Technology

Ok tech-heads, serious question here... Today I became aware of an elderly gentleman who is a regular at my surf club who is unable to speak, I don't know the details of his disability. I know we can use keypads to communicate with him, but is there a 'reverse Siri' whereby something typed into a device could be 'spoken' by the device? My reasoning is to try and foster more natural engagement with him as he is very isolated from the rest of the club members at present. Thanks for any (sensible) suggestions.

 

There are loads of things like that out there. Does he already have a tablet, phone or laptop that he uses? If so, just search the relevant app store for a text-to-speech app. Alternatively, if he has a laptop with Office on it, you can use Word (or OneNote or whatever is easiest): https://support.office.com/en-gb/article/Using-the-Speak-text-to-speech-feature-459e7704-a76d-4fe2-ab48-189d6b83333c

 

There are web-based ones too: Free text to speech with Naturally Sounding Voices -- Free NaturalReader
Bit of a delay between clicking and hearing, but it might work in a proof-of-concept sort of way.

FWIW, Stephen Hawking uses a customised Lenovo (ex-IBM) ThinkPad tablet, because apart from all the other things he knows, he also knows ThinkPads are the best!

 

Thanks Mike, I'll check those apps out.

 

Fantastic software I used it for work and it literally saved my job.
If you buy the software (65US) you can have choice of voices, I used "Paul"
You can change the speed and change the phonetic sound of words to sound how you like, and it will read any document even PDF.
My job had lots of acronyms so it made it easy to understand.

 

You have an office????

 

here's a picture of it.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

That would infer that you work, though the small room with one chair in it most people call a toilet.

 

Olio, look nice in Toorak!

 

I read up a bit on cases. There are different versions of the Smart Case for iPad Air vs iPad Air 2, but I had the correct one, it was just a slightly dodgy product. You could plug in the power by just nicking the surround a little, but the SD reader has a bigger plastic surround on the connector, and wouldn't have fitted without cutting so much of the case away that you'd pretty much go through to the edge. So I took it back and bought a Smart Cover instead, which was less than half the price, is compatible with Air 1 and 2, and obviously makes the whole arrangement thinner.

The JB guy helpfully told me that there was no such thing when I was first buying everything, but it turns out what he meant was "I don't stock those"

The SD reader also works fine after an IOS update, though it's not noted anywhere in the error message or the compatibility list on the reader/box/etc.

 

In other technology-related news, Microsoft has been talking up the battery life advantages of their Edge browser in the upcoming Windows 10 Anniversary Update. I thought I'd give it a go a couple of days ago, and holy cr*p they weren't kidding - I'm seeing (very rough, unscientific numbers) about two hours/30% more on Edge without ad blocking than I was using IE and basic/internal blocking, which itself was a bit better than Chrome with blocking.

 

Smarter pipelining algorithm ??

 

I think a lot of it was timer coalescing, background tab deprioritisation and Flash being disabled more aggressively - super nerd details at:
https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/06/20/edge-battery-anniversary-update/

 

Flash needs to die the horrible death it deserves and give us all a break.

Apparently background tabs are a big saving point, in particular, deprioritising background Java scripts, etc.

There's an interesting article on it here: https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/06/20/edge-battery-anniversary-update/

It's always interesting to see what goes into advancements in OS, applications etc. It always amuses me how easy it is for armchair experts to bag developers and their products with simple throw away lines. In reality, they are dealing with massively complex eco systems with billions of combinations of hardware and software - and of course, they're trying to please all the people all the time.... Glad that's not me.

 

Heads up for our n00b osx friends

https://labs.bitdefender.com/2016/07/new-mac-backdoor-nukes-os-x-systems/

 

Saw this on the news not too long ago. Going ahead in leaps and bounds this stuff.

 

I've been using wireless charging for ages. Only it's been on the Windows platform. I think I'm finally ready to cave and switch the phone over to Android. It's funny, cause one of my pre-reqs for the android is wireless charging and all my mates are paying me out about it.

I keep telling them - once you have it - you will never look back!

I actually just got a new pair of headphones too - the Parrot Zik 3's. Even better, they charge wireless as well. I love just being able to put them down and they start charging instantly. Plus - i swear there is a seriously limited life span on the micro-usb ports.

edit: meant to ask - what are the wireless window mounts you're using?

 

Typical Samsung.

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