Making Europe more accessible. IAAP comes to Dublin - Talking Technology episode 105

The International Association of Accessibility Professionals, in association with Vially, brought their EU conference to Dublin last week. David caught up with some of the speakers from the event to learn more.  

Vision Ireland’s group CEO, Chris White, calls for stronger leadership and enforcement of the European Accessibility Act, and explains why Vision Ireland made a complaint to the Irish Aviation Authority.

Susanna Laurin from the IAAP tells us about the organisation and its role, and gives her view on how the European Accessibility Act is working so far.

Shadi Abou-Zahra, from Amazon, tells us what it’s like leading accessibility for one of the world’s largest companies. How do you ensure accessibility across a company with such a wide variety of products? Shadi tells us more. 

We discuss Narrator, paper travel passes, and rodents in this week’s Tech News. And we tell you about a new course now available on Vision Academy.

All that and more on this week’s episode of Talking Technology.

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

0:00 intro 

3:01 WhatsApp Voice Notes 

12:41 Chris White

21:40 Susanna Laurin

32:19 Shadi Abou-Zahra

42:43 Talking Technology News

Transcript

0:00

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. As you always do. Hello everybody and welcome in to Talking Technology with VI Labs, episode 105. Where it is Safer Internet Day across Ireland and Europe today. Safer Internet Day is taking place with the theme of how we can protect kids in the age of AI. We'll be talking more about that in tech news later on as well, so do stick around for that. But hello, welcome in. How are you keeping? Hope all is well with you. We have a packed show coming up today with three, not one, not two, but three really cool interviews. We will be catching up with Vision Ireland's group CEO, Chris White. He will be joining us in a bit to talk all about the European Accessibility Act and what Vision Ireland is doing about the European Accessibility Act. So we'll be talking to Chris in just a few minutes. We will also be talking to Susanna Lauren. So Susanna is the head, I guess, of the EU side of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. Very fancy title there, but we'll just call them the IAAP for the purposes of this podcast. But Susanna is the head of the IAAP in Europe and we'll be learning a little bit more about what they do and why they had a massive, massive conference in Dublin last week. We'll be telling you all about that and we'll probably chat about my experience at that because I was at that event. So we'll be telling you about that later on too. And finally, we will be catching up with Shadi Abazara. Shadi is the head of Amazon's accessibility kind of management team for the products and services. So you're looking at things like Alexa, FireStix, Kindles, those e-readers, the Ring Video Doorbells and then services too. So things like Prime Video, which is really cool. So we'll be catching up with Shadi later on in the show. So when I say, I think I say it a lot on this podcast, that we have a packed show for you. But today we really, really, really do. And a reminder that if at any stage you would like to join the conversation and get in touch with us, we'd be absolutely delighted to have you on board. There are loads of ways to join the conversation and here are just a few of them. So if you want to get involved, all you need to do is you can send us a WhatsApp voice note if you'd like. That way we can hear you and you can hear us hearing you. It's great. You can send us a WhatsApp voice note to 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. Remember, a WhatsApp voice note is not a call, so you want to use the voice message button. It's labeled with voiceover and is located at the bottom corner of your screen, the bottom right hand side there of the screen or the chat interface. So do send us a voice note if you so please. You can also get in touch with us by email if you would like to content at vi.ie. That's content at vi.ie. Whether you'd like to get in touch with us with a voice note or an email, we would love to hear from you with your views, your thoughts or any technology news that you think we should cover. We'd love to hear from you. So do get in touch now. Right then, let's get right down to business and check in with some of the correspondents from the week gone by with our good friend from Kilkenny, Mr. Joe Lanigan. Joe, how are you? Hi David. I'm good today. Thank you. Excellent stuff. Always good. It's ups and downs, Joe, but it's good to have a good day. So tell me, Joe, how are things that you've been keeping an eye on some of the stuff coming in? And we had in the newsletter last week, we had some thoughts on the air tags that the new air tags from Apple. Before we read the message from Michael, what are your thoughts on these initial new air tags? Well, I like the fact that they're more precision finding available. So they're just easier to find, a little bit louder as well. I actually love air tags in general, because they're actually so easy to set up. You just hold one close to your iPhone, it recognizes it and you give it a name. And it's there in the items section of the Find My App. How easy is that like, you know? So then when you're looking for one, you play a sound, and hopefully if it's inside the house, you'll hear it and you find it, attach it to stuff. And we just listened to this message and we will respond to it and I'll give you my opinion on what I have to say. So we've got this message. Daniel, would you be so kind as to read Michael's message? Yeah, absolutely. So Michael wrote in to us, there are high thanks for the piece on the new air tag, David. I'm disappointed that there is no improvement in how the tag can be attached to items. I have used them in the past, but found them difficult to attach to items such as TV remote controls, etc. Yours sincerely, Michael Griffith. There you go. He's not wrong, Joe, is he? Well, there you go. Now, that is what I would have complained about as well, if I had to make a complaint about air tags. Look, you can get other small items that come with ways and means of sticking them to things or attaching them to things. For example, the flick buttons come with this little adhesive back on it where you can peel off and then you can stick it to something. I know they don't come with keyrings or whatever, but you don't need it for that particular item. But air tags don't come with those kind of accessories or attachments, so you have to purchase them. So that's Apple for you. You have to purchase extra items to make it work. I know you could throw it into a bag or into a wallet or whatever, but it's not always the same. So for Michael, you can go on the Apple website and buy accessories, but they can range anything from 15 to 30 euros and it can become costly. But there is other items on Amazon which make it a lot cheaper. I know people may not like me referring to websites like Amazon, but look, things have to be affordable at the end of the day. So you can buy things for remote holders and you could buy keyrings for a couple of euros that your air tag will fit exactly into, really snug and secure. And then you can attach the keyring to your rucksack bag or man bag or whatever you have on your list. Maybe your kids or grandkids Nintendo Switch. Never good when you lose one of those. So look, there's lots of things you can attach the keyrings to and there's lots of different solutions out there, whether they be sticky adhesive or keyring wise. You will find them on Amazon and other websites, maybe even Timo, but we don't believe in anything too fast fashion or whatever way you like to call it. We like to keep things recycled as well. It's not nice having to spend massive money after already paying 30 euros for the item or whatever, the exact prices at the moment. I know to do a bundle you can buy four for a certain amount of stuff, but still, if you have to buy accessories for each one of those, it does get expensive. So we do agree with you, Michael, but our solution is maybe shop around and find items on some different websites that you can get for maybe between two and five euros. Yeah, I'd love to see the air tag included within different products like I've got a great little magnifier that I use here. It's one of the Eschenbach ones from Germany. I've said this before. I'd love to have an air tag included in that, but because it's got a curved handle, there's no logical way to get an air tag attached to it and still maintain the comfort in the hand. So like there are little things like that that are unfortunate. The only other thing that I'd add and this would be the thing that I think was missing from the air tag. And I touched on this in the article in Tech on Tap last week is the method of charging. You still can charge it by doing things like, you know, attaching it to the back of your phone or something like that. It just seems so antiquated. Yeah, like it seems so archaic and antiquated that you have to get and change a physical battery. And I know it's a first world problem, but it seems kind of wasteful too in my mind, but maybe that's me being this. I think you're right. Antiquated, I'm going to look that word up in the dictionary, see if it's a real word now, David, that you've used it. It's antique, Joe. Antique. Oh, there you go. Antiquated, I think is like a way of saying something is antique. If it's antique, it's antiquated or something. I think. I do. Brilliant. You learn something new every day. But yeah, I agree. Look, but there is other options out there as well. We don't have to go Apple. Not everybody uses Apple. We have to remember that. There's lots of Android users out there and blindshell users. Blindshell do have a solution similar to air tags. Blindshell beep, yeah, brilliant option as well for people that use blindshells. And there is the tile, the tile, which is has a nice loud beep on it and the battery in some cases is last longer. And they also have a credit card option, which you can slip into your wallet. So the tile. Yeah, just to continue the discussion on David, that is a brilliant option, the tile. I have a couple of them as well at home. So, yeah, I think I think they're not the only option out there for Michael going forward. But and look, there is an app that you can download for the tile as well. You can download it onto the iPhone as well and hopefully blindshell, but I haven't tested on that. But there is there is easy options out there other than air tags. Absolutely brilliant stuff. Michael, thank you very, very much for the message. A really interesting one and always great to hear people's thoughts on new technology that's, you know, hitting the market. I mean, the air tag, not necessarily revolutionary at this point, but a product that is very popular for blind and visually impaired people is always good to cover that. If you would like to get in touch with us, you can send us a message to 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. Or if you would like to do it the antique way, you can send us an email to content at vi.ie. Very archaic, some would say. But we won't judge you for it, you can send to content at vi.ie. Right then, let's move on, shall we? Last week in Vision Ireland's Wayfinding Centre in Dublin, a really cool event took place. This was a conference of the IAAP, specifically the EU wing of the IAAP. They're the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. And basically what they do is it's kind of like a group of those working in accessibility industries, in digital accessibility, assistive technology, and working for companies that are working on, you know, tools to make things more accessible, I guess, is what they do. And they have about 10,000 members. And in Dublin, last week, there was a major meeting of the International Association of Accessibility Professionals to learn a little bit more about what's going on across Europe. There were regulators there from a number of European countries. And, yeah, everybody was sharing notes, sharing views, and seeing how we can try and make the world a little bit more accessible. So to learn a little bit more about the event, we'll learn more about the organisation a little later on. But to learn more about the event, first of all, I caught up with Chris White, who is the group CEO of Vision Ireland. Here is what Chris had to say. So joining me once again on Talking Technology, for the first time, the last time you were here was our rebrand. It's Chris White, our CEO. Chris, how are you getting on? I'm really well, David. How are you? Not too bad. It's been a while. It's been a while to do this formally, but I see you all the time. Fair enough. Yeah, you're probably sick of me in the real world. So, Chris, we're here today at the Wayfinding Centre. The reason we're here is there is an event being co-organised by IAAP. So they're the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, very fancy term, and also Vision Ireland's sister company, Vialli. So do you want to tell me first a little bit about what's going on at the Wayfinding Centre today? And there's a massive crowd here. Yes, we've got 200-odd people here in person. We've got 600 people online. It's the IAAP's EU seminar on the European Accessibility Act, how it can be implemented, how it can be used, the importance of it. There's 18 different international regulators here today. So the importance of regulation, how regulators can take forward the implementation of the European Accessibility Act and how we as a sector and we as a movement can make the most of this hard-won legislation for the betterment of accessibility for all. Sure. So a lot of listeners to this podcast will be using things like VoiceOver, JAWS, NVDA, all that. For those who don't know in the most basic terms about the European Accessibility Act, give us a brief kind of rundown of what this does to make services more accessible. So the European Accessibility Act came into force across the 27 EU countries on the 28th of June last year. And it requires every company, pretty much with a website that turns over 2 million euros or more, to have a WCAG 2.1 compliant website. In particular, it looks in detail at e-commerce, banking, essential services to make sure that they can be used fully and independently without reliance on other people. So it's a hugely comprehensive piece of legislation, world leading. The challenge for us all now is to make sure that it's implemented. People are aware of it and we don't let it wither on the vine of just a piece of legislation that's there and not used. So we need to be active, we need to be engaged, we need to be passionate and we need to be working together to ensure that it is fully implemented. So in terms of the event today, then you mentioned there are 18 regulators from across Europe. How is regulation for the European Accessibility Act going? Because this is something you've just delivered a keynote at the event. This is something you touched on, that we need to be stronger on this? Exactly. I mean, the danger is that we're all passionately agreeing with each other, but no decision makers are in the room. We need to be much more proactive, we can't, you know, polite, excuse me, can you implement this? It's not going to get us to where we need to be. We need to be much more proactive, slightly more aggressive and demanding what is now a legislative right. It is not good enough for people to say this website is partially compliant. What that means is this website is not compliant. There is no room in the legislation for somebody to say we don't have to comply with it because this is partially compliant. And all these reasons why it's not compliant are OK. That's not in the legislation. People need to recognise that full compliance is what the legislation requires. What does the next step then? So we have, you know, representatives from a number of the regulators that are regulating this in Ireland here today. Some of them are speaking on panels. Like, what do they need to do now? And is there stuff that Vision Ireland can do? I think, well, I think the regulators need to be engaged by the public and organisations like Vision Ireland to remind them of their obligations under the Act. I think the regulators need to start taking enforcement action. We haven't seen we're 10 months in now from the active from the active implementation of the Act and we haven't seen any enforcement actions yet. We've had very light touch regulation and we've seen on numerous occasions light touch regulation doesn't work. It leads to things like the banking crisis. So we need regulators to put a marker down. So, for example, we've made a complaint to the Irish Aviation Authority that on the 31st of January, not one single airline flying out of Dublin City was compliant with the European Accessibility Act. Have you heard back on that? We haven't heard back anything yet. OK, that's interesting. We'll have to follow up on that. So let's move on just briefly from the European Accessibility Act and talk about things in Vision Ireland more generally. Lots going on. The Wayfinding Centre at Viale. How are things across the board? So wayfinding and Viale are just one of the other sort of some of the activity. But, I mean, I think we are reviewing last year, so we supported more people with sight loss than ever before in 2025. So in excess of eight thousand individuals were supported on multiple fronts, whether that's technology with you, David, or low vision services or education or training or counselling or being referred to other services through the ECLO, through lobbying. So the breadth and width of what Vision Ireland is doing has never been greater. Our impact has never been greater. The demand has never been greater, either, because we're creating the level of expectation. We are nowhere near where we need to be. But the organisation is working hard in challenging governments and delivering services that make a difference, but are not the solution. You're good, Chris, summarising all of this. So I won't do the summary here. I'll let you kind of finish this off. What is the one kind of point you want to leave people with, whether it's from Vision Ireland, the European Accessibility Act, anything at all? What's the one thing you'd say to those listening to Talkin' Technology right now? The European Accessibility Act is a wonderful tool. We need to grasp it with both hands, make sure we use it. Let's cultivate it and use it as a tool of difference to make Ireland a more accessible place for us all. Chris, thank you very much. Thank you, David. Always good to catch up with Chris on Talkin' Technology. We don't have him on that often, but when we do, he always has some interesting nuggets to share. Very interesting, Joe, I must say. It was during that conversation when Chris mentioned that they had made the complaint to the Irish Aviation Authority. That's very interesting, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Look, I suppose I've been trying to book flights for a long time. And it's not the easiest task when you're using a screen reader. I find websites can time out and you have to start all over again and the frustration really gets to you. They wouldn't be the most accessible websites, like Ryanair, Aerolinkus, etc. But I mean, I'd be hoping that they could improve it maybe in the next six months to a year even, you know, and work really hard on it. God knows they are very wealthy and the companies are doing really well. There's many millions of passengers going through the airport all the time. So I'd be I'd be hoping, look, they come up with a solution, whether they use solutions like, you know, bots or something to make it more accessible. I would like them to I'd like to look to make the process easier and work better, whether it be VoiceOver or JAWS or NVDA or whatever we're using. I just want to be able to book a flight. Yeah, that seems fairly reasonable. We'll have to find out what happens with that. I'm sure Chris will update us on the podcast at some point down the road. But very interesting conversation with Chris as always. If you have thoughts on that, do send us a voice note 0861990001 on WhatsApp or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie. Also at the event was a awesome lady by the name of Susanna Lauren. Now, Susanna is the head of the EU for the IEAP. So this is the International Association of Accessibility Professionals who were running the event in the Wayfinding Center last week. So I caught up with Susanna to learn a little bit more about the IEAP and what it is that they do. So joining me here on Talking Technology, I am joined by Susanna Lauren, who is the representative for the IEAP in the EU. Susanna, how are things? Well, things are very good because we just finished a two day event, so I'm a little bit tired. But now I'm very happy and I'm looking forward to resting my feet and having a beer. Look, no better place than Ireland for that. So do you want to tell me a little bit about, I suppose we'll talk about the event in a second. But for those who don't know, what is the IEAP? It is the International Association of Accessibility Professionals. So we are a global organization. We have 10,000 members. So we have a member driven, not for profit organizations for people working professionally as accessibility experts. Or if they are in a company or organization that is kind of starting their journey to be more accessible, then they can also join. We have a lot of training and professional development. And I think we're most known for the professional certification that we issue that is globally recognized. So people can actually say, I'm an accessibility expert, and another person can believe that you are an accessibility expert. Because that's kind of a proof of your knowledge and experience. Which is very important in the space because it's very easy, as you say, to claim that, oh, I know about accessibility because I use a screen reader or I do this or that. But your certifications give people a broad overview, which I think is critically important in this space, isn't it? Oh, yes. So I think many people start either because they have a friend or something that is in a wheelchair or a person who is neurodivergent or something like that. And then you kind of end, you start, you have a starting point for your interest in accessibility. But it's extremely important to have the holistic view if you are going to support a website owner or an app owner on how they are developing and designing their interfaces. You cannot only talk about deaf users or not only talk about wheelchair users or even blind users. I mean, I have a visual impairment myself, but I think we are very well often represented. But many other people, for example, with intellectual disabilities are less often heard. So I think as a professional, it's important for me. That's why I have a person who stutter on one panel here and people go, oh, my God, that takes a long time. But I mean, it's important that everyone gets a chance to speak and to make their voices heard. And I think that that kind of holistic view on accessibility is very, very important. And then we also need specialist organizations, of course. I mean, of course, we have user organizations that focus on one disability. That's something else. But for the expertise, for the experts, I think this broad perspective is extremely important. Because otherwise you also, I mean, in the worst case, you could provide a recommendation that is good for one user group, but that does not work for another user group. That would be the it's not often the case, but it could happen if you don't have if you don't see the broad kind of full picture. So you guys in the association run a number of different events across the year. Your your biggest is probably the M-enabling event that you have in the States. But you've just run a major event here in the Wayfinding Center in Dublin. Am I correct in thinking this is one of the biggest you've done in the EU so far? It is, yes. So M-enabling is super big. Yeah, yeah. But but in the EU, we have more done meetups and webinars and smaller events and really for our community, while M-enabling has a much broader audience. But I've been doing these since 2018, I think. And then it was a little bit of a hiccup of the pandemic. But just a small one. Yeah, just a little bit more online. But yes, this is the biggest one. We have two. We had 200 people in the room today at the event and 130 at the workshop yesterday. And that is definitely a world record. It has a little bit to do with the size of the event or the venue. So we haven't had these big rooms before. I also think it has to do with Ireland. People really want to see Ireland and not only for the rain, but also for all the nice people. I'm always telling people that you are the nicest people in the world. Thank you very much. I think you are very good. And how much I suppose one other big part of that is the European Accessibility Act as well, you know, which is having a major impact. Where are we at? I know it's a massive question and it's going to differ for different member states. How is how are things going under the European Accessibility Act? Are we still moving in the right direction? Are things moving fast enough? Where are we at with that? I think I think personally, but I work so I'm not only doing IWP stuff. I'm also a consultant and I lead a research institution. That's my day job. And one of my biggest clients is the European Commission and also work for the parliament and the council and several of the member states. I'm deeply involved in the in the legal space and I I would say we are in a quite good place. But I can understand that if you look at it kind of from the outside or from the end user perspective, oh my God, we're not moving anywhere slow, which is which is also true. But it's just that it takes time for these market surveillance authorities. They have a good way of surveilling markets and doing monitoring and things, but they are completely new to accessibility. And you could complain saying that they should have started earlier and all of that. And I'm all with you. But but still, they are actually doing things. And we have even in the smallest member states, we have hundreds of complaints already. And many of the market surveillance authorities are out there. They are requesting compliance reports and they are writing letters and they are really moving. I mean, we had a meeting with 33 of the regulators yesterday, a closed meeting only for regulators with no vendors in the room. And it's just amazing how much they are working. It is a big difference. Some of the eastern countries are a little bit more immature when it comes to accessibility in general, which means that it's harder to get enough experts on board. And that makes it hard also for the regulator to actually do a good job. But in like Ireland, I think Ireland is doing a very good job here and some of the Nordic countries as well. And, you know, central Europe, Belgium, the Netherlands and so on. I think we're moving. I think we're seeing quite a lot of progress and we are moving forward. That doesn't mean that it's perfect, of course, but it also doesn't mean that the end users have seen this yet. And it will take time before it kind of trickle down, is maybe the wrong word. But I mean, before it's kind of seen on the ground in their actual functionality, because it takes time. First, the market surveillance authorities need to do the control of a product or service. And then they need to tell the product owner or the manufacturer that, OK, we found this. And this and this. And then they have a certain time to fix things. And then there's a discussion back and forth. Is this disproportionate or not? These things take time. I don't have any patience, so I think it's take too long. But that is how it works. This kind of policy implementation and a new law. And they are a little bit, you know, they are crawling before they can walk. So it takes a little bit of time. But yes, things are actually happening. So I would be a little bit patient and say more is happening than kind of meets the eye right now. And I think we just have to. I'm excited about the first real big penalty. Or, you know, media. That would be super cool when that happens. But that time will too come. Suzanne, I thank you so much. Exciting times ahead. How can people find out more about the work of the IAAP? Oh, we have the world's longest in our URL. It's accessibilityassociation.org. So I apologize to everyone who's going to have to type that. Yeah, exactly. But you can also find me or IAAP online. So Susanna Lorin, I think I'm the only one with that name on LinkedIn. And you can also look for at LinkedIn, we have a series of posts, if you're interested in the European Accessibility Act, that I think could be quite interesting. That is called EAA Q&A. So we have each week we have presented one article in the law and then explained it in human language. So that is very much, if you're very nerdy, interested in the law. But there are also some specific things that are, of course, very important for the end users. So how to complain, where to complain and all of that. Brilliant stuff. Susanna, for now, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Susanna Lorin there from the IAAP. Really interesting conversation with her. And I must say, well done to all involved at the IAAP. And also, I should say, to our sister company, Viale, who had a major role in organising that event. That was it went really, really well. And it was fantastic to see, you know, partners there from all across the world. There were people there from the States, across Europe and from big companies, too. I was on a panel at the event with a team from Tesco and also multiple different ATM manufacturers. So it was really, really good to see companies engaging with accessibility. So that's always fantastic to see. So well done to Susanna, her team, all the team over at Viale for organising that event. Really, really cool. Now, one of the the attendees at the event and in fact a sponsor at the event was Amazon. And you may have heard of Amazon, small little company. They have obviously, I suppose, most widely known for their shopping websites. But they do so many other things as well. They own Ring, they own Kindle. They obviously own the Lady A, who shall remain unspoken. Your smart speaker that you might have in your house. They control lots of different things. So obviously, with such a wide portfolio, it's really important that stuff is accessible. And one of the people coordinating that accessibility is a gentleman by the name of Shadi Abu Zahra. Now, Shadi was at the event on Wednesday and Thursday last week. And I got a chance to catch up with him and chat a little bit about what is happening at Amazon in regards to accessibility and ask, is it difficult to co-ord an accessibility effort for such a large company? So I'm joined now on Talking Technology by Shadi Abu Zahra, who is, do you know what? I'm going to let you tell me what your role is. So what's your role Shadi? I'm Principal Accessibility Standards and Policy Manager at Amazon. Now, that is a mouthful. So Shadi, I suppose, look, Amazon obviously does a huge variety of things. Obviously their shopping website most known, but they're also responsible for Alexa, Kindle, ring video doorbells, ring alarms. You mentioned their self-driving car company, Zoox, I think it's called, isn't it? So much that Amazon does. What is it like working on the accessibility side for Amazon? What are the new and exciting stuff that people should be aware of? So yeah, Amazon works across all these different products and services and has accessibility features continually coming on. We pride ourselves in saying it's always day one, so continually working and evolving things. Some of the latest releases are things like a feature called Dialogue Boost, which uses AI to extract the spoken speech basically from an audio track and remix it together at a level that makes it more clear, easier to hear the spoken dialogue at different levels. Now this started out in Prime Video where it's pre-processed on the cloud or available in the different levels. But now it's also available on Fire TV devices in order for it to be available on basically anything that goes through the streaming device. So it could be watching other streaming services or any kind of other media to make that available on the device itself, this feature. So other features are things like dual audio, which is the ability to control the volume level that is streamed to a hearing aid from a television differently than what's going through the speakers. So in a mixed household, for example, you could have different levels of audio. What's projected, what's streamed directly to my hearing aid is different than what comes out of the loudspeakers. It could be louder or lower. So these are just off the top of my head, some of the most recent features, but... And I suppose what's it like then, obviously Amazon is doing so many different things. Is it tough to manage accessibility across so many different products? Yes, the larger the product range, of course, the more complexity. But the way it works is that the different product teams have accessibility teams that are growing. So Prime Video has a dedicated accessibility team that is doing phenomenal work. Kindle, for example, has an accessibility team, the worldwide stores, et cetera, et cetera. So there is this trying to place the accessibility directly where the work happens rather than having one centralized team that is trying to do across these things. So having these teams that are closer to the production and responsible for the accessibility of the own product, but at the same time trying to kind of align between them and have this coordination is definitely one of the things that is where my role is, where that comes in, where it's across the organization trying to set requirements, help teams define these requirements for their products and services. How do you find the value of events like this? We're at obviously the IAAP event here in Dublin. How do you find events like this help companies like Amazon? So I think accessibility continues to be a work in progress. It's something that we as a community, I'm an engineer by training and I like to focus on engineering solutions, but over the years, over the decades of working in accessibility, I've learned that it's also a societal aspect. We're actually trying to change society and this can't be done alone. This needs us as a community working together, the different stakeholders, the industry that is implementing accessibility, but also the consultancies, the end users for whom that is actually there, public bodies and regulators. So academia and research, all of this, we all need to get together in order to create this change. So that's maybe a more philosophical answer, but basically events like these bring the community together, help us understand each other and work on new things together. Awesome stuff. Is it your first time in Ireland or are you? No, but I haven't been back for a while and it's great to be back in Dublin even though it's very rainy this time. Fair enough. Yeah, it is fairly rainy at the moment. What's your impression being of the accessibility of Dublin? Where are you based normally, if I may ask? I'm based in Vienna, in Austria, where we have excellent public transportation, but I must say, I haven't been back to Dublin for a couple of years and just subjectively I'm seeing quite a jump. I'm enjoying the public transport, I came in by bus this morning, but also yesterday coming in by taxis, I feel there's a lot of wheelchair accessible taxis, maybe more than there was in previous years. I don't have exact numbers again, this is just... Yeah, I think we're pretty much leading the EU on that, which is pretty cool. Yeah, so it just feels like getting around... Of course, as we have a lot in European cities, old buildings and things that are difficult to make more accessible, but definitely I think that's what it's about in accessibility generally is seeing the progress, seeing the move towards accessibility. And coming from an international perspective, what was your impression on the Wayfinding Centre? Oh, I love the Wayfinding Centre, I've never seen something of this size, I've seen in individual rehabilitation centres, maybe individual pieces like a car or half a bus or something, but seeing entire aircrafts and trains and buses and crosswalks and all this, it's really a fantastic place and it was fun to sit in an aeroplane, actually you could even go all the way up to the cockpit. Yes, indeed. Well, Shadi, thank you so much for chatting to us on Talking Technology, keep up the great work at Amazon and delighted to have you at the event, so thank you. Thank you so much. Really interesting conversation there with Shadi, I must say, I found that conversation really interesting because we look at these big companies and it must be difficult, especially when they have a product range as wide as the likes of, say, an Amazon or a Microsoft or an Apple or whoever it may be, to actually make those products accessible across the board. It's no small effort, so it was really interesting to get an insight into how that works. And actually, it's funny enough, Joe, when we were at the event, Shadi actually gave me his business card from Amazon and I was very impressed, it's such a small detail, but the business card actually contained Braille and was in large print, which I thought was very, very cool. That's fantastic, David, look, it's a small touch but it's actually a massive touch when you think about it, just to even add an accessibility feature to a business card. And look, if you're really stuck, you can throw your senior AI or your BMI or whatever you feel is the right addition for you, too, as well. But yeah, look, it shows Amazon and the people that work there, they do actually think outside the box. And it proves it by probably when I look at the products in my house, like the Amazon Echo, the Fire Stick, and I'm sure there's a couple others I could think of if I really search. But yeah, them two products, they do change their lives. Absolutely. I was actually talking to Shadi about this after and he was saying that on their like internal like purchasing things, so when they are purchasing, you know, stuff for themselves as employees, they have the option when ordering the business cards to just take a box to get it in Braille or large print, which I thought was really cool. I wonder, do they call their internal shopping platform Amazon? I wonder, do Amazon employees like shop on Amazon internally? But yeah, there you go. Really cool that you have the option to select Braille and large print there, isn't it? That's really cool. Very cool indeed. Anyway, hey, if you have thoughts on any of the interviews that we featured today with Chris, Susanna or indeed Shadi, you can send us a message on WhatsApp to 086-199-0011 or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie and we would love to hear from you indeed. And you may also have thoughts on some of the news and it's time to catch up on that news now with Daniel Dunn. This is talking technology news. So with your latest talking technology news, I'm Daniel Dunn. Microsoft has started gradually rolling out an update to the narrator screen reader to provide more detailed image descriptions powered by Copilot. The feature has existed on Copilot plus PCs for some time now, but it is soon going to roll out to all Windows 11 users. While that sounds fantastic, it is unfortunately a small bit misleading as the feature won't be available to those within the European Economic Area, at least for now. This is disappointing, but the feature will still be useful for those who can benefit from it. On Copilot plus PCs, the user can press narrator plus control plus D and get a full image description of the focused image, while narrator plus control plus S will give a full description of the screen. The user will also have an Ask Copilot button that can launch the captured image in the Copilot interface. On standard Windows 11 laptops, the narrator plus control plus D keystroke or the narrator plus control plus S keystroke will automatically launch the Copilot interface with either the image or screenshots ready to upload. Features like this have existed within commercial screen readers and as part of NVDA add-ons for some time now, but this is an exciting step forward for users of the free screen readers on the Windows side. While the most recent web-aimed screen reader survey showed just 0.7% of users using narrator as their primary screen reader, 37.3% said they would commonly use it, which demonstrates its true importance. Do you use narrator much? How have you found it's improved over the years? Let us know with a WhatsApp voice note. Today is Safer Internet Day, which is focusing on how we can protect kids online in the age of AI. Events are taking place across Ireland and Europe today to mark the event, which we have also covered on the Talking Technology podcast in previous years. RTE reports that research from UCD shows that while young people do not trust AI, they reluctantly accept the privacy trade-offs and while they know about its capacity for malicious use, they increasingly rely on it. Other topics being discussed on Safer Internet Day include a lack of parental engagement with the online activity of their children, as well as how AI is leading to increased amounts of information and disinformation online. It's not all doom and gloom, however, as conversations will also be taking place on how AI can be used to benefit young people. The internet is a wonderful resource, but it is important to make sure that you are careful in how you use it. Keep an eye out on the Vision Ireland website for another round of our Scams and Frauds online course on March 10th, or if you'd like, you can also try the course in your own time on our Vision Academy platform. We are testing the course for a limited time, so check it out now. And finally for now, from the 1st of March 2026, paper-based free travel passes will no longer be accepted on Irish public transport. Instead, you will need to use a public services card. The public services card can be used to tap on a bus or tap on and off the Lewis. It works much in the same way as a leap card, except you don't get charged. If you don't have a public services card already or it is expired, you can apply for one through the MyWelfare platform. Keep in mind that this does require the uploading of an image, and sometimes some visual impairments seem to result in the system rejecting these images. You can also get a public services card through your local PESC centre. The National Transport Authority said to continue using free travel after March 26, make sure your PESC is valid and up to date. Something definitely worth keeping in mind. And that's it for now, but a reminder that we have lots of courses available on our Vision Academy platform and available through Microsoft Teams. We'll tell you about some of the upcoming courses in just a second. But for now, it's back to you, David. Why, thank you, Mr. Daniel. Yeah, some really, really interesting stuff there. That whole free travel pass, that's a big change for people, isn't it? It is, David. Yeah, so anyone that has the paper-based travel pass will need to get into action to get the new plastic PESC public services card. And while we did mention there in the news that you can apply or renew one online, it's probably easiest to do it in your local PESC or social welfare office. So you can make an appointment to go in and they will take the photograph for the card because on the card itself is a copy of the photograph that will be taken. And that will then be posted back out to you a few days after it is created. So yeah, so you do have a couple of options, in order to be able to apply online, you must have a fully functional MyGovID account, and you can try and apply for it there. It is difficult to get the selfie correct, often the assistant can reject it. Maybe it could be the quality of your webcam, it could be the quality of the camera on your smartphone, it could be too much light, it could be too much in the background, etc, etc. So sometimes it's easiest just to go and make an appointment in your local social protection office and yeah, get it done there. It's an interesting one. My eye, so my left eye in particular, is quite visually deformed or whatever. It's very kind of clouded over or whatever. So when I try and take a photo, it's like we need a clear image of your eyes. And I'm like, you have one, just accept it please. So I must say I'm sick and now I need to renew my pass soon, but I'm not looking forward to the process, unfortunately. But it's one of these things has to be done March the 1st, if you're using that service, the paper based ones, you need to change over to a public services card. So just keep that in mind. Right, Daniel, we have lots of upcoming courses here in Vision Ireland. Do you want to go through some of the ones that we have upcoming? Yeah, absolutely, David. Yes. So I'll just start on the 17th of February, we've got a smart home technology. So that is going to take place and it'll go through smart kitchen equipment, help making life a little bit more independent around the house. Then on the 19th of February, we've got Apple accessibility. So if anyone, it's aimed at anyone who's just starting out on an iPhone or iPad, just go through the different accessibility features that Apple include, you know, some people might find useful. So that's that's yet taking place in the 19th of February. Connecting with other users on WhatsApp, that's on the 24th of February. So that's designed for people who want to maybe get get more into WhatsApp, get getting using it, using it to stay connected with family, friends and support networks. So that's that's on the 24th of February, scanners and scanning apps 26th of February. So that's another one that's on offer. So that you know, all the different apps and things out there for scanning printed materials like books, letters, product labels, etc. So yep, that's on the 26th of February. Contract Braille, if you want to brush up on your skills, contract Braille with that on the 27th of February, a new round of touch typing. This is a six session part. So if you want to learn or brush up on your skills, touch typing, touch typing for beginners that takes place in the second of March. Get more from Siri and Google Assistant going through the commands how you can get more from your smartphone or smart assistant that takes place in the third of March. As always, we have our technology clubs. They are regionally based. So you can find out more about our technology clubs. Just look on our website vi.ie news and events, upcoming events. So you can find out those there. So I suppose, as it is a safer internet day, we do have the scams and frauds course that's coming up on the 10th of March. So just to keep that date in your diary, if you're interested in learning how to stay safe on the internet, how to get enrolled on all these courses. If you drop an email to training at vi.ie, expressing your interest in one or more of those of those webinars or courses that I've spoke about, you can do that. And again, if you want to review them all, just go to our website vi.ie news and events and upcoming events and the whole list of them are there. And that's regularly updated. So do keep an eye on our upcoming webinars, courses, talks that are all listed there. How about that, David? That was a very impressive, Daniel, I've broken out in a sweat. That was amazing, fantastic stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Training at vi.ie if you want to sign up for one of those or you can check out if you'd like to do some of them on demand, you can try out the Vision Academy platform. We've a few courses up there already, namely a brand new version of the scams and frauds course. So if you'd like to give that a test drive, go over, check it out. You need your myvi account. Sign in there or create a new one and you can go to the Vision Academy training tile. So there you go. Exciting stuff. Now, before we wrap up this very serious episode of Talking Technology, keep in mind we have spoken to the CEO of Vision Ireland. We have spoken to the head of the EU for the IAAP and a major leader on the accessibility team at Amazon. We now need to talk about chaos involving some rodents, Daniel. There are some rodents causing problems in the UK. Yeah. That's right. I have a look at it. It's nice to wrap up the Talking Technology episode on kind of a quirky story. Yeah. So this kind of came across our feeds there earlier in the week. This is interesting and kind of quirky and funny as well. In the UK, an internet provider who has gone through a bit of tough financial times had their bailout cancelled because upon inspection of its fibre optic cables, it had found rats have chewed through them, believe it or not. That's great. And the reason for it is in our push to be more environmentally sustainable, we kind of put back on the use of plastics where possible. So the plastic covering around the optical cables had been made from a biodegradable material using soy or corn based materials and with the twitchy, ever inquisitive nose of the rodent, yeah, they thought this was a nice tasting chewable. So yeah, so that's what happened there. So the company did that, they were £300 million sterling in debt despite only having 25,000 paying subscribers. And unfortunately, you know, they were to be bailed out and that their infrastructure now is not virtually worthless. So yeah, it's a quirky story, an unusual one. And I see the caption under this is they need to hire cats for security. Oh, yeah, there you go. That is there's definitely some really funny jokes you can make there, but we will let people share their experiences, some awful stuff there with technology. Sometimes it's the weirdest. I feel sorry for the 25,000 customers like their internet is, you know, the wires are riddled. Yeah, like they were having an awful time. But yeah, what a story, what a wild, wild story. But there you have it. Weird things we discuss on this here podcast, but that's why you subscribe. Thank you so much for listening to us. And that brings us to the end of this episode of Talking Technology. Hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, why not consider giving it a thumbs up if you're on YouTube or rate it if you're on any of the other podcast apps that really does make a difference. So thank you so much to anyone who has done that before or is open to doing so now. But for now, thank you so, so much for listening. We will be back in two weeks time with another episode of Talking Technology and we'll see you then. Bye.