February 10, 2025 • 14 mins
This week we cover:
- Further news in the wake of the announcement of DeepSeek, the Chinese based AI tool;
- News of the Access On podcast of the American National Federation of the Blind feature on Blazie Technologies, blazietech.com;
- An explanation of the recently revamped Seeing Eye app from Microsoft;
- An explanation of the Invites app from Apple;
- A reminder of the Access Technology Help Desk service from Vision Australia.
To access the program, presented by Stephen Jolley and Damo McMorrow you can go to varadio.org/talkingtech
To write to the show use damo.mcmorrow@visionaustralia.org
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:08):
Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
February the 11th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network.
There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you
need to do is search for the two words talking tech.
(00:30):
And it can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
your Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia
radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast
with me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2 (00:50):
G'day, Stephen.
S1 (00:51):
You were ahead of the rest of the country last week. Maybe.
Let's catch up with what the country's been advised by
the government in relation to deep seek.
S2 (01:02):
Yes. So we talked a little bit about deep seek
last week. It is the Chinese developed AI tool. And
I mentioned that there was, you know, a little bit
of concern around Silicon Valley because they've said that they
can do it with much cheaper infrastructure than platforms like
(01:22):
ChatGPT and so on, but that there were some concerns
around its security. And as a follow up to that,
I saw earlier this week that the Australian federal government
has blocked access to deep sea on all of their
devices and from all of their networks. So I suspect
their concerns are probably well founded, or at least serious
(01:45):
enough that they've felt it necessary to implement that.
S1 (01:49):
And in that statement announcing that they were making sure
it couldn't be on any government devices, they're advising people
not to have it on their own private devices as well.
I think the message is don't swim outside the flags
where it's not being patrolled.
S2 (02:04):
Absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, certainly it is a
bit of a venture into the unknown.
S1 (02:09):
So that's deep seek. Many people may not yet be
aware of a recently commenced podcast. A technology podcast from
the National Federation of the blind in the United States
called Access On. It's hosted by Jonathan Mohsin, and in
(02:29):
last week's edition, he had a feature conversation with representatives
from Blazing Technologies. You heard it.
S2 (02:39):
Yes, yes I did. Some of the stuff, obviously, you know,
some of us were already aware of. Those of us
who have been experimenting around with the BT speak for
a while. So they talked about its history and a
little bit about the company and the fact that it
is a family company. But the thing that was potentially
quite exciting was their plans to release a almost like
(03:01):
a modern day Braille light. So they're calling it the
BT Braille. So it'll have similar functionality to the BT speak,
but it will have refreshable Braille. So they are saying
that initially they'll have a 20 cell version, and then
later on they'll release a 40 cell version. It'll still
be Raspberry Pi based, although it'll use a slightly more
(03:25):
up to date module than the BT speak. And they're
aiming at a price point of around about 3,500 USD,
which will probably be substantially more by the time it's
landed here. But, you know, interesting that you know, that
it's something that they are looking at and that they
have in development because they do say that whereas most
(03:50):
of the other braille products that are on the market
are either a braille display or a braille note taker,
they describe these as a pocket computer because of all
of the things that you can do with it. So
I think, you know, it'll be interesting to see how
that one develops and the level of interest in it. Um,
(04:10):
you know, it won't be for everybody because it's it'll
be Linux based as the BT speak is. And that
tends to, you know, put some people off. But, uh, yeah,
I think it has the potential to be an interesting product.
And I'm hoping that at some point, perhaps when I
go to CSUN, I can have a look at one
and report back.
S1 (04:28):
Yes. That'll be very interesting. A fascinating company, really. Blazie technologies,
a company founded by Dean Blazie and his three sons, Chris,
Steven and Brian, worked for him. We say sons, their
70s babies. So they're they're quite experienced. And it was
(04:50):
Brian Blazie who was a guest, along with David Goldfield,
who also works for Blazie Technologies. And it was interesting
how they talked about their approach and the features they're
looking at introducing and various things, including, as you say,
the BT Braille, which is maybe a year or so away.
S2 (05:09):
And well worth a listen, I think if you're curious
about the BT speak and potentially the BT Braille.
S1 (05:16):
That was on access on from the National Federation of
the blind, you can find it the usual way that
you seek out your podcasts. Now let's talk about seeing I,
for one, haven't visited it for a little while, but
you sent me there recently. It's certainly changed from its
(05:37):
earlier days.
S2 (05:39):
It has. It's evolved quite a lot. We talked a
couple of months ago on the program about, you know,
the feature that you could use to have videos described
to you. So it is still actively being developed. But
one of the things that I wanted to mention is
the fact that the, the, the interface or the layout
(05:59):
of the program has sort of had a bit of
a makeover.
S1 (06:03):
So this comes from Microsoft, doesn't it?
S2 (06:05):
That's right. It's a free application from Microsoft. A lot
of people use it. It has, you know, short text mode,
a document mode, um, you know, for reading, uh, printed text.
It has the ability to describe people. Um, it has
a photo and video description function. It has a light detector,
a color detector, a whole bunch of different features. And
(06:28):
the way it used to work was that as you
swipe through the screen, you had a selector where you
could swipe up and down and select different channels. They
call each feature a channel rather than a, you know,
a function or a feature. What they've done now is
they've changed the layout of the product. So when you
first run it, after you've done the update, you'll notice
(06:49):
there are three tabs. So there's a read tab. And
what they've done is they've combined all of the reading
features into that tab. So you have the short text mode,
but if you want it use the document mode. You
can tap the take picture button. Um, and also the
handwriting recognition has been added into or combined into that tab.
(07:12):
You've then got the describe tab, which has all of
the sort of image description features available there. So things
like the photo and video description, the AI feature where
you can ask it about the image, that kind of thing.
And then there's a more tab, and the more tab
(07:32):
is laid out, much like the, the, the sort of
the previous layout. So there's pretty much anything that doesn't
fit into either reading or description. Uh, it gets put
into the more tab and you can swipe up through
the different options. There's the things like the world thing,
which allows you to pan around with the camera and
(07:53):
have things described to you. There's the light detector and
the color detector and so on. So it's well worth
sort of having a bit of a look around because
the the layout has changed, the functionality hasn't. But what
they've tried to do is just group all of the
features that sort of do similar things or are complementary
to one another into these different tabs. So it does.
(08:15):
It is a much cleaner interface. It does make a
lot of sense, but the first time I looked at it,
I thought, hang on, what's going on here? And it
confused me for a couple of minutes. So well worth
a bit of a look around before you sort of
need to use it in a hurry, just so that
you know what's happening.
S1 (08:29):
I found it interesting going back to seeing AI after
not having been there for quite some time, and I
was reminded that it's very important when we see these
things to go back to them, because you can forget
about all the wonderful tricks that are buried away in there.
S2 (08:45):
Absolutely. You know, and these things are evolving at a
quite an alarming rate. So even if you look at
an app and you think, well, maybe that's not for
me at the moment, it's always worth checking back every
now and then because things do change. And seeing AI
particularly is one that is evolving quite rapidly.
S1 (09:03):
So that's seeing AI from Microsoft. There's a new Apple
app that you discovered a thing called invites I n
v I t e s.
S2 (09:15):
That's right. And this one is for those of you
who like to party, which, incidentally, isn't this grey haired
old bloke. But, um, the concept is interesting nonetheless. So
the idea of this is if you're having an event,
you know, like a, you know, I don't know, an
engagement party, a birthday party, whatever it might be. You
can use the app to send out your invites and
(09:38):
you can, um, you know, import photos and sort of
personalize the invites. Or you can develop something using the
new Image Playground feature if you want. Uh, so you
can you can send out the invites, you can track the,
the replies as to who's coming and who's not. You can, uh,
(09:58):
send out directions and weather and things like that so
you can send out like a, you know, a map
to help people, uh, find the place. You can set
up a playlist that people can add songs to. So
an Apple Music playlist so people can, uh, you know,
add their, their choice of music for the party and
all of that kind of thing. so very useful potentially
(10:20):
for those of you that have a busy social life
and have lots of gatherings of one form or another.
There are a couple of caveats, as there often are
with these things. So in order to actually send out
the invites and have all of the the features available,
you do have to have an iCloud plus subscription. And
if you want to do the collaborative playlist thing, obviously
(10:42):
you need access to Apple Music. However, you don't need
that iCloud plus subscription to receive the invites to respond
to them. Those kinds of things you don't even need
to be. I think on the Apple ecosystem, you can
be an Android user and still respond to the invite
and say whether you're going and view the maps and
(11:03):
those sorts of things. So, yeah, for the socialites among you, um,
it might be something well worth having a look at.
As one would expect from Apple, it is very accessible.
I haven't obviously had a chance to test it out
in a practical sense yet. If I'd had it 3
or 4 weeks ago when I when I had my
50th birthday party. It might have been useful, but, uh,
it'll be another ten years before I need to do that. But, uh,
(11:24):
I've had a bit of a look at it, and
it certainly looks very accessible and quite interesting.
S1 (11:29):
I must say. It can be a bit challenging when
you receive an invitation and it's come from messenger or somewhere,
and you think, how am I supposed to respond to this?
Sometimes it's a bit hit and miss whether you pick
up those sorts of invitations, but not everybody's going to
be using this app, of course, but it seems an
interesting step forward. The invites app from Apple.
S2 (11:48):
That's right. And you can of course download that just
from the Apple App Store as you would any other
iOS type app.
S1 (11:55):
Daymo. We haven't for a while reminded people about a
very useful service from Vision Australia, which is the help desk.
S2 (12:02):
Yes, that's always worth keeping in mind. So the At
help desk is a free service for people to access, uh,
phone and email support. Uh, you can ring the main
vision Australia number one 384 746. Or you can email
ATC help at Vision Australia. Org and the team are
(12:24):
all themselves blind or low vision. They all use all
of this tech on a daily basis. And so for any,
you know, just general tech advice or if you know,
all of a sudden your assistive tech stops working and
you need some help, well worth giving the At help
desk a try. They're available Monday to Friday, 830 till
(12:44):
six Australian Eastern Daylight Time.
S1 (12:47):
So you've got some boundaries around the scope. It's got
to be an eight or assistive access technology issue.
S2 (12:54):
That's right. You know we can't help you with your,
you know, perhaps your printer or your internet or your router,
those kinds of things. But if it's to do with,
you know, your screen reader, your screen magnifier, your the
accessible features on your phone, even Braille devices and those
sorts of things, we can definitely do our best to help.
S1 (13:15):
We must talk some time about the challenge of that
broader problem of getting IT support for your home system
because it is challenging for people sometimes, isn't it?
S2 (13:26):
Yes, we are lucky that we have things like Be
My Eyes and IRA that can help us in that situation,
but it's still a frustrating experience.
S1 (13:34):
A lot better than a few years ago.
S2 (13:36):
Definitely.
S1 (13:37):
Before we go, a reminder there are details of this
and previous editions of the program available by going to
VA radio, Talking Tech, VA radio, Talking Tech, and to
right to the program.
S2 (13:52):
You can send me an email Damodar m o m
m o r o w at Vision australia.org and I
really appreciate those that have emailed in.
S1 (14:05):
Damien McMorrow at Vision Australia. This has been talking tech
with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager
Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Stay safe. We'll talk more
tech next week.
S3 (14:18):
See you.
Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
February the 11th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly. Great to have
you with us listening maybe through Vision Australia Radio, associated
stations of the Radio Reading Network or the Community Radio Network.
There is also the podcast. To catch that, all you
need to do is search for the two words talking tech.
(00:30):
And it can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
your Siri device or smart speaker to play. Vision Australia
radio talking tech podcast. Vision Australia radio talking tech podcast
with me. Vision Australia's national access technology manager Damien McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2 (00:50):
G'day, Stephen.
S1 (00:51):
You were ahead of the rest of the country last week. Maybe.
Let's catch up with what the country's been advised by
the government in relation to deep seek.
S2 (01:02):
Yes. So we talked a little bit about deep seek
last week. It is the Chinese developed AI tool. And
I mentioned that there was, you know, a little bit
of concern around Silicon Valley because they've said that they
can do it with much cheaper infrastructure than platforms like
(01:22):
ChatGPT and so on, but that there were some concerns
around its security. And as a follow up to that,
I saw earlier this week that the Australian federal government
has blocked access to deep sea on all of their
devices and from all of their networks. So I suspect
their concerns are probably well founded, or at least serious
(01:45):
enough that they've felt it necessary to implement that.
S1 (01:49):
And in that statement announcing that they were making sure
it couldn't be on any government devices, they're advising people
not to have it on their own private devices as well.
I think the message is don't swim outside the flags
where it's not being patrolled.
S2 (02:04):
Absolutely. Yeah, I think, you know, certainly it is a
bit of a venture into the unknown.
S1 (02:09):
So that's deep seek. Many people may not yet be
aware of a recently commenced podcast. A technology podcast from
the National Federation of the blind in the United States
called Access On. It's hosted by Jonathan Mohsin, and in
(02:29):
last week's edition, he had a feature conversation with representatives
from Blazing Technologies. You heard it.
S2 (02:39):
Yes, yes I did. Some of the stuff, obviously, you know,
some of us were already aware of. Those of us
who have been experimenting around with the BT speak for
a while. So they talked about its history and a
little bit about the company and the fact that it
is a family company. But the thing that was potentially
quite exciting was their plans to release a almost like
(03:01):
a modern day Braille light. So they're calling it the
BT Braille. So it'll have similar functionality to the BT speak,
but it will have refreshable Braille. So they are saying
that initially they'll have a 20 cell version, and then
later on they'll release a 40 cell version. It'll still
be Raspberry Pi based, although it'll use a slightly more
(03:25):
up to date module than the BT speak. And they're
aiming at a price point of around about 3,500 USD,
which will probably be substantially more by the time it's
landed here. But, you know, interesting that you know, that
it's something that they are looking at and that they
have in development because they do say that whereas most
(03:50):
of the other braille products that are on the market
are either a braille display or a braille note taker,
they describe these as a pocket computer because of all
of the things that you can do with it. So
I think, you know, it'll be interesting to see how
that one develops and the level of interest in it. Um,
(04:10):
you know, it won't be for everybody because it's it'll
be Linux based as the BT speak is. And that
tends to, you know, put some people off. But, uh, yeah,
I think it has the potential to be an interesting product.
And I'm hoping that at some point, perhaps when I
go to CSUN, I can have a look at one
and report back.
S1 (04:28):
Yes. That'll be very interesting. A fascinating company, really. Blazie technologies,
a company founded by Dean Blazie and his three sons, Chris,
Steven and Brian, worked for him. We say sons, their
70s babies. So they're they're quite experienced. And it was
(04:50):
Brian Blazie who was a guest, along with David Goldfield,
who also works for Blazie Technologies. And it was interesting
how they talked about their approach and the features they're
looking at introducing and various things, including, as you say,
the BT Braille, which is maybe a year or so away.
S2 (05:09):
And well worth a listen, I think if you're curious
about the BT speak and potentially the BT Braille.
S1 (05:16):
That was on access on from the National Federation of
the blind, you can find it the usual way that
you seek out your podcasts. Now let's talk about seeing I,
for one, haven't visited it for a little while, but
you sent me there recently. It's certainly changed from its
(05:37):
earlier days.
S2 (05:39):
It has. It's evolved quite a lot. We talked a
couple of months ago on the program about, you know,
the feature that you could use to have videos described
to you. So it is still actively being developed. But
one of the things that I wanted to mention is
the fact that the, the, the interface or the layout
(05:59):
of the program has sort of had a bit of
a makeover.
S1 (06:03):
So this comes from Microsoft, doesn't it?
S2 (06:05):
That's right. It's a free application from Microsoft. A lot
of people use it. It has, you know, short text mode,
a document mode, um, you know, for reading, uh, printed text.
It has the ability to describe people. Um, it has
a photo and video description function. It has a light detector,
a color detector, a whole bunch of different features. And
(06:28):
the way it used to work was that as you
swipe through the screen, you had a selector where you
could swipe up and down and select different channels. They
call each feature a channel rather than a, you know,
a function or a feature. What they've done now is
they've changed the layout of the product. So when you
first run it, after you've done the update, you'll notice
(06:49):
there are three tabs. So there's a read tab. And
what they've done is they've combined all of the reading
features into that tab. So you have the short text mode,
but if you want it use the document mode. You
can tap the take picture button. Um, and also the
handwriting recognition has been added into or combined into that tab.
(07:12):
You've then got the describe tab, which has all of
the sort of image description features available there. So things
like the photo and video description, the AI feature where
you can ask it about the image, that kind of thing.
And then there's a more tab, and the more tab
(07:32):
is laid out, much like the, the, the sort of
the previous layout. So there's pretty much anything that doesn't
fit into either reading or description. Uh, it gets put
into the more tab and you can swipe up through
the different options. There's the things like the world thing,
which allows you to pan around with the camera and
(07:53):
have things described to you. There's the light detector and
the color detector and so on. So it's well worth
sort of having a bit of a look around because
the the layout has changed, the functionality hasn't. But what
they've tried to do is just group all of the
features that sort of do similar things or are complementary
to one another into these different tabs. So it does.
(08:15):
It is a much cleaner interface. It does make a
lot of sense, but the first time I looked at it,
I thought, hang on, what's going on here? And it
confused me for a couple of minutes. So well worth
a bit of a look around before you sort of
need to use it in a hurry, just so that
you know what's happening.
S1 (08:29):
I found it interesting going back to seeing AI after
not having been there for quite some time, and I
was reminded that it's very important when we see these
things to go back to them, because you can forget
about all the wonderful tricks that are buried away in there.
S2 (08:45):
Absolutely. You know, and these things are evolving at a
quite an alarming rate. So even if you look at
an app and you think, well, maybe that's not for
me at the moment, it's always worth checking back every
now and then because things do change. And seeing AI
particularly is one that is evolving quite rapidly.
S1 (09:03):
So that's seeing AI from Microsoft. There's a new Apple
app that you discovered a thing called invites I n
v I t e s.
S2 (09:15):
That's right. And this one is for those of you
who like to party, which, incidentally, isn't this grey haired
old bloke. But, um, the concept is interesting nonetheless. So
the idea of this is if you're having an event,
you know, like a, you know, I don't know, an
engagement party, a birthday party, whatever it might be. You
can use the app to send out your invites and
(09:38):
you can, um, you know, import photos and sort of
personalize the invites. Or you can develop something using the
new Image Playground feature if you want. Uh, so you
can you can send out the invites, you can track the,
the replies as to who's coming and who's not. You can, uh,
(09:58):
send out directions and weather and things like that so
you can send out like a, you know, a map
to help people, uh, find the place. You can set
up a playlist that people can add songs to. So
an Apple Music playlist so people can, uh, you know,
add their, their choice of music for the party and
all of that kind of thing. so very useful potentially
(10:20):
for those of you that have a busy social life
and have lots of gatherings of one form or another.
There are a couple of caveats, as there often are
with these things. So in order to actually send out
the invites and have all of the the features available,
you do have to have an iCloud plus subscription. And
if you want to do the collaborative playlist thing, obviously
(10:42):
you need access to Apple Music. However, you don't need
that iCloud plus subscription to receive the invites to respond
to them. Those kinds of things you don't even need
to be. I think on the Apple ecosystem, you can
be an Android user and still respond to the invite
and say whether you're going and view the maps and
(11:03):
those sorts of things. So, yeah, for the socialites among you, um,
it might be something well worth having a look at.
As one would expect from Apple, it is very accessible.
I haven't obviously had a chance to test it out
in a practical sense yet. If I'd had it 3
or 4 weeks ago when I when I had my
50th birthday party. It might have been useful, but, uh,
it'll be another ten years before I need to do that. But, uh,
(11:24):
I've had a bit of a look at it, and
it certainly looks very accessible and quite interesting.
S1 (11:29):
I must say. It can be a bit challenging when
you receive an invitation and it's come from messenger or somewhere,
and you think, how am I supposed to respond to this?
Sometimes it's a bit hit and miss whether you pick
up those sorts of invitations, but not everybody's going to
be using this app, of course, but it seems an
interesting step forward. The invites app from Apple.
S2 (11:48):
That's right. And you can of course download that just
from the Apple App Store as you would any other
iOS type app.
S1 (11:55):
Daymo. We haven't for a while reminded people about a
very useful service from Vision Australia, which is the help desk.
S2 (12:02):
Yes, that's always worth keeping in mind. So the At
help desk is a free service for people to access, uh,
phone and email support. Uh, you can ring the main
vision Australia number one 384 746. Or you can email
ATC help at Vision Australia. Org and the team are
(12:24):
all themselves blind or low vision. They all use all
of this tech on a daily basis. And so for any,
you know, just general tech advice or if you know,
all of a sudden your assistive tech stops working and
you need some help, well worth giving the At help
desk a try. They're available Monday to Friday, 830 till
(12:44):
six Australian Eastern Daylight Time.
S1 (12:47):
So you've got some boundaries around the scope. It's got
to be an eight or assistive access technology issue.
S2 (12:54):
That's right. You know we can't help you with your,
you know, perhaps your printer or your internet or your router,
those kinds of things. But if it's to do with,
you know, your screen reader, your screen magnifier, your the
accessible features on your phone, even Braille devices and those
sorts of things, we can definitely do our best to help.
S1 (13:15):
We must talk some time about the challenge of that
broader problem of getting IT support for your home system
because it is challenging for people sometimes, isn't it?
S2 (13:26):
Yes, we are lucky that we have things like Be
My Eyes and IRA that can help us in that situation,
but it's still a frustrating experience.
S1 (13:34):
A lot better than a few years ago.
S2 (13:36):
Definitely.
S1 (13:37):
Before we go, a reminder there are details of this
and previous editions of the program available by going to
VA radio, Talking Tech, VA radio, Talking Tech, and to
right to the program.
S2 (13:52):
You can send me an email Damodar m o m
m o r o w at Vision australia.org and I
really appreciate those that have emailed in.
S1 (14:05):
Damien McMorrow at Vision Australia. This has been talking tech
with me has been Vision Australia's national access technology manager
Damien McMorrow. I'm Stephen Jolly. Stay safe. We'll talk more
tech next week.
S3 (14:18):
See you.
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Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.