Transcript: 3: Tech and Trauma

Clip: (All the Docs together) Paging all Tech Docs, the clinic is open. Your technology has a fever? Your network is short of breath, or your system just stopped responding? You're in the right place. Here we diagnose digital disorders, troubleshoot stubborn symptoms, and prescribe real-world fixes for modern tech problems. No guesswork, no snake oil, just practical solutions. Welcome to...

Welcome and Introductions

Jade: Well, hello. I was nearly waiting for Stuart to do the introductions, but this time I'm in the hot seat. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Tech Doc Podcast. I am Jade, the Rebel Doc or the Travelling Doc, but I have no travels to report on this time. So we're going to go around and ask everyone: how are you? How was your month, or your few weeks? Uneventful here for me. I've just been busy taking little miss to school, and homework and all that kind of stuff. So Stuart Haxell, how about you? How were your few weeks?

Stuart H: Oh, they've been all right. It feels a bit weird on this side of the table. I feel like I'm in the wrong seat here. But I had a lovely Easter. I had some nice chocolate, a nice big box of Mini Eggs, which are unfortunately gone now. And I won an Amazon voucher that I'm struggling to figure out what to buy with.

Jade: You could buy all of us Tech Docs a nice bar of chocolate.

Stuart H: Maybe, maybe. We'll see. I'll get Jackie some organic chocolate. I know she likes that.

Jade: Speaking of Jackie, how about you? How have you been?

Jackie: Interesting. I'm now in a splint with my little fingers. Other than that, it's been my new toy, and eating chocolate.

Jade: We'll hear about that later in the episode. Ken, how about you? How have you been?

Ken: Oh, hi Jade. All quiet, really. Just tipping away, listening to a few audiobooks, keeping myself busy and enjoying it. All quiet here.

Jade: Good, good, good. And Pat? We don't have Pat. Looks like Pat's off celebrating his birthday.

Declan: So this is where you've all been hanging out!

Jade: We have replaced Pat with Declan Meenagh, who is here to talk to us a little bit about an exciting project and some other interesting bits and pieces that he is involved in. Declan, how are you?

Declan: Good, thanks. I've also been listening to some audiobooks and eating lots of chocolate, and I was travelling around Easter, so I'm very happy, because I got to go to Greggs twice in one day.

Jade: Fabulous. I like Greggs for their sausage rolls.

Declan: Yeah, absolutely.

Jade: Good, good, good. So everyone has had an interesting couple of weeks. Because we don't do this podcast weekly. I think we would all be exhausted if we were to produce a podcast every week.

Stuart H: Yeah, I think there might be more than just one mutiny on the podcast.

Jade: Absolutely. I think we will start with Declan, because you're here this time as a guest on the show.

DigiCoach and Peer Assistive Technology

Jade: I suppose it's fair to say you are project lead for something very exciting that we're all involved in.

Declan: Yeah, well, we're all working together on it. It started a few years ago, when there was some funding available for adult education, and I thought, what could we do with this? Really, I think everyone on this call does some kind of work or volunteer work around helping other people with assistive technology, and I just thought, look, the best way to do it is to have someone who uses it every day share their experience. It works informally; let's formalise it a bit. So we started with a smaller project, Vision Tech, and then we moved it on. Other disability groups were talking to us as well, and we decided to form DigiCoach. DigiCoach is, very simply, about people with disabilities showing other people with disabilities how to use technology, through coaching. It's people with sight loss, but we've also partnered with other disability groups, and it's growing and growing.

Jade: That's amazing. And it's essentially one-to-one peer coaching. That's its unique selling point: we coach you, we have the lived experience, and you're getting advice from people who use the technology all the time.

Declan: That's it. And the technology changes all the time as well. There are so many people who are newer to sight loss, or people who maybe were afraid of the tech or weren't going near it. So just having that time is key: having time with people like all of you, wonderful coaches who are able to help and share your experience through coaching. Because it's about building up the confidence and getting people more used to using the tech.

Jade: Yeah, and it's tailored to you. We can do it in person, very limited, or online through Zoom or Teams, whatever works for you. The sessions are for you.

Declan: Yeah. And even just looking at what we've done, we've literally gone from the basics of how do I use an iPhone if I can't see the screen, to editing in GarageBand. AI is very prominent, Meta glasses, all sorts of things. And when I started the project, I had no idea the Meta glasses were coming. None of us did.

Jade: That leads me nicely on to tell our listeners that we also run some webinars, and you can find them on the Fighting Blindness YouTube channel. We've had a fair few: we've had Meta glasses, the iPhone, braille, and we did Festive Friday with Sight and Sound. So we don't just coach; we also provide information with webinars as well.

Declan: And I think the iPhone webinar especially is really good if you already use the iPhone. It just gives you a few extra things you didn't know. And the Meta glasses webinar goes into all the features and why they're so useful. And people will be delighted to know, I did try them out last Friday. Finally.

Jade: Finally!

Declan: To be honest, I had something in my hand and I asked them to read it, and I was actually shocked. It genuinely shocked me. Now, at the same time, we did an exercise where we asked them to help navigate, like "Is there a chair in the way?", and it was getting that wrong. But the actual bit of sitting in front of a piece of paper and getting it to read it was just perfect. So I suppose it was mixed, but the reading bit was amazing.

Jade: So just a disclaimer to all our listeners: we are not saying that Meta glasses will navigate you. Please use your mobility aids.

Declan: Yep, absolutely. And in fairness, I don't think Meta is saying that either. It was just that describing the room, it was getting some of it wrong. It can get it wrong, but it's certainly a lot better than what most of us would get with an app on the phone. It just seems to be easier to position, because it's on your head, rather than trying to position a phone.

Jade: Fantastic. And for anyone who's interested in registering for DigiCoach, Declan, what's the process?

Declan: It's very simple. This time it's open to anyone over eighteen. But if you're a parent of a child with sight loss, we can coach you. If you're a professional who works with people with sight loss, we can also coach you. And if you have sight loss yourself, you just email digicoach@fightingblindness.ie, and we'll get in touch with you. It's completely free: multiple sessions online, and limited in person. If there is some aspect of assistive technology that you're struggling with, or curious about, or want to know more about, just send us an email and we'll see what we can do.

Jade: Excellent. Thanks, Declan. And you do something else that's quite, I want to say, niche, because not a lot of blind and visually impaired people would be doing this every day. I hear you are working with children as well.

Coding Lessons for Blind Children

Declan: Yeah, so we're doing some coding lessons for children who are blind or visually impaired. The idea started because I studied computer science myself, and I think a lot of us grow up where maybe sighted children would doodle when they're bored in class, and we go into the help files in Word, because we're in class with a laptop. I suppose the curiosity grew, and I got really interested in computers, and I decided to go and study computer science in Maynooth. I actually went away from it a bit, but I took it back up as a hobby, and I started to tinker with electronics as well, something that I struggled with when I was studying it, but I got interested in the whole thing.

I met an artist and academic from the UK who did some e-textiles, which is sewing circuits into clothes or fabric. She did her PhD in teaching blind and visually impaired people how to make e-textile circuits, and she wanted to do more on code. So we did a collaboration, which was great, except it was during Covid. We were going to do it in person, and then I think everyone got Covid, so we decided to move it onto Zoom, and it was challenging, I think it's fair to say. We did some smaller workshops, and we figured it out, and actually it worked quite well.

Then last year I was working on a Research Ireland project called Vision Code, and we took some children between the ages of eleven and seventeen...

Jade: May I say, you did not kidnap them!

Declan: No. But we did teach them how to code in Python. For those that don't know, mainstream children in school learn code by dragging blocks around a screen. It's very engaging, but it's also not very accessible. There are attempts to make it more accessible; I'd say they're not there yet. So what I did was say, right, we're going to teach these children how to code in Python, which is a very common language. It has pluses and minuses compared to other languages, but it's very readable: if you listen to a line of Python, you'd probably guess what it does, which makes it easy to work with. And the other thing we used was the BBC micro:bit, which is a small electronic board with lots of sensors and buttons on it, and it's very easy to do a lot of things with code. So we made things like a light sensor. We made a lot of noise, because a lot of the exercises use screens for output, and we turned that into sound. This board costs maybe five euro, and it has a built-in speech synthesiser.

Jade: I remember the exhibition in TU Dublin last October: you were sitting at a table with an awful lot of wires and mechanics, and I vaguely remember it tried to play Twinkle Twinkle, and it was all done through coding.

Declan: It was not only done through coding, it was done through radio. The system I set up had seven boards: you shake a board, and it transmits a different note and plays it on all the other boards. So it was an interactive thing, teaching the children about radio. And it's just these fun interactive things you can do now that the technology has gotten so cheap. To be honest, it's a silly instrument: seven things you shake, and it plays the note on all the others. But it's also really interactive, and lots of people can listen. The world is built on electronics, and it's very serious, and you can make a lot of money. But it's also fun, and you enjoy it. And I think that's where we have to get to for science education. There's a lot of stuff going on that's fun and engaging, but for blind and visually impaired children, that wasn't there, or there were fewer opportunities to have that fun. That's kind of what I wanted to do.

Jade: That's incredible. And that brings us on nicely: we asked our listeners last podcast to guess what Jackie's new toy was. Jackie purchased a lovely new shiny toy. Stuart, I think we had very varied guesses.

Stuart H: We had a few very, very varied guesses. Let me just read out a few of them. We had someone guess an Alexa. We had someone guess a koala bear, for some bizarre reason. We had someone guess a chocolate fountain.

Jade: Well, I can understand the chocolate fountain.

Stuart H: Yeah, that makes sense to me. And someone said a new phone or a new Google device. So people were very sure that she'd have a smart device of some sort.

Jade: So Jackie, were any of those guesses correct?

Jackie: No, but I do want a koala bear.

Jade: Thanks, listeners, for making her want even more things. Jackie, tell us: what did you get?

BrailleSense 6 Mini Toy Reveal

Jackie: Okay, my new toy is a BrailleSense 6 Mini. I got it from Sight and Sound. It is a brilliant device, I have to say. You can do emails on it, Word documents. I've got Audible on it, you can play games, and it's an Android platform, but...

Jade: Don't say it.

Jackie: Yeah, exactly, I know. Android.

Stuart H: So she's our token Android user on the podcast.

Jackie: Yes, exactly. So I'm going to hand you over to Stuart Lawler, if he can come in there and explain what it is, because to me it's just a brilliant toy. I don't know the specs of it or the ins and outs, but it's an excellent device.

Jade: Stuart, you are very welcome to The Tech Docs. For all our listeners, Stuart is, for want of a better word, the masked producer. We're all used to Stuart hosting a podcast or talking or showing us tech, but he is quietly working behind the scenes of The Tech Docs to make us sound as good as we do. So Stuart, you are welcome.

Stuart L: I think you're sounding great, Jade, and thank you, everybody. It's been a great show and a great project to work on, doing a little bit of work in the background on production...

Jade: Keeping us quiet.

Stuart L: ...and a little bit of editing after the show. Jackie has been talking about the BrailleSense 6 Mini. In fact, she's described it very well already. It's essentially an Android tablet with a couple of specialist applications on top of it, what we might historically call note-taker applications. The BrailleSense 6 Mini is one of a long line of products. Some people might remember the old BrailleSense U2 devices, and then we had the Polaris. The older devices like the U2 used to run on what was called Windows CE, which was a cut-down, mobile version of Windows, and the Polaris was an Android device, running on Android version 5. The current device, the BrailleSense 6 Mini, runs on Android version 12. So, as Jackie said, she has some programs that she has installed on it from the Play Store.

It also has a range of other functions: word processor, email, a built-in web browser, a calendar, an address manager, and an option to read books. You can sign into Bookshare with it. These devices are used a lot in education, but they're also used by people like Jackie who want braille-first access, and who don't just want a braille display: they want a device that can do a little bit more, like email, without having to connect to a computer. Although you can use the BrailleSense as a terminal for your computer or your phone or tablet.

Jade: And Jackie, because you mentioned at the start you're in a splint, how are you finding using the BrailleSense Mini with limited use of your hands?

Jackie: It's not so bad now, but when I was in the full cast, I was using it in one-hand mode. So that was good, and I was able to read the braille on it as well, of course. I've had a few different braille devices over the years, but I was really looking for a standalone device. With anything I had before, for it to work properly, it had to connect to a phone or a computer. But Bookshare is so easy to download books onto. I'm actually reading Mr Bump at the moment. I'm very pleased with myself, because I'm brushing up on braille as well. I'm brushing up on grade two. There's a speech package on it as well, so I read a sentence in braille without the speech, then I put it on to see that I got it right. And there are games on it as well, to build up your braille speed and learn contractions and stuff.

Jade: Fantastic. And Stuart, it's a twenty-cell device, isn't it? It's smaller than the BrailleSense itself.

Stuart L: Yes, that's right. The standard BrailleSense, if you like, is a thirty-two-cell device. The BrailleSense Mini is twenty, so it's a little bit shorter, a little bit easier if you want to carry it around and stick it in the bag. But the crucial point, I suppose, is they have all the same features. The only slight difference is that the standard BrailleSense 6 has a little screen and an extra USB port that the Mini doesn't have. But you can connect pretty much anything to it, and it also has Bluetooth, so you can connect headsets and all sorts to it: anything that will connect to an Android device. We have had people connecting cameras to these devices for Zoom or Teams calls, if you want to have your camera on. People have been connecting extra microphones, or USB controls, for example. So there are all sorts of things you can connect.

Jade: And like you say, it's used a lot in education, so I'd imagine being able to connect different things is useful for teachers, to be able to connect monitors to read the screen.

Stuart L: Absolutely. I suppose that's the biggest connectivity use we see in schools: people plugging monitors in. Sometimes people connect it to smart boards. And a lot of the time people use wireless mirroring, so we can use things like TeamViewer, or even Zoom, which is the platform we're using on this podcast, to do a simple screen share to a device that the teacher can access, so they can see in real time what the student is doing. That's really important, especially for teachers who may not have a lot of braille but want to get a handle on where the student is in their schoolwork.

Jade: That really is good. And for any of our listeners who might be interested in purchasing a BrailleSense, I'm assuming if they contact Sight and Sound, you will be able to point them in the right direction.

Stuart L: Yeah, absolutely. And there are plenty of chances to see these during the year. There are a couple of technology exhibitions coming up in the next six or so months, both here in Ireland, of course, and in the UK. So people have plenty of chances to see them. Or, of course, chat to Jackie on the podcast, I'm sure.

Jackie: Or sign up for DigiCoach, and I'll go through it with you.

Jade: So now might be a good time to give our listeners the contact details for the show.

Show Contact Details and Listener Mailbox

Clip: If you would like to contact us with any comment, question or suggestion relating to the podcast, please feel free to email us at thetechdocpod@outlook.com. That's T-H-E-T-E-C-H-D-O-C-P-O-D at O-U-T-L-O-O-K dot com. We would love to hear from you.

(The show's email address has since changed: you can now reach us at hello@thetechdocpod.com.)

Jade: Pat, wherever you are celebrating your birthday: I wonder what would happen if we had listeners that didn't contact the show?

Clip: If you don't, send us your address. We promise we will call in the middle of the night without warning. We will raid your fridge, and if there are any legs of lamb to be found, we will... yes, you know what's going to happen next.

Jade: So every episode of the podcast, we have a Tech Doc Consult.

Tech Doc Consult: Tech That Scares Us

Jade: We go around the table and talk about a topic that we find interesting, and this time round I was thinking aloud while on a call, and I actually realised there's a lot of technology out there that is scary. For me, it's in education, especially in primary school, where children are being advised not to have screen time, not to be on devices, and then suddenly five-, six- and seven-year-olds are being told, "But you have to do one day a week of homework online." That scares me, because if you have a child who's not used to using technology, because that's your choice, then suddenly you're having to teach them, and they may not be ready for it when they're only learning to read and write with handwriting and a physical book. I just think for some children it's very confusing. My own daughter is very tech-savvy. She's probably a bit more tech-savvy than me, and it's quite scary how advanced she is. But there are some children who may not have the luxury of having a screen, and being told you have to do your one day a week of homework on an iPad can be quite scary. So I just wonder if we should revert back to not using technology to teach in schools. That's just my thoughts, and that scares me. So Stuart Haxell, what do you think?

Stuart H: I have to say, I do think yours is a very, very valid fear to have. But I'd say my fear, the one that comes to mind, is technology in the kitchen. Anything that could be hot, like, for example, cookers that are completely flat on top.

Jade: Oh, like the induction hobs.

Stuart H: Yeah, ones that don't have solid rings you can feel, so you know, okay, that's the front ring, don't put your hand there. Or stuff for cutting meat: you could have electric knives that cut meat, stuff like that.

Jade: They don't really exist much any more, thankfully.

Stuart H: No, but it's stuff like that, that's not really made accessible. And sometimes things get left in the kitchen by accident, because there was someone here, and I'm not saying who or when, and it's not a family member...

Jade: Apologies to Stuart's friends and family.

Stuart H: Well, this person left a hair straightener on the counter in the kitchen, and I didn't know it was there, and I nearly put my hand right on top of it. And it was plugged in and turned on.

Jade: Wow. Not only was that dangerous for you, it could also have caused a fire.

Stuart H: Well, thankfully, they spotted it and ran over going, "No!"

Jade: Oh no. Yeah, I completely get your take on technology, especially in the kitchen. For example, I have been known to accidentally knock cups of tea or coffee that might have been left on the side, and they've been hot.

Stuart H: Oh yes, I've done that. You don't realise that someone's left a cup beside the kettle, and you think, all right, it's all clear now, and you just slightly edge your elbow over. Or if there's a cup on top of a little coaster, you nudge it over slightly, and it's gone.

Jade: And following on from stuff being left in the kitchen, I know it's not really technology, but little pieces of Lego. It is not pleasant.

Stuart H: No, no, no. I have a few stories, but I think I'd get in trouble if I said what happened with Lego.

Jade: Jackie, what about you?

Jackie: Mine... When I was six, my dad was in the hospital, a kind of community hospital, and there was a massive statue of the Virgin Mary. Well, it was massive for me, because I was only six, a little tiny thing. But she was standing on a snake, and the snake's mouth was open. My uncle told me, "If you put your finger into the snake's mouth, it'll chop it off." I was petrified to touch that snake, because I thought that would happen. Twenty years later, I put my finger in the snake's mouth, and I didn't lose my finger.

But going back to the fear: shredders. I am petrified of shredders. I was working on a switchboard, and there was this machine beside me with a flap on it. I lifted up the flap and I was rubbing my hands over and back on it. And about ten minutes later, somebody came in, took the lid off it and emptied the paper, and I was like, "Oh my God, if that was plugged in..." So yeah, absolutely petrified of shredders.

Jade: That is a very valid fear. And it's technology that's not even assistive technology. Every office and most homes have them. It's something you'd never actually think of, to be fair. It is literally you putting your hand in the snake's mouth.

Jackie: Yep. And at least that snake didn't harm me. The shredder could.

Stuart H: Especially if they just have lights on them and don't make any noise when they're on. That could be very dangerous.

Jackie: Yeah. To this day, and I'm in my forties, I still can't be anywhere near a shredder.

Jade: That's very valid. Ken, you're very quiet. I'm wondering, are you scared?

Ken: Really, really scared. Just going back to Stuart's thing before I move on to what actually scares me: the kitchen scares me as well, Stuart. The microwave. You put on half a bowl of porridge in the morning, as I do every day, and then you clean the microwave. So the next morning you go to put on your porridge, and it's there banging, and you have to take it out and try and set the plate again properly. You spend about five minutes fidgeting before you actually get your bowl of porridge in the right position on the plate.

Jade: Oh, it's first world problems, Ken.

Jackie: Flatbed microwave.

Ken: I knew you were going to come in with that suggestion, Jackie.

Jade: I would love one of them.

Ken: Our microwave is working fine, so that won't happen for a while. I suppose the one thing that scares me is WhatsApp. WhatsApp chat groups. You'll get a message in a group, and you'll be reading it, and you'll think, I must reply to this. So you'll be replying, then another message comes in from someone else, and you automatically end up jumping into the chat with the person who has messaged you privately. And I always have a fear of posting in the wrong bloody group, or replying to the wrong person. You just have to be so careful. It just scares me, to be honest, really.

Stuart H: I did think that was a weird message you sent to Alicia, right? I was curious.

Jackie: And then if you're panicking to delete: "Delete for me" or "Delete for everyone"?

Stuart H: And there's no way of recovering it if you delete it for you.

Ken: Oh God. And again, it's fine if someone hasn't spotted it and you can delete it quickly. But just a funny story: this happens to sighted people as well. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she's in a group with the school. There was one mother posting loads of times in the group, and she was just wrecking everyone's head. And one person in the group thought she was replying to her friend privately, and she was talking about her behind her back, but it had actually gone to the whole group instead of the one person.

Jackie: Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Stuart H: I'm just cringing.

Ken: She's afraid to face that person now, though thankfully she hasn't seen her in person since. She just thought she was messaging her friend privately, but it went straight into the group. So that just scares me so much: posting in the wrong group. That's kind of mine, really.

Jackie: Oh no. There's actually an Andrea Mara book about that, where the woman posts in the WhatsApp group. I can't think of the name of it now.

Jade: Oh yeah. Was it No One Saw a Thing? No, that was the one about the girl who went missing. We'll have to start doing a book corner. We'll have to see if our listeners would like us doing a book rec once a month.

Ken: I think I actually read that book as well, Jackie, now that you mention it. It sounds vaguely familiar.

Jade: There's a question for our listeners: can anyone remember the name of that book? And because obviously we have two extra guests: Declan, what tech scares you, or what are you fearful of?

Declan: What I'm afraid of is the updates and the changes, where I'm able to do something, and then there's a new version, and suddenly it's either impossible or ten times harder. I remember seeing this with The Irish Times app, ages ago on Android. Before the change, I could read each story and scroll down, and each scroll was one article. After it, I had to scroll five or six different things per article, and it just didn't work well. And the absolute worst: one day I was in a rush, and I needed to send an email. You know the way Microsoft has a new Outlook? They basically fooled me into saying yes, switch to the new Outlook when I restart. So I needed to send an email, I restarted, it switched to the new Outlook, I had to log in again and all this, and I literally got stuck in an email and couldn't get out. So I managed to switch back, and they said, "Do you want to give feedback?" Well, I tell you, I hope the feedback I left them made someone cry, because that was my intention. I don't normally leave ranty reviews, but I was just so annoyed. It's stuff like that, where I just want the things I have to work. I've learned how to do them. In some cases, I've learned the number of tabs I need to press. I just want it to work. And it's that sort of sickening feeling of, "Oh, that's gone now. We're not able to do that any more."

Jade: Yeah. I remember when they updated that, and like you, I selected yes, switch to the new Outlook, and I couldn't find the Send button. I was trying to find the Send button to reply to emails, and I couldn't find it. I then had to ask for help, because I was just at a loss. It's not in the corner where it's supposed to be.

Declan: And I'm sure it is there, but you're doing your thing. You don't have time to relearn this key tool of your productivity system.

Jade: Especially if you're anything like me and you do some emails at seven or eight in the morning. I don't have time to be looking for the button. Just be where you should be.

Jackie: And now, if I do "Send", it saves to drafts. I think the message has been sent, and it's gone into drafts.

Jade: That's the latest update.

Stuart H: Should we tell people how to stop automatic updates for apps on your iPhone? Does anyone want to explain that one? Because I don't know the exact process off the top of my head.

Jade: Well, before we do that, I was going to bring in Stuart Lawler and ask him what tech scares him. But Stuart, if you know how to stop the updates, please do tell us.

Stuart L: It's funny you ask about stopping the updates, because I have it turned off on mine. I don't like the automatic updates. I like to choose what I update. I don't remember how I did it, because it's a long time ago since I switched them off. So we'll look into it.

Jade: I can't remember either. I'll probably have to do some research on this, but I think it's in the App Store settings, and at the top it says something like "App Updates", and you can just switch them off. And once you do a little bit of messing around with the App Store, or the Play Store, you should be able to turn off the automatic updates.

Jackie: Show notes, maybe?

Jade: Yes, absolutely. I will put all of this into the show notes, because, again, the Docs need to have a consult.

Jackie: And Declan can do the Android side?

Declan: I think Android doesn't auto-update apps, but...

Ken: Maybe the Docs need some DigiCoaching!

Jade: But Stuart, tell us: what scares you? What are you fearful of?

Stuart L: So I've been playing a little bit this week with a new AI service called OpenClaw. Just for your show notes, it's Open, and then C-L-A-W. It is a piece of software that you download and install, so you really need to have a machine set aside for it. You give it access to the machine, and it has full system access. It can do what it wants: it can install software, it can delete files. You tell it what you want it to do, and then you can control it. You can talk to it using things like WhatsApp or iMessage or various other services. You can connect services to it. You can give it your credit card and ask it to order things for you, check you in for flights, book flights.

So I'm starting to play with it. Not with OpenClaw itself, because I don't have a spare machine to install it on. I've started using something called myclaw.ai, that's M-Y-C-L-A-W dot A-I, which is a hosted version of OpenClaw. You pay about seventeen euro a month, and I've just done it for one month to test it out. I haven't gotten very far yet, but if you just go and Google OpenClaw and some of the stuff in the news, you'll see stories about people who said to it, "Right, I'm going to sleep. When I wake up at six a.m., surprise me," and gave it their credit card, and it went off and bought something. I heard about a guy last week who didn't want to deal with the airline check-in, so he said to OpenClaw, "Check me in for my flight. Here's the flight, here's the reference number." And it went off and sent him a message on WhatsApp saying, "I'm just at the seat selection. Do you want me to select a seat, or do you want a random seat? If you want me to select a seat, do you want a window?" And he said yes. And next thing, it said, "Here are your boarding passes." So that's the good thing. But I'm a little bit scared at the moment about what I should give it and what I shouldn't. In the worst case, I'll cancel my subscription if I get too scared. It has potential, but I'm a little bit nervous about it.

Jade: But Stuart, on that, where he was saying about selecting the seat: imagine if you accidentally said yes, select a window seat. Imagine the charge that might come on your card without you knowing.

Stuart L: Well, absolutely. Now, it's meant to tell you. I think the whole thing with OpenClaw is it gets to know you: you tell it how you want it to behave with you. And there are some very positive things about it. But I was reading something yesterday where a guy was on Facebook or Instagram and saw something his ex had done, and OpenClaw, which I think had been co-browsing with him, texted his ex some smart comment, even though he didn't want it to.

Jade: See, that would worry me. I just don't like the idea of it. It's almost like Big Brother: nothing is safe any more.

Declan: Stuart, I don't think you're afraid. I think you accurately understand the technology and the implications of it. There are great uses for AI. Some of this stuff is just fundamentally a bad idea and always will be a bad idea, because you actually can't put real limits on AI if it's using a large language model. It can have a probability, but the limits can never be real.

Stuart L: So I'm going to be playing with this for the next few weeks, and I will let you know how it goes. I hope I will not be parting with my credit card details.

Jade: To anyone in Sight and Sound who may be getting strange emails from Stuart: it's because he's playing with AI.

Stuart L: It's not connected to any of my work accounts. But yeah, that scares me, and I think it's an interesting one to watch.

Jade: That's a very good one.

Jackie: AI has completely changed things for us, but that is even scary for me. That is frightening. I like "Tell me what colour this is."

Jade: Yeah. I like the fact that with some AI services, like Gemini, you can do the live stream. The other day I turned on Gemini with an oven and asked, "What's this turned to?", and it was able to tell me, and it was correct. I had it verified by a human, but it was correct.

Declan: Yeah, and that's the perfect use for AI. I studied this in college before the boom happened. We've had computer vision for years. We've had licence plate recognition since the eighties. In the VI space, I think Kurzweil scanning software was invented in the eighties. So there's a really good use here of a computer interpreting a visual image, and it can do it mostly reliably. That's fine. It's the large language model generating stuff that goes off the wall.

Ken: It's okay if it's used in the right way.

Declan: It's even very good, used the right way. But letting it generate stuff, it does hallucinate. They actually ran a shop in America entirely on AI, and the AI gave a media interview making claims about what the shop sold that weren't true, and stuff like that.

Jade: Yeah. And on that, I think it was somewhere in the UK, an Aldi or an Asda, one of those shops, where they were doing the whole thing: you shop, you check out, and everything is done with AI. And I just thought, I really don't feel comfortable with that. I don't feel comfortable giving something like that my card details and not knowing where it's going.

Ken: And to be honest, Jade, it's taking jobs away from human beings as well.

Jade: Exactly. For me, as a visually impaired person, I prefer the human interaction. I like to know that I can at least ask, "Did I pick up the right tin of biscuits? Did I get the right chocolate?", rather than have an AI telling me it's Cadbury's, and then you go home and realise it's Galaxy.

Ken: It's like the self-service checkouts in supermarkets. You have to be with someone, and then you're trying to find where to tap your card, and they're all touch screens, as you know, which are pretty much unusable.

Jade: We could actually have a whole other podcast on this.

Jackie: So, Stuart, I'll ask your AI to buy me a koala.

Stuart L: Let's see what happens, Jackie. I'll even get it to ship it to you from wherever. Sorry, Jade, I was just going to say very briefly, to wrap up that AI thing: I think it's really important that there's an awareness among the general public. Of course, you don't want to scare people completely about AI. There are lots of positive things. It's just about society becoming more aware of what's good AI, and what maybe isn't so good, or what AI needs a little more thought in how it can be used for good.

Jade: Absolutely. I one hundred percent agree. And on that note, we would love to hear from you, our listeners. What tech scares you? What are you fearful of? Do you agree with us? Is AI scary? With what it can do now, does it scare you? Does it interest you? Give us your feedback at thetechdocpod@outlook.com. We would absolutely love to hear from you. And on that, Stuart Haxell, I'm not going to deprive you completely of your hosting duties.

Smart Devices and Listener Email Responses

Stuart H: Thank you. Apart from the ones about Jackie's toy, we had a few people emailing to guess how many smart devices she has.

Jade: That's right, we did. Jackie mentioned on the last show using a HomePod as a doorstop, so we asked our listeners: how many smart devices does Jackie have in her home? And I think we will keep this to HomePods and the like, instead of trying to bring in her vacuum, her air fryer and all of that kind of stuff.

Stuart H: I thought we had agreed to call them Lady A...

Jade: We did. I am very sorry, any listeners, if I've set off your devices.

Stuart H: Okay. So one listener guessed forty, one other guessed eight, and another listener guessed around twenty-five.

Jade: And sorry, there's one other one that I just saw there: someone guessed seven.

Stuart H: Oh yes, that must have just come in. I have Do Not Disturb turned on, so any new emails that come in during the show I might miss, unfortunately.

Jade: So Jackie, put us all out of our misery. How many do you have?

Jackie: I have twenty... I have about five or so in each room.

Jade: Even for a Tech Doc, Jackie, can I prescribe that you seek professional help?

Jackie: I am going to Alexa Anonymous.

Stuart H: I have to say, I think those Harry Potter surround sound books must be amazing in your house.

Jade: Absolutely.

Jackie: In my bedroom alone, I have a Google, and then I have five Alexa devices. I have three at the foot of my bed and one at the top of the bed. So the Harry Potter one you've got there is absolutely brilliant.

Ken: God, Jackie, you must be some entertainment for your neighbours.

Jackie: And for some of the audiobooks I listen to, it's very questionable. I've got it out in the hall in stereo as well.

Ken: Sounds like chaos.

Stuart H: I feel sorry for the poor postman who comes to your door. All right, we have a few other emails on different topics. Someone emailed in a few text replacements that they use, based on our discussion last time. Like the Uber one I mentioned, they use B-L-D, I'm guessing here...

Jade: And a colon.

Stuart H: And a colon, of course, using your punctuation, because otherwise, as I said, you'll end up with random things in the middle of your WhatsApp messages. So they do that for the Uber, and they have an alternative one they use when they have their guide dog with them: G-D-B...

Jade: GDB, colon.

Stuart H: Ah yeah, GDB colon, sorry. My VoiceOver actually cuts out the punctuation, because I have it on Some. I don't like having random punctuation read out the whole time.

Jade: No, that's very annoying.

Stuart H: So when they have their guide dog with them, that puts in another whole spiel. And the last one: they actually use text replacements for writing Markdown. Which I believe is, if you're typing in a plain text document, you can put symbols before words and brackets around words to make links and headings. So, for example, they type H1, and it puts in the symbols for a heading, and H2 for heading twos and stuff like that. So that's an interesting one, actually.

Jade: That's a very good one. And did we have any other outstanding emails? I think there's one more.

Stuart H: There are two more, actually. There's one about the Control Centre, and there's one that I think the Commander Doc would be fantastic to answer.

Jade: Well, we might hold that email back till the next episode, when Pat can join us again.

Stuart H: I think that's a good idea, yes. We need the expert Doc on this subject. So the other email is about the iPhone Control Centre. This listener wants to know how you actually work with it, how you edit it, and how you add things to it. I can give a brief rundown. On iPhones without a Home button, you swipe down with one finger from the top of your screen, slowly, until you feel a little vibration, and then you lift your finger. That opens your Control Centre. To edit it, find any item on it, say your Focus mode or Dark Mode, whatever it is, and swipe down with one finger until you hear "Edit". Or if that doesn't work, turn your rotor until you get to Actions, then swipe down and you'll hear "Edit Control Centre". Now you can swipe around, and on each item, swipe up and down and you'll hear "Delete" or "Resize", options that are probably unnecessary for people who can't see them. And you'll have the option to add a control, from the controls gallery. In there, there's a whole range of controls that you can put in your Control Centre, and you can jump through the categories with headings, which is on your rotor as well. So you can have your apps, your utilities, your accessibility controls; there's a whole lot in there.

Jade: I'm going to save you some time, Stuart, and do a bit of self-promotion for us: we'll put it in the show notes, but recently we did a webinar with David Nason from AppleVis, and one of the tips and tricks in it was the Control Centre. So if you watch that webinar, you'll find everything you need to know about editing your Control Centre.

Stuart H: That is a fair point. I'll let them go to that.

Jade: Absolutely. It really is a webinar worth watching. There are plenty of app recommendations, VoiceOver tips and tricks, magnification uses. There's loads in it. It was a very informative webinar.

Stuart H: Oh, and I've just seen one pop in there asking a very weird question. Someone's asking, "Is Daredevil a hero or a villain?" I don't know what they're on about, but I'd say he's a hero.

Jade: Does anybody understand this?

Jackie: Daredevil is from Marvel Comics, and he is blind. During the day he's blind, and as a superhero he's blind. He uses a cane, he reads braille, he uses speech software, but then he becomes Daredevil, and he can leap across buildings and high-kick somebody. And Stuart has done karate and stuff.

Jade: Are you Daredevil, Stuart?

Jackie: So it is possible for a blind or visually impaired person to do the likes of that. Not to jump off a building, no, or between two buildings...

Declan: I've leaped off buildings before. Not on purpose, but you know.

Jade: Are you Daredevil?

Stuart H: I think we're all Daredevil in our own way.

Jackie: I honestly think Daredevil is a positive representation of the community.

Jade: Oh, we are being paged. I think that is about all we have time for on this episode of The Tech Docs. So Stuart, thank you for reading the emails. I would like to thank Declan Meenagh for joining us to talk to us about DigiCoach and coding, and our masked producer, Stuart Lawler, for his input on the BrailleSense and for the tech that scares him. As always, we'd love to hear from you. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and we will be back next time. I hope you have enjoyed the episode as much as we have. That is all we have time for. Thank you, guys.

(The episode closes with a birthday song for Pat.)

The Docs: Happy birthday, Pat!