WEBVTT - Talking Tech 17th December 2024 0:00:08.030 --> 0:00:11.959 Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:16.369 December the 17th, 2024. I'm Stephen Jolly, great to have 0:00:16.370 --> 0:00:20.600 you with us listening through Vision Australia Radio associated stations 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.380 of the Radio Reading Network or perhaps the Community Radio Network. 0:00:24.410 --> 0:00:27.260 There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you 0:00:27.260 --> 0:00:30.080 need to do is search for those two words talking 0:00:30.110 --> 0:00:32.690 tech and Dan. It can all come usually on a 0:00:32.690 --> 0:00:36.530 Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is 0:00:36.530 --> 0:00:39.589 to ask your Siri device or smart speaker to play. 0:00:39.620 --> 0:00:44.990 Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking 0:00:45.019 --> 0:00:49.729 tech podcast with me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager. 0:00:49.729 --> 0:00:52.429 Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo. 0:00:52.489 --> 0:00:54.020 Hi, Stephen. How are you doing? 0:00:54.050 --> 0:00:57.679 Very good. Well, it's been a big week with it 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:04.820 has upgrades to products, devices, etc. we were anticipating some 0:01:04.850 --> 0:01:10.190 Apple updates last Tuesday there was a late hitch and 0:01:10.220 --> 0:01:16.040 there was a release. Two version came down on the Tuesday, 0:01:16.039 --> 0:01:18.740 and the final public version came down on the Thursday. 0:01:18.740 --> 0:01:22.490 So that's when we got our iOS 18.2 for the 0:01:22.490 --> 0:01:25.670 iPhone and the iPad. Let's talk about it. 0:01:25.970 --> 0:01:29.600 Yeah, it's quite a significant update and a very much 0:01:29.630 --> 0:01:34.160 sort of anticipated update, this one. Um, one of the 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:38.119 things that there has been much fanfare about has the 0:01:38.119 --> 0:01:44.660 Apple intelligence feature. That's the sort of Siri Mark two, 0:01:44.690 --> 0:01:47.270 if you like, or a much improved Siri, but it 0:01:47.270 --> 0:01:51.950 does a number of other things as well. So with that, uh, 0:01:51.950 --> 0:01:56.780 the Siri voices seem to have changed slightly. The Australian 0:01:56.780 --> 0:01:59.600 male one sort of sounds bored and rather sulky. But anyway, 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:04.160 that's an aside. Um, the but they've also now, um, 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:10.519 increased series capability Significantly to the point where, for example, 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.310 if you ask it something that it doesn't have in 0:02:13.310 --> 0:02:16.580 its own databases, it will say, do you want me 0:02:16.580 --> 0:02:20.090 to use ChatGPT for that? And you can also say 0:02:20.090 --> 0:02:23.690 to it, ask ChatGPT about, you know, whatever it might be, 0:02:23.690 --> 0:02:26.780 and you'll get a much longer answer. You won't get 0:02:26.780 --> 0:02:29.420 that sort of. Here's something I found on the web 0:02:29.420 --> 0:02:31.610 that might possibly help, which was the used to be 0:02:31.610 --> 0:02:36.230 the standard response when it didn't know something. There's that feature. 0:02:36.230 --> 0:02:39.350 You can get much more accurate sort of travel information 0:02:39.350 --> 0:02:41.240 and those sorts of things from it. It's really just 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.270 worth playing around and experimenting, but I would be very 0:02:44.270 --> 0:02:47.030 surprised if people didn't notice a massive difference in terms 0:02:47.030 --> 0:02:48.020 of Siri. 0:02:48.050 --> 0:02:50.210 I think that's the point, isn't it, just to play 0:02:50.210 --> 0:02:52.130 with it and you never know what you might discover. 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.620 I asked her to tell me how far it would 0:02:54.620 --> 0:02:57.980 be by car from where I was to a particular 0:02:57.980 --> 0:03:01.280 address in Melbourne, and it came straight back with it 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.920 and it was pretty accurate. So I don't have to 0:03:03.950 --> 0:03:07.670 go to Google Maps or those sorts of little pathways 0:03:07.670 --> 0:03:09.640 to find out those sorts of things now. 0:03:09.670 --> 0:03:11.740 You're absolutely right. And it's one of those things. I mean, 0:03:11.770 --> 0:03:14.590 I sort of had almost stopped using Siri for a 0:03:14.620 --> 0:03:17.140 lot of things because it just used to frustrate me, 0:03:17.170 --> 0:03:20.980 whereas now I'm actually using it much more than any 0:03:20.980 --> 0:03:25.060 of my smart speakers, because I'm getting better responses from it. 0:03:25.540 --> 0:03:27.040 Let's talk about email. 0:03:27.580 --> 0:03:32.800 Yes. So there's a couple of significant changes here. Part 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.150 of the Apple intelligence system, if you like, is that 0:03:37.150 --> 0:03:41.260 it can summarize content. So when you're going through an 0:03:41.260 --> 0:03:44.140 email thread, it will give you a summary of what 0:03:44.170 --> 0:03:47.230 each email is about as you as you're flicking through them. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:49.420 And it does the same in other things as well. 0:03:49.420 --> 0:03:52.960 So it'll give you summaries on your lock screen of 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.410 your different notifications and things. But the other one that 0:03:56.410 --> 0:03:59.860 people will notice is a significant change to the layout 0:03:59.890 --> 0:04:04.810 of the email app. Um, what happens now is that 0:04:04.810 --> 0:04:06.970 there's a bunch of filters at the top of the 0:04:06.970 --> 0:04:11.530 screen and there's things like, um, primary, there's as promotions, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.830 transactions and a couple of other different categories. And so 0:04:14.830 --> 0:04:17.529 what it tries to do by default is it will 0:04:17.529 --> 0:04:23.350 try to divide your mail up into categories, which is 0:04:23.350 --> 0:04:27.430 very smart and quite interesting, but it will sort of 0:04:27.460 --> 0:04:29.230 throw you off a little bit if all you want 0:04:29.260 --> 0:04:32.290 is your email the way you've always had it. Now 0:04:32.290 --> 0:04:34.030 there are a couple of ways you can get it 0:04:34.030 --> 0:04:38.050 to that point. One is as you go through the filters, 0:04:38.050 --> 0:04:40.240 there is a more button and there's an option there 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.940 called list, which will set it back to how it 0:04:42.940 --> 0:04:46.000 used to be. Or you can just deselect all of 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.410 any of those filters. Um, it'll default to, I think, uh, 0:04:50.410 --> 0:04:54.070 primary or something like that. It says, um, and if you, 0:04:54.070 --> 0:04:56.800 if you double tap to unselect that, you'll get your 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.710 mail in that same sort of format that it used 0:04:59.710 --> 0:05:01.540 to be where you'll just see everything. 0:05:01.540 --> 0:05:04.390 I found it convenient just to press the more button 0:05:04.390 --> 0:05:06.190 near the top of the screen gave you a list 0:05:06.190 --> 0:05:08.290 of things, and you just select list and away list. 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.650 Yeah, that's probably the the easy, easiest way to do it. 0:05:11.690 --> 0:05:13.520 I mean, it is quite clever in that you can 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.270 probably easily skim through and identify all of those, you know, 0:05:17.300 --> 0:05:19.910 all of the Boxing Day sale and Black Friday sale 0:05:19.910 --> 0:05:22.520 type emails that everyone's likely to get in their inbox 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:25.640 at this time of year, those sort of promotional things. Um, 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.930 and obviously using the transaction filter that will identify things 0:05:29.930 --> 0:05:32.360 like bills and all of those sorts of things in 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.870 an easy way. So that's, um, it is quite impressive 0:05:35.900 --> 0:05:38.720 the way that it does that. But it's nice that 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.030 you can still have your email looking and feeling the 0:05:41.030 --> 0:05:42.230 way it always has. 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:46.070 There's a thing called Image Playground and also a gen 0:05:46.100 --> 0:05:50.630 emoji feature. So it's doing a lot with images really 0:05:50.630 --> 0:05:51.320 isn't it? 0:05:51.350 --> 0:05:54.920 Yes it is. So the gen emoji allows you to 0:05:54.950 --> 0:05:59.120 generate your own emojis for those people that use them. 0:05:59.210 --> 0:06:01.130 I have to say, I'm not one of them. I've 0:06:01.130 --> 0:06:04.610 never really gotten into that other than when I communicate 0:06:04.610 --> 0:06:08.300 with my daughter. Um, because I don't know, she she 0:06:08.300 --> 0:06:11.839 she likes it, but, uh, um, the and the image 0:06:11.840 --> 0:06:15.940 playground allows you to, um, sort of use a text 0:06:15.970 --> 0:06:20.560 description and have it, uh, generate an image for you 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.110 based on that. Um, I'll have to ask it. What 0:06:23.110 --> 0:06:26.380 happens if I if I request a horse with no name? Um, 0:06:26.410 --> 0:06:29.020 but you could, you know, ask for, you know, a 0:06:29.020 --> 0:06:31.930 horse without a tail or a dog with two heads 0:06:31.930 --> 0:06:33.610 or something like that, and it would be able to 0:06:33.610 --> 0:06:35.710 generate the an image for you. 0:06:35.740 --> 0:06:37.630 Why you would want to, but it could do some 0:06:37.630 --> 0:06:39.010 very useful things too. 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.650 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. 0:06:42.010 --> 0:06:46.750 So a lot to explore in iOS 18.2, which has 0:06:46.750 --> 0:06:52.000 come to the iPhone and to the iPad. Let's move 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.590 on now to experimentation you've been doing this week with 0:06:56.590 --> 0:06:59.650 videos and video description. 0:06:59.920 --> 0:07:04.330 Yes. And the thing that prompted this actually was that I, 0:07:04.330 --> 0:07:07.539 I managed to get my boat out last weekend. It's 0:07:07.540 --> 0:07:10.960 been I've had it since August and every, every weekend 0:07:10.990 --> 0:07:12.940 is just about been either too windy or too rainy. 0:07:12.940 --> 0:07:14.710 And I managed to get the boat out last weekend 0:07:14.710 --> 0:07:19.870 and went fishing, and I had my Ray-Ban meta glasses, 0:07:19.870 --> 0:07:24.730 and I took some video while I was reeling in fish, 0:07:24.730 --> 0:07:28.510 and also just some video of kind of, um, standing 0:07:28.510 --> 0:07:32.680 in the boat and looking around at the ocean. And 0:07:32.860 --> 0:07:35.500 that prompted me to sort of think about, you know, 0:07:35.530 --> 0:07:38.380 being able to get the videos described. And there are 0:07:38.380 --> 0:07:42.430 two ways of doing it. There is seeing AI now 0:07:42.430 --> 0:07:46.240 has that ability. So it's part of the scene channel 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.390 in seeing AI. Um, and for a while we've been 0:07:49.390 --> 0:07:52.540 able to get descriptions of photos or, or take a 0:07:52.540 --> 0:07:57.040 picture and get a live description. But now you can, um, 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.430 give it a video from your, uh, from your camera 0:08:00.430 --> 0:08:02.620 roll so you can select a video, I think, up 0:08:02.620 --> 0:08:07.720 to ten minutes in length, and you're allowed ten videos 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:11.170 per day that you can have described. So the idea 0:08:11.170 --> 0:08:17.310 is you, you, you pointed at the video, um, And you, 0:08:17.820 --> 0:08:20.640 it'll sit there and do the normal seeing eye kind 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:23.370 of processing noise that it does for a couple of minutes. 0:08:23.370 --> 0:08:25.050 And then what it'll do is it'll start playing the 0:08:25.050 --> 0:08:30.060 video in short snippets with, um, descriptions read out in 0:08:30.090 --> 0:08:34.260 between those snippets. So, for example, you'll hear like in 0:08:34.260 --> 0:08:36.570 the video that I tried it with, you would hear 0:08:36.569 --> 0:08:39.660 the sound of the water lapping against the boat and 0:08:39.660 --> 0:08:41.520 my friend saying, oh, just bring your rod tip down 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.059 a little bit. And then the description would say, A 0:08:45.059 --> 0:08:48.000 man in a blue shirt reeling in a fish, and 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.280 then you'll hear a little bit more audio and it'll say, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.630 another man, you know, reaches over and and grabs the 0:08:54.630 --> 0:08:57.390 end of the rod, um, you know, out of out 0:08:57.390 --> 0:08:59.790 of the water or whatever it might be. And then 0:08:59.790 --> 0:09:03.059 it sort of described the, the fish, and it described 0:09:03.150 --> 0:09:05.640 my friend Jim trying to get the hook out of 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.150 his mouth and so on. So, um, it's it's quite 0:09:09.179 --> 0:09:11.400 nice in that it gives you sort of a almost 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.819 real time description. And the nice thing about the way 0:09:14.819 --> 0:09:17.850 that works, of course, is that if I was editing 0:09:17.849 --> 0:09:20.579 that video, I could probably use that description to roughly 0:09:20.579 --> 0:09:22.440 line it up and go, oh, hang on, I've got 0:09:22.439 --> 0:09:25.920 15 seconds here where I was looking down, or I 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:28.110 was looking up at the boat canopy rather than at 0:09:28.109 --> 0:09:31.079 the fish or whatever. I can edit that out. Um, 0:09:31.079 --> 0:09:33.569 so that was that was part of what what prompted 0:09:33.569 --> 0:09:36.300 that interest? The other way of doing it is using 0:09:36.300 --> 0:09:39.239 an app called Pixie Bot and it's spelt p I 0:09:39.270 --> 0:09:44.639 c c y. Um, and it is a paid product 0:09:44.729 --> 0:09:47.160 to be able to get the, the, a lot of 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:49.890 the features, it does it in a slightly different way 0:09:49.890 --> 0:09:52.229 in that it processes the video and then just gives 0:09:52.229 --> 0:09:55.860 you a description, but it will use certain sort of 0:09:55.890 --> 0:09:59.759 cues in the video to say, at this point in 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:02.819 the video, um, you know, there's a splashing noise as 0:10:02.819 --> 0:10:04.740 the man throws the fish back over the side of 0:10:04.740 --> 0:10:08.700 the boat, for example, but the description is not interlaced 0:10:08.699 --> 0:10:10.770 with the audio, if that makes sense. 0:10:10.770 --> 0:10:13.800 So it actually takes notice of what it sees as 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.650 well as what it hears spoken in the. 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.160 That's right, that's right. So it is two very different 0:10:20.189 --> 0:10:23.070 sort of experiences in terms of having your video described. 0:10:23.069 --> 0:10:26.969 But I think they are probably equally valuable in, in 0:10:26.969 --> 0:10:28.590 different circumstances. 0:10:28.620 --> 0:10:32.550 Very interesting. The two apps you were using, their seeing eye, 0:10:32.579 --> 0:10:34.920 which is a bit of a Swiss Army knife really, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.380 you can do it really is, isn't it? And the 0:10:37.380 --> 0:10:41.909 other one, Pixy Bot plc bot. So have a play 0:10:41.910 --> 0:10:44.579 with those if you're interested in video description. 0:10:44.910 --> 0:10:47.160 Yeah, absolutely. It's just nice to be able to have 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:48.719 a go at taking a video, I think as a 0:10:48.719 --> 0:10:50.789 blind person and then having a rough idea of what 0:10:50.790 --> 0:10:52.020 the result was. 0:10:52.079 --> 0:10:54.839 It's been a big week for Humanware. People like to 0:10:54.839 --> 0:10:58.439 get their stuff out before Christmas, I think. And Humanware 0:10:58.469 --> 0:11:04.410 have announced some upgrades to their Braille display products, the 0:11:04.410 --> 0:11:09.779 Mantis Braille Display and the brilliant series, the B20 X 0:11:09.780 --> 0:11:13.079 and the B40 X. Tell us quickly about those devices. 0:11:13.109 --> 0:11:19.010 Sure. So the brilliant B20 and B40 X are there 0:11:19.010 --> 0:11:23.900 refreshable Braille displays that have the Perkins style keyboard? Obviously, 0:11:23.900 --> 0:11:27.470 the B26 is a 20 cell display and the 40 0:11:27.500 --> 0:11:30.349 X is a 40 cell display. And then we have 0:11:30.349 --> 0:11:33.350 the mantis, which is the 40 cell braille display equipped 0:11:33.349 --> 0:11:35.059 with a Qwerty keyboard. 0:11:35.089 --> 0:11:38.300 The Braille enters had text to speech for some time 0:11:38.300 --> 0:11:42.589 in this upgrade. That feature went to the mantis. 0:11:42.620 --> 0:11:46.760 It did, which is really quite significant for mantis users, 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:48.619 because that's a feature that I think a lot of 0:11:48.620 --> 0:11:52.400 people have wished we had for quite a long time. 0:11:52.429 --> 0:11:55.550 So yeah, the whole family now has, um, text to 0:11:55.579 --> 0:11:57.319 speech built in, and. 0:11:57.319 --> 0:11:59.689 There's an interesting package of other features that have gone 0:11:59.689 --> 0:12:00.920 to both devices. 0:12:00.949 --> 0:12:05.389 Yes. So there is, um, a number of interesting new features. 0:12:05.390 --> 0:12:10.729 We now have access to Wikipedia and Wiktionary directly from 0:12:10.729 --> 0:12:13.910 the device. That obviously requires an internet connection, but it 0:12:13.910 --> 0:12:16.580 does mean that you can look things up directly from 0:12:16.579 --> 0:12:19.189 your brain or your mantis without having to first pair 0:12:19.189 --> 0:12:21.859 it to your phone or your computer. And there is 0:12:21.859 --> 0:12:25.790 also an on board dictionary which you can access offline. 0:12:25.790 --> 0:12:28.010 So even if you're not connected to the internet and 0:12:28.010 --> 0:12:30.199 you just want to quickly look up something, you can 0:12:30.199 --> 0:12:33.890 do that from the device as well. There are also 0:12:33.890 --> 0:12:38.809 some significant audio improvements, so you can now pair your 0:12:38.809 --> 0:12:43.880 device to either Bluetooth headphones or a Bluetooth speaker, or 0:12:43.910 --> 0:12:48.380 even Bluetooth hearing aids. So those that use hearing aids 0:12:48.380 --> 0:12:51.349 may actually now benefit more from the text to speech, 0:12:51.349 --> 0:12:55.010 because you can have it piped directly into your Bluetooth 0:12:55.010 --> 0:12:59.510 hearing aids. And there's also now support via Bluetooth for 0:12:59.510 --> 0:13:04.130 the Apple TV as well. So definitely quite a significant upgrade. 0:13:04.130 --> 0:13:06.920 And you can do that upgrade online. Just connect your 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.189 device to Wi-Fi and you can download the update that way. 0:13:10.189 --> 0:13:12.650 There's no um, sort of you don't have to send 0:13:12.650 --> 0:13:15.139 it back or anything to get the upgrade. That Apple. 0:13:15.140 --> 0:13:18.319 TV implementation. That's a big one, isn't it? 0:13:18.410 --> 0:13:20.599 It will be. I haven't had a chance to try 0:13:20.599 --> 0:13:23.109 it yet on my Apple TV, but I do have 0:13:23.109 --> 0:13:25.569 a brilliant here. So that's on my list for this 0:13:25.569 --> 0:13:27.909 coming weekend to experiment with that, because I think it'll 0:13:27.939 --> 0:13:28.750 be quite good. 0:13:28.750 --> 0:13:33.009 So that's the mantis and the brilliant series, both those 0:13:33.010 --> 0:13:39.099 products from Humanware. Braille displays and major upgrades this week. 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.979 Before we go, a reminder that you can find details 0:13:41.979 --> 0:13:45.910 of this program and previous editions by going to VA 0:13:45.910 --> 0:13:52.929 radio.org/talking tech. VA radio.org/talking tech. And to right to the program. 0:13:52.929 --> 0:14:00.520 You can email me Damo. Damo McMorrow MSI MoU at 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.579 Vision Australia. Org and thanks to everybody who has been 0:14:03.579 --> 0:14:04.300 doing that. 0:14:04.329 --> 0:14:09.790 Damo McMorrow at Vision australia.org. This has been talking tech 0:14:09.790 --> 0:14:13.630 with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager 0:14:13.660 --> 0:14:17.170 Damo McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Take care. We'll talk more 0:14:17.170 --> 0:14:18.550 tech next week. See you.