actually doing something with was it four triple Z in Brisbane where I've got to document my life for a month and everything I do for a month and they're going to turn it into a podcast so I'm just going to do the start of this and so yes there you go all right good morning everybody and welcome to today's event sorry for the slight delay there in the beginning but there's a few little technical problems as there usually is with these things when we're trying to bring people in the room together with people online and I think it's fantastic we've got the online capability these days so that if you weren't able to make it out here today you're also still able to join us from home we have got a fairly long session today but don't worry we're not going to ask you to sit down for three hours we're going to have a break during the session and you'll be able to go out and help themselves through some morning tea outside and a tea and a coffee hopefully the urn's finished boiling now that's one of my other jobs I'll go do after I've said all the good mornings and things we'll go outside and make sure it's ready to go there is going to be plenty of time for questions today both the people online at home and a few people here in the room as well and we thank you for making the effort for coming out this morning thankfully the rain hasn't started yet and thankfully or let's hope fingers crossed there'll be no rain by the time you head home today so we'll all be staying nice and dry firstly I'd like to acknowledge the Wadjuk people and their leaders their past present and emerging and thank them for the land we are able to meet on this morning I also would like to thank VisAbility and the Lions Eye Institute for making today possible and especially thank everybody online and everybody here in person for attending this morning for those people here in the building let's prospering as we don't hear any alarms if we do hear any alarms what we'll do is just exit out of the theatre at here we'll go out through the main front doors that you came in will go through the gate down to The Pedestrian lights and cross the road and we'll wait at the train station and we'll let the fire brigade come in and do all the rest I've told this joke a million times but I'll tell it again please leave all your personal belongings because that's what makes our payment for today okay we'll take that to cash if it no we won't really okay so please leave personal belongings because you can't replace you that we can replace a handbag and a phone and things like that so don't worry about that but it it'll be safe and let's hope the fire people come in there's no problems anyway it's not going to happen so that's all good toilets if you're looking for the toilets when you walk out of this room if you walk straight ahead and just before you hit the wall on the opposite side if you turn right there you'll find your toilets there let me get this right in my hand I think it's females to the right and males to the left if I've got that wrong come and see me afterwards after your event okay let me know Elsa and the tea and coffee will be on the right hand side just as you're walking through to the toilets but we've got plenty of people here today that are more than happy to help you out and assist you wherever you're going so my name I'm Ryan Honschooten I'm actually the youth Support Officer here at VisAbility I've worked at VisAbility for on 20 years in a variety of roles some of that role has been working in what was our industry Skills Centre teaching certificate one in it and what was the other one business that's right that was a long time ago I haven't been involved in the assistive tech for a long time now and as one thing I said to mag did the other day when she asked me to talk here today was that I said Magna is one of those things if you don't keep using it you tend to lose it a bit and it's honestly it's true I mean Manny's go to Jaws person and I find it quite embarrassing interesting now these days I've got to go to Manny and ask Manny hey Manny what's that keystroke again I used to know them off the top of my head because I talked about them every day I lived breathed Jaws keystrokes and a lot of other assistive Tech but because I don't now apart from what I use in my daily life I do tend to forget it as well so that is one of the things I guess I'd like you to take home today from me personally is that just occasionally if you're not using that app that you do like but if you haven't used it for a couple of months it doesn't hurt every now and then when you've got that spare 30 seconds in your day so pick up that phone or pick up that device whatever it is you're using and just have another quick flick through and have another go on it use it work it out because otherwise you do tend to get those little tips and tricks it's like riding a bike you know you can get up there and redo it again or riding a horse or whatever you want to do or whichever sport you're playing or something you can get up and do it again but you're just going to make sure you practice at it every now and then all right no more talking from me I'm going to invite everybody up from the team one by one to just come and quickly introduce themselves so you know who they are so we'll go with we'll pick a manga first shall we why not do you like to come up as good morning everybody thank you very much for being with us in person today and online my name is Magda I'm a research assistant at the Lions Eye Institute I work for Professor David Mackey who is a well-known ophthalmologist here in Perth I got involved with our wonderful VisAbility team about a year and a half ago now and we've been working together in Partnership and collaboration to put through some put together some presentations for you and get some experience and learn from one another so today Judy and I will be talking to you about various apps that you can use on different smart devices and we've got some more information about assistive technology in general coming to you from our friends here at VisAbility so I'll let Judy introduce myself as well and say hi everyone my name is Judy and I am an occupational therapist with low vision I don't mind placement at a VisAbility at the beginning of this year and now I've just grabbed attention from coaching University three weeks ago and qualified as an OT and yeah I'm really glad that I can have this opportunity today to share some of my experience with you and yeah hopefully everyone will enjoy the session today I'm sorry I'll let you guys talk with Manny afternoon hello everybody my name is Manny some people call me Emmanuel if I'm in trouble I work here at VisAbility as the Assistive Technology and Blindness Product Specialists and then my role is to assist clients in the assistive technology the matters and we provide some trainings and VisAbility and when you come out later through the door on the left hand side we have brushes about services from VisAbility the one that we offer to clients and you are welcome to bring us the table the brushes thank you who's coming up next we've got a Landover Maria thank you Manny thank you so much for inviting me up to say a quick hello I get my name's Maria Clark, social worker here at senior social worker here at VisAbility and really wrapped welcome to our wonderful presenters we've got four people presenting to you and I will sneak in at the end as well today we're absolutely have been start to have a partnership together for the last as magnitude year and a half with the Lions Institute so we've brought you a series of talks so anything else you need to know about me see you later I think Lynn still shop kins okay all right so okay so it is a parent Place requirement to keep your masks on while in the room except for those people presenting so that's why I offered to do this a little bit because I can take it off every 30 seconds or so I will stop my own recording now and but to let you all know that we will actually be recording today's session so if you happen to be like me and occasionally not off during these presentations true my CEO woke me up Once In This Very Room but if you happen to miss something or you want to go back over it we will be releasing the link later sometime give us a couple of months to edit a few things and fix it up but we will be doing that so just to let you know it is being recorded we have muted everybody's mics at home and turned off their cameras at home okay we will be taking questions from people at home when you need to do that you can unmute yourself later when we invite questions people in the room put your hand up I'm sure someone here with eyes that work better than mine we'll figure out and get that question question and the way I think that's all I need to say so I'm going to hand you over to Magda now who's going to start with the presentation thank you wonderful thank you Ryan if you're right in please everybody all right so let's get started for today so online if you can't see the screen please let me know is it possible for us to have the screen turned on in person okay screen change apologies I'm not super familiar with teams unfortunately do we know where the share screen option is okay Shannon screen window oh no that's fine okay can we see it in the room though okay all right okay now we have done that before shall we just start and the link will be made available to everybody who would like to access it in the future perhaps okay let's just get started so we've entitled today a smart guide to Smart devices and as I we mentioned before we'll be talking about different applications that are available on these devices and some accessibility features as well so we want to start with a disclaimer Judy and I will only be speaking about a very small sample of all the apps that are out there and exist so it's definitely not an exhaustive list and it's important to keep in mind that not all of the apps we'll be talking about today may not author may be relevant to you so it definitely depends on your personal circumstances so whether you use an Android or an iOS device and your personal preferences as well so Judy and I are iPhone users so that's iOS so we'll be presenting from that perspective but all the apps that we're going to talk to you about today most of them will apply to both sets of devices so IOS and Android so the information that we're going to give you is very much interchangeable but we will present you with some alternatives for the different platforms where we can if we could ask you to please save your questions until the end of the presentation and if you have any very specific questions about an app that you already use please come and see a small trailer at the end and we'll address those queries then okay so you may be asking yourself what are the benefits of using smart devices like tablets and iPhones and just smartphones in general what we're seeing with these devices they're now trying to occupy this area of assistive technology and because these devices are so technologically advanced they're powered enough to be able to support lots of different applications and features that are already built into the devices that essentially turn them into a digital multi-purpose tool and as a tool that you can use as multiple more traditional assistive devices at once so the great thing about these devices is that they're completely customizable you can go in and change things according to your own needs and they're a good idea as they reduce some of the costs that are associated with buying multiple more traditional options the apps are wonderful is generally you can download and use them immediately there's little to no cost associated with most of them and there are lots of instructional videos tutorials and reviews that are available online to walk you through these apps and how to use them step by step and of course as Ryan mentioned our friends at VisAbility are here to help as well so we're going to start with the category of navigation and getting around to start off with and I'd like to invite Judy up to the lectern to talk about Microsoft soundstage all right so the first app that we're going to talk through today is Microsoft sounds good and I feel the outstanding future of this app is that it provides a 3D sound to you which makes the sound cues will come from the direction of the place for example if let's say a cafe is not allowed the sound will come through your left earphone and tell you oh the Duncan Street Cafe is actually left about 50 meters away from you so it gives you that kind of like immersive feeling and help you build that mental map of your surroundings and about unfortunately this app is looking for on iOS users at the moment but it works quite well with voiceover and for Apple devices it can be run on app on iPhone SE 6s and later versions and when you turn on the map I feel the home page it's easy to navigate and not very cluttered and it provides good colour contrast and now talk through the main features of this app so on the home page at the bottom there are four buttons from left to right they are on my location around me I'm sorry yeah around me ahead of me and nearby markers so the first one my location if you click this one and it will tell you where you are for example the name of the street and on which direction you are facing for example it might tell you like facing Southeast on basily Avenue the second one around me it will tell you for four things like one thing of each quadrant so one thing ahead of you one thing to your left one thing to a right and then one thing behind you and for the third one ahead of me it will tell you four things like obviously ahead of you and nearby matters it will tell you from up to four markers that are close to you on an intent intends to orient yourself with the things that you have you've already known all right the other main features are nearby places in audio book so for nearby places the app has already set several categories for you for example like public transportation food and drinks and Banks and ATMs so you can just choose on a place of your interest on from those list or you can also answer to applies in the search bar if you know the name and once you've chosen a place of interest you can start the audio became so the app will tell you the direction of that place by using bacon with different rhymes so for example if you're if you are facing like the opposite direction of the place the beacon will be in the low page and be very slow but if you're facing exactly towards the direction there will be like extra things to tell you all right you're on the right track and the other thing I like about this app is that if you turn on the app and work around it will tell you the name of the like shops or restaurants when you pass them so for example if I walk along the Albany Highway here in movie Park where there are so many restaurants and shops they will tell me the name and I I like this because you just bring like make the handouts so much more enjoyable because I feel like stupid to stop in front of aerial shop and take a photo and then zoom in to see what it is but with this app I can just walk around like anyone else and but I can know what's happening around me and the other thing about this app is that it provides help and tutorials within the app so if you go to the manual icon at the left top left corner and then click help in tutorials it will give you extra information about how to use the app and by how to use each function yeah now I'll hand it over to Magda for the rest to navigation maps all right so the next option we have for you is called the Lazar Willow GPS so this is an application that's available on both IOS and Android devices so it's similar to soundscape in some ways but this one gives you more of that classical turn-by-turn navigation as you're trying to go from point A to point B so it gives you that information in real time for different modes of getting around so both for walking and traveling by bus and car and it does give you the option to order an Uber straight from the app so for this one similarly to soundscape as you're walking through the environment it will let you know the location of different places of interest so again it could be a restaurant or a pharmacy or a doctor's office for example and you can go into the app and you can customize what pieces of interest you want information about so generally this app you can have running in the background of your phone so you can be sending an email or a text message for example and once this app is activated it will continue to run so as you're walking through the city for example it will give you directions to your destination and then it will announce perhaps there's a cafe on your left and a pharmacy on your right and it will let you know where they are in the environment and it's also great because it announces intersections and key reference points as well the last navigation app that we have for you today is called move it so move it is a premier public transport app this one gives information in real time on different public transport services near you so that includes buses trains and ferries and again this one will give you live step-by-step directions of different stops and train stations but it's very comprehensive in that it tells you the distance to walk to that particular stop the time the arrival time of your bus or your train or your Ferry and generally how much that service will cost you so all the services on this app are live tracked so that you can identify the correct service to board for example and it's wonderful because you can access all the timetables for every single public transport service here in Perth and it will give you a sense of service disruptions so if there's roadworks for example and your bus will be delayed or it's taking a slightly different route the app will let you know it has a feature that you can turn on and off in the app that will let you know when you're about to reach your destination so typically when you're about eight to five hundred meters away you'll get a little notification on your phone to tell you to get ready to disembark and then once you've actually arrived at that stop that you want to get off that it will let you know that you've actually arrived and it's time to get off the service there's also a wayfinder feature available here so what the app does is it uses the camera on your device whether that's a tablet or a smartphone and you can hold it around you and it will actually show you where the station or the stop that you want to depart from is in your environment it is an app that can be used all around the world they add a new city every couple of days and because it's using GPS tracking it will know automatically if you travel to a different city and it will update all the available services for you straight away so as I mentioned before all the various timetables are available in the app very easy to access those particularly with voiceover so this app is compatible with voiceover and it's quite comprehensive in the different features of VoiceOver that you can utilize within that it also displays the timetables for all your cat services as well so it is very comprehensive it's wonderful in that you can use the map in the app and it will let you know where you're located and it will automatically display where different bus stops are relative to you and then it's a matter of tucking on those bus stops and it will actually show you what services are available at each of those stops or stations so it's a very easy way of finding out information in real time what's available at what stop without for example having to go through the trans Perth app so if you're out and about in an unfamiliar area this is the quickest way to get information about what trans what services public transport services are around you So within the app in the user interface it's a matter of just typing in where you want to go you can set for example your home and your work addresses and any other places where you tend to travel as I mentioned you can order an Uber right off of the app as well so it's a matter of typing in where you want to go and then the app will automatically show you what services or suggested routes around you and then you can go through those to see which one suits you best so depending on how many transfers there are and so on and so forth how much you're going to have to walk from one to the other and then from there once you pick the option that's best for you it will go in and it will show you the map and it will give you a sense of where you are how long it will take you to get where you want to go from there you can alter the time of departure so if you're running late or early for example it will change the timetables it will let you know when the services are departing and that can all be used with voiceover so once you click go it will give you the live directions that we're looking for and again with voiceover this becomes audible so you can hear the directions if I just skip ahead to the way finder feature so what you can do here is that through your camera on your device if you actually Point your phone or your tablet whatever using in front of you and point it down the road it will actually show you an icon on the screen of where your service departs from okay so next we're going to talk about some multi-purpose apps so these ones come in different iterations they're all similar in how they use artificial intelligence and adaptive technology to work and typically they combine lots of different channels so you can use one app for lots of different doctors lots of different features so the one we're going to really talk about in detail today is seeing AI so this app initially started off as a research project that was led by Microsoft and it was developed by and four people with low vision or blindness so what it does is it uses the technology to access the camera on your device and through that camera you can use the app to describe the visual world around you so there's a couple of different channels here first off there's a channel called short text which reads out any text that appears in front of the camera so great for reading for example product labels or bus timetables anything of that sort it will read out documents and what's printed or handwritten on those it can identify products through a barcode scanner people in the environment although I must say that it tends to over overestimate people's ages unfortunately it can identify different objects in scenes and the amount of colour and in the environment so just a bit of a disclaimer for this app as well it can be tricky to use sometimes when the font or the text that you're trying to read is a little bit complicated when handwriting is a bit scribbly or not very legible it can be difficult as well and some of the channels that this one uses are experimental they're still building on making them a little bit more sophisticated and they don't tend to work as well unfortunately but it is a very powerful app and it is compatible with a voiceover as well unfortunately it's only available on Apple devices at the moment but they are working on an Android version as well so to give you a sense of what the app's about when you first open it you've got the channels across the bottom so again with voiceover it's it reads out those channels and the channels do announce themselves so hopefully we've got the audio on this thank you okay so unfortunately theirs aren't working I have got some bits and pieces with me so maybe it would be good to just demonstrate the app live so apologies for those of you sir the text was working before I'm not sure why it's so not the text the audio it was the computer okay do you want to have a go away it might turn off her presentation guys no not there here yeah laptop foreign I think it's just easier to do a live sort of demonstration here so hopefully those of you that are online you should be able to hear what's happening in the room let me just turn my vole up sorry taxed okay so I've just opened the app here and as you go across the bottom where the channels are the app will let me know where I'm at thank you product person and so on so if we go short text to the short text Channel I've got a box of crackers here so if we put those in front of the camera original not fried original suing hopefully you can hear that original so let's turn it over see if it actually try this one see if it does any better free no fives gluten free no additives no preservatives free lining ingredients coconut kernel extract 89 Water a-y-a-m-t-u coconut milk May solidify in temperatures of ICC or below without affecting its quality the natural cholera so that you have coaches like grey to document so like I mentioned before if they're sort of complicated text it can struggle a little bit but that just gives you a sense of my attention not visible that it is kicking up on the text that's shown in front of the camera so if we go to the barcode the product scanner instead this one will emit a sound and the closer you get to a barcode it will pick up in frequency and in pitch and then it will hopefully scan the barcode and identify the product so let's see if processing me and coconut milk so that's done from here you can click on an option called more info and it will give you a more of a detailed description of what the product is so some of this feature doesn't work for all products sometimes it works with some products better than others but it gives me a description here and I can go in and I can play that and premium coconut milk 100 natural with no preservatives or additives this premium quality coconut milk is perfect for curries soups and desserts so it gives you a little bit more detail and from here you can share this information via text message or email with other people and you can change the size of the text that appears on your screen if that is of interest to you so another feature seeing AI is the identification here it will identify people so I might just take a photo of myself and let's see how old 21 year old women with black hair wearing glasses looking neutral I am not 21 so that's a great result for me sometimes with masks it can get a little bit tricky but this feature is nice as well in is that in that it tells you how far away people are from you and what you can do as well is actually program friends or loved ones into the app and it will remember them and it will recognize them so when you're you know in a social situation you can tell who's around you as well so we won't demonstrate some of the other channels because it would take quite a while if you're interested in maybe having a go with the app after we've finished presenting today or if you want more information please come and see us afterwards so there are a couple of other alternatives to this app so there's Envision AI which is available on both Apple and Android devices this one is has very similar features it has an additional feature which allows you to identify objects in the environment so doors or example chairs it you can download it and use it for two weeks for free but then it comes with some subscription costs so over the life of the app there are some there's an expense involved but Envision AI have introduced a general lifetime subscription for this app so instead of paying monthly or you know once a year you can pay a fee once and then you're covered for however long you have the app so super sense Ai and Google lookout are also really good options with Google lookout in particular being available on the Androids and super sensors available on both platforms and they're both free to download and use so we're going to change tack a little bit for this last part of the app presentation we're going to talk about two apps which allow you to access Visual information by calling or via the live video stream a cited individual through your device so most of these apps so they're called be my eyes and Ira they work on a similar principle so they connect you with a sighted volunteer live and On Demand through the camera on your device so it's important to remember that 4B my eyes it's a community of volunteers that you're connecting with so these individuals are from around the world the way that they start when they sign you up they ask you for a language preference and they ask you for your time zone so they connect you with people who are going to be awake first and foremost to give you the information that you're after so you can use this for any sort of task that you like I've got this app on my phone and I've had a couple more really wonderful experiences with people around the world so I've spoken with a gentleman in America who needed some information about some fashion choices he was making there was an Australian lady who was cooking dinner for herself and she made a potato and the potato had fallen on the floor and it was very hot and her dog was running around so she wanted some assistance to try to find the potatoes that the dog wouldn't get sick unfortunately I think she may have called me a little bit late because we couldn't rotate the container and then most recently there was a lady who wanted some assistance to figure out what mode her air conditioner was in and what temperature she had it set so this one's for you to download and use there are lots of there's more volunteers than there are individuals using the other for accessing that visual information so it's pretty easy to connect to someone although keeping in mind remember that these people aren't formally trained you may have some privacy concerns about this but within the app you can only use the camera that's on the back of your device there is no option to flip the cameras so unless you're specifically pointing the camera at yourself it's completely Anonymous and it's but almost impossible to tell who you are and where you are and what you're doing so the alternative to be my eyes is Ira the main difference with this one is that it is a subscription however it's a service that you pay for so instead of calling volunteers and connecting to volunteers you get connected to agents so this app is based in the states I believe and IR agencies they're called their trained extensively in different aspects of communication but also the services that they can provide you so for example if you're traveling and you're at an airport that you might not be familiar with and you're trying to find your way to attacks you or to the baggage claim for example when you're not sure where to go you can call up an IRA agent and they actually have schematic diagrams and blueprints of major buildings around the world and they can actually direct you to where you need to go they plan follow Uber rides for you and book Uber rides for you there's what they can do for you is essentially almost Limitless as I mentioned there is a subscription post Associated so here in Australia they charge forty dollars for 30 minutes per month however if you are requiring an IRA agent to say checking an expiration date or a very quick task you can call them as many times a day as you like as long as your phone call or your video call I should say is less than five minutes per day so something to keep in mind all right so I'll invite Judy back up onto the stage to talk about some accessibility features can be all right cool so now I'm going to present some accessibility features of iPod devices and I list five here their voice over spoken content Zoom magnifier and voice control so the first one I'm going to talk about is voice over foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign foreign of you have already been familiar with voiceover because like it's really a cool feature of iPod devices to help you know on what's on the screen and interact with your phone in the next one I'm going to talk about this spoken content foreign for spoken content I regarded like I personally regard it as an easy version of voice over because it's owning tells you like what's on the screen or on read out read aloud the text that you select so it won't change the gesture of how you interact with the film and to turn it on the gestures for every single it just swipe down from the top of your screen with two fingers and then it will read aloud the whole screen and let me show you the video foreign foreign foreign foreign just one comment on the speech controller here because we can't customize the colour of this page controller sometimes the colour contrast is not enough for me to find where is it on my screen so hopefully Apple like in the future can change that all right the next one is zoom so it's kind of like yeah you can enlarge the screen either like part of the screen with the whole screen and the gesture is to tap the screen with two fingers or three fingers twice let me show the video foreign foreign foreign so the next one is magnifier it's like a butane app in Apple devices to help it's use the phone camera to like take a photo and then zoom in to help you see what the picture is about sure so yeah let's play another video foreign thank you foreign foreign the last one is voice control and it's originally designed for people with a physical motor disabilities but nothing it can also be used on by us like people with visual impairment to help us interact with the phone so let's play the video foreign remember that's coming on at all so I definitely have some foreign might be a big chunk of information like there's so many different gestures and instructions to use those accessibility features so if you need like more information or you want to review those videos you can go to the Apple support YouTube channel you can either search a specific accessibility feature in the search bar or you can watch the accessibility playlist all right so the next session is about some tips and tricks that we can use to help us use like the first one is about trans Perth I realized that recently there are like some qri code at each bus stop it's usually at the bottom of the the schedule that you can scan it and then it will bring you to a web page to tell you the time of the next five buses and I find it quite useful because because it's live feature the time is much more accurate than the printed schedule on the pole so sometimes I can just like tell which bus is coming based on the time yeah so just like to share this trick with you hopefully it can help you the QR code is available at most bus stops but if not the other way to do that is to call question number one three six two one three until the number of that bus stop and then you will tell you what's the next available service at that bus stop something that is worth being aware of as well if you own an Apple device is knowing that there's some services offered at the stores here in Perth so there's one in Booragoon and the other in Perth City so Apple offer these sessions called today at Apple essentially these are curated workshops in different aspects of your device so whether that's an iPhone or an iPad what have you so you can book in and they hold these sessions in basic skills so if you're new to iOS you've never used it before they can take you through how to best set up your device for you and then the workshops go all the way through to creating music photography and even coding they do offer sessions specifically in accessibility features as well so as Judy mentioned we have given you a lot of information today so you can't book in a session at either one of the Apple Stores and have someone go through these features with you one-on-one and they can help you to activate them or to turn them on on your device and give you a sense of how to use them as well so important to keep in mind that we've talked a lot about Apple devices in accessibility features as well but Android phones do offer the same features if not exactly the same they're very comparable they work in a very similar way so as far as I know there aren't any sort of Android based workshops available like they are for Apple but luckily there are lots of different resources available online so one of those is Hadley they are based or associated with the national Eye Institute in the states and they've put together a web page where you can interact with other users of different devices or different apps they have an online community there and then they Rec they have lots of links and lots of videos and tutorials as well on lots of different assistive devices but then also apps and features of our smart devices as well and then the other community that you can connect to online is put together by Apple this so again this is for Apple users but this is specifically a community of people with low vision so there's lots of information that you can access through there and support by connecting to other people around the world so Manny and Ryan if you've got any comments on anything we've talked about these guys have a wealth of lived experience between them yes the first thing I want to say is for the people at home we are aware that the audio from the presentations didn't come through so what we'll do is and it was a lot of information to take on board so what we'll do is after this event give us time to have a Saturday afternoon lunch and at least a Sunday nap during the week we will bring all those links together that Judy was playing in her presentations and I think even the links that Magda's been talking about and we'll put them in an email and we'll send them out to everybody all at once so that everyone's got those links even the people here today you're probably sitting there thinking this is all great and you walk out of the room and two seconds later you think you've got what are we talking about so it happens to me I don't know if it's just me but maybe it is but you know it'll be great if we can back this all up and put it into the links so the Apple viewers and the Android and all that sort of stuff man he comes down we can share the desk together one thing I will say with Android one thing yes the accessibility is good I've been using Android ever since I moved to a smartphone that was about in 2009 I think 2010 why because I wanted the challenge everyone else was going to Apple and I said to myself well I actually just read the Steve Jobs book and I thought I don't like this because I don't like the way he's going I don't know the way he likes to control the world and control all these users and I said that's not me so I put my hand up and took on the first what was the Nexus the Nexus One and yeah there were struggles in the beginning yes there was a lot of handing my phone over to sighted people and asking them to fix things and do things and get things sorted out but it's come a long way I'm now using my pixel 4. you can ask Manny I'm always running into Manny's office every time Manny you want to see what pixel's doing now it's certainly great it's really good so that's all I've ever known that's all I've ever done used even at home my whole house is completely run by Google I've got them everywhere I use them all the time so everything I do is Android it's never been iPhone in fact I've played with a few iPhones and they frustrate me okay I'd much rather see them swimming on the ocean or something like that but I do understand it's also horses for courses you know like I said everything to everybody we're all different people and we all have different I guess parts of life that excite us and that don't excite us and that sort of thing and what works for you is best for you one of the things I did want to say just touching quickly and I'll let Manny talk in a minute but in regards to the QR code on the bus stop that Judy mentioned if it's not in your area yet Transperth are still rolling them out if it's not in your area yet give that number a call one three six two one three and ask them to put it in your area another little hidden trick too with Transperth if your bus stops not accessible or it's not got a sheltered bus stop because you know you can make a complaint and get that changed okay all you've got to do is ring the one three six two one three and let them know and if they don't do it this week ring next week and ring the week after it's part of their policy they will make bus stops accessible if they're not okay so just to remember that yeah Manny you guys enjoying the session so far yeah oh that's good I'm just here to give you some tips about the apps it's good to have the accessible apps on your smart devices but keep in mind the first one is you got to have most of them requires data internet data so keep in mind you got to have a data from your sim card provider either from Telstra Vodafone Optus and so on it's just keep in mind you got to have data for the apps to work and the second one about the the apps navigation apps so I use a track here Aftershock bone conducting headset so it goes around the back of your head and then it's just sit on top of your earlobe and then there's a speaker sticking out on the your cheekbone and the reason I am using this headset is I can hear what is surround me the sound the people around me when I'm walking and using the navigation app and also the Sam from the phone itself so it it doesn't block my ear to website people and environment Okay the third one is hygiene okay you have devices but I make a habit every once a week I clean up my handset my phone my tablets my laptops with just a normal lens cleaner a disposable lens cleaner so I clean it I cleaned them once a week at least once a week because there was a survey I don't know if it's right or not they said your devices it's is building as moderate than a toilet bowl so this is research done by the professionals but just keep in mind because you're touching your device all the time so make sure they are clean and hygienic and I think that's all for me and it tips on using voice over money or magnifier that you know with iPhone okay so the tips is YouTube is the big source of training learnings and then also social community so if you have a group of people that doing activities like here in VisAbility we have CAC Community Activity Centre where people get around to do Pottery woodwork handicraft Braille stuff music cooking class they can mingle together and then have inputs feedback from your friends within the group or you can you know when you socialize with people sometimes they talk about technology just ask them questions so that's the tips yeah excellent we're just about to go to questions one other thing that I did for Android users that there's anyone out there using Android with me is I actually downloaded eloquence which is the same voice as jaws and I think I paid like twenty dollars for it back in 2009 and I'm still using the same license so I don't actually use the Google voice that they supplier because I didn't like it so and I guess I still used to using Jaws that was another thing and something else and I don't know this the full facts on this but I know envision just released the act for free or for a one-soft subscription in July they've actually announced they will not be charging for it anymore correct in July yeah because they've made too much money out of it or something like that already or they're actually invested in making it a free do you know more a bit about Wellman many so they're going to have a a new software update in the middle of July around 20th of July so from there on you have either to uninstall your current Envision app and then just install the new one and then that will be free of charge but you still can donate if you want to donate to them yeah so that's the Envision yeah but they have done a lot of good work The Envision AI app you know the scene description is very good the colour description is good the one thing I did speak to many about during the week is sometimes I've got three different apps on my phone which I use for colour detection and it's amazing that you might scan it with one it'll say grey shirt the next one might say great kind of grey shirt and the other one might say kind of light grey shirt so sometimes it is Handy to have the three because you especially when they're all giving you slightly different colour do you find that many that's right yeah so I guess yours might be my eyes or IRA to call a side of Britain and then tell me what colour I'm wearing yeah so all right we're going to take some questions now so unfortunately for the people at home you can still ask questions but your voice won't come through the theatre right here so it's going to come through into minor ears my head and so I'll have to be your voice for you but we'll just while people at home you'll have to unmute yourself as well but firstly we'll just run to the room here is there anyone here that's got a question if you'd like to put your hand up Maria we probably need someone to bring the microphone around to them my parents first of all Wordle word all that knocks on that yeah oh a word or is New York Times word or game do you know that if we can get that to be accessible for the vision impaired Squirtle many we usually there is when you download the app there is a new book the times word or once a day word so I don't know so we have to contact the developer some of them they are very open some of them they are not interested in reading our feedback so just cross your fingers if you know we can try to contact them and then this is the issue can they make some improvement in terms of accessibility someone had told me to download JavaScript it will do it but unfortunately with JavaScript lets little things get into your phone that's right correct yeah I don't know maybe look it's one of those fights that every single one of us in this room and anyone at home with a vision impairment has to learn or has to be willing to take up if we want this world to become more accessible we've got to as a huge Army worldwide stand up and say this is not good enough I want to do this I want to make it happen something I've mentioned several times is just recently I was flying back on from Brisbane to Perth and I spent the whole five and a half hour flight writing an email to Virgin telling them how ridiculous their onboard entertainment system is it took me a while to get it all together and brought it and all that sort of stuff have I had a response no did it send yes I know I definitely said I got a receipt but I've heard nothing since now is that going to stop me now no when I get time again I will contact virgin again and do something about it but if we don't say something if we don't put our hand up and say hey this is not good enough I want this made accessible for me and not just for me but for all my other Vision I've had correct people nothing will ever happen so that's that one now the next one not be better for another time I'm a grandmother and I was up until five years ago I had to read and see and do all of that now I should think that there would should be an app out there that I could open a like a tree but I don't even mind paying anymore that I did you know it's the one that covers lots of stories for children no the picture book you know put some boots or you know whatever I've got a little child who's two years old he always wants me to read books well I can't read them and I'm just saying what's a mistake you know whatever so is there an app that will read with voice over with me controlling it story books for children you've got their picture started yes good question if we could bring Sinead in right now I know she's at home listening in but we would get her to comment on that because there is something that's going around the office at the moment it's been communicated through our VisAbility there's a lot of talk about a lot of different suggestions I suggest what you do is contact VisAbility during the week and ask to speak to Shania responding I said I find it really helpful changing my voice over advanced two and two things why right and return to that home screen two fingers slightly so what's I'm not sure which app you're using though grenade to read the books but I'm Story Time for Kids open nap up as you normally do now open Story Time for Kids then I'd click across you know stories from zero to two no three to four no whatever but I'll let you go back to zero to two so I'll fight for tap tap then then I'll swipe through the stories put some boots a little red hand you know whatever right then I tap on the one that I want then I should be able to with my gestures like people say on click or tap Turn the Page and then I'll read the text I might have to tap on the three of the text you know some and that like that so there's a tablet on the iPad so the little two-year-old can see the picture I can't see what he can see it then it'll say your monkey work climbed up the tree and that's it can you see the tree the main point this tree swipe the little monkey jumped off the tree and down onto the ground you know that's what I want but not me to speak it but my device to talk that's right yes at the moment with lots of girls they use a program called Reading Eggs and within that it's on a website actually so you can sign up for a subscription and it has lots of stories and you can put in what age group you're looking for stories and you can click on it for the audio to be read as well so you don't have to read it what was the name of that app again it's Reading Eggs Reading Eggs is any double G yes on Apple website okay don't know until we find someone that someone goes and says navigate hey Brian I don't know talk oh hi I am more than happy to look into that when I return like now that I'm coming back to work because I have the same issue for reading books to my kids so I'd be really Keen to look into reading eggs with this accessibility for voiceover so just for everyone's information Sinead is one of our occupational therapists that works here she's a m of two beautiful kids and Sinead has a vision impairment I don't think you'll mind me saying that Sinead no not at all Sinead's going through the same problem right now she wants to read books to her children so TV Guide so someone suggested Oz TV well it's you know I don't even know but I would like it so that you can tap on the channel and the day or the day in the channel and then click through what's on these are an easy one should I Manny so it's like trial and error so basically we have to look at similar apps to that app and then it's just testing yeah testing it if it's like really all fine questions are really drawing people and I want to be able to do the same thing as I would have done five years ago as I do do now to bring someone up to play a Wordle I've got to ring some up you know yeah Welcome to our world that's exactly what our world's like and this is what my world's been like 48 years so the good thing about Apple because I I think you are using voice over which is Apple devices on Apple devices they've got Apple accessibility hotline that you can call they're useless they won't give you information about apps that's not their job they say no it's not our job not like how to use that your iPhone another way you might be able to get around using the TV Guide is to buy yourself an accessible TV so there are some TVs that are out there on the market that are known for their accessibility I know that Sony make a very good accessible TV and so does Samsung the ironic thing is and say right what can I be watching tonight and go through I've got all of that you can use all of that but you know if I'm away from the TV and I think what do I want to watch tonight go straight that's our community I've got a Sony and a Samsung I use all those features but I want something on my iPhone that's purely Manny is theirs accessible group Apple this applebees.com so applebees.com so many people post their questions there and then most of them get the answer straight away dot com so Apple this yes one word applebees.com so post your question there that's Universal worldwide so people with voice over skills they usually answer questions and then give you Direction in terms of apps and tips yeah okay all right and it's one of those things if we don't share what we know with everybody else a lot of people go you know without or they don't know about it so that's why we bring you here for these sort of things and hopefully over morning tea all right I'm going to have to skip to someone else in the room well then I'll go to online so anyone else here quickly my name is Peter my Applebee's have someone that actually made word or work on a banking word or the game accessible so that's that's one thing I'm not too sure where on Applebee's at the moment I haven't been there for a while but also there's another tip I've got for for using seeing AI with when you're scanning a document if it's not working for you just the lift you just lift your phone and it will eventually say steady so once you've got it once you've got it in place then then you can take the picture and it will take the picture for you okay all right if someone at home's got a question if you'd like to unmute yourself quickly and ask your question if they monitoring the chat we haven't received any questions but yeah no one I'm any more tips from you Sinead oh hi can you hear me yeah I just thought Emmanuel might be able to elaborate because I found this tip really helpful with the new iPhones not having the home button that you can change the advanced voiceover settings that I do the two finger swipe right to get back to the home page rather than having to do that one finger slowly swiping up feeling the vibrations yeah and then the two finger swipe left for the app switcher yes so you can find the settings under voice over settings and then you have to swipe to commands and then under touch gesture you can assign two finger swap to the right for your home screen gesture and then two fingers swipe to the left to the app switcher so you can change your touch gesture commands on either your iPad your iPhone using voiceover and then the other tip is remember about the barcode scanning app the one that I found it's reliable is VIP code reader and the developer is export Japan so export Japan and it will give you like the beep which the phone camera try to find the code and then once you scan the code it will be there in the app so you can say save them as your favourite so if you go to a particular restaurant the one that has a menu and then it they have a barcode that you can scan so scan that barcode using the VIP code reader and then you can save that into your favourite tab in your app all right any more questions in the room yeah sure is this can we ask for an industry standards about the Year by day because it exactly the same place on each product it's a nightmare for me Josh by day because they're all in different places a fantastic idea I don't know who would control that in the industry but if you've got the time to sit down and write that letter or send that email like go for it what a great I mean that's a fantastic idea it's a great idea Ryan I'm wondering too whether the the the sort of policy and bigger picture kind of advocacy that blind citizens Australia would be probably the best way to go yeah it'll be great yeah that's what that's a great City and I think I love it I mean someone once had the idea to put dots on the notes so we knew what notes they were you know it was a 14 year old boy and now look what's happened it's happened but it's got to start somewhere someone's going to put their hand up and say I'm going to take this on and make it wasn't me was it no oh no I wish I was 14 again yeah but what a great suggestion anyone else for questions we're aware of the time getting away but oh my promise you a comfort break shortly if everyone can hang in there not like so yeah mine's not a question that's an issue with voiceover I've got an iPhone 7 plu
2022-08-03