 And when you even think about the the bra note touch, 0:12:17.848 --> 0:12:21.598 that's got key soft in it. So again, you know, 0:12:21.598 --> 0:12:23.728 30 years since it came out roughly a little bit 0:12:23.728 --> 0:12:26.758 more than that. It's still around in one version of another. 0:12:26.758 --> 0:12:28.798 And it's almost like well if you knew how to 0:12:28.798 --> 0:12:30.808 use case off back in that day, you'll know how 0:12:30.808 --> 0:12:31.168 to use it. 0:12:31.168 --> 0:12:32.788 Now zoom text. 0:12:33.268 --> 0:12:37.108 Zoom text again, one of those long lasting screen magnification software. 0:12:37.918 --> 0:12:40.528 So back in the again, the 80s, we had zoom 0:12:40.528 --> 0:12:43.228 text for DOS. And then we had zoom text for windows. 0:12:43.528 --> 0:12:47.098 And then back then it wasn't actually owned by, which 0:12:47.098 --> 0:12:51.388 is now the Whisperer or Freedom Scientific Group. And of course, 0:12:51.388 --> 0:12:54.148 we now we have the combination of Jaws and Zoom text, 0:12:54.148 --> 0:12:57.958 which is called fusion. So again, from its humble beginnings 0:12:57.958 --> 0:13:01.828 as a DOS screen magnifier. It's still around today. 0:13:01.828 --> 0:13:04.108 And a device you can put your hand on and 0:13:04.108 --> 0:13:06.688 Braille comes out on paper, the Perkins Brailler. 0:13:06.928 --> 0:13:09.538 And that's been around for a good long, long, long while. 0:13:09.538 --> 0:13:12.178 I actually have one sitting here on my desk, because 0:13:12.178 --> 0:13:14.698 sometimes I just want to jot a note down quickly. 0:13:14.698 --> 0:13:16.258 I don't want to get out my smartphone or my 0:13:16.258 --> 0:13:18.718 laptop or anything else, and I've always got a piece 0:13:18.718 --> 0:13:21.478 of paper in my Perkins Brailler so I can take notes. 0:13:21.478 --> 0:13:24.568 So when people say, you know, the time has gone off, 0:13:24.568 --> 0:13:27.298 good old, old fashioned manual typewriters, I just point to 0:13:27.298 --> 0:13:30.238 my Perkins and say, for us blind folks, it's still 0:13:30.238 --> 0:13:32.098 there and extremely relevant today. 0:13:32.248 --> 0:13:34.468 Well, there's a lot we've talked about there. We still 0:13:34.468 --> 0:13:36.538 could talk about a lot more. I'm sure it's brought 0:13:36.538 --> 0:13:38.728 back memories for many. 0:13:39.008 --> 0:13:41.158 And then you'll find the full list in our show notes, 0:13:41.158 --> 0:13:42.298 as usual, before. 0:13:42.298 --> 0:13:46.588 We go, a reminder of where we have details of 0:13:46.588 --> 0:13:48.958 what you've been talking about, David, in this and previous 0:13:48.958 --> 0:13:50.098 editions of the program. 0:13:50.338 --> 0:13:52.258 As usual, you can check out my blog site, which 0:13:52.258 --> 0:13:55.738 is David. Would it be Podbean Podbean. 0:13:56.128 --> 0:14:00.738 Com David would be our Podbean pod be a incom 0:14:00.928 --> 0:14:02.098 to write to the program? 0:14:02.308 --> 0:14:04.528 You can write to me at Division Australia where I work, 0:14:04.528 --> 0:14:08.818 which is David Dot Woodbridge how it sounds at Vision Australia. 0:14:09.088 --> 0:14:14.008 Org David Dot Woodbridge at Vision Australia. Org. This has 0:14:14.008 --> 0:14:16.588 been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's national 0:14:16.588 --> 0:14:21.298 advisor on access technology David Woodbridge I'm Stephen Jolley stay safe. 0:14:21.298 --> 0:14:22.888 We'll talk more tech next week. See you.