Best of YouTube: Accessible Gaming, Access AI from Aira & Lenovo's New Accessibility Feature

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This is an AMI ORG podcast.

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Welcome to the best of Double Tap ORG on YouTube.

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Your chance to catch up on the videos we've posted this week. Now, here's your host, Stephen Scott and Sean Preece PERSON.

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Hey guys, welcome to another Double Tap WORK_OF_ART on YouTube. I am Stephen Scott PERSON. And I am Sean Preece PERSON. Hello. Hello, Sean Preece PERSON.

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How are you this fine day? How are you in yourself? Oh, wow. Small talk. I like it. Let's banter. Yeah, I'm not so bad. Let's go on with it.

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Fine. So games, accessibility, I'm all in. You know what? I'm actually, remember last time we talked, I was asking you, is it time to buy a gaming console?

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I'm still on the fence, if I'm honest with you. I'm still like, okay, do I go down the route of PlayStation PRODUCT? Do I go down the route of Xbox PRODUCT? I just don't know what to buy. There's too much choice. What do I do, Sean Pryce PERSON?

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Well, I mean, I think you just keep holding off and holding off. We're still waiting for that point where it tips over to most games are accessible, aren't we?

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I know we talked about, as you said, is it time to get a gaming console? Because the actual consoles themselves, PlayStation Xbox, they're accessible at a system level. I mean, you could use them as a media player, for example, right? They've all got a built-in screen reader of some sort,which is fine. And some people do just use them for Blu-ray or whatever it may be. Or at least they used to.

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But when it comes to the actual games themselves, I'm still hesitant. I still don't think we're at a point where I can say, I can buy a game and hopefully there'll be accessibility features in there. The majority of them still don't. I believe, anyway, I'm still at that mindset.

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I think I'm getting to the stage that I want to try some of these games because the experience, I suppose I've often felt what's the point? Because I'm going to get, say, 30% of the experience that someone who's fully cited might get. That's my view on it, right? Without trying these games, I'm not saying that is the experience. Of course, that's not, that's just my view on this. Yeah. But I'm thinking about it from a purchasing point of view, if I'm going to spend the money on a console, I want to make sure I'm going to get a decent amount of enjoyment out of it.And it's intriguing listening to people who are playing these games every day to learn about what they can actually achieve. And we're going to play some clips in today of conversations we've been having over the past few months on this very topic. And I bring it up today specifically because we're in the week where the game accessibility conference is happening in London, in England. And this is a huge European NORP conference bringing together lots of different people, lots of different talks are going on, all about game accessibility. I mean, the fact there is

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a conference around that tells you a lot in itself. I mean, this is a huge event. It's happened around the world. This event happening in London. And of course, this is the same organization behind the Game Accessibility Conference Awards, which we reported on earlier in the year on our show, on our daily show. But I bring up this topic today for that reason, because I think it's a good chance to revisit. And it's always, I think, important to revisit this topic this topic because look when we've done this on the radio show we don't get much in the way of response we don't get people getting intouch and talking about their experience and I think it's for the same reason I have which is the hesitance to go and buy the console to try this on the hope that one or two games might be accessible but someone we've spoken to recently well-known face in the world of accessible gaming, that is sightless combat, also known as Ben Breen PERSON. He now works for the R&B ORG as their accessible gaming champion.

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And he has been talking to as recently about what his role is, but also talking about the state of game accessibility in 2024. The question is, is it up to scratch enough for us as blind people?

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I think what we're seeing now is kind of the evolution of it. So we're still seeing games that are coming out with, you know, very little in the way of accessibility, particularly for gamers without sight. But that's, you know, unfortunately that's a truth that we've come to acknowledge me and so many others that this will probably happen. Because, of course, accessibility for various levels of sight loss has been covered over the years, but gaming without sight is still a relatively unknown concept to most people. But as people are realizing, oh, this game's done stuff well, this game's done stuff well, they're learning from that, which is usually a good start. And it's mostly just a matterto convey any flaws as a thing that a future game could work on, unless, of course, the current game can resolve it, and, you know, the developers have said, you know, we're going to resolve X, Y, and Z. So it's an interesting point to be at, because we're seeing accessibility becoming more and more commonplace for gamers without sight by degrees. But by the same token, you know, feedback channels still need to be there, of course. There needs to be availability of playtests and consultancy opportunities worldwide, definitely, so that, you know, many people who want to lend their voice to these discussions and give, you know, obscure ideas, you know, that might not have appeared before the airing that they might need, because those ideas might be the one tiny little innovation that might resolve a load of issues, for instance.You know, so, you know, we're seeing a lot of progress, but it's still slow.

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Yeah, I mean, that was a great example, really, of what I was saying before, about hitting that tipping point. We've seen this so many times when it becomes, when it comes to certain areas learning about and becoming accessible. It takes time. We saw it with smartphones, for example. And then the apps in the app store, wherever it may be, Android, iPhone, Apple TV PRODUCT, wherever. You start to see people, you know, saying, I want to be able to use this stuff. Then you see the developers or manufacturers sort of responding to that. And it's slow. It's painfully slow. I think it's the same when it comes to gaming. We are starting to see that accessibility starting to take hold, but still for the majority ofus, we still think that games, for the most part, accessibility really isn't baked in enough,

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but we are getting there. And one game in particular, which I think, and rightly so, has had a huge amount of exposure in the past six months to a year, is Forza Motorsport PRODUCT, a game which, you know, it's a racing game,

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it's all about driving, you would not think this is a game that would be something we could even think about playing. How would that even be possible? Well, I got the chance to catch up with Ross Miner, who's been playing this game now for almost a year. And let's just say he's been

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loving every single minute of it. This is the very first racing game that is completely accessible to blind gamers from the ground up. There may be like racing games in the past that you could kind of play and stuff like that, but like this is straight up like the fully through and through accessible experience. And that's what makes it so exciting for me because before I was blinded as a kid, I loved playing racing games. And after I went blind, I was like, well, you know, this is, video gamesas a whole were just very difficult to play, but especially racing games. And so when I found out that this game was coming out, I was like just over the moon. I bought the game, like the premium edition. So I got like five days early access before it came out. And then I streamed it on Twitch ORG. And it's the thing is, is that like it's difficult at first.You or others may know that like with accessible products with assistive technology, there's often a learning curve. And that's really no different with video games, especially like the more complex the mechanics are. And so the first time streaming on Twitch ORG, I always like to say that I was literally driving like a blind person. But then like a week or so later, you know, I'm, I'm getting noticeably considerably better. And the thing is, is thatlike, I, you know, I haven't had a ton of time to play as much as other people. But, you know, I'm getting noticeably considerably better. And the thing is, is that, like, I, you know, I haven't had a ton of time to play as much as other people. But with that aside, I would consider myself an average driver because, you know, there's an entire forza discord of blind drivers. And they are just out of this world. Like, they are tearing it up on the track.Like, they are regularly, up on the track. Like, they are regularly, frequently competing alongside sighted players online and things like that. Like, they are so good. And I'm like, I am not there. But I, so that just goes to show just, you know, the variety of skill levels and just kind of what blind people can do when they they harness theseaccessibility features. There are a lot of sound cues, I'll say, that that kind of work all in tandem to make this all work. The car engine sound follows the optimal racing line. And so when you are to the left of the line, your car will be, the sound of your car engine will pan to the left in the stereo field and vice versa on the right side. And then you basically have to turn in the direction.I mean, it gets a little more complicated here because I think the default is that you turn in the direction where you hear the it gets a little more complicated here because I think the default is that you turn in the direction where you hear the car. But for me, like, that's not how my brain works. And so I invert the sound. So I imagine, like, pulling the car back onto the optimal racing line.But yeah. And so, like, that's how you know where you're supposed to go. And then there are a bunch of other supplementary audio cues. First being there are cues for the track limit. So like if you're getting close to the left edge of the track, like a beeping sound will begin to play. And then as you get closer to it, it will be faster and faster until it's just a solid beep. And same on the right side.Then you have, let's see, you have sounds for when you are approaching a turn. And this kind of, you know, just allows you to prepare how fast you want to go through the turn, how you want to position yourself for the turn, things like that. Then as you're going through the turn, there are three nodes, so to say. So the beginning of the turn, the peak or like the apex of the turn, and then finally the like straight away or like pulling out of the turn. And so the first two beeps that play are the same pitch to kind of let you know where you are in the turn.And then the third beep is a higher pitch letting you know like, like, all right, you are, you are out of the turn. You can kind of floor it again. And so that's really, really helpful. There are, there's a sound cue for when you're approaching a turn and you're going too fast. So the game will tell you like, hey, you need to slow down or like, you will absolutelyspin out right now. And I personally find that one really useful. Then there are sounds for when you, for whatever reason, may be facing the wrong way on the track. You know, sometimes you'll spin out and your car will kind of end up in the wrong direction. So that's really nice.And then there are, then those are most of the navigational ones that I can remember. Then there are kind of like a few more supplementary ones, like a sound for when like AI has taken over your car to kind of like lead you into the pit or a sound to let you know like what gear you're on. If you're driving in manual, things like that. But those are the main sound cues. I literally feel like I'm forgetting one of it. I don't believe I am.Wow.

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I mean, there's so many he mentions there. You know, if you have missed any out, then, wow, that would be even more impressive, actually,

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because it just shows how much thought has gone into this game to make it as accessible as possible. Now, that game does excite me for that very reason. I mean, Ross is totally blind, and he is able to drive that car, as he says, like a sighted person.

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Yeah, and that's exactly what we need, right? It's that tipping point of, this is the thing that really makes me, as a visually impaired person, want to go out and spend money on that gaming console. You need that killer app, that killer device, the killer game. You could argue it first started, I first started hearing about accessibility, really,with the game The Last of Us WORK_OF_ART. That's when I first started to hear and take accessibility seriously in what I call mainstream game console gaming. And it's thanks to these kind of games where the effort has been put in to make those features accessible that you think actually we are getting somewhere.

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Yeah, of course there's one game though, which I would love to see being more accessible. And that's Grand Theft Auto PRODUCT. We have been waiting patiently for Grand Theft Auto 6 to come out. And I kind of thought this would be the time we'd get an accessible version. So I asked someone who might know, that is our good friend Steve Saylor PERSON, the blind gamer. He has well-tuned

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into this stuff, right? He knows his onions when it comes to accessibility and gaming. And I thought he might get some inside information on this. So that's the question I put to him. Will Grand Theft Auto 6 be accessible?

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Not yet. I think it is definitely too early to know at least at this point. Rockstar ORG is very good at being able to keep their cards close to the chest. There's been rumors for years about what, like what Rockstar was making as far as like their next Grand Theft Auto PRODUCT game.And for right now, like now that we've only had, like we just had the one trailer basically that has come out and took the internet by storm. That, that's pretty much the only official announcement we've ever had in, and the basically six years since, uh, or actually even over 10 years ago since Grant Theftado five came out. So Rockstar ORG has, like, I, I, I have a pretty good idea that potentially there might be some more accessibility in there. I mean, they have been, a rock star is pretty good to be able to sort of try to be able to keep up with, uh, with sort of current modern trends, but also adding their own style into it. I don't know whether it'll be accessible. They don't have a big, huge track record as of yet, but I do hope that they do have definitely make it more accessible, especially for those who would like enjoy like Grand Thet Auto online or even just the new sort of thing that popped up from Grant Theft Auto PRODUCT,which is Grant The Auto PRODUCT roleplay, which people are jumping in into private servers and basically roleplaying the world within GTA PRODUCT as their own avatar. And that's been amazing to be able to see, too. So nothing really, no news or no information as of yet, but I'm sure when Rockstar ORG is ready to talk about it, they will.Yeah, well, I hope they do.

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I want Grand Theft Auto 6 PRODUCT. I honestly they do. I want Grand Theft Auto 6.

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I honestly think if they brought out Grand Theft Auto 6 and it was accessible, that would be the day I buy some kind of console.

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That's interesting. I still think of the overhead view when I think of Grand Theft Auto PRODUCT.

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Probably the last time I could...

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Yeah, exactly, with minis and things.

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Yeah, again, it's going back to that killer app

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and a name like Grand Theft Dotto PRODUCT becoming accessible. Again, just pushes accessibility into the limelight even more. But I don't know, I think they've got a bigger problem than even that, and that is our perception of gaming when you can't see any of the visuals. I'm still hesitant. I mean, there's a bit of a fine line that we're walking here because I don't want to put the money up for a game console and then testing these games in the first place unless there's a, you know,a majority of the games that are accessible. And then, secondly, am I getting the same experience when I'm playing it by audio cues that I sort of reminisce about as when I was a gamer when I could see the screen? You know, the...

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Well, I think this as well. I kind of wonder sometimes it's easier to play new games you don't know because then you don't know what you're not seeing, whereas it's different if you've played the game before. You've got a sense of what this game is like.

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It's a bit like watching a movie, isn't it, with audio description now when you know what it was

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like when you watched it in sight. And you can picture it in your head almost every scene, right?

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If it's a movie you particularly love and you've seen it. Or you think to yourself, goodness,

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I didn't know that was even in that scene. I had no idea. I didn't know why everyone was laughing at that particular moment. I want to ask you this, just before we go, I want to ask you about computers, because we always talk about consoles and we focus on consoles. But, I mean, computers are accessible, right? So if you buy a PC and obviously we'd be talking a gaming PC or a decent gaming PC, how good is that? I mean, I'm assuming this accessibility,

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and this is just me not knowing anything, is the accessibility in these games, is it capable

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or available within the games on, say, Xbox PRODUCT via PC? It's a very good question. And again,

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I don't know personally because I've given up on games. But I wouldn't see why not.

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Unless it's relying on any of the system level accessibility features, which I don't

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believe it will, maybe the screen reader, there should be absolutely no reason why all the accessibility features aren't standalone. They should be in the game and you could play it on any platform. That's a very good point. I just don't know anymore. I haven't looked into PC be in the game and you could play it on any platform. That's a very good point. I just don't know anymore. I haven't looked into PC gaming in the longest time.

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You're listening to the best of Double Tap ORG on YouTube. Welcome to another exciting episode of

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Double Tab on YouTube. So today I want to talk about Ira Access AI PRODUCT, the easiest name of a product to say ever. First off, can we change that? Can someone just get in touch and fix that? Because I don't like it. But the feature I love.

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Stephen PERSON doesn't like it. Can we change it?

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I brought it back, though. I brought it back, right?

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First they thought, oh, oh, here we go.

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And actually, I brought it back.

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Because look, I love this, because it's another example of using the power of AI to benefit us as disabled people, it's blind people in this case.

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And it is very similar to be my AI for sure. But the point is that this is developed for people who are blind. So you know that the whole interface will be accessible, which is the good thing.

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There also are a few other differences we're going to get into as well.

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But first off, have you tried this new feature?

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Oh, I feel duty-bound to say yes. But the truth is, I haven't yet. No. I haven't. Shempreas. No, that's not true.I've looked at it, but I haven't used it, I would say, in real life yet. Do you know what I mean? I've opened it up when I've been sat in the city and had a look around the interface and it all seems perfectly fine, as you would expect. But I haven't actually used it in, as I say, practically yet. And there's a reason for that.

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And I think we're going to get to that in a minute.

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I've got a feeling you'll be, well, thinking the same as me.

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What?

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Because everyone's using BMIEI. AI?

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Oh, wow, straight to the point. Yeah, but yeah, actually, yes.

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You want to dance around this topic? I mean, you know, let's just get straight to the dance, right?

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No, you're absolutely right. That's exactly what I'm thinking. And it's not, that's no reflection on any of the

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capabilities or how they've done it or the performance of the description that you get. It's purely, and it's the same reason I use seeing AI all the time,

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rather than Envision PRODUCT or whatever else.

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It's just that now it's built into my muscle memory.

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When I want to do something like that, it's just, hey, whatever voice assistant,

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open, be my eyes.

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Or I press the action button because I've programmed it into the action button on my iPhone PRODUCT,

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you know?

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It's just a case of it got there first.

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Well, I want to focus on some of the differences today because there are clear differences between Aira Access AI and BeMy AI PRODUCT. Aside the fact, I think the second one is easier to say than the first one. I'm just saying.

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But here's the thing, let's focus on the differences first. And to do that, let's actually hear from Troy O'Tillio PERSON. He is the CEO of Ira. He joined us recently over on The Daily Show WORK_OF_ART to join us to talk about exactly this, the differences between what is IRA AccessEI and what else is out there currently.

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You can provide images, you can take pictures, you can get descriptions, you can interact with it. You can do that with a lot of apps. But one of the main differences with IRA is that you can also interact with the agents. So we are stitching together the experience so that, you know, when there's a point in time when you're not confident about what the AI is providing back, that description, or you just want it to be verified. You can ask the agent, and I'm not talking about a call, you just simply mark the image or the description,and then you say you want some more information. You say that you want it verified. And free to you, the agent will respond in 20, 30 seconds, with either everything looks great, or here's what the AI didn't catch. You know, this was a hallucination or it was missing this information.

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So some start differences there, at least it would appear from what Troy is saying. Now, I should say that BMIIs does have a similar functionality where you can call a volunteer and they can also confirm or deny what it is that the images or description is saying. You can almost have that conversation

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with the volunteer. The difference here, though, it seems, is that you're able to almost text back and forward with that agent. So you're not having to make a call. I guess you could if you wanted

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to, but you don't have to. And it also comes down to the fact that you're talking to an agent. So it's a bit different. It allows you to have perhaps a conversation about something more personal than you might have with Be My AI. I think that's exactly it. That is the big difference for me. And the fact, as Troy just said there, you know, the 20 to 30 seconds and you get a typed response from a human being

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who's just verifying the AI response. That is very, very cool the way they've integrated that agent. But I think you're right. When we talk about differences, this is, I mean, we can take the AI out of it. And when we talk about the differences between paying for a trained agent and using a volunteer with BMIEyes PRODUCT. A lot of the talk is around the privacy and security and confidentiality aspect of these services. And there's something about a paid professional versus a volunteer.And let me just say this, I've never had a bad experience with any volunteer on BMI ORG eyes. I've never had a really bad experience with any IRA agent either. But there's something about that contract that you have when you're paying for a service that you expect a certain level of privacy, professionalism and confidentiality that maybe you don't when you're using a volunteer. In certain situations, that makes so much sense to use IRA,depending on the material you're trying to get described for you.

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But there's another question that I put to Troy Attillo PERSON, and that is around the privacy itself, because there are concerns around what is happening to our data when we upload it to a service like Open AI ORG, for example, if you use chat GPT, if you're uploading an image, is that image being fed straight into the massive munching machine that is the AI computer. That is the technical term. And, you know, the problem is if it's munching in all that data and it's taken all thatinformation in, and yeah, okay, it may be anonymizing it to some degree. It's still your data. We are essentially using IRA because it's giving that promise of privacy. Does that extend to the AI? And that's the

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question that I put to Troy Attillion PERSON. When you use IRA or any app, the guarantees about how your data is handled are in those sometimes long-to-read terms-of-service privacy policy. As an aside, we work with an attorney who focus on making this simple as possible language, but ultimately we didn't have to change our terms of service. We didn't change our privacy policy to launch this. Why? Because you get the same guarantee about your data, as you just mentioned, with our access AI. How do we do that?We are using the paid enterprise version of AI. And in a minute, I'm going to tell you, we also have access to Gemini PRODUCT, which is another model. So whether it's my AI, whether it's Gemini PRODUCT, or other models that we may include in the future, we are going to leverage the enterprise or secure version. And I'll describe a little bit on that, but ultimately, we give you the same guarantee about your data. It is only, you know,it's only stored with IRA. You know, these images that are going to AI are not. The Open AI folks do not have access to them. The Open AI folks do not have access to them. The Gemini PRODUCT folks do not have access to them. Your data is handled in the same manner that it's handled with agents.

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So that is giving people, I guess, a little bit more confidence knowing that, you know, when you're uploading that image, it's not going off to Open AI or Gemini or Google ORG in this case. It's going to the IRA agents. Those are the people who keep it. Now, I kind of wonder if this is a little bit like, you know, you call a call centre and it says your call may be recorded for training purposes. Is it like that? It's just a little bit of extra recording kept for that very reason to enable them to assessthe data, to able to assess the agents' information? Because I guess those guys are obviously going through performance reviews all the time.

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Yeah, well, if there's any issues that arise, and they can go back and assess if the information that was given was correct or for training purposes, maybe something like that. But, I mean, I'll be honest with you. This is the same question we've asked many, many developers that are providing an AI service.And they all kind of give the same response. I mean, I believe B. My Eyes had the same response. It may be stored. These images may be stored, but not away. You know, not with Google ORG, not with anyone else.

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But they may be stored there for a while and for analysis or whatever it may be. So there's, I don't know, are you still happy with it being

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stored anywhere? I'm getting to the stage where I'm realizing privacy is a bit of an old

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person's game. The young people don't seem particularly interested in it anymore. And I think that the reality is you have to think about what they can do with the data, right?

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What can they do with it that can be potentially harmful to you?

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And I think if you're really that concerned about it, just don't share that information with them. Try and find someone close to you to help that, you know. But equally, you could have a friend who could be coming into your house. And every time you show them an image of a bank statement, they could be snapping a picture of it. How do you know? Right? There's always a danger with everything in life. You've got to be careful,

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but, you know, minimise risk at all times. But I think at the end of the day, what is good here, you have a company who, and this is where, you know, be my eyes or IRA or any of these companies, they have got responsibilities. And if they start doing something bad with data, that's going to come out.

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And that is something that can be actioned and dealt with. And that's actually better. And it's certainly more possible to deal with legally than it would be if your friend was snapping a picture of your bank statement.

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So I would say I'd probably rather use that service.

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But again, it depends on what the information is. I think you've always got to be careful. Yeah, you do, of course. You mention minimizing risk. And of course, we've always got to be aware of that. Excuse me. But the thing is, I think we just got to accept that we give away some of our privacy as blind people anyway.

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It's just the way it is. Yeah, exactly. We need to. I mean, we both know somebody who gives away their PID number when they want to get some money out of a cash point, right? I mean,

Speaker 01736.72s - 1742.58s

of course, we may say, you can't do that. It's ridiculous. But when you're in that moment and you

Speaker 51742.58s - 1746.32s

need some cash, sometimes you just need to trust and you give away.

Speaker 01770.02s - 1774s

I did it with someone. I know I shouldn't do it and it's not a good idea and don't do it. Please do not try this at home. But it was just, it was the kind of day. It was not a good day for me. And I needed to get money out of the bank. And the process of trying to do it was just a nightmare. And I said to this person who was with me, can you do this for me? And they were not comfortable with this at all. And I kind of thought to myself, look, the worst case scenario is they take, I think the maximum they could take out was like

Speaker 51774s - 1779.94s

$500. And I thought, well, you know what? If I lose it, I lose it. I'm willing to take the risk.

Speaker 01780.24s - 1784.6s

But I'm making that. You know what? I think in life, you've got to take responsibility for

Speaker 51784.6s - 1785.04s

your actions. It's as simple as that. And, you've got to take responsibility for your actions.

Speaker 01785.14s - 1801.46s

It's as simple as that. And I try and take as much responsibility for my mistakes I've made plenty of times. Yeah. And, you know, or even missteps, whatever you might want to call them. That's the point.You take responsibility for it. I'm saying, look, at the end of the day, it's my decision to do this. And if it falls, it's on me.

Speaker 51802.28s - 1806.58s

And that gives me a little bit of control, I guess, in a weird way.

Speaker 81806.88s - 1815.34s

You just need to accept it anyway. Sometimes we need to give a little bit of our own privacy to get help and just to get things done. Yeah.

Speaker 51815.76s - 1818.56s

Way too many people know too much about our lives as blind people.

Speaker 81818.72s - 1853.18s

That's just the way it is. It's true. Now, there is another side to this story, which I wanted to bring up with Troy. And that is around the impact that this could have. Because we're talking here about agents being on hand to answer queries about images. Now, from all accounts already, this has become a very popular feature used by lots of different people who use IRA.Either they pay for the service or they don't. It's a free service. You don't have to subscribe and pay money to use IRA either they pay for the service or they don't. It's a free service. You don't have to subscribe and pay money to use IRA or to get access to access AI. Goodness me, see, if they just

Speaker 31853.18s - 1858.32s

changed that name, Ira Access, ORG Access, Ayer. It would be so much easier. For me. It's like a nursery rhyme,

Speaker 51858.42s - 1885.38s

isn't it? It's like Access, access, access. But what I'm finding is that, you know, yes, it's great. You can do that and you have to sign up. That's the one thing you will have to do. You have to sign up to use it. But you will be able to get access to it, which is brilliant. But what does that do to the availability of agents? If, for example, like I'm saying, you know, you have agents who are suddenly all answering queries about AI, you know,

Speaker 31885.68s - 1885.94s

queries.

Speaker 81886s - 1886.54s

Yeah, pictures.

Speaker 31886.76s - 1887.3s

About images.

Speaker 81887.58s - 1889.88s

So that's a question I put to Troy Attillo PERSON.

Speaker 51889.88s - 1895.82s

We know that we have been not staffing fast enough at IRA ORG.

Speaker 11895.98s - 1897.48s

We monitor that internally.

Speaker 51897.92s - 1900.04s

It's something the team has been working on.

Speaker 11901.18s - 2012s

It may allow me to point out that during last year, we started a process to convert our agents from being contractors to employees. We didn't make a big announcement about this, but I realized that it helps, you know, explain a little bit about what we've been doing to address wait times. We knew in 2023 that, you know, we have a service that is growing and to make it even more attractive to be able to bring on more agents and also to do a better job scheduling. It was timeto move to the next phase of IRA where the visual interpreters who are professionals are employees of the company with benefits. And during that process, you know, we had to hire differently. And I think last year at the end of the year, some of the call times, some of the wait times were well beyond what we expect, what you expect. And now beginning this year and continuing on, we're at a much better staffing level. Is AI going to, you know, reduce call level. Is AI going to reduce call volume?Is it going to increase call volume? Because one might argue that with more functionality in the IRA app, more people will download it, which is our hope. More people will engage with it. And more people will make use of access offers. So it is our hope that we actually get more calls.That's why our beta is not a public beta, but it's by I'd say invite or within the app you sign up and we'll be adding people daily, weekly, but we are not going to add everyone at once because we want to make sure that our staffing and the wait times are not going to add everyone at once because we want to make sure that our staffing and the wait times are not affected by potential increased use of IRA visual interpreters.

Speaker 52013.66s - 2028.9s

So there we are. A lot of the questions answered, I guess, around what is this new feature from IRA? It sounds brilliant. The name, eh. But, you know, the good news is we've got another fantastic new feature to try. And it's free, Sean Priest PERSON, my favorite price.

Speaker 82029.3s - 2047.36s

Of course, free. Yeah, let's be honest. They've done a great job on it. Janine's been fantastic with the beta testing team. They've tested it again and again. So, yeah, even though I haven't got to it yet, I definitely am going to get to it. And I'm glad they've added that feature.

Speaker 42047.82s - 2057.5s

This is the best of double tap on YouTube ORG. Find more videos and subscribe now by heading to YouTube ORG and searching for double-tapped video now.

Speaker 52057.8s - 2102.58s

I want to talk about accessibility at Lenovo ORG. It might not be the company you might think about when it comes to new accessibility features. But their latest lineup of think pads, their premium business brand of laptop, will have a brand new accessibility feature, which will be rolling out to all of their devices over the coming year, which is very exciting with us now to talk more about this, is that Graham Thomas PERSON, he is the senior technologist for Lenovo in the UK and Ireland GPE.Great to have you with us, Graham PERSON. Thanks for having me. Now, of course, Lenovo ORG is a huge company, which to date, I believe, is still the largest manufacturer of PCs and also seller of PCs globally. Is that right?

Speaker 62102.76s - 2111.42s

That's right. Yeah, I think the official line is with the world's largest PC vendor by volume. So you're quite right. We shift more PCs than all of our

Speaker 52111.42s - 2136.26s

competitors. That's quite incredible, isn't it? I mean, the PC really does remain king amongst all of the other options out there. I mean, you know, I love talking about Mac all the time, but, you know, the reality is Mac is a tiny proportion of the number of PCs actually sold out there, and Lenovo ORG is leading that. What do you attribute to the success of Lenovo ORG in a very crowded marketplace? You've got a lot of competition out there.

Speaker 62136.72s - 2224.44s

I think the key thing, and it's particularly in the role I do as well, is we listen to customers and we bring products out. I mean, you mentioned Mac, you know, at the end of the day, it would be lovely if people were queuing up overnight to buy our products because we convince it to, but, you know, we're not in that position. We are very much, to put it crudely, square pegs for square holes in the way. You know, the team I'm working in the UK GPE is replicating all around the world. And we're out talking to customers,press, even our business partners, you know, users, even at trade shows, public shows, taking all of that feedback and giving it to our Amia ORG product teams and then our worldwide product teams. It's very flat, our sort of design structure. You know, our sort of head of design, a guy called Brian Leonard, you know, if he wasn't asleep at the moment in the States GPE, I could get him now. You know, he travels around the world with a team and they want to hear from people. And I've been with the company now.Sorry, cat in shot there, but I've been with a company now 13 years. And I can think of, you know, dozens of examples of where in my time I've been in front of customers, in particular verticals or retailers, they've told us where we're missing something. And within a couple of years, we've come back with a flight case with a lock on it, open it up and shown them. And it's resonated. I remember that.We had that conversation. So we've got great examples of taking that feedback and producing products based on it.

Speaker 52225.94s - 2235.02s

You know, obviously many questions to ask you today. but first off, what's the cat's name? Oh, that's Nina PERSON. Nina PERSON, the cat. Oh, well, welcome to Nina PERSON as well.

Speaker 62235.2s - 2239.26s

She probably got more views on the platform to social media than myself, really.

Speaker 52239.88s - 2276.68s

Hey, listen, I'm all for it. In fact, if you can bring the cat in more, because I believe people do watch cat videos, so, you know, it'll get our numbers up. I think that's going to work for us. You know, it's interesting you talk about design because one thing I would say about Lenovo ORG, and I'm not being unkind, but you're, let's just say, everything tends to always look the same with Lenovo laptops. What is that about? Is that a deliberate effort to essentially, you've found a design that works? We all know it's durable. But you know, you've got that traditional black case design. Is that something that you design, that you feel is important to continue that? Or are we about to find out that there's a new white version coming next week?

Speaker 62277.12s - 2400.24s

Yeah, I mean, it's very much a, you know, Model T Ford ORG kind of thing. But ultimately, it's, there's no point just making a change just because, oh, here's the new model. So let's move the webcam to below the monitor or let's shift all the keys around so then we can say, look, you can clearly see it's a new model. Ultimately, you get to a point where the ergonomics work. You know, we test, you know, we've got diversity and inclusion officers involved in the design process as well.So when we get to a design which is widely accepted with some minor tweaks, you know, then there has to be, we've got this phrase in Lenovo ORG about purposeful design. There's no point facelifting something if it works, you know, and you can see that, you know, to look at a mass market product that we sort of all get exposed at different times is a car. You know, sometimes manufacturers can make a facelift for the sake of it and everyone turns their back on sort of what is that sort of the most popular car in the UK all of a sudden drops down to sixth because no one likes a facelift. And it might be cosmetic. But, you know, more importantly, and for the right reasons, if those are ergonomic changes that then start to affect the way people interact with that device and drive it, it's wrong.And even more so with the last four years, you know, when people are getting their new laptops sent directly to their home address, they're somewhat isolated, even if they're tech savvy, if they've got to sort of look and learn at the, well, hang on, this is chain, oh, where's that key gone? That's not how I'm used to using it. You've then created a problem for the user in isolation, because they're sort of, you know, on their own at home. And then you've got that thing where they might be picking up the phone to the help desk.You know, if they're seeking help, that's downtime. That's costing money. But in terms of user satisfaction and even employee satisfaction, it's not right. So yeah, what you see with some of our devices, someone say that might look the same as last year as one, but then there's a lot of little subtle things. And it's my job and then the team I'm in there to communicate those changes and why.

Speaker 52400.96s - 2413.74s

At Lenovo ORG, you're saying, okay, we're not going to change things for the sake of it. We are going to improve on that. And that's one area you've done with the keyboard. You've improved the keyboard. Talk about what you've done here to make the keyboard more accessible.

Speaker 62414.3s - 2564.18s

Yes, so we've always had the home keys on the F and the J key and feedback. And you've got to remember as well, but like any employer of a reasonable size, we've got users who've got to remember as well, but like any employer of a reasonable size, we've got users who've got accessibility needs as well. So we're not just looking at our customers. We've got a duty of care to our own colleagues. And based on customer feedback and our own colleagues, we realize there was scope. You know, nowadays, the keyboard hasn't changed that much in terms of the number of keys and buttons. But what we're trying to do with that keyboard has increased.You know, we're not just typing letters. And there's a need to very quickly move to certain areas of the keyboard for functionality. So we've actually put more raised bumps across the keyboard. So the volume buttons on the function row, there's a smaller one for volume down and a bigger bump for volume up. There's one on the insert key, enter. There's also a slight change we've made in the bottom left side corner, but having a few more bumps around are enabling usersto navigate round there easier. But a big change we've done, and this is actually one that's sort of turning things around after about 30 years. One of the big comments that's been made about our keyboard is we've always had the function key at the bottom left of the keyboard. And the control key was the next one in. Now, whenever customers who've come from competitors or even using desktop keyboards have said to ask, look,everyone else has the control in the bottom left, then the function key. You've got it the other way around. Can you not just change this? And you can swap it in software for people who really want that functionality. But the argument's always been if we do that for customers coming from a different brand, we can alienate all of our existing customers. And you mentioned about, you know, I was being the biggest vendor. That's a lot of existing customers. But then the criticism was leveled. What about visually impaired people? And that was all it took. You know, that obvious thing, you know, when we stood by it and said, look, you know, all of our othercustomers are used to it. But it is an obstacle for anyone who's visually impaired because even a desktop keyboard is the other way around. So it was the right thing to do. So this year's keyboards, the control is in the bottom left, then the function key, because that's what the world's used to. So yeah, but just by simple, we've got too many customers who are used to it,that argument didn't hold water anymore.

Speaker 52565.28s - 2579.7s

That's incredible. And it kind of shows the power of a very small group of people. Let's be honest, visually impaired people are. You know, I'm part of a very small minority in the world today. But, you know, it does show that our voice holds some weight, even in a big company like

Speaker 62579.7s - 2692.54s

yours. Absolutely. There should be no barriers. I believe when was the UN ORG? I think it was 2006 there was the UN law about inclusivity and things. And that's, you know, that's a lot of people look at that as that's the line you have to cry. And it's not. That's the minimum. That's what we're all legally mandated to do. But we're looking at it that there should be no barriers to entry for technology. You know, one of our straplines has mentions about, you know, smarter technology for all, but ultimately it has to be, you know, technology is an enabler. So for anyone, you know, however small that community is, if it's something that enables everyone and certain smaller communities, the enablement is more crucial to them. And then if you've created a barrier there, that's unforgivable.So it's, you know, one of the things I give you an example, so with VR headsets, we looked at it that certain people of different ethnicities, faiths and cultures might wear different headdresses. They might even style their hair differently to celebrate their faith or, you know, where they're from in the world. Now, it should, none of that, none of the stuff which is part of them as an individual, you know, them as their culture, should be a barrier to then wearing that headset. So we tested our VR headsets with different cultures, ethnicity, headdresses,you know, and even just going down to individual freedom of expression. Somebody doesn't want to take their baseball cap off. That headset, you know, one way the other should work. So we don't want anyone to get to a point where all of a sudden they've got to sort of put their hand up and say, you've got to excuse me, I can't take part in this task, this leisure time, this work, because of choices I make or celebrate.

Speaker 52694.08s - 2716.76s

Yes, fascinating hearing you talk about this, because when you mentioned earlier about diversity and inclusion being part of the build process, you think about a laptop and you just think about a simple design of a Lenovo laptop, a simple design, by the way, which has been very popular for many years and continues to be. Yet, you know, you think how does diversity and inclusion impact its development? And it sounds like there's actually a lot of different ways.

Speaker 62717.14s - 2732.84s

Yeah, and it's funny, actually, I mean, you know, the main way. You said about different technologies and the laptops still the main stay. You know, there's been so many things over the years. I'm probably guilty of talking to the press at one point saying, this will be the year where wearables will take over everything.

Speaker 82733.38s - 2737.66s

And, you know, there was one year where I thought would I end up being a smart watch specialist.

Speaker 32737.66s - 2741.9s

But the way we drive the software hasn't changed.

Speaker 82742.06s - 2748.16s

You know, it's still tactile responses to the, you know, the front of the device.

Speaker 62748.16s - 2783s

And what I find fascinating is that way we drive a computer, that core method of input, is a couple hundred years old. You know, it's from the first mechanical typewriter. And that has two conflicting stories, one of which was the whole idea that the keyboard was laid out to stop the actual hammers fouling with each other based on the layout of most popular. But then you've got all the different languages to look at. And the other story actually abouthow the mechanical typewriter came about was a guy invented it so his blind sister could write

Speaker 02783s - 2797.74s

letters. So, but either way, whichever one you subscribe to, it's fascinating that those challenges that had to be overcome 200 years ago still are dictating the way we control and interact with PCs.

Speaker 52798.64s - 2820.2s

And it doesn't feel like that's going to change any time soon. I mean, let's just park the Humane AI reviews for a minute. You know, the amount of new technology that is coming out in the AI space, we've got Rabbit R1 PRODUCT, we've got Limitless PRODUCT now coming out with a new pendant. We're starting to see this new category emerge of devices. Yet at the same time, a lot of people still looking to buy a traditional

Speaker 62820.2s - 2892.06s

laptop and not wanting to get away even from the traditional keyboard. Yeah, I think the, you know, the AI PC is, I mean, the whole idea of the sort of, let's say, like the communicator badge from popular science fiction franchise series over the decades, yes, it's great. But ultimately, if that, you know, even using something fantastic like co-pilot for Microsoft ORG, sometimes if it's trying to write an email for me, I then have to get to the keyboard to edit it on a mistake it's made because, you know, it's far more painful a process to try and edit it with voice commands.I mean, the easiest way to look at that is any kind of voice command in a car. The amount of, no, navigate to Bracknell Town Centre FAC kind of thing. The amount of times you have to say it where if it came up with something that was slightly wrong and all you had to do was hit backspace two times, that interaction now has become a lot easier. And I think, I think, yeah, these kind of voice commands and interactions have their place. But yeah, I do think we're a long way off replacing those traditional ways of interacting and driving a PC.

Speaker 52892.96s - 2913.8s

And of course, you mentioned AIPC. I mean, it's not just new keyboards these new Lenovo ORG laptops are getting this time round, getting much more powerful processors, but also the capability to onboard AI, essentially, to be able to function AI onboard the machines. So talk us through what's new in 2024 from Lenovo ORG on that front.

Speaker 62914.3s - 2940.48s

Yes, I mean, it's an interesting, really interesting time this year because you've got computers coming out that have got NPUs, neural processing units. Now, these are, the easiest way to look at it in some ways is a bit like, I'm to show my age now, when people bought PCs that had a separate maths co-processing, you know, a dedicated component, cat in shock. And she's really mucking for the camera now and destroying my desk.

Speaker 52941.22s - 2943.92s

Nina PERSON just wants to be in amongst all, I think, quite right.

Speaker 62943.92s - 3100.44s

It's not camera shy. But, yeah, you know, when you've got this MPU, which is dedicated architecture, to look at running these large language models and computational models, that's that, you know, because ultimately you look at it, you know, there's things like Adobe ORG with their generative fill and the AI features and things like DaVinci resolve.And one could argue, well, I can run that now. I haven't got AI in my computer. It works. But some of that is then loading it onto the GPU. Other elements of it are running off into the cloud. But the ability then for my PC to do some of this itself.And look at the internet itself. Let's just say I wanted to generate a fictitious, a fictitious image at the moment. It's on a server somewhere and it's looking at all these images. But if my PC could do that and just look at a load of images on the web and then come back with its own conclusion, in short bursts, because the architecture has been designed to do it, with very good levels of power consumption. So I don't go, I've just done something in AI, but now I've got 15 minutes left on my battery. You know, these basic models we know offrom, you know, things like chat GPT, this is just the start of it. And when you look at what the commercially or consumer accessible AI tools, how they progressed in just a year, I think it only took a few days for chat GPT to get a million users. And that just shows the speed of, you know, everyone's having a play with it,whether it be my children sort of picking sort of funny images of chinchillas with baseball bats or something, all the way through the people using them to summarize meeting. And every, I was doing something yesterday, I was using AI to generate Arduino PRODUCT code for mebecause I haven't got a clue how to do it. But every person is looking at it out of curiosity and people are already using it as a tool. And this is the year when it genuinely becomes accessible for everyone. You know, every level of user can start leveraging it themselves. It's not prescribed what you can and can't do with it.And the more people explore what it can do, the more that model learns. And so, yeah, we've got Intel's platform this year that's got MPUs built in. Later on in the year, Qualcomm, our releasing architecture, to run on Windows PRODUCT. And AMD will have a very powerful platform later in the year, Qualcomm are releasing architecture to run on Windows, and AMD will have a very powerful platform later in the year. And we're talking about consumer, you know, devices in users' hands that are performing able to process up to 50 trillion operations per second.

Speaker 03101.86s - 3111.7s

It's one of those numbers. It gets to the point it's hard to sort of rationalise, isn't it? 50 trillion operations per second on a laptop

Speaker 63111.7s - 3116.98s

sitting on your lap while you're on the train or just, you know, it's just powerful what it can do.

Speaker 53117.62s - 3125.36s

I think we're both old enough to remember the days when we used to have the debate. Can a laptop replace a desktop? Remember those debates?

Speaker 63125.56s - 3133.58s

Absolutely, yeah. I remember, yeah, when laptops were almost a companion device for the highest paid exec. Yeah.

Speaker 53133.84s - 3148.56s

You would never replace a desktop with it. And now it's totally the opposite. I mean, desktops is another question. Because, I mean, obviously, the Novo PRODUCT still make desktops. A lot of companies still do. But I imagine the sales of desktops have gone way down in favour of laptops these days.

Speaker 63149.02s - 3328.62s

It's, as you'd expect, four years ago, there was a much demand for desktops. But now we're now there's enough time. I mean, you're also looking at the fact that we are four years since a lot of people rushed and bought portable computers to get people to work from home. So I believe it was, I think in the UK alone, it was something like about 16 million PCs were purchased in 2020. So they're all four years old now. And also at the same time,businesses, you know, small, medium and large, have got to the point where they can make decisions now on what the workplace looks like. You know, when people have been, you know, it almost feels like every other week there's a story in the press about a large company saying, actually, we're not going to have that mothership in the centre of this city anymore. I mean, Facebook ORG famously bought themselves out of a lease of a building. They hadn't even moved into because the workplace dynamic had changed. Now, because of that, some companies are saying, well,there are areas where we do still need employees. So desktops are sort of, I guess, making a comeback isn't the right term. But, you know, there's demand for them again. Now people have matured their real estate strategy. You can even get it where you, I mean, the example I always used is if you look at sort of a call center for, let's say, a bank or a broadband company or something, typically in that organisation, they might be some of the lowest paid people. But they're the ones who are required to come to work at prescribed times on a shift maybe to run that call centre. And it might be some big shed on some out-of-town ring road.So you've got the lowest paid people who've got to get there at certain times, maintain a car to get to start their shift at nine and things. And it's the people higher up who get to enjoy the flexible balance and stuff. So some employers are saying, well, actually, these people can work from home, but we need to give them a desktop. We can't have a call center operator discussing somebody's loanor something like that whilst they're taking the kids to an indoor trampoline park or sitting in a pub because it's got free Wi-Fi. These are the freedoms that people are enjoying now, but there are certain people who are working from home's advantage for them, but a desktop actually works better, or even an all-in-one. That's something I was very mindful of where people were looking at devices for working from home. Not everyone's got the room to have a couple of monitors, you know, close the door on their study. But if someone's got an all in one, it's a simple one power cable, and you can pack that away on a Friday.You know, you can shut work away. And it's not sitting on the kitchen worktop or the dining room table, just, you know, that light blinking saying, well, you know, you might as well check in with work on a weekend. So there are, again, you know, there's some advantages to the form factor. Much in the same way with a laptop, you travel a lot, you get a 12 inch device. It's more a desktop replacement for yourself over there, have a 15 inch device. The form factor in the desktop can help even sort of office layouts or people working from home.

Speaker 53330.22s - 3337.7s

Listen, I am so glad to have you on the show today. I've learned a lot and it's been really interesting geeking out with you on this stuff. Graham PERSON, thank you for coming on to double-tap.

Speaker 63337.76s - 3342.32s

And thank you to Nina PERSON for making an appearance as well. She'll get her royalties cut, don't worry.

Speaker 53342.96s - 3344.36s

Absolutely. That's Graham PERSON.

Speaker 63344.46s - 3345.42s

Pleasure. Bye now.

Speaker 53345.7s - 3377.68s

Huge thank you to Graham Thomas from Lenovo ORG, senior technologists for Lenovo in the UK and Ireland GPE, joining us here on Double Tap today. If you've got a view on what you've heard today, maybe a thought on what AI PCs will bring or what your thoughts are on these new accessible keyboardsthat are rolling out on the think pads. Do let us know, get in touch. You can comment below, or you can send an an email feedback at double tap onair.com. You can call 1877803-4567. I'll catch you with another double tap on YouTube ORG next time.

Speaker 43383.08s - 3394.04s

You've been listening to the best of double tap on YouTube. New videos are published throughout the week. To make sure you don't miss out, head to YouTube ORG and subscribe now. Search for double-tap video. Thanks for listening and catch you next time.

Speaker 03400.06s - 3410.26s

Hi, I'm Ramiya Amuthin. Join me weekly for AMI ORG audiobook review. The podcast that explores new titles, introduces us to famous narrators, and updates what's hot at the Center for Equitable Library Access ORG. Download episodes of AMI ORG audiobook review from your favorite podcast provider.