- Hey, everybody, welcome to another Double Tap on YouTube. I am Steven Scott. - And I am Shaun Preece, hello. - Hello. Okay, Shaun, that's a tough topic this one. It is a bit of a tough topic. - Oh, I don't wanna do it then. If it's tough, oh no. - Well, no, yeah. But we just got. Okay, well it's been great. - I want the easy life. - Like, subscribe, comment, and we'll catch you again. - See you next time. - Catch you again soon. No, it is a tough topic because I'm kind of moving away from tech in this one, right? I wanna talk about how we essentially make our mobility aids more useful, but at the same time, not have them become an intrusion or become a problem. - Oh. - I'm gonna level with you, right? So there's a lot of companies who are making new products. We talked last time about CSUN and the products on show. New products from Glidance. - Yeah. - We Walk, the smart cane as well, are getting a bit of an upgrade this year. Lots of great products coming out, lots of great ideas coming out. But to me, and I know there's lots of excitement around Glidance and I know there's lots of excitement around We Walk as well and other products. But and Biped, that's another one which people can wear. - Yep. - Which is not something you would walk around with per se, as a mobility aid, but you would arguably use it as a mobility aid. It's got sensors in it and it can, you know, it can see your environment essentially from chest height. So it would alert you to things you might walk into, like tree branches or that kind of thing. But I just, I wonder if sometimes we're looking at this the wrong way or we're adding too much to ourselves. Because I feel life as a blind person, can sometimes be challenging enough and adding all this extra technology, which is feeding us all this information, it's just too much. And I don't know what the answer to this is, but I don't know if this is the answer that's being put forward or these are the answers. - Hmm, I'm getting worried, Steven. - Hmm, okay, why? - Because I'm seeing a theme here. I mean, we've had the episode about, you know, stop saying we're replacing the guide dogs with robo dogs, - Unless it's a guide, a robot dog from Sony in which case I'm all for it. - From Sony, yes. Which bites your fingers, but definitely not a guide robot dog. That's a no-no. - No, no. - You've mentioned this, it is almost like you're moving away from tech, Steven Scott. Come back, stop throwing it out. - I'm not moving away from tech. I love my tech. - Mm, yes. - But what I don't want is intrusive tech, tech that gets in the way and replaces or sits on top of the existing information I'm getting from, say, a cane or a dog. You know, you think about a simple walk to the store, right? You walk into the store to buy something. - Yes. - Whether you have a cane or a guide dog. And I know there's a huge difference between the two. One is, you know, alerting you to obstacles so you can move around them. Another is avoiding those obstacles entirely. But either way, you're still in control. You're still in charge of making sure the dog is keeping attention. You're still making sure you're aware of your environment with the cane. If you add to that, a pair of sunglasses with audio coming out of them, perhaps there's a navigational aid in there. That's you adding another voice or perhaps navigational beacons, which are telling you where to go. You're also having to cross a road at the same time. You're having to listen for traffic. There's a lot of information already available to you. Now I'm gonna overlay all of that with sensors and sonar scanners and whatever the heck else, you know, to basically feedback to you with haptic feedback, extra information about your environment. Goodness, there's something at head height. Goodness, there's something over here. Goodness, there's something standing in front of me, but I have no idea what it is. You know, all that extra information on top of all of that. It builds up a sensory overload, which I think is just something we don't talk about enough. Yeah, tech is great, but only when it's useful. Only when it assists us, not when it gets in our way or actually causes us problems, causes us even maybe mental pain. - Wow, that's strong words indeed. But I actually agree with you. I think, was it Amazon that used the term "ambient computing" at one point? And I think that's a great thing. Technology should just be there and sort of not noticed. Like kids, a lot of people would say. - Arguably yes, yes. Seen and not heard. - But the fact of the matter is, I think you're right. It can be a bit overloading and, but is that a reason? It depends what you're saying, Steven. Are you saying we should just stop with this? Let's just give this up? Because the fact of the matter is that maybe there's a form factor, there's a feedback method. Maybe it's not haptics, maybe it's not, I don't know, something shaking your ears or whatever it may be. It's not audio. It's not visual, obviously, whatever the feedback method is. But perhaps there is something out there which would make a total difference to the way we get around. And if we don't go through this cycle of, okay, we've tested that. That was terrible. We tested that. That doesn't work. 'Cause you know, vibrating sonar sunglasses, they didn't work. It's not until we go through those stages of evolution that we reach, ah, this is it. This is the thing that works and makes things better. - I get what you're saying and I take that on board. - Thank you. - What I would say is that I think that the solution is not in replacing what we already have. Okay? I think we do need something else. I think there's something missing in the sense of the, and you and I talk about this all the time, the last 10 yards problem. You get out the taxi or you come out of a bus and suddenly you're facing a building. You have no idea where the entrance to that building is. And you know, the information that is coming from technology today will give you information about door detection and all of that, but it's not guaranteed it's giving you the right information. It's giving you no information about what it can see. So there could be three doors. One might lead you to somewhere entirely the wrong place. You know, a different store or a different location or whatever it might be. And you know, this is the problem. You've kind of got information, but it's not, you're not entirely sure what information is giving you. It's telling you there's a door, but what is that door to? You know, so it feels like we're kind of getting closer to something, but we're not there yet. - I agree. - And it seems, if I'm honest, I feel like a lot of this technology that comes along, which is about mobility, is technology for technology's sake sometimes, because I have yet to find a reason why there shouldn't be a guide dog or a white cane in use. And until you can convince me otherwise, I don't see the point in this navigational technology or I guess mobility technology, let's put it that way. Navigational might be arguably different. But this kind of mobility technology coming in, I don't see the argument. Now, one argument that is made in particular around guide dogs is the lack of them and the amount of money it costs to train a guide dog. And there's many parts of the world where people can't access that. So I understand that from the guide dog point of view. And on the white cane front, there's an argument that says, well, there's not enough rehabilitation support out there, so therefore, people are not getting access to the support. You've gone through this yourself. You've told us many times that you haven't had any mobility training. - No. - So orientation and mobility training hasn't been something you've had. So that's an issue. But to me, these are things that can be solved themselves. We don't necessarily need technology to come in to solve that. That's my case. - Yes. - I don't, I would rather there was more training for orientation and mobility. I would rather there was more investment into guide dogs. I think that's a good thing. - And I don't, - I would agree. - and I don't know, I feel that technology is seen as the answer to every problem. We see this with AI. We're seeing that right now with AI, right? AI is gonna solve everything. It's gonna take all our jobs. - Yes, yes. - Gonna kill everything off, but actually, - And save us. - but actually the humanity built AI. We need to remember that, right? AI didn't just come out of nowhere. We built it, we created it so I think we're kind of missing a point here that we have something that works well. We talked last time about the all-terrain cane, which I, to me, sees a really good step forward with the cane because it's innovating the cane itself, but not just strapping a smart device to it. - I agree. I totally agree, but I don't think it's mutually exclusive that you have, okay, look, there needs to be more rehabilitation offices out there. I was reading a story in the news the other day about someone who lost their sight through diabetes and then was just left with no, no one contacted him. He didn't know where to turn. He just was just totally devastated for the longest time. And look, resources, making more resources available for people who are dealing with sight loss and more training, of course, is so important. And if someone, you could offer all the training and all the guide dogs and all the white sticks in the world, but if someone doesn't have that confidence and just feels like they can't do anything anyway, now they've lost their sight, it's not gonna change anything. But I see that as a different issue as to technology. These technology companies that have this amazing technology that we are hearing about every single day. AI, lidar, 3D mapping, computer vision, object recognition, whatever it may be, they are just looking for a way to harness this technology and to help us get around better. I agree with you. I don't think we've seen anything so far, which I think actually hits the mark, that does do what it's aiming to solve. And I keep going back to the last 10 yards problem myself. But when I think about it, it's just more than that. It's the first 10 yards as well. How many times have I been sat somewhere, you know, maybe I've gone somewhere with someone sighted, and you sat there and you think, right, I want to go, but then I've gotta think, right, how did I get here? Which way? So just starting off, it's something is really difficult and I can't think of any technology that would help me with that problem, other than my white stick or a guide dog, arguably Ira, which is using technology to gain access to a sighted assistant, but that's it. - So you came back to where you started again, right? It's not technology. It's using technology, yes. But it's getting access to sighted people. - Even that yes, the service is absolutely amazing. With something like Ira or Be My Eyes, absolutely amazing once you get through to the human, but then you still have that obstacle, that intrusion as you mentioned of, okay, so now I've gotta try and hold my phone here or there and can you see properly if a rear camera, and you know, it's still, the technology does get in the way of what you're trying to do. So I do agree with you, but I think it's something that's not gonna go away because I think there may be an answer when it comes to mobility navigation with technology, but how do we get there without going through these iterations first? - Yeah, and of course, we all have to remember as well that we're also paying for these iterations to exist. - Yes. - These are not being given to anybody. I mean, yes, I know there's a beta test process that goes into these products as like every other product would be the case. But, you know, at the end of the day, we are still having to buy these devices and, you know, we may be finding that, you know, and I think there's this possibly data needing to be found here of how many times you've bought a device, whatever it may be, and it's just gone into a drawer. You know, this is one area, and I have to say this is very common across a wide range of technology for disabled people where, you know, sales figures seem to equal success. Actually, I don't think that's fair. - That's true. - Because there are many times a product has been purchased and then put in a drawer, and you know, that for mainstream, that could be a Kindle tablet or a Fire tablet as it was, as it's now, you know, and it just lies in the drawer and never comes out. You know, that will count as a sale, therefore a success, which in the mainstream world, that's okay, but when it comes to our world, that sale might represent money in the bank for the company and might look good. - Lots of money. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. In some cases, a lot of money. But it doesn't necessarily tell you the product has been a success. - I agree. - Because I, and I think this is where perhaps we need to as a blind community, talk more about this, get, you know, discuss this more because we need to make sure that companies are listening to us. Not five blind people specially chosen by a sighted organization, but actually, you know, a whole room full of blind people. You know, I think about what happens in America with the National Federation of the Blind. - Yes. - And the American Council of the Blind, bringing people together to have conversations and having companies come in and talk and, you know, get a real sense from a wide range of people, a large sample of people, what is the right product to create. It's partly why I think we get so excited when blind people build these products because at least we know they have an attachment to the world that we live in. When some well-meaning person comes along, and I say that not as a slight, but they are well-meaning, but they come along with an idea. And you're either reinventing the wheel, which I think if you're replacing the white cane, you are, because unless that white cane does something extraordinary, and I think the Glidance is an example of something a bit different because it's not being a white cane, it's doing something in between. It's a hybrid between almost cane and dog to some degree. - Yeah. - But you know, again, it has a little bit more credibility in the market because a blind person's behind it. - Literally behind it, yes. - Yeah, literally, yes. - I don't, but again, though, that's yet to be proven, right? - That's right. - There's a lot of interest. But it's still, everything is promised. Okay, this is what it's going to be able to do. And people have got hands on at CSUN and other places, and people have been impressed, so hopefully this is gonna happen. But how many times have we heard this before? The promises, the potential, but you mentioned well-meaning people, and you mentioned, well-meaning sighted people who are sometimes behind these technologies. But not only that for me, how many times has something been bought for you by a well-meaning, let's say, family member or a relative? This, I was told this would really help you. And you think, okay, actually this isn't, and this is another example of what you were talking about, of something being, you know, maybe put in drawer, never touched again because they were told that this would help a blind person or a visually impaired person. And in fact, in practical terms, it just doesn't. - Yeah. - So those things are out there. You're absolutely right. - Well, we look forward to your comments. Keep them coming. You can comment below. You can email us feedback at doubletaponair.com. Am I wrong about this? Should we be focusing on redeveloping a cane or coming up with new technology in this space? Should we be innovating beyond the guide dog? There's an argument from some people that guide dogs, you know, it's not appropriate for the work they do. I've heard this argument levied a few times. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think that, you know, we should listen to all points of view on this. But as a result, what does that look like? What does mobility look like in 10 years, 20 years time? I have a hunch it's gonna look exactly the same as it does in 2024. - How dare you, sir. I'll be traveling around in my rocket trousers by then. It's gonna happen. - Yeah, that's, I mean, you fall out of your flying car, you'll have more than a 10 yards problem to worry about. - Those last 10 yards are again a problem, yes. - A whole new problem. At least your lidar scanner will tell you how far you've got to go and when you hit the ground. So at least you'll know. - Beautiful. - Suppose it's good for that. We are out here. Thank you, Sean. Keep in touch with us. As I say, email and drop a comment below as well. We'll catch you for another Double Tap on YouTube soon. - Thank you, bye-bye.