#126: A changing of the guard

Welcome to Blind Guy's Chat where this guy, Oren o' Neill. Hello. And this guy, Jan Bloom.

Hello.

And Claudia o' Donovan.

Hello.

Talk about the A to Z of life. Hello, ladies and gentlemen. And you're very welcome to episode 126 of Blind Guys.

Hey, hey, hey. But, but many thanks guys. Many thanks. Sorry. Sorry to interrupt you.

No, that's okay.

But I enjoyed listening to the shows. It was really fun.

Oh, because. Yeah, yeah.

Oh yes, yes. Yeah.

Oh, you did not even miss me, Mr.

I missed you.

No, I forgot.

That's because I was there young and when I'm somewhere, nobody gets missed. Oh, there we go.

From what country are you already, Mr. Mo?

I'm from many countries.

Amsterdam, you know.

Well, it's a, well it's a welcome back to Mr. Yan Blum who's had a few weeks off and you are very welcome back. And it is another welcome back of course to Mr. Muhammad Lasheer.

Yeah.

Now we have some news for the people. We have just finished our transfer season and we are glad to say that Chef and Larry, our respective guide dogs. Well, Jan has, Chef, I have Larry have eventually reached an agreement with Mr. Mohammed Lashear's people and we are very happy to say that Mr. Mohammed Lashear is now going to be a full time co host on Blind Guys Chat. Woohoo.

Woohoo.

Yeah, we had to actually. I mean it was pretty tough negotiating with them because they wanted to actually, you won't believe it. No, they wanted me to produce a barked audio described version of the show and I'm like, I don't know, I don't know how to do that. They were insistent but eventually they dropped it. They're like okay, fine, just give us instead you can just talk and give us cookies.

I think is always okay.

They're very tough negotiators.

Brilliant.

Congratulations.

I'm an official blind guy now.

Y, yeah, yeah.

Officially blind guys yet.

Yeah.

But, but again I, I, I did not say it. But, but, but I really appreciated reading your document. It was really nice and a real eye opener, people.

Yeah.

Beautiful piece. Really gorgeous.

Yeah, yeah. And, and recognizable. Really is really.

Yeah.

Relatable.

Yeah. I hope we got a lot of readers.

Yeah.

After that show because it was really.

Can you tell Mo can does tell you. Oh, it doesn't.

No, it doesn't. It just tells you when people react, but it doesn't tell you when people.

Oh yeah.

Oh, that's annoying.

But you had. Because I recognized also when I did this post also one that you got oh, yeah, Likes or something. Yeah, but not. Not read it. That's true.

No, it's interesting or fantastic or congratulations. Nobody congratulated me.

And will you write another one, do you think?

Actually, I do write articles every now and then. My previous one is called An Easy Mode for Blindness and that's about how AI is impacting the blind world. And so I write articles every now and then when the fancy takes me.

You can email blindguyschatmail.com or tweet us blindguyschat if you have any comments or questions.

We went to see the Glide from Glidance and have a go at it and see what we thought. But first I wanted to play in. We were in the Wayfinder Center.

Wayfinding.

Wayfinding center in. In Dublin, which is a great place.

Amazing.

Didn't know much about it until I went in. But so recorded with Kevin Kelly and Chantal Smith to begin with. So we're going to play those in those interviews in for you now and then we'll play the Glide demo after that and you can hear how it went for me with Clodo recording and Larry growling at the device. Well, he's not really.

He wasn't one bit bothered.

He wasn't. He couldn't care less.

No.

So let's hear from Kevin Kelly, first Head of Policy Partnerships and External Affairs.

The Wayfinding Centre is a truly unique centre that Vision Ireland have developed with the support of the National Transport Authority to help people with disabilities feel more comfortable and familiar using all modes of public transport and the built environment. So we're really blessed and we're delighted to have blind guys chat here in the Centre today at the Glide Demo day.

Well, I was delighted to see that everybody genoflected when myself and Larry and Claudia came in. That was what happened in my head. I don't actually know happened in real time.

Imagination is very powerful, Oren. So the centre has five main pillars. The first pillar is around providing training to people with disabilities to allow them to become more comfortable using all modes of public transport. The second pillar relates to the whole area of transport operators and providing disability equality and awareness training to frontline staff and their management teams. Currently here in the centre, we're providing the training to Irish Rail and Transdev and we hope to expand that to other transport operators in time. The third and fourth pillar is all around education, so that's working with our academic partners to embed more knowledge of disability and access needs into relevant courses. And when I say relevant courses, I'm talking about engineering, architecture, transport, design, so a broad range of courses and we're also working with other bodies, professional bodies, for those people who are working in those industries that have passed through formal education, maybe at a time when access and disability rights weren't really on the agenda. And we're doing short courses and webinars to educate them on design for all. And the film pillar is a lofty one and that involves working with, you know, state agencies and government around developing a national standard for the built environment. Some of your listeners to the podcast Oren will be very familiar with part eight and very strict guidelines for the interior of buildings. But currently in Ireland, the exterior of the built environment, that's guidelines, which means that allows, you know, different engineers with even within same local authorities to design things and they don't really follow universal design. So for someone like myself and many of the listeners, that can make it quite difficult. So for a very basic example, you know, tactile paving can be used differently in different parts of Dublin or in Donegal or you know, Cork. So we want to see a move towards a more universal design approach. We want to bring all of the various stakeholders together in this unique environment to start those conversations and move in that direction. The thing that we're most proud of here at the wayfinding Centre is that it is a Pan Disability service. We have a great training team here, located at the centre with a broad range of experience. But all of our training programs are co delivered by people with disabilities who we call Access Ambassadors. So the engineers, the architects, the transport operator staff are hearing real life experience and that's really hitting home. It's much more impactful than purely learning theory in a classroom environment. Obviously we do have a classroom environment, but we're sitting on the DART carriage, there's a wide exhibition space, it's a 31,000 square foot center. There's also a double decker bus, there's a bus airing coach, there's an Airbus 319. So it's really unique with a fully functioning streetscape with traffic lights as well. So it really makes it impactful. Some of the conversations that take place between Access Ambassadors and designers, and designers are going, oh, I didn't actually think of that. And I'm working on a project, I'm going to go away now and adapt that into to my design. So that's like, you know, co design at its very best.

Do you mind me asking, was all this, these modules, were they all donated or purchased?

Vision Ireland we're very fortunate to receive the support of the National Transport Authority to provide the capital funding for the centre. The building that we're sitting in is the old Smurfoot Kappa printworks and Smurfoot Kappa have been very generous to us in terms of allowing us to use this space at a reduced rate. We also then had philanthropic donations as well. Going to the modules is what exactly you asked. All of the modules here in the centre have been donated to us by various operators and we received a very generous donation from AERCAP of the Airbus 319, which was quite a feat to get it into a building like this.

Yeah, yeah. Did you fly it in yourself? No. Is that why there's no wings on it?

Well, no, they wouldn't trust me with that. Orin.

The Glide event is on and we'll talk more about that in the podcast. But how did you find the Glide? What's your experience? Have you ever had a guide dog? Are you always been a cane user?

Glide was very interesting. I lost my sight in 2001 when I was a teenager and for the first 10 years of that I was a long cane user and I then transitioned onto a guide dog. And I'm on my second guide dog, nearing the end of that guide dog partnership. So I'm kind of, you know, processing, you know, how I go forward. Do I want another dog? Which I think I do, but will I go back to the cane? And then you hear of, you know, a lot of conversations around Glide, and this is coming and it's going to be a primary mobility aid. So when I put my hands on Glide yesterday, I was amazed how quickly I felt comfortable moving through a space. I think that it's still got a wee bit to go in terms of its development. But what watching its evolution when it first came onto the scene in the radar, it's come a long way and I'm sure from speaking to or hearing Amos and Luke speak, they're very passionate about bringing it to the next level. So I would wouldn't be surprised to see people using it quite heavily in the years to come. Really important that the Glide team get it right, because I don't know what you think yourself, Oren, but when I first started using the long cane and the guide dog, it takes a long period of. To build up confidence and trust. And you're taking a piece of technology into your hand and you're asking it, or you're going to use it to get from A to B safely. And, you know, it's. There's a lot of moving parts out there.

I Think for somebody like me, and I said it to Amos after I had a demo of the device, it frightened the bejesus out of me and I meant in the sense of not having Larry beside me and this thing turning, in some cases pretty extreme turns and kept me away from all these obstacles that they had laid out on the course. Do you think there'll be many people who will jump straight away onto the light and throw away their cane?

Personally, I don't think so. I think it'll take a period of time for people to transition because I think you get, you know, used or comfortable using, whatever your mobility it is, whether it be the cane or the dog, and you'll find it hard to, you know, move away and, you know, just put it in the press or, you know, retire your dog or anything like that. So I think it'll take a little bit of time and I think, you know, people will probably always fall back, you know, on the long cane. It's been around for hundreds of years, I'm sure, and probably will always be around and there will be a user case for it. But I think particularly younger people maybe who are starting out on a sight loss journey might embrace it faster than maybe somebody who's later in life. But there'll always be someone who will prove that theory wrong as well.

Coming back to the wai fi Centre, how do people get in touch? What's the, you know, if they want to tour, if they want to throw oranges at you, you know, what's the best way to find you throw oranges.

I prefer tomatoes or custard pies. Wayfindingcentre, ie. Or they can email infoewayfindingcenter ie.

I'm talking to Chantal Smith. What is your role in the wayfinding Centre here? Chantal?

I'm the wayfinding Centre manager.

Big responsibility.

It is, but it's shared across a wonderful team who are very supportive and help deliver all of the services that we provide here in the centre.

So what's the overall purpose of the wayfinding Centre?

To try and reduce the transport accessibility gap in Ireland. So we're taking a real holistic approach to how we try and reduce that over a longer period of time. Our bread and butter is teaching people who are blind or vision impaired and who have other disabilities through one to one in group training. But the other area that people aren't as familiar with is that area where we're working with other stakeholders to try and improve their knowledge of an inclusive design. And so we work directly with Engineers, we teach them about active travel and the impact of their designs on people that are navigating those spaces when they have lived experience of a disability. And then we have some fantastic academic partners as well. So we're able to use this flexible space at the front of the centre to undertake research activities, user testing and like we're seeing here today with Glide to be able to undertake demos and provide feedback to tech companies just like this one.

Just tell the folks what visibly what is in this building, what can we get to touch and feel.

We've tried to put the whole transport landscape inside of it. So we have the streetscape connecting all the different modules of transport. We've got a Dart, a Lewis, a real Airbus 319 that's been had its wings chopped off. But now we use it as part of our training, which is really cool. There's a mock up airport, rough terrain, a park. There is an island bus stop which is has been really fantastic in terms of providing user feedback around design. And then also the rural, rural coach, the expressway and a double decker bus.

I'm going to do a curve ball here if I can. You're obviously a guide dog user. Could we start off with your right hand?

Yep.

The reason why I'm going to say it just to give you a bit of background, it's almost muscle memory that your hands here and what I found over over 2000 demos is that guide dog users tend to go back to this. And what's important is that Glide actually needs to stay in front, you need to be behind it. And so what I find with your right hand being your cane traveling hand, it's used to being a bit more of a fixed position. The other thing too is I find there's a natural left lean dominance. And we almost find that people just favor left when they use their left hand. And I want you to favor almost with the device straight. I just want you to take your first couple steps and see how Glide just starts to move with you. So what's going to happen in a moment here is there's a whole set of obstacles in front of you and it's going to start to make some slight adjustments in the wheels. That first turn is because there's a big bench to your left. I don't want you to stop walking, I want you to keep that pace. Now you're in between a wall and another bench and in a moment here it's gonna make a bit more of a drastic turn around a big comfy beanbag chair. Then it's Taking another right turn because big trash can here. Now it's seeing the end of a wall, but there's a corner. So it's actually gonna make a little bit of a slight left, then a big left. It's a shoreline against the wall.

And then what happens here if I'm.

A crazy pedestrian and I get in front of you. Immediate braking.

And it's vibrating.

And it's vibrating because of the haptic. Start walking forward again. This is a really interesting part. This is where the audio is going to become really valuable. Glide is actually going to tell you, corner ahead, no path. So that tells you that your right side and your left side are. You're stuck. What would you do in that scenario? I just want to try and feel what. What you would do.

I'd have to go right or left.

What. What way do you want to go in the scene?

I'll go right.

Okay.

How would you do that in a corner scenario?

Pick it up and turn right.

I'm gonna give you a gold star for that one. Let's try it out. Beautiful. Now put it back into position. And it's good. So it's a little tight here. And the wheels will take a second, but. But you pull back. Angle it right. And then there we go. Now the wheels are making that distinction. Start walking forward. And now it's gotten. It's going to get you. Now, one of the reasons why that's happening right now to Shino is because then the two cameras, when your hand comes up a little high like that, it only sees down and it breaks. But with the two cameras that we're going to have in the system, it's going to see the whole area and allow you to walk without that breaking at me. So we'll bring the handle back down and we'll start walking. So the reason why it made that turn, just so you know, is right now Glide sees reflections in the flooring. This is a very glossy concrete floor.

Right.

There's a lot of sun beaming in. So we call them ghosts. But just to give you an idea of what it did, it actually walked you in between suitcase here and a table here with less than about 3ft width. Because it found the path and it knew how to take you through it.

And it didn't walk you into the.

Pillar and it stopped.

Yeah.

Our goal is that it would just continue. But because of the ghost on the floor here, it made a bit of a reaction break. But you are right back.

Right. Okay, gotcha. Yeah.

But you are right back where we started.

Thank you so much to Kevin Kelly and to Chantal Smith for speaking to us and for guidance allowing us to record that demo of me using the device. And the way it was kind of working was while somebody, one person was getting a demo of Glide with Luke Amos Miller was answering questions from the audience about the device and it was quite, quite open and you could ask.

How many units were there?

Well, I don't know how many units there were, but there was only one physical unit that we were using. So it was only one person was going getting a demo of the unit.

There was no holdup first of all, so you could follow each other.

Yeah. So anything was done. Everything was done in kind of a two hour slots. So like there was half nine to half eleven and then there was one at twelve to whatever, two o' clock and then four o' clock, I think to six o' clock or something like that. But yeah, so there was no real hold up. You were just getting tapped on the shoulder. Come on, you're trying to have a go. And that worked really well. And the Wayfinding center was a great place to hold this.

Amazing.

Yeah, amazing. Yeah.

Orin wore his the Future is accessible T shirt which I thought was very appropriate.

Yeah. Which nobody, nobody noticed.

Nobody said anything about.

Nobody said anything.

Damn T shirt like that also to a blind event or. And then expecting people to come, but they weren't old.

There were people there as well and.

They said, oh come on, you think so? You think so?

I tell you what was really cool though was, was later on when we finished was getting into the Airbus train. It was an Airbus, an old Airbus 319, not 320 sitting there and it's, it's really like the buses and the tram and the trains. It's a fantastic way they've laid it out because it's kind of all done in a street as if it was a street. So you're kind of walking across tram tracks and, and ramps and all that kind.

They have, you know, pedestrian crossings and tactile paths and all that kind of. It's very, very well done. So they've got, they've got like. You can fake a journey through a city. Like it's very, very clever.

I don't think we have that, do we?

No, well you, we, we had it once mo. In this ship, you know where they played where they simulated the, the dialogue in the Dunker. Did you. Do you know that one?

No.

There was an Rhine arc or how do you call it in, in English, but, but a boat or A big. A big ship with an internal space. And there also they simulated a crossing and a. And a bar, etc, and it was indoors.

So.

Yeah, it was completely dark.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw it over to you, Mo, for a second because I know you, you've already used light and you've. You've told us about that.

Yeah. Csun, what is your.

What's your impressions now at the moment about the device? Because we know the launch has been delayed until theoretically spring of 2026. Would you be tempted to buy one?

I am already tempted to buy one.

Wow.

Really?

Really? The only thing that's holding me back at the moment is their unwillingness to come to Europe to showcase it, which makes me think that it may not work as well in Europe. I'm not sure that that's actually fair. I'm almost certain it actually isn't fair. But on the other hand, when the thing needs to be surfaced, how is that going to work and stuff like that? So I'm a little leery at the moment to buy it, but it's because of the things around it, not so much the Glide itself. I think the Glide itself is a fantastic device. I think you need to get over what it looks like a little bit. And I think it might work well if you still bring a cane so that you can signal to people that you're blind and that you're not just vacuuming the street. I think that's important. But other than that, using this thing is just fantastic. It is just amazing. There's nothing like it. Yeah, well, maybe a guide dog is a little bit like it's slightly.

Well, certainly from observing, it seems different because. Because there's no forward traction, whereas with a dog, the dog is pulling you forward.

Well, not just that, but the wheels actually give you feedback about what's on the ground surface. That's also not the case with the dog.

Okay, that's true. So you can feel tactile paving then underneath the wheels a little bit.

Yes.

That's amazing. They're talking about making the wheels bigger. They're at the moment seven inches, I think. And they're talking about making them this idea of all terrain wheels, which I think is fantastic.

I think you said Claudetta. It's basically just. It's aluminium, it's silver. You know, it looks silver. And I was making a suggestion painted white so that it looked like maybe a new upgraded long cane.

They're talking about putting this halo of LED lights to draw attention to it because I suppose the biggest danger I could see is if somebody is overtaking you and they go to cut in front of you and they trip because they don't see the glide.

You know, I'd burst out laughing if that happened, you idiot. You can see and this happen. Come on.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's happened to Orin before. He had Larry when we were in the airport and you know, the way people are, very high stress in an airport and people were kind of cutting in front and then crossing over in front and tripping over the cane. Do you remember that?

Oh, this happens to me all.

Oh, yeah, me too. Also railway stations and whatever. Anywhere where people are trying to get.

You know, there's a time.

But I don't give a. About. Sorry, but that is something. Come on. Whatever.

No, I agree. I completely agree. It's kind of their problem.

You've got working eyes. I honestly don't care about how much stress you're in.

Yeah.

My understanding about the thing not being ready for Europe is. And I'm not sure if it was at the. At the event we were at or at another event. I think it might have been another event. But basically somebody asked Amos Miller about the fact that we have in Ireland on our paths a lot of potholes and a lot of uneven paths and what have you. And apparently the response, the answer was, it's not ready for that yet. Somebody else said to me, you know, who had used it on the day, said, it's a great device. It's very interesting. And I can see it working really well in somewhere like New York where there are grid system happen, you know, and, and the paths and that are good, but not necessarily for the Irish parts and that. Okay, so I'm not. I'm not saying that it's not going to work, but. But it. It was asked a couple. It was asked one once. I know, certainly tw.

I don't think the Irish paths, the Irish roads have loads of potholes. I don't think Irish paths necessarily.

I know they do. No, in fairness, they do.

I think it's. As a former furniture.

I was a former cane user who has plenty and, you know, plenty of bruises in my stomach. There are plenty of times that my cane would stop me dead in my tracks because you'd get caught in a crack or something. Yeah, yeah. Or a small, tiny pothole. The other thing, I think €1600 and €30amonth subscription for what it is right now is very expensive.

It is very expensive. In the end, the question for anyone should Be how much am I going to use this and how badly do I want those other tools to be supplanted? Because I mean, I hear a lot of talk about you're going to have a guide dog and a glide or you're going to have a cane and a glide. I can see a cane and a glide. I cannot, honestly, I cannot see a guide dog and a glide. You're gonna have to pick and I don't know, you're going to have to choose your tool. To be honest. A guide dog is much more expensive also. It's a lifetime, like in its lifetime. But also its initial training is much, much more expensive. So against that, that's fine. I think we need to fold this stuff into our funding structures in Europe. Europe and see if we can make that work. Otherwise. Yeah, if people have to pay for it themselves, it's got to be tough for a lot of people.

Yeah, it's even cheaper than a braille display. Come on, it's 40 shells.

Yeah, it is cheaper than.

Yeah, yeah, come on. Yeah, but, but.

Not so, yeah, I would say 1600 for the unit itself is.

It's not so expensive.

It's not so expensive.

However, the subscription.

Here's my query about the subscription number. A couple of things. One is that they haven't, as far as I know, and I could be wrong on this, but as far as I know, they haven't implemented any kind of GPS into the unit yet and they're concentrating on this, I think it's called Freewheel mode or Free mode. And that's what they're trying to concentrate on, I. E. That you just take it out. You know, you walk out of the house with your Glide and you start walking but you know where you're going to where you are going, going. And he was also, Amos was also saying that it will be able to learn a route which implies that you will have an app on your phone, a Glidance app or a Glide app on your phone. So the unit will be able to learn and you can just plug or point that in, push that into your app and say I'm going to, to the local shops or whatever. That doesn't seem to be in development either. And I'm worried that really because a €30 subscription apparently is non negotiable. Right. And I'm concerned that that 30 Euro subscription may be for the very basic operation of Glide. And if you wanted to operate Google Maps or something with the device or something like that, you're going to have to pay you Know, let's say the pro version of the app. And is that going to increase year on, year out? Because that's what seems to be happening with subscriptions, is they grab you with the subscription fee and then, you know, suddenly you're six months a year in, oh, there's a pro version. And you can have all these kind of things happen now, you know, that the app will do for you. And that kind of concerns me about when you're talking about people who are visually impaired and most people don't have a lot of money to begin with.

With the way you need to approach pretty much any purchase is A, can I afford it? And B, is it worth it to me?

Yeah.

And do you like it?

And as long as for the €30 subscription, right, what they announced at the beginning, they don't take anything away. If you thought it was worth the €30 subscription when it started, it's still worth that €30. And then when they come out with any pro version that's maybe more expensive with stuff in there, you need to make that decision for yourself. Again, it's A, can I afford it? And B, is it worth it to me? And ultimately they're a business and they're going to have to cover their costs and make a profit. And if they set their price so high that nobody will pay for it or too few people will pay for it, they'll go bust and that'll be your €1600 gone. So if you think that that's a high risk, that that will happen, happen, don't buy the device.

No.

Otherwise, go for it.

No, it's absolutely. Fair point. Absolutely. Absolutely.

It's difficult, right? Because I used to think the same way you do, Oren, but what changed? No, seriously, what changed my mind is going into software and going into building software. The thing about this is there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that nobody ever sees. And that, frankly, if you describe it, doesn't sound very impressive yet. It takes weeks, sometimes months, to build this stuff. I build a button today, one button, right? And if I tell someone, they'll be like, okay, all right, man. I don't believe they. I don't believe they pay you this much for just a button. But actually, programming that button might, you know, you might need to program the backend, you might need to do other stuff to make that button work. And so from the, from the outside, it doesn't look very impressive, but from the inside, like, looking at it from the inside perspective, it's a lot more Work than many people realize.

A lot more thoughts.

At some point you got to set a price and you need to set a price that not only the market will bear, but it is fair to as many people as possible. I think that is important and that.

Includes the people who are making it and designing it and.

Yeah, and also then taking in consideration our market. Hey, you, you. It is not like the Meta glass that you can sell for millions, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

It is very specific, very niche.

Very niche. Niche of the niche.

Yeah. And I mean it's, it's like Mo said in our previous conversation many months ago about, you know, the envisioned glasses, you know, as I think they are very expensive. But if you want something that is specifically designed for blind and low vision people, you're going to have to pay this kind of money. And I think you're absolutely right, Mo. It's going to be up to the end user to decide that the customer, are they willing to pay that kind of money? Do they think they get. But one other thing I'll just kind of finish on just in terms of, well, two things. One was training, which they don't seem to have worked out yet. If you do buy the unit, who's going to be training you if you need training? But number two is I think these units are all fine in a controlled environment. I wouldn't buy one right now unless I could test it in real world conditions. And I think that's something. It worked perfectly in the wayfinding center and I'm sure it's working perfectly in other demos that they're doing. Doing. But when you're actually talking about. And some people will probably do this, in fact, I know one person who was at the event who is, does have a guide dog and is buying this glide unit, but it is going to be replacing a working animal that is trained to do this job and to put that in the hands of an AI technology, which is, it's fine and good. But I think you've really got to consider, weigh it up. Is it really worth it right now? Because I was just thinking years ago when, and I'm talking like in the 80s, not very few people bought a new car, brand new, new model, because there would always be problems with the new car. And you used to hear people say, oh wait a year, year until they work out all the problems and then buy the new model if you want because there's always going to be problems. And I just concerned, not overly concerned because it worked very well, but we were concerned for some people who were going to hand over their €1600 and then suddenly they go onto their normal route, wherever they are in Ireland or in Europe, and they're suddenly thinking to themselves, this can't do what I've just paid money to do.

I think it'd be interesting to see how it copes with variables, you know, unpredictable.

Yeah.

Let's wait.

I think. But I think it's. I. I definitely think it's worth.

Yeah.

Giving it a bash. And if they. If they did do something like they did for the hable for you, Orin, it was like, you know, take it for, what was it, two weeks or something, try it out and if you don't like it, send it back.

Yeah.

And you'll get your money back. I think that would be amazing.

I know. If I buy it, I know I'm an early adopter.

Yeah.

And so I know that there might be issues with the device that need to be ironed out.

But you're a developer, so you're quite happy to feed back to the manufacturers and say, listen, this was my experience. Can you tweak the code? Yeah, yeah, I am.

And I ask for that myself for my own products, for the products that I put out every couple of weeks. So. Yes. And I think everyone who buys this device should realize that they're an early adopter and that means that there might be issues with the device. You're not buying something that's proven in.

The real world yet, but it has potential.

Glide won't say that. And of course Glide won't say that because, I mean, they might. To be honest, I'm not paying that close attention to them. They might tell you this device is not proven in the real world, but I will tell you this device has not proven itself. And so be aware that what you're buying is a promise. And you need to decide, do I trust these people to deliver on that promise, to actually give it their all, to deliver on this promise?

Yeah.

But it also might fail. It might not be able to live up to that promise. You don't know that.

No, I don't think they're going to put something in the hands of blind and vision impaired people that is dangerous. They're not going to do that. So I think it's very interesting. I'm absolutely fascinated and I'd love you to have a go of one in the real world for a couple of weeks.

But anyway, everybody has to make their own decision. But fair play to the guys at Glydons for doing this, and they're keeping at it it. And they're listening to the feedback. So I applaud them. I applaud them for that. Anyway, come on, let's. We're near the end of the show. Have you got any emails?

I do, I do, I do. One moment. Do I not get a jingle?

No, no, no. Well, we. You can ask Mo. He's the musician.

Are you musician, Mo?

Well, we've made him the musician now.

All right, If.

If. If you make me sing all the windows in my house.

We won't. We won't make you do anything shatter. This is not a dictatorship.

My neighbors will start crying.

Just before we. While you're getting that message up. Just because I haven't heard enough from Jan really about this Light Jan, what's your feeling about light?

No, I'm in the Mo position in a way. Interesting. And then. But to be honest, I don't think it is for me suitable. But since I have chef and I don't want to go for the electronic version of it. But it could be really. But I did not try it myself. I was keen to use it at side City, but it was not there.

It was not there.

Yeah. You just made an interesting point. I mean, I know they were outside village and they told us they were to going around the UK and that and. And they were kind of wrapping up in Dublin. No, but I'm not sure why they weren't at site cities because as you said pointed out before we started recording that's the biggest event in Europe. So.

But looking at most perspective, it's still not even that in that phase. Ready? And then they are very clever not to do it and just step by step. So we'll watch.

I suspect they're not going to release in spite of spring of 26. I don't think so. I'd say it'll be longer than that.

You only have one first impression, you.

Know, that's it, you know. Yeah, but look, will we read our. Are we email? Okay.

Yay.

So this is from the lovely Patty Murphy, who is. Where is Patty in again?

Baltimore.

Baltimore. She says hi there guys. And G to be precise. That's me. I enjoyed episode 124. She says kudos to Kevin for remembering all that stuff. This was about the Eurovision.

Yeah, yeah.

You.

Yeah.

I could never do that. I can however segue this thread over to TV Corner. Good woman, Patty. Thank you.

Excellent.

Did anyone see the new Doctor who episode 6 titled the Interstellar Song Contest? No, I didn't. Has any either.

Any of you guys Nope.

Nope.

Well, there you go. Patty is saying familiar intrigue and drama to be had on an interstellar level, as well as guest appearances by Graham Norton and Rylan Clark. Oh, so Ryan Clark is a guy that will be very well known in the uk. He's involved somehow in commentating on the. I don't know. He doesn't comment because Graham does the comment, the commentating, doesn't he. For the uk, So I don't know what he does. But anyway, he's involved somehow.

Yeah.

So Patty says till later, Patty Murphy. Thank you, Patty.

I really appreciate it.

None of us have seen it, but I suppose one of us should watch it just to see what it's about. We might assign that to Kevin. Will we?

Perhaps Kevin has an. Has a feedback.

Yeah, we'll ask Kevin to. To watch it and tell us what he think.

I don't know if he's a Doctor who fan.

I don't think. Somehow I don't think that would be his style. But you never know. You never know. Could be.

Speaking of TV Corner and I don't know, Mo. Mo, are you a watcher of television or are you like Yan and you wouldn't be bothered. Really.

I'll watch some television. I. I mostly dive into YouTube rabbit holes, but Netflix every now and then. Or HBO.

All right, well, have a go at. What is it called? Zero Day with Robert De Niro. Yeah, it's on Netflix as far as I know. And yeah, if you're. If you really want to laugh and you have Amazon prime, the new series of Jeremy Clarkson, Clarkson's Farm is also available.

Okay.

Other than that, I really. We haven't been watching too much. That's. No, that's that good. Really. But anyway, we are. We are out of time. Okay, we'll see you in two weeks time.

Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye.