Talking Technology with V I Labs

Sight Village 2025 in London, and we finally made it - Talking Technology Episode 100

• Vision Ireland • Season 3 • Episode 100

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We have finally reached episode 100 of Talking Technology. Thank you so much for listening.


On this episode, we take a trip to London to explore some of the latest technology at Sight Village 2025. From new Braille devices to talking tactile ballot paper templates, there really is a lot to explore.


We discussed the addition of live audio description for this year‘s toy show and check out a new AI tool making images on WhatsApp more accessible.


Join the conversation with a WhatsApp voice note. The number you need is +353 86 199 0011



0:00 intro


3:08 Voice Notes


21:27 Sight Village 2025, Live from London


23:44 Glidance - Makers of the Glide mobility aid


31:14 Pakflatt - ballot paper templates in Ireland


36:18 Luna night vision glasses


41:47 it’s big, it’s purple, it’s a phone. It’s The Big Purple Phone.


44:30 inside Vision discuss their Braille laptops the Inside 1+ and Inside Supra


47:57 VocalEyes discuss audio description for theatre and exhibition


50:06 HumanWare announce the BrailleNote Evolve


58:16 Seable holidays are taking a trip to Ireland


1:04:32 Dorian tells us about an exciting screen reader event


1:09:06 Talking Technology News

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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. Welcome in to Talking Technology. Where we did it, we reached episode number 100. We are at episode 100 of Talking Technology with VI Labs. What a journey it's been over the last years. This podcast started during the pandemic, I guess, really was when we kind of started doing what were the labs live events at the time. And it's been going strong ever since. In fact, the last couple of podcasts that we've done have been our most listened to ever. So thank you so much for that. We really do appreciate it and hope you found it helpful over the past little while. And to celebrate, we're not doing anything absolutely crazy, but you will notice little changes here and there based on some feedback that you have been sending us over the last little while. We've made some small changes to how the podcast is titled. So now, if you're going through and you're flicking through the podcast in a list, the topic is in there first before the actual talking technology bit, because that's a little bit easier for people using screen readers. And we have a few other little bits like that as well. So thank you so much is all we can say for listening to us over the last 100 episodes. And hopefully you'll be listening to us for the next 100. And I mean, we'll start as we mean to go on then, I guess, because we have loads to discuss on today's podcast, including a trip to Site Village in London, Site Village South East in London. We have loads of audio from that. And in this podcast, we'll be going through some of the technology stuff as well as some of that, which is relevant specifically to Ireland. So we'll be doing that and we will also have the news coming up with Daniel later on as well as an exclusive on a really cool event that we have coming up here in Vision Ireland exploring the differences between NVDA and JAWS. We will be chatting all about that with Dorian later on in the show as well. But as always, you're getting used to this at this point, we're 100 in right by now. But if you would like to join the conversation, we would absolutely love to hear from you, get your thoughts, get your views on anything going on in the world of technology. There are loads of ways that you can join the conversation and here's how you can do it. So if you want to send us a message on WhatsApp, that's probably the handiest way that you can get a message to us. You can send us a voice message there using the voice message button to 086 199 00 11. That's 086 199 00 11. Or if you would prefer, you can send us an email to content at vi dot ie. That's content at vi dot ie. We'd love to know. Maybe you want to tell us what your favorite podcast episode has been over the last 100 or when did you start listening? Were you listening from the beginning or did you join us somewhere along the way? We'd love to hear all that, maybe how you found out about the podcast. Do tell us all that and more 086 199 00 11 on WhatsApp or content at vi dot ie. Now here with me to go through some of your podcast voice notes from the week gone by and to celebrate 100 episodes of Talking Technology. It's a man who's been here longer than I have, who was involved with these podcasts well before I was. Mr. Joe Lonegan, Joe, how are you? Good, David. Yeah, I'm feeling old now. I'm here much longer than you. Yeah, it was big improvement when you came in, of course. We'll have to bring that up, so I don't know. Some would some would vehemently disagree, Joe. Oh, that's possible, too. Yeah, well, we'll say no more about that. But yeah, no, I'm delighted to be here for the 100 episode and let there be many more. Absolutely. What was your favorite out of the podcast? If you had to pick like one standout, was there one that stood out to you? Well, I was probably a few. I suppose the smart kitchen one seen as I had a big input in it and I was doing up my own kitchen at the time. So I enjoyed talking about the smart kitchen and how you can get your oven to work remotely and access all the features of it and stuff like that. Same with air fryers and is where I was big into cooking. But no, look, I suppose I'm big into getting these things to work and working with smart speakers and robot vacuums and all that kind of stuff. I really enjoy that kind of thing, David. And also, I suppose my number two was chatting about meta glasses, because they are the big thing this year, especially in Ireland. You know, we got some better access without going through the jumping through hoops and people are going through VPNs and things like that. At last, we got some access to Meta AI and really, it really took off and people really are really enjoying using the meta glasses. And that was another big feature of mine, David. Absolutely. You know, it is great. One of my favourites is, you know, and what I love about this show is it does have little kind of quiet impacts behind the scenes that people might not always be aware of. I think it was like when this show was at its best is that time that we had the Electoral Commission on and they confirmed what I believe is the only time that they've ever confirmed that, yes, blind and visually impaired people have an explicit right to use assistant apps like seeing AI in a polling station. And I think that's really valuable. And it's something that, you know, hadn't been documented anywhere outside of this podcast. And I think that's really great that we're able to ask questions, get valuable information and hopefully make a difference. Yes, David. I agree. I agree big time there, because I think we're getting to a stage now where we can actually request changes to be made in in places and departments like that, because I think it's getting a bit, I suppose, you know, old now when you can say, oh, we can only do it this way and that way. But when you have unique identifiers on our mobile phones, I think it now is the time and very soon is the time, I suppose, that we can be hoping that we'll be able to use our mobile phones to vote as soon as we can use them to pay for things that pay terminals in shops and all the rest of it. So I think what's the difference between that and actually uniquely identifying yourself at a polling station and stuff like that? But there is big changes coming in elections down the road, so you can believe me. Absolutely. And we'll touch on that later on in the show from the Site Village as well. There is some really interesting stuff there about the company that is making those tactile ballot paper templates here in Ireland, some really interesting stuff. So we will chat about that in a bit. But first, though, let's get on to your voice notes. Our first voice note this week is from Raheem. Raheem is having a question about using the Apple TV app on his Samsung S90C Smart TV. I just have a question for you on our Samsung TV or S90C, I think it's called. So we're using Apple TV to watch some series at the moment. And what I've noticed is when we were using Apple TV on a very old iPad before we bought our TV and when we selected audio description, the settings would be saved on the iPad. So every time we went into the app and we wanted to watch something new, the other description would be on automatically. But with the new TV, every time we go to a new show or even go to a new, so let's say we turn off the TV and we then turn it back on. We have to select the audio description again on Apple TV, so it doesn't save the settings. It only saves the settings if let's say you're watching shows back to you're watching an episode back to back. So if you're obviously finish an episode and you don't turn the TV on and you go on to the next episode, then it will it'll still play the next episode or description. But the minute we turn off the TV, it just won't save the settings. So, yeah, just just wondering if you guys have experienced this and if you have any solutions. Thanks so much, Raheem. Really appreciate that. Joe, this is an area that you know more about than I do, because I think you have a similar TV to Raheem. Yeah, the same TV as myself. Very impressive there, Raheem. So, yeah, he has the Apple TV app in the TV, like, if you know what I mean, download it onto the TV. It's not an external box. So obviously, if you had the external box, you would have it universally set. You can universally set audio description across all apps. But when you universally set it into Samsung TV, it doesn't automatically go to all the apps. So what Raheem will have to do is go into the Apple TV, look for the sidebar and then settings and then accessibility. And then he can turn on audio description, subtitles, anything else he wants in there, large text. So, yeah, so it'd be settings, sorry, yeah, settings, accessibility and audio description. And that should stay set for him for the next time he goes in and views another program that has audio description. So we'd love to hear if that works out, Raheem, let us know. I know, look, I think Apple say on their website, it can vary from TV to TV, depending on how old they are and all that kind of stuff. And they may not allow you to download the newest version of the Apple TV app and stuff like that. But seen as that is one of the newer TVs, hopefully that will work for you, Raheem. And same with Netflix, you can actually in your Netflix account, actually, I think you can actually universally set audio description in the settings area as well. And it will automatically put audio description on all your devices, whether it's a smart TV or iPad, phone, whatever. So, yeah, give that a go and let us know how you're going, Raheem. Thanks for the voice note. Thanks so much, Raheem. Yeah, no, hopefully that does help. And I think it's a difference as well, because you can set audio description within the player, but I think you do want to set it universally in the actual app settings. So let us know how you get on with that. Our next voice note in is from Keon and Keon, well, Keon's got a brand new fancy toy for his birthday. Hi, guys, it's Keon here and love your show as always, as I always say when I come on, which I hope you don't mind me saying because I just know you as our podcast so much. But I'm on to tell you that I got my Apple Watch for my birthday, my series 11. I'm running through a few different features and stuff and offers an awful lot more than my old SE. But of course, I re-home that to a family member now. So, you know, they have a use for it now. But I have my spanking new series 11 for a lot of the features are cool on it. However, I have a few questions. First question is how do I make sure a voice note on WhatsApp records longer than I'd like it to pick? Sometimes it only records a little bit and then it stops without me even wanting to stop it. And is there other features I should know about? I know about heart rate. I know about workout and I know about ECG and a few other stuff like that. And the most important one is how to clean it safely because I'm terrified of water damaging it. Do you know what I mean? And the next thing is I accidentally, since I got it tipped it off a few different things like a door or say, you know, a wall or whatever it is, right. And I'm afraid it might break. How do I make sure it doesn't break? Because it's an accident. I don't walk into things on purpose. It just bangs off by accident. It's not a hard bang, mind you. But I don't want it to break because I love it. Now, I have it insured, which should be fine as well. Like I have Apple Care with it or whatever. But I tell you one thing, guys, I have some willpower in me. I ordered it on the 1st of November and I managed to keep it in the box. I wouldn't let myself rip one little bit of the box open until the day of my birthday, November 14th. But now I have it and it was really worth waiting for. I paired it all up myself and I was absolutely delighted with it. He was delighted with it, lads. We should say Keon did also have some other questions about the meta glasses, which we'll separately address at some point in the future, in a future episode of the podcast. But a few notes there, lots of different questions. Great to hear that you're enjoying the Apple Watch. A belated happy birthday, Keon. But Joe, to start off there with WhatsApp, so WhatsApp on the Apple Watch is a bit funny because sometimes the screen will kind of dim and it kind of goes out within itself. So it is a bit awkward. So you can change some of the settings, but really, if you are using voice notes, I would suggest where possible while you can do it on the watch, I think the phone is a better experience. So that will be my general recommendation there. I know that's probably not the answer you're looking for, Keon, but that will be my general kind of experience of that. But in terms of the cleaning it and protecting it, that can definitely be done, Joe. Oh, that can be done. Yeah, thanks again for the voice note, Keon, and happy birthday. Everybody knows it's your birthday now, Keon, so you'll be hounded with cars next year, November the 14th. Anyway, yeah, he bigged himself up with his willpower. And when he did get the watch open, sounds like you're doing a lot with it. Yeah, keeping it clean. I know you can buy a case for the watch as well. I'm not sure how much bulkier it makes it. I never had a case for my watch, believe it or not. I was always wearing my sleeve over it, but yeah, it's a bit tricky that way. It does scratch easily in fairness, but maybe have a look at some cases and see how you go there, Keon. But washing or cleaning the watch, as he says, obviously you can't put in water, really. Unless you had a swim mode or something like that, but not practical, of course. Well, I would suggest you maybe go to an optician or something and look for some of those wipes that they use to wash or clean lathes or bifocals and things like that. They're like little microfiber cloths, you know, so I would or maybe even purchase a microfiber cloth. You don't have to wet it. It does the same job as a wet cloth almost, and it will shine up your Apple watch. So I think maybe something like that, Keon, if you're worried about doing any damage to the watch itself. Different things on the watch. Look, it's all personal preference. You know, you can do your Siri commands and your fitness might be important. You can say start outdoor walk and when you're finished in, you can say end workout and that kind of stuff. That's one of the main things I use to watch for. I'm supposed to track my steps and things like that and tell me my current heart rate and maybe if things are usually look, it'll give you little warnings if you notice things are going wrong health-wise and it's just maybe, you know, in a lighthearted way, it'll probably suggest, look, you maybe should get things looked at or whatever. So I don't, I can't, it's very personal, very subjective, you know, and there is other loads of little apps you can download for as well, like different type of time apps and stuff. So, yeah, I don't know, David, if I need to suggest it yourself, but I think, look, all I can do is wish Keon the best of luck with the watch and lovely to see he treated his own watch so well, he gave it a new home. Exactly. There you go. The only other thing that I can think of, and this will depend if you have a compatible phone, but the other thing would be the workout buddy. And I know not everybody has the workout buddy, so your watch has to support it, but your phone also has to support it. But that's a fantastic feature if you have a Keon. It kind of allows you to do workouts and it almost, you know, it doesn't eliminate the need for voiceover. Don't get me wrong. But what it does do is it gives you kind of nice audible feedback as you do a workout, which is really cool. So if that's your cup of tea, maybe check out and see if that's a feature that you have access to, because it is a really cool feature indeed. So thanks for that Keon and belated happy birthday and hope you had a good day and enjoyed some cake as well. But there you go. So those are our voice notes for this week. Thank you to everybody who sent those in. Do feel free to send us a voice note on anything at all that you so desire. 086-199-0011 is the number that you need on WhatsApp. And we would love to hear from you. We'd also love your feedback as well. Do you like the new podcast titling kind of layout? Do send us your feedback. We've done that for the last couple of episodes now. So we've changed those for the past kind of five or six episodes so you can get a feel for it. But do let us know if you prefer it and if you find it easier in your podcast apps one way or the other. We would love to hear from you on that, because the feedback, that's how we improve. So thank you so much for that. Content at vi.ie or 086-199-0011 on WhatsApp. But now, though, let's take a trip, shall we? Last week, I went on a bit of an adventure. I headed over to London for Site Village South East. Site Village is basically the best way I can describe it is it's kind of like a big kind of conference with a load of different companies and charities and different organisations doing stuff in the site loss space. They're not all necessarily dedicated to blindness or vision impairment. You obviously have your big players like your Sight and Sound, RNIB, Guide Dogs. All of those were over there, as well as lots of different charities like Thomas Paklington Trust and others. But you also had some other companies doing, you know, just general interest stuff like you had the transport operators there as well. They were doing different things around access to transport and things around their IRA partnership, which was cool. Glide were there. There were different gas companies there encouraging people to get on the priority service register, which is another thing that was happening. And there was absolutely loads there to explore. Now, we're not going to fit all of the interviews from Site Village in one podcast because we have about two hours of audio. So we're not going to get all of that in here today. But we did include a lot of the kind of technology focused stuff and also some of the stuff that's relevant to Ireland. And we're going to include that today and we will have the rest in a YouTube video that comes out later this week. And we'll link to that in our newsletter as well. So do be sure to check that out. But for now, though, let's cross to David in London to check out what happened at Site Village. That really was a fantastic intro. Thanks, David. Hello, everybody. Welcome to London, where I am just currently outside the ILEC conference centre in Earls Court. I don't know if the ILEC or I-L-E-C, but something like that anyway. And it is the location, more importantly, of Site Village 2025, Site Village South East here in London for 2025. There are loads of exhibitors here over the next two days. It's currently Tuesday. And yeah, I am going to be here on both days exploring what exhibitors are here, exploring what cool technology is on show. It's before opening right now. And I did ask if they would let me in, but they did not. They said no. So I am waiting patiently outside until they let me in. There are a few people here already. The hotel I'm staying is a local Premier Inn, and I don't think they've ever seen so many guide dog users. And I can certainly hear a chatter of voiceover speaking when I do walk into the kind of lobby area of the conference centre here. But lots of exciting stuff to see over the next two days. Really excited to explore. So let's get down to business, shall we? OK, ladies and gentlemen, I have reached the inside. I am in the belly of the beast, so to speak. It's very different this year. So there is so much more space and it's. Oh, sorry. Oops, I'm crashing. Apologies. So I am convinced the person I just walked into had a glide. But there you go. So that's going to be an interesting conversation for later, especially considering the glide crashed into me. So here I am in the conference centre. I'm in the belly of the beast. And it's very different this year. There's so much more space compared to last year. And it's all carpeted as well. So the sound is a bit better, too. But let's just explore and see what we have got. And I am joined now. I have finally bumped into Mr Amos Miller. How are you? Well, David, good to see you again. Indeed. How have things been at Glide? I've noticed there was a glide device on the on the move here earlier on. Yeah, I have a couple of glide devices on the move here. We know it's first of all, it's been amazing, David. I think I saw you last in May or something. Yeah. And a lot of water has gone under the bridge since. Sure. A lot of work on outdoor experiences. The updated device itself, which is literally just before its final touches or before it goes into manufacturing. So it's been very, very hectic at Glide and in the last last few months. And yeah, so we're here. We have we have the older device that we've had for a long time with all the new software, but we also are showing people the latest design of the device with the ability to collapse the stem and the ability that the cameras are all integrated into the handle. There's a really rugged base of the device. There's a snap of wheels, all of these. It's all the stuff you talked about, isn't it? It's all now in the in the product, which is exciting. You know, we spoke on the podcast before about how you really wanted to take this at a reasonable pace, get this right. Are you happy with the pace of progress now? How do you feel things are going as you head towards launch? Yeah, fingers crossed things are going well. I think the main the main long pole or the the critical path, as we often refer to it, is getting more devices. To get more devices, we need to get to the manufacturing phase so that we're not hand crafting each device. And we're really at the cusp of getting into that. So that will unlock many more devices that we can get to more people, get to people's homes, home routes. We are already doing home routes in Seattle with people with our custom devices. So once we have more devices, we'll be really on the final stretch before we can start to roll the devices out to pioneers in the in the spring. You're still you're getting exciting now. It's really you know, you're getting close. Like there's only a month and a bit left this year. And then not that long to say a month and a week and a half. Yeah, count every every bit of month as well. Excellent. Yeah, it's an exciting time. So, Amos, thanks so much. I am going to catch up as well with Maya in a bit, who has been doing a lot of the behind the scenes work and just to catch up on her side of the product. But you're doing some great stuff. So thanks as always for chatting to us. Enjoy, David. Thank you for being with being on the journey with us and keeping everybody with us. Absolutely. So I'm here at a table in South Village with Maya from Glide. So, Maya, we haven't spoken to you before, but you're working on the machine vision aspects of Glide. What does that look like, I guess? What does that day to day involve? Day to day, there's a lot of different challenges, a lot of different aspects of the machine learning. And vision, one is just the model development itself. The other one is data collection, how we how we train the models, planning different issues or planning on what could happen. Yeah. So that's the other aspect. And then the third one, the biggest one is the entire pipeline. How we collect it, automate as much as possible, how we collect the data, how we train it, how we deploy different things, how to ensure that we get the accuracy of predictions that we want. So a lot of different things. So how has the product evolved since you started working on it? It's come a long way now, you think? Oh, yeah, for sure. So we are building our own database since, for example, if you look at different autonomous driving issues, driving on the road, you've got lots of publicly available data sets that you can use. So a lot of data that is already annotated and just ready to be used. We have a different challenge, which is navigating sidewalks, different paths. So if we've got forest paths, for example, or just things that are not in any of the public data sets. So we started with some publicly available models. And now we've evolved to have our own data sets, building our own data sets and training our models, which help us navigate the sidewalks. What are the challenges you're facing right now? And what needs to be kind of solved before Glide is ready for prime time, I guess? Let me think for a second. Yeah, take your time, that's fine. Well, the biggest challenge, I think, is so AI and machine learning is a big field and everybody talks about it and how capable the models are and how big and what they can do. The biggest challenge is we are limited with some of the technology. So things have to be super fast, super small, have to run on a really small device. And that's a challenge on its own. We cannot use one of the big models on the devices. And of course, the data itself, how to collect it, where to collect it, ensuring that we cover a variety of different scenarios, situations, weather conditions. So lots of challenges. How did you get into working on Glide? Is this what you imagined when you were looking at this field? So I've previously worked since my school days, I've been always interested in vision. Okay. So I've been working in this field, I don't know, in years, 10 years maybe. Nice. So yeah, mostly vision tasks and yeah, I've worked with some of the members in Glide before and that's how I got introduced. We saw that we are a match and that's it. The story started from there. Maya, thank you so much for giving us this insight into where Glide is going and the kind of the behind the scenes of how it all works. But thank you so much and best of luck as you head to launch next year. Thank you so much. Right, so I am now at the stand for Pack Flat and you guys in front of me, Duncan, have some ballot paper templates, some tactile ballot paper templates. Do you want to tell me a little bit about what we've got here? Yeah, what we have here is the McGonagall Reader. This is a product that we are looking to do and already have products in place in the UK. It is a overlay that sits on top of the ballot paper and it provides an audio output to allow the visually impaired voter to navigate the system on their own. To be able to vote independently without a third party to interact with them. Super, so I have the devices in front of me here and I can actually feel along. So along the side, it's similar to the standard ballot paper templates in Ireland, which I believe you guys make actually. Yes, we make the BBTs for the Republic of Ireland. Slightly different in terms of the product you currently have, which utilizes obviously a third party to read the details, but it's a velcro and polypropylene layer. This is a polypropylene layer with an electronic membrane to it and a series of mouldings for marking apertures. Okay, so in front of me here, there are buttons on it that I can feel. So I can press a button on this and it will read out the template or the candidate to me. So if I press this, oh, I think I have to hold it. Adedeji Lisa, 17th Parade, Anytown, XY95KP, The Pineapple Party. And then I can move down so I can go down to the third candidate. Chowdhury Suresh, with an address in Anytown, The Banana Party. Perfect. And what I liked about it, and your colleague showed me this a minute ago, is I can open the template at the site. So I can open the kind of door as you would on the template. And then if I want to confirm, I just actually press down on the door to confirm the, I guess, the name of the one that I have opened. So I'll actually open a different one. So I'm going to open this one and I'm going to press down on it. Awalabi Bola, For the Walk, Anytown, XY95JJ, The Raspberry Party. Super. And I can then close that down as well. And if there is no candidate, I can open one that doesn't have a candidate on it. I just press down. No candidate. Super. There you go. And it tells you all of that. So there are also buttons, obviously, for reading the full list. And these are all tactile and easy to feel as well. I can confirm that. But one of the things I wanted to talk to yourself, Duncan, about is you have just in recent weeks won a tender for Ireland. So do you want to tell me a little bit about that? What's going to be happening in Ireland? How will this change elections and referendums in Ireland going forward? Basically, there's going to be an upgrade to the product that's currently in place. We've won the tender and we're just about to start negotiations about what the final product will look like. The current product is a combination of a Velcro finger door to close over the marking aperture, accompanied by Braille and tactile numbers. What we're moving towards is, with the UK product that we have here, the McGonagall reader, we have a very accurate system, which is the hinged doors that you've spoken of. They mean that you are only able to open one door at a time and know that your mark is going to go where you consider it to go. So that's an important factor in voter accuracy. It means that you are able to, through the RNIB's independent testing, they've got a 93% to 94% success rate for first-time users on the McGonagall reader. So it means the likelihood of you casting the vote, as you wish it to be, to be extremely high. In other products, the BBTs in the Republic of Ireland, they are obviously a product that's been in place. This has got a greater accuracy and that's what we're looking to bring to the Republic. How does that accuracy compare with the Irish product? Do you have a percentage on that? I don't have a percentage on that. It obviously is pretty accurate because it starts off in a very similar vein. The aperture is already covered and you have to reveal it. What you don't get with that is the audio feedback. It's purely tactile so it's relying on you to be able to identify either the Braille or the race number. Okay, interesting. So you guys are going to be working on this over the next little while for referendums and elections in Ireland. You're based in Derry as well? That's right. Awesome stuff. So listen, this is really important stuff so do keep us in the loop as to this stuff and thank you so much for telling our listeners all about it. Thank you very much for asking us. So I'm joined here by Karst from Luna. So I love the name by the way, first of all. But what is Luna? So Luna is a company that develops night vision glasses for people who are night blind. Okay, and how does the technology work? So you're here with Sight and Sound today. Yeah, so Sight and Sound is our distributor in the United Kingdom. And the technology works in the following way. We have a special night vision camera that we've embedded in the frame of a regular pair of glasses. They're a little bit thicker than regular pair of glasses because we put a lot of technology into the frame. And it's kind of recreating what military night vision goggles do but then in full color. And in a very compact form factor, especially designed for people who are night blind. So they can use this to go out and about, walk to the bus stop, go to school, friends and family. And the special thing about these glasses is that we try to make them look as much as possible as a regular pair of glasses. So people don't feel stigmatized while wearing the technology. And that's why we also chose that name. We don't want a name that signals, okay, this is a piece of assistive technology. We want people to feel like it's a regular brand that they're using. And we have taken that thought and put it through the whole design process. So also how you control the glasses. You can do that very inconspicuous by holding the frame and just pressing a couple of buttons on the underside of the temple. So yeah, we try to recreate the same experience you have with regular glasses. But then the twist is it helps you to see in low light conditions. So how, I suppose, then does this work for someone with low vision? How much vision do they need to have for this to work? Because this is obviously a totally visual thing. So it's for low vision, not for no vision. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's a good question. You need about, in my experience, about 10% of visual acuity in your central vision to be able to use the glasses effectively. If you have a restricted visual field, that's no problem. But you need the 10% to be able to interpret those images that the glasses provide to you. And do the glasses have speakers and stuff like that? Could they gain features that are auditory in the future? So things like, you know, we're seeing things like meta smart glasses now using their cameras in interesting ways. Could your glasses conceivably do that in the future? So currently it does not have speakers built into the device. We're thinking about that for doing that for the next version. Currently we have a vibration motor because some people who are night blind, they have Usher syndrome. That's where you have vision loss but also hearing loss. So we want the glasses to vibrate, for example, to tell you that the battery, for example, is almost empty or that they have booted correctly. So we're letting the frame vibrate in that case instead of doing it with audio. And we also don't do it with like little icons because obviously the visual acuity for some of the users might be too low to perceive the icons. So that's why we're doing mostly vibration to indicate stuff to people. And then, yeah, the visual aspect is just the view the glasses give you. And it's just what you see normally. I would the easiest way to imagine is during daytime, for example, an overcast sky you can create the exact same visual experience but then at night time. OK, awesome stuff. I'm going to ask the awkward question now and that is one of cost. How much do these kind of glasses cost these days? Yeah, so we're now doing an early adopter program and we're building only 50 units for this first batch. And we're selling those for 2800, so 2800 pounds. For me, it's not too much of an awkward question. Assistive technology is expensive because you're building something really bespoke for a small target group. And we really went out of our way to make this as small as possible, to make it really look like regular glasses. And that, of course, makes it more expensive. But that's a decision we made because from scientific research, we found that a lot of people, if the headset or the glasses is too conspicuous, even though it can correct their visual disability, people will just not wear it. So we think it's worth the extra cost to make it in such a way that people don't feel stigmatized and that it's something they can really use in public spaces without feeling ashamed, without communicating their medical dossier to the people around them. So how do people find out more? Do you have a website and stuff? Yeah, they can contact site and sound if they're interested. We also have a website, it's www.cwithluna.com. They can also find us on Instagram through the same handle, C with Luna. C with Luna. Kars, thank you so much, really appreciate it and thanks for coming over to Site Village. Thanks for having me. So I'm joined here by Jess from the Big Purple Phone. You guys have great branding, by the way. So what is the Big Purple Phone? So the Big Purple Phone is an easy to use smartphone designed for people with low vision and also it's great for people with cognitive decline or seniors. Okay, so it's got a really simple interface, so it's really easy to use, big icons. Straightforward enough. Okay, and how does it differ then from a regular smartphone? It's those big icons, what can this do that a regular smartphone can't? Or is it just about putting that in a more simple interface? Yeah, so it can call, it can message, it can video call, take photos. It can do all those things that a regular smartphone can do, but because it's designed for people with low vision and cognitive decline, we've made it very picture driven. Okay. So it's got big icons and all the contacts are really big as well, so you've got big photos of the contact instead of just the words around the screen. And we've also got an SOS button, which is something that smartphones don't usually have. And one of the things I thought was interesting is you can, let's say a family member can remotely manage things on the phone, so they can add the contacts remotely or whatever the case may be. So you can manage everything remotely? Yeah, you can just log on to the Carers Portal and you can change all the settings, you can decide who can access the phone, who can call the phone, who can message the phone, what apps the user has access to, so that the user of the phone can just use the phone as a phone. They don't need to do any of the settings themselves. And next, so it doesn't currently have a voice input, but that is coming. Tell me all about Violet. Yeah, so it's sort of going to work like Siri. Violet will just be AI voice assistant, which is going to help the user to use the phone even easier. It's going to be even easier for them. So they could just say, hey, Violet, bring out my email, and Violet will bring out the email, so the person doesn't need to touch the phone at all. Okay, awesome. How can people find out more about the Big Purple Phone? Yeah, so they can go to our website, which is bigpurplephone.co.uk. Okay. Or they can reach out to Sight and Sound, who are our UK distributors, and they're really great. Excellent stuff. Thank you so much, and enjoy the rest of the event. Thank you, you too. I am joined here at the stand for Inside Vision by Eric, and they have two really cool Braille laptops in front of me. So Eric, we've got two devices here. We've got the Inside OnePlus and the Inside Supra. Do you want to tell me a little bit about these two devices here? Yes, of course. So the Inside Vision, the company, has developed two products. So the Inside OnePlus, the one with the touch matrix, a big screen of 10 inches wide, and the other one, Inside Supra, with physical keys. Both products are running either Windows 11 Home Edition or Pro Edition, and the specifications are exactly the same for both products. That means you have an i7 processor, you have 16 gigs of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, two microphones, four small speakers of two watts each, and then you have two USB-C ports. You have i7 processor with the 16 gigs of RAM, 256 gigabyte for the SSD, NVMe hard disk. You can also have a 512 gigabyte or one terabyte. You also have micro SD card slots, micro HDMI, and then the jack for the headphones. Okay, so I'm feeling the two devices in front of me here. So the Inside Supra first has a braille kind of display at the bottom. I think there's 32 cells? 32, right. 32 cells, and you've got above that then you've got the Perkins keyboard, and you've got some function keys up top as well, all tactile, which is really cool. And you've got a similar design then on the Inside OnePlus. Although the difference with this one is you've got the display at the bottom, but it's a touch screen, so it's not physical buttons. You actually have an indentation, I guess, of the Perkins keyboard. Would that be an accurate description, I guess? Absolutely. Just let me add something that you have outside the screen. You have specific zone. You have a right slider, vertical one, for the hour keys. This one? There we go, yeah, yeah. You just cross through left to right, top to bottom, bottom to top, and back to back to validate. You have the same on the left side, but the same slider on the left side is for the sighted people. That means if you're sighted, you don't know braille, you just put your finger for five seconds and you see the quality keyboard, which is appearing on the windows, on the screen, sorry. And then the product becomes a full tactile tablet. Very cool. So it's for the sighted only. You just close your keyboard and you come back to the brain. And you have a long slider just above the 32 cells for replacing mechanical writing characters. Super. And the OnePlus, the inside OnePlus, has a camera on the front and the back here. The Supra doesn't, is that correct? That's correct. Okay, awesome. And tell me, how much do these devices cost? They're expensive, although they are really cool. Well, they are like the oven takers. You have VAT included for the inside OnePlus here in the UK, £6,000. For the inside Supra, the price is £5,500. Fantastic. Excellent, Eric. Thank you so much for telling me about this. Really cool products. Thank you very much. And appreciate the time. Enjoy the rest of South Village. Thank you, you too. So I'm joined here by Jess from Vocalize. And Jess, do you want to tell me a little bit about what Vocalize do? Yes, of course. So we're a charity that works within the arts to help people who are blind or visually impaired to still go out and enjoy the theatre, museums, galleries, and heritage sites. And that's using audio description. So there's lots of different theatre shows you can go and see to, book in for the audio described performance. You get given a headset to listen to it on. And there's also a touch tour generally before the show where you can find out more, go and touch some of the props and costumes. And at museums we often do different recorded guides so you can go and explore, find out more in detail about description, about what's on at the museum or gallery. Awesome. Now I love theatre, Jess. I've already seen two West End shows this week. But neither of those had audio description when I saw them. How common is audio description in theatre these days? Oh, it's very common these days. Is it? Yes. So Vocalize alone, we do 250 audio described performances per year. And that's the Vocalize ones. There's other audio description companies and in-house describers as well at theatre. So it's definitely very prolific. There's lots of audio description you can go and see. And you can always, I mean, if it's not listed on our website or in our What's On Guide, you can contact your local theatre directly to find out if they've got any audio described performances coming up. Fantastic. And you even do have some stuff. You've got an exhibition that's open in Dublin right now. That's right. Yes, Chester Beattie at Dublin Castle, the Manuscripts of the Mind exhibition. And you can go and see that until the 1st of March. So there's audio description that's available through QR codes at the exhibition. That's awesome. Really cool stuff. And listen, thank you so much. This is a really important service and it's great to see it becoming more common. But for now, thank you so much, Jess. Appreciate it. Brilliant. Thank you. I'm happy with that. Oh, I just wanted to say our website. Yeah, go for it. And if you wanted to find out more about what's coming up with Vocalize, there's lots of information on our website, which is just vocalize.co.uk. Vocalize.co.uk. Jess, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Really nice to catch up. So I'm joined here by Martin Roberts from Humanware. Martin, do you want to tell me, we've heard a lot about the Braille Note before, but you're coming out with a new product soon, the Braille Note Evolve. Do you want to tell me about the Braille Note Evolve? Sure. The Braille Note Evolve is a Braille Note. We're using elements of Keysoft, but within Windows this time. So we found that Android is quite difficult to maintain. When you get the hardware, you probably only get one or two updates of Android on that. In fact, I think our competition have managed to do one update on their Braille sense, and they'll be updated for a new machine in the future. So we want to get away from having to do that. And what we typically find is that Android has been lasting people about four years before things start falling off. Because if you're a blindness company, you inevitably develop slower than a sighted company would. So you don't end up on Android 16 when it's out. You end up on Android 14 or 15 because it takes that long to develop. So we've decided that we're going to get out of that rat race. I mean rat race in the best possible way. It's just like you're always scrambling to catch up. So we decided we're going to go for a full Windows 11 device. Okay, so you mentioned that it's going to have some elements of Keysoft. So what is going to be coming over? What we're doing, I've got one there. I don't know if you're going to hear it because it's quite loud. Hopefully, yeah, we'll see. This is alpha software. So it's not finished. Okay, this is alpha. It's not even beta. So we've got a Braille editor that we usually have. And I'm just going through my thumb keys. Yeah, you might have heard Excel. So we've got your main Windows applications. Yeah, I'm going to open up Word. Now I can press now. That's nothing unusual in saying document to Word. Yeah, but now I can use all my Keysoft hotkeys. I can use space with CH for spell check. Space with I for document info. Enter with U for underline. Enter with B for bold. I can write justify. I can press a key to enter a table. I can use copilot. So I'm now dictating with copilot live. This could go really wrong. So we got that. There you go. And it's all coming up in Braille. But what we've also done is we've decided, well, that's not enough. OK. So we can go into our context menu because the ribbing can be quite difficult for a lot of people. Sure. Including me, actually. I find it sometimes bamboozling. If I go into the ribbon. So we've got functions, file functions, edit functions. So if I go into something like editing functions on here. Yeah. So you've got space plus CH for spell check. Yes. It's given us the Braille commands that we've got really. We've got simplified menus, but we can do things from these menus like insert tables. Yeah. Adjust font size. And what's that using as that's using some voicing for the screen reader? We're actually powered by NVDA. OK, yeah. So we're drawing. NVDA is open source and we've been working with them. Stuff will be going both ways from us to NVDA. So is that effectively working as a script or an add on over the NVDA kind of set up? Is that kind of how you're doing that? NVDA is based on add-ons. That's our point of NVDA is that you can use them. But because NVDA is open source, we can actually go in there and change things. OK. We'll be changing maybe the way that their Braille is. Yeah. We're writing our own Braille entry. We have a certain kind of Braille that we like at Humanware. And we want that so Duxbury tables, you know, being able to edit maybe more fluidly. So this is going to lead to NVDA generally working a bit better with all Braille displays presumably down the line. Well, there'll be some elements we can maybe give back, but there'll be some that we just can't for intellectual reasons. So there will be things that go hopefully, you know, both ways. NVDA is open source. So anything we put back that can go back. The other thing to mention is that this is a 32 cell. We're also having a 20 cell, which will just be a smaller Braille display, but cheaper. OK. And then in the summer, we'll have a QWERTY version as well. So there'll be a 40 cell QWERTY. I don't know if you're in a position to hold something. Yeah, I can definitely try. Yeah, there's a bit of weight to it, but it's a good it seems like a good kind of design for sure. It's very light. So I mean, when you compare it to a lot, this is a laptop with the Braille display, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's a full Windows machine. Sure. Yeah, similar to we looked earlier, not to mention a competitor now, but we looked at the inside U, what is it? The U plus or the one plus. So what we're different here is that we have Keysoft as an extra for people who maybe need that. Sure. You don't need to just use, I mean, you can run JAWS on this thing. Yeah. And it's got 32 gig of RAM. So we're looking at very much future growth in this. Yeah, that's decent. And you can run Soundforge and edit your, if you want to edit files, you can certainly run, you know, GoldWave or Reaper or whatever you want on this. This is going to take it quite a bit. Quad core, ultra processor on here. We're not answering which one just yet because we want it to be a bit of a surprise once, you know, the initial launch stuff's out. You may be able to answer this. You may not yet. Give me a guesstimate price wise as to where we're looking. Yeah, sure. I can give you in pounds, I'm afraid. Yeah, that's all right. So the Braille Note is £5,000 at the moment for the Touch Plus. And that's recently changed. And I'll explain that in a minute. And this is going to be around the 5-4 mark. OK. So the Braille Note, when I started, Humanware 21 years ago was 5,400. So then it went to 5, and this is going to be 5-4. So it's actually, when you consider 20, 21 years have passed, this is a full fledged Windows laptop with Braille display. And we're hoping that instead of updating your hardware every four years with Android or three, four years, we're hoping that we can make this, you know, like, this is Windows 11. So we're going to get updates for a long time on this device. Yeah. Is the Touch going to stay on the market? It is. And we're repositioning this, I guess, at the casual user who doesn't need much online access. OK. As you know, Android stuff does get out of date with security patches and stuff. Yeah. So they will tend to say, OK, well, we don't want you to put this on our network. So what we're doing is we're saying, we're going to call it My First Note Taker. OK. So we've got all the learning tables and stuff on all our note takers and shortly on all our Braille displays, like the Learning Braille. Yeah. But that will go to, so we're going to say, oh, look, take this into school. You know, you've got your six, seven, eight-year-olds. Give them electronic Braille as quickly as possible, but let's make it really cheap. Sure. So we say you can attach it to your laptop, copy files off, still do emails. But let's put it down to 2,300 pounds. OK. Yeah. Which, for a 32-cell Braille display with a very good note taker that can read PowerPoint documents and, you know, with a dictionary and all sorts of stuff, I think that's quite compelling. Really good for education. Absolutely. But we're not guaranteeing that, you know, once the email stops working on there, it stops working. Yes. You know, we prefer people think about it as to do stuff offline. OK. Fair enough. Well, Martin, thank you very much for showing me this. Exciting stuff ahead. And really appreciate it. You guys are doing a human work. Thanks so much. No problem. My pleasure. So I'm joined here by Daniel and Lucy from Seeable Holidays. Hello, folks. How are you getting on at the site village so far? Daniel, going well? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for asking and nice to speak to you again. Absolutely. Likewise. So tell me, Lucy, what's going on recently at Seeable? Have you exciting holidays coming up? Absolutely. So 2026, we're super excited about lots of new destinations that we've got to offer. OK. Some of them being Venice. Brilliant. We brought back our Rome Group holiday. We've got Vienna, which has now sold out. We've got a exciting new Panama trip. OK. That has also sold out as well. So places are going fast, actually, at the minute. Now, I heard rumors. A birdie told me that you have a really big, exciting trip coming up to somewhere that is very close to my heart, Lucy. Absolutely. So we actually have launched Ireland as well next September. Finally. Very good. So Daniel, what kind of things are happening at this trip to Ireland? So this will presumably be for people in the UK. No, as you may know or may not know about any of our holidays, they're very much open to anybody who would like to join us. So just on that note, we are gathering more traction in the US as well. Wow. So anyone is welcome, basically. We don't have, you know, you can join from any airport in any country, basically. Awesome. But yeah, the Ireland trip, we're very excited about it. It's the rugged coast of Ireland, I like to say, which obviously involves the giant causeway and the different national parks around that area. So yeah, it's exciting. Lucy can tell you more about when it is. Yeah, so what are the details, Lucy? So the Ireland holiday, Ireland causeway coast and Donegal. OK. So it is the first until the 5th of September, 2026. Super. It is $2,750 for the sharing room price. Yeah. And $3,100 for a single room. OK. And of course, that includes your sea-able assistance with a ratio of two to one for 10 hours a day. Of course, your accommodation and breakfast is included. And we've actually partnered with an amazing agency that have put together different walks and different hikes in Ireland that are particularly accessible for people with visual impairments. Excellent. Yeah. Fantastic. You know, it's for the people that want to be outdoors and walking and quite active people. Yeah, it's going to be great. We're super excited about it. Super stuff. How can people find out more as always? Yeah, so they can email in. Lucy at seaable.co.uk Or Daniel at seaable.co.uk There you go. I wonder which one of you will get more of the emails now. Oh, they can call in. Probably Lucy. There you go. Oh, they can call in on 020-3375-6947. Fantastic. Lucy, Daniel, thank you so much as always. Thank you for listening. Cheers, guys. And there you have it. That is a roundup of just some of the conversations that we had at Site Village. We'll have more where that came from in our newsletter and on YouTube later in the week. So go over and subscribe to the VI Labs YouTube channel. Just search VI Labs accessibility on YouTube and hit the subscribe button because we have literally two hours of audio of great stuff over there. There were some really interesting conversations. Joe, on that Seaable holidays, I do want to ask you, do you think it's worth it? You know, it's £3,100 to come to Ireland with Seaable and to have a room of your own. I think it was £2,750 for sharing a room. Is it worth it, you being an Irish man yourself? Well, David, coming to Ireland and experiencing the Emerald Isle, it's always worth it. Of course it is. But I suppose, look, it's very subjective. Again, if you are a single person and you don't have assistance to go on holidays, but you can afford to use a company like Seaable, I think it is worth it. But there is loads of other holiday options out there. It's a matter of thinking outside the box whether you could look, you can always pay for some personal assistant or a family member. But if you don't have that, there is places like I went to Centre Park recently and I found it quite accessible and security are amazing up there. They have a little mini bus that brings you from your lodge to your pool and helps you get around and things like that. Look, there's always other options. But yeah, if you're into the likes of those assisted holidays, whether it's Seaable or any of the others, I know you did an interview and so I won't mention them. If it is Seaable or any of those types of holidays, they are a great experience, David. But look, they do come with a caveat. They're expensive. Absolutely. There you go. There are loads of options. I did, and it's not in this interview, but we will have it on YouTube later in the week. I did have a conversation with the folks at Travel Hands and Travel Hands is kind of like a Be My Eyes style or more an Uber style service, but for sighted guides and sighted assistants. So if you're in, I think they operate mainly in London right now, but if you're over in London, you can actually book sighted assistants for periods of I think it's something like one hour, three hours and five hours and you pay a small fee, then they operate as a charity. But I thought that was a really interesting concept. That's a cool concept, David. That sounds good. Yeah, they have the Travel Hands app. So we'll have more on that over on YouTube later in the week. But do let us know. We asked this question on the newsletter as well, and we'd love to hear your views on it. Would you like to have an event like this in Ireland? What would you like to see at it? And who knows? You never know what the future brings. But for now, though, let's move on, shall we? Hello, Mr. Dorian Salzman. How are you? Great. Fantastic. And it's been a while since you've been on the podcast, Dorian. Yes, it definitely is and has been too long. Too long indeed. Now, it's a tale as old as time, Dorian. You know this as well as I do. That question of JAWS and NVDA. What works better in what context? You know, how do they compare? How do they sound different? And we do have an event coming up in the next little while comparing JAWS and NVDA and exploring what those differences are. What's the same? What's different? And how they perform with different tasks. So I guess to start us off, do you want to tell us a little bit about this JAWS and NVDA event? Yes. So it's a discussion around, as you said, the differences and the some similarities between the PC screen readers, NVDA and JAWS. And that's being held on Friday, the 5th of December at 11 a.m. So if you want to learn the differences and similarities between those two wonderful pieces of tech, feel free to tag along. Absolutely. So how will we be doing this? How are we going to be showing this off, Dorian? Because we've got quite a cool and unique format for this, I think. Yeah. So essentially we'll have a screen reader user using NVDA and another screen reader user using JAWS. And then we'll ask them to complete the same tasks and then see if there's any differences between those tasks. And those screen readers. What are you expecting? Well, I think hopefully, for example, if we get somebody on JAWS and NVDA to read and go through their emails, hopefully we'd find that they actually are very similar. Okay. It's interesting, you know, because I think the aim will be that it's quite similar. And there are going to be, you know, little differences, but this is as much of a personal preference as much as it being one better than the other. Isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Some people have a background with JAWS or some people have a background with NVDA and often they never meet one another or they don't get to experience the two different sides. And hopefully we bring them together in this way. Super stuff. We do have some other courses. So that's happening, just to repeat again, the 5th of December at 11 a.m. and you can sign up by email during, I think, training at vi.ie. Yeah, that's the one. Yes, the one. And we do have some other courses coming up in December as well. These are our more traditional virtual courses. Do you want to tell us about some of the ones that we have coming up? Yes. So another one we have is High Digital Online Banking, which hopefully would give you some tips and tricks on that. That's Thursday, the 4th of December at 12 o'clock. Then we also have Google Lookout, which is looking at the wonderful OCR AI app called Google Lookout, which you can download on your phone. That's the 9th of December at 12 o'clock. Super. And then closer to Christmas one by one. Exactly. And then getting closer again is Android accessibility and the features that you could find to make your Android more accessible. That's Thursday, the 11th of December at 12 o'clock. And then lastly, and also importantly, Apple accessibility. That's Tuesday, the 16th of December at 12 o'clock. Do you think Santa Claus might be willing to attend that Apple accessibility one there? I mean, it's getting pretty close. Well, I really hope so. Yeah, like, yeah, I really hope so. Maybe maybe he'll be too busy. Who knows? But Dorian, thank you so much for telling us all about that. So NVDA enjoys the similarities, the differences, all that good jazz. That is happening on the 5th of December at 11 a.m. training at vi.ie to sign up for that or indeed to sign up for any of those courses. You can find full details of all of these events on the website, vi.ie, and just go to the upcoming events section to learn more. But for now, though, that is what we've got coming up. But also coming up on this show. Well, it's time for the news with Daniel Dunn. This is talking technology news. So with your latest talking technology news, I'm Daniel Dunn. It's almost time for the Late Late Tie Show. And RT have announced that for the first time, the show will be broadcast with live audio description for blind and visually impaired viewers. For those listening internationally, the Tie Show is an Irish phenomenon and is regularly the most watched TV show of the year on Irish TV. The program involves kids playing with and testing ties, singing, dancing, giveaways, and a huge variety of festive fun. The show has aired with live Irish Sign Language interpretation in recent years and has previously had audio description for the repeats. But this is the first time that audio description will be provided live. It also marks the first live audio description on RTE as a broadcaster, after Virgin Media broadcast live audio description for the Six Nations Rugby Championship earlier this year. This is a massively exciting step forward and it's great to see. The Tie Show is available to watch in Ireland on both RTE One and RTE Player. The Irish Sign Language live stream will be broadcast on the RTE News channel, with an international stream broadcast around the world on RTE Player. Will you be watching the Late Late Tie Show with audio description? Please let us know with a WhatsApp voice note. In other news, PickyBot is getting native support for WhatsApp. Users can now go to pickybot.com forward slash register and sign up for the new WhatsApp service. You can send images in a normal WhatsApp chat and you will receive a voice message back with a description of the image without having to leave WhatsApp. You can also just ask general questions with the bot responding in the exact same way. It's a very useful tool and while Envision have talked about providing something like this in the past, PickyBot is the first to actually make it happen. The tool doesn't seem to respond to voice notes sent by the user, so if you want to use your voice, you may need to use Dictation. But other than that, this is a very useful service. And finally for now, Glenn Gordon is leaving Vespero after working on Development of Jaws for an incredible 32 years. Speaking in a post on his LinkedIn, Glenn said, I voluntarily resigned my position at Freedom Scientific Vespero because I found myself unable to continue working for a company that's changing in ways that are moving away from my personal values. As recently as the 2025 NFB convention, I was thinking that I'd be working on Jaws far into the future, but much to my surprise, a recent influx of new executive leaders and customer facing product-related changes convinced me that it was time to leave. You can find that full post on Glenn's LinkedIn and he has also discussed the decision in more detail on the Double Tap podcast from AMI. It's going to be interesting to see where things go for the world of screen readers in the next few years. Glenn's post is definitely sad to read, but Glenn does say that there are many more talented people still at Vespero. Hopefully the future of screen reading is bright, but time will tell. Best wishes to Glenn from us at Vision Ireland and thanks for the work on Jaws all over the years. And that's it for now. Please do feel free to share the podcast with friends who may find it helpful. And thanks for listening over the last 100 episodes. But for now, it's back to you, David. Thank you, Daniel Zahra, much appreciated. Lots to cover there in the news. But we'll start off, I guess, with the really positive stuff. Audio description, live audio description, in fact, for the toy show. This is really exciting stuff, isn't it? Ah, it is, yes. And look, it's probably been a long time coming that, you know, we look for we look for this. And, you know, the Thai show is such a flagship show every year. You know, I don't think there's hardly a household in the country that doesn't tune in on the night. So, you know, coolest RTE about time in a way, but it's great to see. And, you know, hopefully that the feedback will be positive and it might inspire RTE to roll out live audio description to other events. Absolutely. You know, could we be looking at the Ireland, Ireland final and football final in the summer? Yeah. And covered in the same manner. It will be fantastic. It really would. Or Dancing with the Stars or Eurovision or all of these big events. There's a lot to describe out there and lots of really great live entertainment. That would be cool to be included in it for sure. Joe, I do want to ask you, I do think it would be hell on earth trying to describe the Thai show though, in fairness. Oh, that's a massive pressure situation. But they are very talented, the RTE crew, especially the audio describers. I don't remember all their names now, but they're both men and male and female ones that I've listened to on different programs. They've been fantastic. So I have every faith in them to do a great job. Absolutely. You know, it's the unpredictability of it. I think it would stress me out to 90 trying to describe something like that. So more power to them. And fair play. You can check that out on RTE One, on RTE player on, I believe, the 5th of December, Friday the 5th of December. The same day as that NVDA and Jaws event. So just keep that in mind as well. That'll be a busy day for some folks. It sure will. It'll be a very busy day. So, yeah, so there's that. Also, Joe, I do want to ask Glenn Gordon leaving Vispero after working on Jaws 32 years. How important is it to have blind or visually impaired people leading products for blind or visually impaired people, do you think? Well, I think in some cases, like a screen reader, it can be vital. I don't think anybody understands it as much as the user themselves. So, look, it's sad to see Glenn go, but he gave great service 32 years. And I wish him well in the future. But yeah, it is important to have at least maybe there is. There probably is a few others that are there. But Glenn, yeah, he was a pioneer leader in that department. So, yeah, I'm sorry to see him go, but yeah, it is great just to answer your question. It is great to have somebody up there because it gives you more confidence in the product as well. Absolutely. And we don't often promote other podcasts on this podcast. But I must say that that interview on the Double Tap podcast was absolutely superb and talks a lot about the history of Jaws and how it came about. And it's a fantastic insight into screen reader history if you're interested in that at all. I would definitely recommend that from a week or two ago. But there you go. There is other stuff going on as well. Joe, you had a really cool tip there on Android and Android interfacing a little bit better with those of us using AirDrop. Yeah, there's a quick share option on Android which has been recently updated to make it work with AirDrop. And testing has shown it is secure from both sides now. Look, Android and Apple are probably famous for not connecting with each other. But now this is a big step in the right direction. And I'm glad to see it. Look, there's so many people out there with top of the range phones from both Samsung and Xiaomi and Apple or whatever. You know, so it's about time you can share your actual photos or whatever videos you want with each other without jumping through loads of hoops. And Daniel, this has been a point of frustration for a long time, hasn't it? It has, yeah. You know, being able to connect like that is fantastic. You know, it's great to see the development in it because at the end of the day you should be able to share stuff with ease. Absolutely. Well, there you go. So loads of stuff going on this week. Do feel free, if you do have news to share, be sure to send it in to us. 086-199-0011 on WhatsApp. Or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie. But for now, though, that is our show. Be sure to check out some of those upcoming events that we have on our website. That's vi.ie. And we will be back really, really soon for episode 101 of Talking Technology with ViLabs. I guess the next big milestone is 150 now, so we've a bit of a way to go. But thank you so much for listening. Do share the show with your friends and we'll chat to you very soon 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.