Talking Technology with V I Labs

Talking Technology with V I Labs Episode 90 - What just happened to RTÉ Player?

• Vision Ireland • Season 3 • Episode 90

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It’s fair to say that RTÉ Player has had ups and downs when it comes to accessibility over the years. With the European Accessibility Act now in full effect, though, the team at RTÉ seem to be rolling out major upgrades. 


In this episode, we take a look at what’s new both on mobile and on the web, and discuss some of the audio-described content that’s available.


In less positive media news, we discuss the discontinuation of BBC Sounds for those in the Republic of Ireland, and we hear about a new accessible coffee machine for wheelchair users.


Join the conversation with a voice note now. The number you need is 086 199 0011.

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Talking Technology with VI Labs. At VI Labs we believe technology is the single greatest enabler for people with sight loss and all disabilities. If you're looking for the latest news and conversation on tech from a more accessible perspective, you've come to the right place.

SPEAKER_09:

Yes, indeed you have. Hello one, hello all. Hope you're all keeping well. Welcome in to Talking Technology with VI Labs episode number 90. Yes, we are at 90 already. We are in our 90s. There you go. We are now 10 away from the big 100. I think we are set, when I did the maths on this last, we're set to hit the 100 just before the end of the year. So really looking forward to that. We'll have to keep those podcasts coming. But hey, Hey, hope you're keeping well. Hope you're enjoying the sunshine for those of you who have sunshine or the shocking rain for those of you who were in Dublin last week. There was some crazy rain in different parts of the country last week. One of our centres actually here in Vision Ireland unfortunately flooded. But I believe they're over the worst of that now, which is good to hear. But hey, welcome in to Talking Technology Today. episode number 90 we have a packed show coming up for you over the next hour or so we are going to be taking a look at the RTE player they have rolled out some really cool new updates that are improving accessibility on all fronts on web on mobile lots of really cool stuff we'll be taking a look at that later on and we will be taking a look at all the latest talking technology news including the discontinuation of BBC sounds we will have information on that later on in the show so please do stick with us for that but hey a reminder that this is not just our show this is your show and as always we do want you to keep in touch with us you can send us voice notes you can send us emails and here is exactly how you do it So if you would like to join the conversation, we'd love to have you as a part of it. So please do get in touch with us. You can send us a voice note on WhatsApp. You can send that to 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. And remember, a voice note, it's not a call. So you do want to use the voice message button. It's labeled with voiceover down at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen there. That will get that message right in Joe Lonergan, Joe, how are you?

SPEAKER_07:

Hi David, I'm all good today, thank you.

SPEAKER_09:

Excellent. Joe, you're keeping well. You were at zero limits and you took a week off after to recover from zero limits. Do you have a good time?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, I did. It was a great day and really well organised by Vision Sports. A great adrenaline rush in the rally car in the evening time and Yeah, I needed a bit of a break to come get that adrenaline back down again, David, you know, get back to the balance, back to zero.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, you can't be, you know, coming into the Vision Ireland office whizzing around on adrenaline, you know, they don't allow it.

SPEAKER_07:

No, not at 100 miles an hour, no way. So yeah, I needed that time, you know, just to get me back to level pegging again.

SPEAKER_09:

We talked about it, Joe, on the podcast the last day about self-driving and we've had newsletter articles over the past couple of weeks on this in Tech on Tap as well. But what's your general take on it. Would you be wanting to jump in a self-driving car if one came to Ireland?

SPEAKER_07:

I'd be... Edgy enough, you know. I might let you go in the first day, David. I'll try the day after, maybe. Okay. See how you're going, you know. I know, joking, I would be edgy, but at the same time, I'd look forward to it, maybe as an independence point of view, or maybe Waymo, some version of Waymo that you might have, which is a self-driving taxi, for anyone who doesn't know. But over here, apparently the road structure is not ready for it yet, but... Look, and I'd be hoping he recognizes cows. You wouldn't know if you went down the country road in Ireland. People are crossing roads with cows and animals and that kind of stuff. Wild stuff. But I do... I think it's promising. I think in Ireland it's at least 10 years away myself. But I know, whether it is in California or somewhere like that, they have way more. Or Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, they have it in a few places, I believe.

SPEAKER_07:

But I think we're a little bit away. Maybe our roads aren't straight enough or maybe other drivers, the quality of driving mightn't be up to it or whatever. There will be a few issues, like, you know, coming to start. It's like the Lewis when I came out for it. It took people a good year to get used to the Lewis. If you remember when the Lewis was there first, there was an accident probably nearly every week for the first maybe six to eight weeks, you know, and then it slowly got better as the months came along. Now you never hear of any accidents with the Lewis, very rarely, you know.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, absolutely. So who knows, maybe once we've trained it with the cows, the dodgy drivers and the wonky roads will be all good.

SPEAKER_07:

Well, yeah, I mean, it's going to be a process. So, yeah, we'll take it once every time. But the main thing is you feel safe. you don't have anxiety every time you get in one. And then, as I said, the service, if there is one to come down the line, then it'll work, you know?

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, for sure. Loads of information on that in previous week's articles on Tech on Tap. So do check that out. And you can also find those on our website, vi.ie, if that's an area that is of interest to you. But Joe, we did have some comments in over the last little while. One of... from Jessica and Jessica had a comment on an article which you wrote recently about Facebook reactions. Here is what Jessica had to say.

SPEAKER_03:

Hello. I saw a post from David Goldfield about reacting to a Facebook post as a voiceover user. I have a similar but related question about editing posts. If I make a typo, I have to either use my BrailleSense or computer to fix it. Does anyone know if there's a way to fix it on an iPhone or iPad using VoiceOver?

SPEAKER_09:

Great question, Jessica, and thank you for it. And also thank you to David Goldfield, who shared that post that Joe wrote over on Mastodon, a platform that I'm not too familiar with yet. I'll have to get over and get my Mastodon presence going, Joe. But to Jessica's question, though, editing posts on Facebook, specifically doing it with voiceover on iOS, how hard or easy is this to do, Joe?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, well, thanks, Jessica, for the voice note. And this will inspire an article that I will do this week in the newsletter for anyone that's interested. But easy or difficult? Well, none is ever easy until you're shown how to do it or you're told how to do something. So I suppose once you create the post, you've discovered you've made a mistake, well, then you're going to have to go into your notifications or your wall to find that post again. And then you double tap on the post. This is for a voiceover user, as Jessica said she was. So you have to double tap on the post. The post will open. Then you look for a button called More. And then you double tap on More. And inside More, you keep flicking left or right, whatever you prefer, until you come to Edit Post. And you double tap on Edit Post. And once you double tap on Edit Post, it will open an area where you can delete the picture, or you can tag a friend, or in the text box, you can double tap on the text box area and you can delete the word that you made a mistake on or you can replace that word or add a new word. And when you're finished adding the word and you're happy with it, you can flick left and right if you want for the comment to be read out again just before you finish editing. And when you're finished and happy with the edit that you've just performed, then you can double tap on the save button. The save button is somewhere on the left. So I predict you should flick left with one finger and eventually you will hear save button and double tap on save button. And then finally your post has been edited and fixed and people can see your edit history. So be wary of that. So if you do start saying stuff on social media, And you edit it, people will know you've either fixed the spelling or else maybe had a totally different opinion on something. So that's it, David.

SPEAKER_09:

There you go. It is good to know that stuff. It does raise an interesting question, though. And, you know, I do find, like, I will consider myself a decently proficient voiceover user at this point. But editing text, I think, is one of those things that no matter how proficient you get, it's still, it's a little bit clunky. Like, is this, do you think, Joe, like one of those disadvantages still of a touchscreen compared with, you know, physical input?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, well, look, touchscreens are notoriously difficult to type on. I know a lot of people out there say, I'm brilliant at it and I can do it really fast and stuff like that, but there is a big learning curve at the start to get the hang of typing on a touchscreen. And some people say, just depending on who they are, what they're used to. They might never get the hang of it properly and they make lots of mistakes before they get to the finished sentence that they want to do. But look, it can be a slow process, touch typing. Some people like the standard typing, some people like the touch typing. So the standard one, I think you have to double tap on the letters, touch one, you just put your finger on the letter and lift your finger and that kind of thing. But Yeah, I suppose other ways of doing it then, if you couldn't really get the hang of it or you found it just totally tedious and it really annoyed you all the time, you may prefer to connect a Bluetooth keyboard to the device. These can come in all shapes and sizes. There's loads of companies out there. One company, Zag, they make amazing Bluetooth keyboards. Logitech, there is some specialised keyboards for the iPhone that clip on as well, you know. So, but... If you want to go down that direction, you could. type with a Bluetooth keyboard, which has a QWERTY-style input. And there is also a Braille device that can connect. But the Bluetooth one is my preferred one for people, especially if they're beginning and they just want to type into the iPhone, into the edit box. And you can use your up and down arrow to go letter by letter or word by word. And there is lots of different keystrokes that you can learn as well. I won't go through them here, David. We could be here all day. But they're the kind of things you can learn when you get the keyboard. So yeah, Bluetooth keyboard, David.

SPEAKER_09:

There you go. And Jessica mentions as well that she is using a Braille Sense 6. So I would assume if you're using a Braille Sense 6, you're handy enough with Braille, Jessica. So you also do have, as Joe rightly said, there's stuff like the Braille input devices, like the Hable and stuff like that. So those are also other options that could exist for you as well. But Bluetooth keyboards, definitely cheaper. The Hable isn't extortionate by assistive technology standards, but at the same time, you can get a mainstream keyboard, a Bluetooth keyboard on Amazon for relatively inexpensively these days. So definitely worth looking into that. So yeah, Joe, thank you so much for answering that. And Jessica, thank you so much as well for the question. And if people do have other questions as well, please do send it in to us. The number that you need there is 086-199-00001. That's 086-199-00001. And for those of you who are outside of Ireland, you can also send us a message with that number, but using our country code. So the country code for Ireland is 353. So you drop the zero then. So 353-86-199-0011. That's 353-86-199-0011. Or just send us an email, content at vi.ie. So, moving on. Loads of exciting stuff happening here in Ireland, at least, as far as accessibility is concerned, ever since the European Accessibility Act passed just a couple of weeks ago, since it took full effect. We've talked before on the podcast about how Bank of Ireland are doing some stuff with their ATMs, which is great to hear. But one of the other big ones is the RTE player. This is the player, for those of you you who don't know, from Ireland's national broadcaster. It's a bit like BBC iPlayer over in the UK. You have the iPlayer, we've just got the player without the I, the good old RTE player. And this is a big one, Joe, because the RTE player, I think it's fair to say, it struggled on the accessibility front for a while there.

SPEAKER_07:

It did, David, and they made a big effort about 10 years ago or more when they'd done this RTXL player. It was a separate kind of a web link that you used on a Windows machine. But then... their app, as people started using smartphones more, they had an app, and it was okay at different times, but then different updates come along every now and again, and they totally forget about accessibility, and you'd want to be some sort of genius to guess what some of the buttons were for, and it just didn't work with voiceover that well. I'm not sure about some of the low vision stuff, but probably didn't look after that either. Look, I mean... international broadcaster and I suppose sometimes you'd be very disappointed when you can't play a programme that everybody's talking about whether it could be a topic on primetime or it could be something to do with I don't know just something in the news or just a general piece of fiction that you really wanted to see that everybody's talking about and then you can't watch it because you couldn't access the series or the search box or an unlabeled button and that's where we were at with it David so do you have any updates for us?

SPEAKER_09:

I do have updates Joe I came armed with updates just for you and for all of those listening because RTE have rolled out new updates for RTE Player in just the past couple of weeks. And they have made significant upgrades. So the app is now much better with voiceover. And we'll show you that in just a second. And they've also made significant improvements on the web too. And Joe, you'll be showing us that with JAWS in just a few minutes as well. So lots of really cool updates. There's a new accessibility settings section as well. So we'll show you all of that. But we'll dive right in Joe and take a look at what exactly has happened to RTE Player and how good it is and where things are going now.

SPEAKER_07:

Definitely, David. I'm looking forward to

SPEAKER_09:

this. Awesome stuff. So let's jump in. I don't often trust myself with these live demos, but let's give it a go. So I'm going to turn on Miss Maura here, Miss VoiceOver. Over

SPEAKER_02:

on RTE Player.

SPEAKER_09:

So when you're in RTE Player, the first thing that you kind of are placed with is kind of their featured show, if you will. So this might be something that they're promoting or their most popular And it will give you the show title and the description. So I'm just going to touch the centre of the screen to get to that now.

SPEAKER_02:

And there you go. Not one that

SPEAKER_09:

I'm personally looking to watch, but I'll keep flicking. There's my watch list. So I've added a show to my watch list, actually. Button. Now, see all buttons are still unlabeled, but that's what those are, is see all buttons. And hopefully that will be fixed pretty soon.

SPEAKER_02:

A good girl's guide to murder button.

SPEAKER_09:

So there, a good girl's guide to murder. That had audio description as well. So I'd added that to my watch list. I'm going to keep flicking past that, though.

SPEAKER_02:

Trending now.

SPEAKER_09:

There's a trending now button. Button.

SPEAKER_02:

The Sunday game button.

SPEAKER_09:

The Sunday game. We won't talk about that because we lost in the final, Joe. Yeah. That second half was traumatic, I think, to be fair.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, we leave that there. We could upset a lot of people. And I know I'm happy myself, but yeah, we won't get into sport now, David. So flick past that one.

SPEAKER_09:

Flick, yeah, promptly past that

SPEAKER_02:

one.

SPEAKER_09:

So I can keep flicking.

SPEAKER_02:

The last Irish

SPEAKER_09:

missionaries. We might come back to that in a minute because that does avoid your description available. Spin and spill. Spin and spill.

SPEAKER_02:

Up for

SPEAKER_09:

the match.

SPEAKER_02:

Button.

SPEAKER_09:

Up for the match.

SPEAKER_02:

Listen to the land speak. So there's

SPEAKER_09:

loads of different shows that you can keep on flicking. You can go down here. Watch live. So there's options for watching live. Continue watching. You can continue watching.

SPEAKER_02:

Page four of eight. Let the games begin.

SPEAKER_09:

And there's a heading there. So the Traders US button. The Traders. Really looking forward to the Irish version of the Traders later this year as well. That should be really fun. But you can flick through here and all of the shows are labeled and stuff like that, which is certainly an improvement compared to where things were before. But what's great is when you're signed in to your RTE ID, you can actually set some accessibility preferences as your defaults. So up in the top, there is a menu option to go to settings.

SPEAKER_02:

Open settings menu.

SPEAKER_09:

So I'm going to double tap in there. I

SPEAKER_02:

don't want

SPEAKER_09:

to close it right now, but I'm going to keep flicking.

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome back. David.

SPEAKER_09:

Why, thank you very much. Current language, English. That's one of my favourite languages. Switch to Gaelic. And I'm not going to switch to Gaelic right now, but Gaeilge is probably one of my other favourite languages, which is good. I'm going to keep flicking. Parental. So there's parental controls and stuff here. Kids mode, switch button off. I'm not

SPEAKER_02:

a child. Double tap to toggle setting.

SPEAKER_09:

Not a chat, so I don't need that on.

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe I am. Why is parental controls on? I'm

SPEAKER_09:

going to leave that alone though for now. And then there is a new accessibility heading. So this is all new. So I can flick along here and there are different options.

SPEAKER_02:

So I

SPEAKER_09:

don't need captions. But you can enable captions as a default on your account. And interestingly, when you turn your volume down, the captions are auto-enabled, which is really, really cool. Great job to the player team on that.

SPEAKER_02:

Audio description. Switch button on.

SPEAKER_09:

So audio description. Double tap the toggle setting. Audio description, really important, obviously, for those of us who are blind or visually impaired. You can now turn that on. You've always been able to turn that on from your account, but it's now easier to do that in this dedicated accessibility section.

SPEAKER_02:

So

SPEAKER_09:

for those of our friends who are deaf or hard of hearing, you now have an Irish Sign Language, ISL option there. So you can find RTE's programs with ISL and it will auto-enable that for you, which is really,

SPEAKER_02:

really cool.

SPEAKER_09:

So you can turn on and off the autoplay for next episode. And this is a handy accessibility feature if you don't want it to just tear away, you know, on you. That is a very handy accessibility feature to have.

SPEAKER_02:

Accessible player controls. Switch button and

SPEAKER_09:

accessible player controls. Now, I did do a little bit of looking into what this does. And from what I understand, it means that the options for controlling playback will stay on screen a little bit longer for you to give you more time to access them. So that's what that seems to mean there, that you can keep those controls on screen for a little bit longer. And you will be able to, I suppose, interact with the player a little bit better to play, pause, adjust the audio settings, adjust the quality settings, close the player. All of that will be much easier with that. So that's what's in the accessibility section there. Great that we have an accessibility section, which is really cool. And I'm just going to jump back out and close the menu.

SPEAKER_02:

welcome close 79% battery 79% 79% battery kids mode parental switch to Gaelic current language in David Welcome back. Close the settings panel. Close the settings panel. There we go. Open settings menu.

SPEAKER_09:

But you have your tabs along the bottom, all, of course, labelled now.

SPEAKER_02:

Home, one of five. Live, two of five. Box sets, three of five. So you have box sets there. Kids, four of five. There's kids stuff. Search, five of five. There's

SPEAKER_09:

search and all of that is all really accessible. If I go to the kids section just for a second, we can be a bit childish. And we'll give that a second to load. There's Bluey. Are you a fan of Bluey, Joe?

SPEAKER_07:

Well, my kids are a big fan of Bluey. And I actually think of the quality cartoon or animation. I think it is quality. It's quite clever and well done. So, yeah, I'd recommend Bluey, David.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, absolutely. Very sophisticated. Bluey and Bingo, they'll be having some serious crack. They really do.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah. Australian accents as well. Cool, actually.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, yeah. Very, very good. So we'll keep on flicking down here.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, Fuzzy Yellow. What an

SPEAKER_09:

awesome kid's name. Kids shows have the best names.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_09:

true. Peppa Pig.

SPEAKER_02:

Seamus goes wild. Hey, Dougie. Button. School's out. Bing. Button. School's out. Little. School's out. Droid Academy. School's out. No worries. There's

SPEAKER_09:

loads of school's out stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

School's out. School's out. School's out. Thomas Agus at Shared. Button.

SPEAKER_09:

Thomas Agus Acorda.

SPEAKER_07:

You know, and Seamus goes wild. That would have been one I would have tried. Yeah, Thomas

SPEAKER_09:

Agus Acorda. You've got to love stuff converted to Gaeilge. I love it.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, very

SPEAKER_09:

good.

SPEAKER_02:

Maddie

SPEAKER_09:

and Triggs, a show which has a visually impaired character and was also assisted by Vision Ireland. So we might as well jump into this one and see because it does have audio description available. Let's jump in here. And what you can do is you've got your accessible play button. Live button. Box sets.

SPEAKER_02:

Oopsie daisy. Play button. There's

SPEAKER_09:

a

SPEAKER_02:

play

SPEAKER_09:

button

SPEAKER_02:

there. Maddy plus Triggs. 28 muddy boots. During a family hiking trip, dad is adamant that he does not want his pristine hiking shoes getting dirty. Can Maddy plot a route and help her buddy avoid getting muddy?

SPEAKER_09:

There you go. So I can also keep flicking.

SPEAKER_02:

Parental rating. General audience. Broadcast date, the 21st of July, 2025. 21st

SPEAKER_09:

of July, very recently. Duration, 07 minutes.

SPEAKER_02:

There's seven minutes. Captions, English, switch button, off.

SPEAKER_09:

I can turn

SPEAKER_02:

on or off captions. Audio description, switch button on.

SPEAKER_09:

So I can also quickly enable or disable the audio description from this section as well. And I can, of course, continue flicking and go through different episodes. So they've really done quite a nice job with this to allow you to get around the app, select what you want to watch. They've really done quite a nice job on this, Joe. And yes, there are still some little bits to fix, like those see all buttons. But overall, I think they is a massive improvement and the app is usable for the first time i think now

SPEAKER_07:

well i think that's uh excellent even when you compare it to some of the other apps out there the other description is actually very easy to turn on and you can turn it on before you go into the program um whereas some of the the apps i won't name them all but you find you have to uh put on the playback and then you have to double tap on the screen and look for audio and then look for English audio description which is a bit of a long-winded way of turning on something that should be so easy to access. So, I'm quite impressed with what you've just shown us there, David, as regards finding buttons and reading out the names of the TV programs, whether it's kids or adults, doesn't matter. It reads out the names of the programs and you look, you'll be able to find new content. You can see how many programs are in the series. Then, as you said, you have an accessibility section, settings, all those things easy enough to access. I know there's one button that wasn't there, but as you said, It's a work in progress and hopefully that will be fixed in one of the future updates.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, absolutely. And I would hope that they continue to build from here. But overall, the note, there are some great stuff that you can check out for both adults and kids with audio description. One of the dramas that I'd certainly recommend is one called Hidden Assets. There are two series of that. It's an Irish drama, but it has a great audio description by Kevin Sher Well, I...

SPEAKER_07:

Actually, I only tried out the RT Player on the web today. I normally use it on the mobile just for pure handiness. But I searched for RT Player in Google. I went to it, and I was pleasantly surprised, as we can see now. So I'm going to open up the start menu and press CHR for Google Chrome.

SPEAKER_06:

It's in my favorites, so I'm going to do RTE.

SPEAKER_07:

So I'm in RTE Player now, but I'm going to slow down my voice. So as RTE Player opens, I can navigate with my down arrow or I can press B for buttons or H for headings to see what's on the page. So I'm just going to navigate with my down arrow. So I suppose, look, if you want to find RTE Player yourself, you can just go and type in RTE Player and one of the first results is the RTE Player website and you can press enter on that. And then I suppose we'll use the down arrow here and we'll see what we can hear.

SPEAKER_06:

External links navigation region menu bar with nine items. RTE Acute.ie menu, news menu, lifestyle menu, culture menu, TV menu, radio menu.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay, there's lots of different links. So we'll ignore some of those and I'm going to press H for headings. RTE Acute player heading level one. Press H again. Trending now heading level two. So trending now, let's have a guess. It's probably going to be Sunday game and something else. So I'm going to do arrow down and discover it. So

SPEAKER_06:

they announce

SPEAKER_07:

them as slides, I suppose they probably are slides, but they will be read out to us aloud

SPEAKER_06:

in a second. So

SPEAKER_07:

as you can see, it's reading out the names of the programs, which is quite good. And then if I wanted to play one, I'd press enter on it. Just go down a few more, I'll go back and I'll try and play one in a second.

SPEAKER_06:

Link item 4 of 19, spin and spill. Link item 5 of 19, up for the match.

SPEAKER_07:

There we are. So I'm going to go back up and I'll play the... I'll try the Irish Missionaries because I'm fairly sure that has our description.

SPEAKER_06:

Link item 3 of 19, the last Irish Missionaries. So I'm

SPEAKER_07:

arrowing up and now I'm going to press enter on that.

SPEAKER_06:

Enter. Home RTE acute player. Play button to activate. Press enter.

SPEAKER_07:

So as you see, it lands on the play button straight away and gives me an option to play. If I want to discover what other buttons are on the screen, I can press B.

SPEAKER_06:

And there we are. I'm going to press enter on this

SPEAKER_07:

and play and see will it play for us just a basic effort at playing a

SPEAKER_06:

program.

SPEAKER_05:

It's 1500 years since St. Colm Cill set out for Scotland in a tiny rickety car. I'm

SPEAKER_07:

going to pause that there now. You

SPEAKER_09:

cut poor Dobson off prematurely there, Joe.

SPEAKER_07:

It's quite an impressive speaking voice, but I want to speak, you know, Brian, so we're going to keep going. I'm going to go down here and see, can I turn on audio description and see what audio options I have. So I'm going to press the down arrow key. Mute button. Volume.

SPEAKER_06:

Volume left right slider. 100. Min 0. Mac captions toggle button not pressed.

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, that's the down arrow. I'm going to actually press B. It might get me there quicker. Audio button. There we are. I'm going to press space bar here. Space English button to activate. Press enter. An arrow up. Audio description button. There we are. The first one almost. So I'm going to press enter. Enter. Audio description button to activate. Press enter. And now audio description should be turned on. So I'm going to go

SPEAKER_06:

back up and press the play button again.

SPEAKER_07:

And I've done the shift B to bring me back up there, David. So shift B brings you back to the previous button. So I'm going to press enter now to play that. And after a minute or so, we might hear some audio description. Today, Ireland

SPEAKER_05:

is down to its last few missionaries.

SPEAKER_01:

The last Irish missionaries. Audio described by Kevin Sherwin for RTE. A bird's eye view approaches Dalgan Park, a large greystone estate in County Meath.

SPEAKER_04:

There's quite a headline. Dalgan Park Overcrowded.

SPEAKER_07:

Okay, David, there you go. There's an example. It took us a while to get to your description there, but as you see, Kevin Sherwin introduced himself and gave us some audio described content. And we just checked out how easy it is to actually turn it on. So we found the audio button and we arrowed up to our description and pressed enter. I thought that was quite easy,

SPEAKER_09:

David. Yeah, it's a really nice process, to be fair. And, you know, we got a bit of Brian Dobson there while we waited, which was always nice. But no, that's That is like they've done a brilliant job with it. And I'm excited to see where things go in the future. But before we were always kind of, you know, you'd be asking RTE to maybe, you know, copy Netflix, do a little bit of what they're doing. But now RTE is right up there with them, which is great to see from a national broadcaster, isn't it?

SPEAKER_07:

Yeah, you don't have to copy anybody. You can do it your own way. Sometimes people get a little bit too automatic and I suppose too benign. So I think it's good to have our own way of doing things from our national broadcaster, have our own accents involved in the programmes as well, not just something so neutral or maybe Americanised or whatever. So I think it's great to have our own accents involved. in our own national programmes and have things described the way we want them described. There is a lot of very Irishness about certain programmes that need our own, whether it's lady actors or male describers or whatever. So yeah, I think it's great to do it and have an in-house operation organising audio description for RTE is great.

SPEAKER_09:

Absolutely. And hopefully as time goes on, there'll be just more and more stuff audio described It's only, I think, going to get better as this continues. And hopefully we'll start to see more from the likes of Sky, Virgin Media, all of those as well, as they kind of catch up with this stuff. It's only going to be a good thing. And I think it's proven some senses that, look, the European Accessibility Act probably had a part to play in this, but still it does take a team of people a lot of effort to actually dedicate themselves to doing this and creating a good quality accessible experience. So I think some credit is absolutely deserved, Joe.

SPEAKER_07:

Oh, definitely. And some congratulations. I'd give them some congratulations for getting to this level. I really enjoyed using that. RTE player, I suppose, website. It's not an app, it's a website there on the laptop. So I really enjoyed using that. There was no friction involved. Normally, I went around for ages looking for all different types of buttons and stuff. That was very easy, I thought. And there is, as you've shown on the app earlier on, I can also access the accessibility section and I can also sign in here and set my preferences to be either captions or sign language or audio description, whatever I want. I'm a user of. So they can be all set so that you don't have to set it all the time. You can have audio description on by default, you know. So that's all good, I think, David. That's brilliant. There is people who have been hired in RTE as part of a kind of, I suppose, an accessibility leader. And there's people looking after this all the time. And we just hope it keeps up to this level and even better going forward.

SPEAKER_09:

Absolutely. Some brilliant stuff. And a reminder to people that there is loads of stuff available but with audio description if you do want to check it out you can find out there I mentioned Hidden Assets that show I mentioned earlier as well A Good Girl's Guide to Murder I haven't watched that yet I don't know if it's any good but it's on my list of things to watch and then you have loads of kids stuff too as well available with audio description so do check that out and do check out audio description on other platforms as well we'd love to hear what the best audio description you ever heard was or an audio description that was particularly terrible. Send us all your stories. We're open to All of that. You can send us a voice note to 086-199-00001 or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie. We'd love to hear all of that. So please do get in touch. So now moving on. There's been loads going on over the last couple of weeks. And to tell us all about it, we're going to cross now to the new act with Mr. Daniel Dunn.

SPEAKER_00:

This is Talking Technology News.

SPEAKER_08:

So, with your latest Talking Technology News, I'm Daniel Dunn. The BBC Sounds app has closed for users outside of the UK, including those of us here in the Republic of Ireland. In a statement provided to VI Labs, the BBC said, BBC Sounds will now be available on the same basis as BBC iPlayer. Both services are restricted to a UK domestic audience, reflecting rights and associated considerations. BBC Radio Ulster file will remain more widely available via bbc.com. You can still access the BBC services through other platforms such as Apple Podcasts or TuneIn and they do still work on smart speakers like Alexa. The move comes as the BBC's commercial arm, BBC Studios, tries to find ways to generate revenue from BBC Audio. It's unclear what that will look like in the longer term, but for now, Irish users need to find workarounds to continue listening to some of their favourite BBC services. Do you listen to BBC Radio? Let us know with a WhatsApp voice note. Next up, do you like coffee? Coffee machine maker Sharer have announced that they will be launching a new module to make their coffee machines more accessible later this year. The company is focusing specifically on wheelchair users at the moment by launching a new module for their coffee sole range that provides the buttons to the bottom in front of the drip tray rather than having them in an awkward to reach position at the top. These coffee machines are more designed for corporate customers, but it's still cool to see. Global product manager Exonia Tan is responsible for the creation of the new module. She said, as far as I know, there are no other similar features on the market. This feature is not new for Exonia. is not new for the sharer CoffeeSoul as we launched the US integrated model in 2023. But now we are making it available globally, says Tan. It is important for us to foster a society that everyone can participate in on an equal basis. We see that as a critical part of our social responsibility. This includes improving accessibility for wheelchair users to help them navigate the world as accessibly as somebody who does not use a wheelchair. And that includes being able to start today with a cup of coffee independently. Hopefully, in the future, we will see coffee machines become more accessible for those who are blind or visually impaired too. Right now, a lot of modern coffee machines use touchscreens or inaccessible apps, so making a simple cup of coffee can prove tricky. It's little things like this that make a big difference, and it sounds like a step in the right direction. And finally for now, Apple is expected to avoid further significant EU fines by making changes to how payments work on the App Store. The company will reportedly allow third-party payment platforms like Stripe to be included in apps on the App Store, and they will also allow developers to include links for those who want to pay outside of the app. Traditionally, Apple processed all payments that happened within iPhone apps, but now this is starting to change. It's unclear if the interfaces for these payments will change significantly, but hopefully if they do, they will have accessibility built in. This also might lead to some services becoming slightly cheaper, as developers won't need to contend with the 30% payment surcharge being taken by Apple. Time will tell how this evolves, but it seems, initially at least, like a move in the right direction. And that's it for now. If you want to check out more technology news, be sure to sign up for the Tech on Tap newsletter. Just search Labs Newsletter Sign Up. For now, though, it's back to you, David.

SPEAKER_09:

Thanks so much, Daniel. Are you a coffee man yourself? Do you drink much coffee?

SPEAKER_08:

Oh, yeah. Very important to start today with a good cup of coffee to get the cogs greased. Get the cogs going. Do you know what?

SPEAKER_09:

I have never once had a coffee, funnily enough. Not once have I had a coffee.

SPEAKER_08:

Wow, David.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08:

I know you're a young man, but you are missing out.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, this is Mireille Domagny, who works for us here on the VR Labs team, said the exact same thing. Do you know what? It's one of these things where I've just never had the desire for it. I don't know what caffeine would do for me. I don't feel... particular need for it. Years ago, I used to have issues with chocolate, actually, because the coca bean in the chocolate used to give me migraines and stuff like that. So I wasn't able to deal with it. But that's not so much the case nowadays. And I suppose ever since then, just never had a coffee. So I've never once had a coffee and I've never once had a chewing gum. Two things, never had.

SPEAKER_08:

Wow. Well, whatever about the chewing gum, you're definitely missing out the coffee. And yeah, a nice latte is a treat, I guess. I was going to

SPEAKER_09:

say what your order is. What's your typical

SPEAKER_08:

order? I suppose, look, it's the bog standard, one spoon of instant and a good cup of milk with the hot water, you know, when you're at home in the kitchen or if, you know, if you're out and about and you, as many of us are probably too guilty of is pulling into the local service station, getting a fill of diesel or petrol and then you pop off the coffee machine there, it looks very inviting, so you throw on a latte and drive up the diesel bill another three euro or whatever. There you go. Yeah, it's kind of a little treat like that out and about on the road. and sure as well as the service stations are very very happy with that kind of you know indulgence that people treat themselves to

SPEAKER_09:

absolutely I'd say they are it's yeah something I've never done but maybe one day at this point I've gone so long it's one of these things now I need something significant to like actually break the streak you know I'm like there have been suggestions that if and when I ever get married that I have to have a coffee in the morning of my wedding and I'm like I don't think I'd do that but you know it will have to be a big occasion for me to drink a coffee at this point because I've gone so long without it but there you go and also in other news BBC Sounds Daniel lots of our service users yes we're based in Ireland but lots of our service users use BBC Sounds it's almost a stereotype that blind or visually impaired people I suppose are into radio but sometimes stereotypes are rooted in reality and that can also often be the case. A lot of our service users do use things like BBC Sounds.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, look, this, unfortunately for us, is a rather backward step. And, you know, how can you say? The broadcasting landscape, as we traditionally knew it, has utterly, utterly changed. And you know, generating revenue from advertisements on radio, on TV and newspapers even, you know, that that market is struggling. So they are trying, I guess, to diversify. And I suppose you've got to look at it from the point of view that the residents of the UK are paying their license fee. And that funds their service. And I suppose quite rightly, they're saying, well, we're paying for it. Why should someone in Ireland or in Germany or wherever pick your country? Any of the countries that's not the UK, basically. Why should they have access to it for free while, you know, every year they have to stump up? I don't know what their license fee is.£150 a year or something like that? It's a

SPEAKER_09:

bit more expensive than our one, yeah. I think it's£160, which is, you know, ours is still cheaper, I believe. David, shh, don't say that.

SPEAKER_08:

Our government will rise our TV licence fee. Do you know

SPEAKER_09:

what? This is true, this is true.

SPEAKER_08:

Don't give them ideas.

SPEAKER_09:

Point well taken and well made, Daniel, yes.

SPEAKER_08:

So, yeah, but I can understand, yeah, like that. And I suppose if we're in the UK in the morning or out in holidays in Spain or France or wherever, you know, try to get to watch the All-Ireland Final. It wasn't a great game last Sunday. You know, try to watch that. It's very, very hard because our TV services don't really go... go very much abroad either. And if they do, they're typically subscription through Sky in the UK or across Europe. So, you know, there is a deal then done with RTE and Sky that they can carry it. And obviously subscribers in other countries, a little bit of money comes back to RTE. So maybe that's the model that we'll see going forward. for the BBC that if you want to get it in another country, it's probably going to be a third party company, just like Sky is here, who will obviously charge us to consume BBC services and relay them.

SPEAKER_09:

It's a very, like, in my view, and this is just my, like, it's a very backwards way of thinking in some ways, because, like, so much of the world now is, like, this made sense, you know, 20 30 40 years ago when everything was i suppose you know you know like rte wasn't being seen as much in the uk or in germany or wherever or whatever the case may be but now we kind of live in you know a worldwide like we're all connected and i mean you know i can you know in theory i I can still, you know, listen to, like, just take this podcast as an example. You can listen to this pretty much anywhere in the world. I don't think we're restricted anywhere. You know, and that's well and good. People can do that. And, you know, if, like, it's one of these things, I don't see why that should necessarily change. And yes, you know, RTE and the BBC, they've got those kind of older models of, well, we'll license this to this territory and this can be, you know, purchased in this territory only or whatever. But it seems like now, I think the world has gone past that. It's a shame. I've wanted to watch, you know, and this is a side point. There's a show, I believe it's from Canada, called Sight Unseen. It's a drama about a police officer and she's using something, an app. She loses her vision and she solves, as I understand it, like crimes and stuff like that. But using the assistance of an app that's similar to like a Be My Eyes or Aira. And this sounds like a really unique concept to me. But because no broadcaster in Ireland has the rights to it or no broadcasters or this side of the pond, it's restricted to that country. It's restricted to Canada or the US or wherever. And it just seems to me like such a backwards way of working in the, you know, 21st century now, you know?

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, yeah. I understand where you're coming from. And it's just an unfortunate reality. Look, these, you know, it's getting more and more expensive to produce good content.

SPEAKER_09:

That's true.

SPEAKER_08:

And, you know, so they have to look at every trick in the book, probably not the best description of it, but every best commercial decision everyone's taking now is a commercial decision to, I suppose, generate as much revenue from that as possible. And, like, let's face it, if they don't get the revenue... stuff doesn't get made yeah the next production could might be axed because the capital funding is not there because they didn't they didn't get the income off the last show the producer the last movie or whatever it is you know so yeah it is look it's a catch-22 it's um we all crave good content um the good stuff is going to come with that little bit of a price tag. And as I say, you know, as we said there in the article going forward, what way is this going to evolve? Is it going to, is it going to go to a stage where, you know, you have to be an Amazon Prime member and then you get BBC sounds included? Yeah. Something like that, you know. It's interesting. Is the third party going to take it on? And there, you can be sure that some of the big, big providers. Now TV is another one that's out there. They basically take Sky Sports and all that and offer it in a different way to the Irish customer. Is some company like that going to say, actually, you know what, we can tease out an Irish market who we think is going to pay a subscription to include the BBC content and Audible would love it.

SPEAKER_09:

You know, I could see an Audible or someone like that loving it. I mean, there's a lot of stuff there from Radio 4 and 5 Live that, you know, like they have a lot of a similar crossover. So yeah, it's one that time will tell on that. But hey, I suppose for now, at least you've got this here podcast free all around the world and free of ads too, at least for now. So there you go.

SPEAKER_08:

The Apple thing is very interesting too. You know, the third-party payment system, I think that's going to be an interesting one to see. Does the cost of subscriptions and in-app purchases, will they come down in price?

SPEAKER_09:

It's going to be easy for some companies. I think you'll have two categories here. You'll have the companies who will keep the prices as they are and pocket the change because their customers are well used to that price now. But you will also probably have the companies who use this to their advantage that will say, ah, let's give them a euro off or two euros off. And it will be interesting to see if those are the ones that win out in the end.

SPEAKER_08:

Actually, we have a parallel going on in this country at the moment and where the 9% hospitality VAT rate is possibly coming back. And people are saying, hmm, will they pass it on to the customer? Will they not? Probably not. Yeah, look, who knows? I'm sure every individual place will either make a decision on to pass it to the consumer or not. And But hopefully it will open up a bit of competition that the prices might come back a bit. But am I being too optimistic?

SPEAKER_09:

look we've got to be optimistic in this wild world so we'll take it but there you go so Daniel thank you so so much for that really interesting stuff there is a few other stories popping around at the moment the WRC they've announced plans to become more accessible by 2027 that's also happening there are workplace relations commission for those who don't know they've announced some stuff and a few other bits as well that I believe there are some updates coming out for JSA. Did you ever work with JSA, Daniel? This is the integration between JAWS and Dragon, naturally speaking. I believe they're getting some small, minor upgrades as well.

SPEAKER_08:

Okay, no, I have not worked with that piece before. So it'll be interesting to see what updates are going to do there for service users. We might cover it a bit more later.

SPEAKER_09:

More detail at some

SPEAKER_08:

stage down the road. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_09:

Absolutely. So there you have it. That is our news and new act for this week. And Daniel, thank you so much for that. If you do want to comment on any of those stories or want to send us stories of your own, we'd love to hear from you. You can send us a WhatsApp voice note on 086-199-00001 or you can send us an email to content at VO But for now, though, that is about all we've got this week. Thank you so, so much for listening. Just a note before we finish up that our VI Labs training courses, our group training, they are taking a break for the August period. But don't worry, we're not the VI Labs help desk. It's still going to be open. We're still doing all of our one-on-one trainings. The podcast will be continuing. Tech on Tap is still going to be publishing newsletters. There's still loads going on. So do be sure to check out the website vi.ie for more if you were looking to find out what's going on and what we have to offer you so please do check all that out but for now that has been Talking Technology episode 90 thank you so much for listening and we will see you again in two weeks time for another episode of Talking Technology with VR Labs see you then music

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for listening to the Talking Technology Podcast with VI Labs. If you'd like to support our show, please visit vi.ie.com. Talking Technology is proudly sponsored by IA Labs, the market leader in digital accessibility services. IA Labs, digital inclusion, your legal obligation.