Latest / Blind Guys Chat / #101: All Dots Up!

Transcript

#101: All Dots Up! · Blind Guys Chat

• 0:13
  Welcome to blind guys Chat, where this guy, Orin O'Neil.
• 0:17
  Hello.
• 0:18
  And this guy Jan Bloom.
• 0:20
  Hello.
• 0:22
  Talk about the a to z of life. Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And you are very, very welcome to episode 101.
• 0:36
  We made it already.
• 0:37
  We made it.
• 0:38
  Yeah.
• 0:38
  We actually thought we were gonna stop at 100. Yeah, because we are so old. Hope you enjoyed episode 100 of Blind Guys chat. I think it was a nice little show because we were having a good bit of crack and it was nice to reminisce.
• 0:50
  It was real fun. Yeah. Sit down with the guys.
• 0:52
  Yeah, well, Jan and I just come from listening to. Well, I presume you have listened to or have, because we didn't talk about this before we started recording. But have you. Do you know the results of the British Grand Prix, which I've just been watching?
• 1:07
  Yeah, I know. I think it was one of the old days, but I only heard about the final result that Hamilton won.
• 1:19
  Yes, that's right.
• 1:21
  But was it a big. It was not a good start also with Max, with his testing at the first days. But what was happening during the race, Max was second. Oh, second.
• 1:34
  2Nd was fine. I think very much towards the end he got Lando Norris and I think if there was a few more laps, he probably might have caught Lewis Hamilton.
• 1:46
  But it's quite exciting also, you know, when it's not always that automatic that Marx or someone else will win whatever, it's good that they need to battle because we had also yesterday, and when we are recording on Sunday, yesterday evening, we had also quite a battle against Turkey.
• 2:03
  Turkey, yes. Who I had in the pool.
• 2:06
  That was a close call, I would say. Honor certainly was.
• 2:12
  You were pacing up and down in your ivory tower.
• 2:15
  Oh, my God. I was sitting upstairs using euro 2024. Chantal was sitting downstairs. The kids were outside. They are getting at a certain age that they are going to French. That was quite unusual for us as well. So also awkward.
• 2:34
  Yeah, well, unfortunately for me, I've lost money on that now because turkey haven't gone through, so.
• 2:39
  Oh, my God. I'm sorry.
• 2:40
  Yeah. So what do you think? The semi final?
• 2:43
  Well, yeah, England is doable. Yeah. They were quite lucky with the penalties or lucky they did it better than Swiss. But yeah, it is not England.
• 2:59
  Well, I think everybody says English England have had a very, very easy group, had easy matches up to now.
• 3:07
  They did not their full. No, no, they were not tested at all.
• 3:12
  And.
• 3:12
  But also. Well, Holland, they say also. Yeah, we had also an easy tournament, but we were. Well, we had exciting matches with Austria and also with the game against Austria was very good. I liked that.
• 3:26
  That was a very exciting game, I thought.
• 3:28
  Yeah.
• 3:28
  Tijo and me. Tijo, in the end, he tipped Spain against Holland in the final.
• 3:34
  So.
• 3:35
  Yeah.
• 3:35
  Oh, he could be on the money.
• 3:36
  There could be.
• 3:38
  Because I thought Germany was going to go through, to be honest.
• 3:40
  Yeah. That was also a close call. German, I think you remember, you only win from a german team when they are in the bus, closed doors and on the highway back home. You know, that is when they were. You can never trust them. They always find some energy or some. They were so close in the end.
• 4:03
  Yeah. That expression. What is it? It's not over until the fat lady sings.
• 4:06
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 4:07
  That is even true. I really thought Germany were gonna go on.
• 4:10
  Yeah.
• 4:11
  But anyway, Tuesday and Wednesday we have the semi finals. And then Sunday.
• 4:15
  Sunday is the Sunday this coming Sunday?
• 4:17
  It is. Although it is later. It is. They start only at 908:00 irish time. Yeah.
• 4:25
  I don't know. Why is it later?
• 4:28
  I don't know. Because after the final, we are heading to Barcelona. So that is, of course, we cannot celebrate even our. You know, when supposing when they're looking all at the positive side, then it could be that Holland will win. But then we are not at home when the. When there is the parade in Amsterdam, etcetera, you know.
• 4:53
  Yeah. And you're going to Barcelona. So if it is a Netherlands, Spain.
• 4:57
  Exactly. We're always on the hotspot.
• 4:59
  You may not be very welcome in Barcelona.
• 5:03
  Or at least they are so happy with us, you know, that they have beaten us, you know, five to nil. Yeah. That Laval is having, you know, free and a real hat trick or something, you know, then they don't care, you know, and then.
• 5:18
  No, you're driving to Barcelona.
• 5:22
  We're driving. It will take time. But that's nice, you know, after two and a half hours, you need to have a break.
• 5:29
  Yeah.
• 5:29
  And that is cool. You know, that's also better for Chantal because she needs to. And. Yeah, that's also what you experience in the electric car. The driving is more relaxing. It is not yet. Yeah, it's more relaxed. It is. Yeah.
• 5:45
  Yeah.
• 5:46
  You take your time, but stop in, have a cup of coffee. You know, if you get a fast charger, you've like 20 minutes is all you have to wait.
• 5:54
  Exactly. The kids can go to the toilet or you can buy something so much more pleasant. Yeah. And we have a stopover. We go via Paris and then I think we just are under Lyon. And then we have also the Olympics coming up, you know.
• 6:18
  Yeah, I'm getting ready for that. Yeah, I'm going to be diving in the Olympics.
• 6:22
  Yeah, yeah.
• 6:22
  And representing Ireland in the diving competition. I just hope this, this time they put water in the pool, not like last time.
• 6:31
  That would be. It is really funny. My granddad, you know, when I lived on the, on the Schelling, it was also. Yeah, he was a funny old guy. And then we had some family who came at the island to visit them. And then there was a young people came and they were really experienced, scoopy divers, you know.
• 6:55
  Oh, yeah.
• 6:55
  And they are really. Oh, yeah, we dive every once and, you know, we do it in the. Until, you know, but also at the North Sea and to look at those shipwrecks, you know, to find out what's going. And then they were talking to my granddad, you know. Well, he's seventies in those. He died already. Well, in the past century. But then he said, are you also sometimes diving? You know, they asked him and then he said, yes, yes. And I looked at him. What, you know. And then my granddad, he continued, yeah, every day, you know. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm living here on the island, you know, that is easy for me, you know. And then he said, yeah, I dive every day into my bed, you know. And then, you know, with this, they looked at him as if he was from a different planet. And it was quite cool.
• 7:50
  There's a man with a sense of humor.
• 7:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:53
  Good on your granddad. Well, we have a guest because I can't pronounce this gentleman's name correctly because he is Dutch. So shall I do it?
• 8:02
  Yes. Weinholz.
• 8:05
  Jesse Weinholzenhe.
• 8:07
  Yeah, correct.
• 8:10
  You can email blindguyschatmail.com or tweet us at blindguyschat if you have any comments or questions.
• 8:18
  Here we have our nice guest this time at the show, Oren. I want to introduce you to Jesu Reinhold from the Netherlands, and he is working in the field of innovative technique, etcetera. He is working for the dutch royal physio. And Vizio is a low vision institute. We had Marcel Janssen already. Yeah, it was. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It was great to meet him. But here we have Jesse. Jesse, welcome to the show.
• 8:51
  Thank you so much. I don't even need to introduce myself anymore. You've done a way better job than I ever can.
• 9:01
  Are you a football fan? Are you pleased with the Netherlands?
• 9:03
  Honestly, I wasn't a very big football fan. But then this year they're doing a lot of audio description stuff. So that got me curious.
• 9:12
  Which one are you using?
• 9:15
  Yeah, that's my question to you, actually, because now we have three, because we have the radio, we have the dutch public broadcaster doing some audio description stuff, and we have the Europe Championships app that has their own.
• 9:30
  I got the best result when we win that I use euro 2024.
• 9:35
  Okay. So from now on we should all use the euro 24 24.
• 9:40
  Well, that's what. But, but then I have a minute of, I discovered here also when I watched it with, with the family that Sego was 1 minute later than the euro.
• 9:54
  I had the same. And even, even the notifications of that app would come in earlier than the tv. So anytime, anytime something was about to happen, I already knew, okay, this is going to be a goal. This is not going to be a goal.
• 10:07
  Exactly.
• 10:08
  Which really took the fun out of it. And I really had to keep my mind shut because otherwise, yeah, you can also slim.
• 10:15
  So I am sitting upstairs in my ivory tower, you know, that's where I sit listening to the game. And between you and me, you know, I'm also nervous sometimes. So then I keep also a little bit standing up and walking around, you know, so that's. But I'm fairly happy how they do it, to be honest.
• 10:37
  The big question I always ask myself and always get from, from others as well is why do you need ad when you already have a live commentary feed on the radio?
• 10:46
  Yeah, well, please answer it to me.
• 10:51
  I really don't know. I really don't know because I feel like it's, it's very strange that you have three live feeds of commentary of the same match three times, two people telling the same stuff.
• 11:10
  Yeah. But I think for me, some of the commentators have been, some have been better than others, where they're actually describing the layout of the stadium before the match begins. And they've been calling out, certainly in two of the matches that I've listened to where England were playing, you know, they've been talking about where the ball has landed in terms of, you know, to which player and where that player is in relation to the pitch. That is something I haven't, I've never heard even on radio, that much detail. I know radio is better, is definitely better for commentary for blind and visually impaired people. But I do kind of like that little extra bit of detail about where the, where the ball is in relation.
• 11:57
  To the pitch itself with our famous club, Ado denach. Yes. You are also living around the corner of here. In Suthermir, there we have, we listened to during the match to Omrookwest of Radio west, the local broadcaster Oren. And there they have two people, sometimes three people, sitting there and describing or communicating, but sometimes they are more talking about the business around it or what is the weather, or how was the trip to it. And then they are talking, well, four minutes about everything. But then you sit in the stadium or you are watching or listening at home what's going on? Yeah, what's going on? And that is what the audio describing on the app and also at the tv head of the NOS, they are doing a better job in that way.
• 12:55
  But anyway, you're saying, yes, you're living around the corner. Whereabouts are you in the Netherlands? And the most important question that you're going to hear in this recording is, what is the weather like?
• 13:09
  The weather. So first, where do I live? I live in the beautiful city of Zuttormeer, and most english speaking people call it Sweet Lake City, which I like a lot more because Zut is sweet, Nir is lake. So we call it Sweet Lake City. So, yeah, that's where I live. And that's about a little less than half an hour east of the Hague and north of Rotterdam. And the weather, it's pretty okay, I guess it's a bit cold. It's about 17 degrees here, and we've had a lot of rain, but now it's good. It's okay.
• 13:54
  That is really good. Yesterday we were lucky because we had the barbecue at Optolek yesterday night. So in the warehouse, sorry, we could not have any introductions, but chef took also. Oh, my God. I have a story to share. You know Bart Schwager also? Yes, I think from the dutch office. And also Bart Oren is a colleague of mine in the same office. And he was preparing his. Or he had prepared his lunch at home right before he went to go at 1112 30 to the lunchroom, you know, in our office. Well, yes, you know where it is. Now, Bart laid his assentages on his desk, you know, and then he went to go to the toilet. When he returned to the toilet from the toilet, and he went to go to the lunchroom, he was searching for something, and there was a four legged animal with a tail and two ears watching and sitting there. Oh, la, la, la. What was that? Nice.
• 15:09
  Happily, happily munching on.
• 15:12
  Yeah. So I. So a chef has got a penalty. Yeah.
• 15:19
  Oh, dear.
• 15:19
  Yeah.
• 15:20
  And please, please tell me, Jan, that you bought your colleague, Bart a new extra nice sandwiches for.
• 15:27
  I offered him yesterday a nice shashlik and a nice satay. And it's all on.
• 15:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which you could grab from the barbecue.
• 15:38
  That's how we do that. No. Yeah. But was not so hard. And how do you say that? No, he was not that. That moaning so much, but it was not nice you. It was really. We really said also to chef, tomorrow we have a hot dog on the barbecue. But he managed to stay out.
• 16:02
  So tell us what you're doing around with physio, then. What's your role entail at the moment?
• 16:06
  So I do lots of projects surrounding innovation and. Yeah, that's a very broad thing, which I really like about the job because I get to do so many different things, not limited to, but it includes a lot of things around braille. I've been in close contact, and that's also why I got talking to Jan. We work on the monarch and notpad and all kinds of multi line braille displays. And really looking into what can those braille displays bring to the table for students, for people who are working, and for everyone, basically. But also, how can we adapt them to the european and especially the dutch markets, which is, of course, a bit different from the markets in the USA, where things like the monarch are being developed.
• 17:07
  So just explain to us, just for listeners who may not be aware of what the monarch is.
• 17:12
  So the monarch, first of all, it's an amazing device. I'm using it quite a lot now that I have the chance. It is a multi line braille display. So what that means is that you have ten lines of braille. Well, 32 cells, if I'm not mistaken. And you can not only read braille, but you can also touch images, graphics, all kinds of stuff. And the interface is fully adapted to the multiline braille. So you can basically use a touch sensor just above the display to click on elements in the menus that you feel under your fingers. It's a really interesting way of interacting with the device, but you get used to it really, really quickly. You can zoom in and out of images. You can download images from a database that they have. It's a fabulous device, I must say.
• 18:18
  When you're talking about images, how does that work? If you have a complex image, are you talking just about, let's say, charts or graphs? Or can it display a photograph or how does that work? And how do you recognize what the image is?
• 18:37
  You immediately get to the biggest challenge of the. Of the monarch.
• 18:41
  We did not prepare. We did not prepare. No, no, no, no.
• 18:46
  Jan must have told you this. That's honestly one of the biggest challenges that the monarch has right now, because context is key with these kinds of developments. So you basically, you have to know what you're looking at in order to understand it and in order to really make sense of it. And you can basically, you feel the lines, you feel the general structure of an image, but the more complex an image is, the more difficult it will be. So in most cases, it's needed to edit the image for display on the monarch, similar to how you would edit an image for braille embossing. But then still, you really need the context, because your resolution is only that much. It's not the same as a sighted person screen. You only have so many pixels.
• 19:49
  Oren. Yes. Has also did a nice podcast between you about Csungesthenne, where he was even using a virtual assistant describing images, et cetera.
• 20:06
  We've got to put that in our show notes. We've got to put that link.
• 20:09
  Yeah, for sure.
• 20:12
  So I visited CSun this year, and together with a colleague of mine, Michiel, we did a visiolab innovatzi podcast. It's a good organ for practicing your Dutch.
• 20:24
  Oh, brilliant.
• 20:27
  It is most mostly in Dutch, but yeah. I used so many digital virtual assistants, but honestly, the best one during season was the envision assistant, which I had set up, because basically, it is a image recognition assistant, but you can basically give it your personality that you want it to have. So mine had a lot of sarcasm. Dark users. It would just roast me anytime it could.
• 20:55
  So just explain that a little. Just explain how that works.
• 20:59
  Because. Yeah, do that when you were cooking. Perhaps you can describe that one.
• 21:04
  So we were doing a barbecue, probably not as good as your optolek barbecue, but we did. I know I shouldn't have said that, because Michiel, my colleague, might be listening to this, but we had a great barbecue, actually. But we used the assistant to tell us how we were getting on and how good the burgers were and if they should be on the grill a little bit longer. And it basically told us, well, get them off right now, because if you don't, you will get charcoal for dinner. But I should also tell you another story. So, in the Netherlands, you have this Ziso fair, which is similar to Seitzil or Seitzville.
• 21:50
  Seitz village.
• 21:50
  Yeah, but a little bit smaller, would say. But we did that. And I gave a presentation on the new AI developments and all the visual assistants that we have right now, which was great. It was lovely to do that, but I forgot to take out the sarcastic personality of my invisible system. So we were sitting there, I was doing a presentation, and it would go off like, okay, this person looks very interested. This person looks like their phone is more interesting than this presentation. I'm not sure what clothing this woman chose, but it's not something that looks good and go on and on and on. And I was very happy that a lot of people didn't really speak English that well, because. Embarrassing. Quite fast.
• 22:39
  Is it already released officially, this app?
• 22:42
  No, unfortunately, it's nothing.
• 22:44
  It's still in beta.
• 22:46
  Yeah. So I'm. You would have to get someone from Envision on the show.
• 22:51
  Yeah, yeah, we need to do that.
• 22:54
  So this is an app specifically related to. Developed by Envision?
• 22:58
  Yeah. So, yeah.
• 22:59
  Okay.
• 23:00
  It's.
• 23:01
  I thought I could get a sarcastic AI app because that's me all over. Yeah. I'll have to buy the glasses and then get the app.
• 23:09
  No, it's. It's. It's an iPhone app, so you can download it for free from the App store if it gets released.
• 23:19
  And what's the app called?
• 23:21
  Envision Assistant.
• 23:22
  Vision assistant. Okay. So we keep a lookout for envision, but we have to get the envision guys on.
• 23:27
  Yeah, it would be good.
• 23:28
  When we did our podcast, we had three people that could get access to the invasion assistant just by listening to this podcast and adding their name to a Google form. So we had actually done a giveaway for the envision assistant, which was really cool.
• 23:48
  Wow. We've asked this question before. Is this where we're going? Do you think AI is for visually impaired and blind is the best way to go?
• 23:56
  I think it is. Honestly, I don't think we're there yet. Looking at the things that are still to come and the wish lists that we have, that keeps getting longer and longer, it's already making such a big change to the way we use our phones. For example, we were just talking about the weather, maybe. You know this app, Bauer alarm, which is typical dutch app, that will tell you if it's gonna rain. It's awfully inaccessible. Yes.
• 24:26
  It is a graphical representation of a radar screen, you know, where you see the clouds coming in.
• 24:34
  But if you try taking a screenshot of that and feeding it to an AI, you will know if it's going to rain. And that's such a small thing. Although. Well, it's not a small thing in the Netherlands, but that's already making such a difference, and we're just getting started. I mean, when I was talking to the folks at be my eyes a few weeks ago. They're working really hard on their new GPT 400 video feature that they had a very nice looking demo of a few weeks ago. It's not there yet, unfortunately, because OpenAI keeps delaying this new feature. But if it becomes available, we'll be able to just use a video AI helper that you can just talk to and have it describe stuff around you in real time. In real time.
• 25:28
  No longer need to take a photograph. You're just gonna open your camera, switch it to video, open the. Beat my eyes up and yeah, let it tell you what's there.
• 25:35
  And then audio description. Yeah. Is that then still necessary of. Yeah, that's a little bit not so nice to have for Oren in this way. Yeah.
• 25:47
  Thanks very much for to me out of.
• 25:51
  Throwing for the bus.
• 25:52
  You know, me and Mo are on the.
• 25:56
  Yeah, me and you. Me and. Yeah.
• 25:59
  But it might not be needed anymore. Or what if we could have an AI powered audio description that, because the. The challenge of audio description is that you have to not talk over the commentary in the actual video or whatever you're looking at. But if we get an AI that understands audio description and that can offer audio description in real time, I mean, if you would have asked me this a year ago, I would have said, now, this is not possible in the coming years, but the developments are going so fast.
• 26:35
  See, I'm quite skeptical of this. I would agree. You know, I probably said this in a previous episode, which might have been last year, that I think, I thought then that people are kind of jumping on the AI bandwagon, but how fast is it actually developing? Where do you think we're going to be, for example, in five years time?
• 27:01
  That's the million dollar question, right? If I knew, then I tell you. But we can only predict, and I do think that if we have a few breakthroughs, so if we have the video breakthrough and if we can really personalize the AI to our specific needs, then we'll be using AI a lot more. For example, a lot of people use IRA in english speaking countries. I would assume that you can do the same with AI in five years time. And in some cases you might still opt for a human instead of an AI. I think that will always be the case because humans are just better at some things than AI will ever be. At Csun, we also saw Glydens, which is a sort of robot guide.
• 27:56
  It was not at side city. That was a pity.
• 27:58
  No, no, they were not at site city, really. Glidance is a very interesting development. It is a colleague of mine called it a weird looking vacuum cleaner that you would push forward to clean the floors, but it's not to clean the floors, but that's what it looks like. And it basically has wheels and it tries to act like a sort of a robot, a guide dog with a lot of sensors, cameras that guide you around obstacles. And we did a little interview, which is in English, actually. So you can also listen to that in English in the podcast that we did during Csungesthenne. It's a very interesting prototype, but it's also a very early prototype because the bridge is heavy.
• 28:45
  Yes. When you pushed it.
• 28:47
  No, it was quite okay. It was about 2 kg, so you could easily pick it up and push it forward. That was not a big issue. The biggest issue was actually that they were walking behind you with an Xbox controller in handheld controlling the movements of the device, because it's just not autonomous yet. I was with a sighted colleague, so he knew that that was happening. But I also heard stories from others who just didn't get told that.
• 29:24
  Presumably it is going to be extremely expensive.
• 29:29
  They say it's going to be the same as a smartphone. So say the price of one of those very expensive iPhone Pro models and then the price of a subscription similar to that officer of a smartphone.
• 29:43
  Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
• 29:45
  At least the one thing you know is that the. This robot dog is not going to eat somebody's lunch.
• 29:51
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 29:52
  That's. You're on the safe side in that way, oren. Yeah. I think you have smelled something of Stevie Wonder also at season.
• 30:02
  The smell was so bad.
• 30:04
  Oh, yeah. Sorry for this noise, for the smell. Then.
• 30:11
  I didn't actually meet Stevie Wonder. A lot of other people did. But I did do something that only Stevie wonder did before us, and that was try out the apple vision Pro virtual reality glasses. And we went to the Apple store to try them out because they're not available yet in Europe, and we wanted to know what all the fuzz was about and how accessible are they and all of that. And then we came to the Apple store after quite a bit of traveling, and they were very nervous. At first it was this very young employee, and she was very nervous and she was like, oh, no, I'm going to have to give a demo to someone who is going to use accessibility. And they were very nervous and I was like, okay, I don't mind if you don't know, but we'll just explore this together and we'll figure this out. And we did. And she was like the only other person that we've ever done this demo for was, was Stevie Wonder. So it's not a device that you would walk around. It's just too heavy for that. You don't go take a bus or take a train or walk outside with the Apple fishing Pro on. That's just not feasible. And like you said, it's a very promising experience. It's quite accessible, which is cool. But the biggest challenge is also that developers cannot use the camera feeds on the Apple Vision Pro. So, for example, if you develop an app like envision or something or seeing AI, you can just not use those cameras on the Vision Pro. And this is according to Apple, because of the privacy. They don't want developers to access all the cameras all the time. And they are working on some kind of enterprise mode where if you're a trusted partner of Apple for enterprise use cases, you might be able to use some of the camera technology, but you cannot develop camera apps for the Vision Pro in the app store. That really limits the possibilities of those glasses.
• 32:22
  Yeah, but does it have now also kind of features like seeing AI or envision or be my eyes to describe pictures?
• 32:32
  It does, but when I tested it in March, it was very basic. It was very fast, but it was very basic. So not really something that you could use yet. Yeah.
• 32:45
  So what's their plan? Are apple planning to do all this themselves internally and market us that way? Or will they release it for the third party party developers at some point?
• 32:57
  I really don't know. You should get Tim Cook on the show to talk about that. I would love to.
• 33:04
  If you can invite him. You are such multinational whatever. You are the vip of the industry. Coin?
• 33:12
  I wish.
• 33:12
  I think he has a place in Monaco. Yeah. And we should really ask if we could do the interview in.
• 33:17
  Oh, yeah, I'll be happy to go with you to support technical setup at the back sheet. Yeah, yeah. No, but I really don't know. Apple is, I think, one of the biggest mystery companies when it comes to accessibility. I mean, even with. With iOS 1818, what is gonna be there? Yeah, they have. They have a lot of new braille features that they don't even communicate. So they have changed the braille screen input, you know, all the way in which you can use commands on your braille display to navigate through your phone and click elements and do all kinds of crazy stuff. Well, you can now do that with braille screen input as well. You have a command mode, so you can basically hold down the letter h to go home and press the letter one to go back and forward to go forward. And all the other commands you know from your real display, you'll now be able to do those in braille screen input. And you can also type the first letters of any element on screen to immediately navigate to that element.
• 34:32
  Because that is not yet possible because you can get the list of the apps in a way, but you cannot activate it.
• 34:41
  Well, you can activate an app, but you cannot activate, for example, a button inside an app. And now you'll be okay.
• 34:48
  Okay.
• 34:48
  And you can even set it so that braille screen input will open automatically when you enter a text field. That's cool. You can get all kinds of new haptic feedback.
• 35:00
  I was just going to ask, is there any feedback from the fingers?
• 35:04
  Yes, you have haptic feedback and sound feedback now. So yeah, it's a really, really interesting iOS release for Braille this year.
• 35:16
  And is there any of any improvement of the contraction braille input in a way that there's no delay or that the delay has been?
• 35:27
  That's a good question. Honestly, I haven't tested it yet. I'll be happy to test that, but I was not really prepared to put it on my main iPhone because, no, it's always unstable. So I put it on a spare testing phone that we have at my work, but I will be giving that a go. That's a good reason to practice my UEB contractions again.
• 35:57
  UEB is now also within Jaws now with the Mafcat editor. That's quite a good development in a way for MEF support. That's really a big improvement.
• 36:10
  I'm just wondering, from a practical perspective, way down the line, will there be a manufacturer like Apple or Samsung or Android that will actually integrate some kind of braille display within a device magically? I don't know how it would be done. I don't know, you know, how you would replicate the pin movement. But I just wonder, as I say, way in the future are they thinking perhaps people will net what will not need a braille display 30 years into the future because they'll be able to do everything on their device?
• 36:54
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:55
  So there was this student doing his master's thesis on this kind of technology and he did a lot of research on the multiline braille, but also on other technologies that could deliver the same sensation of braille. And I would assume that if at any point there's a good reason for sighted folks to have a tactile display that they can really feel stuff on or feel textures, then we might get to this point. It is possible technically it's still very expensive and it's in research, but I know that at the TU Delft, the technical university here in the Netherlands, one of the technical universities here, they are doing research in this field. So it is definitely there is development going on.
• 37:55
  Do you play games as well, Jesse?
• 38:00
  Not that much. A few months ago, I got challenged to an online tournament of top speed, which is a very, very. Well, it's quite an old multiplayer racing game for people who are blind.
• 38:17
  How do you spell that? Top speed?
• 38:19
  Yeah, just top speed.
• 38:20
  Top.
• 38:22
  And it's on a website or something?
• 38:27
  Yeah, it's an app you download on your PC and it's from 2007 or eight or something. But apparently it still works. So I could challenge to an online tournament.
• 38:37
  We need to do that online with the blind guys chat. You know that we do. Yes. We didn't. So we love Formula one in this way. So we can.
• 38:50
  We should set that up. You can do it with eight people at a time.
• 38:53
  Oh, really?
• 38:54
  Oh, but that's a cool event.
• 38:58
  Yeah.
• 38:59
  Oh, let's do after the next show.
• 39:01
  I think the challenge with audio games is that, and some people might disagree with me on this one because I know some people that really are into gaming and they even have an Xbox and a PlayStation and they really put their, their time into this. But I feel like audio games a lot of the time, it's just not cutting it for me.
• 39:22
  Right.
• 39:23
  Either it feels very, very simple, very clunky. Yeah, clunky. Or so simple gameplay that it feels like there's no challenge in this or it is just a matter of pressing buttons on a keyboard very fast. Apparently there's this game called crazy party that some people here in the Netherlands play a lot. And I tried this one time, but it was just, just I wasn't fast enough. And I am pretty good at the computer and I'm pretty fast, but not fast enough.
• 39:56
  Okay. I think that's the problem, isn't it? Trying to get immersed in the game? Yeah, that's the big problem. It might be.
• 40:02
  And then you have, like, the games, the sighted games developed for sighted people that sometimes have accessibility features. And then you look at this dutch game streamer who plays street Fighter against Cyto people and you're like, what? How can you make sense of these sounds? And apparently he can make sense of those sounds and play the game purely based on sound.
• 40:27
  Wow. In terms of innovation, what are you looking at? What are you excited about? What would you like to see in the very short term?
• 40:36
  I'm not going to mention AI, because we already did that. So then I'm going to mention indoor navigation. We are seeing so many cool developments really in their early stages and of course, we've seen some indoor navigation out in the wild, but there's really so much that's cooking that's being developed in the Netherlands and internationally. So I really hope, and I'm happy to be part of that, to really get indoor navigation up to the next level where you can really pinpoint your camera forward of your phone and just have it tell you where to go with confidence. No recalibration, no clunky Bluetooth beacons or other challenging things. But it will take some time. We won't have that this year, but I'm confident that we will have that in the coming years and that's really going to make it.
• 41:36
  That would be brilliant.
• 41:38
  And, I mean, we've come a long way in GPS. I mean, five years ago we had the same challenge with GPS and now I just have a GPS app that will use 3d audio to just guide me from wherever I need to.
• 41:50
  Which app is that? Yes, sir. Which app are you using?
• 41:53
  The voice Vista app.
• 41:55
  Oh, voice Vista, yeah, we put it in the show notes.
• 42:00
  You should get someone on the show to talk about that as well because it's a really, really interesting app made by one developer who just. It's just his passion project, which is a developer.
• 42:16
  Do you know him?
• 42:17
  He has a very difficult name. I would have to look that up. He had a very difficult name. Really. It's an amazing app.
• 42:25
  Yes. He's pinpointing some. I think he is looking, you know, I think he is adapting for a guide dog. You know he is. So that is his latest new development.
• 42:35
  You think so? You think so? And then I have to buy extra lunch for this poor guide dog. I have to buy an extra barbecue and all of that. I'll just go for some guide dog that just eats electrodes, just eats some electricity in the end of the day.
• 42:56
  Thanks so much for talking, we really appreciate it. And good luck with all the innovation projects. We'd have to have you back on the show in a year or so, maybe, and you can tell us have any of those dreams and wishes has come true and what's available. As you say, things are developing quite quickly, which is brilliant. Yeah. So that's good.
• 43:18
  Thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. And, well, always up for coming back if you still think that's a good idea.
• 43:29
  Oh, absolutely.
• 43:30
  Oh, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. We keep in touch. We keep in touch.
• 43:34
  Thank you so much.
• 43:35
  I think we need to have him on again. And I think we need to definitely get you, us, and mo and Yessa.
• 43:45
  On a grand prix. Yeah, we need to do that. Yeah. On the top speed, that one.
• 43:49
  The top speed would be a good one. Yeah. Yeah. I think we should definitely do that kind of thing. But thank you very much, Yessa, for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Very interesting stuff about the AI. And I totally agree with you about navigation indoors.
• 44:05
  Yeah, what we need, that will be something, I think.
• 44:09
  And I have downloaded the voice Vista. Voice Vista app. I haven't started to use it yet, but I will report back on.
• 44:18
  You are ahead of me then, because I did not do it yet.
• 44:21
  And I've also requested access to the beta version of the envision assistant.
• 44:29
  Ah.
• 44:29
  So I'm waiting to be approved on that. It's just a little form you fill out for very, very quick. Only takes you a few minutes, but I'll see whether I get approved for that. Hopefully I will. And if we can talk to the envision guys at some point.
• 44:44
  Yeah, we need to find out if we can get in touch with them. Would be good. Yeah, I think they are now busy at the NFB. Mo will be there as well.
• 44:57
  Of course.
• 44:57
  We'll try to find women. Yeah. Look at me. Look at me.
• 45:05
  Well, ladies and gentlemen, now it's time for an old favorite. Mister Stewart Lawler has come back to give us a rundown of the international conference on all dot shop.
• 45:16
  You know.
• 45:22
  You can email blindguyschatmail.com or tweet us at blindguys chat if you have any comments or questions. Hello, blind guys chatters this is Stuart Lawler, former co host of the show, and what a momentous occasion for blind guys chat to reach its 100th episode. Major congratulations to Oren Jan Clodagh and the range of drop in co hosts that have been on the show since I departed. I have nothing but the height of praise for the show, and I'm sure great things will continue in the future. When I left blind guys chat at the beginning of January, I mentioned, I think at the time, that I had other things happening in my life, and one of them was that I was about to get very involved with an organization called the International Council on English Braille, or Ice. Now we've actually talked about ICeb on this podcast previously. Both indeed, at the time of the 2020 General assembly, which was held virtually in the UK, and the 2022 midterm meeting, which was held virtually in Canada. So I thought we'd take a couple of minutes to talk a little bit about the International Council on English Braille, who have just held their most recent general assembly, the 8th such meeting in New Zealand. I was not there, by the way. Indeed, nobody from the irish delegation was there, but we did participate virtually over five nights. And I can tell you, pulling all nighters and working at the same time is not to be recommended. So, first of all, who are the International Council on English Braille? Well, they're a group of english speaking countries who set up this organization in early 1992, around the time that unified English braille, UEB was being mooted. And at the time, ICEB was established to oversee the development and implementation in its member countries of unified English Braille. Now, the member countries of Iceb at present are Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States, and South Africa. And up. And very recently, we've also been joined by Nepal. So the unified English Braille code, and we've talked lots about unified English braille on this show in the past. The unified English braille code has now been completed. It's up and running. It has been ratified in the countries that I just mentioned, and it is the standard braille code in those countries. So what does ICEB do now that unified English braille is complete? Well, ICEB does lots of other things because the organization promotes braille broadly. And not just unified English braille, it promotes other braille codes where they link with UEB. So a good example of that is music or maths, but also languages in countries where English may be the dominant language. So, for example, there would be lots of work done around how UEB and French or German or Spanish or Italian or any other language might work together. But it also maintains the UEB code. And just like print is constantly changing, braille needs to be agile enough to change as well. So, for example, in the next few years, you're going to see, if you're interested in this area, a lot of work done around emojis in Braille. How do we represent an emoji with regard to Braille? And in particular in UEB? The ICEB has several subcommittees or subgroups that look at specialist areas as well, including, as I just mentioned, maintenance of the code itself, technical code. So that would be maths and science and chemistry, braille, music and braille technology. So what happened at the most recent general assembly in New Zealand? Well, outside of all the regular business meetings, or rather business sessions within the meetings, which included country reports and things like treasurer's reports and meeting minutes and different subcommittees reports. There were a range of papers and one of the the dominant themes at this year's general assembly, and I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear this was multi line braille and something that goes very much hand in hand with multi line braille tactile graphics. There were also a number of resolutions passed at the General assembly, and resolutions, I suppose, are pieces of work that will guide ICeb for the next four years of its existence. Some of these include looking at implementation of mathematic notation in UEB, where assistive technology is used, looking at how braille is represented and documented on the Wikipedia platform, looking at something called the accessible books catalog and how member countries are uploading braille books to that repository, and a resolution around braille music and making more music scores available to member countries. I was honored to be appointed during the General assembly as the public relations officer for ICEB, so I do hope you might be hearing a little more from me in this regard over the next few years. Every country who is a member of ICBE has their own local Braille authority. Here in Ireland we have InBAf, the Irish National Braille and Alternative Formats Authority. In the UK we have UCAF, the UK association for accessible formats. And in America we have Bana, the Braille Authority of North America. And there are others in the other member countries as well. So if you're interested in Braille and its development and you want to keep up to date with what ICeb are doing, please visit our website, iceb.org and on there you can sign up for our newsletter or join our announce only email list, which is a low traffic list, but we'll give you all the very latest news. Thanks to the guys for the space on this podcast to tell you a little bit about Iceb and I look forward to chatting to you all very soon.
• 52:24
  Well, thanks very much, Stuart.
• 52:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 52:27
  Thanks for that bottle of beer you sent myself. And Jan. I don't know, did you mean it to be empty by the time we got?
• 52:35
  Yeah, it was really also that beer.
• 52:38
  You know, because we would have had a celebration of that. Would that be of your new role as pr officer?
• 52:47
  Achievement of a Mister Stewart?
• 52:49
  Huge achievement. Yes. He should be very happy and hopefully he'll get us free tickets to the next gig.
• 52:56
  Hopefully they can bring him then also to the location, you know?
• 52:59
  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if it's been in New Zealand, maybe Antarctic would be the next one.
• 53:05
  Yeah. Or space, you know, they are getting. He was climbing to the Kilimanjaro already.
• 53:19
  Once he's done his training. So yeah.
• 53:24
  Tony Stewart.
• 53:29
  Well, listen, thanks very much for listening to this episode. We hope you enjoyed Yessa and Stewart. And Jan is going off on holidays, so I'll have to work out how I'm going to do next couple of episodes. But we wish you well in Barcelona.
• 53:42
  Thanks very much. We will keep in touch and then we will wish you a nice holiday season. And for you as well, Oren, of course.
• 53:52
  Thank you very much. And don't forget to email us in mindguyschatmail.com.
• 53:57
  Thank you very much. Bye.