Tim Cook steps down, and a new Irish assistive technology company - Talking Technology episode 110

Tim Cook is officially stepping down as Apple CEO in September. In this episode of Talking Technology, David and Joe react to the news.

Nathan Proudfoot tells us what it’s like to launch an assistive technology company as a teenager and shares his new calculator app available on iOS, Android, and Windows devices.

We explore Fire TV and Firefox improvements in tech news, and we discuss the launch of Aira on Meta glasses.

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

0:00 intro

0:42 Tim Cook stepping down from Apple

6:20 Voice Notes

14:20 Nathan Proudfoot on his new calculator app

27:16 Talking Technology News

47:20 outro

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. We believe very deeply that accessibility is a human right. We try very hard to make all of our products accessible for everyone. I've never, ever, in the 20 years of being at Apple, ever looked at what's our return on investment here. My guess is there's not one in the traditional sense of measuring that, but we don't care. After 15 years, Apple CEO Tim Cook is due to step down in September. That clip there is from James Rath, Apple CEO Tim Cook, talking about accessibility and saying it's a human right. He's done a lot for, I suppose, accessibility of Apple's products. He's going to have quite the legacy, I think it's fair to say. Joe, this news broke last night, for us as we record this, but I think in the world of technology, it's quite big news, isn't it? One of probably technology's most powerful figures, some would say. Yeah, David, it is big news. He's done a great job since taking over from Steve Jobs. So, I mean, he's really carried the momentum and the valuation of Apple alone was worth his while being the CEO. But apart from that, he has innovated in a lot of different things, like the Apple Watch was under his tenure, as well as AirPods. And look at all the numerous versions of AirPods we've had since. And there's also been different subscription services like Apple Music, Apple Wallet, and you can bundle them all up in Apple One. And Apple has turned into, apart from being a great device for all of us vision impaired people and anybody else that loves accessibility. It's also a money making machine, but that's only part of the story. So I hope the next person to take over from Tim is as enthusiastic about accessibility as well as keeping the whole show moving. Absolutely. Yeah. When Tim started as CEO, took over there, as he said, from Steve Jobs, they had a valuation in the range, not quite, but in the range of 400 billion dollars. That valuation is now four trillion dollars. Truly incredible stuff when you think about it. It's always scary. So we should talk about not just Tim who's moving on. He's leaving in September or at least stepping down as CEO. But he is being replaced by John Ternes, who traditionally has been heading up hardware at Apple. So this is the actual physical devices. But it's going to be interesting. You know, he'll probably want to make his mark. And we can only hope that, you know, we've seen a lot of companies get new CEOs recently and there's been a lot of technology layoffs in the in the sector and stuff like that. We can only hope that that doesn't impact accessibility too hardly. No, yeah, like I hope he doesn't try and evolve it too much. You know, look from experience, I know me as a vision impaired blind person. I don't like too much change, especially when it comes to the tactile feel of a phone or device like things to say the same. So when I reach for something, it's familiar to me. For example, we all we all probably lost the plot a little bit when Touch ID disappeared. But I suppose look, we'd all love if there was another way of having Touch ID on a device. Maybe maybe it's going backwards for them if in their eyes, if they went and brought back Touch ID to maybe the side button or something like that. But I'm not sure what way he'll go. Only time will tell. And we'll get a feel for it. And I suppose in the first six months over a few announcements that he may make. Absolutely. Yeah, it's going to be one to watch for sure. So he's taking over there September, as we say, John Turnus. He will be changing from their vice president of hardware engineering over to become Apple's CEO. There's been Steve Jobs, there's been Tim Cook and now John Turnus, a name that no doubt we will hear about a lot more as time goes on. Going to be a very, very interesting one. If you do want to share your thoughts with us on that, what Apple has done for you in terms of accessibility, we'd love to hear from you. It's worth saying before we do kind of create any panic that Apple is required by law, as indeed are all other phone manufacturers, to ensure a certain level of accessibility. So things like screen readers and stuff like that, those are legal requirements in the EU at least. So this stuff is going to be required. But yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what this new John Turnus guy actually does in the realm of accessibility. And for Apple as a company in general, one of the world's most powerful companies in general. So there you go. If you do have any thoughts, we'd love to hear them from you. You can send us a WhatsApp voice note if you would like. There are loads of ways that you can get in touch with us and here are just some of them. So if you want to join the conversation, we'd love to hear from you. You can send us a WhatsApp voice note, as I said, the number that you need there. It's 086-199-0011. That's 086-199-0011. Or if you would prefer, you can also send us an email, a good old fashioned email, can't beat them. You can send that to us by sending it to content at vi.ie. That's content at vi.ie. So no matter how you would like to get in touch, whether it's with text or voice message or anything like that, we would love to hear from you. So 086-199-0011 on WhatsApp or content at vi.ie if you want to join the conversation. But email, whether it's Tim Cook or any other bit of technology news that you have thoughts on or want to share. We'd love to hear from you. And to go through some of the latest going on in the world of voice notes, we'll bring back in Mr. Joe Larnock. And Joe, how are you? Good, David. Yeah, I'm not surprised with Tim Cook news, but we're going to get used to that soon. And I'll go down here until Kenny. So yeah, everything's good. And yourself, David? Good. I can't complain, Joe. I suppose it's always, you know, it's interesting to speculate, isn't it? About what's going to happen with Tim or Apple as a company. I mean, they are we were looking at this before the show, before we started recording. They have a four billion, sorry, four trillion. That's trillion with a TR valuation, a four trillion dollar valuation. That's five or six times the GDP of Ireland as a country. So it just goes to show they have serious power. So having them on side and having their leader on side, you know, it is really important for accessibility because a CEO of a company like that, they wield presidential levels of power in a lot of ways, don't they? Yeah, I don't think they could do damage to they won't want to do damage to your company by affecting accessibility going forward. So I'm very confident that they will continue the momentum of keeping accessibility at the forefront of their sentence. So yeah, no, I'm not worried about that, really. So I just I'd be obviously have in the back of my mind, I'd be worried they might make any drastic changes to the hardware going forward. But I don't think I think as a company, they're very steady and they don't seem to make any changes that especially that would worry the stock market, you know, I mean, they won't want to worry the valuation more than anything. So I know I'm confident that it will be a seamless transition. Yeah, that's fair. And the stock price for interestingly, it did seem to not there was no massive jump or dip or anything like that, but it seemed to have a positive ish market response from what I saw this morning, which was interesting. So there you go. An interesting times ahead for sure. But let's move on then to voice notes. We do have a packed show, by the way, coming up, we'll be chatting later on to Nathan Proudfoot about a new calculator app. So we'll be do stick around for that. But on the voice notes front, our first voice note this week is from Martin Lawler. And Martin had some updates for us regarding his experience with the blind shell and some things are working and some things, well, they're not. Hello, lads. I hope you're all keeping well. I am really enjoying your podcast. The Be My Eyes app is still not working with the meta ray band glasses on the blind shell and plastic tree, but WhatsApp is working with it now again. Keep up the great work, really enjoying the podcast. Thank you so much, Martin. Appreciate that. And yeah, you know, it's good to get these kind of updates on, you know, what's working with technology, what's not working with technology, because everybody, you know, we can only test so much technology, Joe, but it's great to get updates like this, isn't it? Oh, it's great that Martin got in touch. And he's a great supporter of the blind shell. He does get frustrated sometimes when apps don't work like they did. And I know Blanchelle have asked him to get in contact with or encouraged him to get in contact with the developers and hopefully Blanchelle will do that, too. But he also advised in a separate connection he had with myself that the meta glasses are working again on the blind shell. So if anybody has those apps on their phone on the blind shell, maybe update the meta app and the meta glasses as well. So now, look, it can be frustrating, as I said, it can be very frustrating when third party apps stop working like Spotify and WhatsApp or any of those, but Martin has given us the good and the bad and hopefully everything will connect and start working properly for him soon. But great to hear from you, Martin, and keep keep us updated. We love to get your voice notes. They're very well dictated as well. Thanks very much. Absolutely. Yeah. It's you know, it's interesting. I think, you know, all technology has great sides. We were touching on this with Apple to, you know, all technology has times when it can be a blessing and then there are other times where it can be a curse. And sometimes I think, you know, like the blind shell, it's perfect for lots of people. And it's good to hear that, I guess, you know, some of those features that weren't working originally in this case, the WhatsApp that that is back. And Martin is indeed able to send us a voice note from his blind show. So that is proof. All the proof that you need, some would say. Yeah, exactly, David. And for anyone who doesn't know, one of the main selling points or benefits of the blind shell is the fact that it's a tactile button phone, a bit like your Nokia 3310 from years ago, that kind of style just for anyone that was interested or anyone that's not familiar with the blind shell. So if you were wondering why, why would you pick it over another phone? Well, there you go. That's why Martin likes it. And that's why lots of people like it. Maybe John Ternes will bring us back in time and be reintroducing the iButton phone. Imagine, imagine that. What a world. Anything is possible. You never know what happens in this society. But there you go, Martin. Thank you so much for that. Really appreciate it. If you have thoughts or you want to send in a voice note, I would love to hear from you 086-199-001 on WhatsApp. Remember, it's not a call you want to do. You want to send a voice message that's using the voice message button. It's located at the bottom right hand corner of your screen and is labelled with voiceover and talkback. But moving on, thank you very much for that, Martin. And thank you for that, Joe. Moving on, Nathan Proudfoot is just 18 years of age, but yet he is starting one of Ireland's newest assistive technology companies called Bullseye Assistive Technology. Great name, by the way. Bullseye Assistive Technology. I like that. But his company has been creating a new calculator app. This came out of the creation of the Nathan 14 device, which we've spoken a little bit on the podcast before. You may recall that we spoke to Nathan back at the Young Scientists exhibition. But now his new calculator app is out. It has been certified for use in state exams, which is pretty cool. And we caught up with Nathan to learn all about the new exam calc app. So here's what happened when we caught up with Nathan earlier this week. So joining me now on Talking Technology for his second appearance, I am joined by Nathan Proudfoot. Nathan, how are you? Good, David. Yourself? Great to be here today. I'd like to thank you again for having me on the podcast for a second time. And last time, if I recall, you were at the Young Scientists exhibition showing off your Nathan 14 device. That's right. That was once upon a time now, two years ago, just over two years ago now, and in January of 2024. And that was a great experience to show off my assistive technology device to a whole range of audiences. Awesome stuff. So, Nathan, I suppose that why we wanted to have you on is just to learn a little bit about, you know, what's happened since then and boy, it sounds like a lot has happened since then. You've got the device under production. You've got a new calculator app on the way. Lots of really interesting stuff. Let's start then with the calculator. So this, I think we spoke about this a little bit when we had you on around the Young Scientists exhibition. That's correct. But it's come a long way since then. Oh, it really has, David, it really has. Back when I was in the Young Scientists exhibition, you know, I was showing off the device and I had this scientific calculator app and really it was just another feature of the device. You know, I didn't see any, you know, huge difference or use potential in it. But after having the experience to show it off at the Young Scientists exhibition, I was really, really asked and told, you know, to bring it out to a major audiences. So essentially what was a prototype at the Young Scientists exhibition became a fully fledged app. So essentially, essentially what I've got now is I've got a scientific calculator, obviously for use with people with visual impairments, which includes all functions for both the Leaving Cert, Junior Cert and, you know, that goes for maths, higher maths, engineering, chemistry and physics, every subject you could use. And that's all kind of stemmed from that point. Awesome stuff. And then I suppose why, you know, what are the challenges that people in Leaving Cert are kind of facing with calculators, just the standard ones? You know, actually, David, that's a great question because I'm sure a lot of your viewers will resonate with me when I say this, because during the Junior Cert, I went into secondary school and of course I got the standard calculator, like the average student would the Casio FX, you know, 83 GT or similar to that, you know, so I got a calculator like that. And unfortunately, due to the size of the display, I couldn't actually read the calculator. So if I were to put in an equation, it would mean nothing to me. I wouldn't be able to make out what it says. So obviously, I tried the normal, you know, I tried putting it under the visualizer. Unfortunately, there's a glare on the screen and it's impossible to see. So due to talks with my school and of course, you know, the people in Vision Ireland that have helped me and stuff like that, we came with a solution, which is a very popular solution in the visually impaired world, which is the enlarged calculator, I believe the Sight Plus. And I use that for my Junior Cert, which did work well, but I really thought there was potential there. I really thought there was a potential to make an app because of course, I love using devices. I love technology. So, you know, same way I'd write my English documents on Microsoft Word, I wanted to be able to do my maths on my computer as well. So I started looking for apps, I started searching both the Google Play Store, the Microsoft Store, all over the internet to try and find an app which was really up to scratch and had the functionality available for the Leave and Cert. But unfortunately, I couldn't find anything. That's when I set out to basically create my own one. So students doing the Leave and Cert will find that essentially the tools aren't there for them. They really aren't. Even with the Formula and Log Tables book, you know, it's an enlarged A3 book, which while you're bringing around the classrooms can be really awkward. It's a big, big book and switching between everything, it's time consuming, it's clunky and you know, it really caused a lot more stress and a lot more trouble than it should do. Yeah, for sure. So then I suppose the calculator, it's on its way. It's available on some platforms now and it's coming to other platforms later, I believe. That's that's correct, David. Actually, it's been first released on the Google Play Store. So it was released back about a month ago. And just after it was released, I got an I got approval from official approval approval from the State Examinations Commission to say that it was approved for use in state exams, which was really, really exciting because it means it's the first digital app to ever be made available for for use in state examinations. So next, of course, I had to get it out there on Microsoft. So Microsoft platform is actually really intuitive to get it to launch. And I'm expecting a launch there within 24 hours. It's just in the in the verification process. As for Apple, Apple, I'm expecting it within the next week or so due to their infamously long verification processes, as Apple are known for. Yeah. And I suppose when you, you know, when you're launching something like this, you know, you're also and I hope you don't mind me saying you're also doing the leaving cert at the same time. That's right. So why does it to be as a young person, you know, launching an assistive technology company in Ireland while also doing your leaving certs? It's not half ambitious, if I may say, Nathan. I suppose so. It is quite ambitious, I have to say. But you know, it's been interesting, you know, it's a busy day. That's all I'm going to say. You know, I'd be obviously up early for school, could go to school, come back from school. Obviously it's a leaving cert. I've got to do my homework. I've got to study. That's a given, you know, and of course I have to work as well. So thankfully now towards the end of sixth year, as the device and the calculator are getting out there, I don't have the developer work that I would have had last year and the year before where you're up to all hours coding and, you know, soldering components and stuff like that. Whereas nowadays it's more the admin type work, you know, doing paperwork to get it out there on Microsoft and, you know, dealing with suppliers and stuff like that. It's a busy day, but it's enjoyable. I really do enjoy it because, you know, you've got to do something with your time, you know, it's better than doing nothing. Absolutely. There you go. So Nathan, how can people find out more about the calculator? What's it called and how can people learn more, I guess? Yeah, absolutely. The calculator is actually called ExamCalc, Nathan 14 calculator. ExamCalc obviously because, you know, it's a calculator for your state exams and that ties in then to the Nathan 14 device and the ecosystem. So to find out more about it, you can go to our official company website www.BullseyeAT.com. That's Bullseye Assistive Technology. So that's www.BullseyeAT.com and here you'll find links to, of course, the download links from Google Play, Apple App Store and the Microsoft Store. Brilliant stuff. Nathan, if I was to ask you where would you like to be with your new company in, say, five years, ten years time, how do you see, you refer to it there as an ecosystem. What do you see that ecosystem looking like in the next kind of five to ten years? You know, that's the type of question that makes me excited, David, it really does because, you know, from what I see that I'm doing now with the device and with the calculator and obviously ideas for the future, it really makes me excited for the future of assistive technology. It really does because, of course, you know, taking on to create the device and the calculator over the last five years, you know, starting at 13 was quite ambitious. Of course, I've failed from a lot of things, but that's also made me succeed. So now with those tools and with those skills that I've learned, I really feel that the capability is endless and I look forward to myself and obviously, you know, in the coming years whoever joins my team to bring the whole assistive technology industry forward and keep striving and striving on and bringing the difference between somebody with a visual impairment and with no impairment, you know, bringing that gap closer and closer together to merge society kind of. Awesome stuff. Nathan, a fascinating conversation. Congratulations on the launch of the calculator. Best of luck with it. Thank you. And thank you so much for now for joining us on Talking Technology. I'm sure this isn't the last we'll have heard from Bullseye Assistive Technology, so best of luck. Absolutely, David. I really appreciate it. And again, thank you very much for having me on the podcast again. It's truly been an honor. Thank you. There you have it. That's Nathan Proudfoot, the founder of Bullseye Assistive Technology. Goodness, Joe, he's not half ambitious. It's hard not to get excited when you see someone really young starting a company like that and getting excited about, you know, finding solutions to things, isn't it? No, he's a very impressive young man and listening to him makes you want to invest in Nathan. So I could imagine he'll have no problem in that department getting some backers. And he has an impressive product there that the exam board has taken it on. That's one of the biggest things I've taken from that. The state exam board is happy to have it as part of a tool on the desk and in exams. So I think that's a great initiative. Yeah. And it's much needed too. Oh, much needed. Yeah. Like, I mean, look, being impaired people, blind people doing exams, it's very stressful and using scribes and all these things. It just adds to the anxiety of it all. And I think having little tools like this can just make things a lot more controlled and give you a bit more peace of mind, you know. So I think it's well done, Nathan, I just think that's fabulous work you've done so far. There you go. Daniel, you do some of the stuff in this area as well around kind of younger people, you know, you're in schools and stuff like that as well. This is kind of exciting. It is, yeah, and I think one of the key things that stood out for me was that it's a path for exams, like that's massive because it's always been kind of a grey area, I guess, for students going in with assistive technology, obviously for security and of the exams and everything. Everyone has to be locked down, no internet access and things like that. So, you know, to have an app that is listed by the Department of Education and Super for exams, it's a wonderful achievement and absolutely, you know, hats off to Nathan there on that one. It's, you know, incredible. So fantastic. Absolutely. Brilliant stuff. So, Nathan, well done, very, very cool stuff and best of luck with the company as well. It's great to see young people and young visually impaired people actually creating things for themselves, finding solutions for themselves. I do wonder as time goes on, that as AI makes it easier for people to code and create things and stuff like that, are we going to see more like this? I know Nathan is very skilled and coded that himself, but are we going to see more young blind and visually impaired people getting into this space and creating their own solutions? And what will that do for the world of accessibility in years to come? Very exciting times. But for now, Nathan, thank you very much. And hey, if you want to share your experience of what it was like for you doing state exams or exams in general, how do you find it? Do you use a scribe? Do you work with a reader? Do you use a screen reader or digital technology? We'd love to hear from you. You can send a voice note to 086-199-0011 on WhatsApp. Or you can send us an email to content at vi.ie if you'd like. We would love to hear your thoughts. But now though, it's time to cross to Mr. Daniel Dunn for your latest talking technology news. This is Talking Technology News. So with your latest talking technology news, I'm Daniel Dunn. Amazon has announced that a whole new accessibility feature is coming to the Fire TV. A new adaptive display feature will allow users to increase the size of elements on the screen, hopefully making it easier to see. Users will be able to select from a number of different size options and the feature will launch first on the newly announced second generation Amazon Fire TV Stick HD. It is expected, however, that the new feature will roll out to other devices in the Fire TV range soon after. Devices like Fire TV are required to be accessible under European law, but how they are made accessible isn't clearly defined. Fire TV devices have an inbuilt screen reader currently called VoiceView and the new adaptive display options will hopefully be very useful for those with low vision. Continuous improvement in devices like this can only be a good thing, so well done to Amazon for that. Do you use a Fire Stick? How do you find the accessibility features? Let us know with a WhatsApp voice note. Aira has officially launched on the MetaGlasses and now it works automatically without any need for workarounds through WhatsApp. When you pair your MetaGlasses with the Aira Explorer app, you can just start a call as you normally would through the Aira Explorer. The glasses make a few fancy chirps and beeps, but the result of this is that when an agent answers the call, they see through your glasses and not through the regular phone camera. They still have access to your location though through your phone and will have the same abilities as usual, with the only difference being the camera that has been used for the call. Technically, you can start a call with voice by engaging Siri and using the call an Aira agent command, but unfortunately you can't call directly just using MetaAI, but hopefully that will come in the future. The agent we spoke to when demoing the feature this morning said that the MetaGlasses give a slightly more narrow field of view and that it's not quite as clear as a phone camera, but they were still able to read and had no major issues. It's likely we will see more integrations for the glasses in the coming months and ultimately this will only make them more useful for those who are blind or visually impaired. And you can learn more about Aira and what they do on our previous episode 109. And now for some of the Vision Ireland courses coming up. On the 24th of April, our technology support hub, where you can link in with a dedicated IT trainer to discuss your urgent and pressing technical support or training need. On the 30th of April, we've got MetaGlasses and on the 5th of May, after the bank holiday weekend, we've got Introduction to Smart Home Technology. On the 7th of May, we've got music streaming apps. And then on the 12th of May, we've got Searching the Web on your phone. And on the 14th of May, we've got the NVDA Navigating Windows and Introduction for Visually Impaired Users. If any of these courses are of interest to you, please do drop an email to training at vi.ie to express your interest. Or if you'd like to learn more about them, please do visit our website, vi.ie, and under News and Events, select Upcoming Events. And each event is listed and you can read more about them and see if they interest you. So in other news, Microsoft Teams is introducing a new feature that will see AI-generated video summaries of meetings being made available to users. When you record a meeting, that is between 10 and 90 minutes, you will be able to generate a video recap of the meeting. This video recap will contain key slides as well as a narrated rundown of all the key points from the meeting. The feature is designed for longer meetings where a transcript alone isn't easy to digest. These recaps can take 15 minutes to appear, so this isn't miracle technology, but it's definitely going to be useful to some. The feature isn't rolling out to everyone just yet, but it is interesting to see what is coming down the line. And finally for now, Firefox is getting an inbuilt VPN, and users will be able to use up to 50 gigabytes completely free per month. Speaking about the move, Mozilla, who develops Firefox, said, every time you visit a website, your IP address is shared automatically. IP addresses help websites know where to send the information back to your device, but they can also be used to approximate your location, link your browsing activity across sites, keep logs about your online behavior, which means that websites can track your behavior. It's one of many ways companies track activity across the internet. At Mozilla, we believe people should have stronger protections against this kind of tracking and spying, and that those protections should be easy to use. Usually, free VPNs are not the best idea as they give an organization a lot of visibility over your web traffic. Some VPN providers use that info for advertising. For Mozilla, they appear to be using this as a sales tool for their premium VPN service. Time will tell if it's actually useful, but options for users is really good news. And that's it for now. If you want to explore more technology content, why not consider signing up to our Tech On Top newsletter? You can find all the details on the Vision Ireland website. For now though, it's back to you, David. Thank you very much, Daniel. Really interesting there, that one about Firefox. Lots of people use Firefox anyway, so this, I suppose, is just an added perk for them. Absolutely. Yeah, you know, the world of VPN is massive. There's so many different companies out there, there's so many different apps, it's impossible to get your head around to be quite honest. And I think, like, you know, Firefox, Mozilla, they're a good brand, they're, you know, they're around a long time, they're known. And you know, the fact that they have, I think, looked at this and said, hey, you know, Hoth, let's clear the water a bit. And, you know, to go in with a strong brand, you know, in Firefox, to give an inbuilt free VPN, which is going to give you, you know, a nice bit 50 gigabytes is a fair bit of browsing each month. And, you know, obviously for the heavier user, and I think this is where they're eyeing this, you know, is to draw people in, maybe to look at getting a premium product from Firefox. But, you know, I think it, you know, I think it's going to be a big uptake on this for those who use VPNs for whatever reason they're using for, you know, and to have it built into the browser, it means you don't have to download and install any additional software, you don't have to sign up for, you know, another company, another service provider. You know, some of them only give a small bit of free traffic and then you have to pay for the, you know, you have to pay to use it more. So maybe for some people it's an opportunity now maybe to kill one of those subscriptions that they really don't like having to pay for. Absolutely. It is worth noting that this VPN, so it only exists within the Firefox browser for now. So if you're doing stuff outside of that, so just for argument's sake, you're using the Teams application or you're using other services on your computer that require an internet connection, those don't run through the Firefox VPN. So Firefox, the VPN there only works for stuff that you're searching for within Firefox, whereas they're saying that, you know, that's the advantage and that's how they're trying to upsell people to the Mozilla VPN, which is the broader product, I guess, which is an interesting sales strategy. It is. It is. And also it keeps, you know, it keeps users on their browser. True. You know, you really do make a good point there. It's only while you're in Firefox that the VPN is active and fire and so if you load up Firefox and switch over to Chrome or to Edge, you're, you know, on Edge and Chrome, you're not going to be inside the VPN tunnel. So yeah, you could stay in the Firefox browser. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, like Edge and Chrome are the dominant browsers out there. Will this also help Firefox kind of claw back a bit at that market share? Yeah, who knows? It's going to be interesting one to watch. Also in the news there and interesting to watch Metaglasses, not an update for the Metaglasses per se today, but an update from Aira, who are now integrating with the Metaglasses. Joe, we had a podcast with Aira. It's our most recent podcast, actually, episode 109. You, you ran away from us, I believe, Joe. I don't think you were on that show, but you have since caught up on all of that. How are you feeling about Aira? And is this big news? Do you think? Yeah, I missed that one, David. The last podcast, but no, I, I've heard all the news about it and I've also seen that it's now officially on the glasses and it's actually, it's actually brilliant. And from anyone I've spoke to that actually use it, said it's a seamless process. And all the benefits that you've had on your phone are now hands-free with the glasses. And there's none of this, I suppose, connecting through WhatsApp, changing from Aira to a WhatsApp call and all the fidgety things that go along with that. And I suppose the issues that can come with that, maybe technical issues that someone that mightn't be as au fait as the next will say, look, that's all gone now and you can just connect him, you know, you can say the word out loud and connect to Aira and it's brilliant. You used it, David, didn't you? I did. I had a test drive with the Metaglasses connected with Aira this morning, just purely to see how it would work, to be honest. So yeah, like it connected and when you start the call the glasses made a whole lot of different excited sounds. I don't know what they were doing, but they were getting fairly excited there. And they connected and I kind of, I put my phone down flat on a table so the camera would have been covered. But the agent was able to see through the glasses, they were able to communicate with me through the glasses. Obviously, I hear them in the glasses and they've worked relatively seamlessly. I didn't encounter any issues. I didn't get to do a whole lot of testing in terms of whether there is much latency or anything like that. I didn't really dive into that, but I do think this is a feature that's going to be very useful for people, especially those who are wearing the glasses more consistently, perhaps, and maybe as well when someone's out and about and maybe may not be able to use the phone, for example, for whatever reason. Yeah. And if you're looking for that professional service from a company that was supposed to prize themselves in helping vision impaired and blind people, they're not just volunteers, they're actually paid to do it and you're paying them as well for the service. So this is just a real win-win on both sides. Absolutely. So yeah, you do have to link your glasses. There's an AI glasses section in the Aira Explorer app, but you can connect everything together there and do make sure you do need to make sure that your glasses and stuff are up to date. I did need to do a glasses update, but once you have it all set up, it seems to work smoothly enough, which is great. Yeah, that'd be great. So I'm just excited to see what other developers add to the glasses in the near future. I know there's another app. There's a lot of people are very excited about the moment. Oh, Ryan. I'm not sure exactly, or oh, Ryan, not exactly how you're supposed to pronounce it, but O-O-R-I-O-N is if you look for that in the app store, you can download it. I haven't tried it. It gives you real time information like live AI, basically does eat the battery of your glasses. But it works fairly reasonably, it gives a little bit too much information for my liking, but some people love all that. So yeah, it just, this will open doors and give people other ideas and other developers more scope on what to try with the glasses. Absolutely. And in other news there, Daniel, Fire TV, the Fire TV stick from Amazon, it's getting a couple of upgrades, which is great, and this new adaptive display feature. Yeah, that's going to be quite interesting. I'd like to see more on how this is going to work once it's released. But if it does, what they say is going to do is going to be a very interesting addition and very welcome for people, I suppose, with low vision who often kind of, you know, getting around the screen can be, you know, can be hard and making out content on the screen can be hard. So, you know, being able to increase the size of texts and things like that, that's definitely a win-win situation. So it's great to see Amazon maybe looking at the accessibility of their devices and making improvements and long may it continue. Absolutely. Joe, I think you use the Fire TV stick. I do. I use the Fire TV stick. I find it a great device actually at the moment, even without those extra features that are going to include. I suppose I don't look at the menus myself, but they are going to be welcome for people that can see them. But I find at the moment it has the Alexa button on it and I can just search for something on YouTube and it will play straight away. Also most of the streaming apps on it work really well, like Disney Plus and Prime, Netflix, all of those work very well. And there is lots of other apps I haven't tried on it, but device view, for whatever app I do download on it, it generally seems to read it and does its best to read it. So for a blind person looking to turn their old TV into a smart TV or just to avail of the Fire Stick's capabilities, I'd recommend it and they're not overly expensive either for 100 to 100 euros you're going to get one of the good ones. Yeah, and they have that new one coming out now, the new Fire Stick HD, an updated Fire Stick HD. I think they're both and that one is going to be 30% faster David, which is good because I, just speaking of Joe, some of the streaming apps on it, I actually have Paramount Plus on my one and often recently the app was actually very laggy and you know, navigating it, you move and there could be a second or two for it to respond, but they did do, Paramount did do an update to their app on Fire Stick there about a month ago and has improved the performance of it a bit. So I think, you know, the amount of apps that are available for Fire Stick, you know, the second generation faster, 30% faster, it's going to be a welcome improvement all around so it will. Absolutely. There you go. And the final story that we didn't touch on in the news there, AI summaries, specifically AI video summaries are coming to Microsoft Teams, especially for those long Teams calls between 10 and 90 minutes, you'll be able to get a video summaries of it. I, you know, I kind of imagine in my head, you know, if two people are having a disagreement in a team meeting and it's just turning it into a big jewel or something, but yeah. Is this something that you'd use Daniel? I think so, definitely, you know, at the moment to record and transcribe, which, you know, as you alluded to, if the meeting is long, that's going to pump out a lot of text and yeah, and you're, you're going back in 10 minutes after meeting, right? You're probably given an hour, an hour and 15 maybe at a meeting just after being a good bit of content covered and then just to, you know, concentrate on reading back over it, picking out, you know, what's important. I think a video of, you know, a video presentation of something that's wrapped up nice and neat in a couple of minutes is a fantastic development. It's great. And it's good to see AI being put to use in this way. I did, you know, I have seen the text output and the way it can organize points from a meeting. It's decent, but you know, the novelty it does that that kind of tie wears off a little bit and you're saying, oh gosh, now I don't really have time to go back over and read all that. I think a little video or something or, you know, with added audio that maybe you can, you can put in, you know, your picture in picture, you can put it in a small little window while you're working away and it's, you know, it's still there playing. You can glance down at it if you need to glance at it to read something on screen, but most of it would be audio. I think that's a far better approach than the big text dump out that you get after reading. Sure. Do you think that it will be used a lot by people in, say, school contexts and going to classes and stuff like that? And do you think that's a good or a bad thing? I can see, I can definitely see the potential and good or bad thing. Right. What I'll say is some people are fantastic learners when they hear and some other people are fantastic learners when they see. So it's going to suit a certain cohort of students out there who are who are visual learners like you could talk to them about a lesson for half an hour, would show them, you know, show them visually. It's worth 10 times as weight and gold. Likewise, with someone you could be showing them for a class and then, you know, put it in print format and read it and get it. So it's the learning style of the student. And I think it complements maybe for students where I was talking about the text dump. You probably have learned from me now which way I prefer to learn. You know, a video summary or something would be a lot better than a big text dump for me. Sure. I know that's not for everyone. Somebody would absolutely say, no, I prefer the big text dump. So it complements each other. I think it complements and there's going to be an audience for each. Absolutely. Well, there you go, Daniel. Thank you so much for that. And Joe, thank you so much for that as well. And thank you for listening. A really exciting show today. Who knows what the future will bring. It's interesting to kind of look at the future, whether it is a new CEO at Apple or whether it is perhaps a really exciting calculator coming down the road or an exciting assistive technology company there from Nathan Proudfoot. Lots of exciting stuff for the future. And it's always good to look ahead. Pointless looking back, isn't it? But there you go. Thank you so much for listening to Talking Technology, episode 110 and a reminder that if you would like to get in touch with us at any stage, you can do so with a WhatsApp voice note. The number that you need there, it's 086-199-0011. And you can also send us an email if you would like to content at vi.ie that's content at vi.ie. But for now though, thank you so, so much for listening. We really hope you've enjoyed the show. Do rate it if you enjoyed it and we'll be back in two weeks time for another episode of Talking Technology with ViLabs. See you then. Bye.