S1: Hello everyone! Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
S1: January the 2nd, 2024. Happy New Year. I'm Stephen Jolly,
S1: great to have you with us. Wherever you're listening, perhaps
S1: through Virgin Australia Radio, Associated Stations of Australia or the
S1: Community Radio Network, there is also the podcast. To catch that,
S1: all you need to do is search for the two
S1: words talking tech and Dan. It can all come usually
S1: on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another
S1: option is to ask a Siri device or smart speaker
S1: to play Virgin Australia Radio Talking Tech podcast, Virgin Australia
S1: Radio Talking Tech podcast with me, someone who can explain
S1: all this tech stuff really well. Vivian, Australia's national advisor
S1: on access technology, David Woodbridge happy New Year, David.
S2: Thank you and same to you. And look, I'm really
S2: looking forward to 2024. So I don't often say that.
S2: But this year I think it's going to be really amazing.
S1: So let's spend today looking at some of the technology
S1: that came to our attention last year and perhaps looking
S1: a little bit of what we'll get this year. Um,
S1: there's a lot to talk about. I'd like to start
S1: with the tactile graphics world, and a couple of interesting
S1: devices have sort of surfaced in the last year or so,
S1: even if they're not yet on the market.
S2: That's right. So the two main ones are the dot
S2: pad from Dot incorporated and the monarch, which is a
S2: combined product between AP meaning printing house for the blind
S2: and human wear. And interestingly enough, the basic hardware that
S2: the monarch uses is actually the dot pad. It's just
S2: different software and different philosophies. It's really funny because everybody
S2: was scrambling in 2023 to try and work out what
S2: these graphics tablets are, which were effectively ten lines of, quote, Braille, unquote,
S2: and probably about I think it's about 30 characters across.
S2: But remember that there's also display graphics in lines and
S2: shapes and so on. This year, I think people are
S2: going to be still scrambling to work out how you
S2: implement these in education and that sort of stuff. So again,
S2: I'm looking forward to what happens in 2024 because we
S2: weren't really getting there in 2023.
S1: Let's move now to media players is probably the best
S1: way to describe them. Human wear have continued their Vector
S1: Reader stream series with the Victor Reader stream three, and
S1: jumping out of the blocks early in the year was
S1: the sense player from Hims.
S2: I'll have to say that out of those two devices.
S2: So the Victor stream three in the sense player OCR
S2: at the sense player absolutely beats the Victor reader stream
S2: three hands down, because it does so many things. You
S2: can use it as a keyboard to your smartphone. You
S2: can actually listen to things like your audible content, Netflix
S2: and other applications that are Android based and that more
S2: will be get added. And it's always one of my
S2: favorite things, particularly as that we're getting into again, the
S2: fire season, as we did last month in December, is
S2: it's got an FM radio. So for emergency and listen to,
S2: you know, your emergency broadcast, which here in Australia is
S2: the ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation. It's always really important to
S2: keep in contact with emergency alerts for floods and fires
S2: and so on. So for me that had a five
S2: star rating. If I have to get the victory to
S2: stream a star rating, I'd say it's a good, solid update.
S2: So three stars.
S1: And staying with human wear the brilliant series, the B
S1: X series, the 20 and the 40. Some interesting updates
S1: in 2023 indeed.
S2: So this is what I call a hybrid brow display.
S2: So it's not a brow display, it's not a note taker.
S2: It's an in-between thing because it has built in applications
S2: including Daisy. And of course, we had the update that
S2: allowed us not only to have speech output on the thing,
S2: but also to have speech output in Daisy boost, which
S2: is really amazing. And the fact that you can connect
S2: to multiple different devices around your house just with one
S2: brow system, it's pretty amazing. So whilst the human wear
S2: victory stream wasn't that overwhelming, uh, this one hit hit
S2: again the the ball out of the ballpark because it
S2: was really amazing stuff. So I'm very pleased to see that.
S2: And let's see what happens this year with the the
S2: brand as well.
S1: Let's talk Apple now the iPhone 14 Pro. That was
S1: an interesting one.
S2: Yes because they've replaced the like the silent ring switch
S2: such as the little switch that goes from, you know,
S2: major sound around muted on the side that flicks up
S2: and down. Well that's now been changed to a button.
S2: So you press the button and if you hold it
S2: in you can still do the, you know, the silent
S2: ring switch thingy. Uh, or you can attach a shortcut
S2: to it. To launch the application, so it's pretty amazing.
S2: I think this year it's going to be extended because
S2: at the moment you can sort of hack around a
S2: bit and do multiple presses to get to the different things.
S2: I can't see it right. It can't do all sorts
S2: of amazing things. If you press it once, twice, three times,
S2: hold it in. So again, to me, that's yet another
S2: thing that's going to be expanded upon in 2024. Uh,
S2: and let's just see how it goes. But again, to me,
S2: that was a really cool thing that came out of
S2: last year. Was this extra button or replacement button on
S2: the side of the iPhone 15 Pro.
S1: The newest member of the Apple family, going through a
S1: long gestation at the moment. It should come to the
S1: surface later this year. The Vision Pro tell us all
S1: about that.
S2: This got announced at Wwdc, uh, Worldwide Developers Conference, uh,
S2: in June last year. This is basically the AR virtual
S2: headset from Apple which will plug into your iPhone. It's
S2: also going to be, uh, synced up to your Apple
S2: Watch as well. And it's going to give you amazing visual,
S2: audio and haptic, uh, feedback about what's going on in
S2: your environment. So I've seen a few accessibility features of
S2: it because it does have built in gestures. Uh, so
S2: you wave your hands around in front of the system
S2: and it does have particular has voiceover gestures, it has
S2: large print and so on. So I'm looking forward now.
S2: The gossip is, Stephen, that it's going to come out
S2: in March this year. Um, I wouldn't be surprised if
S2: it probably gets announced at Wwdc for a June launch
S2: for developers, so who knows. But I wish I could
S2: have thought it for it because it's about 3500. Uh,
S2: us uh, but hopefully I might get a bit of
S2: an invite down to Apple Australia in Sydney and get
S2: my hands on one to let people know how it goes.
S2: And I'll certainly do a podcast on it as well.
S1: So what are you hearing that it's actually going to
S1: do for the user?
S2: It's basically replaced your computer. So you'll be able to
S2: do things like, um, watch videos, listen to music. This
S2: is more facade of people. So be able to stand
S2: in a room and do virtual reality type things. Or
S2: let's say, for example, you want to rearrange your house,
S2: you're looking at buy, you buy new furniture, then you'll
S2: be able to actually put furniture in your house that's
S2: been mapped out by a 3D mapping system and say, oh, look,
S2: you know, that lounge might look well over there and
S2: I can change the colour of it. I can change
S2: the size of it. Maybe I might put a bookshelf
S2: over there and change the lighting. That'll be all done
S2: by just you using the Vision Pro headset and of course,
S2: gaming with gestures and all sorts of cool stuff. So
S2: it's really hands free use in a way of your computer.
S2: And by the way, it will also interact with your
S2: computer as well. So not only just it will just
S2: work with your iPhone and more often not probably for
S2: Apple Watch, but you'll be able to also use it
S2: as a headset to your computer. I'm going to say computer.
S2: I'm in your Mac, so I think it's going to
S2: be something that's going to be very flexible, and I
S2: think it will just extend the computing power and access
S2: to stuff that you're using every day.
S1: Do you think we're going to see advances in obstacle
S1: detection this year?
S2: Look, I hope so because at the moment it's very
S2: hit and miss. Um, because it sort of depends on
S2: how big the object is and how hard it is
S2: and what sort of things bounce off it effectively, you know,
S2: is is it lidar or is it sonar or is
S2: it radar? Uh, all the types of stuff that self-driving
S2: cars have to put up with. Um, so I just
S2: hope we really end up with the type of system.
S2: And I'm sort of hoping that maybe the Vision Pro
S2: will do that, but certainly, um, other applications running on
S2: smartphones or that might be, um, stuff that are running on,
S2: you know, dedicated devices. And the other thing about object
S2: recognition is at the moment it still gets things wrong.
S2: So it still reckons that my red bin outside is
S2: a fire hydrant, and it still reckons the back of
S2: my wife's car, which is a red SUV, um, is
S2: the back of a bus. So, you know, this stuff's improving,
S2: but I think we've still got a way to go
S2: for proper and correct object recognition. Just a quick note.
S2: The guy that, uh, brought in voiceover on the Mac, uh,
S2: back in 2005, I want to say Mike semantic. He's
S2: now on the accessibility team at meta. So he's been
S2: talking about accessibility with the meta headset. So it's not
S2: just the Vision Pro from Apple that's getting into it.
S2: Matt is getting into it both from a mainstream point
S2: of view but an accessible point of view. So I
S2: think the more headsets we get in the market, the
S2: good old competition thing says the better it is for
S2: the whole industry.
S1: It's still not easy to scan a document with your
S1: mobile device or take a photo. We can do it,
S1: but it's still not easy. Is that going to improve?
S2: I hope so, because most things nowadays will tell you
S2: if it's a document in view and which way it's
S2: up and if it's skewed and everything else, but it's
S2: actually finding the text that's the problem. So people talk
S2: about these wearable things where you can just look at
S2: a sign or you can look at a bus. And
S2: that's the problem with them is it's all well and
S2: good to look in that direction. But the question is
S2: it doesn't give you any information at the moment about
S2: where you should be effectively looking or when the systems
S2: found the text, and it just needs you to stop moving. Um,
S2: so I think, you know, I think more head mounted
S2: wearable things or whatever else they might come up with
S2: is going to be really important. Because at the moment,
S2: if I try pointing my iPhone in particular at a
S2: sign or the bus doesn't work. Hmm.
S1: What are you seeing ahead with our virtual assistants like
S1: we call a sometimes a lady or Google or Siri?
S2: I think the answer to that is these large language models.
S2: So rather than just being able to say to all
S2: these virtual assistants, set the time, uh, what's the date?
S2: What's the weather? Uh, turn on and off my air conditioner. Um,
S2: you'll be able to use them for things like, uh, ChatGPT, copilot, slash, Bing,
S2: perplexity and other systems, uh, to really engage in a conversation.
S2: And what I really want to see is, is something
S2: like what jet GPT does, and that is having a
S2: two way conversation. So it's responding to you with speech.
S2: You're talking to it with speech. And you can have
S2: a conversation of I've had lengthy conversations with, uh, ChatGPT
S2: about computer AI, and it's been absolutely amazing. I actually
S2: talked to it for about 35 minutes, and at one
S2: stage I actually even found myself thinking it for the information.
S1: Tell us about satellite communication. Apple have started to use
S1: it a bit for emergency stuff. Is there going to
S1: be more of that, do you think.
S2: Last year you might have noticed a few places were
S2: talking about being able to use a standard mobile phone
S2: to access satellite information? And where this becomes particularly interesting
S2: is if you're in, particularly in Australia, in a remote
S2: part of Australia, you're not going to be near a
S2: cellular tower, so you won't get cellular information. You may
S2: not be near a Wi-Fi network which connected to, you know, uh,
S2: cabled or satellite information services. So this not only adds,
S2: you know, the emergency SOS that we've got in Australia
S2: with both Android and iOS, uh, for contacting systems for emergency,
S2: but being able to maybe, perhaps just initially, maybe just
S2: send text, normal text messages, or in the end of
S2: the day, hopefully by the end of I'd probably say 2025,
S2: I was going to have a guess for 2026, um,
S2: being able to make phone calls and send videos and
S2: that sort of cool stuff. But hopefully this year at least,
S2: to be able to send text messages, uh, to friends
S2: and family and so on.
S1: You know what I would describe as a basic phone,
S1: low cost. What's going to happen there in the future?
S1: Are they going to get better?
S2: They will get better. Because remember, in 2022, I think
S2: I talked about one of the basic phones that we
S2: saw primarily for low vision, and that was called the
S2: Oli tech flip phone. And that's coming back hopefully this year.
S2: So people might remember that when it was available it
S2: had it had talkback on it. So not only did
S2: the keyboard speak for low vision people, but you could
S2: turn the full talkback on and use it like a
S2: talkback Android phone. Maybe before midway through this year, uh
S2: will have a $200 accessible basic feature phone for not
S2: only low vision people to use, but for blind people
S2: to use as well. So that's something that I'm really, really,
S2: really looking forward to.
S1: So that's our talking tech change of year pivot show.
S1: We'll do another one next year, hopefully before we go
S1: a reminder of where we can find a details. David,
S1: of the things you've been talking about in this and
S1: previous programs.
S2: Indeed. So as always, you can check out my blog site,
S2: which is David would be dot Podbean pad Ben comm.
S1: David would be uh podbean Podbean. Com to write to
S1: the program, you.
S2: Can email me at Vision Australia where I work which
S2: is David Woodbridge out sounds at Vision australia.org.
S1: David Woodbridge at Vision Australia George this has been talking
S1: tech with me has been Vision Australia's national advisor on
S1: access technology David Woodbridge. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech
S1: next week. See you.