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First, a warm welcome to those with a Victor Reader Stream third generation running the latest software. You now have the ability to skip by chapter through the podcast. Well done to HumanWare for adding this.
On this week’s show, the Google IO keynote mentioned the word “AI” over 100 times! I’m not kidding, someone counted! Let’s hope they weren’t playing a drinking game! There is plenty of interesting material to discuss from the keynote, plus, there are some welcome improvements coming to Talkback. I’ll discuss some of the highlights, and I’m interested in how you’re feeling about the AI craze. Is it changing your life for the better, is it scary, a fad, or all of the above?
Never fear, ChatGPT isn’t left out of this week’s show, I’ll discuss several ways that you can interact with it on your iPhone.
It’s not unique to airlines, but it seems more common there than other places. You’re flying with a sighted companion, and the airline concludes your companion is your caregiver. Perhaps even worse, you’re not travelling with a sighted person, and a flight attendant arbitrarily tries to enlist a random passenger as your caregiver. There’s another account of this sort of behaviour on this week’s show. Have you experienced this with airlines yourself? Or another common situation like this is when you’re dining out, and your sighted companion is asked what you’d like to eat or drink? I’d love to hear your experiences.
On “The Archers” this week, a radio drama that has been airing on the BBC since 1951, a sighted character, who incidentally just happens to be played by a blind actor, got hit by a quiet electric car he didn’t hear coming. A listener has been thinking about quiet cars and the problem they pose for us. Have you had issues with this yourself, and what do you know about efforts to require these cars to make a sound?
We celebrate the continuing growth of Mastodon with two significant blindness organisations becoming a part of it recently.
Listeners share their thoughts on the many app subscriptions developers now expect us to pay for, with a particular focus on Voice Dream Reader.
Sadly, listener horror stories continue to come in about recurring issues with Freedom Scientific’s Focus 40 Blue fifth generation Braille displays.
And a listener is having a lot of trouble using Audible in Windows. Do you use Audible in Windows? If so, how are you getting on? We also revisit an Audible alternative that doesn’t use digital rights management.
As you can tell, it’s an episode packed with information and opinion, and there is plenty more. It’s all in Living Blindfully 229, coming to Plus subscribers on Sunday New Zealand time.