Talking Technology with V I Labs
This podcast is focused on technology that supports people who are blind and visually impaired. Our panel of IT Trainers & guest panelists discuss all the latest in mainstream and inclusive technology innovations in a fun and informative manner. V I Labs is the technology function within Vision Ireland. Vision Ireland is the national sight loss agency in Ireland. V I Labs provide technology assessments and training for all our service users. We are a not for profit charity, which offers support and services to people of all ages who are experiencing difficulties with their eyesight. Visit www.vi.ie to discover more about our technology services and other range of services Vision Ireland provide
Talking Technology with V I Labs
Talking Technology with V I Labs episode 97 - Major updates at Sky, and the people making RTÉ Player accessible
On this episode of Talking Technology, we catch up with David Nason from Sky to learn about lots of exciting new accessibility improvements across their Sky TV products.
With audio description for on-demand content and major improvements to the voice guidance screen reader, there’s a lot to discuss.
Back in episode 90 of Talking Technology, we explored the accessibility updates for RTÉ Player. In this episode, we meet the team that made those updates happen.
Peter McCabe and Gillian Bowes from RTE join us to tell us about how the accessibility overhaul of RTÉ Player came about, and what’s next for the accessibility of their new audio product launching in 2026.
We have new Amazon Echo products in Tech News, and Joe might need a new trampoline.
All that and more on this episode of Talking Technology with V I Labs.
Join the conversation with a WhatsApp voice note. The number you need is +353 86 199 0011
0:00 Intro
2:13 Your voice notes, and Joe might need a new trampoline
15:52 Accessibility updates at Sky with David Nason
36:21 Peter and Gillian from RTÉ talk about RTÉ Player accessibility
54:48 Talking Technology News
1:06:23 Outro
This Vision Ireland podcast contains chapter markers. If you want to skip the intro or a topic you don't like, you can use chapter markers to do so. Chapter markers are only supported in some podcast apps. Enjoy the show. 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. Yes, indeed you have. Hello all, hope you're keeping well. Welcome in to Talking Technology with VI Labs, episode number 97. Yes, we are at 97 where it is definitely getting a bit chilly out there now. It's getting cold. But don't worry, over the next hour or so, we have a podcast full of great technology content for you. Lots to cover, specifically around media accessibility today. All things media accessibility. Since the European Accessibility Act kicked in back in June, there's been just a flurry really of different accessibility upgrades. We spoke about the RTE player upgrades a few weeks ago. And in this episode, we will also be talking to the team behind those upgrades. And we will be chatting to Peter and Gillian, who work on the technology side, improving RTE players. So we'll be talking to them later on. And we'll also be catching up with Dave Nason, a regular on this podcast. Dave Nason from Sky. He will be telling us all about some really exciting upgrades that are coming to their Sky products, including an exclusive. So yes, we are going to have the first bit of news on a really exciting upgrade from Sky. So we'll be having that in just a few minutes. So do stick with us. And as always, if you would like to get in touch with us, we'd love to have you as part of the conversation. And there are loads of ways that you can do so. So if you would like to join the conversation, you can send us a WhatsApp voice note if you'd like. The number that you need there. It's 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. Remember, a voice note. It's not a call. You want to use the voice message button that's down at the bottom right hand corner of your screen. You can also, if you'd like, send us an email. It's content at vi.ie. That's content at vi.ie. Either way, we would absolutely love to hear from you, whether it's a voice note or an email message. Or if you do so desire, you can send a text message on WhatsApp as well. We won't begrudge you that. The number that you need there. 086-199-0011. But now, to go through some of those messages from the week gone by, it is time to cross all the way to Kilkenny to Mr Joe Lanigan. Joe, how are you getting on? Yeah, I'm good, David. I'm surviving down here. We had a small little bit of a storm down here at the weekend, but all good. Everything is still intact. Good. So you didn't have any flying bouncy castles or trampolines in your neck of the woods, Joe? No, I had to get rid of that trampoline, actually. It kept going over the neighbors as well. So it's got a bit of damage. A bit of damage got done to it. I have to renew it now in the spring, maybe, and get a newer one. I'll go for a square one next time. I think the round one seems to have the mind of its own. It goes rolling everywhere. That's interesting. Yeah. Well, look, better, I suppose, in some respects, damage to the trampoline than your neighbor's property because that can get messy. Oh, that can get messy. I mean, they weren't too happy when we had to go in and get it out in the first place. So thankfully, it didn't do too much damage. But yeah, they are dangerous trampolines. There's plenty of YouTube videos out there. You can watch trampolines flying through the sky, you know? So that's the thing. Yeah. One of our staff was saying there was a trampoline just randomly flying across one of the farmer's fields near where they were living. And you're just like, whoa, that's a crazy world. Thankfully, we don't have that in our backyard anymore. I don't think they're that well designed, but maybe they'll design one someday that is weatherproof. But some people put them into the ground and everything, you know? But we didn't go to the trouble of that, unfortunately. Fair enough. So what you're saying, it's a user error, Joe? One of them things, I think, yeah, it can be, I suppose, can't have it everywhere. You know, I didn't learn how to use a digger yet. So that's left with me next step. Absolutely. There you go. Well, Joe, we do have some voice notes in. Storms aside, storm Amy aside, we do have some voice notes in to go through this week. And our first message is from Amy. Amy was responding to a message that we had or a question that we posed in the Talking Technology Big Question in our newsletter just a few weeks ago about the most interesting technology experience she has had. Here's what Amy had to say. The most interesting technology experience I've had would probably be when I went to the Meta Glasses event in Vision Ireland a few weeks ago. I can definitely see myself purchasing a pair of the Gen 2 in the next few months. You and many more, Amy, I think they are seemingly quite popular. And yeah, there were lots of people at that Meta Glasses day just a few weeks ago. Great to hear positive feedback that people seem to enjoy that kind of stuff, Joe, isn't it? Yeah, thanks, Amy. I know Amy, we had a trend event with her recently and chat GPT as well. She's very positive there and also very positive about the glasses. And I can see why they are very interesting and they are a fun product to use as well as being handy and good for people with vision impairments. And the great thing about smart glasses is, in my opinion, is using them hands-free. Having that be my eyes or whatever you might be using on the glasses hands-free is great. I was using them only recently to get past an issue on my TV. There was a question asked and the TV went silent. The screen reader didn't work and I just said, hey, it might be my eyes. And then got through to a volunteer and they were able to read the TV screen for me and I was able to select and move to the next step. But the great thing was I didn't have to hold my phone and get directed to move up, down, left, right, all that kind of stuff. So that was handy. So I can see why people are interested in them, even for taking a quick photograph. It saves it in a meta folder in your photo library. It's great actually. So yeah, there's loads of positives with the meta glasses and as well as that, this is the year of the smart glasses, as we've said before. Absolutely. And we'll be talking more about smart glasses later on because there's rumours that Apple are working on smart glasses. We'll talk about that later on in the show. But Amy, thank you so, so much for the voicenote. Really do appreciate it. And who knows? Hopefully you'll have a pair of meta glasses soon and if you do, be sure to share your thoughts with us. Thank you so much. Another person who sent us a voicenote in is a regular contributor to Token Technology. Edvard has had his first experience of iOS 26 and is he happy? No, he is not. Hi, guys. My God, I thought iOS 26 would be the best update, but apparently it's the worst update. I'm a really unhappy camper, as you may call me in your next episode. And feel free to call me that because I am. Basically, well, firstly, I was expecting the big update, the big redesign, all the features and all that kind of thing. But most of the features are Apple Intelligent-focused. So I don't get the workout body even though I have a compatible watch and an incompatible phone and it requires Apple Intelligence. Secondly, I don't get the battery charging feature. It's not telling me how long I have left to charge because that's also an Apple Intelligence feature. Like I just have a regular iPhone 15. How dare Apple does that? Look, we'll pause that voicenote just there for one second for Edvard. Edvard is absolutely not a happy camper, Joe. Not impressed with iPhone or Apple's iOS 26 at all. No, he's not a happy camper, that's for sure. I can feel his pain, I suppose. He thinks and he does have, I suppose, a recent iPhone and also doesn't have Apple Intelligence, I understand from his message. And then that doesn't link him exactly the way he wants to on his devices, for example, whatever workout body or whatever it might be, you know, or checking, updating with the timing and stuff like that. So yeah, it's disappointing sometimes when there's a new update. It takes a lot of getting used to and you can get confused with all the different updates and trying to line them up with your new devices and stuff like that. So I can understand where Edvard is coming from. And again, thanks so much for the voicenote, Edvard. Keep the feedback coming in because people love to hear stuff like that and it does teach other people the way things work. Absolutely. Do you know, he makes a very valid point because you do need, yes, you need a compatible watch, you need a compatible phone, you need all your products to kind of, for everything to work smoothly. Not only does one need to be up to date, but they all kind of need to be up to date, which can be very frustrating in ways, can't it be? Yeah, and you need a really heavy, chunky wallet as well, David, to buy all these products. You know, so it's not going to be easy to update your watch, your AirPods, your phone all at once either. So I suppose that is the other issue for a lot of people as well. So you might buy an iPhone SE 2022 and then you say, oh, that's fine, it's working the way I have the home button and all. And then you could buy the watch like Edvard has done there. But you find all the great features you've read about and watched on YouTube, they don't sync in with the phone that you think is fine. Yeah, it's a tricky one, but it's only going to kind of continue going that way, unfortunately. But who knows? Edvard did have a follow up question though. So let's restart Mr. Edvard's voice note and continue where we left off. I have a question for you as well. How do I revert to the old classic camera mode? Because I can't find the option. When I looked up on YouTube how to revert and it told me go into settings and then scroll down until you find the old classic mode, but I can't find it in the actual settings app. So if you guys figure it out, let me know, please. Thanks. Thanks again, Edvard. I did look in to this issue and Joe, I think poor Edvard is going to hate me because Edvard, the reality is you don't need Apple intelligence for that, but you do need an action button. So it's not going to work on your phone, I'm afraid. I know it's literally, it re-emphasizes the point he was making earlier. But it just goes to show that even a recent phone, like an iPhone 15, you're missing out a bit, aren't you? You are missing out a bit. Could he, I suppose, look, Christmas is coming. Maybe you could update from the 15 to the 16. It might cost a hell of a lot if he was able to sell the 15 and get the 16. He might have the features he needs, but it is, as you said, you can miss out on a few features and stuff like that. It can have a few disappointing moments like Edvard's having there and few frustrating moments because it is a big learning curve as well when they do a total new update. I know the basics all work the same, but if you're going to do anything different, sometimes it can put a few blocks in your way. Absolutely. Even upgrading, maybe if you desperately wanted Apple intelligence features, I mean, maybe there's an upgrade there from the 15 even to the 16E, which might be slightly cheaper. The 16E is currently a little bit under the iPhone 16 and it does have your Apple intelligence features, although I don't know if it has an action button. Look, I suppose it all depends what you're willing to give up. It's a tricky conundrum because you can very easily, even by not spending, like you spend a lot, truthfully, to get an iPhone 16E, but you're not getting absolutely everything with that, which is really frustrating for people, I think. Yeah, that is very frustrating. I suppose the 16E, though, is a really good phone. I've seen it and it's classic, but it's actually a very good phone. It has nearly all of the Apple intelligence features. I suppose the camera technically isn't as good, but the camera is still brilliant, if you know what I mean. So I wouldn't put them off looking at the 16E, especially the battery life in the 16E is actually great as well because it doesn't have as many demands on it as the 16, the original 16 or whatever. So the battery life, some people say you get a couple of hours in that as well. So I look, the 16E is a really good phone. It's one of the ones I'd put on a shortlist. Good to know, good to know. It is always good to explore different options. If you do desperately want something like Apple intelligence, then it's a potential option worth considering. But Edvard, for now, thank you so much. Really appreciate that as always. And a reminder to you, if you want to send us a voice note, we'd absolutely love to hear from you. The number that you need to send us a voice note on WhatsApp, it's 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. Or if you would like to send us an email, you can do so to content at vi.ie and it will reach us here. And we may include your comments in a future episode of Talking Technology. But for now, let us move on, shall we? To get onto media accessibility. I've been looking forward to this chat for a long time. I love media accessibility. So some really exciting stuff. And we are going to start with Sky. Many of you may be Sky TV customers. And you know well at this point that Sky have lots of interesting features, be it voice guidance on their TVs, the ability to watch with audio description, all of that good stuff. But there are some new features coming and some many more, in fact, that have rolled out just this month. So to catch up on everything that is new at Sky TV, I caught up with their customer experience accessibility manager, Dave Nason, to tell us what is going on. So joining me now on Talking Technology, I am delighted to be joined once again by Dave Nason from Sky. Dave, how are you? I'm good, David. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. So, Dave, I suppose you guys have loads of updates to share at Sky and we'll touch on those in a minute. But I do want to ask you, because we haven't had you on since the European Accessibility Act took effect back in June. So has this made things easier for you working in an accessibility role? Has it made it easier for you to advocate for accessibility? How are things going on that front? Yeah, it certainly doesn't hurt because, you know, we definitely always want our products to be the best they can for as many people as we can. You know, I've been in an accessibility role for several years and we've other people focused on accessibility for a long time. But yeah, when you want to make change and you want to improve, it always helps to also have regulations that you can actually point to and say, this is how we need to do it. And it gives you guidance as well for what we need to do and building it into everybody's role. This is, I think, what's really important as well, that, you know, everybody knows that there's a responsibility on us to be accessible as well as it being the right thing to do. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So do you want to tell us, I suppose, a little bit about what kind of updates you have at Sky because there are some definite some big ones in there? Yeah, there's 24 or 5 we could talk about. I think the biggest one and the one that, you know, it's been a long and winding road and we're delighted finally to be able to say that we have audio description for on-demand content now, which is brilliant. So we have launched really this month, so it will go through October. We launched initially a series of titles. So some of the movies that have it as of today as we speak would be Wicked, Anora, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, there's Despicable Me 4, and then there's TV shows like Task, The Paper, Peacemaker, and Duck. So they're some of the ones that we've done already. And then through October, what we're going to do is roll out so that all new series and movies that come to us that have audio description, that we're doing audio description for in broadcast, we'll also get it for on-demand as well. Super stuff. So how will that work, I suppose, for the user if they have audio description, I suppose, turned on in their settings? Will it work automatically, first of all? And will it also work for, I suppose, non-Sky stuff? So things like, you know, Virgin Media or those kind of networks? Yeah, so it will work automatically if you have audio description switched on in your main settings, you go to settings and then accessibility switch ID on, and it'll work for both live TV and for anything that has audio description in the on-demand version will automatically play with it. The third party piece varies a little bit. So in some cases, what happens when you go for a third party, like for example, if you're on Sky Stream or Sky Glass and you try to watch something on-demand from RTE, typically it'll take you into the RTE player and that will have audio description if RTE have put it on within their player. That's when you need to switch it on separately if you're going into an app. But then if it's stuff that's from, say, Virgin Media or BBC here in Ireland where we don't have the iPlayer, they are in the Sky kind of on-demand library. So in time we will intend to have those have audio description as well where the provider has actually given us the ID, but that's something we're going to work with them. So first we were getting this delivered for ourselves and for our own channels and then we'll start to work with third parties and see can we do the same for them. So it's not there yet, but that will come. On the way, very good. And I should ask as well, so what platforms is that on? We recently got the SkyStream pocket at home and I actually tried this out the other day with Task on Sky Atlantic and it worked flawlessly. There was a few ads and then it started playing with the audio description straight away, no problems. But what platforms is this on? We know it's on SkyStream and Skyglass, but is it on other platforms? Yeah, it's on all the TV platforms right now. So that will be Skyplus, SkyQ, SkyStream and Skyglass. For those who don't know, Skyplus is the very legacy older system. SkyQ is the one that's been around since 2016 and they're both the satellite dish. So you're kind of traditional Sky TV and then Skyglass is the TV itself that you buy from Sky and Sky is built in and delivered over broadband instead of satellite dish and SkyStream as you know, David, is a little puck that you plug into your own TV. And again, it's delivered over broadband rather than satellite dish. So they're the more modern platforms, Glass and Stream. Awesome stuff. So it's all of them have it. SkyGo then is the companion app and that's one that will come at a later date, but all of the TV platforms have it. Excellent. So coming to SkyGo as well, that is super exciting, brilliant stuff. So that's an audio description on demand. That's probably the biggest of the improvements, but there are others Dave. Yeah, that's one we're really excited to do. Another one is voice guidance. So this is the screen reader. We first delivered it back in 2021 on SkyQ and then it came also when we released Skyglass and SkyStream. And it's actually even better on Skyglass and SkyStream now because we have launched two improvements this year. One is you can adjust the speed of the speech. And we all know that, especially for those of us who use screen readers on a daily basis, that's quite an important feature to be able to speed it up. Because I think people found maybe it was a little, it wasn't super slow, but it would have been, you know, slow for somebody who's a regular screen reader user. So now you can, you've got five speed variants available to you now. So you can go into settings and make it speak faster for you or slower. If you are someone who is not a fan of very fast speech, you can actually slow it down as well. So there's five variants there. And the other big one, and again, I think this is a huge thing for the just overall user experience of the products on glass and stream is, especially because you don't have recordings and things, the importance of apps is huge. So now voice guidance will work inside apps. So if you want to watch something on Netflix or prime video or RTE player, there's other ones, YouTube, Sky Sports, Sky Store, these apps. Now you can navigate all of those with the voice guidance screen reader on Skyglass and stream. So that's huge, isn't it? Huge important. Yeah. There's one or two apps not done yet. So a bit like on Apple, you know, it's the app owner has to actually implement their support, you know, for voice guidance. So there's some partners that we're still working with, but we do have a lot of those key ones already in place, which is brilliant. Excellent stuff. Yeah, those are like, you know, that's important stuff. And that I suppose makes the product, as you said, that actually changes the usability of the product quite significantly. So that is very exciting. Is that on Skyglass and stream only or how does that work? That is Skyglass and stream only. Yes, I suppose SkyQ is it's an older technology. So it's more limitations. The app platform is built on, you know, on an older technology as well. So at the moment anyway, it's under review, but at the moment it's not technically possible to implement it. So we'll let you know if that's something we can do in the future. Whereas Skyglass and stream are built on a much more modern, up to date technology that lets us kind of innovate and develop all the time. And, you know, we have it gets software updates as much as every month, sometimes certainly multiple times per year, there's software updates for glass and streams. So it's a much more modern platform, I suppose. Very good. For the low vision users, you're adding a screen magnifier, which is really cool. I don't know. There's not that many TV platforms that have that, to my knowledge. I think the Apple TV might, but it's certainly far and few between. Yeah, so again, this came out a couple of months ago, and it is something that allows you to zoom in up to eight times, I believe it is 800%. And you zoom in using the, once you have switched on, you use the two, four, six and eight buttons to then pan around and use the five and the eight to zoom in and out, or five and zero to zoom in and out. And then you sort of pan around the screen, kind of is what you can do. And then zoom back out again when you want to read kind of program information or what have you. Does that limit you to then, if you wanted to, let's say, use the little keypad as, you know, number navigation or things like that, are you still able to do that? Or does that become, I suppose, your zoom controller in that case? No, it doesn't interfere. So when you're actually watching TV, live TV, the zoom doesn't come into play. So zoom is effectively switched off our screen. Matter of fact, it's effectively switched off when you're actually watching full screen TV, which is when you'd be typing in channel numbers or when a pin code screen comes up, it won't kick in either because it will, you need to be able to use those numbers. So it kind of shuts itself off temporarily while you're in those situations. But then when you're in the main menus and that kind of thing, that's when the magnifier will come in. Very good. And it is an older feature, but there is also a high contrast mode there too. There is, yeah. And all the platforms of the screen magnifier is on Sky, Glass and Stream, whereas the high contrast is on all the platforms. And yeah, I mean, I know a lot of fully sighted people who even like it because they just like how it looks. But yeah, just darkens the background and reduces some of those transparencies and things that makes it easier. So as a combination now, it's a much easier, I think Sky, Glass and Stream as well, are any way easier to read maybe than Q probably. So I think Glass and Stream with magnifier and high contrast is a lovely, a lovely combo. Absolutely. And I mean, who doesn't love a dark mode, even if, even if it is a high contrast for accessibility, we'll call it dark mode. So there you go. Very good. So there are, are those the main bits that are out right now or are there other bits? Because there are some things that are coming down the line as well. I suppose so the biggest ones, yeah, would be the voice club improvements, the screen magnifier and the AD on demand. So they're the big ones. We've other little things coming along soon. For example, there's a new Sky remote app coming for iOS and Android, which will let you, rather than using the physical remote control, if you want to use it on your phone. And it'll also work with, you know, for, so if there's people who use adaptive keyboards and things like that with their phone, they would then be able to use those with this app to control their TV, you know, that kind of thing. So that's coming. So Sky Go already has this built into it for Sky Q customers, but we didn't have a solution up till now for our Sky Glass and Stream customers. So that app will be coming soon for them, which is great. And again, works with if you dark mode on your phone or if you're using high, sorry, large font size and things like that on your phone as well, then you can use those on with this app as well. So that would be great to get out soon as well. And then the Sky Go app, I suppose, has just been making improvements as well, usability improvements for screen reading users and other users. So again, improvements to people who use large font. And even for me, a huge one I noticed is the better use of headings. So when you have those kind of what we call rails, where you have the kind of, you know, the sections on a page with a lot of content, you know, where you might have comedy, drama, continue watching, you know, those kinds of headings are now marked up properly as headings. So you can navigate with your screen reader and things like that better. It's a huge quality of life thing, even though it's quite a small, small improvement in some ways. Indeed. Jeannot, I've heard you say it's those little details, but I've heard a lot of people praise the Sky Go app for its voiceover accessibility, at least I still think, and I know you said that audio description is on the way, which is really exciting. But it's a really nice app to use with voiceover actually. Yeah, it is. I'm one of those people partly because I live alone and also I have some residual vision. I personally use things like Sky Go more than I use TV because I can kind of hold the TV up to me. So I think maybe not more, but I certainly use it a lot for watching TV. So I think it's, yeah, it's a lovely little, it's lovely to have that kind of voiceover support. Absolutely. So there's loads there, Dave, loads to come as well, which is really exciting. You still have all of the integrations with Be My Eyes, the accessible health desk, all of that sort of stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So if you are, whether it's getting started with Sky or having tech support issues with your TV, with your broadband, any of us, if you would benefit from the customer service advisor being able to see what you're doing, whether that's the lights on the home or the messages coming up on your TV screen, you can contact us through Be My Eyes in the service directory. So that's all there, yeah. That's, and we still have a dedicated accessibility customer service team as well that you can call through to if you're having any challenges as well, so. Brilliant stuff. I must say I did call Sky only recently because we were switching from our old trusty Sky Plus box over to the newer Sky Stream POC and it was a bit scary. It played up a little bit at the beginning, but it's been working brilliantly now, which is excellent. But I must say the folks at Sky Accessibility were absolutely superb in dealing with that. So it's brilliant to have that as well, isn't it? It's great to hear, yeah. And we have as well, if you go to sky.com slash help, one of the categories there is accessibility and there's lots of help articles if you want help getting to grips with voice guidance or any of those. There's articles there as well to take you through how to switch them on and use those features as well. Fantastic. Dave, an absolute pleasure as always. Great to see these improvements. It's always fantastic to see accessibility moving in the right direction. But for now, thank you so much for the updates and we'll be sure to have you back on Talkin' Technology very soon, I'm sure. Thanks for having me on, David, and enjoy watching all those shows with audio description on demand now. I will do. I absolutely will. I need to catch up on tasks. So looking forward to that. Dave, thank you so much. Thank you. Always great to catch up with Dave Nason from Sky. There are some really cool accessibility features coming to the Sky TV there. Audio description on demand, the voice guidance in apps. That audio description on demand, that's huge, Joe, isn't it? That's huge. I've heard a lot of people complaining on Twitter and stuff in the past. We wanted to watch something back and no audio description and why is this and all this kind of stuff. So I suppose their complaints were legitimate, but now I suppose that will keep them quiet. Now it's here and it's working, so that's great. I'm delighted. There's lots of great stuff on Sky, so watching it back with audio description just adds that. I suppose it just makes it watchable for us. Absolutely. You expect people on X to be quiet though, Joe. I don't think that's how that works. No, X is great for complaining, getting stuff off your chest and putting it out there in the big bad world. So yeah, that's what you see on X a lot nowadays. Absolutely. We should say as well, just when I was referring there when chatting with Dave about Virgin Media, that's Virgin Media television. So those are their TV channels. That's not Virgin Media, the service provider. That's totally different. But Virgin Media in Ireland, they do use the actual Sky on demand service. So if you are a Skyglass or SkyStream customer and you're accessing something like Coronation Street, for example, through Virgin Media on your Sky TV, that is what we were referring to. That in time as Virgin Media start to provide those with audio description to Sky, then they will be available to you with audio description on Sky. That's what we were referring to there as well, just so you know. And that support as well, Joe, in apps. I mean, that is also huge. It's hard to imagine in this modern age how we could survive without a screen reader in apps, isn't it? Well, that's awesome because the reason I have so many things plugged into my TV, like an Apple TV and all the rest of it, is so I can have access to the extra apps. But now, at least if I have SkyStream on one TV and I have an Apple Box in another or whatever, I can use the SkyStream for everything. I can access YouTube, Netflix, Prime, that you mentioned, Disney Plus. Also, yeah, an RTE player as well, of course. So I think that's probably the best feature, the best part of the upgrades, to be honest. Absolutely. Loads of stuff to come. So well done to the folks at Sky for that. Always great to see improvements. And thanks again to Dave for joining us. And another company that has been making massive strides in accessibility of latest RTE. And RTE, they recently rolled out upgrades to their RTE player. We spoke previously on the podcast about upgrades to RTE player on mobile and on web. Joe, you were telling me just before we started recording that you've also noticed upgrades recently on your Samsung TV. Yeah. I can't remember exactly when I discovered it, but approximately a month ago. I used to open RTE player on the Samsung. It's a modern Samsung. I forget the exact type, but it's 55 inch anyway. S90C or something like that, hasn't it? S90C, that's the one. Thanks for reminding me, David. Sorry to remind you about your own telly. We reviewed it on the podcast. We reviewed it. I couldn't even think of the name of it. Yeah, Samsung Smart S90C. Exactly. That's the one. And it's great TV actually. It's really tame as well and it's got a fantastic screen on it and good speaker as well, which is important. But the RTE player, I used to go in and chance me around sometimes and see, could I get something playing on it? And I could barely get the live RTE one playing. But now it actually, I suppose since these updates have came and they've obviously updated all the apps on the Smart TV and across the board. So it actually reads all the elements on the RTE player app now, which is great. So I can watch back stuff of my choice and I can find the four or five live stations that are there as well. So I think it's brilliant, David. I hear you're watching Fair City every night, Joe, are you? Not every night now, David. Just when I can, you know. There you go. Well, hey, to catch up on the accessibility at RTE and also to learn more about how an accessibility upgrade like this comes about. Peter and Gillian from RTE joined me from their technology and design teams respectively to tell us how all of this came about. So Peter started off by telling me a little bit about what he does. David, thanks for letting us join you today. So I, my name is Peter McCabe and I work in the technology team with an RTE, specific in the RTE player. I look after release and delivery management for various different RTE player features on the clients that we're the RTE players available on. And I look after the kind of day-to-day management of the test team within RTE. That's any given day I'm dealing with various different updates of different apps, various deliveries, engaging with our developers, ensuring we're trying to hit the targets that we've set ourselves. Brilliant stuff. And Gillian, what about yourself? Hi, I'm the UX accessibility designer. I work on the design team here in RTE and I oversee the digital products to make it more accessible. But I've been working mainly on the player at the moment to make it accessible and we've done quite well so far. So we've been planning to implement design from, or accessibility from the beginning in our design process and just improving bit by bit to make the new deadline. And then also from now on just to improve bit by bit to make it our product accessible. Super stuff. So you mentioned player right now. Do you have involvement with some of RTE's other digital services like the news app or radio player, or is it specifically player? I originally was on the design team working on the audio app, the new audio app. So I've kind of been in on all the products at the moment. So I have a good overview of each. Brilliant stuff. And we'll touch on some of those other apps as well in a minute. But I do want to ask yourself, Peter, as well, for an accessibility upgrade like this, I guess, how does it come about? Has this been in the works for a long time? We started working this last year and basically it starts off where we engage with the the developers that we work with in the RTE player and we basically set a task to basically go through the guidelines and then basically look at the player on the functionality features we have and basically create a list of what we need to be done, where we're compliant, where we're not compliant. And then basically we start to set tasks in development sprints to start closing out the gaps that we have. So that can be again, player is available on like we've got iOS, Android, web, various different smart TV platforms. So it's a huge amount of work for relatively small teams. But we've got, you know, I think it's fair to say rapidly improved and we've got more work to do. And that's something that we're conscious of and it will not. So as we go forward with new releases, we have to ensure that accessibility is first and foremost in our mind for any new feature we bring about. But day to day stuff where what we started doing with the, we started the kind of review that we had done, we set about basically making sure that where a voice reader is available on whatever platform that we can basically, the RTE players compatible with it. So making sure the labeling was correct, making sure that we have as little holes as possible, making sure nothing. So if a user is hitting a navigation mark, they need to know what it is, what it does, et cetera. That's what we try to do as much as possible. It's got a lot better. And I'd be the first to say that we have more work to do on that. Awesome stuff. So Gillian, then if I ask yourself, you know, you're an accessibility designer, which is a really cool role that we don't get to hear about that much, but what does it look like, you know, the day to day of designing what accessibility for an app like RTE player or any of RTE's apps, what does that look like? So when I got the job, my aim is to do a good manual audit of the player. So looking at using JAWS and it's kind of like looking how best a screen reader wants to go through the process. And we, in the future, we would love to have a panel of people to go through that with as I'm not the best person to really go through that. But to that was one of the main things is to get the screen reader and how best to go through the process. One of our first projects was to have contrast levels and have that the best. And we've done improve that really well at the moment. So we use a lot of tools to have a look at all that. So we use Stark and Figma and a few other tools to help that. So when I design and look at auditing, I use Stark. So it helps the process when we design and the guys on the design team, they use Stark. So from the very beginning of process for design, we have accessibility in mind. So we don't have to go back. So that's what's happened with player. We've had to go back and look at a lot of design and change such as the contrast levels. So working with Peter and the technology team to be able to go back and change certain levels so people are able to see a lot better. And in general, I feel like it's made the player more visible with a lot of light gray text. So the average user, to be honest, wouldn't know that it's changed, but it's improved the accessibility score a lot better. And certain other things like target size is just a little bit bit by bit, but the average audience user would never know that this has happened. But I'm sure it has improved accessibility for different users in a lot of ways as well. It absolutely has. So I suppose then, Peter, you know, you work on the release side of things like that. So how has this been going kind of bit by bit? You mentioned you started on web. Yeah, we started on web and we had the development builds that we were working with, you know, with our developers and then our test team. And it was very iterative, giving feedback to the developers saying, you know, we were using tools like JAWS, NVDA, you know, the voiceover on the Mac, et cetera, these kind of tools. And going back and forth, making sure we were getting as good and as best, making sure it was working as best as we could. And then closer to the release time, we started pushing out one or two small bits and pieces of that functionality, just as part of, you know, kind of regular cycle releases. And then we did a bigger release just in June there for the accessibility piece on web. So if a user is using JAWS or NVDA, which we test on and voiceover, it should be as good as it is at the moment. Again, as I keep saying, we have bits and pieces we need to improve on. But that whole being iterative, develop, test, feedback, you know, if it's passed successfully, great. If it's not, then we go back and we push to improve things. And then if we need to engage with Gillian on the design team to make further adjustments or get her feedback, we do. Like, you know, it's a very collaborative process. The testing side of it is a challenge in that everybody has an opinion, but there's no kind of set in stone way it has to do this. So we're taking the best approach we can, going like, does this make sense to a user who's using the feature? Does it tell them what it is, what it does, et cetera? So test is a challenge. We've been using some automation tools as well to look at score, overall accessibility scores, the likes of Axe doing an assessment and that, IBM has some tools as well you can, the plugins you can use to see what we are. But a lot of it is manual testing, which can be a challenge when you've got a small enough team. And there are also those same people who are doing web will be doing mobile, smart TV, et cetera. So that's the kind of approach we do. It was very iterative. I'm big on tests and making sure things work as possible, as best as possible. But I think that's the best way of explaining that at this moment in time, David. Absolutely. And Gillian, you mentioned they're using tools like JAWS and so on. Had you ever used JAWS or NVDA or anything like that before this? And was that a new process for yourself? And how did you find diving into this world? Yeah, no, I've never used it before. It's been a lot to learn. I've looked at a lot of YouTube videos and all the shortcuts and everything, and it's still learning. It's definitely a bit, especially all the different screen readers, even on your phone, on Apple, to go through and how that works. But I still need to learn it all. And it's a lot even to just get your ear to not even look at the screen. Like I'll put a piece of paper in front of my screen so I don't cheat on when I test it. But it's definitely a whole new process for me. I think for all of us, it's a massive challenge. I think we've all been sharing links to different YouTube videos and how some of these tools work, what's the best practice on it. And quite frankly, in certain stages, it's almost like you're learning how to use a computer again or a mobile phone. And that's been a challenge to us all because it makes that testing process a bit longer, but it's worthwhile because you're starting to use it like a user would. But anecdotally, we go into maybe meetings internally and you give somebody an iPhone with the voiceover active and you say, here, use that. And they would not know how to do it. It was just like the screen wasn't doing anything because they weren't using three finger gestures, etc. Great parasyte tricks, by the way. Yeah, yeah. People are going, oh, this is broken. What happened? Absolutely. But it's a great way of showing this is how a user who's got visual impairments has to use the device. So that was a real opera. And then Jaws is like, oh my God, when you see some of the people and the speed that the reader's working at, your ear isn't tuned to that. That's been a challenge as well. So slowing things down, etc. It's been a, that's the kind of level we're working on it. But I think I distinctly remember going to a meeting with a couple of people and work going, what's happening? Show us what's happened. And I put the RT player iOS app or something and go, use that. And it was just like, what the hell? It was like you're in a bank machine and an iPad that wouldn't do anything. You know? So it was a good parasyte experience, I'm sure. So I suppose then the logical question is you've done a lot of work thus far, but what's next then? So we've seen a lot of improvements with the player app for TV and your video on demand streaming service. But Gillian, you mentioned things like the audio app and stuff like that. That's going to be an area of particular interest. A lot of obviously visually impaired people love their audio. Yes. So that is in process now. But that app has been designed with accessibility in mind. And there's certain features that will be coming out that will definitely help certain users and even the general audience. So that's one of the goals is to make sure that for screen readers, that will be consistently well done. And just in general, it will be a good product to promote for accessibility because it has been on top of our minds from the very beginning, which in the past accessibility hasn't been in the kind of minds of everyone, which we have tried to promote that to be. And our team is very good for it to keep that in mind as well. So just promoting in general for different stakeholders that accessibility needs to be in people's minds to think about in the future. And can you give any kind of estimated timelines as to when people will expect that or can you say right now? Next year. Next year. Perfect. That's fair enough. So I suppose, look, thank you so, so much for joining us on Talking Technology. Is there anything else that you guys would like to cover? I suppose, how can people if they'd like to pass on any feedback? And you mentioned Peter, you know, a future possible kind of testing kind of panel there testing team. Yeah, I think Gillian was referring to like having a panel, but I think we do need to, I know we like the RT does engage with some of the advocacy, different advocacy groups out there. And that's something we do need to improve on better. Like, like one of my pet things I'm always banging on about is we get very little feedback in from users who use the technology selection. You've given us some really valuable feedback on iOS, which is brilliant, but I would love similar from somebody who uses an Android phone or a Samsung TV or an LG TV. Yes. Because as I say, I think I said to the challenges, we are working on, this is what we think, do you know why? But I would love feedback from people who use an Android phone with TalkBack enabled, who is using the Samsung voiceover feature, the LG voiceover feature. That's so valuable for us. It helps our work going forward. As we move into different deliveries of new features that we have coming down the pipeline for RT player, you know, and we've got like, we've got the player, the player feedback email address that we can users can use. But I think we're looking at internally drawn up a process where we can engage better with some of the advocacy groups, you know, and that would help us just with our, our roadmap. So like, you know, as I said, I look after, you know, sprint delivery. So as I'm managing sprints, I can make sure we're getting some more and more accessibility features improved or delivered as we progress, you know, into next year and beyond. But like the feedback is really, really valuable. And like, when I saw your own feedback coming in, I was delighted because it was, this is real world experience. And I listened to the podcast you did, where you were talking about iOS and, and web with JAWS, and that was really interesting to hear that kind of feedback, especially on the website as well. So the more we get that, you know, constructive feedback is really, really helpful. Super stuff. Well, Peter, Gillian, thank you so, so much for being open to joining us. I'm sure this isn't the last time that you're going to be on Talking Technology, but for now, thank you so, so much. Thank you very much. And thank you so much to Peter and Gillian there from RTU for joining us on the podcast. I'm sure it's not the last time that we'll be having them on, but it really is fantastic to see upgrades to RTU player and RTU's other apps as well. And it's fantastic as well that we have someone dedicated to accessibility in a role like that these days, Joe, isn't it? Oh, David, yeah, I'm, I'm so happy because there's like, there is lots of good stuff on RTU. I know some people slug off RD and all the rest of it, but there is some great stuff on it, like to watch back and I can actually use the app now. So I know it's on my iPhone, even my older iPhone there, the iPhone 8, yeah, it's all working great now. I can actually search for a program and play back to live stations and it's, it's working again. It's just a relief. Like I remember we were going, messing around with RT player XL on the Chrome, on the browser, the web browser and stuff. And it was just, just difficult and just a laborious task trying to find programs and play them and find the parental control button and all this kind of stuff. And now even audio description is easier to access while the program is playing back, which is brilliant. Cause that was something that was notoriously difficult to do. Mr. And the writer subtitles are audio description, but now yeah, I'm fair play to Gillian. I think it's a, it's, it's great. And I wish her well in a role going into the future and hope she keeps up the good work. Absolutely. Yeah. Good promising signs so far. So exciting stuff ahead, hopefully. Thanks to Peter and Gillian for that. A reminder that if you do want to get in touch with us, maybe it's about the RT player. We'd love to know what your favorite audio described shows are. Maybe it's on RT player Netflix, Apple TV. I've been watching a lot on Apple TV of late actually. But maybe you want to tell us what your favorite audio described shows are. We'd absolutely love to hear from it. 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. Or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie. But before all of that though, it's time to cross to Daniel now for Talking Technology News. This is Talking Technology News. So with your latest Talking Technology News, I'm Daniel Dunne. The World Health Organization is holding a webinar today to launch a new guide to improve the accessibility of rapid test kits. The rapid diagnostic test accessibility considerations for professional use and self-tests document doesn't just have a long-winded name. It could actually be quite impactful for those with disabilities. Back in episode 94 of Talking Technology, we spoke about the accessibility of pregnancy tests. But rapid tests like this are becoming increasingly common. At-home tests for conditions such as HIV or COVID-19 aren't always accessible to blind people. And this new document from the WHO aims to change that. The new guidance will be launched at a webinar today with guest speakers from the WHO and the world of test manufacturing. It will be conducted through English and have international sign language interpretation. It can take time for guidance like this to make its way to actual products, but this sounds like a step in the right direction. Have you ever struggled with a rapid test kiss? Let us know in your experience with a WhatsApp voice note. In other news, Be My Eyes are launching their AI customer service solution as a separate product. Service AI was originally only available as part of the wider Be My Eyes customer service platform. But now companies can specifically choose to launch an AI support agent in the service directory without the other bells and whistles. Companies can train the AI agents to understand their products and identify specific issues and provide support through the AI chat in the Be My Eyes app. The hope is that more small businesses will be able to provide support through the Be My Eyes, which will be good as currently the service in Ireland is at least limited to larger organizations like Sky and Microsoft. The downside of course is that it does potentially risk some companies replacing their accessibility support with AI, which obviously would not be great. Do you think this is a step in the right direction or is AI going a bit too far? Let us know your thoughts with a voice note now. Also this week, Amazon has announced a number of new smart speakers in an attempt to modernize Alexa. The first, called the Echo Dot Max, seems to be replacing the regular Echo and comes in at just over £100 sterling. It's got a home hub built in, better sound, new sensors and an improved chip. There is the bigger Echo Studio, which is currently around £220 sterling. This Echo includes a new Amazon Pro series chip and has Dolby Atmos audio. It's a very fancy speaker that Amazon hopes will help it compete with Alexa Plus in the next few years. There is also upgrades to the Echo Show range, including the Echo Show 8 and the Echo Show 11, which are getting the same processing chips as the new Echo Studio. They are also going to have support for Alexa Plus. Alexa Plus isn't available in Ireland just yet, but these new Echo devices really seem to be Amazon's latest and greatest. All of these devices are available for pre-order now. And Amazon Prime Day is also taking place today and tomorrow, if you're listening when we publish, so it might be a good time to start that Christmas shopping. The main deals are obviously going to be on Amazon's own products, but it might be worth a quick browse if you are looking for something specific. And now it's a time for a rapid fire run through of some other interesting stories. New Nest cameras are on the way from Google with Gemini AI-powered capabilities. With a premium subscription, you can search through recorded footage and also receive detailed descriptions. Rumors are picking up that Apple is working on a pair of smart glasses to rival the Meta Ray-Ban glasses. These glasses, which will reportedly include a lot of similar features to their Meta counterparts, will most likely launch in 2027. And finally for now, audio description has arrived for on-demand content at Sky. If audio description is turned on for your Sky device, audio description will now play for an on-demand content automatically when it's available. And that's it for now. A reminder that we have lots of exciting courses available at Vision Ireland, so if you're interested in learning more about technology, be sure to check the upcoming events section of the Vision Ireland website, vi.ie. For now though, it's back to you, David. Thank you very much, Daniel. Loads of interesting stuff there. Joe, I do want to ask you though, on that Be My Eyes story, do you think this is good news or do you think that, you know, we're just replacing, you know, actual human support with AI at this point? What's the happy medium here? I think AI support will never be as good as human support. I am aware humans can make mistakes as well and they're only available when they're available and the AI is probably always available. So look, it's a big catch-22 in my eyes, if you know what I mean. So I don't know whether it's a good or a bad thing. It all depends what you need it for, I suppose. If I need it and I really needed that particular moment, I'll take any help. But then, as you said, you have to look at the big picture. Are we going to lose some jobs over it? That was always the fear about AI though. And is it happening yet? Maybe in a couple of percentages of places, but I haven't seen it replacing that many jobs yet, if you know what I mean, David. I'm not sure how you feel on it yourself. Yeah, I think, look, it can potentially be a good thing if it's used properly. I think in an ideal world, we just see it acting as an extension and allowing maybe really good accessibility professionals to do more work in other areas rather than just support that actually making accessible things. That will be fantastic. But look, it's going to be interesting to see how it's used. I just hope it's used for good over the next couple of months, but time shall tell on that. Daniel, Amazon Prime Day, are you shopping? Has the wallet been hit nasty? Oh, the wallet's constantly been hit nasty, David. And today is budget day and it doesn't seem we're getting that extra from government. So Christmas shopping might be, you know, this year we'll have to probably look for those bargains a bit harder. So we welcome all these kind of Amazon Prime Days coming up. But I suppose it's important to remember to support our local shops as well at the same time. So, you know, while Amazon clearly is very handy and all that, still don't forget about our local retailers who are obviously finding it tough going at the moment. So absolutely. Yeah. So, but no, it will be, you know, certain things you can just get on Amazon, you know, that you just can't find in your local, in your local retailer. So definitely it will be worth to browse and see, see what can be picked up. Interestingly on that, you mentioned kind of local retailers and kind of the high street shops and stuff there. I found it interesting this week that Deliveroo launched their delivery service outside of like actual food delivery. So you can now, you know, you need a power bank or you need batteries or you need, you know, all of those just general life stuff. You need something down the pharmacy. You can look at Deliveroo. And I think that's a really interesting use case for that kind of technology and whether it will revitalize or ultimately hurt the high street is hard to say, but it is definitely interesting. Yeah. I think like if, you know, if, if if there's something you need locally in Quake, you know, maybe there's reasons why you can't mobility issues that you can't get out and about or whatever, you know, or whether it's awful or something like that. And to be able to get something that's probably important, you know, something like from the pharmacy, as you say, there, get your meds picked up and delivered. I think that's fantastic. You know, it, you know, it just makes getting things less stress as well. You know, being, being sure that, you know, maybe somebody was promised to give you a lift down to the shops and something came up that they couldn't do, then you can turn to this service to get your meds, you know, and have that kind of plan B there, you know, if it's ever needed. So I think good thing. Yeah, good thing. Absolutely. It's an interesting one. We'll see how it plays out. Something we do want to do, by the way, on a future episode of Talking Technology is take a look at delivery services in general. And one of the things we want to talk about as part of that is around drone delivery. So we would be interested if people have initial thoughts on that, if they do want to send us a voice note, do you, could you ever see yourself, you know, trusting drone delivery? How would you like it to work? Would you like to kind of put a mat out in your garden and have it land on that? Or what way would you like it to work? All I could say is, you know, if, if, if it ever gets to, you know, get your dinner delivered by drone and the dog is out in the garden and that's your dinner. Yeah. Yeah. Or the neighbor's dog just hops the wall. Or the neighbor's dog or a cat. Yeah, indeed. Absolutely. Yeah. Have you ever seen those ones? There's, I know a company called, I think they call Manna operating Aries in Dublin now, you know, around Blanchardstown and a few areas like that, that you can just get your stuff and it just literally just flies to you and drops off your McDonald's for you. Like it's crazy. Yeah. But, uh, definitely an interesting conversation and one we will have in more detail at some point. So if you do want to contribute to that, uh, you can do so in advance, content of via.ie or 086-199-0011 on WhatsApp. I'd love to, I'd love to hear from someone in, in, I think it's just certain select parts of North, uh, North of the Dublin city, uh, that has that, but they'll be very keen to, you know, listen to someone's story and getting, you know, something like a McDonald's livery or a Burger King or whatever. And let us know how it went. You know, um, I'm desperate to find one of our staff that's living in like North Dublin so we can test it out. I'd love that to be the case that we can actually try it out and see what the crack is. But, uh, that's all the future, uh, future stuff. We won't have a podcast planning meeting right now. Uh, but, uh, yeah, exciting stuff ahead. Uh, and Daniel, Joe, thank you so much for that. And, uh, hey, that is about our show for this week. Uh, thank you so, so much for listening into Talking Technology as always. A reminder, we've reminded you a good few times today, but, uh, if you do want to get in touch, you can always reach us by email at content at via.ie or you can send us a WhatsApp voice note, 086-199-0011. Uh, but thank you to everyone involved in the podcast today, uh, to Gillian and Peter from RTE, uh, to Dave from Sky and Joe and Daniel for all their support on the show as well. Thank you all. And thank you for listening. That's our show for now. We'll be back in two weeks time with another episode of Talking Technology with VR Labs, where we'll be talking all about Braille, but for now, we'll see you then. Thanks for listening to the Talking Technology podcast with VI Labs. If you'd like to support our show, please visit vi.ie slash donate. Talking Technology is proudly sponsored by IA Labs, the market leader in digital accessibility services. IA Labs, digital inclusion, your legal obligation.