Google I/O 2014 accessibility wrap-up: wearable tech, self driving cars and more

Transcript

10 August 2014

Roberta: I have in the studio with me Dr. Scott Hollier, project manager and manager Western Australia of Media Access Australia. Welcome to the program Scott, it’s good to have you back.

Scott: Oh, thanks Roberta, I really appreciate it.

Roberta: Now, we’re going to talk about Android. Google recently had a big conference. What were some of the announcements there?

Scott: Well, yeah, Google’s conference is called Google I/O and what’s been interesting is that it really gave us a reflection on the future of where Google’s going. So it talked a lot about the wearable technologies and Android Wear and how their new wearable devices will feed in. And it looked a bit at Car Tech, and some of the updates likely to expect in our existing Android devices.

Roberta: So Scott, what is Car Tech?

Scott: Well basically the, Google are looking at new and improved ways on how to help people drive. So at the moment if you want to use your phone in a car, you need to dock it via Bluetooth or something like that. But what Google are doing at the moment is to get Android to fully integrate in to a car and as a tie in there has been a project that Google have been working on to get automated cars up and running, so a blind person, for example, could sit in a car and the car could drive itself to where you need to go. And as part of this, Google have had a lot of interest in the car space and at the conference they announced that they’ve done a number of deals in getting Android technology in to cars, so you’ve got full access to phone and apps and the GPS navigation and all those sort of things built right in to the car. Now this doesn’t mean that you actually get to, as a blind person, drive a car, unfortunately. But it does, it is a sign of the things to come and the work that Google’s been doing in this space and it’s a, it’s a really interesting innovation with lots of big name car companies on board.

Roberta: Certainly is. Are the new Android devices accessible?

Scott: Well this is the big question. At the moment a lot of the Android wear devices that we’ve seen coming out of the Google I/O have been for developers’ eyes only. So we haven’t had a lot of exposure to the devices. But in terms of what we know they can do, they certainly do have the ability to produce the time in a big high-contrast display, which is really exciting. And because Android itself has a lot of accessibility features built in, we are led to believe that there is some accessibility, certainly great accessibility potential, within these devices. Samsung has tried in the past to adapt existing Android in to a watch, with their Galaxy Gear, which didn’t really work very well. So we’re all looking to see, in this space, and as we’ve talked about on other programs with Apple’s rumoured iWatch, there is, or the movement in terms of wearable tech, and it will be interesting to see, as these devices become available in the public, just how accessible they are.

Roberta: How about the TV platform?

Scott: Well TV platform is another big announcement at Google I/O and Google haven’t had a lot of success. They’ve tried Google TV for a number of years now with set-top boxes that are meant to fully integrate things and just never quite took off. But now Google have announced that they’re having another go and they’ve done some deals with, again, some big manufacturers to try and integrate Android in to televisions. A bit like the Apple TV device that Apple have. But built in to televisions. And so I think we will start to see an increase in availability of web content and other things to supplement our TV watching. But hopefully also some accessibility, which would be a really exciting thing. It’s still one of these “to be advised” type announcements, but as space in this area continues to grow, hopefully accessibility will grow with it.

Roberta: We did touch on this earlier, but one of the questions I was thinking about asking. If there is a possibility of a vision-impaired Android user being able to drive a car in a specific area?

Scott: Well yes, it’s certainly heading that way. So in terms of the car project, we’ve heard a lot about Google doing work in this space. And they have built cars which can drive itself automate. The main problem at the moment isn’t as much about the cars that Google have come up with, but more about the unknown element of everyone else driving around it. So you know, that’s still a factor and perhaps, as we all become a little more aligned on automated, automation, then there will be this opportunity for truly accessible automobiles to hit the roads. But in the meantime, it is really interesting that Google, you know what’s really significant about Google I/O and what we have to look forward to, people who are blind or vision impaired, is that Android, which is already quite an accessible operating system, is now getting a flavour for wearable tech. It’s now getting a flavour for car tech. And given that Google have, in recent years, done quite a lot of work in accessibility, I think we have a lot to look forward to.

Roberta: Well thank you very much for all today Scott.

Scott: Thank you.

Roberta: Very interesting times ahead. I was speaking there with Dr. Scott Hollier, project manager and manager Western Australia of Media Access Australia. And Media Access Australia are supporters of this program.

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