Talking Technology with V I Labs

Talking Technology with V I Labs episode 98 - Big updates for Braille users

• Vision Ireland • Season 3 • Episode 98

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On this episode of Talking Technology, it’s all about Braille.


We explore the new Braille access feature included with iOS 26, and we get a demo of its capabilities from our very own Mairead O'Mahony.


Brian discusses how Meta glasses can be used with Braille displays and explains why this is so important.


We discuss architecture in this week’s tech news and tell you about some exclusive content over on our YouTube channel. 


Links of note:


accessible voting information from the electoral commission:  https://www.electoralcommission.ie/accessible-voting/


Audio for users of ballot paper templates:  https://www.presidentialelection.ie/general-information/




0:00 Intro  

3:18 Voice Notes  

15:51 Brian Discusses Braille on the Meta Glasses  

24:06 New iOS 26 Braille Access Features  

54:34 Talking Technology News  

1:08:36 Outro

Support the show

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 gang, hope you're keeping well, hope you're feeling great. Welcome in to Talking Technology with VI Labs. We're at episode 98. It is a very busy time here in Vision Ireland. We've been flying through stuff. We're pretty much past that back to school rush now. We're past that, thank goodness. But yeah, it's been really busy here in Vision Ireland and we have a packed podcast coming up for you over the next little while. But hey, hope you're keeping well. As I said, we've been doing loads over the last little while. We had an event only last week actually in TU Dublin demoing loads of different bits of technology. Our friends over at Sight and Sound were organising that and there were loads of other organisations too. There was Ourselves, Child Vision, Guide Dogs, Fighting Blindness. They were all there. We were all hanging out there. IMBAF was there as well. The Tech Chat group was there and Joe Gerrity was over there too. There was loads of things happening at that and I managed to go along to catch some content throughout the day. And we will have some of that content, including an interview with Joe Gerrity about his book over on the VI Labs YouTube channel later in the week, so be sure to subscribe to that. He's talking some really interesting stuff. Joe wrote a book called Out of Sight, which tells the story of sports people who helped build and helped develop the whole world of visually impaired and blind power sports. So really, really interesting stuff. And Joe tells us both about his book and also about the process of getting it created in Braille. So we'll be chatting with Joe about that. That's on the VI Labs YouTube channel and that will be available later this week. But as for this podcast, though, well, we've got loads coming up here all about Braille too. And we have a demo of the Braille access feature in iOS 26. Morade will be talking to us about that later on. And what happens when new technologies and old technologies collide? Metaglasses. They can do some stuff with Braille as well, and Brian Manning from our technology team will be telling us all about that too. So do stick around for the next hour or so. We hope you'll stay with us. And maybe even if you listen at double speed, which I hear some of you are doing actually, maybe you'll get through it even faster. But there you go. So hey, welcome in. Thanks so much for joining the show. And hey, why not join the conversation too? If you would like to send us a voice note or a comment, there are loads of ways that you can get in touch with us. So if you want to join the conversation, you can get in touch with us with a WhatsApp voice note. It's probably the easiest way to get in touch with us at this point. If you'd like to do that, you can send us a message to 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. And if you do that, remember you want to use the voice message button. It's labeled with voice over. It's at the bottom right hand corner of the screen. It's not a call. You want to send the voice message there. So you double tap and you hold, you record your message and then lift your finger and it comes straight to us. So that is how you send a message on WhatsApp. So we'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to do things the good old fashioned way, you can also send it to us by email to content at vi.ie. That's content at vi.ie. So no matter how you would like to join the conversation, be it on WhatsApp or with an email, we'd love to get in touch with you and you get in touch with us. So content at vi.ie or 086-199-0011. And hey, to go through some of the voice notes that we received in, I am joined as always from Kilkenny by Mr. Joe Lonegan. Joe, how are you? Hi David, all good. I am exhausted after an intro. Well done. I know that was a bit of a marathon that wasn't it? But there you go. Yeah, my God. Did you enjoy it, Joe? Was it enjoyable? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You sound almost out of breath, but yeah, it was very good. Good. Yeah. I was thinking we might need to start again there for a minute, but I think we'll just leave it at this point. But there you go. No, brilliant. Awesome stuff. So Joe, tell me loads of voice notes in. We've got loads to cover. Our first voice note this week, we're going outside of Ireland. We are going all around the world, truly worldwide we are, to Jessica, who is messaging, I believe, from the United States of America. Here is what Jessica had to say. Good morning. My name is Jessica. Yes, I use a smart TV. I have a fire TV and I also have an Apple TV. I actually have them connected to each other, which is quite convenient because what that allows me to do is switch between the two using voice commands. And I don't have to remember which HDMI cable has what. You refer to them by name. So for example, if I'm watching something on my fire TV and I want to switch to my Apple TV, as is often the case, I can simply press the Alexa button and say, switch to Apple TV. And within a few seconds, it typically does. If it doesn't, for some reason, I'll press a button on my remote and that usually works. That's a great tip. Thanks so much, Jessica. And Joe, you have a similar setup. You also have both a fire TV, I think, fire TV stick in your case, and also an Apple TV. It really is getting great with the accessibility of television now, isn't it? Yeah, David, it's brilliant. Thanks, Jessica, for the voice note as well and for the tip. It keeps reminding people that there is accessible ways of accessing your TV nowadays. So yeah, I also have a fire stick. I know she said fire TV. She might mean stick, but I have a fire stick as well and an Apple TV. So yeah, I do similar things. I use the Siri button on the Apple TV to open things like Netflix and Disney Plus. I also use the Alexa button on the fire stick. So yeah, it's brilliant nowadays. Also, massive availability of audio description on most apps and channels. So they're plugged in to the HDMI slots on a Samsung Smart TV. So I also have the availability of that as well. So that's built on a kind of an Android TV base. So look, the world's your oyster now with TV. And then last week, well, two weeks ago now, I think it is, David, we heard from Sky and Sky Accessibility we had David Nason on telling us about all the amazing things that are happening with Sky and new features and new audio description on demand and voice guidance has improved. So TV has never been better, David. Yeah, it's true. And you know, it's fantastic. And you touch on audio description there, just the prevalence of it now is so much more than it used to be. And I think there are areas where we do still need to catch up. Like I was looking to go to the cinema recently, saw a fantastic movie was called I Swear. It was absolutely fantastic actually. But our local cinema didn't have audio description. And like there's little things like that, where you'd love it to just be a little bit more widespread. But it's getting fantastic now that you can kind of assume that, you know, most things on Apple TV, most especially new stuff on Netflix as well, is going to have audio description and long may it continue, I think Joe. Yeah, I noticed House of Guinness is just brilliant, brilliant audio describer on House of Guinness. Lots of Irish accents. I think the accent for the audio describer is English, but it's very excellent audio describer and whoever wrote the audio description is well done to them. So yeah, House of Guinness, I'd recommend it for anyone there on Netflix. But yeah, as you said, most of the new stuff has audio description. It's very rare, like you'd find something without audio description, maybe one in every 10 or whatever. But look, the way it's gone, I kind of skip. If the audio description doesn't come on when I play it, I end up not watching it. So I think that's the way it is, you know. Yeah. And you know, it's one of these things, like we talked later on and we spoke about it in the newsletter last week about Tesco and them rolling out a partnership with Be My Eyes. And I think it's, you know, the crucial thing is that if these services are out there, the people use them because I think we're lucky that a lot of people are using audio description now where it's actually worth it for these companies to have these features. And it's just proof that when something is even financially worth it, it tends to get done. And you know, that's not unfortunately the case with all accessibility features. So it does show that, you know, when everyone does kind of come together and use these different features, that it does make a difference because it expands from there. So it is brilliant to see for sure. But hey, Jessica, thank you so much for the voice note. Really appreciate it. And hey, if you would like to send a voice note in as well, you can do so. 086 199 00 11. Another person who sent us a voice note, regular contributor to the show. Edvard was in to us to discuss all things around sports equipment. Hi guys. I was just thinking about it. You know how you had a question on the technology podcast one time, what do you do to stay fit? And I think I was the one answering the question actually that time. But anyways, I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if there was accessible fitness equipment? These days really there should be. I think a long time ago when I was in the other course, there were talks about accessible treadmill and all that kind of thing. So it really would be great if there was... And not just that you could hook it up via Bluetooth or something like that. It would be great if the accessible fitness equipment was accessible itself. So it would be similar to the workout body feature on the Apple Watch. Oh, you have done this amount of mile, you have done this amount of mile. Or an accessible rowing machine, whatever else. These days there really should be accessible fitness equipment. And as I'm sending this voice note to you guys, I'm literally pacing back and forward, moving myself. But anyways, yeah. What do you think? Well, firstly, Edvard, great to hear you're getting the exercise in there. I think that's you in agreement on that, Joe. Great to get a little workout in sending us a voice note. Get those steps in, Edvard, either they're inside or outside. Just keep moving. Yeah, 100%. Get the steps in, do an old jog while you're listening to this. But yeah, do you know what? It's true. In fairness to Edvard, I do the exact same thing. I pace up and down the hall. It's the safest way to do it sometimes. But on that note, just accessible, I suppose, sports equipment, it is a big area and one that probably could do with some expansion, Joe. It's a big area and I think it's one that if there's any area that hasn't been left behind, it's accessible sports equipment, I suppose. I know there is things to help you, like the hints, as Edvard said, on Apple fitness and stuff like that. But that's probably using your own body weight and using your own exercises and walking and running and all that kind of stuff. It's not specifically sports equipment, but it does help. Yeah, keeping with Apple fitness there as well. If you subscribe to Apple fitness, there is audio description on Apple fitness as well. I know we're only ever talking about audio description in the previous voice note. But yeah, so there is little things like that you can keep in mind. Peloton have bikes. They're very expensive. There is some accessibility features on them, but I don't think they're good enough to be a screen reader though. That's the only trouble. They have, I think, on some of them. Do they have talkback, I think, on some of them, I believe, as well? The basic version or something? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I haven't used it. It's probably out of my price range at the moment, but I think you're talking like for some of those Peloton systems, you could be talking from 1,500 up to 3,000 euros. So depending on which one you get. So look, these kinds of things have to be affordable as well. Like I'm not saying all blind people don't have jobs and stuff, but some just have to make these things affordable for your everyday working person. So I think it's one of those things. In golf, I used to play some blind golf. We had a tool, I wouldn't say it made golf more accessible. We had a guide and stuff, which was great, but you had an app on our phone or you could get GolfBuddy One, I think it was called, which shows you how far you are away from the green. So it'll tell you you're maybe 120 yards away from the front of the green and you're 130 yards away from the middle and the flag is on the left and the back of the green is 140 yards. So then you know what club to take out. So those little things, it's amazing. A lot of people don't think it, but all those little hints and descriptions really help a person with vision impairment or are just blind and trying to do some workout or take part in sport. Absolutely. And Edvard, thank you so much for that voice. It is a really important one. And yeah, it's true what Joe was saying. There are options out there, but they tend to be prohibitively expensive right now. Both of us are in jobs, but even on our level, Vision Ireland ain't making us millionaires. So it's out of our price range too. And it is tough to find something that's in that price range that is going to be accessible for you. But there are definitely some options and hopefully that will continue to expand. So thank you so much for the voice note and really appreciate it as always. And hey, a reminder to you, if you would like to send us a voice note, well, we'd love to hear from you. You can send it to us 086-199-001 on WhatsApp, or you can send us a message to content at vi.ie. But that is it for now. We're moving on to our next topic of the day where, oh my goodness, he's here. It's time to catch up with a man who is a bit of a legend in tech training circles down here in Cork at least. And he is here to discuss all things related to braille and the meta glasses. Mr. Brian Manning, how are you? I'm not too bad, as you normally say, David. I'm absolutely average. Very good. Very good. Absolutely average. Sure. What more could you want? Absolutely average, yes. So Brian, speaking of absolutely average, something that has been, I suppose, above average of late is the meta glasses. It's been talked about a lot, both on this podcast, on other podcasts, and among our service users as well. But do you want to tell me a little bit about how these meta glasses, which we've covered before, but how are they working with braille? They work extremely well, surprisingly well with braille, because again, most of the advances for blind people emerging from the meta glasses are almost to happenstance. In other words, it's coming through AI that weren't really designed or channeled or directed for vision impaired or blind people. But it's just by the nature of how they do things and how they function that they are of particular benefit to us. And I imagine that the braille, the whole emergence of how they work with braille is also more to do with happenstance than design. So for example, I was looking into this a couple of months ago because I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if, for example, some of the people who would have conditions that would lead to dual sensory loss, like hearing loss and sight loss, wouldn't it be great if they could benefit through braille from these meta glasses? And obviously people who would have conditions that may have led to their hearing impairments coming after their sight impairments, which some dual sensory loss conditions will allow for or will emerge from. So for example, some people with Russian syndrome would have very good speech. So I was looking into it, so we had a focus partly braille display connected to my phone and we had the meta glasses connected as well to other as well. So what I did was we just basically did a few meta tests. So I asked the meta glasses, for example, to read a menu. So then using the meta app on the iPhone, I just moved through the different tabs and there's a tab on the meta app called history. So again, just using a shortcut from the braille display, cord 123, cord L, I jumped to the top of the history, which brought me to the most recent question I asked, which was I meta read this menu and when I panned, I mean the full view of the menu that meta had read out for me came up in braille. So I had the full menu converted to braille straight away in front of me and I could read it at my leisure. I suppose this is more for people who are unable to hear the glasses as well as see, these are really useful for those who are deafblind. These are really useful for those who are deafblind with the obvious proviso, of course, that the person has speech. Unfortunately, not everyone who is deafblind has speech, but for those who do have speech, who may have acquired their hearing impairment later than we said, their vision impairment, then they are really, really effective, providing of course, you have good braille skills, which a lot of people with dual sensory loss would have. It's something that I would always advise someone who's deafblind, it's a skill that they should learn, is braille. And once they have those braille, once they have basic braille literacy and a reasonable knowledge or experience of digital braille using these braille note takers, then it would work for them, yeah, definitely. And where do you think this is going to go in the future, Brian? Well, I think first of all, it has huge positive implications for the integration of and after the inclusion of deafblind people in whatever community they live in, be it a supportive community such as the Anne Sullivan Foundation, we'll give that as an example, or if they're living in their own communities, which would be, I suppose, the best possible scenario for everyone. But just imagine that a deafblind person can go to a restaurant now and peruse a menu independently and make whatever choices they want to make, or can operate very independently in their own homes, have the ability for product identification. Then they have all of the features and all of the benefits of the metaglasses and the independence that metaglasses give vision impaired people in general, they're now available to deafblind people provided, you know, and they know to be provided, but once they have the ability to communicate with the glasses and they have the required braille skills, then yeah, so it's whatever benefits are accruing to the vision impaired person is accruing to people with dual sensory loss now as well. There has to be kind of professional kind of add-on implications as well. So for example, if you're a braille user, you know, I mean, like you almost have instant access to text converted to braille. So, you know, for example, I'm just thinking of, you know, a lot of the kids in schools are on the place. I mean, if the teacher gives them the handouts, you know, a hair copy handout as opposed to an email or whatever, then, you know, within seconds, I mean, the child will have access to that hand out in braille just by giving the command, hey meta, you know, read the full text in front of me or take a look, read the full text in front of me and then just navigate into the meta app from the meta app into the history tab, jumping to the top, panning to the last question and reading the results. So it has implications right across the board, to be honest, which where it comes to where braille is used, this is a very, very positive development. Super stuff. Speaking of places where braille is used, Brian, and I know we'll only touch on this briefly because Mairead is going to demo it for us in a minute, but new features on braille access and such in iOS 26. Are we moving in the right direction with this? Is this an exciting development? Of course it is. And I mean, it's just twinning with these various developments that have been emerging over the past 20 years where I suppose the idea is or the concept is that braille is complementing technology and technology is complementing braille use. That has to be positive. And I mean, you know, some people, you know, some braille users, they're fairly ad hoc or they're fairly random with their braille use, but other braille users, especially those who are educated through braille are very determined braille users. And so therefore that can only be positive for them as well. So yeah, it's very, very much both systems or there's a great synergy between the technology and the braille going on at the moment. And I think that that is a very, very positive development. And, you know, like braille is here for the long-term, so is technology, obviously. And tiny developments in both, obviously, has its knock-on effects or knock-on positivity for blind users or for blind people and for braille users in particular. Absolutely. Brian, thank you so much. And speaking of all of that, it's always good to catch up with Mairead on the podcast, who is going to tell us a little bit about those braille access features. Mairead, how are you? Good, David, thanks. Excellent stuff. So Mairead, these braille access features, there's a lot of new features in iOS 26. Do you want to just give me a general overview, first of all, about what is this whole braille access thing? Yeah, so perfect. So, like, you know, recently there has been a lot of, you know, especially with the iOS 18 as well, there was huge improvements with the braille side of things for iOS devices. So like the braille screen input got a really big overhaul that time, which was great. So now with iOS 26, they've introduced braille access menu, which is, you know, it's a nice idea, it's a really good idea to have, because it definitely shows that, you know, braille is still alive and people still want to use it. And, you know, it caters for people in that regard. So what it allows people to do is, you know, it allows us to basically turn our iOS devices into a braille note taker, which is good. So mainly what we can do with it is we can, you know, access, create and edit like braille notes and BRF files, which is really good. So it allows us to do all that. So, for example, like, you know, we might all be kind of familiar with using the braille screen input for the braille devices in the last while, but especially things like being able to create things like braille notes or, you know, BRF files are very useful to have, because, like, if you're out and about, it's quicker to, you know, connect your braille display and use the braille access menu and create a braille note if you want to make a note of something, then it would be sometimes to use the braille screen input. So, sure. And especially if you're used to using a braille note taker as well, I think, you know, it's nice to have the two linked and you can actually physically feel the braille then on your braille display as well. So it is nice to have that option. So what's the difference between, say, for example, writing a note with a braille display, like a Perkins braille display connected in the regular notes app and writing it through text, but you're just, you're typing it through braille, I guess, versus it actually being a BRF file. What's the core difference as such? Well, so the difference would be really, I suppose, another thing I meant to mention there is like you can, you know, you can do things like share the BRF or the braille note files as well. So that's kind of handy as well. So the difference with that would be, you know, that you could send that to somebody else as well that was using a braille device if they wanted it, and it's going to be in the correct format for them as well. So there is very little formatting required. Like for me, I suppose, you know, it is more, I prefer to type using a braille note taker than using braille screen input. So for me, it's more efficient and it's faster as well, you know, for using the braille access menu if I want to type that way. So then using braille screen input. So that would be the huge difference for me. Okay, very good. So there are a few different braille access features. There's an app launcher. There's the UEB calculator, which is really cool. There is the braille notes. That's the BRF files that you mentioned. And there's a clock, I think, as well there, Maréad. Am I wrong? There is. Yeah, no, there's the time. Yeah. So it gives the time in seconds as well. And there's also the live captioning. That's a huge one, isn't it? For people who are deafblind, I guess, isn't it? Yeah, no, that would be because that would allow them, you know, if there's, you know, it would translate it into the braille screen, into braille for them, you know, if it can be picked up. Now, I suppose the only difference with the live captioning at the moment is I haven't really got the opportunity to test that out because it's not available in all countries. So, you know, I haven't really got to test that out, as far as I'm aware, but I'm not totally sure. I think you need to have your iOS set to the US for that. So that's disappointing, isn't it? But there you go. Yeah. But who knows? Maybe it might become available here in future updates. But I could see how, you know, the benefits of using that for a deafblind person, it would definitely, you know, open a new world for them, I would think. Absolutely. Now that is huge. But that is important to note. That's not currently available in Ireland, at least without workarounds. It's kind of Apple intelligence all over again, but there you go. But hey, Murray, thank you so much for that. Now we do have some demos that you very kindly recorded for us. And we're starting off here with the app launcher feature. So will we dive straight into this? Or is there anything people should know before we dive in, Murray? No, I suppose just for anyone who I think I mentioned it in the screen recording there, right, that, you know, the app launcher, it's just a more quicker, more efficient way of getting to an app that you want. So it's a really nice way of getting a list of all the available apps that you have on your device. And you can also like search for an app then as well, you know, if you can type in the app, if it's if you don't want to navigate the whole way through the app launcher, which is a nice feature to have as well. So yeah, some stuff. Murray, thank you so much. Here is the demo that Murray recorded with the app launcher. Today, I'm going to just talk a little bit about the the app launcher. So the app launcher is a nice quick way of getting to, you know, a list of all your apps, and you can navigate them quickly. So there's two ways you can do it. So what I'll do is I'll start first, and then I'll show you how to get up all the list of apps you have and open it or else you can do a search for the app. So in order to do it, I have my Braille Synth 6 connected to the phone here. So I'm just going to make sure I have it in terminal mode. So if I go into the file manager, which is the F1 key, and I'm just going to scroll down to I'm going to press U to get to utilities calculator C, and I'm just going to navigate forward until I get to the terminal. And I'm on Bluetooth serial port there now. So I'm going to press enter. So my phone is connected via Bluetooth to it. Okay, so now from anywhere here on the menu, anywhere on the on the phone, I can access the Braille access menu. To access it, I press keys seven and eight together. Launch app. So now this says launch app. So this is the app launcher. So now I can to get into this, I can press the E chord twice, which is space and dots one and five. Text detective. Now so the first one there it said was text detective and that's also showing up here on the Braille display. So now I can navigate forward using my little capsule keys or my space and forward together. Weather. Slimming World. Ariadne GPS. Clubhouse. Seven. Sky TV. So as you can see there, it's going through the different apps in a forward motion. If I want to go backwards, I can press space and one together. Or I can use the up arrow on the capsules shape keys. Seven clubhouse. Ariadne GPS. Slimming World. And let's just say I wanted to go into Slimming World. That's one of the apps there. I can just press enter and this will open it. Selected. Welcome to Slimming World. Now you can see there I'm logged out of it. So it's open. Now if I want to get out of that and get back into the Braille access menu, I can press the B chord, which is space and B together. Launcher. And there you have it. That is a quick demo of the app launcher. Mairead, very handy and very easy to navigate that. I suppose you're literally navigating it with buttons really, aren't you? Yeah, you are navigating. So there's no touch screen involved because you're doing it all there through your Braille display that's connected. And again, it's important to mention, I suppose I didn't mention it there that, you know, these same commands work for any Braille display that you have connected. So for this one, I was using the Braille Sense 6. The commands would be the same for the Focus 14 or 40 as well. Or, you know, so one of those devices. Excellent stuff. And it really does kind of turn the device into a kind of a Braille note taker, which is really cool. And we'll touch more on that in a minute. But it does, I suppose often I would turn off the speech right now when I'm doing that because it's, you know, I just focus on what's on the Braille display rather than the speech. But for the purpose of the demonstration, I left on the voiceover, which can sometimes be a bit distracting when you're trying to focus on the Braille as well. So that's interesting. You mentioned that and we're the next thing we're going to have here is the demo that you did of the BRF Braille notes. And this is really interesting because as you're creating a Braille note, it doesn't speak them out to you in the way that you would traditionally be used to. So let's dive into this one then. So this is the demo that you recorded of the Braille notes feature within Braille Access. OK, so I have just demonstrated using the app launcher. So now because I've gone out of the Braille Access menu, if I hadn't gone out of the Braille Access menu by pressing B chord, which is space and B, it would bring me back. And if I keep pressing that, it will bring me out of the Braille Access menu. So I'm going to relaunch the Braille Access menu again by pressing dot seven and eight together. And now, so first I'm going to demonstrate creating a Braille note and then creating a BRF file. So now that I have my Braille Access menu open, I'm going to navigate down by pressing space and four together or my space and one together to navigate back. Or I can use the capsule keys as well, whichever you're used to. And this will work on any Braille display that you have connected to your iPhone or iOS device. So there we're in Braille notes. So now if I press enter, OK, so now it says new there. But if I have previously saved some Braille notes, I can navigate through the Braille notes that I have here now. So if now these won't be read out. So if I just navigate forward and on my Braille display, it says the first Braille note I have is test. So that was the test one I did. And if I wanted to open this, I would press enter. If I navigate forward again, I have another one called apples. So it was another test. And if I do another one again, I have another one called shopping list. So that was another test again that I've done. So what I'm going to do now, if I wanted to open up them or press enter. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to press the B chord again, just to go back a bit. Now, so I'm in Braille notes. So now I'm going to create a new one. So I'm going to press enter. Now I have the option to create a new Braille note. So if I press enter here, I have the option to create a new note. Or if I navigate forward, I have an option to create a new folder name. So a new folder name. So now, if you create a new folder, that could be useful if you were doing something like, I don't know, maybe if you're working on a project or something, and you had multiple things that you wanted to save, you would create a new folder. But if you just wanted to create a new note, for example, if you're doing a shopping list or something like that, then you would use the note. So I'm going to navigate back to new notes. And I'm going to press enter to activate it. Now my, I have little dots here on my cursor, which is indicating that I'm ready to start typing. So I can start typing my note now and it will automatically start saving as I type. So I'm just going to type, hello, this is a test. Now voiceover won't read this out, but it is coming up on the Braille display as I'm typing. Now, so I have that written. So now if I, as I say, this is automatically going to, if I want to save this now, it's his saving, but just to ensure that I save it, I'm going to press the B chord, which is space and B together. And now that has saved it. And now I am back on my new list again. And as I navigate forward, again, through my list of files and back, it's going to be the very top one. So the most recent one I've created is going to be the very first one. And there it is. So that is written there. I suppose the only disadvantage about a Braille note really is just to remember that when you're creating it, you can't give it a file name. It automatically saves as the first 32 characters that you've typed in the document. That's something you'd think AI will be helping with at this point, isn't it? But there you go. Mairead, really great demo. Thank you so much for it. A really useful feature, I think, especially for those who do like, as you said yourself, writing with Braille. Yeah, definitely, I think. And as I would say there, maybe there is a way to change how you can save that file. Maybe you can give it a file name, but by default, it automatically gives it the first 32 characters. But yeah, definitely for anyone who uses Braille notes on the go, I would think that is very useful because, you know, you have access to it then and they all save to your iCloud drive as well then, which is very handy. Awesome stuff. That is cool. So, Mairead, tell me, I suppose, look, Apple have introduced this really cool new feature, Braille access. What's the difference then between, you know, if you have an iPhone and a Braille display, what's the difference between that and for what I'm going to call, for want of a better way to put it, a real Braille note taker? Yeah, now that is a good question. I suppose with, as you would say, like an iPhone is, you know, it's great. It's great to have these features built into them for anyone who has, you know, a Braille device that they can connect as well. So it is beneficial for that. And look, I suppose some of the advantages are like, you know, if your iPhone gets damaged or lost or whatever, it's not as expensive to replace that as it would be to replace a Braille display, because that goes into the thousands. You know, same if you need to replace the battery or whatever, the battery in the, you know, in a Braille note taker would be a lot more probably expensive to replace as well. So, and I suppose, look, sometimes with Braille note takers after a while too, maybe features become out of date or whatever. So, you know, I suppose iOS, they'll always be updating the new Braille features and more will be added. But again, for me, like, I still kind of do prefer the physical Braille note taker because, you know, it's a physical device. It's its own standalone device. Like for me, a big thing would be if I was to use Braille connected to the iPhone a lot, you will find it will drain your battery in your, any of your iOS devices faster as well, because, you know, you are, you know, putting it to more use and things as well. So, that is a thing to consider. But, like, I suppose for me, definitely, I always do like having the physical touch of the Braille on the Braille devices. So, now I know you'd have that if you were using the iOS, you know, the Braille features on the Braille access as well. But I suppose the thing with the whole Braille note taker is everything on it from start to finish is Braille. Whereas sometimes with an iOS device, you will have to navigate between turning on and off Braille access and maybe, you know, using the rotor and things to go to different areas of screen and that kind of thing. So, it won't automatically put you where you want all the time. So, you have a lot more maybe key combinations to remember as well. Yeah. I guess it's not built for Braille, is it? It's more kind of an overlay really. Yeah. It's more, I suppose, yeah, an overlay. So, yeah, I would think, you know, again, it's people's preference or whatever. But, like, again, a lot of in the Braille access menu as well, I meant to say there, if you're doing like a Braille note or anything, a lot of the same commands that you would use for navigating a document, you know, on any Braille device like space and L will bring you to the top of the document, space and 456 will bring you to the bottom of the document, you know, the enter key is the same. So, a lot of the kind of commands are the same for selecting text and things as well. So, if you know those, you'll have these learned off as well. Awesome stuff. So, Mairead, I guess then that leaves us with the million dollar question, which is, you know, are you as a Braille user, a Braille reader, are you going to be using this feature and what do you think of it overall? I think I will use it a bit. Now, maybe if I wasn't kind of, I suppose I'm so reliant on fully using a Braille note taker that I kind of tend to just default to that a lot of the time. But I definitely do kind of find the Braille notes feature very, very handy for, you know, if I was creating a list or anything that, you know, that I would, and especially if I wanted to, you know, share it with anyone as well who is a Braille reader, that they would have access to that as well. And I suppose, look, the BRF files is very handy as well, because especially if you have anything like, you know, a book from Bookshare or anything, you know, now you can have that on your phone as well and, you know, you'll be able to read it with the Braille note taker connected as well then. So, yeah, I can see the benefit of it there. How can it improve? I guess I'd like to see, you know, maybe more come to it, maybe more features like, like maybe if there was an option on the phone where you could turn the whole phone into a Braille note taker is what I would love, like the whole device that you'd, sometimes you can easily come out of the Braille access menu by pressing B too much or whatever the B chord, and, you know, you can accidentally come out of it without realizing it. So maybe a tougher way to kind of come out of that by default that you're kind of locked in it and everything you do then would be, you know, totally orientated to Braille. So you want them to go further? I definitely want them to go further. I'd love to see the whole thing, being able to do the whole, anything on your phone through Braille like, and any apps and everything all have support for it. That will be cool. Awesome stuff. Mireille, this has been a really insightful conversation. Thank you so much for it. I think this is going to be a really useful feature that will, I suppose, further level that playing field. But I think from what you're saying, this is the beginning, isn't it? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah. I mean, it is a big leap in terms of Braille for Apple to go to this. So and it's something that, you know, no other, as far as I'm aware, no other phone company or iOS company has touched before. Awesome. Very good. Well, Mireille, thank you so much. And hey, to any of our Braille readers or users out there, we'd love to hear people's perspectives on this. If you do want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email to content at vi.ie or send us a message on WhatsApp 086-199-0011. This is a really cool feature. It's cutting edge in many respects. And even though some of those features aren't available in Ireland, like that live transcription that Mireille mentioned, we'd love to hear from people who are trying it. So please do feel free to get in touch with us, especially if you found a really useful use case for that. Like you are deafblind, for example, and maybe you listen to the show or read the show through Braille using our transcripts that we have online. So no matter how you would like to get in touch with us, we'd really be interested in different perspectives on that. So thank you so much, Mireille. Thank you. Moving on. We have loads still to come, including Talking Technology News. But hey, we are bringing Mr. Daniel Dunne in early today because Daniel, you've got extra business here. How are things? Not too bad, David. Not too bad at all. Excellent stuff. So Daniel, you ran an event not that long ago about the Metaglasses. We've had loads of different events around Metaglasses. They've been very popular of late. They have, David, indeed. Yes. And we ran events in Leash and Ofly there last week. And I have to say, very well attended. And, you know, service users who have to come in, meet face to face and have a try on, I guess, of the Metaglasses, try them out, see what they're taught, get an introduction to the features and what they can do. So overall, yeah, two very, very good events in Port Leash and Tullamore. That was well attended. Super stuff. So you'd won in, I'm reading in front of me here, in St. Fintan's Hospital and you'd another one. Where was that second one that you held? In Tullamore. That was in Tullamore. Very good. Excellent stuff. So you were very good. You were thinking of content, which we love to get people doing, and you recorded some demos from that event or you recorded some interviews with people about their perspectives. So we start off, who are we starting off with here, Daniel? So the first one, we have Sean, who lives in Leash, and he attended one in St. Fintan's in Port, the event in St. Fintan's in Port Leash, and shared his thoughts with us. So I have Sean Byrne with me here, who has attended the Metaglasses Roadshow in Port Leash in County Leash today. And Sean, you got to try out the Metaglasses in person. What did you think of them? I did. Daniel, thanks very much. I think I'm fascinated by the development and the technology and how it's come on so much. I find the Metaglasses, I find them so, first of all, so simple to use. Just a very simple instruction. Let it do whatever you want it to do, and it can speak the answer to you. I think it's fascinating. I think to, for someone like me that has no sight, that to regain that level of independence, that you can now read a document on your own. I think it's just amazing. Absolutely fantastic, Sean. And did you get to try out the calls and the video calling features there as well? What was your thoughts on those? Yes, we tried out the video calls on it. We tried out just straightforward phone calls, video calls. Yeah, excellent. Yeah, it's a great, fantastic facility. Yeah, I think from being able to get in contact with somebody maybe and show them what you're seeing and maybe able to ask questions about also provides another layer of independence that you can just bring in somebody for that kind of assistance as required. Absolutely. To me now, I think it's brought Be My Eyes, which is a fantastic facility, but I think it's brought Be My Eyes onto a whole new level. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sean, overall then, I would tend, what would you give it a glass? Definitely 9.5 or a 10. I normally don't give 10s, but definitely a 9.5. And I think it's only, I definitely will be a customer and I definitely will be a user. And it's just a matter of getting them, getting used to them and playing with them until I get them to work for me properly. Perfect. And listen, thank you so much for coming along today. And yeah, that's it. That's a really good review. And back to you, David. Thanks. Thank you so much, Daniel. Yeah, there's so much there and it just shows the true potential, doesn't it? It does indeed. Yeah. I suppose like we've heard about them and we've spoke a good bit about them. And there's been anticipation here in Ireland for them for quite a while. There was the whole GDPR issue that they couldn't be rolled out properly until earlier this year. And it's great now that we're able to get around the countryside and meet with people and bring them in in small groups and let them try them out. And I think feedback like that just kind of justifies running events like that. And Sean there spoke about them. There was anybody in the crowd that came that day, I feel, you know, would have said more or less had the same sentiment. So, you know, it's great overall. Great to be able to do these events. Fantastic. And similar response in Tullamore. We also have audio from Tullamore here. Yep. So we're here in Tullamore and we're just after having a good afternoon with the Metaglasses Roadshow in Offaly. Good crowd in attendance. And we have Joan with us. Joan, you were in attendance today. What's your thoughts on the Metaglasses? I'm very, very impressed with them. I was very impressed with all their features and I think they're going to be a massive game changer. Excellent, Joan. And I suppose out of all the features, what was your favourite thing? What really caught your attention? The main thing was for me, if I go and I pick up something out of the press, that I can read the label. Excellent, excellent. So, yeah, going to the press and picking out a few products and all that. Yeah, I don't have to go and ask somebody what it is. Yeah, exactly. Joan, listen, thank you so much for that. And yeah, it's after being a good afternoon here in Tullamore and County Offaly. So back to you, David. Thank you so much, Daniel. You know, it is one of these things where it's short and sweet, but it's that little thing like, you know, taking something out of the press and having it read to you. That's the little detail. And it makes such a difference to people, you know? It does. Absolutely. You know, and, you know, to be able to identify something quickly, like it's, you know, just quick question to him to identify this product or what am I holding? And it's, you know, and it is fairly quick. Like I have to say, the glass is in between asking that question and getting a response. And, you know, as technology improves, it's only going to get faster and faster. But I think, you know, the response, the response from the glasses back, you know, obviously it is dependent on your Wi-Fi or 5G connection, but overall, you know, I haven't had much of a way from question to answer. So I was going to bring this in, these glasses are going to become more, you know, technology that you're just going to use on the fly and you're going to just have it there. Traditionally, I suppose, up to this point, we would have maybe got out our smartphone, maybe you're seeing AI or something like that, but then you've only one hand free, but with the glasses, you have two hands free. So I think it just makes the whole experience of a much more accessible and more worthwhile and, you know, kind of quick response as well. So it's all coming together. Absolutely. And it's only going to get better from here. A reminder to people that if they do want to learn more about the meta glasses or you have questions, our technology support help desk is there exactly for things like this. You can give them a call anytime between nine and five. The number there 1-800-911-110 that's 1-800-911-110. If you would like to give our technology support help desk a call or email labs at vi.ie that's labs at vi.ie and ask anything you want. It doesn't necessarily have to be about meta glasses, but any support that you need, you know, because sometimes you can run into tricky scenarios like that. That's why labs is there. So do check that out. And Daniel, thank you so much for those recordings and well done on those events in your neck of the woods, shall we say. Thank you very much for that. I'll let Daniel run off and get very quickly ready for the news. I'm going to put Daniel on depression now. But there are also loads of ways that you can get in touch with the podcast here. A reminder that if you would like, you can send us a WhatsApp voice note to 086-199-0011, or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie if you would like to join the conversation, be that about meta glasses, be that about Braille, anything at all from anywhere in the world. We would love to hear from you. So please do get in touch. Right. That's enough email addresses and phone numbers for one day. I think we've given enough time there now. So let's head back over to Daniel Dunn for your latest talk technology news. This is talking technology news. So with your latest talking technology news, I'm Daniel Dunn, the Irish architecture foundation has got a partnership with visual interpreting app ARIA, allowing users who are blind or visually impaired to get in it, get assistance when exploring a number of architecturally significant sites in Dublin. Some of the sites included in the partnership are the Guinness storehouse, Kilmainham jail, as well as access to a Lego workshop. The partnership hasn't been discussed much online and we discovered it by accident, but it is a fantastic initiative that we hope we'll see more of. Another, another assistant app, be my eyes has announced a six month pilot with Tesco to provide support to visually impaired customers in its UK stores. But this partnership isn't available in Ireland at the moment. Unfortunately, what areas do you find yourself struggling to access and where would you benefit most benefit from an assistant app like be my eyes our area? Do let us know with a WhatsApp vice note. In other news, it's the end of the line for Windows 10. First introduced back in July 2015, Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version of Windows ever. It replaced Windows 8.1, which along with Windows 8 have been a bit of a rocky period for Microsoft. The current version of Windows known as Windows 11 was introduced back in October 2021. So users have had approximately four years to upgrade. Upgrades were offered for free in many cases, but not all computers supported the Windows 11 operating system. For computers that don't support Windows 11, there are now basically two options. You can look at a computer upgrade or you can kick the can down the road with a year of extended security updates, which are available to those with a Microsoft account. It's not an ideal situation as for those with assistive technologies in particular, you may need to look at upgrades to that software in order to enable you to move to newer versions of Windows. When doing this, it's all always worth considering your needs and the free options such as NVDA or the inbuilt Windows magnifier may be suitable for you. If you are still using Windows 10 and have questions, feel free to send an email to labs.vi.ie to get support. Also this week, Humanware have announced that they are working on a new product or app to integrate with the Metaglasses. It's not super clear just yet what exactly they are working on, but one feature that is on the way is called Follow Me. Follow Me allows you to tell your Metaglasses to track someone and as they move, the Metaglasses will provide an audio cue to help you stay aligned with them. This could be something as simple as following a colleague across a building or an assistant through a train station. Judging from videos shared on the company's website, it seems that this technology will also become part of an assistant app from Humanware. Full details of the products are concurrently available clear, are concurrently clear, but it's definitely exciting. In a press release, Humanware said, our path to this moment began long before smart glasses became mainstream. For years, Humanware engineers and researchers have been exploring AI powered navigation, scene recognition and wearable interaction. The focus has always been practical. What features will blind and low vision people trust and use in real life? That process, prototype, test refine has led to functions now in development for consumer glasses platforms. They include text to speech reading, instant text actions, live translation and conversation focus. Each is designed to reduce barriers in daily communication, work and travel. Talking technology news. And now it's time for some rapid fire stories. Android 16 has been released widely to the public now. Users with compatible smartphones should check for updates now. There isn't a huge amount new on the accessibility front, but there are some quality of life improvements. Also, there's a presidential election taking place in Ireland on Friday. So it's worth a reminder that the Electoral Commission have previously confirmed on talking technology that voters do have the right to use assistive apps if necessary. Voters can also use a ballot paper template with information for template users available by free phone on 1-800-848-850. That's 1-800-848-850. More accessible voting information can be found in this podcast show notes. And finally, this week, the mobility assistant Rango has got an update to give it new pedestrian GPS navigation features. Rango is more popular in France, so if any of our French listeners want to tell us about us, please do send us a voice note. And that's it for now. Remember, we have extra content coming to our YouTube channel this week, so be sure to subscribe by searching ViLabs accessibility on YouTube. But for now though, it's back to you, David. Thank you very much, Daniel. I've never tried a Rango. I don't know if you've ever tried a Rango, Daniel. No, I have not. I have not. I have not tried out a Rango, but who knows if any of our listeners in France or any countries that do have those products. It would be great to hear a little bit about it. I don't know whether we're missing out. I don't know enough to know whether we are missing out, but there you go. Also, that partnership with Aira and Joe, I want to bring you in on this as well. So it turns out that after we had that new script for today's podcast written, we learned that that partnership is no longer available. It was specifically timed to coincide with Open House Dublin. So unfortunately, not widely available as of now, but still a great idea, Joe. Yeah, it was a good tourism initiative, I thought, but I'd love to see it come to other places in Ireland now at this stage, whether it be our airport, our fast food outlets, or even shops, or maybe just to match up with some, because they do have a lot of Irish, well, maybe not a lot. They have some Irish customers, but they might get a lot if they were able to collaborate with some Irish businesses, whether it be department stores or whatever. So I think it was a good initiative. I didn't even hear anything about it at the time. It wasn't very well advertised, but I'm delighted to see they did break the ice with somebody. So that might mean there might be an opportunity for somebody else. Absolutely. And I think the Irish Architecture Foundation, and we have reached out to them just to get more information on this, and hopefully we'll report back on this in the future. But I would hope that they found it a success and that they're open to trying it. I think it's always a challenge to get people using these services. We spoke about audio description earlier on, and you know, getting people using these services ultimately has value. But in order for people to use it, people need to be aware of these things. So hopefully in the future when this stuff comes again, we'll have people will tell us about it and we can tell you. So be sure to subscribe for that. Loads of other things happening in Ireland. A presidential election on Friday. There are loads of accessible voting information for you. You can check all that out on both the Vision Ireland website, Electoral Commission website as well, and the Presidential Election website. I think they have that. Is that the returning officer? Is that what you call that? I think Daniel, isn't it? Yes. So I'll just briefly go down through it here, David. So you have assistance options while casting your vote. You can bring a companion. So if you have a visual impairment, physical disability, or even a literacy difficulty which prevents you from voting without assistance, you can bring a companion. The companion has your has your permission to mark the ballot for you with your choice. This person must be at least 16 years of age, cannot be an election candidate themselves or an agent of the candidate. So and also there's one more restriction on the companion. This person must not help more than two people per election or referendum. So that's one option for you. You can also ask the presiding officer. So you know if you're unable to bring in a companion with you for whatever reason, they could be busy, they could be working, they're just not available on the day. So you can also go to the polling station and again you can ask the presiding officer there to help you cast your vote. Now there is some advice around this because if you are going to go independently by yourself and you're going to maybe seek assistance from the presiding officer, there's strong advice on this that you should go to the polling station well before the polling station is closing because a presiding officer can refuse your request for the last two hours of voting. And the reason for this is, and I guess it kind of makes sense, typically on voting day there's a big push between eight and ten o'clock I guess in the evening time so in order to help with the smooth running of the polling station all the staff have to kind of keep hands on deck. So if you are going maybe just go a little bit earlier in the day, so if you're going to maybe go and seek the assistance of your presiding officer. So yeah and also the ballot paper template, their transparent plastic device that's placed on top of the ballot paper has raised print on it and braille on it so that you can vote independently, so if you don't want a companion or the presiding officer. So there are your three options. Fantastic, we'll get that phone number off you again in a second Daniel. I think it is great to have these options. It would be fantastic I think and Joe I'd be interested in your perspective here. There are hopefully going to be more options in the future. One would hope that there will be efforts made to make these things more accessible but I suppose it's good that there are some options at least even if it is not a perfect system. Yeah well I suppose it helps that we can use our phone. Personally I sometimes use the presiding officer because the template, I'm not a very good braille user, I don't trust myself to understand it enough so I'd use the presiding officer but yeah I am hopeful that we will find an accessible option. There is certain countries that do have accessible options, I think it's Iceland and stuff, they're fully accessible ones. But look with the option and technologies out there at this stage, I think it is something we should have at this stage David. Sure yeah it's going to be an interesting conversation and always a topic of debate but not one for today's podcast but would absolutely be interested in your perspectives on that. You can send us a voice note in if you would so please. But Daniel can we get that number as well? So this is the number for those using the tactile ballot templates. And also list out the names of the candidates standing in the election now. Look we all know coming up to this election just only two have made the final day so yeah the free phone number again is 1-800-848-850. So 1-800-848-850 that's your phone number. There we go. A little bit easier this time that's only two candidates. Exactly. It's not like our local elections where we had 10 or 12 names on the on the paper and that got a bit complicated. Yeah remember the European one, I think we had 20 something. Yeah that's crazy. And that was really hard with the Braille stuff to navigate as well. Yeah have you done that Mairead with the tactile ballot template? Oh I have yeah. How did you find it just briefly? Yeah no I kind of liked it. It works actually quite well for me because you have the little space in the boxes as well where you can you know easily insert the like put the viral so it's grand and you have your Braille right beside it so but definitely for the larger votes it does get more complex because I don't think the larger ones were thought about really. Yeah I always I think I've told this story on the podcast before but I always remember the first time I voted I tried to do it independently and I felt awful after it because I felt like I unintentionally spoiled my vote that time because for the simple fact that I've always struggled to write stuff and I felt that the challenge of like writing a one or a two or whatever I thought that was quite challenging for me. So look decide what's best for yourselves absolutely and all that information we will have links to both the Electoral Commission website and the Presidential Election website in our show notes so do check that out. But hey Daniel, Joe, Mairead thank you so much for that and hey thank you as well for listening. That is our show for this week and we will be back really soon with another episode of Talking Technology. A reminder before we go that we will have extra content over on our YouTube channel this week that interview with Joe Garrity all about his book Out of Sight that will be on the ViLabs YouTube channel so just search ViLabs accessibility on YouTube and we will hopefully see you there but for now thank you so much for listening, stay safe, happy voting if you're voting on Friday and we'll see you in two weeks time for another episode of Talking Technology with ViLabs. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Talking Technology podcast with ViLabs. 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. you