This week hands, face. 0h, theres two people. Yeah, theres two yeah, got them. Race . Hello, welcome to click hope youre all doing 0k. It is that time of year when we mark the International Day of persons with disabilities. It happens on 3rd december and we have a show this week all about accessibility intact. Clicks very own paul carter has been putting the show together for us, and thanks to the magic of television, hes here hi, paul hi, guys. How you doing . Good to see you. Its not magic, really. Someone tell her. Chuckles. Thats right, this is a show all about disability tech and i should point out that we do cover these stories all year round on click, its just that this one day gives us a particular excuse to unashamedly focus just on these issues. Its always such an inspiring show. I wonder how its been curating and putting this programme together during a pandemic. Its been a challenge, im not going to lie. It might look a little bit different in terms of scale and scope from previous years but as this pandemic showed us, disabled people regularly have to find ways of adapting and using technology, so its an appropriate thing for the programme. How has this lockdown affected you personally . Its not always been easy. Lots of disabled people you know, me included have had issues around isolation and loneliness. But one of the real positives to come out of this has been the rise of Remote Working and technology that makes that possible. Disabled people have been calling for it for years and were often told its not possible and these last crazy, crazy few months have shown us that actually, its more possible than we probably thought. And i wonder what thatll mean for the future. Well, well have more from paul later on in the show but first, lucy edwards who is somewhere between becoming radio ones first blind dj and a tiktok phenomenon shes been investigating how ai could be making smartphones the latest mus have accessory for people with visual impairments. If youre blind like me, tech that describes its surroundings can be life changing. Robotic female voice facing south west along world piazza. Not that it always gets it right. Is there a bike parking in front of us . That was last year. Now, the new iphone 12 comes with lidar to help users detect people around them. Thats especially useful right now when were all meant to be socially distancing. I asked my best friend dave to help me give it a go. Hello how are you . Im good, thank you. How are you . Its nice to see you. In these strange times, i have felt a bit anxious about leaving the house. Have you tried it out the house yet or is this the first time. . This is the first ever time. The world outside is so inaccessible at the moment for me. I dont know if people are going to cough on my face or where they are in proximity to me, but will this in my hand have the answer . Theres no people detected, so im guessing thats correct. As we set off down my local high street, we saw the tool could be amazingly accurate. A White Building with a red and white sign on it. A person wearing a helmet sitting on a motorcycle. Then again, it did also think that dave was a child. Hilarious robotic male voice a child standing in front of a building with a sign on it. What did thatjust say . Did thatjust say a child in front of i get that a lot i dont know it is telling me youre in front of a building though. I mean, thats accurate but what really surprised me was the people proximity alerts. 0h, theres two people yeah, theres two. Yeah, you got those. You got both of them. Yeah, got them. It is almost getting almost every person that is walking past. I love it 1. 5,1. 5. Theres a person 1. 5 metres away from me do i need to socially distance . The smartphone counts down as people get closer. Ive found you, you are five metres away. Iam four. Four metres away. Two. 1. 5. And your cane is about to. One. There we go 0. 5. Thank goodness youre in my bubble, babe. I think this is going to be useful even after the pandemic for tackling things like queues. Right, youre there. A person standing on a sidewalk in front of a store. That is incredible. Sings two metres away. Im two metres away 0h, theres another person. Honestly, i think knowing that people are around me freaks me out a little bit because im really not used to knowing where people are so im going to have to get used to it, but im really excited that i can be in control again. But any a tool can only ever be as good as its training data. And objects like braille readers or white canes have never been the focus of an ai database before, until now. These clips have been collected by microsoft, City University of london and the university of oxford, but they have all been filmed by people like robin. Its really important that blind people themselves are the ones to do the recording of the things that are important to them. That theyre the ones that are capturing these training videos because theyre the people that are going to be using the software to find the objects, and they might not line it up in the viewfinder very well. It might be obscured by another object, you know . It may be partially hidden because, you know, the Machine Learning behind it, the brain behind it will be that much smarter, and will give that much better a more inclusive experience for people with a vision impairment. So far, some 3000 videos have already been collected and the project aims to gather around 10,000 clips in total. We developed a Data Collection app it runs on an iphone, they can download it and then we ask them to take some videos so seven videos of at least five objects through the Data Collection app. That automatically gets uploaded, we check it. Because this a can learn from just a handful of clips, users will be able to teach it personalised objects. That means being able to pick out your keys or your cane from other peoples. Sojust imagine if i could train it to say yep, robins shoes or 0h, those are robins glasses. Particularly when you have family members leaving their stuff around as well you know, is this my mug that im about to pick up, or is it somebody elses . The data base will undoubtedly improve seeing ai and soundscape two audio tools already launched by microsoft. The biggest gap is what we have been calling the data desert, to really light up all of that potential. We start to realise that there is not enough data, holistically notjust any for any one company. Just holistically, theres not enough data. From next year, the database will also become open source so anyone can build better products, whether that is for your smartphone 0 even your smart glasses. Oh, yeah high five. Blind girl high five will it come to glasses soon . Boy, i really do hope it will and i would actually wear these glasses around the house, notjust out and about, because then everything that i look at would be spoken to me. Wow, that sounds amazing. I use apps every single day but ive never seen something that will personalise objects in my hand before, and this would be groundbreaking for the visually impaired community. Lucy edwards there. Paul, do you think that smartphones are going to become vital tools for blind people . Absolutely. Ithink, you know, lucy touched on it there what has been extraordinary has been the pace of change in that smartphones now are just absolutely essential as an accessibility aid. Do you think theres even more to come in this space . Absolutely. I think the next thing will be live, on the fly, people recognition, so it can identify individual people, notjust people in general. But i think it a more wider sense, ai is going to have huge implications for this area and i think as more companies cotton on to the power, well see it rolled out much more widely. Hello and welcome to the week in tech. It was a week that tiktok started allowing some users to record longer 3 minute videos as part of a test run, instead of the usual one minute limit. Spotify has had some of its pages defaced by a hacker who put up pictures of his own snapchat, amongst other things. And apple revealed the nhs covid i9 app was the second most downloaded iphone app in the uk this year. Only the video chat app zoom was installed more times. It was also the week that one of biologys biggest mysteries was mostly solved by artificial intelligence. Deepmind has used their a alphafold to largely predict, with very high accuracy, how a protein folds into a unique 3d shape. Trained using the shapes of known proteins, alphafold was able to do in a matter of days what might take years ina lab. Researchers at mit csail have developed robogrammar a way for a computer to design its own robotic body by considering the terrain, available parts and obstacles. The system creates a body that best suits the conditions. And finally, do you want your own robotic rover . This is exomy a mini replica of the European Space agencys Rosalind Franklin rover, which is meant to go to mars in 2022. The esa have allowed people to download materials so they can 3d print the bot at home, and even drive it around using your phone. You can even pick what hat it wears 0h cute back in 2016, we were in switzerland at the first ever cybathlon. Its the worlds only competition where people with physical disabilities compete using assistive devices and robotic technologies. This is the olympics for bionic athletes. And the competitors known as pilots are notjust pushing their own abilities but also technological boundaries. This serves an important platform for research into assistive devices for everyday use. Over the last four years, the pilots and Technology Developers kept working to prepare for the 2020 cybathlon and, in spite of the pandemic, the competition has gone ahead. However, instead of competing in zurichs swiss arena, the 51 International Teams participated in their home countries. Three, two, one. Beep in six different disciplines, the pilots tackled tasks and obstacles, trying to get around courses in the shortest time whilst incurring the lowest number of penalties. Woo the events were recorded and sent to the organisers in zurich to be judged. Commentator . Race, and we go straight to seoul, in south korea, to look at young hoon kim. Lets quickly go over to india. This is team viswajyothi. They were then broadcast as if they were happening live, with the results kept secret until that moment. 0wen collumb, on the other hand, shows a perfect turn. He drives absolutely clean through corner four. And with the teams participating remotely, all the competitors needed to face exactly the same conditions. The first step is that we have a rulebook which clearly defines not only the rules by which the tasks have to be completed, but also the dimensions by which the tasks have to be set up. And, of course, there had to be a way of ensuring everyone stuck to the rules. We recruited referees all over the world in the last month. We trained them also via videoconferences. We did some more tests with them and now, they are ready to judge, on site, the performance of the pilots. Each discipline challenged teams to solve everyday problems. Now again, over that rough terrain all green lights. In the powered wheelchair race, competitors had to manoeuvre through confined spaces, over rough terrain, and even upstairs. Bernhard winter is one of the many Tech Developers who were inspired by the cybathlon in 2016 to take their technology further. I started about six years ago. I wanted to do a student project. I had the idea to build a cool robot that could climb steps. At the same time, the cybathlon was initiated, so the idea came hey, we could put a seat on top. This is what we did. We built a wheelchair that could climb stairs. Laughs. Bernhard and i have history. Here he is as a student at eth zurich trying to rescue me from peril as his first prototype leaves me hanging. Literally. Does this look as terrifying to you as it does to me . Im not sure what is going to happen right now. No, it doesnt work. Whoa then, tragically, in the 2016 competition, his machine failed to get off the starting grid. But now, his company manufactures and sells its motorised wheelchairs and they do work. I can finally visit my neighbours next door because too often, they have long stairs leading to their doors and actually, i havent been in their homes for the last five years, since my accident, so with scewo, i could, for the first time, visit them. Central to the cybathlon is how research into how these High Tech Solutions can work in everyday life. Powered arm prosthetics are used to cut bread, screw in light bulbs and hang up washing. And exoskeletons are challenged with tasks like getting up from the sofa. Even technologies like brain to computer interfaces are being tested. The system detects brain signals and uses them to control an avatar in a virtual race. Beep applause. And in a cycling task for competitors with paraplegia a complete or partial paralysis of the lower half of the body a technique known as functional electrical stimulation is used to enable them to perform a pedalling movement on a recumbent b i cycle. Back in 2016, we met johnny beer as he trained and competed in the 750 metre race. As technology has improved over the last four years, the distance has increased, but it still has to be covered in the same time of eight minutes. Three, two, one, go now, the Cleveland Team are the one to beat. Now, this is a gentleman who is looking to turn the tables, johnny beer in 2016, i got 4 minutes, 8 seconds. Johnny beer is so close with oh, and it is beer the imperialberkel team takes silver medal. Today, ive got 2 minutes 57 seconds but for 1200 metres, so technically, im, like, 100 faster. Every cybathlon there is, the technology is going to get better and thats a good thing for disabled people. Some competitors even turned their living rooms into makeshift tv studios with cameras linking back to zurich, screens with countdowns, and even cheering supporters. And there is the closure of the door whilst it is a competition, cybathlon is first and foremost a place for collaboration, technological development, inclusion, and a showcase for what is needed by people with disabilities. Oh, that brings it all back, doesnt it . We were there in 2016 and i have to say, it is one of the highlights of my entire time on this programme. It was incredible. And i think its much like seeing any sporting event you dont quite appreciate the wonder of it when you see it on tv as you do in the flesh. Now were going to talk about gaming and specifically, how accessible video games games rate. So paul, tell us about this next story, please. Well, with the new next gen consoles now on sale the p55 and the xbox series x, questions have been asked about just how accessible they are. Is this the most accessible generation of console gaming ever . So niamh hughes has been looking into this for us and investigating specifically what changes have been made for disabled gamers. I remember seeing my first games console probably when i was around five or six, but it just wasnt something that kind of appealed to me at the time primarily because the controllers were just completely inaccessible to me. I have congenital hemiplegia, which is a little bit like cerebral palsy, but it only affects the right side of my body. So my left hand is pretty 0k. Right hand, on the other hand. So having a controller in front of me and then navigate a characters movement, all at the same time, is really, really difficult. With the nintendo wii, that was a really, really important console for me but i suppose my first real exposure to gaming personally was through the playstation 2. The release of the eyetoy you had a little camera above the telly and it would pick up all your movements and it would correspond with the games. I could do that and then invite my friends over. The eyetoy for playstation 2 was the first time that i really experienced accessibility and gaming even though that was completely unintended. But thankfully, weve come a long way in the 17 years since, and now accessibility is being considered from the very start of the design process. There has been such an awakening across the industry and within our culture, that it is no longer an afterthought and it is so much of the forefront of everything we do now. You know, weve made leaps and bound evolutions in fine motor and auditory impairment and visual impairment. So with the new generation of controllers being touted as the most accessible ever, its nowjust up to me to get to grips with them. So this is the playstation 5 dualsense controller. Its pretty cool, and its got an ergonomic design that makes it quite easy to hold. Whats also really cool is that all of these buttons can be remapped on the console. So if youre, like me, left handed, you can put all of the controls on the left hand side, if you like. Its also got haptic feedback. And it isntjust sonys playstation thats taking steps to make games controllers more accessible. Microsoft has been working with Disability Charities to help create something pretty unique. This is the xbox adaptive controller. It came out in 2018 and its pretty cool. Its basically like one central controller but, as you can see, there are loads and loads of ports here that you can plug in any controller that you like to make a more bespoke gaming experience. Its interesting, you know . Ive been in the industry now for 20 something years and definitely, i would say not just at xbox but in all the partner publishers and developers and companies i deal with, the awareness is a lot higher. And i think the realisation is that when you design for accessibility challenges and opportunities, you actually open up so many other doors for a range of scenarios that are unexpected and you end up sort of solving for one but then applying to many in a really positive way, and i think thats really catching on in the industry. Taking a closer look, it really does seem the consoles have added loads of accessible features and menus for both the console and the games. Menu cursor sensitivity. Enhanced auto aim. Like the ps5, the xboxs accessibility menu has a Screen Reader and custom button assignments. There are also captions, Voice Recognition and even transcription facilities. Accessibility in technology often focuses on educational tools or disabled peoples ability to adapt to surroundings on a day to day basis, but it rarely tackles entertainment and downtime. Its like were surviving, but not thriving. Specialeffect is a charity that recognises this and understands how important accessible gaming is to disabled people. What we do is if someone wants an assessment, if theres a game or games they want to play, we are able to send the equipment out to them and then we would go out and do assessment for the majority of people we help, because actually, being there is so imp