Hello, everyone, and welcome to Life After Blindness.
This is the podcast where we are dedicated
to the exploration of an enabled life with
blindness.
My name is Tim Schwartz, and I'd like
to thank you so very much for tuning
in to the podcast. On today's show, we're
going to be discussing audiobooks
and more specifically a skill for the Amazon
Echo called RNIB
Talking Books.
But first, if you have any questions or
comments for me about the show or anything
else, please send your emails to Tim@lifeafterblindness.com.
Again, that's Tim@lifeafterblindness.com.
Joining me now to discuss the RNIB talking
book skill
is the host of The Echo Show and
the Dot to Dot podcast,
as well as a plethora of other podcasts
that he is a co host on.
From AbilityNet, Robin Kristofferson. Robin, welcome to Life
After Blindness.
Tim, thank you so much for having me
on. Real pleasure.
So I wanted to have you on because
you are, of course, the, you know, all
around aficionado
when it comes to the Amazon Echo and
its, devices and skills. Of course, having the
Echo Show and the dot dot podcast, which
I do highly recommend people go check out.
And so having you on to discuss this,
I think, is beneficial because, of course, you
are in The UK and you do use
a skill like this.
And so I wanted to start off this
conversation by asking you about the importance of
a skill like this being on a device
like the Amazon Echo. This is this is
pretty,
good news for people in the blind and
visually impaired community, isn't it?
Absolutely.
So if people don't already have echoes scattered
all over the house,
why not? It's just
so brilliant. Yeah. So, the doctor.dot podcast,
we're into
nearly 1,800 episodes. It's a daily show and
we haven't even begun to scratch the surface.
So, these devices are useful.
And if you've got a vision impairment like
we have, I can't see at all,
then, you know, they are a gift, aren't
they? Because you can just talk to the
air and all kinds of amazing things can
happen,
the vast majority of which are free.
And when it comes to talking books, I
mean, you know, blind people love their books
or at least I do.
Live in books and podcasts
and family and work, those are my kind
of main things I do.
In that order or not always necessarily in
that order? I was just clutching at straws
there. No. Yes. Don't ask me to prioritize
them. But, I probably got about
four or maybe five books on the go
at the moment. Yeah. So do I? You
know, yeah. Just, you know, which one do
I fancy
carrying on? My latest Ken Follett or this
murder mystery over here
or a free book from Audible this month.
Guys did you know that there are at
least two or three free titles each month
that you can get the A Lady to
read to you?
You just ask her what are your free
audiobooks
this month.
So yeah, we can get books out of
the echo. I call her the A lady
because I don't want to trigger anyone's.
And so
having a
skill,
skills are like apps for your mobile phone.
They're called skills on on the echo devices.
Having a skill that can give you
all of the free
audiobooks that's a service like the RNIB's,
reading services
service. God, that sounds terrible. The talking book
service here in The UK, it's called RNIB
Reading Services,
gives you is is absolutely
brilliant. Historically, they've been available on specialist devices,
originally tape decks, and
then digital talking books machines and that sort
of thing.
But to have them streamed
directly to a really affordable device
like your Echo
is a game changer really. And you don't
have to lug anything around the house. You
can just go into whichever room you want,
and hopefully,
it will pick up exactly where you left
off.
And that is really the the key point
here. I always say that the Echo devices
are accessibility by accident
in a way because it is just all
powered by your voice.
And having a skill on a device like
that, yes, there are some Echo devices that
are, you know, more much more expensive. But
to get into an Amazon Echo device,
you can get them for, you know, 20
to $30
slash pounds
and have an accessible device right out of
the box where you can access things like
this.
Absolutely.
Now accessibility to me, because my day job
with AbilityNet that you mentioned, we're a pan
disability technology organization. So, accessibility
in my mind and in the eight hours
a day that I talk about it with
with people is much broader than just vision
impairment. So,
kind of part of me wants to say,
yes, you know, when it comes to to,
being blind, you know, these are absolutely brilliant
and probably are kind of we're the accidental
beneficiaries of such a brilliantly
relevant device for us. You talk and it
speaks back to you. But,
you know, disability is so much broader than
that, and there are,
they have put a lot of effort into
making all of the devices
work for people with a range of disabilities.
And even vision impairment, you know, doesn't we
don't necessarily
have our full disability quotient just because we've
got
a vision impairment. Sure. You know, my hearing's
going.
Dexterity will kinda go as well. And, you
know, so the devices with screens have loads
of accessibility features built in. Like, you know,
what is spoken comes up on the screen
for people with a hearing impairment.
If you can't speak then you can tap
to a l e x a
or have an on screen keyboard or, you
know, pick from commonly used phrases on screen.
There's just so much stuff built in.
So regardless of what impairment you've got, I
think it's safe to say there will be
an echo device for you. But, yeah, you're
absolutely right.
Just the very, very simple,
inexpensive ones, the dots, for example,
are perfect for us.
What I like, just as an aside, is
I can speed that voice up too. Yeah.
It's so nice. I mean, you can slow
it down, of course, and make it really,
really, you know, slag along, but speeding it
up and just, it's just it's just so
nice. So then that being said, Robin,
this particular skill,
if
if people want to access it,
they just really need to have a login
and password to the RNIB,
talking book library. Correct?
Yeah. Absolutely. So here in The UK,
if you contact the RNIB,
then,
they'll need some evidence of your vision impairment.
And then you can access this free talking
book service. I guess a bit like Bard.
I'm not too familiar with Bard. I don't
know if you have a skill over there
for the echo.
But that's your equivalent talking book service, isn't
it, for visually impaired people? It is. Yes.
Yeah. So, yeah. Once you've got once you've
been signed up,
they you know, you will then get your
login details.
When you ask the ALAD here in The
UK,
I think it's available in The States as
well for It is actually. Yeah. And and
I
I installed the skill, and it asked for
a name and a password. Of course, I
don't have one, but I haven't
contacted RNIB to see if if I also
can provide,
you know, some sort of proof of my
visual impairment even from The States. No. I'm
not sure about that one. So we'll we'll
kind of bookmark that, earmark that for for
later question because maybe I'll get somebody there
to to answer that because they did make
it available in The United States skill stores.
So
I would have to hope allowed to access
your BARD. So I guess that's the problem.
The same the other way around. It's very
possible, but the fact that it's there is
intriguing. But Yeah. Either way so, you know,
give a give a shout out to to
or a call to RNIB, and maybe maybe
we can get access. But for the listeners,
specifically in UK, that we know for a
fact that can access this, once you contact
the RNIB, you get your name, you get
your password or username, I should say, and
password.
You you sync it up, for anybody who's
not familiar with that. So you download the
skill or enable the skill, and then you
have to go into the actual,
Lady a app to connect the account. Correct?
Yeah. So you would just say to
your echo,
a lady.
Enable RNIB talking books. That's the name of
the skill. Then she'll tell you you have
to go to the app on your phone
to
log in. So, yeah, you just do that
with a couple of taps.
Put in your details and that's a one
time thing.
Then go back to the echo and say,
open talking open RNIB talking books. And then
you get different options
about finding books,
resuming the book that you're currently listening to,
etcetera.
And we can have a listen to what
that sounds like if you like. Absolutely. Go
ahead and, yeah, show us how it works,
Robin.
Okay.
Alexa, open RNIB talking books.
Hello again.
Would you like to continue playing Dirk Gendly's
Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams?
No.
To search for a book, say find followed
by the title.
Find So Long and Thanks for All the
Fish.
I found So Long and Thanks for All
the Fish by Douglas Adams.
To read from the beginning, say start
or choose one of the following,
Table of contents,
or description.
Table of contents.
To pick so long, and thanks for all
the fish, say one. To pick introduction,
say two. To pick prologue, say three. To
pick chapter o one, say four. To pick
chapter o two, say five.
To hear the next chapters, say next.
Four.
Great.
Enjoy your book.
When you are done reading, say cancel.
Usually takes a second to start.
Track one.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
by Douglas Adams.
Prologue.
Far out in the uncharted backwaters
of the unfashionable end of the western spiral
arm of the galaxy Alexa. Lie Cancel.
You are back to so long, and thanks
for all the fish.
To continue reading from the last moment, say
continue.
To read from the beginning Alexa. Say start.
List books by h g Wells.
I got 13 books matching HG Wells.
You can interrupt me at any time by
saying Alexa.
Say the number matching the book on the
list.
To pick The Invisible Man by HG Wells,
say one.
To pick The Shape of Things to Come
by HG Wells, say two. Alexa. To pick
the I Stop.
See you next time.
So hopefully, that gave you an idea
of, you know, how you can find
authors, find titles, etcetera.
As I mentioned before, you can jump forwards
and backwards through a book. And crucially, with
any book reading service, it remembers
where you were most of the time. A
couple of
times, it's gone way back. And I've got
absolutely no idea why. But at least with
the commands I mentioned, you can readily get
back to the place that you were. But
that's always a pain, isn't it? When you
forget where you are. But Audible does that
as well from time to time too. So
maybe syncing is hard.
I presume that it is because I used
to not have much of a problem with
that. But, yeah, recently with Audible device to
device, it, it doesn't seem to want to
keep where I was before. But, but that's
so, you know, that's okay. I can I
can maybe deal with that? But otherwise, I
mean, the it it does seem like it
it lets you navigate pretty well. I like
the fact that you can skip with the
table of contents, and it doesn't just rattle
off every
single chapter.
You know, it does say, you know, to
listen to the next number of chapters, you
know, you know, go you could do this
and do that. So I do like that.
When you skip, does it allow you to
skip a certain amount of specific seconds, or
does it have a preset or predetermined amount?
You can say what you
like. Oh, very nice. One thing to be
aware of though is the chapter, you know,
chapter one, chapter two, etcetera,
is
often not chapter one. So I think we
said chapter four to go to the beginning
of the book. Right. That's, you know, the
nature of Daisy books, isn't it? So, you
know, chapter one, prologue. Chapter two, table of
con that sort of thing. So,
yeah. But,
apart from that, it's all pretty intuitive.
Yeah. Really good and just so such a
brilliant use of
echo's the echo's ability to
serve up content. What you heard there is,
the
kind of RNIB's
reader
of So Long and Thanks for All the
Fish, for example.
That won't be
the narrator that Audible would have if you
bought that title. So, sometimes they're different. I
don't know if that's the same with Bard
as well. But increasingly these days with newer
titles it's exactly the same recording.
Exactly the same person just, you know, given
over to the RNIB in this case for
use free of charge from Audible, which is
brilliant.
Yeah. That does work out on Bard as
well as, yeah, like you said, on RNIB
talking books because they do have their own
in house narrators. But you're right. More and
more, it seems like they are both working
with,
the the book companies
to get the commercial version of the audiobook,
which nothing against the people who volunteer to
come in, or even paid to come in
to to narrate the books. God love them
for doing that for all these years for
us and providing that service.
But to be able to, you know, streamline
that a little bit better and get a
commercial audio version of the book
is is so fantastic. And so, yeah, you're
you're right. You will see that more and
more.
Yeah.
I love books. Really, really love them.
Absolutely. I love books too. Like you said
earlier,
you know, I've I think I've got at
least three or four books going right now
between Bard and Audible.
And, yeah, it just depends on what I
fancy in the moment. You know, do I
wanna pick up on my fantasy adventure book
that I'm reading, or do I wanna pick
up on a murder mystery or, you know,
some other sort of sci fi, whatever it
is? And and, yes, I have all three
of those and more going right now. So,
so yeah. No. I I I absolutely understand.
And having a skill like this where you've
got that access to, you know, thousands and
thousands of books,
and and being able to to play them
at will is is so fantastic.
So because of that, Robin, before I let
you go, we we heard there, Douglas Adams,
HG Wells. I think we're getting a peek
into the the book mind of Robin Kristofferson.
Any other books or authors that you want
to go ahead and recommend to the listeners?
My two favorite books, almost of all time,
but certainly of recent
time,
are by Richard
Osmond who is a British,
not chat show host, quiz show host here
in The UK, Pointless. I don't know if
you have it over there.
But just out of nowhere, he produced this
book which became an instant bestseller called The
Thursday Murder Club.
So it's absolute it's a gem. It's an
absolute gem. It's a murder mystery.
And then he's
published another one a year later, so quite
recently because these are both quite recent books,
called The Man Who Died Twice, I think
it's called. So yeah, The Thursday Murder Club
is the first one.
They are so good. Absolutely love them.
So yeah, Murder
features large as well in what I read.
And on that note as well there's Magpie
Murders and Moonflower Murders.
Another pair of brilliant whodunit books that I
read recently as well. Anthony Horowitz
of Alex Ryder and
various other
books that he's written. But Anthony Horowitz has
done these two brilliant murder mysteries. Both of
those are actually a murder mystery within a
murder mystery, which I'm not going to explain
here.
So yeah, my four top top top book
tips are
Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders and The Thursday
Murder Club and A Man Who Died Twice.
Fantastic. I will definitely check those out. I
actually Thursday Murder Club I've heard of because,
well, you you recommended it to me a
while back, and I haven't gotten a chance
to get into them yet. So I'm I'm
gonna go and get those and download those
and take a take a listen because I
I do like good murder mysteries. So, if
that's a a big recommendation, then I think
we should check it out. Well, Robin, I
wanna thank you so much for coming on
the Life of Your Blindness podcast and talking
us through the talking book skill from RNIB
and,
discussing the accessibility of Amazon Echo, of course.
If anybody wants to find out more about
what you do, where you are, all these
wonderful various places that you pop up all
around the world on the internets,
how can they how can they find you?
How can they get in touch with you
if they want to?
Cool. Well, if you
want to know about disability and technology, we
have a website
crammed with resources. That's abilitynet.org.uk.
I am on Twitter, USA number two day,
USA today. Don't ask.
And I am on those podcasts that you
mentioned, the .to. Podcast, three words without a
number two in the middle,
which is the daily
A Lady skill demo show,
The Echo Show. That's a weekly show about
The Echo
with Sean Preece, the brilliant Sean. Yes. And
I'm on the fortnightly maxcessibility
podcast with the guys, the round table nights.
Love doing that one as well.
And various other places too. But, yeah, I
think that's the kind of that'll do for
now.
That'll do for for now. Listen to you.
No. I I totally understand. Popping up on
on all kinds of different shows here and
there. So,
absolutely wonderful. Everybody, please go check out everything
that Robin is doing. And, again, Robin, thank
you so much for coming on the show.
Thanks, Tim. Keep up the good work.
And thank you so much for joining us
on today's episode of Life After Blindness. If
you'd like to support the show, you can
visit our Patreon page by going to patreon.com/labcast.
Again, that's patreon.com/labcast,
labcast.
And as always, if you would like to
offer up any suggestions for future episodes or
have any questions, you can send your emails
to Tim@lifeTimlifeafterblindness.com.
Please join me again next time as together
we continue our journey to find that there
truly can be a life after blindness. Take
care everybody.