All Episodes

February 17, 2025 • 14 mins

This week we cover:

  • News of the WeWALK Smart Cane 2 with more information available at wewalk.io;
  • A little about Damo’s YouTube channel, including how he produces content with explanation of overcoming the challenges involved for a person who is blind. Damo’s channel can be found at youtube.com/@theblindtestdrive;
  • News of the Be My Eyes app, including the availability of a ‘read aloud’ feature.

 

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

Support this Vision Australia Radio program: https://www.visionaustralia.org/donate?src=radio&type=0&_ga=2.182040610.46191917.1644183916-1718358749.1627963141

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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 18th, 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

(00:28):
tech and Denikin will come usually on a Tuesday afternoon
just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask
a 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. Damo McMorrow. Hey, Damo. G'day, Stephen.

(00:51):
Let's talk today firstly about a mobility device. And for
some time, I guess for several years now we've been
waiting for a cane or something like it with some
intelligence in it. and at last one seems to have dropped.

S2 (01:09):
Yes, this is the walk. Smart cane two. They did
do a sort of a previous iteration of it, but
this one is quite impressive for a number of reasons.
First of all, it looks and feels like a standard
white cane. Some of the others that I've seen in
the past have either been insanely heavy and clunky looking,

(01:30):
or they've been a little bit light and a little
bit flimsy, whereas this really does feel a lot like
a conventional long cane. There are a couple of notable differences.
All of the smarts are kind of built into the
handle of the cane, but the previous version of the
walk had a sort of a touch surface, whereas this one,

(01:52):
they've actually gone with tactile buttons, which I think is
quite nice given the way that most of us would
would use a cane. Now, I would stress that I'm
predominantly a seeing eye dog user, but having said that,
I am actually quite intrigued by this one myself.

S1 (02:08):
You've held one in your hand, haven't you?

S2 (02:10):
I have, yes, yes. I haven't actually had a chance
to put it through its paces, per se, but I
have actually had my hands on it. Yes. So we've
got a series of buttons on the the grip, if
you like. At the end of the grip, there is
a Harman Kardon speaker which gives you audio feedback. And
there is also a sensor for the overhead obstacle detection.

(02:35):
The device pairs to your phone via the WI Walk app,
and you can then use it for things like GPS directions.
And also it has a what they're calling an intelligent assistant. Um,
so you can ask it, you know, about your surroundings
and those kinds of things. And you can also get
public transport information, which utilizes the the Moovit app and

(02:58):
the information that it has. So it I think it
has the potential to be quite an impressive and very
useful travel companion.

S1 (03:07):
It looks good when you read about it on the
On the website and there's a few demos available. I
haven't seen a lot of them yet. The place to
go to with Dot zero. Zero. And normally when it's
written down, it's capital W and capital W, but all
the one word, if you know what I mean. So

(03:27):
that's worth exploring. Uh, it looks like it's going to
cost somewhere over $1,000, but not too bad.

S2 (03:34):
No, not too bad, considering what they've packed into it.
I think that's probably pretty reasonable.

S1 (03:38):
Um, and, uh, you can order it online, but go
to the website. Well. And good luck.

S2 (03:46):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to putting one through its paces
properly and taking it for a walk and seeing what
I think of it.

S1 (03:51):
So that's the we walk w. Let's talk YouTube now.
YouTube's been around for years, and for many of us
it's a go to place. If you think there might
be some audio about such and such, maybe even from
a long time ago. And that's where you go is
to YouTube. But now people like Damo McMorrow and many

(04:14):
others are creating their own content for YouTube. Tell us
about all that, Damo.

S2 (04:21):
Sure. So you can access YouTube, obviously through a website.
So you can just go to youtube.com, or you can
download the YouTube app on your smartphone and access it
that way. And some of the Braille devices also have
a dedicated YouTube streaming app. For years it's it's been
a platform where people could create video content for others

(04:44):
to watch. And there's all sorts. There's millions and millions
of videos available there on all manner of things. But
I sort of got interested in creating content a little
while ago, and it sort of became a bit of
a holiday project. What I wanted to do was to
show some of the things that my wife and I
do with our caravan and our boat and our meat

(05:04):
smoker and things like that, because a lot of people
ask us, you know, how do you as a blind couple,
how do you manage a caravan and that kind of thing?
So that's sort of what I wanted to do. But
there was a bit of a learning curve in terms of,
first of all, how do you get your content there?
And you can do that a couple of different ways.
There's a white studio app for your phone. Um, or

(05:26):
you can do it via the the website as well. Um,
by going to the there's like a number of tabs,
there's subscriptions and there's a home tab and whatnot. And
there's one of those tabs is called you. And you
can go and set yourself up a YouTube channel and
add content. And you can also stream live as well
as showing sort of videos that you've made. So I

(05:47):
sort of had to figure that out. But then the
next challenge was sort of filming. As a blind person,
how do I know what I'm filming? How do I
make it work? And then sort of how do we
put it together?

S1 (05:57):
Um, so tell us about all that.

S2 (06:00):
Okay, so I've been experimenting with a few different, um,
ways of filming things. The simplest is using my Ray-Ban
meta glasses. That works extremely well in that the audio
quality is good and I and I can be reasonably confident.
That sort of where my face is pointing is where
it's filming. The limitation of using the glasses, though, is

(06:20):
that you've you can only record a three minute video
at a time, and sometimes you obviously want to do
a longer video than that. But for for short little clips,
using the Ray-Ban meta glasses works pretty well. And you
can stitch the video clips together, and I'll talk a
little bit about that in a moment. The other thing
I've experimented with is using a gimbal, which is a

(06:43):
essentially a holder that your iPhone fits into, and it
clips onto this device, and it has a sort of
a handle that you can hold onto, or you can
screw a tripod onto the bottom of it. And the
idea is that the gimbal keeps the phone level. So
you can do you can use that in a couple
of different ways. You can walk along and film. The

(07:04):
gimbal itself has little motors, which keep the phone steady
and keep it level and remove any sort of, you know,
shake from your hand and that kind of thing. But
the other thing that you can do with it is
if you want to be in shot, you can set
the gimbal up so that it follows you. So there's
a feature in the app you can turn on called
gesture mode, where you can start it recording by raising

(07:25):
your hand in like a stop gesture. And then when
you start it, if you're in shot, you can then
move around, you know, perhaps walk over and grab something
off another bench or a shelf and the the phone
will kind of pivot around on the gimbal and follow you.

S1 (07:39):
And what about your voice? Will that come through clearly
enough seeing you're away from the microphone?

S2 (07:43):
Yes, you can use the phone or you can Bluetooth
some additional microphones to it. There are a number of
different lapel mics and different ways of configuring microphones. Um,
so that that works. There are a couple of funny
things with the DJI app, which is the one I've got.
It's a DJI Mimo gimbal. There are a couple of

(08:03):
gotchas with it that I've had to figure out ways
of working around where if you tap on the wrong thing,
you can very quickly end up doing a slo mo
video or something instead of a normal speed. So you
do have to be a little bit careful, but it
does work and I use that for when I want
to talk to camera and introduce the video and talk
about what I'm going to be doing. Um, the other

(08:24):
bit of equipment I'm using is a GoPro, um, which
is a little action camera. They're they're only quite small.
They're sort of a little square box. And you can
mount them on a number of different things. I use
mine on a head mount, so it sort of sits
on my forehead. But you can also use them in
a chest harness. You can use them on a, you know,
a bike helmet, um, or you can attach them to

(08:45):
the front of your boat or your jetski or your car.
They work quite well because they're a one touch sort
of thing to turn them on and off, and they
are very good at sort of capturing stuff where you're
moving around and that kind of thing. And there's hundreds
of different ways of, of mounting those so you can
start them recording and then forget about them. And I
use that if I'm recording a video where I'm cooking

(09:07):
or I'm walking around the caravan demonstrating something, you know,
that kind of thing. Um, so that's the technology that
I've been playing with so far. The challenge has been
just in in learning how to position things so that
I know that what I think is in shot is
actually in shot. And that's just been a little bit
of practice and getting some feedback from people on what
I'm filming and whether it's worked or not, but I

(09:29):
feel like I'm getting more confident.

S1 (09:31):
That was going to be. My question, too, is how
do you get that feedback from people quickly? If you're
out on your own with your wife, who's also blind,
how do you get that feedback?

S2 (09:40):
Um, well, my brother is also a YouTuber, and he's
been very helpful and actually got me the gimbal for
Christmas and helped me sort of set things up. So
I've kind of been sending him a link before I
publish the content and saying, can you just check this
and make sure I haven't done anything silly? I'm finding
as I get used to it and I understand the
camera angles, I need to ask him less and less.

S1 (09:59):
Um, any other software you want to tell us about?

S2 (10:02):
Yes. So obviously, once you've recorded your video clips, the
thing is being able to put them all together and
there are a couple of really accessible options for us.
One is iMovie, which is available on the Mac and
on the iPhone. If you're using the GoPro or the
gimbal Bull or the meta glasses. Everything gets sort of
sent to your phone so you can grab all your
different clips and put them in the order you want,

(10:25):
and then export it out to YouTube or export it
out to a file, depending on what you want to do.
The other one I've been using quite a bit and
it's very nice as well, is Clipchamp for windows, which
is a free Microsoft app, and I've only just sort
of tapped into a couple of the things that it
can do, but it works really well as well for
stitching your content together, your clips together. It works very

(10:47):
nicely with jaws and Nvda and even. Narrator if you're
a screen reader user. So yeah, it's nice that there
are some accessible tools out there and you can set
it up now using AI. There are features where you
can get it to transition nicely from one clip to another,
so that all the transitions are nice and smooth and
that sort of thing.

S1 (11:06):
People will be curious to find out how all this
comes out. So where can they go to catch up
with it?

S2 (11:13):
You can go to youtube.com and then the At sign
and the blind test drive. All one word. So that's
at the blind test drive. Or you can just search
for at the blind test drive in the YouTube app.
And then when the channel comes up, there's an option
there to subscribe. And that way whenever I put new

(11:35):
content up, you'll be able to find it easily.

S1 (11:38):
Thanks for telling us about that, and we will keep
watching out for what you're doing, and perhaps have another
chat sometime about what you're up to with your YouTube
creation amongst the thousands, if not millions of others out
there who are doing it.

S2 (11:50):
It's been a real learning curve for me though, so
I'm happy to sort of share what I'm learning, you know,
in the hope that it might inspire other blind or
low vision content creators out there. So as I learn
more about what to do and what works and what doesn't, um,
I'm happy to check back in, you know, from time
to time and share that information around.

S1 (12:09):
We were talking last week about keeping in touch with
apps that have been around for a little while. Be
My Eyes has had a facelift.

S2 (12:18):
It has, and I haven't had a chance to have
a really good look at that yet. But one of
the quite interesting features is that it now has a
read aloud feature, which means that if you don't use
a screen reader, you know, perhaps you use your phone,
but you use things like speak selection, or you might
use zoom or that kind of thing. Some of the
other accessibility features. There is a read aloud feature to

(12:41):
speak out, descriptions and and those sorts of things now.
So it does make the app potentially more useful to
someone who maybe doesn't want to turn VoiceOver on in
order to be able to use it.

S1 (12:51):
It won me over with the Be My Eye feature
when that came out, or about 18 months or so ago.

S2 (12:59):
Yeah, I really love that too. Um, and of course,
now you can also access the Be My Eyes caller
volunteer feature through. If you've got a set of Ray-Ban
meta glasses, you can access that hands free rather than
just through the camera on your phone, which is nice
if you're navigating airports and those sorts of things.

S1 (13:17):
And we should explain be my eye is where you
can submit a photograph, or it can even take the
photograph for you, and then it'll give you a very
detailed AI description of that photograph.

S2 (13:31):
And you can also ask questions so you can say
things like, is this photo straight? Is the is the
cat in this photo clearly in shot?

S1 (13:39):
That's been my eyes. Go and have another look at
it before we go. A reminder that there are details
of what we've been talking about in this program and
in previous editions on VA. VA. And to write to us.

S2 (13:57):
Damo. At.

S1 (14:06):
Damo at this has been talking tech with me has
been vision Australia's national access technology manager Damo McMorrow I'm
Stephen Jolly. Stay safe. We'll talk more tech next week.

S3 (14:18):
See you.
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