 Hi Roger Roger is hiding from you people so he watches but does not show himself now Well, he was on the show yesterday, so sometimes he shows himself, but normally yeah He just showed he'll he'll be putting screenshots up during the show. You'll see them magically appear like that There's no distance Yeah, I keep I look over I have I have you over to my left and so every once in a while you disappear in the magic of a Screenshot pops up. Mm-hmm. Yep. That's Roger at work Roger the wizard All right, are you guys ready to go? I'm so saying Here we go Daily Tech news show is powered by its audience not outside organizations to find out more head to Daily Tech news show comm slash support This is the Daily Tech news for Wednesday, November 9th, 2016. I'm Tom Merritt joining me my co-host on Wednesday Scott Johnson from the Frogpan Studios cartoonist tall man wearer of Beards I Had to trim up a little bit though for my trip to BlizzCon They ended up put me on direct TV and I had to look a little more presentable than the normal Harry Self that I am. Yeah, well, you're looking good. You're looking nice and I and also Trimmed up for our guest Shelly Brisbane author of iOS access for all writer podcaster geek for hire is with us Shelly Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me Tom and Scott and also for letting a beardless person come on the show Yeah, no all Faces are welcome on the show very inclusive of you bearded or otherwise Now Shelly, you've been you've been covering Technology and Apple and other things for what 20 years now, right? Oh more than that's been a really long time back back in the 80s I started doing this thing and and recently you published your book We're gonna talk a little bit about accessibility in a while, but you should go check it out folks iOS access book calm We'll talk about it a little more. Let's start off though with our top stories Google has added a class to its safe browsing anti malware system called repeat offenders The way it works right now if you see those warnings come up They've occasionally come up for sites that you're like well, wait a minute. I trust this site Why are they getting a warning that can happen for all kinds of reasons and any site can ask for a review Or if it actually got hacked and had malware fix the malware and asked for a review But Google noticed that what was happening is a lot of sites were taking advantage of that to deliver malware So they'd get the malware up there They'd get the warning they'd take the malware off asked to have the warning removed and then put the malware back on So if that happens Google now will make repeat offenders wait 30 days Before the warning can be reviewed and removed Google defines repeat offenders as sites that repeatedly switch between compliant and non-compliant Behavior within a short window of time and it's not just Chrome that uses this Firefox and Safari also use Google's safe browsing system To police what's out there? Yeah, it's the exact quote was only sites that purport purposefully post harmful content will be subject to this policy I hope and this article doesn't go too deep into this and neither does Google and any of their responses But what I hope is that somebody doesn't figure out a way to make another site look like a repeat offender without that sites Knowing that that's happening in other words This is a hackable or spoofable sort of event so that people are caught in some sort of loop where they just just hack someone They fix it wait for a day and then hack them again So it looks like they're abusing the policy. That'd be a real bummer that happens I mean look There's no way to know if that is even possible at this point Google's one of the smartest companies ever probably Has thought of that certainly But it does it it just rings a bell for me because when you start finding out about oh now we have this extra layer of Protection and so somebody messes up We're really going to go get them then and you just hope there aren't any false positives And part of this from their perspective is that they don't want to have to continually review things They're saying this is the 30-day holding pattern and we'll review you after the 30 days So if what Scott suggests actually does happen you could get somebody into a bad spot But for most cases until we figure out the way to the spoof the spoof as it were It seems like it would be overall a good thing It would certainly make it more manageable for Google and hopefully that means that their level of ability to get bad actors out of the way Would be enhanced hope so thinking positive. That's the thinking I mean for me I think maybe it's once been twice shy kind of thing for me I worked for a company where we ended up on blacklist for email usage for No fault of our own and had something to do with our host and some sort of hack that happened and Getting ourselves off of those blacklist was near impossible. We ended up having to change domains We had all kinds of problems with that and while I know that's not the same That's you know You're talking about a kind of a big open standard that lots of services and DNS servers and everybody has kind of a hand in This is obviously a little more centrally controlled and Google probably do right by us, but I Don't know gives me a whip for well-known sites. It's not an issue It's it's it's smaller businesses smaller sites from places like daily technician That have to worry about that sort of thing, but yeah, I agree with Shelly overall This is a positive thing to protect us as browsers. Well Google's doing other things like this. They just announced Wednesday That's today everybody that it will integrate Google map maker features into Google Maps in March and retire The existing standalone app that is currently called map maker Mac map maker rather starting Wednesday edits made on Google Maps will not be available for moderation in map maker Google told search engine land what a lovely place to visit go on vacation there that the change was made quoted to improve the expedite the map editing experience on both mobile and desktop Makes perfect sense to me put it all in the same place I don't I Have a hard time arguing that we should have a standalone app for this It makes more sense to make it more universal over the web via mobile especially so well you're obviously not one of the map guides then No, and that that's that's my guess here is that There are a lot of folks that Google has cultivated to help them edit maps remember they had that that big situation where there was vandalism and the guides were an integral and helping getting that taken care of and getting them back on their feet and My guess is a lot of them are not happy about this because they've gotten used to the map maker tool And it's advantages. I'm sure like any other to that was my question I don't know anything about map maker the map maker community But something about the way that story was written made it sound to me like there might be a community out there of people who are Grumbling about very important but very esoteric map maker features perhaps being gone because I think the story says something about Most of the features of map maker would now be available in Google Maps So that most is probably gonna cause some folks concern on the other hand I just have to say that I love the ability to edit and add things beyond street maps and Google Maps I've used that as as a user many times and it creates opportunities to make the landscape You see when you're working with Google Maps a lot more awesome So yay for the map guides and I hope that they get all that they need in the non map maker version of map editing Yeah, I'm with Shelley on that mean the idea that that Google Maps should be as extensible as possible and Tweakable and all kinds of weird things happen with it people make all kinds of crazy stuff with it all the time I'm all for that. So hopefully this doesn't yank the rug out under some of the more creatives in that space Maybe some of those people can email us and tell us what that space actually looks like but yeah Yeah, feedback at daily tech news show calm if you're a guide. Let us know what you think of this. Yeah 150 academics and industry experts published the US roadmap for robotics last week to help guide the new US Congress and allocating funds The first roadmap was published in 2009 that led to the National Robotics Initiative in 2011 Which budgeted 70 million to advance US robotics research the latest roadmap recommends things like developing interfaces for Manufacturing that don't require training to use so that that it's easy for someone to make the transition into programming these new robots matching human mobility for things like elevators stairs cluttered environments getting the robots to be able to move around in the same spaces that we can and Estimating users intent in surgical situations as a safety measure So that if if a command is given in an odd way the robot can tell well that would cause harm if I do that I'm assuming they mean cut here this way That's I know that probably sounds crazy But apparently according to this this roadmap that that is something that that surgeons would like technology law professor Ryan Kalo the University of Washington edited the roadmap and Recommends the government consider a federal robotics commission to provide deep technical expertise to policymakers He says it's too worry too early to worry about AI rules yet But there's a lot of expertise needed to understand what is needed and why not get that commission underway now So that when we do down the road need to decide on the ethics of artificial intelligence We've got a system in place for it Well, and this certainly lays some groundwork for what that might look like when we do get to those points But you know, it's just thinking about the implications of this and if you Came to me 20 years ago and said somebody's pushing for robotics standards and commissions and starting to think about these things it would sound very sci-fi But we are clearly at a place now where this sort of thing is becoming like perhaps electricity was at the time or radio waves or whatever new emerging economy affecting Sort of, you know national and international sort of technologies come our way. We have to start thinking this way. So hey Why not know I 100% agree with you I don't know if you guys heard it But on my end as you were talking about being sci-fi the audio codec flipped up and your voice went all roll body So the robots approve of what scott is saying. Yeah, they I don't yeah I couldn't tell if that was a voice of approval from the robots or not I think it's great as well because we complain so much about our elected officials not knowing much about technology And whether they take these recommendations or whether they get more specific or not At least the framework will be there and there will be a resource for them because I guarantee you that if Elected officials don't know how to operate computers or mobile phones They're certainly going to not have any concept of robotics and a lot of them are frankly going to be afraid of this technology and Whether you should be afraid of a specific element of that technology or not You absolutely should know more about it and secondly It seems like this is driven by the science rather than any specific Industrial or commercial purpose which I always think if you're going to have Interaction between the sectors in the private industry that are making stuff and the government that's the best way to go Yeah, the trick in these things is is that they're great ideas when they start and and you hit on the first roadblock Which is make sure you get the right people on here people who just know a lot about the topic and can give unbiased advice This is how it works. This is what you need And then the other side of it is to make sure that they adapt or disappear if they're not needed anymore Down the road not not to let it just ossify into something that you know I know it sounds crazy, especially given what scott was just saying, but you know 100 years from now Like do we really need a federal robotics commission anymore? You know now that robotics are self-regulated because of their ai's But this is the moment to start talking about all of that sort of thing So i'm glad that ryan calo is bringing this up. Yeah for sure Uh, facebook, you know facebook familiar with their works, uh, facebook facebook. Oh, right. Yeah, no rings a bell Facebook launched a new standalone android app on tuesday That sends ephemeral pictures and videos with the ability to put masks on faces It's not poke or slingshot or instagram. It's called flash And it's targeted to markets with weak connectivity flashes less than 25 megabytes one third as big as snapchatter For android that is flash is available now in brazil and plans to bring it to other markets I am a little baffled by the choice of the name flash Never I mean they they named an app paper when there was already an app called paper And now they're naming an app flash. Yeah Like listen flash for all of its Whatever for its storied history I I just don't understand how one that is as argument creating in the tech community as flash and as much sort of cloud that's been over its Aging technology and its antiquated approach to web content How they would want to just sort of embrace that for a a new product that sounds like is a great way to get out there And really push through the slow internet of the world and make things happen, but Yes, one of the biggest bandwidth hugs in history Uh is is not what I would have named this after uh because I know that we have many brazilians in the audience And they are familiar with the flash from adobe. Uh, so it's it's not like, you know, they're like, oh Well, nobody knows flash in brazil uh at the same time Name aside, I think this is uh, this is an interesting effort to beat snapchat to a market Where you're like, hey, we we know you guys got data caps and it can be expensive We're gonna get you something that's lightweight So now I know why they put it on android first It's because the apple algorithm would have spit it right out of the app store you flash yuck won't do it No flash no No, I think it's a great idea too And I feel I don't feel like I have a a dog in this fight Not only because it's from emerging markets because because it's you know the kids and the facebook and the snapchat And I think competition is only good For both facebook and snapchat and you know make it do more things put more hearts In the room and put more glasses on people's faces and do all these various Things that both are doing and I'll just happily sit back and watch and see who wins The name is the only issue I have with this Yeah, no, I agree and and w scottis one is like but they have instagram and and I guess the reason they want to Do a separate app this time is because you want to make it lightweight and instagram is not going to be made lightweight They're also instagram is experiencing this. Um, I know what's been talked about on the show before They're experiencing a bit of a renaissance. They've they've taken the refugees from the vine announcement Uh, there was already some growth happening there and a pull away from apps like vine They're adopting stories and other things from snapchat and becoming common all in one Let's go their thing and they're doing it relatively elegantly like they're kind of getting away with it And because of that, I always feel like facebook's just real resin rest Slow rather I sound like borky pig slow to want to stir that pot too much and and and mess with it too much or over I give it too much feature creep Not unlike they do with their existing facebook app like let it be its elegant thing. Hopefully it doesn't get too cluttery and weird Don't mess with a good thing that seems to be on a growth curve And Introduce other stuff in other ways. I think that's kind of their their mode right now Well, uh, that is a story, uh, that is on our subreddit dailytechnewshow.reddit.com and this next story I probably would not have included in the lineup had I not seen so many people Voting it up on our subreddit Australia's the age reports that a man named tim was part of the team that recorded a video of a quad copter Flying through a suburban australian neighborhood to a bunnings warehouse store A note and ten dollars was attached Instructing someone to buy a sausage and put it in the bag The sausage was successfully attached to the quad copter, which was then flown to a person sitting in a hot tub in sunbury Australia's civil aviation safety authority is not amused They're investigating the incident for violating rules against using an unmanned area of vehicle within 30 meters of people Outside of line of sight and over a populated area. All right. All that is said all that aside I want to be the guy who got the drone to ask the end the 10 bucks to go get the thing I just think this is I mean look I want to respect laws No matter where you live That those are the laws and you should respect them and if you don't like them You should actively work in your community to have those laws changed, but That's an awesome idea Like it's it's bringing out. Can you think of a more fun sausage delivery program than this one Yeah, I'm sitting in a hot tub in sunbury I I want to snag from the sizzle down at bunnings. I just send my my quad copter to go get it Heck yeah Uh, you're right. There they're breaking laws and that's you know something people shouldn't do They did try to be responsible though They went and cleared this with the bunnings folks at who make the sausages Like are you cool if we send this quad copter over like they actually took some some steps To try to do the right thing. They just didn't do it legally Is it possible? They just didn't know The regulations themselves as the australian government doing a poor job of letting people know what drone laws are in place and what aren't Uh, ignorance is no defense before the law crap A snag snag from the sizzle. I mean When I was in high school Journalism there used to be a ui l competitions for people who were in journalism And one of the things you could compete on is headline writing and this just feels like something that ought to be part of a headline writing contest Oh my god. I don't know what the headline is, but I feel like it's writing itself in hundreds of brains right now I love that the age says a man who only wants to be known as Tim There are some who call him tim Admitted to be part of that and and the uh the fine could be nine thousand dollars Uh, oh really which that's australian dollars. So that's like a million dollars Wow, that's a lot paid ten dollars for the sausage Yeah, nine thousand. Yeah, so nine thousand ten dollars I mean I mean, you know definitely Well sausage tim. Good luck to you uh onto more sony like things sony announced tuesday that it will drop all viacom owned channels From its from its playstation view service. This starts friday november 11th. That is literally this week That includes channels like comedy central spike and mtv. They used to do music videos sony also announced the addition of bvc america and mba tv and the future addition of vise as well as more cbs and fox local stations Uh, one would assume to sort of make up for this or maybe they were going to add those anyway, but Not the first time tom that uh the viacom lineup has been Controversial in the hands of the likes of hulu and now playstation view. Yeah, man. Uh, this is interesting We are seeing the first carriage dispute but The unlike when like say dish loses some channels Uh because of a spat with cbs or something like that This is just sony coming out and saying well, we're dropping viacom. It's too expensive We need to keep the cost down and so that's it. But hey, you're we're giving you bbc america So maybe no more teen wolf. I don't know is teen wolf still on mtv, but you'll get dr. Who? I think it is still on there like season four or something. Yeah Uh, do you have any idea how many people use playstation view? I mean not that it matters to the ones that do because they're losing channels that they want But is this a service that a lot of people are using? It's growing I don't know what the most recent numbers are but it is definitely growing in an era where cable The television subscriptions are declining Uh, but yeah, I mean that that is the question like does viacom care Uh, is is viacom making a mistake hulu is going to be launching a similar service next year YouTube's going to be launching a similar service next year sling tv still has viacom So now they're they're able to to compete on this. Do you still subscribe to cable shelly? I do for one reason only because I'm a huge classic film fan and so I have my turner classic movies That's available on sling now. So I've actually thought about giving up cable Just for that and so that's a sort of an edge use case But if it wasn't for that I didn't have cable for 15 years and was generally pretty happy with it But then I needed my classic film fix. So sadly you know about film struck I do know about film struck and I know you guys talked about it last you've been tempted I have been tempted but but uh, you guys were talking about it last week You were you were totally ignoring the classic film element of it So I was arguing with you as I was listening to Good that means we're doing our job. Uh, yeah If anybody doesn't remember 6.99 a month for the classic films that are the turner classic movie types films And then I think it's 1099 if you want to add in the criterion collection stuff on top of that Uh, well, yeah, uh, I think this I think there's more to play out in this in this viacom dispute because There are definitely I've seen people on twitter Because we cover this on cord killers as well saying that they are upset by this because there was a show or channel that they enjoyed Especially on comedy central It seems But also people very excited that bbc america has finally come into playstation view because for some that was the reason they were with sling And the fact that sling didn't have a cloud dvr Was a reason that they wanted to switch and now they can switch It's obviously a subjective opinion, but I would trade spike and mtv for bbc america any day Sure, but i'm not sur comedy central. I'd want to trade so Who knows I know enough people with playstation view that I that I get the impression anyway that those who have it really like it And that it works really well works as advertised. It's a very sling-like service So there's a lot of comparisons to be made there huge install base apparently growing um Why viacom pulled out is more interesting to me in the sense that are they making a deal with somebody else? Or are we going to see a new service come from somewhere and are they going to strike a deal with with viacom? Yeah, and then there's uh This but in the background this whole dispute and not dispute but this whole negotiation going on We're summoner redstone Who is the owner of national amusements? Which is the majority shareholder in c i know i've lost half of you already the the majority owner of cbs and viacom Which are two separate companies Is toying around with merging them back together again in case you didn't realize they're no longer cbs and viacom used to be together They're not anymore, but they're still majority owned by the same shareholder Yeah, national amusements just sounds like a company that owns roller coasters. I've always said yeah I think they did I think that's how they started roller coasters and video games and arcades and right exactly Uh, well, thanks to all those who participate in our subreddit If you got in there and submitted a story or voted on one treat yourself to a sausage Thank you. Submit stories and vote out of a daily tech news show dot reddit.com All right, uh Accessibility is finally starting to get on a few people's radars. Uh, it isn't one thing though It's can a blind person user device can someone with low vision user device two different approaches deaf people and hearing Appared also two different approaches cognitive disabilities motor disabilities It's a diverse topic. Uh, and uh, shelly, I know you haven't gone after every aspect of it necessary in ios access for all Uh, but you've covered a good swath of this. How do you approach such a diverse topic when talking with people? well As far as accessibility goes, you're right that the way it sort of breaks down Is by the kind of disability the user has and so when I put the book together The easiest thing to do is to create a chapter about each kind of accessibility User there was so there's a chapter for blind users a chapter for low vision users a chapter for people with motor disabilities But what that also let me do is approach it holistically from the point of view of that user So instead of just going through all the steps of how to do a certain thing I thought well if i'm a low vision user, what can I get out of ios? What can I? Do with ios based not only on the accessibility features that are out there But the mainstream features that I can hack for my own use use and low vision is a good example because there are a lot of things You can do with the camera that are pretty awesome If i'm a motor disabled person I have a different set of issues because i'm having to connect switch peripherals to my device and so thinking about the chapters individually in terms of what that user needs and also what's missing in terms of accessibility And what I can hack a little bit Helped me Not be so rigidly adhering to just what am I seeing in the accessibility settings pain? So I think that's one of the things i'm most proud of and when I talk to users I mean I talked to Blind folks and I talked to people with motor disabilities and they have really different concerns And they also have really different features that they that they use and really different approaches to using their devices So that's that's kind of how I approached it What are some examples of features and I know you wrote about ios, but you're familiar with android as well What are some features that you wish either or both of those platforms would fix? I think a real and honest to god dark mode would be number one And I think that benefits people not only who are low vision, but who would just prefer higher contrast between text and background So there are invert colors features in ios and android Operating systems and and and I should say devices have different Low vision features because the samsung devices are different than the stock android devices in some ways And so Just a consistent dark mode that would allow somebody to remain in that dark mode throughout everything They do and not have to flip back and forth because images are inverted for example Or because there's an interface element that is light when you flip to invert colors or is dark when you're in normal mode You find that a lot of these um a lot of the problem with that is that Sure, there may be some baked-in features in the os's that handle the light dark mode But you've also now got some third-party apps that you want to use that conflict with that because they're by default one of those two And it actually flips the other direction when you're doing invert and that sort of thing Right that's a big part of it and the the app for example might have a sidebar interface that's dark and a main Part of the the interface that's light and so that's always going to be a problem Whichever side you're in in a dark mode Hopefully what where where the developer had actually responded to the interface guidelines for dark mode would help a lot with that And also just viewing the web and looking at images if i'm in dark mode All of my images are going to be reversed And so I am very familiar and use the keyboard shortcuts many times a day to get out of invert mode So that I can see the smiling faces of people in all those pretty pictures on on facebook Do people still overlook accessibility when they're designing their apps? Uh, not not talking about the os exactly But but apps so that they can work in these different modes I think they do I think it's less of a problem now than it used to be I think and and part of this is because I come from a low vision perspective And so it may seem natural that I would start out saying well Yeah, low vision is one of the contrast and color and font sizes are one of the things that are the least consistent And so I think people know A lot of times to uh follow the interface guidelines as far as support for voiceover and switch control And labeling buttons for accessibility and that sort of things But sometimes when they're designing an interface to look really pretty And this is something that apple was guilty of but the third party apps deal do in a different way When they're designing the interface their aesthetics for design are more important than Accessibility in terms of either contrast or in terms of the readability of fonts. So that's a big one And I think um, there are still apps out there that surprisingly will not completely label the interface for voiceover switch control And I say switch control by the way because Support for voiceover means that you have you you're supporting switch control in ios because you're moving from element to element And the device knows that that element has a particular identity or function So what'll happen is you'll have an interface that Labels some buttons or maybe labels buttons on the main menu But then when you dig in a little deeper you'll hear button button button or the interface items will be called out at all So it's just sloppy programming in some cases and then I think there are A category of developers that don't really think in terms of people with accessibility needs using their products And so it as I say it's a lot less of a problem than it used to be But you you do find surprising instances where there's an app that somebody really wants to use and it is partially accessible And I'll add quickly that another issue that happens is in that realm is that somebody will update their app And you've been using the app accessibility all along and then the update breaks something accessibility So somebody who may be who depended on a particular app has to either contact the developer or just choose another app Because the accessibility gets broken all the time So you mentioned a little bit about voice control and I'm very curious about that because in my mind It's I've got a way too simplified. I'm sure it's like You know talking to it like the way we would with seri except maybe a few more functions But what you just described sounds a lot more complicated than that Um Is is voice living up to its potential in terms of providing better accessibility for people who need it Well, I guess you have to take that apart a little bit because voice assistants like seri and alexa Those have accessibility implications themselves because you can talk to your device and open apps or in fact You can open accessibility settings with voice. You can make your screen brighter or dimmer with voice So that's great for somebody with a visual disability or odor disability Home automation obviously is great because you can affect lights and thermostats and and all the devices around your house That you either physically can't reach or that for example, if you're a blind person, you don't know whether the lights are on So let's turn them all off The other part of what the voice is actual use of voice to Interact with the device, which is a different thing. So a voiceover is a screen reader for the device And in the talk back is the android version That allows me to hear the entire interface spoken to me And that is what a lot of the excess early accessibility efforts Focused mostly on because baking a screen reader which creates an entire alternate set of gestures for operating your device Is a is a pretty big lift for an operating system development developer And so that those were the first things that came along voiceover and then later on talk back And those systems are maturing in a way that's really awesome. You'd still find bugs. You still find limitations. You still find Situations in which there might be easier ways to do things where their gesture is not keeping up with changes in the interface But in general those are the screen readers are a very mature Function within mobile operating systems and what's really great about them is that unlike What used to be the case in desktop computing these mobile operating systems included them from the get go So you don't have to buy them for example windows users used to have to buy an expensive Tool is still out there called jaws or window eyes And those are commercial products that you had to add on to your device and in the mobile world That's just unheard of you don't have to buy extra stuff Unless you want to buy a voice that is pleasing to your ear For example and there are our voices out there you can purchase But you don't even have to do that because apple for example added some voices in ios 10 and so you have more access to wider a range of voices to uh that are easier for you to uh to hear and and more comfortable to you when you're listening to your Uh documents read or your interface for your iphone or android device It does seem like uh companies are paying more attention to accessibility in fact when we had those announcements Recently from microsoft and apple they both led their announcement with videos about accessibility Is does that feel like a serious change and commitment or is it more lip service from them? I feel like showing the videos is lip service, but behind it There actually is a lot of work going on and all of both of those companies microsoft and apple have been Getting better about accessibility all the time and especially microsoft they have done a lot of things recently They they were laggers, and I think they they really have stepped up Unfortunately from my point of view the videos do sound like lip service And frankly they seem like they lull the people who don't normally pay attention to accessibility Into a false sense that everything is okay, right? There's a tendency to write about accessibility as number one something that they're the company is doing for you as a favor Which is really just just condescending and patronizing and then then there's a sense of people to receive that information as oh Well, that's fine. We don't have to worry that blind folks or people with motor disabilities Can't use devices because the companies have been magnanimous enough to create that And so what I call for is not that we don't see videos and the apple video I haven't seen the microsoft video, and I need to go back and have a look at it The apple video was great because it actually showed a number of accessibility features in action And I think you can't underestimate the value of letting people see how accessibility works But the problem is that when they introduced an actual new feature for their macbook pros later in the presentation the touch bar There was no reference to how and whether it's accessible now It's apple and the chances are pretty good that you're going to get accessibility and the touch bar will be accessible But we don't know that as as users are paying attention to accessibility And that's a real big problem that all the companies have when they introduce new products It's not reasonable to expect that they should do full on accessibility demos And I wouldn't suggest that but the two things that they really should be doing Is when they introduce new features they they should do like the apple presenters always do and look Meaningfully at the audience and say and it's voice over compatible And that would go a long way the second thing they need to do is when they have hands-on demonstrations or when they bring people into To look at products whether from the journalism community or just people who are evaluating products after they're released They need to make sure that people who know about accessibility and who use it on a regular basis Are there and are able to provide public comment so that when an apple watch comes out or a new Android wear watch or some product that is completely new That we have the ability to find out whether it's accessible before we go and lay our hands on the device and buy it and then somebody Releases the clarion call on twitter and says I figured it out the watch is accessible And that's just not a good way to communicate about accessibility If you actually intend to be known as a company that that does a full holistic job of providing accessibility to all users Yeah, that should be part of an announcement not a piece of investigative journalism Yeah, I can I can see how it would be difficult for some of these companies to Always in the design process have every possible accessibility question in mind and therefore an answer to it But of all of the major companies that are building mobile devices for us and mobile experiences whether that be through hardware and software or both Who's really leading the charge or is anyone like a standout can people listening to the show? Hear a name that they go. Okay. Well, they're on the forefront of this and therefore I should you know Look into their products maybe before I look into others I think apple has been I don't know that they're maintaining their lead as widely as they had in the past But apple absolutely was at the forefront when mobile devices became a thing and when the iphone 3gs I'll point out that for the first two years of the iphone there was no accessibility But when the 3gs came out in 2009 apple took a great leap forward in terms of putting Voice over and then later other accessibility features on because they didn't do it all at once and and I don't Think it's fair to expect that they would have all of those things fully baked at once But they did start it. I think that what's happening now is that Android has come a long way Google has come a long way with android microsoft has come a long way They have the advantage of having a mature operating system on which to base their accessibility So instead of a a mobile operating system that they're trying to hack accessibility on to you have windows that Frankly was always the most accessible desktop operating system Whether it was by purchasing an external screen reader or whether it was through some of the limited capabilities that microsoft had Within the operating system So they have a good basis to build on and then as I as I hinted at earlier Microsoft is actually making some efforts to go out into the accessibility community and communicate better and find out what folks need And it's it's not perfect, but I feel like apple still leads, but they should watch their x Well the book from shelly is called ios access for all so if you're interested in that head over to ios access book Dot com we've got some other links For other resources that we'll put in our show notes at dailytechnewshow.com as well Any of these you want to point out particularly shelly? I want to say something about apple viz because they are a great community resource Not only will you find out what's new in the apple operating system? All of them mac as well as ios and watchos and tvos But they have a compendium app reviews. They determine whether they're accessible So if you are interested in an app and wonder whether it's accessible go over to apple viz And they'll probably know one way or another and you can save yourself a couple of bucks Also, there's a guy named christopher hills Who has a youtube channel with a lot of great videos about how he uses switch control on mac and ios He's a real advocate and I think switch control is one of those features that for many people Seeing is better than reading as far as learning how that works So those are the two I'd I guess a third one just because we're talking about apple and at the announcement Last week last month apple did highlight their quote-unquote new accessibility site It's not a new site, but they really have added a lot of things to apple.com slash accessibility And that was my other one of my other beefs is that they didn't say the url out loud come on guys really But you will find a lot of information there not only about what the accessibility tools within apple products are But a lot of third party accessible accessibility apps and hardware devices that folks connect to their apple device apple Computers and mobile devices So those and I would encourage you though to go to the whole list that I sent tom because I think there actually are some Really good resources out on the web. Yeah, there's some good links in here for android users and microsoft users as well Let's finish off with a pick of the day a while back We asked folks to send in their favorite vpn providers We've got a whole list we're working our way through our next recommendation comes from willy scott aka w scottis one in chat He writes if you have a raspberry pi and at least five megabits per second upload speed Then pivpn.io might be the solution for you pi like private i pivpn.io It's very simple to set up literally a one line bash script you enter into the terminal And then you follow the instructions on screen you can even use it on ios and android with the open vpn app He's got some notes on that that i'll put in our show notes as well He also sent along a video a link to a video on youtube that walks you through the steps and he says Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't and the best part is it's free if you don't have Pi or fast internet at home then tunnel bear is my favorite that he throws that in as an alternate Tunnel bear dot com. Thank you willy scott for sending that along appreciate it. Yeah, two first names Send your picks to us folks feedback at dailytechnewshow.com you can find more picks at dailytechnewshow.com slash picks Shelly brisbane. I can't tell you what a pleasure it was to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us today Thank you for having me. It was a lot of fun. I appreciate it and you help me get over my fear of video Oh good. Hooray That's a it's a happy side effect as well I know we've mentioned it a couple of times, but ios access for all iosaccesbook.com anything else to tell folks about it Sure. Well, I do a podcast called the parallel where I get tech people together from both the mainstream and accessibility community And I get them to talk to one another instead of about themselves to themselves. So that's at parallelpodcast.com And season two is just getting started and I hope people will check it out and maybe learn a little bit about accessibility In the context of technology, but that is not mainly what we talk about So, uh, I hope people will listen to that check it out folks Scott johnson anything from you before we get out of here Oh, nothing big um back from blizzcon That means all of the game shows that I have that are blizzard related Be at the instance or core or rally point have a ton of new content that we got there on the show floor and in interviews So if you're into that stuff or just want to hear our live episode from Uh saturday night of blizzcon at the hilton you can check all that out Links and details for all the shows they're in at frogpants.com slash podcast Thanks to everybody who supports the show In any way you wish there are so many ways you can find out at dailytechnewshow.com slash support Of course, we get our main source of funding from patreon.com slash dtns. Welcome to new patrons rathan and brett martin who are joining The 4000 plus of you that make this show possible. Thank you rathan and brett Don't forget if you haven't yet to submit your favorite segment of the year to bit.ly slash best of dtns So roger can put together our best of show for the end of the year Our email address if you need that is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com We're live monday through friday 4 30 p.m eastern at alpha geek radio.com and diamond club.tv And our website is dailytechnewshow.com back tomorrow with justin robert young talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network get more at frogpants.com Diamond club hopes you have enjoyed this program Great show you guys It was fun good. I thought so too. Yeah, what should we call it? Well roger give us some examples uh roger may have the uh Are you headed out of here roger? Robots have him too Oh, we lost him. Oh, well Robots If you go to showbot.tv though, you can play along if I'll do the titles. I'll do the titles and then I'll Top this quadcopper fetch me a sausage With a name like flash. It's got to be good Siri, can you hear me? Hackception. These are good ones today. Siri plays a mean pinball Now where the wild things are These aren't the droids you're legislating for a voice of approval from the robots Back in a flash flash chat. There's a lot of flash in there. Yeah, Australia has a sausage party Australia actually is a sausage party a sausage party. Yeah the secret of my access These are good today Bringing a voice to accessibility. I like the secret of my access. That's a really good one. I like that one So, uh, I I do the max accessibility round table podcast and we try to come up with titles from the show from things We've said but we're actually the people talking and we can never remember any because oh, yeah We're like too busy yapping That's where the beauty of this live audience man. Yeah All right, I need to go and get my eyeballs something go check your eyeballs Tell your eye doctor hello for us. Well, this is this is actually the specialist. So it's the first time I've seen it Okay. All right. Good luck. Talk to you soon Yeah, so it's uh vote wise it's between quadcopter fetch me a sausage and the secret of my access Uh secret of my access of course relates to the main topic, which always gives a title A little bit of a boost. Yeah, it gives it extra points Although quadcopter fetch me a sausage It's so long. It's hilarious, but it's so long for twitter. It's a little long. Yeah I think secret of my access is pretty solid. All right. Are we are we unanimous on that? The question points for the top one though because it's funny and I love this Shelley do you have have you cast your vote yet? Not officially, but you can I keep Secret of my access is fine Let's do it Good work my I voted sticker Dark Redeemer gets the uh gets the w w scottis one had a good game though. He was in he had a chat mentioned and had the pick of the day, so How many folks tend to be in your chat on a normal day a couple hundred? Yeah, goodness. Hello chatters W scottis one is calling dark redeemer to concede He says Let's bring the chat never mind. I'll shut up. Yeah I've seen signs bring the chat together pretty good. They are they're already together see they did it all the way Good work everybody Talking out of my access okay I don't even know what that means Uh, Shane was was given some good commentary in the chat. Uh, let me see if I can find it So I don't get it wrong. Um, he was talking about apple sending reps to schools and such, but I think his wife teaches Uh, yeah, he says my wife has low vision teaches blind and visually impaired kids in public school They all find ios and siri to be a godsend. Oh, yeah It's it's easy to teach teachers as well. I've I've actually done presentations with people who do that who tvis and They are not necessarily tech experts themselves so that if you could get them on board Then it's easy and the kids often will have an iPad in the house. Uh, I know how to use it if the parent has an iPad Then yeah, then you're lucky. Yeah, sure Uh, they're asking you if you want to join them in chat. It's irc.chatrealm.net Damn it. What what what? Okay. What kind of a client do I need for that? All right, you can just use the web It's been so long since I've done irc. I feel old now. All right say again irc. irc.chatrealm.net Chatrealm no e at the end. It's just realm Oh, okay That's me Let me there you go. Hello chatty people I think shelly should come on again. There she is. You were great. Yeah. Thank you. I'd love to come back and It's I it's funny because I have I have listened to the show on and off But I've been listening to it for the past week and a half and and having fun with it So I'm good. I'm glad I get the rhythm a little bit. That was my thing I want to make sure I got the rhythm you fit right in it was great Yep And uh, and you we wouldn't even have to talk accessibility necessarily. It'd be great to just have you on Yeah, exactly. We don't want to stereotype you But what's what well what's hilarious is I never did any accessibility stuff until about four years ago And I was always like the low vision person working in the mainstream world Which was what I was really happy about and then I had started doing accessibility And then people started coming to me and said shelly you really want to branch out and try and cover some Mainstream Look at my last two decades of work. That's why I always mentioned 15 bucks hundreds of articles No, I'm glad you mentioned that too because I and I tried to make that point at the beginning of the show as well It's that's the misconceptions about accessibility stuff are always like a thing, you know Well, and it's that balance like I wanted to have you on to talk about your book because you have a book And and that's cool to tell people about but also because We have we haven't done a show with main topic being accessibility in a while And and so I was like this is a great opportunity, but that doesn't mean every time you come on that's what you have to have because What will happen is it naturally if if it's meant to if it's related to a story and that's even more valuable I think but see that's and I kind of botched it But that's kind of the premise of my podcast the parallel is I get two guests in one is a mainstream I know a lot of you know editors journalists type folks from the mainstream tech world And then I get somebody who right covers accessibility in some way and I threw out a topic like last week we did parenting So it's not an accessibility topic right right talk about parenting And then what the one of the people I had on was a is a was a woman who does Uh wkag accessibility testing by day, but she's a mom She's a blind woman she's a mom of a 14 year old kid And the other person I had was a somebody I know from my days at mac user And it was about 40 minutes before ricky said well as a blind mom blah blah blah and we talked a little bit about that And I asked one question about accessibility But it was a context thing and I I just believe in that so and nobody else was doing it And I finally figured out the only way I was going to make that point is to have a show Yeah, so that's what I do. No, that's great because uh, I think it has more impact that way too Because I and not that what we did today isn't valuable and I think a lot of people would remember saying They were getting a lot out of it But it there's a different way you approach a topic when you know that that's the topic right Right, right and you you focus on it differently And it's like I say one of my big complaints about the way accessibility is thought of is either that it's Sort of patronized or that it's assumed to be something that you don't have to talk about because it's all perfect it's all done right and so and also it doesn't come up in context like if if uh If a new product comes out whether the company has made a big deal about talking about it in their presentation Nobody out there is going to write about Well, the apple watch happens to be accessible Unless apple has mentioned that specifically, you know, it's not it's or or there'll be like a massive review of the new operating system release And the accessibility features won't even be covered. Yeah, I wrote 600 pages about accessibility But most reviews of products don't even mention it So I mean that should be part of your that should be part of your scoring sometimes somehow Yeah, it would be great and and again, it's there's different Needs for a cognitive disability versus low vision. I get that So boiling it down to one star rating doesn't seem fair But at the same time that would be better than no star rating at all at least Well, but it's it's I don't know if there if scoring and reviews is even that much of a thing Is it used to be? I know no It's just a way to make sure that it's covered right to to justify your stars You have to look at it and then write about it. And I think that's yeah Well, certainly for app reviews and things like that is I I mean and there's a chapter in the back of the book That's nothing but app reviews that are just based on number one Is it a good app number two is accessible because people always say, okay, what's the best accessible twitter client? What's the best productivity tool or what's you know, this or that the other thing? And so I just made a list of about a hundred of them not and they were all out of my brain You talked to a lot of people and so I didn't rate them necessarily, but I said Okay, you can use calendar in ios, but fantastic l is happens is a better calendar and it's also accessible Yeah, so and that's incredibly valuable. Is that on a web page somewhere? It's in the book It's in the book. It's chapter nine. Got it. Get the book. You know, I have fantastic call. I'm happy. I'm supporting that then Well, and that's that's the funny thing like people people don't know and there's no way they would know And I was going to mention this and I'm kind of glad we didn't because it's a little controversy I would have taken a while, but there was actually a move to have apple Require developers to indicate whether their product was accessible in the app store or for somehow apple to evaluate that And as a as a blunt force thing That's kind of too much But on the other hand as a checkbox that the developer could Select uh him him or herself That's not a bad idea And there's a tool out there called accessibility checker for an accessibility scanner I think it's called for android and that doesn't exist in ios and that was another thing I was going to bring up is like in ios It would be great if a developer could run his app through that thing and get some guidance on first voice over compatibility Contrast and color and that sort of stuff. I'd love it like an html checker, right? Exactly exactly That was the comparison I was going to make and I asked one of my android friends earlier today is Accessibility scanner any good and I haven't heard back from him. So I don't know if it is I know it exists But I just as a caveat it came out earlier this year But there's nothing like that on ios as far as I know Yeah, because I can see there being an argument to say that Actually getting people using it is going to be better than some kind of automated process at this point Um, but at least it and that's true. That's true of html scanners too, right? Sometimes you're like, no I made that mistake on purpose and and you need a pair of human Eyes to look at it, but Having a tool that will point out things to you start somewhere Yeah, it saves people time and it would Maybe pay attention when they wouldn't have Otherwise because they just thought it was going to take too much time Well, there are whole companies whose business is evaluating the accessibility of websites a lot of times That's for compliance with government regs and stuff like that Uh, and and they have accessibility checkers that they run But then they have to go through and do actual exhaustive testing And so that's the comparison I would make is that you have an app out there That's not going to make it 100 accessible and some developer somewhere is going to say well I ran it through the accessibility checker. It's not my fault, right? But a lot of them, especially the small developers Are really good and twitter is kind of amazing for this because people will reach out to a developer by twitter And get a response and you don't even have to do it publicly. It's not a matter of shaming them It's a matter of saying, hey, do you know? And and I always encourage people to do this. I say, you know, do you know that your app lacks accessibility not how dare your app not be accessible, you know, it's a different Um, so so we give guidance to people that way and a bit of a softer approach Yeah, and then every once in a while you have to be a little grumpy And then you'll have an app that's mostly accessible But there's one thing like slack had a scrolling bug So instead of reading with voiceover from the top of the conversation to the bottom It did the reverse it was accessible otherwise you could read all see all the buttons You could read the messages, but it was irritating and and so slack in general had accessibility Issues and they had been trying for a really long time to hire an accessibility engineer lead and I I believe they've done that and I mentioned slack because they fixed that bug. They finally fixed it. It was a long time coming Yeah, I mean, they're you know, there there's always somebody out there who's Either there's some there's some that are just recalcitrant. There's some that just won't answer uh And then there are and if you spend enough time around applevis around blind twitter You kind of know who are the people who are who are really responsive And sometimes they get points with users for that even if their app might not be the absolute Top of the heap, but it's pretty good. It's like, well, they're really responsive as far as accessibility I'm going to give them i'm going to give them my business for paying attention tensor guy says shelly has android friends. I knew she was in with the robot those people Those people my one of my good buddies just read an android book. That's on my resource list, by the way It's called getting started with android. It's specifically for blind users Although the title doesn't say that and I I realized all the resources I set out loud were apple ones. I didn't mean to do that Occupational hazard you worked at the accuser, right? There's android stuff. There's there's even there's one the microsoft one Is just a microsoft accessibility site, but it's a good site, so you know one question. Uh, we didn't get to uh, what was what Is there a feature you think people would be surprised exists? um One of my favorites, um is it's called speak screen. It's an ios and if you're not a voice over user But you would like your ios device to read aloud to you you can enable speak screen And then when you come up with a to a document that you would like to have it have read aloud to you You do a two finger flick downward and it'll read that document And so it doesn't bother you unless you're using it and in ios 10 They added a highlight under it so you can see what line you're and so a lot of people I know who don't have visual impairment for whatever reason might want to hear something read aloud And i'll tell one of my one of my favorite jokes about every time you see an article about the 10 secret features of ios At least half of them are in the accessibility settings pain It's like it's a secret because nobody ever goes in there Yeah No, i've noticed that myself actually, uh, what i've what i've seen those those it's usually it's usually It's all the hidden menus and accessibility is always one of those hidden it's it's totally hidden right there under general Yeah, it's it's not not there easy to find at all. Well because nobody goes into general Darker demer is pointing out, uh, you know one of the problems if is if the developer does a cost benefit analysis They may not think it's worth spending the extra time or money to make something accessible like how do you deal with that? Well, there's there's a software in the hardware the software is you probably don't know that there are people out there who Use your who want to use your tools because they don't use them now because they're not accessible And if it's an app developer, it's kind of an easier case to make because it's a smaller Development, you know hit load and it's and frankly it's a smaller dollar value product And so you say to somebody you know how simple it is to add this feature But if Microsoft is a bit let's pick big company x I'm not going to shame anybody but sure big big company x makes an office suite or something And you say you know it would be great as if your spreadsheet program were accessible And you can't even get to the people that you want to get to to have that conversation But if I have a calendar app and I say, you know, it would be great It would be if your reminder function was accessible Then the guy who wrote it may very well write you back And the harder sell on that is For apps that are oriented toward productivity and they're used in business a lot of times There are government government regs about accessibility and you can say to people Look if you want your product to be considered as on a government contract Or a business that deals with the government and has to have to meet some accessibility requirements It would behoove you'd become accessible and frankly, that's why A lot of companies like apple and microsoft that that is some of their motivation to become accessible And and that you know, uh, we we tend to want to say oh, they're only doing it because they have to But that that's the way companies do almost everything that they do so It's the right thing done. Um, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna blame them for doing the right thing They're doing well by doing good. I mean that's the oldest business itself And and apple has to use that to their pr benefit and which is like You know opening your opening your event that people perceive to be lackluster with an accessibility video does really feel like softening up the crowd I mean, I'm sorry. It just does. Uh-huh. It was a great video. It was well done And I was this is from my perspective somebody had to point out to me that if you saw that video You have all these scenes of people using accessibility including a woman who is Using a headboard to switch assembly device of some kind and at the end you find out that she is the one that's editing the video And that was the hook for people. I didn't realize that was the hook. I was like, oh, there's a woman editing video She's using switch control because I'm living in the weeds. That's like to me. That's just perfectly sensible No, that's interesting I Because what hit me when apple did it was like, oh, microsoft did this yesterday. This is very interesting This is becoming The new trend for companies to tout their accessibility I do need to go back and watch the microsoft thing because I knew they had done it But I had not But and then the same week they had a big confab with a bunch of World-blind union people and they actually brought a bunch of people and some some people I know In to talk about accessibility over all of the microsoft products office and the hardware as well as windows And that was it was really cool and it builds goodwill But it also gives people the opportunity to feel like they're being heard about accessibility And i'm not saying that apple doesn't do things like that apple just doesn't talk about it Well, they're culture right they never talk about anything Which is really irritating because they're they get so much pr mileage about how they cover accessibility in in You know the videos and every once in a while they'll focus on either an employee of apple that is blind or disabled in some way Or more often a user But they never are seen to be opening the gates to let people come in and I always say this and people are like shelly You know apple come on and I say yeah, but I still have to say it It's incumbent upon me to doesn't mean you expect more of them I don't excuse them and I don't think that my invitation to cupratino is coming in the mail tomorrow But you know it's mine either you know And I've met some lovely people who work in accessibility apple they have a A group that Focuses on that and they do a lot of testing and they take a lot of feedback from people And it would be unfair to say that it just happens in a vacuum But they're that's not the way they want to message what they're doing And because their messaging is so soft and so you know inspiration porny Inspiration porn if you haven't heard it as a term of art in accessibility Yeah, I had not heard it, but I get it immediately right right um and apple Does very pretty inspiration Yeah, but but they're and they soft pedal like that they they're usually They're among the better ones at not making it sound just really syrupy and drippy, but like to me So here's how here's how I watch an apple event. So let's say it's the apple watch announcement So you know the watch is coming and you're waiting to see the watch and you're trying to figure out Looking at your computer or tv screen I wonder if that's accessible. I wonder how they're going to do it Will there be a comment about whether it's accessible and then it ends and you go off with your podcast friends You go do max disability round table And we all sit around and and i'm the one only person in max disability round table that has vision And so they always ask me shelly. Can you tell by looking at it? Do you think it has Any sort of accessibility features as it does it have low vision contrast? It's like, I don't know it's tiny And that's the way we experience these events sometimes because apple hasn't found a way whether on the stage or whether in the events aftermath to Effectively message accessibility and because a lot of people have been burned People get panicky and I'm not one of those people because I both as a journalist and somebody who's been doing this for a really long time I and and having had a lot of experience with apple. I'm reasonably sure that it's going to Address accessibility in some way. I just don't know specifically how it's going to do it But there are a lot of people out there the press release, right? I mean that well sure And and and they don't even really focus on it This brand new accessibility site, which is what they call it the apple dot com accessibility There's not a place up there that says let me show you how the touch bar works with voiceover Yeah, why couldn't you do that video it take five minutes. Well, it wouldn't take five minutes But it would be five minute video Just simple stuff like that but that is outside of the way apple messages stuff and um, you know and I Like I said, I talk more about apple than I do and google or microsoft But I think they have the same problem without a lot of the baggage of apple's Sort of reputation and corporate culture. I mean they have their own issues but uh And I I haven't haven't really dug but and I I have this sense like I say that when they get people from the community involved apple and google especially microsoft and google but especially microsoft Are a little more willing to let that be the story. So the people that went to those events Did sign in da's I believe I haven't talked to them. They didn't tell me their secrets But they are allowed to say they went There are a lot of times when people Are involved with apple that they may or may not be able to even indicate that they've Been in contact with apple So that's unfortunate Well, thank you again for joining this. This was great. Thank you for letting me talk your ear off. Of course good stuff I'd be happy to go back anytime Absolutely, we will definitely figure that out and have you back and uh, everybody watching live Thanks for hanging out everybody watching on demand. Thanks also for hanging out at a different time We'll talk to you soon. Bye everybody