#138: Down under with David Woodbridge

Foreign.

Welcome to blind guys chat with orin o'.

Neill.

Hello.

Jan bloom.

Hello.

And mohammed lashear.

Hi there.

Talk about the a to z of life.

Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And you are very welcome to episode 138 of Blind Guys Chat. We do hope you had a lovely Christmas and we wish you a very happy new Year. Our guest this week is Mr. David Woodbridge, HumanWares product specialist in Australia. And we had a great interview with David. So we have decided to devote the whole show to him and everything he has to say. And don't forget, if you want to get in contact with the show, just email [email protected] just a little bit of background about David. David is a father of 22 and a half children. He likes to ski. Underwater skiing is his big thing, downhill underwater skiing. And he's renowned for recently training three very nasty sharks that were off swimming off the coast of Sydney who are now, he's retrained them and they're now dancing in Russian ballet and to be seen in the new version of Swan Lake, which is going to be called Shark Lake. But David, you are very welcome to the show. I've been thinking about trying to get you on and on for quite some time. So thank you for joining us on Blind Guys Chat, all the way from Sydney, Australia, where it is just after 8am and Mo is in Morocco where it's God knows what time. And Jan is probably in several time zones because he's been all around the world in the last week and I'm still in Ireland.

Back home. Back home in the hake. Yeah. Back home in the. Yeah. It's always nice to be. Yeah.

But David, you're very welcome. Tell us. Give me the bad news first of all, which my, which my wife won't, won't care about, but I do because it's not too pleasant here in Ireland at the moment. What's the weather like in Sydney, Australia right now?

Yeah, well, today it's actually quite nice. It's supposed to be a bit rainy today and probably about in Celsius because we, we use like most common people use real, real, real temperature readings.

Exactly. Making a point.

Great. It's not something like Fahrenheit, So it's about 22 today at the moment. So two days ago it was, you know, 43 degrees Celsius because the, the sort of, the heat wave is sort of like traveling around the continent of Australia, visiting, you know, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and probably Queensland sometime today or tomorrow. So it's weird because one sort of end of the continent, we've got complete bushfires in Victoria and people say they lost their houses. And then the other end of Australia, we've got cyclones and, you know, complete floods. I mean, I think the other day they said One region had 400 millimeters of rain within 24 hours, which is horrendous. So you just, you just can't win sometimes.

Well, especially if you're as big as Australia is, it's going to be very hard to win.

Well, well, well, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's just if you go anywhere in Australia, you can sort of. Well, we always joked it with Victoria, you can stand in Melbourne and within 10 minutes you can experience four different weather seasons.

Can you actually do skiing in, in Australia? I've ever.

You can, yes. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, you see?

You can. Yep. So that's, it's, well, it's, it's part of the Great Dividing Range, so you've got the snowy mountains in that go sort of between New South Victoria and it's ah. I mean, compared to the mountains overseas, they're not that big, so.

Oh, okay.

But it's still, you know, it's still a decent mountain. I think it's about, I can't remember how what it is now, 3,000m, I think.

Oh, but that's still, that's not bad.

You know, compared to overseas, that's a, that's a bit of a hill, basically. But yeah, no, no, we do have, we do have.

That's sizable. That's bigger than the mountains we have in the Netherlands.

Yeah.

Which are basic. Are speed bumps.

There we go. Exactly.

What is the percentage of people who are visually impaired in Australia?

Yeah, it's about, it's about 400,000. So we've got a population of about 27 million. So, you know, 400,000 of that is still a reasonably significant. But that number's for both blind and low vision. And when I used to work at Vision Australia for like 35 years, we always said that probably about 5 to 10% of that would be people that would be classified as legally blind. Oh, yeah. And then a proportion of that would be, you know, quote braille users rather than, you know, screen reader or screen reader slash large print users. So yeah, it's really hard to nail down, you know, how many quite blind slash legally blind people there are versus people with low vision. Yeah. But, you know, Australia is one of those populations that, you know, as we. It's an aging population. So as people get older, they start to have vision issues. So you know they will start end up having to use screen magnification then you know, maybe screen magnification slash speech. And then I guess if they really wanted to, they can also also learn braille. I mean I, I've learned. I lost my sight when I was 8. I started losing my sight when I was about 2, but I completely lost it when I was 8 ish. Had to learn braille then. So braille has always been part of my life from almost a year dot.

Almost we from the blind guy said we love braille. You know, we had. So that is really in a big, big well favor for us as well that you like Braille. But, but what is the main reason that you think that braille should. People always think braille is dead people. You don't need to learn braille. But. But what is your opinion in that, David?

Yeah, look, I always think it's a combination of both braille and speech. I mean I would never suggest to somebody that they just rely on speech because I know when I lost my sight I had to start learning braille. That was fine. I ended up doing grade two braille. But I can always remember this moment when somebody asked me to identify in print letting. Oh yeah, she told me the word which was O N E and for the life of me I had no idea what O N e was because one in contracted braille is dot five O. Yeah. And I can even remember to this day the teacher at the time said listen Woodbridge, you can't be that stupid. It's only a three letter word and you can't even tell me what the word is. And I said well I've never seen it written out in full before because you know, being a little eight year old. Yeah. I couldn't remember last time I did it in uncontracted bra because I was learning contracted bra. Yeah. And even scary words like knowledge, for example, I mean gee whiz, it's a huge word and it's K in braille. So to me what I'm always scared about is. And this is the reason, one of the reasons why I love braille now or I've always loved braille is it's under my fingertips or in front of my quote, eyes so to speak, that I know how words are spelled, I know how town names are spelled, country names are spelled and so on. So you know, and even like I'll sit there sometimes and go, oh God, the end of the paragraph when you put a quote in, is it a quote? Full stop or is it a full stop quote now? Unless I turned on punctuation and got comma space, full stop question mark capital blah blah blah, then I could probably do it. But with braille you just go, oh yeah, there it is, there's the right paren, there's the full stop, there's the quote, whatever it is it might be. So I always get concerned when people proudly proclaim that they're only a speech user because to me, unless you've got some physical disability, you know, you might have shaky hands or you might have pore sensitive in your fingers or anything else that's sort of understandable. I mean, I know some great people in Australia that would love to use braille, but they've got peripheral neuropathy so they don't have, you know, the nerve transmission from their fingers doesn't work. So absolutely understandable that they can really only use speech. But if you're a, a quote, healthy blind person, there's no reason why you can't learn how to use braille.

Absolutely true. Well, I learned braille at the age of 25. So then I think I'm jealous about you. Or I even was jealous for the, for the speed of reading of my colleagues who were reading braille from, from birth. Like Herr Stewart Lawler, we all know him from at the.

Completely agree.

Yeah, I had. Because I feel sometimes so struggling, you know, reading braille. Okay. I will never get the speed how I see people raising over braille paper, you know. Ah, that would be awesome. But it's very nice.

Yeah.

I've seen a colleague of mine, it almost feels like he's cleaning his braille display. That's how.

I was like, you know.

Passing a towel over his braille display. It was unbelievable.

I know, it's amazing. Although I must admit I'm a prefer. I prefer reading braille.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wouldn't hate it. I can braille in but you know, I'm lazy. I mean I've been a qwerty keyboard user for half a century or something now. So you know, when I come back to my Perkins or my brain to my Monarch or my whatever else I might be using, I think, God, not only have I got to use six keys and a space bar and a 7.8, but then I've got to do these magical combinations to, you know, control my note taker. And I just think, you know what, I could just go back to my normal keyboard and just do alt tab or just do whatever else it might be. So I love reading Braille, but As soon as somebody put any machine in front of me that had a Braille display and a QWERTY keyboard, it's like, yes, please. I'll take that any day over a Braille input keyboard, which sounds like I don't like Braille. What I don't like is the extra effort it takes to do, you know, running two keyboard commands. Yeah, exactly.

Your productivity slows down massively when you're, when you're using the Perkins keys to type in or do any, do any fun.

Well, well, I must admit, when, when I see one of my friends is a, is a, a proofreader umbrella, he can type. I mean, I'm amazed how fast this guy can type on a Perkins Braille. It puts me to shame. I just think, wow, I'm going to grow up and be like you one day. I want to be a real, a real Braille user.

Yeah, that's right. But with then the montage, you know, you have then a nice quetti eboard on the Braille display. So that's a good combination.

Yeah. Oh, look, absolutely. And look, if we're talking about, we're talking about things like the Mantis, I mean, remember this year, we can certainly talk about this with the evolve coming out from Humanware. I mean, the initial one will be a 30 and then a 20 with a braille input keyboard. But the one coming out later on this year that I am really looking forward to will be the QWERTY version of the Evolve. So not only will you have a, you know, and I don't know if it's going to be a 32 or a 40 braille display, but that's going to be a QWERTY keyboard. So, yeah, it's going to be amazing because that'll be Windows and the Evolve and the BRA display. And it's like, yes, please. That's like the. I think I spoke to somebody on LinkedIn over the weekend. They said, yeah, to me, the, the, it's going to be like the Mantis 2 reborn. So we've gone from Mantis Q40 to the evolve, whatever it's going to be Q40, whatever it's going to be called the end of the year.

We have also the Optima, you know, from Adi Kushner in that way. He is still in development. He had some trouble due to the Israelian situation, but he is also preparing a Windows keyboard or a Qwetti keyboard on the Windows Notetaker.

A funny thing about CES that happened last week and HP is actually getting into a just a Keyboard computer, where they have a keyboard that has a full computer built into it and there's no screen, there's nothing, there's only that keyboard. So you could potentially pair a BRO display to that and you know, get something like this.

That would be awesome. Oh, that was in Las Vegas, Mo.

It was. That's the Consumer Electronics Show. And look, I saw it as well. That was actually really interesting. I don't think though that was saying that it doesn't come with a power supply or stuff like that. So you've got to supply your own power. But I thought, because I swear a long, long time ago there was a keyboard and I think it was called a smart keyboard. So it was a QWERTY keyboard and I think, you know, it was a sighted for a sighted person. But it had like a little LCD display on it. So the trick. So the premise was that, you know, you could take this keyboard around, plug it into your desktop or your laptop and. But you could also use it as a smart keyboard to take notes into it and you could transfer stuff to it. I can't remember what it was called, but it's almost like that being reinvented again. But wouldn't that be cool? Just pop your computer, your keyboard in your bag and you're popping your computer in your bag. Yeah, that would be really awesome.

And just on the braille cells themselves, they're only a mount. Have you come to a decision of what's the, what's the ideal number of braille cells to be able to. As you're reading, forgetting about inputting or whatever?

Well, I mean I've been through the whole gamut. I mean I've been using braille displays since the early 90s. So I've done, you know, I've done as little as one. Do you guys remember or know I've heard about a thing called Braille Mate? Yeah, yeah, Braille cell.

Yeah, yeah.

I could just never use it. I could just not keep my fingers still and let the braille scroll past. So I've done one, I've done four cells, I've done eight.

That doesn't make any sense.

No, I didn't, I didn't like it at all. I just thought it was a weird, a weird idea. But look, I think my, my perfect number. I think I'm pretty much settled on 32. I mean I've. I've got my 40 cell. I've got my 40 cell, Brian. 40 in front of me. Of course I got the evolve, which is 32 in front of me. But I think 40 to me is great for a desktop bra display. But as soon as you have to start stuff shoving in your bag, 32 is just a little bit th. I think it's okay to get away with using if your smartphone and that sort of stuff for quick reading or spot reading and that sort of stuff. But for me, you know, 32 or definitely 48 to me is like carrying around. It almost feels like you're carrying around a piano. It's that wide. Yeah, yeah. So to me that's way too big. I've never seen. I understand there's some brighter sprays around that are 60 characters or 64.

They had.

That's the one. Yeah, yeah.

And handy tech also had a. The help techno. They had a 16. Yeah.

So. And then another computer that I used to see and I can't remember the name, but it had, I think it. And this, I think I'm thinking about this one in the mid-90s or early 2000, but it either had two rows of 32 or two or two rows of 40 cell braille displays. And I think the crown.

The Timo. Yeah, yeah. And. And we in the past we had also a double line even when I worked with alpha, either for the. To connect with telephone switchboards. You know, then you had a, A computer connected to one line and then also the telephone switchboard to the other line. So you had two. Yeah, but that was an amazing Double white.

It was. Yeah.

Double bulky back at.

Back. Back in the days. I know, exactly. Yeah. So that, that was really cool. But yeah, look, I, I think my sweet spot at the moment. 32. I mean, if anybody asks me what the, you know, should you use a desktop braille display and what size it is, it's always either a 32 or a 40. So that's my two things to go to.

But will you ever switch to a multi line then? For example, because you know, we all know the dotpad and the monarch etc. But do you place them in front of your keyboard or left or right or behind, you know?

Well, it depends on which one you're using. So because the Monarch's basically computer in its own right. So if I want to web browse, I want a word process, if I want to play around with tactile images, if I want to top up some notes that I was doing over the weekend, then I'm just using the Monarch because I don't actually need to use a computer with the Monarch at all because it's basically like a keynote braille note. Touch thing on steroids. I mean, we've gone from 32 cells to 10 lines by 32. So I actually don't need that. If I'm using it with Jaws on my laptop. And I almost feel funny saying Jaws with my laptop because I have to admit that I actually do use a Windows computer now rather than just my Mac all the time, then yes, I do have it off to one side. I mean, there's no way it's going to be in front of me. Although where I'm sitting at the moment, you know, I've got my laptop on my lap or on the desk in front of me and then my bra display, vice versa. So. But even I'm using a bra display on my, you know, on my Mac, on my iPhone, on my iPad. I don't know what it is, but I, I've never liked having the bra display in front of the computer. I just, I like it. I've always used it off to one side because I've always had to always like the fact that I can still reach the computer keyboard when I need to. And it's just. I mean, it probably doesn't make good ergonomics in having to reach all the time. I mean, if I'm using my bra Light, you know, Bra Light. Geez, talk about spinning back to the past.

It shows your does.

I know I'm getting, I'm getting wiser and wiser apparently as I get older. My, my 50th birthday, I had a. An Apple keyboard. Each key was made of a little cake and on the number row it had 49 plus one. So as far as I'm concerned now I'm 49 plus xxxxx. That's my, that's my age moving forward. So. Okay, it was quite sad. But yeah, look, I, it's weird. I've just, I've never light having my bra display in front of my. Whether I'm using my laptop, you know, my Windows laptop or my, my Mac.

Okay.

It feels like you're pressing buttons all the time when you're having to reach over your Braille display to touch your keyboard.

It's weird. Yeah, Look, I mean, I could probably get away. I mean, if I. Because I've got to use all the stuff that humanware sells all the time, which doesn't worry me. I mean, I'm in a lovely position to play with stuff. I think if I was only using my Mantis all the time, then I'd probably be able to do it. But again, even when I'm using My Mantis. I still find myself reaching over the Mantis yet again to get back to the laptop. I don't know if it's a comfort thing or I've always done it that way, but yeah, it's just bizarre. I think it's just habit.

In the past we had also, when you're using an 80 cell rail, you had a standard for your keyboard and I sometimes use also this keyboard stand to place my laptop. But still then you, you are sometimes having issues with elbows or whatever, you know, reaching out to the. It is not that really that comfortable in that way.

No, no. And look, look, I'm. I mean with, I mean we'll talk about the evolve in a while, but with the evolve, because I'm actually using a, a Windows computer, I actually don't need to reach anywhere. I can just stay on the.

What are the specs of this keyboard? Or this?

Yeah, take us through the, the evolve. Yeah. Because.

All right, you've got the Braille, like I said, It'll be a 32 cell braille display version coming out first. It's going to be at ATIA and of course it'll also be at CSUN where I believe the official launch will happen. So basically you've got an Ultra 5 processor inside it. You've got 32 gigs of RAM, a 5,512 gigabyte hard drive, it's got, you know, multi cores and multi threading and God knows how many neural engines it's got in it.

Okay.

It's got a built in fan, it's got two Thunderbolt ports, an old Kensington port. So it's still got that. So you can tie it down to your desk if you need to. Yeah. HDMI port, a button on the side which at the moment does voice dictation. But hopefully when it comes out you'll be able to assign whatever action you like to do. That action button on the side, two internal speakers on either side of the front, microphone, a fan underneath because it, you know, because it's a full powerful computer, it actually gets a bit warm. So you need something to cool down.

Yeah.

Weight wise, I don't know what it is, but to me it's even lighter than my brain at 40. And that's how, that's how light it is. Yeah. And it's just a very compact, it's a very compact design. So on the top of it, if you can imagine, you've got six Perkins keys, a spacebar, sort of in between dot one and dot four, you've got an up down Left and right arrow. Top left hand side is the escape key, top right hand side is the delete key. And if you come down in the line of where your space bar is to the left you've got one long key which is your shift key. Below that you've got two smaller keys. The left one is your control and then your alt and then to the right of the spacebar you've got a long key which is quote your NVDA key, that is it's the insert key. So whether you're using NVDA or drawers, but it will come by default with nvda. And then below that you've got the key on the left is your FN key and then the Windows key. Then of course you've got your auto cursoring buttons, the 32 cell bra display in the front of the device, you've got your standard thumb keys for left, right, home and so on. So I mean, I've been using it now for about a month or two and it really does feel like I'm using a proper Windows computer. Yes. I've still got to use different commands to do different functions, but you know, if I don't want to do that, of course I can plug in, you know, a USB or a, a Bluetooth keyboard. And of course being a Windows computer, I can plug anything I like into it. If I plug a monitor, a keyboard and a mouse into it, my wife can just use a standard Windows computer. Oh yeah. You know, plug in a webcam and a microphone and hey presto, you've got yourself a full desktop computer.

If it did have a QWERTY keyboard, which is what I'd be really interested. Will it be, is it, is it going to be much. I'm trying to figure, I'm just trying to figure out my head how much wider would be with the.

I don't know whether it's. Well, I don't, I, I haven't, I mean the, I mean being in Australia, I mean, I haven't, I haven't seen the QWERTY keyboard version because it's supposed to be sort of coming out in roughly about the fourth quarter of this year. I, it's not going to be much.

Bigger and it's still going to be fairly portable. Like I like. I love the idea that you can just throw it in your bag and you're saying it's, it's pretty light.

I, I would, I would have a funny. And I've got no information on this at all. I'm just speculating, but I'M assuming because the Mantis Q40 is a 40 because of the, you know, if you're going to have a. If you're going to have a computer keyboard, then you might as well have a bright display that's the width of the keyboard. So I wouldn't be surprised if it's going to be roughly the same size.

Okay, okay, that's just, that's just pure.

Speculation on my part, but I can't. But it'll, you know, it'll definitely have the same port. So you'll have your Thunderbolt stuff and your HDMI and everything else. And basically what will happen with the. When it comes out, you'll be using, you know, quote keysoft, which will have things like the Braille editor and the Victor Reader software and, you know, Braille Terminal mode to link up to another device. Because what this will do is not only it's if it's a Braille system in its own right, but you can also use it as an external Braille display, of course, with your iPhone or your Mac or another Windows computer. So that's what I'm also looking forward to showing people off as well. So. But no, I mean, I just like the fact that you can turn this very slim line device at the moment into a full desktop computer, because you would not know, when I've plugged everything into it, that you're literally using a sort of very flat, lightweight device with a Braille display. You'd swear that, you know, you're using a full quote Windows desktop computer that you'd buy out of a shop.

Yeah. And how long will it last then, for example? Because, yeah, that's always a little bit the question mark when you are getting mainstream combined with assistive technology. The Braille display will last longer, I think, than sometimes the power supply.

At the moment, we're saying all. We're saying all day use. So, I mean, I can use this for a good eight hours without any problem. And that's me thrashing it. That's me downloading Daisy Books to it. That's me using it on Teams Zoom, because I'm sort of one of the testers that are testing it out. So this thing's running all day. If I just leave it on, it'll just stay where I've left it and come back and keep using it again. It's an extremely reliable device. So what sort of the premise is, I guess, getting back to sort of the keysoft stuff is that you can use it as a basic kisoft computer so you can Just use the Braille editor, you know, terminal mode or the calculator or whatever else. And then if you want to, then you can go and use the full mode will have an option where you can turn off those modifier keys. So if you're a child and you just want to be in a nice safe key soft environment, use that. Or if you want to nick out to and start using the modifier keys, you can turn the modifier keys back on. So modifier keys, ie, as in Control, Alt and Windows and so on. Then you can start using all your other functions like Word and Edge and everything else again. So you can have it as, you know, simple as you like or as complicated as you want to as well, which is really, really cool.

Okay, that's nice.

Very good.

And may I ask you to leave the topic of braille displays, etc. Another hot topic at this moment. What you see is the smart glasses. Are you using a set yourself? And of course you are using. You have used everyone. But do you prefer one?

For example, I mean I've used sort of the envision glasses in the past and quote the all Cam, the Ray Bans to me is I guess number one it's mainstream and number two, there's a lot of development work going on it. So I know at CES in Las Vegas, Microsoft was demonstrating the CAI app running with all its object recognition stuff going on. Humanware in Canada has also made some comments about the fact that we'll be doing some, you know, people following type apps running on the glasses. There's other development going on with the glasses as well. So I think because it's mainstream and you know, what quite often happens with mainstream is the mainstream comes, becomes assistive because then we can also use it. So yeah, because it's got a huge, you know, user base, then it's more likely to stick around and be improved upon. So that's what, that's what I like about it. So even though one of the things that we being in Australia is we don't get all the cool stuff that you guys get overseas. So we don't have the live AI function for the video.

No, me neither.

Yeah.

Oh, that makes me feel better. Oh, that makes me feel better now.

I was just in the States, but.

It'S, it's, it's, it's not just about.

The seas, you know, it's about which.

Oh, okay, yeah, definitely. That makes you feel better.

Good.

Yeah.

I'm glad to see some parts of overstairs they're also suffering because I Just want that feature. I want to be able to walk it down the pla. Like, one of the things I don't like about using my cane versus my guide dog is my guide dog. I get off the train and say, find the stairs. Whereas if I can, I can't tell the cane to go and find the stairs. And I mean, yes, I can say, you know, H E Y meta look, what can you see? But I just like, wouldn't it be nice if I just got off? Look left, look right. And it said, yep, there's a escalator or the stairs 40 meters to your right. I mean, that would be absolutely spectacular. So that's the type of stuff that I'm really looking forward to.

Have you come across Glide yet from Glidance? Are you aware of that device? Yes.

Let me preface my comments by saying I've never seen the device. I think for me personally, because I've actually fallen off railway platforms in particular and actually broken two or three of my ribs in the past, I'm very wary about any AI system that would take me onto a platform and then get. And then even walk along the edge of the platform and. Or step up into a train. So across that gap. So, I mean, you know, with my guide dog, I know that you'll jump up onto the train. If I wanted to, I could use my cane to Shoreline and check the difference between the platform and the train or find out where, you know, shoreline and find out where the end of the wall is to go down the stairs and that sort of stuff. So whilst it sounds good for walking around a residential area or a safe flat area and that sort of stuff, I just get very nervous when somebody says to me, I can use this thing on wheels around a platform because I can't imagine that you could lift the glide up just to check the distance between the platform and the, the railway carriage that you're going to step into, or vice versa. So that, that makes me very nervous. There's another system that I quite like when I saw it, which was the biped navigation. Yeah. And that to me made a lot, a lot more sense because that was not aimed at, that was not going to be your primary device. Your primary device was your cane and, or your guard dog and, and that made me feel much more comfortable because when I was wearing it, it would definitely tell me about what was in front of me. It could detect stairs, whether going down or up, all that sort of stuff. But to me, I still had to have my proper orientation ability skills. So I am I don't think I'm skeptical. I think I'm, I'm not frightened. But there was no way that you would get me using the Glide on a railway station.

Yeah, it's a very, it's a very fair point. And I, I'd say I, you know, I've used it, I've had a go of it and it's like everything, these things when, when you see them in prototype, it was in, it was in a controlled environment and it worked very well. But I'm not sure I would have had the confidence to say, well, I can, you know, when my guide dog retires, I will switch to this device. If it had become available, I could. But I can see your point. Absolutely valid. Never really thought about.

Yeah.

Honestly, if somebody said to me, look, you know, take this through a shopping center. I mean, cool. I mean, I can, you know, zoom amongst all the, the stairs and the stands and the, you know, the seats and the people and everything else. I mean, that would be cool sort of zooming around with the thing. But, you know, that's a nice, flat, safe surface. But anything that has drop offs or weird stair configurations or even those courtyards where you're walking down a footpath and you know that to your right you've got three stairs going down into a, a garden type park area. I mean, even those things slightly freak me out a bit too. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, nice flat surface. Absolutely fine. An interesting.

I probably would try it, but that's because I'm crazy.

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, you can go and try it on a railway station for me and you can give me some feedback. Yeah, I will.

If you don't hear from me.

Yeah. And don't have something in your pocket that says David made me. No, that's true.

Alrighty, David, tell us about your guide dog. Because you mentioned the guide dog and I one of your videos a good few years ago. I think you were demonstrating some gadget but you were taking your guide dog with you. I think at the time I might be wrong. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you might have had a German shepherd at the time, so I'm not sure.

No, I've always had Labradors.

Oh, but my mistake, this one's my fifth.

My. That's all right. It's all right. Yeah, look, we don't have German shepherds in Australia. We probably do. I don't know. But yeah, she's a Labrador, so this one's my fifth one. So I've had guide Dogs since I was about 22 and something. My, like my first guide dog actually got ran over by a train. Unfortunately I wasn't with the dog at the time, but he used to jump fences and go for walkabouts. So unfortunately got skittled. Second guide dog was, was cool but a bit slow. Third guide dog was a bit odd because he liked walking up the right hand side of things rather than the left hand side. Fourth guide dog was a bit of a buffy guide doggy. It's a bit of a bull in the china shop. This young lady I've got now and she's no younger, young. She's like, she'll be 10 this year but she's probably the best, most sensitive, responsive guide dog I've really, really ever had. So the only thing about this young lady, Louisa, is that, you know when you get disorientated with your dog and what you really want to say is, for God's sake, will you just find the goddamn stairs?

Yes.

If I say that to her, she'll just sit down and go, right, that's it, boss, I'm not working. Full stop, I'm not working. So I've got to say, complaints from.

The work council, etc, you know, the unions, that's it.

Oh look, absolutely. She'd be right door with the union. So, so what I've got to be is all bright and happy. It's like, okay, Louisa, I know we can't find the stairs, but that's cool, come on, you know where the stairs are. And yeah, she's a, she's a, she's very. Even if I sort of like, you know, occasionally swear at my computer, which happens most of the time, she'll go off and hide under the table with my wife going, dad's, dad's grumpy. But you know that sensitive side to her. I mean she's, you know, she's, she's very cute and very lovely. She's only 24 kilos. She's a very tiny dog. But work is 110% fantastic. I can even, I don't even worry about people, you know, typical people on the train that always say, I don't, I know I shouldn't pat your dog, but I am. She just ignores them. As soon as that harness is on or we stand up and I pick up the harness, she's just in business mode. Nothing else exists except her work really. So, you know, that is fantastic. Yeah. So she's, she's. And I will go, I will literally go anywhere for that dog. She's just amazing.

So.

Yeah, but she's, you know, out of, what's that now? 40. Just. Yeah. Coming out of 40 years of using guide dogs, she's the best. Top of the tree at the moment. Yeah, she's the best one. Yeah.

Okay.

And will she retire? You said she was in her 10th year. So we are our dogs here. Well, certainly in Ireland and the Netherlands, 10 is the retirement age for dogs. For guide dogs. Yeah.

Here in Australia, where we're a bit more lenient I think to some extent. So I basically can keep work the dog. If the dog is healthy and paying attention, then you can keep working the dog. I had a friend of mine that stock was 11 and a half before they retired. But you know, if the dog starts to have like Labradors have hip issues and that sort of stuff. So if they can't jump up on, onto a bus anymore, if they can't go up a flight of stairs, that's when it happens. But I, I mean I don't know this but, but I'm assuming once 10 officially in March because normally we get checked in as a guide dog handler from a guide dog Australia every 12 months, see how the dog's going. Oh yeah, I'm assuming what's going to happen as soon as I hit that 10, 10 year mark, I'm assuming that I'll just get a call maybe every six months from my guard up instructor saying, you know, how's your guide dog going? Can I come and check her out? How's she going? Or even me, I mean if I certainly start to know that she's going to start whining when she jumps things or she's not the way she used to be. But no, that, that 10 is, it's a, it's a general number just start being aware of. But it's certainly not a, you know, they'll shout retire their guide dog when they're 10 years old.

Okay, okay. What time, what kind of waiting period would you have?

I've been, I've been fairly luckily lucky because I've always had discussions about 12 months before because I, so I retired. So I, I, the second, third and fourth guide dogs, I actually retired those dogs. So I had, I had a bit of a lead time to think about it. So I think switching over, I only had, geez, I want to say about two or three months.

Wow.

It certainly wasn't any longer than that. So I went straight from one guide dog to another. I think when my Buffy guide dog, when he was the, the fourth one, I Just. I finished that dog and I went, that's it. I am never going to have another guide dog ever again. I'm tired of, you know, Buffy, guide dogs that I've got to control all the time. They keep getting distracted and that's it. I'm going to use my cane. Don't want to do it anymore.

Yeah.

And then my instructor, My instructor, who I've actually had since my first guide dog bar, he said, look, can I just show you this new breeding line of guide dogs? These are the new sort of sensitive ones. They're. They're very intuitive. They're really smart. No, no. He went, look, just. I'll just bring one and if you don't like the dog, I'll never. I'll never open my mouth again. And of course he bought Louisa, didn't he? And we went for a test walk, as you do. And he went. And I went, oh, my God. These are a lot different. Because she was like. Because she's so sensitive. She was very responsive. There wasn't any pulling. I could wind her up to 6 to 7k an hour. I could slow her down to 1k. It was just incredible. So that's sort of. So. Excuse me. I think this time around, I think I might consider getting another guide dog because. Because I'm traveling around Australia a lot more with human wear. It's just easier with a guide dog. Although I've got to try and work out some solution with these hotels where you've got to use your smart card to, you know, get into the lift and get out outside from the front door and that sort of stuff. So that's not particularly accessible. So that's. I've got to try and work on because I don't want to be in a. In a building that I can't get out of. My guide dog going, I really need to go to the toilet, boss.

That would be really interesting.

That would be fine.

Yeah.

It would be their own fault.

Yes. Well, I must admit, one of the places I stayed in Adelaide recently, they said, look, we're 24 hour service, as in the person's actually at the desk. It's not like a remote one. If you do take your guide at the toilet at any time, we understand you've got issues with the lift because it's not that accessible with the smart card. Please ring the. Please ring the service desk and the person will come up and take you out. You and all the. Just the dog outside. Let's go the loo and we'll bring them back up again. So that was quite nice. So that's the stuff I'm using at the moment, but I'd really like to do it myself or what I might. I actually had this thought the other day, I thought maybe I should start staying in at golf resorts. Because. Because. Yeah, because normally you can sort of stroll off your. Off your balcony. Not off your balcony, off your veranda. Oh, yeah. Straight onto the grass, sit onto the golf course. And I thought, oh, I could stay really nice. Yeah.

Speak to you. Well, you will get a good increase.

A hole in one.

Exactly. I couldn't make a joke and say, look, I understand there's a hole in this golf course. Just don't look at it because I think my dog, my guide dog went in there. Yeah, exactly. That'd be messy, wouldn't it? That'd be disgusting. Now I think about.

Would also be funny if it wasn't your own golf ball.

It would be fun. I know it would be funny. So, yeah, so look, I've. That's the only thing. I mean, you know, traveling on the aircraft, that sort of stuff's no big deal. The airport, the trains, everything else is cool. But yeah, just the hotels to be. I mean, even the, even the hotel stuff. I mean, walking there and putting a smart code in, you think, oh God, it's a touchscreen air conditioning system. Touchscreen this, touchscreen that. So that's the only thing that, you know, annoys me about travel. But besides that, it's all good.

David, it's been a pleasure. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Really enjoying. We're going to let you go because you're starting your day so you don't anymore. Thank you very much for, for joining us. I just want to ask you. Well, just tell us before you go because you do fantastic reviews of gadgets on your podcast. Tell us where people can see and hear more of you on the interwebby thing.

Yep. So the podcast is called IC Various technologies from a blind person's perspective. If you stick in David Woodbridge into any Google search type stuff, it'll bring out the website. The website's david would bridge.podbean.com but. And again, I, I'm always on LinkedIn, I'm always on Mastodon, Facebook X. And no, I don't use. No, I don't use.

No, I don't.

Use the messenger for that matter. But what I'll. What I will be doing as soon as the Evolve starts to be officially released in csun, then I'll. I'll start a series of podcasts on using the Evolve. So you know, navigating using keysoft, the modifier keys, using with nvda, using with jaws. Because one of my favorite things about drawers, of course is the split view feature. Yeah. And of course that'll work with the Evolve as well. So that to me. So there'll be a God knows how many series. It probably won't be as much as my original Max series which was 39 podcasts. It'll be, I don't know, maybe 10 to 20 different podcasts on different subjects. Chop and choose. But yeah. So just sticking to that Woodbridge and you'll be able to find me on, on, on most social media platforms. And if you want to email me, my email address at Humanware is just david.woodbridge how it [email protected].

Okay. Thank you so much, David. We really appreciate you coming on the show and thank you so much.

That's okay. I bet you listen to my day.

Enjoy the rest.

This is also the Blind guys chat. You know, we can also chat for hours.

Oh, that's true. Exactly. Yeah.

Y true.

Exactly. Yeah.

Well, thank you very much, David. That was really a wonderful interview and thank you for getting up so early in the morning. That is all we have time for, ladies and gentlemen. We do hope you enjoyed our full show with David and I think he was. It was worth a full show. Yeah, he's a great guy and I've been trying to get him for a while.

He is.

But that is it for this week and we will see you in two weeks time. Don't forget that the email is blind guys chat gmail.com. okay, goodbye.

Okay, goodbye.

Goodbye.