Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Where accessibility meets innovation. Hosted by Evan Starnes, Blind Level Tech explores the latest in assistive technology, accessible design, and everyday tools that empower the blind and low-vision community. Each episode dives into real stories, expert insights, and practical solutions—from screen readers and AI tools to mobility tech and inclusive apps. Whether you’re blind, low vision, a professional in the accessibility space, or simply curious about how technology is reshaping lives, this show offers fresh perspectives and actionable takeaways.
Produced by Aftersight, Blind Level Tech is more than a tech podcast—it’s a platform for inclusion, discovery, and possibility.
speaker-0 (00:20.462)
Greetings everybody and welcome to Blind Level Tech where we bring home the bacon and the bites. And I will have an explanation for that outline momentarily because we today are joined by David Ward. And if you haven't heard of him, but you've heard of the Echo Tips podcast, well, technically you have because he's produced about 400 episodes of said podcast. And we'll get to more on that later, but
Welcome to BLT, David, and thanks for that very on the spot tagline. I think that was a lot of fun.
speaker-1 (00:58.166)
Yeah, man. It's good to be here. It's awesome, man. that's, yeah, just for the listener's background, I was talking about possible promos for the show with sizzling bacon sounds in the background. BLT brings home the bacon, line level tech, know, something like that.
speaker-0 (01:14.83)
It's always something I bring up. like, I have a tagline this week, but I haven't like, I don't know. kind of like it, but it just sounds too formal. I'm like, yeah, we bring home the bacon in the bites. know, it's like, okay, first of all, that sounds cool to say, but it's just, want something, something that catches people's ears, you know,
speaker-1 (01:37.93)
Yeah, yeah, I do love a good BLT. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
speaker-0 (01:41.868)
I'm more of a BL- ironically I'm more of a BLP guy. I like pickle instead of the tomato, but...
speaker-1 (01:46.71)
I've never tried that, but huh, okay.
speaker-0 (01:49.312)
It's actually, it's pretty good. actually, if you do it with, goodness. Not the, I don't know why I'm thinking yeast bread. Good Lord. It's got like.
speaker-1 (02:00.108)
Potato bread? No?
speaker-0 (02:01.752)
close, but. Rye bread. Yeah. It's actually really, really good with rye bread because it. The flavor of the rye kind of complements the salty tones of the pickle. Now we're getting into cooking here. The flavor of the bread complements the salty and the crunch of the cucumber. Hey, hey, we were talking about a cooking show that could be an idea. Be careful. Well, I say.
speaker-1 (02:15.106)
Yeah
Level cooking.
speaker-0 (02:30.697)
Not be careful, but you know, you never know.
speaker-1 (02:32.984)
You get so many options. Blind level exercise, all sorts of different things. You can do blind level cooking.
speaker-0 (02:39.278)
Yeah. Blind level, blind level breakdancing just to be extreme. Well, this has sure been quite a fun little introduction. And as far as really a technical background, obviously, you know, we, the echo has been out since 2014 and you know, you've, you've had your
involvement and really you've been involved in the Echo Tips podcast, but of course your technical background goes way back before that. Starting from, you know, getting into IT at first, how did that all eventually lead to you becoming involved with AccessTech and eventually, you know, starting the Echo Tips podcast?
speaker-1 (03:27.51)
Yeah, okay. So, well, mean, as far back as I can remember as a kid, you know, I was like tearing things down and building them back and Lego and all of that. And I got diagnosed at some point with retinitis pigmentosa. It's in the family. X-linked comes down. So I had diminishing eyesight. It's probably getting services through, you know, public school and middle school, high school.
But going around middle school, really played with computers a lot. This is going way back. I'm talking like IBM PC XT. Oh my God. Like IBM 386s, 486s. We thought it was amazing when the Pentium came out and Windows 95. I was kind of a teenager in that those years. anyway, I spent a summer washing dishes at a restaurant. That was one of my first big jobs.
speaker-0 (04:04.6)
speaking my language.
speaker-1 (04:22.106)
And I took the money from that and I was trying to apply the age old, I don't know, it a Scrooge McDuck aphorism? Work smarter, not harder.
speaker-0 (04:33.166)
I've heard that I actually didn't know that would be Scrooge McDuckbutton
speaker-1 (04:36.738)
I'm sure it's stolen from somebody else. Yeah. So, and so I took the money and I rolled it into buying a book about becoming a computer technician, an A plus computer technician. And then I studied that and then took the exams and got certified. And even then I was just probably a junior, maybe a sophomore, maybe in, in, in high school.
speaker-0 (04:40.465)
It could be stolen from a lot of people.
speaker-1 (05:02.998)
And then from there on, I've continued IT. did network technician stuff, security, IT security. went to college, got a general studies degree, but always was focused on technology track. At some point I decided I really felt more geared towards maybe teaching versus trying to do. I even then the industry was always changing. felt like, gosh, as a blind guy trying to keep up with this.
I thought training would be a little more applicable because you kind of cover the context of things, how they've grown. You bring people up to date. And it's something I had been forcing myself to do to get certified, know, train myself. I decided to specialize in a, and get a certification as a trainer. So I think that that's kind of the nutshell along the way. I of course used a lot of the software that made, you know, life possible through college. mean, ZoomText.
eventually screen reader stuff. The first iPhone I had was specifically because of the voiceover. Yeah, it was a three GS man. was a three GS man. Yeah, that's going back a ways. I was before Siri, ladies and gentlemen, and Siri was a separate app at that point. Amazon, I mean, Apple later bought them. But yeah, I developed an iPhone app at one point called Braille Sonar.
speaker-0 (06:08.654)
was probably the 3GS.
speaker-1 (06:29.966)
And I sold that for a little while and then I kind of shut that down, shuttered it for a while. I've actually recently resurrected it a little bit as a free web app right now. But then I started training in 2015 as an AT trainer for a nonprofit here in Roanoke, Virginia. And I did that for close to 10 years working with the BVI community here doing training and with the radio reading service that we were kind of partnered with as well. So I think that's.
nutshell.
speaker-0 (07:00.398)
That is definitely that's a walnut shell. That's great. And yes, the yeah, three GS. That's I mean, that's like the last classic, in my opinion, the last like classic design iPhone. Because the four is when they kind of got all, you know, aluminum and glass with the new retina display at the first front facing camera, first one that could do FaceTime. I used to think the S when I was I a little kid. So I thought the S in the four S stood for Siri.
speaker-1 (07:03.564)
Yeah, okay.
speaker-0 (07:27.326)
I didn't know at the time about the 3GS. And at the time, I also of course didn't know that Apple has been using that S branding long ago, really going back to the 2GS, probably one of my favorite vintage Apple computers. let's, rather than going down that rabbit hole, I think it'd be worth at least asking the question, you know, having a technology background is one thing, but working with students and the experiences that you got, is there anything that
they or that just really working with them in general taught you about either devices, technology, both like in a general and an access technology standpoint.
speaker-1 (08:10.722)
Hmm. I think a lot about I learned the value of trying to meet students where they're at. Yes. Little baby steps sometimes and recognize that some people, especially the group I often worked with, which were connected either with radio rating service or the way I'd like to think of it here, wouldn't get assistance from any other state organization. In other words, maybe they weren't on an employment track or they were tired or they
weren't on a college track. So the local department for the blind and vision impaired, as well meaning as they may be at times, just didn't have the funding to really assist them in any way. But we had all these new tools like you just talked about, like the iPhone. What? You can do what with your phone now as a blind person? And then Siri, which made it the barrier to entry much easier. I mean, had a 90-year-old who
He used Siri to do everything, to call people and everything. other than that, he couldn't do much with voiceover other than launch his tuning app to tune his guitar. But it was a huge thing to him. then, came along the Echoes, the Amazon Echo. I said her name. Uh-oh. So that was really great because I think it made things easier for people and people that wanted to advance beyond that. They kept pushing the boundaries and I kept
you know, feed them a little bite chunks. Let's learn about this this week. Let's learn about Facebook. Let's learn about how to check your bank and see what your balance is or whatever the case may be. And we could advance and others, you know, who got comfortable at a certain place. you know, I didn't try to push them. It may be something new would come along and I would share that with them. But I just try to meet people where they're at and recognize that everybody doesn't have the aptitude that you might think you have. It's like me in foreign language. If you ask me to speak French or Spanish,
I learned in high school. I have no aptitude for foreign languages. They don't make any sense to my brain. But math and other things, I can't, but not foreign language. just, that was kind an interesting lesson for me about interacting with.
speaker-0 (10:20.258)
Well, I'm actually very glad you said that because having try, you know, having experienced teaching, you know, folks of various ages, technology, is that kind of realization that what might be extremely easy in a walk in the park for you might be like running a marathon for the other person. Even if it's like, even for somebody that hasn't touched voiceover. And I just have to go back to the old days when I first held like the first ever iPad I'd ever seen. And it was the original iPad.
And I had no idea what double tap meant. used to think it said double tab and I'm like, wait, there's no keyboard. And then it said home button to the right. I'm like, wait, is this, know, nine year old me was like, wait, is this thing a joystick to have to like push it to the right? And then all of a sudden this thing started playing music. like, what did I do? And it turns out of course I two finger double tap without realizing it, but you actually did talk about a, you know, pretty much what became the next big voice assistant after Siri. mean, you know, yes, we've had the Google assistant and
You yes, you did say the wake word. I may bleep that out, but then the idea of listening to, you know, I wouldn't hear it, but the thought of everybody's echoes going all at once is very appealing. So maybe not, who knows? Comparing A-Lady early on to just other assistive or access technology that you were teaching students, you know, regardless of their age back then, what kind of differentiated A-Lady from everything else that you were used to training on?
speaker-1 (11:46.102)
It was so approachable, very approachable. mean, once it's hooked up, just interacting with it, it was something you could show to anybody, despite their age, how youthful they were, a little kid. You might remember a little kid's order in Barbie houses back in the day or seniors. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was an amazing tool. It wasn't long after it came out that the price point was amazing too. mean,
The Pringle can, the original Pringle can was kind of almost like, I don't think Amazon knew where they were going with, because it was originally like a $150 to $200 device. But soon as they came out with like that $50 entry point with a dot, wow. mean, what? I mean, dude, I mean, we look back at talking alarm clocks beside our bed and all these other tools and every single one of those would have been $100, $100, $200.
And now we have this little device that can tell me the time, tell me the weather, check my calendar. I mean, just if you stop there, that would be enough. But then all the other things, can to music. It can tell me to take my medications throughout the day. And then you get into the skills store, a whole ecosystem that like exploded like the iPhone app store there at one point. was phenomenal. don't know if they'll recapture that magic again, but wow, it was just so
Approachable to people and the iPhone was very simple too with Siri, but you have to admit even back then I mean an iPhone was a $500 maybe a $400 investment if you got maybe a cheaper one So yeah, there's so approachable all you needed was internet and I just think that was a real boon to our computer
speaker-0 (13:35.756)
Yes, it really, I mean, it really was. And, as the first time I'd even heard about this thing, I was like, wait, Amazon Echo, what is this? And it was actually from somebody who I'm really hoping to have on the podcast. It goes by Gallagher123123. There's a lot I've actually gotten from his channel, but let's be honest. But I mean, really, yeah, going back to the Pringle, I like that you call it the Pringle can Echoes because they literally are the exact size. I've always called them the water bottle, but I think
It does look more like a Pringles can.
They sure do. I still have one on my bathroom counter and it still works just as well. mean, it doesn't have the plus upgrade at the same time when it first came out too. I had that same feeling like, whoa, this is kind of like the concept of having a speaker that you could just ask it questions and you could just seamlessly, if I wanted to say like play, well at the time,
It was play blind bargains on tune in, you know, it just knew. of course the thing I loved about it is it would just auto play. So I put that on and then I'd usually end up, you know, listening to a couple episodes. I catch up and then fall asleep because it auto play. And I miss those days because at least for me, my, my introduction to the echo really was the dot, but it was the second gen. Did you ever get to see the first gen dot just out of curiosity?
speaker-1 (15:03.18)
yes, we would call that the hockey puck design. Is that what you're talking about? The original hockey puck was all plastic.
speaker-0 (15:11.554)
Yep, think that's the second one.
speaker-1 (15:13.506)
Yeah, they made a couple of colors and then later they stuck, they kept with the hockey puck, but they added the cloth kind of around the edges. And then eventually it transformed into the, what I would call the snow globe design.
speaker-0 (15:26.926)
There you go, I like that. I call it the orb, I think it does look like a snow globe. Or the magic eight ball.
speaker-1 (15:32.812)
know. 8 Ball, yeah, yeah, yeah.
speaker-0 (15:35.138)
And that is definitely true. And I feel like the plastic hockey puck, I mean, a lot of us call them those because they're the exact size. You could probably take this, the foot off of one and use it, you know, in a pinch. If you really wanted you to smash it to pieces, but would be kind of fun.
speaker-1 (15:49.72)
They did have one redeeming quality. had that audio jack out on them, which was super cool that you could pipe that into other things. Or I had students who maybe were in nursing home environments or something they could plug headphones in to not bother their roommate or something.
speaker-0 (16:05.09)
Yeah, had a lot of folks that actually requested that and annoyingly now, cause I mean, they kept that until the fourth gen and even made it in the fourth gen. made it both a headphone and or a line in depending on what you wanted to do with it. But yeah, then they completely just yoinked it from the fifth generation. But yeah, we have had people just say, you know, Hey, do you have an echo dot with the headphone jack on it? And so. Unfortunately, I don't know if they sell like the echo flex anymore or.
the echo input, was that like dedicated one that you just plug into your stereo system. But I mean, really since its inception from that Pringles can back in 2014 when you needed to be on a wait list and when they, yes, were, think they were actually, I remember them being at least 150, if not 200. And, know, they don't really have skills. And in my mind, at least if we're speaking of the original pre plus a lady,
speaker-1 (17:02.158)
Yeah.
speaker-0 (17:03.116)
Her voice sounded a little bit more natural, more recorded back then, and then, you know, it kind of started to get more breathy. It's like comparing a compact to a non-compact voiceover voice.
speaker-1 (17:14.376)
Yeah, everything. It's hard to look back and to remember because yeah, I for its day, mean when she first came out in the Pringle can model, as far as a TTS, it was pretty good. You to remember how god-awful Windows sounded back then or NVDA was still using eSpeak and
speaker-0 (17:29.878)
I'm in the ad.
speaker-1 (17:38.752)
Yeah. my word. it sounded pretty good, but you're right. Over time it got a little dated and the new AI today, like oven labs and stuff. my gosh. It's, mean, that's
speaker-0 (17:50.146)
whole different ball game. I mean, AI as a whole has really been such a, I guess, a simple, but yet extremely intuitive, flexible game changer for a lot of things. And just to finish that original point I had made with that, with the echo dot, the, the hockey puck one, guess was a second gen and they really did. There was actually one before it and the speaker was horrible and maybe sounded like the original Apple watch and
But it had a volume dial that could turn, which was interesting. It was the only echo dot that ever had that.
speaker-1 (18:21.684)
Yeah, the audio in those early ones were kind of rough.
speaker-0 (18:26.232)
We'll get you by with alarms, right? You know, that's about it.
speaker-1 (18:29.878)
Yeah, they really weren't the greatest. Now when they had the cloth one, I think it was a face down or face up speaker. Depending on its location and the acoustics, it could be okay. certainly today, think there's vast improvement.
speaker-0 (18:39.256)
Yes it was.
speaker-0 (18:50.17)
Yeah, very much. And I mean, we could go on and on about, you know, hardware changes and revisions, but I guess all I'll say to just wrap this little rabbit hole up here and kind of move on is that I would venture to say that the new Echo Dots are on par, but you know, they're not quite as good, but on par with the original Echo. In some ways, they have a little bit clearer sound. So I think there's definitely reason to upgrade if you have nothing but old Echoes, that's for sure.
speaker-1 (19:19.678)
I think the beauty of it is the economy still. It's still incredibly economical to get these devices. They've only improved over time. Amazon, mean, between Amazon and Apple, their ability to support devices over an extended period of time is quite frankly mind boggling because
It's obviously been a loss leader. think there's been a lot of reports over the last four to five years with Amazon lost a lot of money on Echo, but they kept with it. I mean, they could easily sold that dot to me for $50 and then next year started charging me $20 every year to continue to use it, but they didn't do that. so, yeah, I mean, I relate. work with students who were all on social security, disability, or SSI and
fixed income, $50 was a lot of money to them, so I relate to that. But still, it's an incredibly amazing entry point. And if you really need to tweak it, like you said, you can get yourself a headphone, you can get $20 Bluetooth receiver and then plug it into a stereo system or something, whatever you want to get that audio somewhere else.
speaker-0 (20:34.22)
Yeah, absolutely. in fact, a lot of those tweaks really ultimately became part of the podcast Echo Tips. So really, how did the work you're originally doing with students as a tech trainer? Well, did it necessarily dovetail into Echo Tips podcast or was there a different motivation behind that?
speaker-1 (20:55.118)
So yeah, the way it came about was kind of interesting. So I was teaching classes in this Amazon Echo things coming along and I had a good friend of mine who is a senior. He was talking all about how he thought it was the greatest thing ever. It didn't make sense to me really. I was like, that seems kind of goofy. Anyway, somehow I got into it and I decided this is going to be amazing for my students. so
we were writing up grants. was working at a nonprofit and we got some money to buy, I don't know, it's a lot of Echos. I've set up a lot of Amazon Echos for people over the years, but it was, I don't know, it was like a $20,000 grant or something. And it included buying Echos for seniors in the community. So it was really earmarked towards seniors, but that was fine by me because
99 % of all the students I was working with anyway that weren't getting help from anybody else, like the Department for the Blind or vision impaired, they fit that definition. So we got all these echoes in and we handed them out. I'm going to people's houses, setting them up. All of that doing training, you know, in classroom with them, giving them, you know, large print materials for those that could use them, Braille materials, know, instructions.
But eventually after my first year doing the grant, was like, no, this is going somewhere. This has got a lot of stuff going on and there's a lot more to learn. And that's when in the second grant, I included money to start the podcast. And I said, what I want to do is create a show where I can teach students ongoing new things. And all they have to do is just walk over to Echo and learn, well, hey, I'm going to learn this thing from Dave this week.
about something new I can do, whether it be how to read the Bible or open WebMD to ask about a medication or whatever the case may be, learn something new. It was kind of really a retention thing for me, helping the students retain and learn some new things. So from that point forward, eight seasons later, 400 episodes later, the nonprofit merged into another nonprofit and then that nonprofit kind of shut the program down. But I took the...
speaker-1 (23:15.182)
property with me. They let me take the intellectual property with me and continue the show. So, I've been continuing to do it myself up until now. So, that's kind of the genesis of where it came from.
speaker-0 (23:26.594)
That's awesome. And I think 400 is a good round number. like, I like a nice round number and that's, that's for a lot of episodes, especially just focusing on a lady alone, really. And I mean, I'm just saying that because I mean, we're not even, we're all barely approaching, I think our 200th episode almost. mean, in a general sense, not including bonus stuff, but you know, since you've most definitely covered, I feel like you've covered
A lady, probably time and time again. Mm-hmm. A lady, good lord. Indeed.
speaker-1 (24:01.454)
Hey now to be fair, Robin Christopherson is much crazier than me. And actually he's given me lot of good advice over the years and I've done segments for his show as well and for Blind Bargains and for Double Tap. But yeah, Robin, Robin did, done like 3000 episodes. He was doing weekly episodes every day, five minutes. And me, I'm just doing weekly shows, man. Once a week is enough for me, know?
speaker-0 (24:26.958)
You
I barely like I struggle to squeak out a little five ten minute BLT bite on Tuesdays I mean, you know, the main episodes are a given. I don't know how some people do it, but
speaker-1 (24:39.38)
Yeah, Robin up until like last month had done like, I don't know, you can go look up the number. It's several thousand episodes. And like last month, he finally announced, hey, I'm going to kind of drop off here for a while. Maybe we'll just kind of put this on the back burner. Maybe I'll release an episode here or there. Right. I was like, wow. Well, you've done a lot, man. So I think soon as he gets a lady plus in Britain, which, know, has a limited rollout, he will probably hear some more from him about that too.
speaker-0 (25:07.33)
Yeah, I'm sure we definitely will, but I think at least we should hear from you about A++ and have you, do you use A++ currently on your, like your main everyday echoes?
speaker-1 (25:20.27)
I I do on all my echoes. Of course, once you turn it on, it's pretty much on everywhere. I did at one time, just for sanity check, did disable it and shut it off and roll back to the classic just to see what the experience was like and then reinitialize it. And that was pretty, that was pretty painless.
But yeah, I've been using a lady plus since June of last year, I think, or July of last year, 2024. I was, yeah, I tried to get into the beta as early as I could, but for some reason I had no success at all. But now, now you guys may recall before there was another preview, like a year or two prior before Panos Panay came on board, I think it was David Lemp's tenure when he was walking out the door.
He was a former director of that program. They did a limited rollout where Amazon tried to, or you could do beta testing of an a lady plus they don't, don't think they called it that then, but it was their version of an AI thing. And, was so bad. was so bad.
speaker-0 (26:30.516)
It was like it almost made me think like GPT 1.4.
speaker-1 (26:35.45)
it had no guardrails on it at all. It would say almost anything and it would start just lying and hallucinating to you. It was really bad.
speaker-0 (26:47.128)
It's like all modern LLMs to shame because I remember that and it was just, I think they actually had multiple different models. remember that you could pick from and it was, could just say, you know, a lady let's have a conversation and she would like launch into this kind of mode and try to get you and get to know you. it was like talking to a table. feel like I would almost get actually more value talking out of it, talking to a table than even that.
Because it was, you know, if you think GPT is somewhat a little forceful with its personality, this was a whole different level. I mean, this is really the early days. obviously, AI has been as we know it. I mean, AI has been around well, well, well before that for, you know, I'd say decades at this point. But I mean, as as far as like large language models like Gemini, Claude, GPT and stuff, I mean, that's still if you think about it in a general sense.
compared to other innovations fairly recent and
speaker-1 (27:48.366)
Yeah, I'd say it really to see the mechanisms and the agentic qualities now, like, like you just said, that original a lady, soft, like beta, had to say something corn ballish, like a lady, can we talk live or something? And then you went into this like special mode, like you said, and you could talk to her, but she couldn't do anything. And I mean, anything she couldn't
add things to your calendar, look at your calendar. was pretty much like if you wanted to ask her trivia or something, that's about all you could do. yeah, Panos Panay came on board and I don't know how much of this was already baked by the time he came on board. But when I got access in June of last year, I mean, there's, there's been improvements since then, but really they made sure when it rolled out, I could access my calendar. could control my lights. could
I can't think of hardly anything I couldn't do now, except I think for a little while they were a little paranoid about cooking implements, like I couldn't control my microwave. Only in the last two to three months did some of those appliances I get access to that I didn't have access to before. But yeah, generally all the actual functionality really has been pretty outstanding from the get-go.
speaker-0 (29:06.252)
I was curious about your experiences and I'm kind of intrigued because I think I tried it about the same time. think maybe I got it in July or August though, but about that same time, you know, I was, I was thinking this is going to be like a new thing. It'll be like, you know, what I get with the live conversation with GPT, but better because you know, it's my smart speaker and it's got all my services already, you know, and I can do way more with it. And it's always there, you know, like it or hate it. It's always available to listen, but
When I tried it, so cooking implementations not working is an interesting point because that actually was my reason for switching back mostly because I've rambled and raved about that before on this podcast, you know, a while ago, but I couldn't control my Kossari air fryer. so that was kind of the difference between.
speaker-1 (29:57.454)
So you ran into the same thing I was. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. That wasn't unique to you. I think it was just some sort of weird safety precaution they had for a lot of people.
speaker-0 (30:06.484)
It kind of is and now they have kind of updated it much to my dismay to where you can send requests at least I don't know if it's to everything and it will like send the temperature and time but you have to go over and push the start button which the only reason I'm using this feature is because I can't really and nor do I want to do something like Orion even if as amazing as that thing is and
speaker-1 (30:29.998)
haven't figured that out yet either if there's a liability or some sort of legal precedent here in the US because there's similar things surrounding washing machines and dryers like you can set up all the settings but then you still got to go over and push one button usually to initiate it so I haven't yeah
speaker-0 (30:47.916)
Yep for first for perspective I can yell at any smart speaker to start up my robot vacuum and this thing is a Thomas and can roll around and run over my foot my dog's tail and in my mind argumentatively or arguably it probably could do a little bit more things if you know Miss activated than a Airfryer of course, you know, you could anybody could just turn on your air fryer remotely for an hour at like 450 degrees and with nothing in it that would be horrible, but
I mean, and it used to be that way. You used to be able to just say, you know, air fry and with the X amount of degrees for X amount of minutes and boom, it was.
speaker-1 (31:25.858)
What I'm hearing is you just get to buy a new air fryer, one of those new double, doubled ones, you know?
speaker-0 (31:33.254)
Actually, if I get a new air fryer This is gonna surprise some folks, but it's going to be analog It's going to have mechanical knobs and a little bell that goes ding when it's done and it will not have any Wi-Fi or software updates Nancy pants shenanigans and So really as far as Alexa plus goes, know, mean I kind of looked at it as you know This is chat GBT in a in a smart speaker, but I mean there's way more to it
speaker-1 (31:46.638)
or of
speaker-0 (32:02.296)
than that and I don't think that I think they're using Claude actually is there underlying AI.
speaker-1 (32:06.71)
have a big, if you ever look at the financials, it is mind boggling how much Amazon has invested in Anthropic. I even going back to when I think David Lemp was leaving before Panos, I mean, we're talking huge amounts of money. So yeah, I would suspect there's a lot of Claude in the A Lady. I'm sure there's some other things too, but I definitely think Claude's a big part of
speaker-0 (32:32.302)
If you get familiar enough with these LM's, the language models of course, but you'll become familiar with their speaking styles, their communication styles, the way they handle work and the way they can handle projects and other things. And I mean, the fact that we've gotten to a point now where it's less of a QA and more of a project, I don't know, assistant and super whatever you want to call it. I mean, it's really in a broad sense, it's quite new. In fact, really what...
What feels genuinely new as far as Alexa Plus is concerned? What really, to you, differentiates it from the classic A-Lady?
speaker-1 (33:11.532)
So I was just talking, think, in fact, there's some on Double Tap about this recently, but things that got me like surprises, like, you know, I knew what AI was and I'd been talking to AI bots on my phone, you know, all along up last year. So, you know, I got an idea, you know, what can be done. But things that got me were like, whoa, I can do what? One is, of course, the lady and this has never this has always been true, but even more so now.
ability to find an artist or musician or podcast and not necessarily have to have the verbatim thing is super cool. That I expected, I think. But things I didn't expect were like, this one's taken me totally by shock, is shopping on A-Lady. I would have never shopped in the past on A-Lady before. I mean, I think I did buy something once.
Just to say I did it, think I bought a Rubik's Cube that was like $2 just to test it and see how it worked. But I would have never thought shopping would have been my thing, but it has become like 75 % of the stuff I've ordered in last three months has all been by voice. And it started off real simple, like staples, like, I need some paper towels or I need some coffee or I need this. And what's amazing is I can be talking to her and say, okay,
How many ounces of coffee is in that bag? And she comes back. They go, oh, is that a better deal than Pete's coffee? Oh yeah, that's $2 cheaper. Or I have a food allergy sometimes. I'm looking at some, hey, is there dairy in that? Is there weed in that? Look at the ingredients. She'll come back and tell me, oh, it doesn't? Okay, well yeah, add that to my cart. Breakouts like how many sheets? Let's break the cost down. How much does that cost per roll? Oh, that's not a very good deal. I don't need that.
So a lot of that really surprised me. And one of the agentic components they've added just in the last couple of weeks, in fact, they even announced yesterday is on the website now is you can set what's called a deal alert, which it means that when the price drops to whatever you specify, you can get a jingle or a notification. Or this is even crazier. You can say when that coffee maker hits a hundred dollars, I want you to buy it. She'll just buy it for you.
speaker-1 (35:30.766)
And that's, that's wild, man. I'm like, that is super cool. You can later go back to her and ask her, you know, what deal alerts do I have set up? And she'll rattle off the whole list to you and you can delete it, prune it, clear it all out. It may be better to start with something. I'm always going to buy bounty paper towels when they dropped to $5. They're at $7 now, just buy it. Yeah. you know, something simple like that could save you a few bucks. I don't know.
about you, but in this current economic environment, saving a dollar.
speaker-0 (36:01.198)
Yeah bucks. mean why like why wouldn't you yeah? Yeah I mean like it kind of puts it in the same realm as like subscribe and save for me because I've gotten good deals in that too but you know rather than just focusing on shopping because I I I didn't know this before because I also was used to the old-school way of Shopping with a lady where you'd ask it for something and it say you know I found three results the first is X Y & Z add to cart and it's like
And that's really kind of the thing with these really the way I refer to it is large language model based virtual assistants versus your machine learning algorithm based, know, trained AI assistant that we all know and love even, you know, yes, Siri, but even really going, if you want to go back to iPhone voice control or even Moshi and Ivy clocks and stuff, I just had to bring those up because I didn't get to earlier.
And I wanted to just throw you back again for fun. in terms of A-Lady Plus, is there a we've talked about shopping, but is there a particular feature exclusively with A-Lady Plus that is your absolute favorite standout feature at this time?
speaker-1 (37:22.342)
well, I kind of talked to the shopping. That's really good. Yeah. I was also surprised by routines. The ability to verbally craft a routine is incredibly simple. You would think they would have put any effort into that, but it works really, really well. And they even have something called temporary routines where it's a one off. You just need it to run once. Maybe say the kids are out at the movies tonight and you want the light to be stay on to a certain time. You can create one off temporary routines. Those are good too.
speaker-0 (37:31.822)
Good.
speaker-1 (37:52.354)
But I think the best thing, that I can tell you that I use the most is it's almost ephemeral. It's hard to describe. I came to this conclusion a couple of months ago, or maybe a couple months into using it, maybe fall of last year. And what it is is I'm not speaking a lady speak anymore. In the old days,
I had to say, yada yada, do yada on, you know, I had all this verbatim speech, like talking to Siri, cause she's still dumb as a box of rocks. And, but with the a lady plus now, and you don't, you don't really realize it. You slowly slide into it because you become more and more relaxed over months. And now I tell you, Evan, if you had to switch back, you'd notice in a couple of days, you would instantly notice.
Yeah, it's noticeable.
speaker-0 (38:52.326)
Yeah, my trial, my free trial of a lady plus ended and I had a prime, but it, for some reason they didn't reactivate it. So I did have that. And I was that type of person. I was like, what this stinks? mean, of course I was used to it on my Pringle scan thing. Cause I mean, I would be amazed if that over that almost 12 year old thing could do. I mean, I'm, I'm really grateful. No, it works at all. Exactly. Cause
speaker-1 (39:12.654)
It works at all.
Sonos would have turned it into like a Bluetooth speaker by now.
speaker-0 (39:19.822)
Maybe at least and they probably wouldn't have at least done what Bose did and open source Yeah, yeah, they've had they've had some devices and I mean they still have some neat little You know gadgets and trinket the things that have a lady just baked in but I think there's some that really I wish kind of stuck around but you know
speaker-1 (39:25.134)
Accessible app.
speaker-1 (39:40.428)
They keep experimenting, so I hope they keep that spirit about them with Panos Panay, that they keep pushing the limits.
speaker-0 (39:49.102)
Right. Unfortunately, sometimes if you push the limits though, you might accidentally push out a half-baked product. We've all seen that. Have you noticed anything though that with your experience using A-Lady Plus that still feels broken or maybe a little half-baked that they just haven't improved yet?
speaker-1 (40:08.462)
I was just going to talk about that, Evan. I was thinking about the future, what I'm hoping for. And it's really connected with that, what you're saying, like a problem. Well, I don't know if it's a problem. There's definitely bugs and stuff in there, audio bugs and things that drive me nuts sometimes. A perfect example is she can never figure out time codes. Can you jump forward 15 minutes in this episode that's an hour long? Oh, there's not 15 minutes left. Listen, it's...
This Week in Tech, I know it's a two hour episode. Come on, just go for it. No, no, I can't do it. So she's really bad at stuff like that. And sometimes I felt like they were stagnant, but I'm learning differently now that they're rolling out in Italy, Spain, Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico. They rolled out these personality styles a couple of months ago and they keep adding to them. But if I had to say where I feel like they need to take some time,
And I think it's going to be a delicate thing because if they can capture the magic that was the skill store again and somehow get people enthused about it, that would be the challenge. But I feel like right now on the eight lady plus you have access to the whole skill store still. Yeah. But it's the old or lack of a better word, legacy skills that were designed. Yeah, they're they're designed with the old lady in mind and they really show their age because you go into the skills.
And you kind of run back into this old, have to speak verbatim, lady speak. It's like there isn't been a really good comprehensive merge where now I can go into WebMD and ask, you know, these really dynamic things or invoke things in certain skills, which you guys know as a radio reading services, some of the radio reading services have the most complex A lady skills known to man.
And you get back in there and you run into these, I have to verbatim try to say it this way. So I think if they can retool the A-Lady skills into this new, agentic, A-Lady natural speech thing, I think that would be tremendous. That's kind of the lost, one of the lost things I feel like we want to see.
speaker-0 (42:29.612)
Yes, for sure. And, yes, indeed, as far as when you go into a skill, especially if it's not using the a lady voice and if it's a skill that has its own audio clips, it does sound, it just sounds old school because really if we're talking a technical standpoint, they compress the absolute crud out of the audio down to mono. And so if you wanted to play any of those cool immersive audio games and stuff, it's like, if you were to play something,
Like that on like the iPhone or an Android, whatever on the computer, iPhone or mobile device, it would sound vastly different. It'd be stereo have. And so I'm, I'm really hoping that is something that we see go away. And mostly because we're in 2026, as in like, I think the internet we've gotten past the point. And I'm really saying this, especially with like, you know, not to go too off topic, but like Bluetooth headphones, like I don't think in today's day and age with the advances.
advancements we've made that there is no need to convert or compress the audio into such a lossy format to the point where it just compromises and kind of takes out of the immersiveness of what is already a, you know, voice first game or tool or whatever it is. I am glad that they didn't just, you know, immediately deprecate the legacy store in a sense though, because there are still some skills. Yeah.
speaker-1 (43:49.556)
I need access to. yeah, yeah. It definitely shows its age because, I were old bugs in the old store that are still there. Like, I could be in a store and let's say a skill that I have and I'm wanting to listen to a Bible reading for this week for my church or whatever. Well, I'll say yada yada. And the skills were never architected properly to have proper sandboxing. And so what I mean by that is if it mishears me,
Before I know it, it's trying to play Elvis Presley or something. I don't know what Bible book sounds like Elvis Presley, but anyway, you get my idea. Like it'll shoot out of the sandbox. And before you know, it's trying to play music on Amazon music when they had nothing to do. I was specifically in this skill to do a specific thing and now you're not doing it.
speaker-0 (44:38.956)
and somehow yet you're listening to something completely unrelated to what you'd originally asked for.
speaker-1 (44:43.758)
Yeah, and things like that kill me with my students in the past. I have senior elderly students and they needed to do this one thing and they said it's slightly wrong and now it's playing Elvis or it's doing whatever it's doing.
speaker-0 (44:59.798)
Yeah, I've been on the phone with a few frustrated listeners and I've had to tell them like, kind of, at least back in the olden days, you really do have to talk to it like a three year old. You just have to be like, stop, you know, like don't play that or, and the best way I could put it.
speaker-1 (45:14.476)
Yeah, and it's going to be even more confusing now, Evan, because you and me, get into this natural speech mode with A-Lady Plus, and then it's like a throwback where now I have to speak R2D2 speak inside the skill to get it to do what I want it to do. And that's even harder for my students to probably wrap their minds around. In fact, in some instances, I've almost like bought these
buttons that you push through. has a pre-recorded last 30 second command. know, like a verbal command. It had the exact right verbal command on there. Push that button and now you'll hear Bible reading for this weekend. And they make those kind of tools for people that have different types of speech impediments or speech disabilities. But yeah, sometimes to hack around some of this stuff is kind of weird.
speaker-0 (45:54.188)
Awesome.
speaker-1 (46:08.972)
I'm hoping, like I said before, I hope they branch out and create a new skill store or give us some sort of new functionality that allows us to kind of make this work better.
speaker-0 (46:18.446)
Well, and it sounds like they're going to, they have these extensions as at least that's what I found they were called. In other words, know, a lady is supposed to be able to play really nice with things like, you know, Uber eats some tech task rabbit. But do you think at least anytime soon that there'll be a point where that becomes a viable option that effectively deprecates and replaces the classic or legacy skill store?
speaker-1 (46:47.406)
I don't know if they'll ever replace it entirely. You're right, they changed the branding several times on a seven, so don't feel confused. It started off as a lady services or something, and then it became something else. And then I was like, well, this is going to be the store 2.0, but they never quite branded it that way. yeah, I'm hoping, like I said, I feel like we haven't got a you know, SDK drop.
which for listeners, it's a new software development kit that's totally retooled to address one, all the bugs of yesteryear, make sure that doesn't happen anymore. And furthermore, embrace this new natural speech agent, agentic capability, which surprisingly enough, when you step outside the realm of skills seems to work really well. So like if I tell her, Hey, I'm, I'm hot and I'm in the office or she knows I'm in the office because I'm talking on the office speaker.
She knows to turn the air conditioner on it or, you know, hey, it's dark in here. Can you make it brighter? She knows enough to turn on the lights and make them brighter. I think Amazon surprisingly has kind of, I don't know, nailed that in a way. They certainly are ahead of anybody else that I can conceive of. I mean, I do use, like you said, the robot vacuum with my Gemini Nest speaker here.
speaker-0 (48:12.16)
Yeah, Gemini's good, but...
speaker-1 (48:14.414)
She even has trouble doing that. I'm like, it's the only thing you have access to from the vacuum. Now there is a hokey mechanism with a lady plus. It does sort of weird Bluetooth pairing with your phone. And I even worked on my iPhone, my iPhone. have an S E I think it's third generation, which is like 2023 or whatever. that 24. And she, um, it'll do this pairing thing.
And then you can dictate a text message to your A lady and she'll route it through Bluetooth over to your iPhone. You hear your iPhone go do the blue, you know, and it sends the message. Which is kind of cute because the lady does a lot better job at dictation. Plus you can do fun stuff like when she goes back, do you want me to send this to John Smith? said yes, but first make it sound like a pirate said it. she'll be like, what you doing tonight? You know, like.
So yeah, it's pretty neat. I'm hoping we'll see more of that in the future. So when one device fails, we can go over to the other one and make up the difference.
speaker-0 (49:24.026)
Yeah, exactly. And I think we will, we'll have to get into that really on part two because originally, you know, we were going to focus on really combining a lady and AI, but clearly we've been able to just solely focus on a lady alone for about an hour. And therefore who knows how much editing I've got, but there's a lot of good stuff we cover today. So I believe, I think it is in the interest of our listeners.
time that we probably at least wrap up this first parts here, because we've kind of beat the alien to the stratosphere. So thank you, David, for, joining us and everybody stay tuned for really for part two, as we're going to focus a lot more heavily on, yes, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about AI because why not? And, you know, it all really ties together into
David's technical background. don't really like to say accessibility or technical journey anymore. just personally on this podcast, I have overused the word journey. Therefore I'm going to try to not use that anymore because boring.
speaker-1 (50:34.478)
How about nerd-um? D is nerd-um background.
speaker-0 (50:39.822)
I'm gonna need to like, I'm gonna need to like, reach out to you if I need like, naming names for stuff and I'm like, yes I could brainstorm it with GPT but it's still fun to human create things, there's nothing like that. But yeah, thanks a lot for joining us, it's been a fun time, it's gonna be an even more fun time part, come part two, we're gonna have to be very, very careful because look at how long this is but you know, at the same time, that's the fun part about podcasting and...
When it comes to two geeks sitting in front of microphones, well, you never really know where it's gonna go.
speaker-1 (51:16.014)
Yeah. Well, it was a pleasure being here with you, Evan and the listeners and it's great to be here. If anybody wants to track me down, like I said, eight seasons, I'm still doing the show, Echo Tips podcast. You can find me in all the podcast players and you can find me on YouTube as well. Although I'm buried on YouTube. So the easiest way to get there is to go to my domain name, certdoctor, that's C-E-R-T like certificate, and then doctor D-O-C-T-O-R.
and that will bounce you right over to the YouTube channel. And that's probably the easiest way to tell you to do it. And I even have something up on there. I got Braille Sonar up and going again, mostly doing some vibe coding, but maybe that's a discussion for a future show. But it was great. It was great being here, Evan.
speaker-0 (52:05.462)
Yes, it was great having you on. in fact, yes, that thanks for the, mean, honestly, that's a good preview because well, fact, Braille sonar and vibe coding will definitely talk about Braille sonar, but I am very curious to hear about your thoughts on vibe coding. I'm sure plenty of our listener base is as well. So you guys are going to have to wait until the following Wednesday for that. But with that being said, thank you, David, and we will see you.
again in about a week. So yeah, this has been of course another episode of Blind Level Tech. If you've got any feedback for us, be it any questions, comments or suggestions for the production team, myself, Jonathan, Jennifer, know, whoever it might be, or just any sort of feedback that you would like to share with us. Feedback lines are always open. Feedback at AfterSight.org. Of course, voicemail at 720-712-8856 and
Of course, on our YouTube page, you know, you can leave comments on our videos. are checking those comments at least on the min, you know, at a minimum once a week and responding to those. And those totally count all the same as feedback if you want to leave it there. So, you know, leave it if you have any, if you have any suggestions for guests, that is definitely also greatly appreciated. If you'd like to be on the show to talk about a particular tech topic, just the only thing that's stopping you is
hitting the send button. So thank you all for listening. I'm your host, Evan Starnes, and I will ramble at you guys again next week.