April 14, 2025 • 15 mins
This week we cover:
- The recently introduced Projects function included in ChatGPT for both the online and mobile app environments;
- The ‘dictate’ function in the AI tool of Freedom Scientific known as FS Companion;
- A prototype haptic device for following live sport, known as One Court which was on show at the recent CSUN Assistive Technology conference;
- Damo’s account of his back up power system, to contend with the impact of Cyclone Alfred.
To access the program, presented each week 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
April the 15th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly, great to have
you with us listening 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.
(00:29):
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 manager. Access technology. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2 (00:50):
G'day, Stephen.
S1 (00:51):
Let's start by talking about another AI advance. This one
with ChatGPT.
S2 (00:59):
You might remember a few episodes ago we talked a
little bit about notebook LLM and the fact that it
was an AI powered research assistant that allowed you to
add sort of content related to a particular topic into notebooks. Well,
ChatGPT have now sort of copied that functionality. They call
them projects. The idea is that if you're doing research
(01:22):
on a particular topic, you ask a number of questions.
You can put those answers into a project, and then
you can go back to that at a later date
and open that project up and continue asking questions, uh,
or doing doing further research. And what it does is
it will remember the things that you've uploaded in relation
to that project. So you might have uploaded pictures or
(01:45):
manuals or any number of other things, and it'll also
remember the information that it's already given you so that
you can build on that. It allows you to sort
of group the content, um, because, you know, people use
these things a lot and for a number of different things,
and sometimes you want to go back to it, you know,
particularly if you're using it for coding or, you know,
(02:05):
using it for information about a piece of radio equipment,
which is one of my primary uses. You know, what's
the the keyboard layout for this? How do you enter
a frequency here? Those kinds of things. You know, I
could I could set up a project for a particular
piece of radio equipment and gradually build on it as
I discover that I need to know more information. So
(02:26):
quite a handy feature. And it is available in both
the web version of ChatGPT and also the ChatGPT app
that you can access from your smartphone.
S1 (02:36):
That sounds like a good way of keeping track of
what you've asked before.
S2 (02:42):
Definitely. I think you'll find it handy, given that you've
been using it quite a bit for Linux and that
kind of thing. You can sort of go back to
it and group all of your little, you know, interesting
tidbits about Linux that you've picked up.
S1 (02:53):
So let's just recap again for everyone. That one.
S2 (02:56):
So it is uh, a feature called projects and it
is part of ChatGPT. So you can add particular answers,
questions and answers, or things that you've uploaded to a
project and give it a name so that you can
go back to it at a later date.
S1 (03:12):
A ChatGPT subscription would be required for this feature.
S2 (03:15):
Yes, I believe so. At this stage, yes, they may,
as they often do, sort of move it down to
the free tier at some point, but at this stage
I believe it's a paid feature.
S1 (03:26):
Let's talk about another AI tool now, a sort of
closer to home. It's from Freedom Scientific, EFF's companion.
S2 (03:34):
Yes, this is just a little tip for people. The
EFF's companion feature is something that came out with Jaws
and Fusion 2025, and it allows you to ask questions
about those products. So, for example, if you wanted to
know how do I name row and column titles in
Excel enjoys, you could go jaws Keyspace followed by F1
(03:57):
and it'll pop up the FFS companion webpage and you
can type your question in, press enter and it will
come back with a detailed instructions on how to do that.
So it's a lot more comprehensive than the old command search.
What this tip involves is the fact that you can
also ask your question via voice. So you can go
(04:19):
jaws keyspace followed by F1 and then go alt shift
D to activate the dictate button. Speak your question alt
shift D again to stop the dictation and then tab
across and press enter to send the query. So where
you might use this is if you're not exactly sure
how to spell something. Putting it into the keyboard with
(04:42):
the keyboard might mean that you end up with results
you don't want, or it might be that you just
have a really quick question and you just want an
answer very fast. Sometimes doing it by voice can be helpful,
particularly if you're not the world's fastest typist. Or it
might just be that for what you're trying to do
at the time, that's the easiest way to get it done.
(05:04):
It's always nice to have options. There are situations when
you might want to type it in, because that ensures
that it is spelt correctly and you don't have to
think about, will that understand what I'm saying here? That
kind of thing. But it's it's nice to have the
option to be able to do it by voice if
you need to or you want to. So again, alt
shift D to bring up the dictate button. Speak your
(05:26):
question alt shift D again to stop dictation and then
tab across to the the send button.
S1 (05:33):
Some people may not have used FS companion, it's for freedom.
Scientific product users. Tell us more about what it can
provide you with.
S2 (05:42):
Well, as I said, it can be useful if you
are doing things like if you want to know what
the Jaws command or the fusion command is for something,
it will also provide help on Microsoft products. So you
might want to know how to do something in outlook,
for example, or Excel or Word. Uh, you may want
to know things like, you know, how do I create
(06:03):
alt text? Anything really to do with, um, the, the
Vespero products, your Microsoft products, even windows? Very useful for
keyboard shortcuts and, uh, you know, just general information like
that that you may, you know, for commands that you
may not use every day and may not have memorized
that kind of thing. Also, if you can't remember where
(06:24):
something is in a menu, is the settings center in
the utilities menu or the options menu, you can ask
where do I find the settings center in Jaws, for example.
S1 (06:33):
PFS companion from Freedom Scientific. Now, when you were at CSUN,
you saw lots of devices and you've been telling us
about some of those. There's one that you haven't told
us about yet and that's called one court.
S2 (06:51):
That's right. One court. The idea of this is it's
a way to experience what's happening with the sports game
using haptics. So it's a touch device, probably about the
size of an iPad, and it has different rubber overlays
that go over the top of it to represent different, uh,
types of sports courts. So whether it's a basketball court
(07:13):
or a football one or a baseball pitch or whatever
it might be, and so it has tactile markers that
indicate where the, the relevant points are, like the goalposts
or the, the hoop or whatever it might be on
a basketball court. And the idea then is that you
place both hands on the surface and you can feel
what's happening and whereabouts on the court the play is happening.
(07:36):
It is, I think, in prototype at this stage. We
don't certainly don't have it here yet, but I think
it would be a really interesting one for cricket or
AFL or any of those things. The nice thing about this,
because there was a trial or a device that was
in prototype a little while ago that they were trialing
with the AFL. But the nice thing about this one
(07:57):
is that it is very much real time. So it'll respond,
you know, within half a second of the the play
actually happening. So you don't have the latency that you
have with the, the other one whose name I can't remember.
And also the idea is you'll be able to use
this at home. You don't have to take it to
the game. In fact, the demo that I saw, they
(08:18):
were actually just had a couple of pre-recorded, you know,
videoed sections of a of a baseball game, for example,
and it was able to follow based on that. I
think it's one that will be worth watching, Stephen, as
as time goes on. And I do hope that at
some point we get it here in Australia.
S1 (08:35):
Yes, it's good to see that there are a number
of players having a go at this, providing people with
coverage of events through a different lens, as it were,
to supplement or complement the radio commentary. So we'll we'll
keep an eye out on that one, particularly if it's
a device that can be used from home. I reckon
that'll make a real difference.
S2 (08:56):
Definitely. I think so too. And if we ever do
get AFL or cricket covered here using it, I will
definitely be buying one.
S1 (09:05):
So this particular one is called one quart.
S2 (09:08):
That's right. One quart. Yep.
S1 (09:11):
Now, Damo, to something I've been meaning to ask you
about for over a month, but you've been very busy.
Cyclone Alfred, uh, impacted on a lot of people up
in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. And I
was one of those thinking of my blind friends, uh,
surviving through that incredible ordeal. Tell us how it was
(09:37):
for you and your wife, Marion, and in particular, what
you did in the technology space?
S2 (09:44):
Good question. We, I think, were fairly well prepared, and
we're probably a little bit lucky in that we had
some of the technology because of our interest in caravanning
and camping. But we did lose power. But what we
were able to do was we a couple of years ago,
just as a preventative measure, because we do get sort
(10:04):
of summer storms and things that will take our power
out from time to time. I got a transfer switch
fitted into our power box at home. So it's a
three position switch. The top position is mains power, the
middle position is off, and the bottom position allows me
to connect a generator and run some of the circuits
(10:25):
in our house. We've then got a portable generator, which
for someone who hasn't seen them, the modern inverter generators
are pretty safe for us to use. They look a
little bit like a large plastic suitcase. Uh, the particular
one we have has a handle and some wheels so
you can pull it along. It has some power points
(10:46):
at one end, a fuel cap on the top and
a carry handle, a couple of Switches, and then your
recoil start and your stop levers on one side and
the exhaust at the other end. So there's really the
only part that's dangerous to touch. And it's only maybe
the diameter of a ten cent piece is the exhaust.
(11:07):
The rest of it is all cool touch and you're
not going to fry yourself. The idea is that we
use an extension lead plug the generator into the into
our power box. Flick the switch down. Start the generator
up and then we can run our kettle, the microwave,
the toaster, our talking induction hob, all of those sorts
(11:31):
of things. But more importantly, we can keep things like
the laptop running. We can keep our internet router going, uh,
you know, and we can charge our phones and our
battery operated radios and all of those things. So it
means you can keep your communication alive. You've still got
access to information. You know, we can sort of have
a keep the ABC on or whatever, and also that
(11:56):
we can keep our fridges and freezer running so that
we don't lose food and we're not worried about food spoilage.
So that made a massive difference to us, all of
those options. There are other ways you can do it.
There are some very sort of high capacity, uh, they
call them portable power stations that can do the same thing.
You can plug two 40 volt appliances and things in,
(12:18):
and they have a solar panel to charge. I guess
the beauty of the generator is if it's still raining,
you've still got power. And we can get about 8
or 9 hours to a four litre tank of fuel
on the generator. And then it's just a question of
refilling it from a jerry can with a spout or
using a siphon pump. So that made a massive difference
(12:40):
to us. Getting the transfer switch wasn't expensive. I think
it cost us about 6 or $700, and it just
meant that we could still cook, we could make sure
our food stayed fresh and we still had full communication
and and could keep all our devices charged. We were
without power for about two two and a half days,
and that would have been long enough for us to
(13:01):
potentially lose everything in the freezer. And it would have
been a long time to not be able to get
internet access to check on, you know, when our power
was coming back and what the weather was doing and
all of those sorts of things. So it definitely made
a big difference to us during that, that storm and
just the the peace of mind of, uh, feeling prepared
(13:24):
and knowing that, okay, if the power goes out, that's okay. We,
we we don't have to live on cold baked beans
for 2 or 3 days.
S1 (13:30):
If your mains power had been out for, say, a week,
would that still have been okay? Or could you only
go for 2 or 3 days this way?
S2 (13:38):
No. As long as I had enough fuel, um, I
can I could survive for as long as we needed. Really? Uh,
I had, I think about 30l of fuel, so I
had a few days worth of fuel, but my plan B,
if the power was out for longer, would have just
been to hop in a cab, find a service station
that had power, and and top up the jerry cans.
S1 (14:00):
Well, good on you, Daymo surviving cyclone Alfred. Before we go.
A reminder to people that you can find details of
what we've been talking about in this and previous editions
of the program by going to VA radio. VA. To
write to the program.
S2 (14:20):
You can email me. At Vision Australia.
S1 (14:31):
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.
See you.
Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from
April the 15th, 2025. I'm Stephen Jolly, great to have
you with us listening 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.
(00:29):
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 manager. Access technology. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo.
S2 (00:50):
G'day, Stephen.
S1 (00:51):
Let's start by talking about another AI advance. This one
with ChatGPT.
S2 (00:59):
You might remember a few episodes ago we talked a
little bit about notebook LLM and the fact that it
was an AI powered research assistant that allowed you to
add sort of content related to a particular topic into notebooks. Well,
ChatGPT have now sort of copied that functionality. They call
them projects. The idea is that if you're doing research
(01:22):
on a particular topic, you ask a number of questions.
You can put those answers into a project, and then
you can go back to that at a later date
and open that project up and continue asking questions, uh,
or doing doing further research. And what it does is
it will remember the things that you've uploaded in relation
to that project. So you might have uploaded pictures or
(01:45):
manuals or any number of other things, and it'll also
remember the information that it's already given you so that
you can build on that. It allows you to sort
of group the content, um, because, you know, people use
these things a lot and for a number of different things,
and sometimes you want to go back to it, you know,
particularly if you're using it for coding or, you know,
(02:05):
using it for information about a piece of radio equipment,
which is one of my primary uses. You know, what's
the the keyboard layout for this? How do you enter
a frequency here? Those kinds of things. You know, I
could I could set up a project for a particular
piece of radio equipment and gradually build on it as
I discover that I need to know more information. So
(02:26):
quite a handy feature. And it is available in both
the web version of ChatGPT and also the ChatGPT app
that you can access from your smartphone.
S1 (02:36):
That sounds like a good way of keeping track of
what you've asked before.
S2 (02:42):
Definitely. I think you'll find it handy, given that you've
been using it quite a bit for Linux and that
kind of thing. You can sort of go back to
it and group all of your little, you know, interesting
tidbits about Linux that you've picked up.
S1 (02:53):
So let's just recap again for everyone. That one.
S2 (02:56):
So it is uh, a feature called projects and it
is part of ChatGPT. So you can add particular answers,
questions and answers, or things that you've uploaded to a
project and give it a name so that you can
go back to it at a later date.
S1 (03:12):
A ChatGPT subscription would be required for this feature.
S2 (03:15):
Yes, I believe so. At this stage, yes, they may,
as they often do, sort of move it down to
the free tier at some point, but at this stage
I believe it's a paid feature.
S1 (03:26):
Let's talk about another AI tool now, a sort of
closer to home. It's from Freedom Scientific, EFF's companion.
S2 (03:34):
Yes, this is just a little tip for people. The
EFF's companion feature is something that came out with Jaws
and Fusion 2025, and it allows you to ask questions
about those products. So, for example, if you wanted to
know how do I name row and column titles in
Excel enjoys, you could go jaws Keyspace followed by F1
(03:57):
and it'll pop up the FFS companion webpage and you
can type your question in, press enter and it will
come back with a detailed instructions on how to do that.
So it's a lot more comprehensive than the old command search.
What this tip involves is the fact that you can
also ask your question via voice. So you can go
(04:19):
jaws keyspace followed by F1 and then go alt shift
D to activate the dictate button. Speak your question alt
shift D again to stop the dictation and then tab
across and press enter to send the query. So where
you might use this is if you're not exactly sure
how to spell something. Putting it into the keyboard with
(04:42):
the keyboard might mean that you end up with results
you don't want, or it might be that you just
have a really quick question and you just want an
answer very fast. Sometimes doing it by voice can be helpful,
particularly if you're not the world's fastest typist. Or it
might just be that for what you're trying to do
at the time, that's the easiest way to get it done.
(05:04):
It's always nice to have options. There are situations when
you might want to type it in, because that ensures
that it is spelt correctly and you don't have to
think about, will that understand what I'm saying here? That
kind of thing. But it's it's nice to have the
option to be able to do it by voice if
you need to or you want to. So again, alt
shift D to bring up the dictate button. Speak your
(05:26):
question alt shift D again to stop dictation and then
tab across to the the send button.
S1 (05:33):
Some people may not have used FS companion, it's for freedom.
Scientific product users. Tell us more about what it can
provide you with.
S2 (05:42):
Well, as I said, it can be useful if you
are doing things like if you want to know what
the Jaws command or the fusion command is for something,
it will also provide help on Microsoft products. So you
might want to know how to do something in outlook,
for example, or Excel or Word. Uh, you may want
to know things like, you know, how do I create
(06:03):
alt text? Anything really to do with, um, the, the
Vespero products, your Microsoft products, even windows? Very useful for
keyboard shortcuts and, uh, you know, just general information like
that that you may, you know, for commands that you
may not use every day and may not have memorized
that kind of thing. Also, if you can't remember where
(06:24):
something is in a menu, is the settings center in
the utilities menu or the options menu, you can ask
where do I find the settings center in Jaws, for example.
S1 (06:33):
PFS companion from Freedom Scientific. Now, when you were at CSUN,
you saw lots of devices and you've been telling us
about some of those. There's one that you haven't told
us about yet and that's called one court.
S2 (06:51):
That's right. One court. The idea of this is it's
a way to experience what's happening with the sports game
using haptics. So it's a touch device, probably about the
size of an iPad, and it has different rubber overlays
that go over the top of it to represent different, uh,
types of sports courts. So whether it's a basketball court
(07:13):
or a football one or a baseball pitch or whatever
it might be, and so it has tactile markers that
indicate where the, the relevant points are, like the goalposts
or the, the hoop or whatever it might be on
a basketball court. And the idea then is that you
place both hands on the surface and you can feel
what's happening and whereabouts on the court the play is happening.
(07:36):
It is, I think, in prototype at this stage. We
don't certainly don't have it here yet, but I think
it would be a really interesting one for cricket or
AFL or any of those things. The nice thing about this,
because there was a trial or a device that was
in prototype a little while ago that they were trialing
with the AFL. But the nice thing about this one
(07:57):
is that it is very much real time. So it'll respond,
you know, within half a second of the the play
actually happening. So you don't have the latency that you
have with the, the other one whose name I can't remember.
And also the idea is you'll be able to use
this at home. You don't have to take it to
the game. In fact, the demo that I saw, they
(08:18):
were actually just had a couple of pre-recorded, you know,
videoed sections of a of a baseball game, for example,
and it was able to follow based on that. I
think it's one that will be worth watching, Stephen, as
as time goes on. And I do hope that at
some point we get it here in Australia.
S1 (08:35):
Yes, it's good to see that there are a number
of players having a go at this, providing people with
coverage of events through a different lens, as it were,
to supplement or complement the radio commentary. So we'll we'll
keep an eye out on that one, particularly if it's
a device that can be used from home. I reckon
that'll make a real difference.
S2 (08:56):
Definitely. I think so too. And if we ever do
get AFL or cricket covered here using it, I will
definitely be buying one.
S1 (09:05):
So this particular one is called one quart.
S2 (09:08):
That's right. One quart. Yep.
S1 (09:11):
Now, Damo, to something I've been meaning to ask you
about for over a month, but you've been very busy.
Cyclone Alfred, uh, impacted on a lot of people up
in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. And I
was one of those thinking of my blind friends, uh,
surviving through that incredible ordeal. Tell us how it was
(09:37):
for you and your wife, Marion, and in particular, what
you did in the technology space?
S2 (09:44):
Good question. We, I think, were fairly well prepared, and
we're probably a little bit lucky in that we had
some of the technology because of our interest in caravanning
and camping. But we did lose power. But what we
were able to do was we a couple of years ago,
just as a preventative measure, because we do get sort
(10:04):
of summer storms and things that will take our power
out from time to time. I got a transfer switch
fitted into our power box at home. So it's a
three position switch. The top position is mains power, the
middle position is off, and the bottom position allows me
to connect a generator and run some of the circuits
(10:25):
in our house. We've then got a portable generator, which
for someone who hasn't seen them, the modern inverter generators
are pretty safe for us to use. They look a
little bit like a large plastic suitcase. Uh, the particular
one we have has a handle and some wheels so
you can pull it along. It has some power points
(10:46):
at one end, a fuel cap on the top and
a carry handle, a couple of Switches, and then your
recoil start and your stop levers on one side and
the exhaust at the other end. So there's really the
only part that's dangerous to touch. And it's only maybe
the diameter of a ten cent piece is the exhaust.
(11:07):
The rest of it is all cool touch and you're
not going to fry yourself. The idea is that we
use an extension lead plug the generator into the into
our power box. Flick the switch down. Start the generator
up and then we can run our kettle, the microwave,
the toaster, our talking induction hob, all of those sorts
(11:31):
of things. But more importantly, we can keep things like
the laptop running. We can keep our internet router going, uh,
you know, and we can charge our phones and our
battery operated radios and all of those things. So it
means you can keep your communication alive. You've still got
access to information. You know, we can sort of have
a keep the ABC on or whatever, and also that
(11:56):
we can keep our fridges and freezer running so that
we don't lose food and we're not worried about food spoilage.
So that made a massive difference to us, all of
those options. There are other ways you can do it.
There are some very sort of high capacity, uh, they
call them portable power stations that can do the same thing.
You can plug two 40 volt appliances and things in,
(12:18):
and they have a solar panel to charge. I guess
the beauty of the generator is if it's still raining,
you've still got power. And we can get about 8
or 9 hours to a four litre tank of fuel
on the generator. And then it's just a question of
refilling it from a jerry can with a spout or
using a siphon pump. So that made a massive difference
(12:40):
to us. Getting the transfer switch wasn't expensive. I think
it cost us about 6 or $700, and it just
meant that we could still cook, we could make sure
our food stayed fresh and we still had full communication
and and could keep all our devices charged. We were
without power for about two two and a half days,
and that would have been long enough for us to
(13:01):
potentially lose everything in the freezer. And it would have
been a long time to not be able to get
internet access to check on, you know, when our power
was coming back and what the weather was doing and
all of those sorts of things. So it definitely made
a big difference to us during that, that storm and
just the the peace of mind of, uh, feeling prepared
(13:24):
and knowing that, okay, if the power goes out, that's okay. We,
we we don't have to live on cold baked beans
for 2 or 3 days.
S1 (13:30):
If your mains power had been out for, say, a week,
would that still have been okay? Or could you only
go for 2 or 3 days this way?
S2 (13:38):
No. As long as I had enough fuel, um, I
can I could survive for as long as we needed. Really? Uh,
I had, I think about 30l of fuel, so I
had a few days worth of fuel, but my plan B,
if the power was out for longer, would have just
been to hop in a cab, find a service station
that had power, and and top up the jerry cans.
S1 (14:00):
Well, good on you, Daymo surviving cyclone Alfred. Before we go.
A reminder to people that you can find details of
what we've been talking about in this and previous editions
of the program by going to VA radio. VA. To
write to the program.
S2 (14:20):
You can email me. At Vision Australia.
S1 (14:31):
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.
See you.
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