WEBVTT - Talking Tech 21st January 2025 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.280 Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition, available from 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:16.840 January the 21st, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.680 you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.599 stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network. 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.520 There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.760 need to do is search for the two words talking tech. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:33.320 And it can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.400 just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.760 your Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:46.319 radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast. Well, 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.120 Damo McMorrow continues his annual leave. I believe he'll be 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.720 back with us next week. I'm speaking with another from 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:58.920 the Access Technology team at Vision Australia and today it's 0:00:58.959 --> 0:01:03.560 Access Technology lead, Jim Piepszak from Melbourne. Welcome, Jim. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:05.680 Thanks, Steve. Good to talk to you again. 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.479 Tell us a little about yourself. Um, what's your role, actually, 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.240 in the Access Technology team? 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:18.679 Our lead team helps all of the adaptive technology specialists 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:23.160 with advice and helps out, especially when they first start 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:28.160 with us. Most of the adaptive technology specialists really have 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:33.440 no access technology experience. There's very few that do. So 0:01:34.039 --> 0:01:37.999 part of our job is is a really good induction, 0:01:38.039 --> 0:01:40.280 teaching him all the the bits and pieces that they 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.240 need to know. And then it's the ongoing support. In 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.559 the beginning we'll go out with them, you know, to 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.840 see clients, see how they're going. Give them some advice 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.480 along the way. And at any time they can give 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:58.200 us a call and ask us questions. And we also 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.680 get together at times and get the all of the 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.480 specialists together as as many at a time as possible. 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:10.640 And so it's an ongoing support Their system is basically 0:02:10.640 --> 0:02:12.080 what our team's involved in. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.520 They may not have had much experience when they first start. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.520 You've had decades of experience. Tell us about yourself. You 0:02:19.520 --> 0:02:20.720 have low vision, don't you? 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:27.000 I'm partially sighted. Legally blind. Yep. About 3% sight. I've 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.480 got an interest in sight condition. Mine was from birth, 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.600 and I've got scarring on the back of the eye, 0:02:33.640 --> 0:02:37.760 so I use my peripheral vision. Technically, I should have 0:02:37.760 --> 0:02:39.840 a dead spot in the middle of my eye, but 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:43.000 I don't see it. Probably because, you know, the brain's 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.120 a really clever thing, and it fills in that little 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.440 gap that would normally be seen so that I walk 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:52.400 into a room and my eyes move around and I 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.000 get the entire picture, so I don't get to see 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:59.520 the dead spot at all. Interestingly, sometimes I walk down 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:01.920 the street and somebody just pops out of nowhere because 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.120 obviously they were in that spot and my eyes hadn't 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.560 moved as yet. But apart from that, I use my 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.639 peripheral vision. I use, you know, a screen reader on 0:03:11.640 --> 0:03:14.520 the computer. I use a lot of the things that 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.400 I talk about all the time when I'm doing group talks. 0:03:17.640 --> 0:03:19.760 Now, you said you use a screen reader. Do you 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:21.480 look at text on a screen as well? 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:23.920 I can see that there's text there, but I can't 0:03:23.920 --> 0:03:26.680 necessarily read it unless I'm up close and unless I 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.480 enlarge it. So but it means that I can follow 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.680 along with what the screen reader is reading, and that's 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.400 definitely an advantage. Yeah, you can see where the images are, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.880 where the text would be. Um, I've also got enough 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.560 sight to be able to use the mouse cursor. I 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.720 tend to have the mouse speak anything that's under it. 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.040 So by, uh, moving the mouse around the screen, I 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.480 can actually sort of skip scan text. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:54.920 Yeah. 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:59.040 Very interesting. Start on the first paragraph and that's not interesting. 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:01.480 I'll just go to the next one. So yeah that's 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:02.760 a real advantage as well. 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.760 So you walked in the door of Vision Australia 30 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.920 years ago. What brought you there. What were you doing 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.960 before you started this sort of work with the organisation? 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.680 Back then I was working for VicRoads as a switchboard operator. 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:23.360 VicRoads had 6000 extensions when I first started. They had 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:26.360 one of those flick folders where, you know, there was 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:28.640 6000 names on this thing that you had to spin 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.320 around and find what it was, which wasn't all that 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.560 easy to do because the text was pretty small and 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.080 there was eight switchboard operators, you know, all the others 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:39.120 were cited. 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:43.200 So you mean telephone switchboard operators for the modern generation 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:44.720 who mightn't know that concept? 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.080 It was one of those switchboard situations where the moment 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.480 you open the switchboard in the morning until we close 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.760 at 5:00 with eight people answering calls, there was always 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.200 20 calls waiting to be answered. And, you know, that's 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.880 how busy it was. So looking up an extension was 0:05:03.280 --> 0:05:07.120 pretty vital. But to their credit, they they put computers 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.719 in with an interesting system. And so we had a 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.760 database of all the extensions. And to their credit they 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:19.640 actually hired someone to make the system talk. Took him 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.520 three months to do it. I could then look up 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.200 a name and it would actually tell me what it was, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:27.960 tell me what the extension was, and it made things 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:34.280 so much quicker. We're talking 37, 38 years ago. That 0:05:34.280 --> 0:05:36.480 was my first introduction to a computer. 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.360 Then you joined what was then the Royal Victorian Institute 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.520 for the blind became Vision Australia. Years later, in 1994, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.360 what were you doing just prior to joining the organisation? 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:49.320 Why did you join? 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.880 Luckily, I started picking up books and reading about the 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.520 computers and the speech, and on my rostered days off, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:06:01.040 I was actually selling the system to other government departments 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:05.720 and installing it. David Blythe, who a lot of listeners 0:06:05.840 --> 0:06:09.719 might know of David Blythe, was one of the managers 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.719 at the Beeb at the time, and he he approached 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:18.039 me and offered me a position as an adaptive technology 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:23.080 consultant because he wanted somebody who had a vision impairment 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.520 doing the job. He thought that was would be a 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.520 really good need, and that wasn't around at the time. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:33.560 And there were very few. Adaptive technology consultants around the 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.599 country at that time. And there was really the vibe 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.280 had the vast majority of them. There's another one in Sydney. 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.479 There weren't many. So those early years, when David offered 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.640 me the position, I jumped at it. It was just 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.480 something new for me and and being able to get 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.320 in and actually help other people. That's what I really 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.440 wanted to do. I love that, you know, getting together 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:01.039 with people and showing them, you know, what's available, showing 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:02.200 them what's around. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.240 I seem to remember one of the main issues of 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:08.800 the day was this business of using the DOS or 0:07:08.840 --> 0:07:14.680 text environment, and then computerization moved to the graphic user 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.430 interface as it was described with the graphic icons on 0:07:18.430 --> 0:07:21.430 the screen. There was that. And what other things were 0:07:21.430 --> 0:07:24.350 you really thinking about at the time? 0:07:24.390 --> 0:07:27.190 DOS was easy. I actually thought that was a really 0:07:27.190 --> 0:07:32.150 easy system for screen readers and other programs. Windows came 0:07:32.150 --> 0:07:34.950 in and that was a whole new world. We were 0:07:34.950 --> 0:07:42.390 lucky that people like Joyce now Freedom Scientific got into that. 0:07:42.430 --> 0:07:48.110 Windows Arctic was around then. It was extremely expensive equipment 0:07:48.110 --> 0:07:52.550 back then. The other problem was, of course, being able 0:07:52.550 --> 0:07:57.270 to read a document. Just something you're given. So, you know, 0:07:57.310 --> 0:08:02.270 OCR devices at the time, it was reading a bill, 0:08:02.270 --> 0:08:04.950 reading a letter, all that sort of thing. They were 0:08:04.950 --> 0:08:07.110 the the real challenges of the time. 0:08:07.310 --> 0:08:11.310 And even computerized PDF was impossible. And it was a 0:08:11.310 --> 0:08:13.870 bad word amongst the blindness and low vision community back 0:08:13.870 --> 0:08:16.470 in the mid to late 90s, wasn't it? 0:08:16.590 --> 0:08:20.110 Very much, yeah. It was very difficult to to try 0:08:20.110 --> 0:08:23.830 and read those sort of documents. Yeah. We've come a long, 0:08:23.830 --> 0:08:26.110 long way in that period of time. 0:08:26.230 --> 0:08:28.110 So what have been some of the highlights for you 0:08:28.110 --> 0:08:31.230 over that time while you've been with Vision Australia? 0:08:31.790 --> 0:08:36.390 It's those periods where something came in that really changed 0:08:36.390 --> 0:08:39.910 the something like there were mobile phones, you know, you 0:08:39.910 --> 0:08:42.870 Nokia mobile phones, but all you could do is make 0:08:42.870 --> 0:08:46.350 a call and receive a call. Right up until the 0:08:46.390 --> 0:08:50.349 Symbian operating system came in and talks was released. So 0:08:50.349 --> 0:08:52.869 there was a program for the mobile phone called talks, 0:08:52.870 --> 0:08:55.350 and it spoke everything you could. All of a sudden 0:08:55.349 --> 0:08:59.030 you could read your text messages, you could, you know, 0:08:59.069 --> 0:09:03.790 go into your contacts and, and have hundreds of contacts 0:09:03.790 --> 0:09:06.989 and they'd all be read out to you. And then 0:09:07.429 --> 0:09:12.709 came a program for those phones called K-nfb reader. And 0:09:12.709 --> 0:09:15.709 that was a program where you could take a photo 0:09:15.709 --> 0:09:18.189 of a document and it would read it to you. 0:09:18.189 --> 0:09:23.069 And yeah, for something that was, They're so small, so 0:09:23.390 --> 0:09:25.869 pocket sized. You could read a document, you read a 0:09:25.870 --> 0:09:29.910 sign on a wall. It was surprisingly accurate. 0:09:30.189 --> 0:09:33.629 What was your impression around late 2009 when you first 0:09:33.630 --> 0:09:34.790 saw an iPhone? 0:09:36.790 --> 0:09:40.510 Yeah, that was pretty amazing. I can still remember the 0:09:40.510 --> 0:09:43.950 the talk that Steve Jobs gave when he introduced the 0:09:43.949 --> 0:09:46.950 the iPhone. He spoke for an hour about everything it 0:09:46.949 --> 0:09:50.110 can do. And at the end he said, oh yeah. 0:09:50.349 --> 0:09:54.670 And it can make phone calls. Yeah. And of course, 0:09:54.670 --> 0:09:58.510 the very first iPhone didn't have the accessibility built into it. 0:09:59.150 --> 0:10:04.589 But when they brought in VoiceOver, the world just changed. Yeah. 0:10:04.630 --> 0:10:06.309 That was your computer in your pocket. 0:10:06.670 --> 0:10:10.430 Mhm. Well let's look forward now thinking about the present 0:10:10.429 --> 0:10:12.710 and what's ahead over the next few years. What are 0:10:12.709 --> 0:10:13.709 you going to be playing with. 0:10:14.510 --> 0:10:17.390 Yeah. Artificial intelligence of course is the big thing at 0:10:17.390 --> 0:10:22.270 the moment. And what it can do now there's, there's 0:10:22.270 --> 0:10:27.189 all sorts of equipment around, but the interesting stuff is 0:10:28.069 --> 0:10:32.309 Rayban glasses, for instance. It's not meant for people with 0:10:32.309 --> 0:10:35.270 a vision impairment. It just happens to work for us. 0:10:35.870 --> 0:10:39.590 I think it was a real accident that the artificial 0:10:39.589 --> 0:10:45.870 intelligence that they put in there, uh, actually works for, um, 0:10:45.910 --> 0:10:48.470 you know, for people with a vision impairment. All of 0:10:48.469 --> 0:10:51.590 a sudden, people started saying, hey, we can do this 0:10:51.630 --> 0:10:56.469 and we can do that. And the people that actually, uh, 0:10:56.469 --> 0:10:59.389 puts in all of the intelligence into the glasses started 0:10:59.390 --> 0:11:02.269 to think, well, this does more than what we thought 0:11:02.270 --> 0:11:03.429 it was going to do, because. 0:11:03.469 --> 0:11:06.550 Originally it was just thought of as a solution for 0:11:06.990 --> 0:11:09.630 people who wanted to be able to take videos, listen 0:11:09.630 --> 0:11:11.749 to their music, etc., hands. 0:11:11.750 --> 0:11:15.550 Free. Exactly. And, you know, it was like I said, 0:11:15.550 --> 0:11:19.150 it was more of an accident that the, uh, the AI, uh, 0:11:19.150 --> 0:11:22.630 component to it actually did a lot more people might 0:11:22.630 --> 0:11:26.790 be familiar with an app called Be My eyes. They 0:11:26.910 --> 0:11:31.030 now have be my eyes built into those glasses. And 0:11:31.030 --> 0:11:33.550 the really interesting thing was all of the engineers, all 0:11:33.550 --> 0:11:37.510 of the software engineers, they can choose what they want 0:11:37.550 --> 0:11:40.709 to work on. The vast majority wanted to work on 0:11:40.709 --> 0:11:44.350 that component, because it had that something that was completely 0:11:44.349 --> 0:11:46.550 different from what they're used to, and they really liked 0:11:46.550 --> 0:11:48.949 the idea of being able to, you know, help out 0:11:48.949 --> 0:11:50.990 a whole stack of vision impaired people. 0:11:51.349 --> 0:11:53.550 So I was thinking about these devices, like the meta 0:11:53.589 --> 0:11:56.429 glasses and some of the what we would call mobility 0:11:56.429 --> 0:11:59.390 devices that are going to be around. How do you 0:11:59.390 --> 0:12:01.949 think people are going to do things differently, things they 0:12:01.949 --> 0:12:05.309 couldn't do before? How is it going to change people's lives? 0:12:05.349 --> 0:12:07.950 Well, that's the interesting thing. You really don't know. You 0:12:07.949 --> 0:12:10.150 can go around, you can do things, and then somebody 0:12:10.150 --> 0:12:12.630 will do things out of the box. Then everybody else 0:12:12.630 --> 0:12:16.069 realizes they can do that too. So it's a bit 0:12:16.069 --> 0:12:19.230 like when the iPhone was introduced. I don't believe that 0:12:19.229 --> 0:12:21.710 Apple really knew what it was going to end up. 0:12:22.510 --> 0:12:24.870 And that's with all of these new devices that are 0:12:24.870 --> 0:12:26.870 going to be coming out, all of the new the 0:12:26.870 --> 0:12:30.790 new mobility devices that'll have the artificial intelligence built into it. 0:12:30.829 --> 0:12:33.990 It'll be able to tell you when when something's coming 0:12:33.990 --> 0:12:38.269 up that you're going to bump into or going to 0:12:38.309 --> 0:12:40.630 need to move left or right. It's going to give 0:12:40.630 --> 0:12:43.989 you all sorts of information that is going to be 0:12:44.030 --> 0:12:48.150 absolutely amazing. But I don't know that we really know 0:12:48.150 --> 0:12:51.949 what the end result is going to be until, you know, 0:12:51.990 --> 0:12:54.469 everyone gets it in their hands and are able to 0:12:54.510 --> 0:12:55.990 start playing with it. 0:12:55.990 --> 0:12:58.509 And the word gets out very quickly now, doesn't it? 0:12:58.510 --> 0:13:01.910 Because we can easily listen to a webinar that's taking 0:13:01.910 --> 0:13:04.790 place in another part of the world. There's old fashioned 0:13:04.829 --> 0:13:08.229 email lists and other forms of social media that get 0:13:08.229 --> 0:13:11.429 the information out to blind and low vision people that 0:13:11.429 --> 0:13:13.670 couldn't have been done decades ago. 0:13:14.150 --> 0:13:16.709 Yeah, well, when I started, there were bulletin boards. There 0:13:16.709 --> 0:13:20.550 was no such thing as Google around. And, you know, 0:13:20.630 --> 0:13:23.790 Google has made all the difference. So YouTube, we can 0:13:23.790 --> 0:13:26.550 see all of those videos and, and look at the 0:13:26.550 --> 0:13:28.989 technology and see what it's going to going to do, 0:13:29.069 --> 0:13:33.429 how to how to use it. It is amazing. Absolutely amazing. 0:13:33.589 --> 0:13:36.150 Jim, it's been terrific speaking with you today. Good luck 0:13:36.309 --> 0:13:40.309 with your work as it continues with Vision Australia. And 0:13:40.309 --> 0:13:42.429 I hope we can talk again sometime on talking tech. 0:13:42.910 --> 0:13:43.989 Same here. Thank you. 0:13:44.349 --> 0:13:46.670 I've been speaking with Jim Piepszak, who is an Access 0:13:46.670 --> 0:13:51.870 technology lead with Vision Australia based in Melbourne. Before we go, 0:13:52.270 --> 0:13:55.309 a reminder that you can find details of this and 0:13:55.309 --> 0:13:58.630 previous editions of the program by going to VA radio, 0:14:00.069 --> 0:14:04.350 Talking Tech, VA Radio, Talking Tech, and to write to 0:14:04.349 --> 0:14:07.190 the program, all you need to do is write to 0:14:07.229 --> 0:14:17.509 Damo at Vision Australia, Damo at Vision Australia. This has 0:14:17.510 --> 0:14:21.510 been talking tech. My guest has been Jim Piepszak. Vision Australia, 0:14:21.510 --> 0:14:25.430 access technology lead. I'm Stephen Jolley. Stay safe. We'll talk 0:14:25.430 --> 0:14:26.270 more tech next week. 0:14:26.390 --> 0:14:27.270 See you.