Hello and welcome to the HumanWare
See Things Differently podcast.

Each month, join your hosts
Peter Tucic, Rachael Ramos and David Woodbridge as we bring you
engaging interviews from guests.

Interaction from our one of a kind
distribution partners stories that will take you off the beaten path.

Current promos, shows
where you can find us, and so much more.

So stick around.

Good morning,
good evening, good day, good afternoon.

Good. What is it? Thursday?
It's always Thursday.

We always come to you live prerecorded
on the third Thursday of every month.

Hi, Rachel. How are you? Happy May.

Hey, Peter.

Happy May.

Happy May.
How was your first 17 days of May?

You know, they were absolutely incredible.

Gone biking and hiking
and been to a comedy club.

It's been a great May so far.
How about yours?

You know what would have helped?

If I would have checked the actual day
this was coming out?

I just assumed it was like the 17th, but, the actual- it's actually going
to be coming out on the 15th of May.

So I don't know.

You're almost talking
about the next two days in the future, but that's for a whole other episode.

We can predict what you've been doing
the first 17 days of May on the 15th of May, which is fascinating,
but, David, happy May!

Thank you.

Look at always.

I'm always amazed that
I always come to the future.

So, you know,
you guys think it comes out on Thursday.

I actually know it comes out on Friday.

And the fact that if you give me two extra days in the future,
I know I'm just loving it now.

So I'm way ahead of you guys.
This is truth.

I guess.

Technically you're -
you're always a day ahead.

More than a dollar ahead.

You're just everything ahead.

I had dug it to get away on the dollar bit
because, you know, every time somebody says,
how much is this cost in Australia?

Oh, it's $1 million. Don't worry about it.

Yeah.

It's like, well, I think, it is important
to note you are the you're like me.

You're a man of the people.

You're recording this on a public holiday.

So thank you for stepping up to the plate
on a public holiday.

Just putting in the time to, to
to be a part of See Things Differently

The podcast.

So one other piece about this
episode is before I get to our, our special guest and someone I can't
wait to talk to is we also are joined by Mathieu Paquette from HumanWare.
How are you, Mathieu?

I am really good.

And David, if I may ask, given that you're living at the in the future,
do you mind, shipping me the lottery numbers or something?

I certainly will. Absolutely awesome.

For the Australian lottery.
Or for one in Canada.

Either one. I'll take either.

You'll figure it out. Yeah.

So Matthew is at HumanWare, is our product manager
for the Victor Reader Stream,

StellarTrek and other talking
products.

Mathieu is here because he's quite
knowledgeable on the pop culture side.

And in this sort of the theme of May is
going to be blindness in popular culture.

You know, we've we've touched on Braille,
we've touched on, low vision.

We've talked about the GPS or O&M
sort of sides of things.

We've talked a bit about libraries and
books and talking devices and products.

We wanted to kind of switch it up
and have it more of an open discussion about blindness.

Since Rachel, myself
and David are all blind and amongst many other HumanWare employees
and certainly many, many of our listeners are blind
or low vision, we want to talk about blindness
in its representation in pop culture.

And when I, you know, we sat down and kind
of brainstormed on who we could talk to, somebody came to mind
who is a friend of mine who I oftentimes kind of pass in the night over the years
at many different conferences.

He is a producer and a consultant.

He's worked on many TV shows,
including, Daredevil, including See, and certainly other Netflix pieces
and does lots of consulting.

But to me, I know him
as somebody who is a motivational speaker, somebody who does a lot and cares
deeply about employment, works in the transition space for,
you know, blind and low vision kiddos going from high school to whatever,
maybe next to the workforce or university.

And I know Rachel,
you have also had that sort of encounter with our esteemed guest here,
Joe Stretchay.

And Joe is joining
us, and we're going to talk a bit about kind of his journey
and how he kind of advocates for the representation of blindness across
some of these mainstream media and the shows he works on,
but also just a bit about his story.

What's up Joe?

Welcome to See Things Differently
with HumanWare. Hey, thank you so much for having me on, HumanWare is a great
company and organization and, being surrounded by some fantastic people here.

Yeah.

Rachel, we just saw each other
for the first time in many years,

I think last year.

And I think around this time, actually,
and, Peter, I've known for many years and all you guys and, so,
but thank you for what you guys do.

Oh, we were just-

I mean, we're a small part of this,
I think when when we look at and and it's it's very interesting to me
because I think we all grew up-

I mean, you're blind.

Obviously we are, we are, we are blind
here, myself and David and Rachel.

And a lot of times,
you know, the reference, especially when I was a kid, would have
been something like Mr. Magoo, right?

Or like there was like some blind scene
in Dude, Where's My Car?

Right?

Or there was it
just a lot of the stereotypical either buffoonery, blind people,
just kind of that bumbling, fumbling stuff or just maybe something that was a bit over
the top with its inspiring qualities.

Can you touch on a little bit
how you ended up kind of getting into the space of working
with the perception of blindness in film?

Yeah.

I can say I kind of got into the film
industry, through the back door.

My, I, like, I came out of high school
wanting to work in, media and weather, sports or entertainment media and went to college, and I studied, public relations and broadcasting
and media, at East Carolina University.

Go Pirates.

So I went to college there,
and I was already losing my vision.

I was legally blind at 19 or 20. And, and like what I saw for the future,
I was trying to figure it out.

And I didn't have the blindness skills
that I have today.

And I didn't get them in school.

I wish to anything

I'd gotten them in school.

I had it on my IEP
that I was visually impaired and all this.

And I had, a learning disability
growing up before all that.

And I got lots of services
for my learning disability, but I didn't get any services
for my visual impairment. And,

I kind of stumbled my way through and,
figured out some things.

And East
Carolina University was really good to me.

Their student disability resource center.

And,
introducing me to, like, updating myself books on tape,
actual tapes, like 4-track tape.

Yeah.

So going through, learning,
like how to access my books and, and dealing with professors
and, talking about.

And it wasn't very evident to the public.

And I didn't know how to use a cane.
I didn't have a cane.

And I wanted to learn how to use a cane
and kind of some mishaps with doctors
telling me that was not necessary.

It was obsessed with TV and films
like through high school, all four years of high school,

I worked at a video store again,
dating myself, and it wasn't Blockbuster.

Everyone asked me if it's Blockbuster.

It was a small mom and pop one closer to,
the video store in Clerks.

It was called, Corner Video Photo.

We also developped photos.

Did you have, did you have a Jay and
Silent Bob hanging out around the front?

Oh, dude, I was a fan of that show.

But definitely there were a lot of similarities
to our video store and that video store.

And we were in new Jersey as well, so
I, I graduated from college, and it was, and I left early to do an internship up in the, in new Jersey, New York area,
working in sports marketing and PR.

And I ended up at this one
working with the NFL.

And, you know, September 2001, like,
I started in August and the economy wasn't doing great and our firm
was getting smaller and smaller.

And, September 11th happened
and we got smaller and smaller and, by by November,
I was getting laid off.

And I was definitely losing more
and more of my vision.

And I didn't know,
I just started getting services.

At that time,
I learned how to use the white cane.

I learned how to use technology,
which changed my life and started learning braille.

And really, a lot of those blindness compensatory skills really started
changing my attitude.

But, after I got laid off,

I took a job at as a statistician and went in for a substitute teacher job
and got offered a teacher assistant job and I was like,
I need to pay the bills.

And I did that for almost two years,
you know, emotional, behavioral, special ed in northern New Jersey.

There were two students
who were visually impaired there, and I wasn't
working with them all the time.

But I got to work with them and at times and meet the professionals
who were working with them.

And it kind of opened my eyes
a little bit.

I already was searching what I might
go back to school with because I was underemployed.

I started looking at opportunities
around education.

And then New Jersey Commissioner
for the blind suggested some opportunities, and I was like,
oh, teaching children who are blind or visually impaired,
I like teaching.

Maybe I can help
give those services that I didn't receive growing
up, help people get those skills.

And,
and so I started looking at the programs around the country, and I ended up
at Florida State University.

And while I was there in that program,

I specialized in teaching children
who are visually impaired.

Orientation, mobility
a little bit around, VRT or vision rehabilitation therapy and a specialty
around transition from school to work.

I was myself and, a friend.

Tiffany, we're the first folks
to to add that specialty to the program.

Along the way,
we in one of our classes, professor had us analyze, films that involve
blindness and, critique them.

And I had been doing that already,
so I just started writing about them.

And from then on,
I was watching everything that involved disability or blindness
and trying to critique it a little bit.

And I never thought
it was going to lead to a career.

I had multiple jobs
after my graduate work in the blindness world, helping people who are blind, like teaching them
how to travel in New York and New Jersey.

I did some work in Florida teaching adults
who are blind, traveling around like 12 counties, VRT type work,
and I then transition services and in Florida as well,
where I met Rachel and then this organization,
the American Foundation for the blind, recruited me and created a job for me,
around employment and writing and stuff.

So I was writing about them,
put me on travel around the country doing trainings for young people who are blind
or low vision, which I love to do.

And I did it as kind of
like a hobby prior.

And during that time I started at night getting bored of writing at,
about employment all the time.

I started writing about popular culture,
like TV, movies, like popular people who are blind or low
vision in the media or out in the world.

And that took off and, and I started became popular.

People started contacting us about commercials that they were casting
people who are blind or low vision for it.

So to help them find people
and then a writers room, for a USA network show
called Royal Pains reached out.

Oh, I watched- I love that.

Did you?

Okay, well, I worked on season five,
I think three of the episodes in season five, where there was a blind love interest who is blind introduced.

So they built my slang and lingo
into the character, and, I gave, thoughts on what
the situation was, what they might do, and then this really secretive
show reached out.

They started interviewing
for this opportunity, and I found out it was Marvel's Daredevil.

At the end of the interview process,
they called me up and I was I remember

I was on vacation with my wife in Florida,
and they're like, why didn't you interview for this or
apply for this?

And I'm like, well,
I have a full time job.

And, you know, and they're like, well, we think you should come up and interview,
would you be willing to fly in?

So I fly, I take another day off,
and after my vacation and I fly to New York
and I interview, with the producers and the director
and the different departments, and I give them input, my thoughts,
and even like the stuff

I knew about the history of,
the character and from growing up with it.

So the next day, I show up and I meet with Charlie Cox, and, we were first sitting down and talking,
and he's asking me questions, and we're talking about my thoughts
on the character and what can be done.

And, things I've seen over the years
and what, what not to do and how I would provide training
if I was working with them.

So we started working together.

We went through all the little,
little things, you know, here and there.

And then he also-
everyone learns differently.

He also recorded me doing things,
and he noticed things about, like how I hold my cane.

And I do like an adapted technique
between long, the long white cane technique and,
and like the traditional cane technique, using a traditional cane
because it's more durable.

Have you noticed, I mean, so Daredevil
being where they really did take your, your considerations into account
down to the tee.

Right.
Whereas some, some other shows didn't.

And then they realized like,
wow, we're getting a lot of blowback or it just was an awful portrayal
of blindness.

I mean, and it has nothing to do
with the character, but just the way she was doing things
like opening all the juices in the, in the, you know, freezer to the fridge
to find the cranberry juice.

I mean, that's just oh, that's crazy.

I mean, have you found that since obviously since that time that you're,
you're able to be included earlier on some of these shows that they're reaching out to you earlier,
or has it really changed the way that you know, of,
of how you're finding or looking for work?

Yes or no?

Yes.

Definitely.
People are looking out earlier.

The fact that I worked
with like, Marvel's Daredevil and it was- it was well accepted in our community
for the most part.

And the oh, as well, with Brit Marling.

Soon after that.

Yeah.

People,
started reaching out to me and and and at that time, we didn't like one of my early questions
to the producers was, is the actor blind?

Before I knew who it was, Charlie Cox,
before they told me about the actor.

And they go, no, I'm like, okay.

And that was the norm at that time.

And then I went on to work
with Brit later on and, who as well, in the child version and in Daredevil,
there were other characters somewhere, like more open to my feedback than others,
like, Scott Glenn.

I don't know if you know
the character Stick.

Yeah.

From season one and all, and he, and
I think he I just saw him in something recently.

White Lotus

Yeah, I just saw him in
White Lotus. Yeah.

I was like, it's
so trippy to hear his voice.

And I'd be giving him
notes and he would just walk away from me and, executive producer,
the director would be like, he just walked off. As shows, reached out,
and then, like, I started being my voice grew as I, I because, you know,
I didn't know what it was to work on a big film
set until Marvel's Daredevil.

I believe I have a responsibility
to make sure that what the portrayals

I put out there, whether they are actors
who are blind or low vision or not, are respecting our community
and respecting like something that I would look at and be proud of
because I know I never saw characters who are blind for the most part,
that reflect in myself.

A quick question, Joe, on on the flip
side of earlier, you mentioned, you know, you were giving notes to to an actor
and he kind of wasn't receiving them very well.

On the flip side, I want to ask,
who's the because I look at your web page and you've got pictures with Jason Momoa
and Charlie Cox and a bunch of actors.

Who would you say is the person
that was like you felt a genuine interest and engagement into learning
what it is to be visually impaired?

I would say Charlie Cox, Brit Marling, and Brit Red,
she's very experiential overall.

She wanted to experience it.

We spent like eight hours wandering
around Jersey city under sleep shade, going to restaurants and just navigating
miles of, street crossing.

I didn't let her cross the street.
She would hold on to me.

So I was guiding her across the street.

I did that with Charlie, too, but,

I would say Britain and Charlie
were definitely the most and on.

See, there were hundreds of, folks, and, there were lots of folks
who were super respectful.

But, you know,
Charlie still gives back to the community.

He, like, he I think he just visit.

I set up for him to visit
the New York Institute for the blind, or New York Institute
for Special Education in the Bronx.

Like a month ago. He wanted to go.

When he has time, he wants to go
visit schools and talk to kids.

And he knows he's not blind,
but he knows that he has a responsibility to represent.

When I first met you, you were on kind
of a motivational speaking circuit, coming in and talking a lot
about really just, you know, getting it done, taking a chance, putting yourself
out there, being straightforward.

What would you- and have you had anyone.

Because I mean, Rachel I'm
I know gets this.

David I'm sure you get this.
I get it all the time.

How can I do what you do?

And as a blind person, what I try to tell anybody is it's about verbal
and written communication.

Very, very important.

And in this blindness
technology space, where we are the better your communication skills.

You know, it doesn't sometimes even matter how much you know
a product or how well you know a product, it's how well you can communicate
your knowledge and help others learn and have you had anybody come up specifically,
or have you has anybody else broken into the space to be, an advocate
in this sort of same role?

You are or what would you tell those, you know, those who want to do it,
somebody who's blind, it's got this show or this place or this player, this
anything is not doing a good enough job.

What does it take or can it take this
to get into something like that and convince people
that you are going to be, you know, able to to provide them
with a lot of guidance to help them out?

What would someone need to do or what would you encourage
somebody to do to get into it?

I would say knowing,
I do believe it's important to know the professional side
stuff like the research is I'll use like research, statistics around, echolocation
or how sound moves or, about little details.

So I think the professionals side
does help a lot, but also like, being out there and I think what you're
saying, like how to communicate it because I have to be able to reach people
where they are.

I, define
how I'm going to communicate notes, how they receive notes,
how they learn all kinds of things.

Working on All The Light
We Cannot See for Netflix.

Our actor was photo phobic.

She was legally blind.

And truthfully,
we ended up changing her vision.

She's technically
not legally blind anymore, because I brought up that,
she might need, like, some kind of sunglasses
with, like, a red tint.

For bright light, because otherwise
she's going to be squinting in.

The character's totally blind.

In All The Light We Cannot See.

And and I was like,
but we could play with light perception.

But we're going to have to change
other scenes.

And and the production
took it to a different level.

They're like, well, what about contacts?

And they had an expert,
create these like, contacts that were,
they a certain color that worked best, that, didn't come across on camera,
but also allowed her to see better in bright
light and later on, after our show, she ended up getting a prescription
for those contacts.

And now she's not legally blind.

I think having a media background
knowing how film works helps.

I think, you know, having training.

So, like, you know what works?

Because when I'm giving my opinion, it's
not just my opinion.

It's like based on research.

But then there's practical side.

And I also include lots of-
I have a focus group of people who are blind that I reach out to,
that are under non-disclosure agreements.

I wanted it to jump in.

I just love everything that you're saying.

And of course, when I came across you,
almost 20 years ago now, you were so enthusiastic
and you just inspired me because,

I mean, I just love life and tech
and all that stuff. And.

Well, when I saw you operating things
like were taking it back a bit, but blackboard, you know, or canvas
or any of these things, it's like, how do you do that?

And you were just a great champion
of accessibility of technology.

How have you kind of incorporated
that into your work with either your clients, that you've trained
or with the actors like, have you used
maybe your own technology on the set?

You know, an iPhone
or Android or something?

And I don't know what kind of feedback
have they given you?

So I guess that's a couple questions, but what have you used
and how have they responded?

I use lots of technology
and I love technology.

Like, I, I'm not like a super expert
like you guys, but I love tech.

You know, I'm willing to try new things
and apps and devices and software.

I'm, I love VoiceDream Reader.

The app which is now subscription.

I love that app actors who are cited but directors Francis Lawrence
and, Dave Bautista, who's an actor, they're now using VoiceDream
Reader to read scripts.

That's wild.

I like I like that
I wish we could have Winston Chen on.

He would, he would have love to hear
that, too, I'm sure.

Oh, yeah, I I've never met Winston.

I've introduced
so many actors and directors to VoiceDream Reader and, they so they can listen to scripts in the car
or when they're doing other things.

And we get so many updated scripts
and you don't want to like so many versions and like,
you don't want to read everything, like, as a sighted person,
that's what they tell me.

And so adding the listening ability
to it, really helps them.

And you know, how many people
have learning disabilities out there?

Tons.

You know, 72% of persons
with disabilities have non-visible disabilities, and learning
disabilities are part of that.

So, our- a lot of our, our tech also helps people
with learning disabilities.

Actually, it's quite funny because
I'm, I'm now actually a karate person.

So I've been doing karate for the last three years,
and every one needs to walk into the dojo.

People can say, can you wear a Marvel outfit
next time you get to your blackboard?

And I go, I'll probably think about it,
but, I, I've always found Marvel.

Daredevil was actually really,
really good.

And the actor,
always seemed to, to really get it.

But what I was wondering about too, was how how does all this go into do you have any input into the audio
description side of things?

Because I remember when I just started
watching The Last of Us here in Australia, my wife said the audio
description is good, but they're actually missing a nuance, in it,
because I thinking there were some situations
where, you know, the male, the main male character, was grimacing
or doing something, but the actual audio description skipped it.

So I'm just wondering, does your sort of
insight into the character building also go into the audio
description side of things?

It does.

I, I'm blessed
that on season two and three of See and then on the show
All the Light We Cannot See.

I got to, provide
input to the audio description team on, things that we would like
to be included, but also like going back and watching because I- what I heard
and I saw there were moments in, season one
that were described in ways like there's this moment,
where there's character Baloo is walking to what is called,
she's walking to a new balcony, and she's using her hand
to feel the sun on the back of her hand, and it's on her
face to use for directionality.

And it says she's feeling the air.

But she's not feeling the air

So, season two, I.

I kept bothering my friends at Apple
and who I'm really close with.

Obviously, I love my Apple products.

Some of my best friends there, and, and I, they, championed me getting involved with it
and giving input.

So typically productions have nothing
to do with the audio description in a film or show.

And, and there were rules designed
originally by sighted folks around audio description.

But that had been updated in the later
years.

Now around involving the
the blindness community, All The Light

We Cannot See they
they made it happen and, and they had to, do the narration.

And, it's 11 minute piece
for the whole series.

So it's not every episode, but it goes through
and has her talking, reading through, and they're describing it's notes
from the costume department and, and other folks in the sets,
giving them more detail about the show.

And, and I,
I thought that was pretty awesome and groundbreaking, but there are things
I want to do in the future, too.

I would love to see a world where and,
might go into the AI part of it, but I would love to be able to select
low/medium verbosity.

I don't know, more detailed,
audio description.

What I think we'll wrap
this on just- you're not done.

Nobody's done with this.
And there's so much.

Yes. You know, we see perceptions
maybe shifting.

We see that there is a bit more inclusion.

You know, sometimes
you're getting that call earlier, but there's so much more
you can continue to do.

And there's still lots of ways, even to improve both the perception
of blindness across TV shows and film, but also just in what a blind person
can get out of TV shows and film.

And I think that that's what's neat here.

And so your ability to play a part in that
and hopefully get some others into the field, you know, to
to play a part in that means a lot.

So I really, really it's been awesome
to talk with you and we appreciate it.

And I know you're going
to stick around with us, but thank you for thank you for sitting down.

You know what to me, it's
you made my month because you mentioned that Charlie Cox
integrated a lot of your mannerism and everything into his character.

So in a way, I feel like
I've just talked with Daredevil, which is- I'm such a fanboy of the show,
so that's awesome.

He's great.

And and, he used Voiceover when,
they were making the mask for season one.

They had his face in a mask where he like
this, mold, and he couldn't see.

So he turned on Voiceover on his phone
and started using his phone that way.

It's awesome. Joe, can you tell?

And I know that you have lots of ways
for people to stay in touch with you.

What is the best way for people to follow
and know what you are up to?

I have a Instagram account.

I have a Facebook account.

I'm always Joe

Strechay

I've got LinkedIn.

Joe Strechay. Well,
thank you so much, Joe.

Thanks a ton for being here.

All right.

Welcome back to another segment here on to see things
Differently with HumanWare podcast.

And we're going to have our hot
take Joe is sticking around and we're going to talk about AI
and more specifically

AI is really the buzzword of today.

Right?

I mean, we all know there are tools that help us
do all sorts of things, like recognize, you know, describe images or recognize objects
we may be holding or lots and lots of pieces.

One of the biggest concerns
that I think comes through is when we use, generally
speaking, artificial intelligence.

And the most common ways we we tend to use it as blind people
through apps on our phones, or maybe through a website.

We are providing information to a server,
and that server is spitting information back to us.

And a lot of what we send through
can be subject to, you know, a lot can can really bring up
lots of privacy issues.

And what I want to talk a bit about is what each of our concerns
or thoughts are on our use of AI, and what are we willing to give up to
to get that sort of usefulness?

And what I mean by that is
when I take a picture of a bank statement, just because I really need
to find out the amount of a bill or, you know, even give up a lot
of my personal info in theory, just also that I can get that answer
and again, it's a very simple way to put it, but
I think it's something I want to touch on.

And, you know, David, I'm, I'm assuming
and I don't know what the regulations are where you are in Australia,
but here in the States things are quite wide open, whereas in Europe and in Canada
and certainly in other places, there are different privacy laws
that come into play. Personally,

I tend to throw caution to the wind and just utilize AI
because I, I tend to let it all go.

And I figured Google and everyone is data mining me so bad
anyway at this point that I might as well.

They probably know
how many hair follicles I have.

That's just probably already done deal.

But I tend to be a bit, a bit you know, less concerned and probably
a bit less concerned than I should be.

But what are
what are you guys thoughts on this?

Are you willing and how does AI,
how do you use AI, and are you willing
to give up your personal identifier sort of information at times just to get the benefit of
of using the tool to help you?

So I think it depends on the tool.

Right.

So there is Be My Eyes
which you take a picture.

It sends it to a server like you were saying,
and then it gives you back the results.

Whereas Seeing AI to
my understanding is local.

So if I have a new credit card
or like you were saying, a bank statement,

I would prefer to take a picture
that doesn't either have to send it anywhere you download
the necessary tools onto your device, and then it can give you back
the information.

Obviously,
there's not a lot of getting around it, because if we use the Internet
and don't live in a cave somewhere, we have to give up some type of privacy.

But for what I can, I prefer to do things
locally if at all possible.

I, I sort of go around
with like Rachel saying, I,

I don't mind
people knowing anything about me, like where I've been, what I'm doing,
what I watch on television.

The type of books
I read, I really don't care.

But when it comes to more private
information about my budget to get my passport,
my marriage certificate, my financial statements,
that's where I start going

You know what?

This is getting close
to very, extremely private information.

So I tend to try and do things
locally as well.

The same as Rachel
and I tend to use my phone on my Mac because as an Apple person,
I wouldn't trust Windows or Android as far as I could
throw either one of them.

So I tend to restrict my stuff because Apple's extremely big on privacy.

So I,
you know, and it may be old marketing hype sometimes, but I thought, well,
if there's a little bit involved,

I'll probably tend to use my Apple stuff,
particular when I'm doing banking and everything else I tend to trust the
AI more than I trust a human being because it's like, well, that human being can now
sort of hopefully, you know, maybe wander off and talk to other people
about how, you know, what
this guy just asked me about today.

And they're like, isn't that hilarious?

Whereas the AI system, I can
I guess the the people that develop it can go and talk to about, you know,
random data and that sort of stuff.

But it's very weird.

I've noticed lately I, I much prefer
going down these rabbit holes with

AI than I do with person.

I just never I-
you got me thinking about it now,

I can say I'm pretty open with AI,
except there is an exception.

In my work in film.

Like we're on film
sets and, around all kinds of things.

I try not to use any of my
AI devices, for that.

But out in the world, on and at home, I'm
using it all the time.

How about this one, though?

Facial recognition.

We're going to end on this.

Do we as blind people because this
this comes up all the time, especially with the with the Meta glasses
and with lots of of AI tech.

Do we or should we have the right to
for ourselves.

Because currently this is not
really possible to take a picture of and get descriptions of people
generated by AI, whether it's who is this or
what does this person look like?

Or should we be able to do that?

Yes or no?

This kind of comes into the same vein
because in a sense of of course I want to know.

I would love those descriptions.

But technically speaking,
I mean, the person on the other end doesn't say that they can, you know, that I can use

AI to know who they are or what they look like, or and there's
going to be these inherent biases.

And I think things have to
because I think it's the same thing.

I think you're because you're literally put, well, if you're wearing a, you know, the Meta
Ray-Ban glasses or whatever else.

I mean, yes, you can do it,
but it's like wearing a pair of, you know, camera based glasses
into a bathroom or something.

I mean, nobody knows what you're doing
with that camera, and I just think it adds more angst to the whole picture
about people using cameras.

And I would say no.

Also, at the airports, at least here, now,
when you go through the security checkpoint, you have an option.

You can either be identified by the camera, or
you can tell them to turn off the camera.

And you can be identified with your ID
and boarding pass.

And I prefer that.

And of course, you know, who knows how many surveillance cameras
we are just on every day, just by nature of walking around,
going into shopping malls and stores.

But if I have a choice,
I'd prefer not to be a just because I think if we, let's say, in
the future, took a picture of someone through
Meta glasses or some other smart glasses and they said, oh,
that's Bob Smith, and he's wearing a tie and a suit or whatnot.

It's like, Bob
Smith should introduce himself to me first before AI can tell me who he is.

I'd rather think
that an organic introduction would be better than an
AI already telling you who someone is.

I have mixed feelings like I would love descriptions of people,
not who they are, but I have.

I've seen the other side of that I was
using Seeing AI showing it off to actors and it told me who they were
because they were celebrities.

It knew their name because there's
so many pictures online of them.

And I was like, whoa.

And I didn't know it could do that.

Yeah.

So I, I definitely see
and I know the reason they block it is for stalkers because originally
when they kind of borrowed the, the picture recognition technology
from Yahoo, they Facebook,
it became used for stalkers by stalkers.

The fine people they were looking for in
and by using images.

So that's why it's blocked. But,

I don't know.

I would I guess I would love
to have descriptions of people at least.

I would love though, because
because in theory,

I mean,
and I don't know how they make this work in similar ways, but a sighted person,
when they walk into a room or when they're in a, in
a cocktail reception or they're somewhere they're able to glance over and know, very quickly A who's around and B if that person is engaged, if they're talking to somebody,
if they're available, if they're wandering around,
maybe they look lost.

I don't know what it is.
I would love to have some of that ability.

I'm glad we could talk about it briefly.

And again, if anyone has thoughts,
send your thoughts.

Any ideas, any thoughts on this
or anything we have talked about to [email protected] .

Welcome back to everyone's favorite segment,
the cringeworthy moment here on HumanWare

See Things Differently with HumanWare
the podcast this one we always kick around
what we're going to talk about I think for for all of our listeners who are blind
and, and low vision, who kind of talk through, these things with each other,
you all have moments that you talk about.

But I want to talk about food.

And Rachel is the one
who brought this one up, and she just had,

I think, a recent experience, which
she's going to talk about in a moment.

But I think we all have food.

It's food fears or food issues
that have arisen.

And I'll, I'll get into some.
I will eat most anything.

Rachel. Rachel. What happens?

Picky. When it comes to food, I,
I love it all.

But there are some things that,
you don't expect.

So I was recently enjoying some breakfast
so that at a recent conference and I had one of those lovely eggs
and potatoes and sausage and all those those good things
we love to fill up for the day.

And I thought that I was going to enjoy a lovely forkful of sausage, and instead it was the piece of orange
that was garnishing the plate.

I thought, oh, well, that's a surprise,
and consumed it and and no problem.

But it just reminded me of at times.

I'm sure everyone on this show has had
where you think you're eating something and you get something unexpected,
and what do you do?

In my case,
I just consumed it. It was no problem.

Sometimes you just have to eat it, especially depending on the company
you have around.

You just have to act like, you just
kind of barrel right through it, right?

I think we've all eaten our fair share
of, like, you know, like bay leaves.

Or you can say in this,
this kind of carries over and there is I'm like, you're Rachel,
and you know this.

I mean, there's no food
I won't eat. No, not really, not one.

And I've been fortunate enough to go to different parts of the world
and I'll eat wild things.

I mean, absolutely wild things.

The only problem, though, is I don't know
how to eat all of those foods, because oftentimes,
especially when it's something you didn't grow up with
or you're not familiar with, you might love the food,
but when they serve it to you, you don't know what to do with it.

And I've had scenarios where like, I,
you know, if you don't know how to work with crab claws,
that's going to be kind of tough to to kind of learn on the fly
when you're in a nice business dinner.

Have you ever had. Yeah.
Any of those kind of stories of guys?

I mean, just just odd things.

So I've only had this happen once,
and I'm probably I might be the only one who was.

It's happened to. I was eating a burger
and I was at a restaurant.

I had a few beverages already.

And it was real loud in this place,
and this burger comes, it's a big burger, and I, I reach out
and I grab it, and I'm, like, holding it.

And, you know, you do the usual things.

You check for stuff like what's on the.

And so I take a bite
and there was a toothpick in it and it was pushed down into the bun.

So it wasn't like first feel

And I kind of toothpick like long ways
partial.

May have been half a toothpick,
I don't know, but, in my mouth.

And I'm like.

I've totally done this.

Yeah. Okay, let's see
that makes me feel better.

I felt so alone at that moment
because I've only done it once.

I've actually experienced
having a food thrown at me.

And I must say,
it's actually very enjoyable.

I've just, like now, done it to make sure
that I'm not wearing anything nice.

I'll go and get stoned because I really
can't catch the food for some

Reason.

Well, thank you for sharing everybody.

And yeah, I love it.

Don't be afraid.

Don't be afraid to eat.

But definitely if you have any cringe,
cringe worthy food stories, I'm sure.

I'm sure there are some that will come in.

Feel free
to send them to [email protected]

I must say we haven't
had a ton of feedback coming in.

I've gotten some some really nice notes
from listeners, but no, not many stories.

So I'm when we need some stories,
we're gonna have to really pump up the, the story content
coming in from from the listeners.

I appreciate we all appreciate
the accolades, but, bring us any, any stories, anything that relates to you,
feel free to send it to us.

Joe,
thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

This is amazing. David.

Australia is on my bucket list.

So haven't been there yet,
but I will make it there.

Well, everybody,
we will be back with another segment.

And thanks again to Joe. Thanks, Rachel.

Thanks, David,
and we will see you in a second.

Welcome back to our Partner Corner.

Everybody in this month
we are keeping it international.

And you know we've we've gone
across the pond both ways.

We've gone to Australia.
That's a huge pond.

We've gone across the Atlantic.

We're going to go a little bit
north of the border and we're going to talk to someone
who's a friend of mine, but also a podcaster
who knows way more about this than I do.

So I'm going to need some advice from,
from our partner, Mr.

Steve Barclay. How are you doing, Steve?

I'm doing just great. Thanks.

Can I just say I brought this
just for you. (bell sound)

Does that work?

All right. Does that work?

Oh, absolutely. Got to have more cowbell.

You know, I was a drummer
back in back in a previous life, so I had to dust it off.

My wife was like, what are you doing?

I said, I got to talk to Steve Barclay,
host of the ATBanter podcast.

And so I'm really happy to have you on to See Things
Differently with HumanWare podcast and can you just,
I guess, talk a bit about about Canadian assistive technology,
which is your company?

What what exactly do you guys do?

We do all kinds of, equipment
for people with disabilities.

So a large portion of that is, of course, low vision of blindness stuff,
which is where we cross drills constantly.

But, we also do a lot of other areas.

So we do, some equipment
for physical access, for getting people who have, physical disabilities
connected to computers and tablets and the like, for, you know,
the purposes of communication and, control of their environment.

We do some augmentative
communication devices for the nonverbal.

So helping people speak
who can't normally speak, and then we have,
some products for dementia, and, some products for hearing loss.

That's awesome.
So yeah. Pan and disability.

I guess the other question is so from a from a HumanWare from a,
you know, a distributor standpoint, you are in Western Canada, but you certainly do sell product,
not just in BC, correct?

Yeah. We're right across the country,
which is which is awesome.

I know you you cover, cover a lot of it.

And between yourself and Rob
and Ryan do the awesome podcast.

And so I really wanted to have you wanted
to talk about how can people find you?

And find Canadian Assistive Technology?

Well, Canadian assistant technology
is pretty straightforward to find.

You can find us on our website at https://canasstech.com/

Very polite, canasstech.com

Love it.

You can also find, the ATBanter podcast
at

ATBanter.com

And if you're, really bored one day
and you want to go through 400 plus episodes,
you can start to binge listening.

Steve, I really appreciate having you on.

And we we definitely,
hopefully we'll have you back.

We can do some, some, code kind of some crossover,
some cross-pollination podcasting.

But can I just leave you with a quick
banter, banter, banter banter.

Hello and welcome to another Tips
and Tricks segment.

In this segment,
we are going to be looking at the brand new support
introduced on the Victor Reader stream for searching and downloading
audiobooks from Bookshare.

First, I'm going to make sure
that I'm on my online bookshelf, and then I'm going to press key
one to get to my Bookshare utility

Bookshare three books search for books.

I'm already on the search for books
category, so I'm going to press confirm

Most popular.

And now I can search by Most Popular.

I can browse by category, but I'm going to press key six
until I get to author search.

Most recent browse categories previous downloads
title search, author search.

And I'm going to press confirm.

Enter text to search.

Dan Brown d a n space b r o w n.

Now I already have the author in here
that I'd like to search for.

If you want to search
for different author, you can simply use the keypad to type
that author's name in.

And I'm going to press confirm.

I'm going to search for
books by Dan Brown.

Confirmed 100 results found one Inferno
featuring Robert Langdon, Dan Brown.

I'm going to search for The Da Vinci Code,
so I'm going to press key six to go forward through these results
Two Digital Fortress three.

The Lost Symbol, Four The Da Vinci Code,
Dan Brown now here is The Da Vinci Code,
but I want to make sure that this is the audio version
and not the Daisy version.

So to check the format
I'm going to press key five format Daisy BRF

So that said the format was Daisy.

That's not the one
I'm particularly looking for.

So I'm going to press key
six to go to the next result.

Five The Da Vinci Code
the young adult adaptation Dan Brown Six

The Da Vinci Code,
Dan Brown here's the next result.

I'm going to press key
five to check the format.

Format. Daisy audio description.

While in Paris, I'm pressing the play
pause key to stop the speech.

The said Daisy audio.

That is indeed the one I want.

So I'm going to press
confirm to download the book

The Da Vinci Code queued for download.

Bookshare download completed.

All right.

We have The Da Vinci Code now downloaded.

Now I'm going to press key
one to go back to my Bookshare bookshelf.

Bookshare four books one.

Health Psychology
topics in Applied Psychology.

I'm going to press key four
to get to the latest result.

Search for books Four World Geography

Three.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, read by Jeff Harding.

And that is just one of many audiobooks
available on Bookshare that are human narrated,
and those downloads are now directly supported through the Victor
Reader Stream.

All right, everybody,
it's time for the upcoming shows.

And this is a very international flavor,
to our upcoming shows.

And we're excited to be able,
you know, to bring our products to you wherever you may be in the world.

And maybe we will be even closer to you
next time.

But right now, we'll be talking about
what is upcoming.

Between now and the June episode.

And we will be at Sight City, one of the largest, actually, the largest,
assistive technology show, for blindness technology and many other,
cross disability pieces of tech.

May 21st to May 23rd.

That'll be taking place at the Cap
Europa booth level two stand three is where we will be.

We will also be. We talk about SightCity.

We need to mention
that will be at Sight Village Glasgow.

So in Scotland, in Glasgow, May 21st,
that is going to be taking place at the Glasgow Science Center, going all the way across the world,
floating through the air.

We will be at the Round Table Conference
in Melbourne, Australia.

Or is it's really supposed to be said
Melbourne.

We will be at the Stanford Hotel.

That will be from May 25th to the 27th.

And finally, yours truly, Peter Tucic,
along with Nigel from our HumanWare

Europe team will be in Amsterdam
at the Tactile Reading Conference.

This will be at the Muziekgebouw,
which is in Amsterdam.

We will be there from June
2nd to the 4th

So the second, third and fourth,
please come see us.

We will be really.

I'll be giving out lots of hugs as I do
lots of high fives, fist bumps, waves.

Although I won't know
if you're waving at me.

Whatever it takes to say hi, please come
see one of our representatives.

We certainly will be at other shows
and other events coming up.

We're about to hit summer show season
here in the United States, which we will certainly have a presence
at both the American Council of the blind as well as the National Federation
of the blind Convention.

So please look for us and come say hi.

If you have comments or suggestions,
we'd love to hear from you.

Please send them to
[email protected] .

That's [email protected] .

We'll see you next month.