Cork notes Saturday 2nd of December 2023
Participants: 9
Apologies: Jackie.
The past week saw Giovanna, a visiting student from the University of
Virginia to UCC, collecting data for a new navigation system that she is
developing. The system consists of a belt of six vibrating sensors that are
arranged around the torso of the user. Each buzzer can be set to a low or
high intensity or a short or longer duration to indicate different
instructions to the wearer. The current exercise involves collecting user
attitude and awareness data along with feedback on the effectiveness of the
buzzers to communicate a range of instructions. This could be a valuable tool
when it is fully developed.
Paul was caught bout by the fact that Voiceover was jumping out of position
while entering the security code to open his phone after updating to IOS 17.
Ken recognised that the trouble was caused because the typing mode had
shifted to Touch mode when Paul normally has it set to Direct Typing. Paul
was delighted to find that this was the right explanation.
Chris explained how to carry out a soft reset on iPhones with no home button.
Pressing the volume up and releasing it. Then the volume down and releasing
it. Followed by a long press of the Power button.
Ann Marie wondered if Audible was attempting to save space by removing a book
from the library. She was at a loss to know where the finished book had gone
to. Ken and Stuart were able to point out that the book is moved into the
cloud and that this is controlled by a setting under profile within the
Audible app. It was noted that there was a danger that a book might be
removed before the user had finished listening to it if they fell asleep
before it finished. The setting can be found at: profile> settings > Data and
Storage >Auto Remove: On / Off
Adrian uses Book share from Vision Ireland which is built-in to the Easy
Reader app. These are all eBooks. There are no audio books in this system.
Mention of audio books brought to mind the AI voices that Apple released
earlier in 2023 but nobody had any experience of using them as yet. Perhaps
future apps will begin to use them. the speech quality is excellent and
includes breathing sounds that make them appear more natural.
Ken had a problem with the latest IOS update 17.2.2. He found that the phone
was inserting words to complete a phrase that he was not intending to use.
For example: On typing "Good " the phone automatically added " morning" in
real text that he had then to delete before dictating his own chosen phrase
of "evening", for example.
After exhausting all possible controls that might stop this activity, he
ended up reluctantly turning off predictive text and auto-fill text.
Stuart also had a problem with the latest release of IOS 17 in which blocks
of text are being read twice. He also found that after copying the text and
pasting it elsewhere, the text appeared twice in the pasting area.
Ann Marie had a problem with NVDA in which she was unable to read an entire
text continuously in Microsoft word with NVDA plus Down-Arrow. Various
attempts were made to find out what was causing the problem but without
success. She was still only able to read one word or a single line but not
the full page. This needs some more research to be carried out.
Chris told of an unpleasant experience in Limerick Regional Hospital in
which the security officer incorrectly refused to allow him to bring his
guide dog into the hospital. After Chris called the Matron when no access
officer could be identified, he was told that he could, indeed, bring in his
guide dog and that the security guard was not correct. Following this
experience, Chris received a phone call from the newly appointed Access
Officer inviting him to speak to a special meeting of staff and other
patients with disabilities on the value of the guide dog and how it was
essential to permit access to the hospital as long as other users were not
upset by the presence of a dog. There is now hope that the hospital policy
will be updated to make sure that this obstacle is removed. Chris introduced
the hospital meeting to the Navilens guiding system. This system was so well
received that there is hope that the limerick hospital will adopt it and make
the Navilens tags visible throughout the hospital.
This would set an excellent precedent for other Irish hospitals.
The meeting drew to a close with discussions of the Apple watch, Voice
messaging and the effectiveness of Siri as a more secure means of messaging.
The meeting ended.
All the best,
Cearbhall
m +353 (0)833323487 e: cearbhall.omeadhra@xxxxxxx
