1
00:00:11,848 --> 00:00:16,509
When I was about 3 or 4 years old

2
00:00:16,509 --> 00:00:22,027
I remember my mom reading a story
to me and my two big brothers.

3
00:00:22,957 --> 00:00:26,977
And I remember putting up my hands
to feel the page of the book,

4
00:00:26,977 --> 00:00:30,062
to feel the picture 
they were discussing.

5
00:00:30,612 --> 00:00:36,198
And my mom said, 
"Darling, remember that you cannot see

6
00:00:36,198 --> 00:00:39,118
and you cannot feel the picture

7
00:00:39,118 --> 00:00:41,982
and you cannot
feel the print on the page."

8
00:00:42,072 --> 00:00:43,790
And I thought to myself,

9
00:00:43,790 --> 00:00:45,606
"But that is what I want to do.

10
00:00:45,606 --> 00:00:49,099
I love stories, I want to read!"

11
00:00:49,959 --> 00:00:52,016
Little did I know

12
00:00:52,016 --> 00:00:54,531
that I would be part
of a technological revolution

13
00:00:54,531 --> 00:00:57,504
that would make that dream 
come true.

14
00:00:58,354 --> 00:01:01,513
I was born premature 
by about 10 weeks

15
00:01:01,653 --> 00:01:04,026
which resulted in my blindness

16
00:01:04,146 --> 00:01:05,988
some 64 years ago.

17
00:01:06,248 --> 00:01:09,182
The condition is known
as retrolental fibroplasia,

18
00:01:09,182 --> 00:01:12,347
and it is now very rare
in the developed world.

19
00:01:12,977 --> 00:01:14,515
Little did I know

20
00:01:14,515 --> 00:01:20,597
lying curled up
in my prim baby humidicrib in 1948

21
00:01:20,717 --> 00:01:22,084
that I had been born

22
00:01:22,084 --> 00:01:25,602
at the right place 
and the right time,

23
00:01:26,072 --> 00:01:27,484
that I was in a country

24
00:01:27,484 --> 00:01:32,176
where I could participate
in a technological revolution.

25
00:01:32,936 --> 00:01:38,268
There are 37 million 
totally blind people on our planet,

26
00:01:38,598 --> 00:01:41,476
but those of us who shared
in the technological changes

27
00:01:41,476 --> 00:01:45,197
mainly come from North America, 
Europe, Japan


28
00:01:45,197 --> 00:01:48,317
and other developed parts of the world.

29
00:01:49,207 --> 00:01:53,078
Computers have changed the lives of us all
in this room and around the world,

30
00:01:53,078 --> 00:01:55,875
but I think they have changed
the lives of we, blind people,

31
00:01:55,875 --> 00:01:58,109
more than any other group.

32
00:01:58,419 --> 00:02:01,474
And so I want to tell you
about the interaction

33
00:02:01,474 --> 00:02:04,976
between computer-based
adaptive technology

34
00:02:04,976 --> 00:02:09,191
and the many volunteers
who helped me over the years

35
00:02:09,661 --> 00:02:12,608
to become the person I am today.

36
00:02:12,978 --> 00:02:18,296
It is an interaction between volunteers,
passionate inventors and technology

37
00:02:18,296 --> 00:02:21,219
and it is a story that many other 
blind people could tell,

38
00:02:21,219 --> 00:02:25,620
but let me tell you a bit about it today.

39
00:02:25,620 --> 00:02:29,453
When I was 5, I went to school
and I learned Braille.

40
00:02:29,453 --> 00:02:33,682
It is an ingenious system of 6 dots 
that are punched into paper

41
00:02:33,682 --> 00:02:36,604
and I can feel them with my fingers.

42
00:02:37,114 --> 00:02:40,212
In fact, I think they are putting up
my grade 6 report.

43
00:02:40,212 --> 00:02:42,818
I do not know where 
Julian Morrow got that from

44
00:02:42,818 --> 00:02:44,418
(Laughter)

45
00:02:44,418 --> 00:02:46,288
I was pretty good in reading,

46
00:02:46,288 --> 00:02:51,294
but religion and musical appreciation
needed more work.

47
00:02:51,294 --> 00:02:52,737
(Laughter)

48
00:02:52,957 --> 00:02:54,926
When you leave the opera house

49
00:02:54,926 --> 00:02:58,282
you will find this Braille signage
in the the lifts.

50
00:02:58,282 --> 00:02:59,778
Look for it.

51
00:02:59,778 --> 00:03:01,949
Have you noticed it?

52
00:03:01,949 --> 00:03:04,547
I do, I look for it all the time.

53
00:03:04,687 --> 00:03:06,746
(Laughter)

54
00:03:07,076 --> 00:03:09,361
When I was at school,

55
00:03:09,361 --> 00:03:12,388
the books were transcribed
by transcribers,

56
00:03:12,388 --> 00:03:15,175
voluntary people who punched 
1 dot at a time,

57
00:03:15,175 --> 00:03:16,996
so I'd have volumes to read,

58
00:03:16,996 --> 00:03:19,215
and then it had been going on,
mainly by women,

59
00:03:19,215 --> 00:03:22,089
since the late 19th century 
in this country,

60
00:03:22,089 --> 00:03:24,925
but it was the only way 
I could read.

61
00:03:24,925 --> 00:03:26,805
When I was in high school,

62
00:03:26,805 --> 00:03:30,921
I got my first Philips 
reel-to-reel tape recorder,

63
00:03:30,921 --> 00:03:32,356
and tape recorders became


64
00:03:32,356 --> 00:03:35,931
my sort of pre-computer 
medium of learning.

65
00:03:36,601 --> 00:03:39,386
I could have family and friends
read me material,

66
00:03:39,816 --> 00:03:43,869
and I could then read it back
as many times as I needed.

67
00:03:44,409 --> 00:03:47,665
And it brought me into contact
with volunteers and helpers.

68
00:03:48,115 --> 00:03:49,232
For example,

69
00:03:49,232 --> 00:03:54,637
when I studied at graduate school
at Queen's University in Canada,

70
00:03:54,967 --> 00:03:58,518
the prisoners at the Collins Bay jail
agreed to help me.

71
00:03:58,658 --> 00:04:01,530
I gave them a tape recorder
and they read into it.

72
00:04:01,530 --> 00:04:02,739
As one of them said to me,

73
00:04:02,739 --> 00:04:05,678
"Ron, we are not going anywhere 
at the moment."

74
00:04:05,748 --> 00:04:07,938
(Laughter)

75
00:04:08,248 --> 00:04:09,144
But think of it.

76
00:04:09,144 --> 00:04:13,848
These men who had not had
the educational opportunities I had

77
00:04:14,458 --> 00:04:18,752
helped me gain
postgraduate qualifications in law

78
00:04:18,752 --> 00:04:21,432
by their dedicated help.

79
00:04:22,152 --> 00:04:23,204
When I went back

80
00:04:23,204 --> 00:04:26,996
and became an academic
at Melbourne Monash University,

81
00:04:28,446 --> 00:04:30,496
for the first 25 years


82
00:04:30,496 --> 00:04:33,266
tape recorders were everything to me.

83
00:04:33,406 --> 00:04:39,477
In fact, in my office in 1990,
I had 18 miles of tape.

84
00:04:40,597 --> 00:04:46,175
Students, family and friends,
all read me material.

85
00:04:47,285 --> 00:04:48,815
Mrs Lois Dory,

86
00:04:48,815 --> 00:04:51,597
whom I later came to call 
my surrogate mom,

87
00:04:51,597 --> 00:04:55,346
read me many thousands 
of hours onto tape.

88
00:04:55,556 --> 00:04:57,945
One of the reasons
I agreed to give this talk today

89
00:04:57,945 --> 00:05:00,336
was that I was hoping 
that Lois would be here

90
00:05:00,336 --> 00:05:03,934
so I could introduce you to her
and publicly thank her,

91
00:05:04,304 --> 00:05:08,485
but sadly her health has not
permitted her to come today,

92
00:05:08,485 --> 00:05:12,748
but I thank you here Lois
from this platform.

93
00:05:13,978 --> 00:05:23,032
(Applause)

94
00:05:25,522 --> 00:05:33,363
I saw my first Apple Computer in 1984
and I thought to myself,

95
00:05:33,363 --> 00:05:37,032
"This thing has got a glass screen,
not of much use to me."

96
00:05:37,032 --> 00:05:38,665
(Laughter)

97
00:05:38,665 --> 00:05:42,051
How very wrong I was!

98
00:05:42,651 --> 00:05:47,321
In 1987, in the month 
our eldest son Gerrard was born,

99
00:05:47,321 --> 00:05:49,597
I got my first blind computer,

100
00:05:49,597 --> 00:05:51,814
and it is actually here.

101
00:05:52,844 --> 00:05:54,570
See it up there?

102
00:05:55,060 --> 00:05:59,419
And you see it has no–,
what do you call it? No screen.

103
00:05:59,819 --> 00:06:02,215
(Laughter)

104
00:06:03,145 --> 00:06:04,878
It is a blind computer.

105
00:06:04,938 --> 00:06:06,964
(Laughter)

106
00:06:07,164 --> 00:06:09,910
It is a Keynote Gold 84K,

107
00:06:09,910 --> 00:06:13,723
and the 84K stands for
it had 84 kilobytes of memory.

108
00:06:13,763 --> 00:06:16,736
(Laughter)

109
00:06:16,866 --> 00:06:19,727
Do not laugh, it cost me
4000 dollars at the time!

110
00:06:19,777 --> 00:06:21,842
(Laughter)

111
00:06:22,012 --> 00:06:24,386
I think there is more memory 
in my watch.

112
00:06:24,456 --> 00:06:26,367
(Laughter)

113
00:06:26,557 --> 00:06:28,458
It was invented by Russell Smith,

114
00:06:28,458 --> 00:06:32,305
a passionate inventor in New Zeland
who was trying to help blind people.

115
00:06:32,535 --> 00:06:36,050
Sadly ,he died in a large 
plane crash in 2005,

116
00:06:36,050 --> 00:06:38,165
but his memory lives on 
in my heart.

117
00:06:39,575 --> 00:06:41,340
It meant for the first time

118
00:06:41,340 --> 00:06:44,461
I could read back
what I had typed into it.

119
00:06:44,821 --> 00:06:46,503
It had a speech synthesiser.

120
00:06:46,563 --> 00:06:51,199
I had written my first co-authored
labor law book on a typewriter in 1979

121
00:06:51,199 --> 00:06:52,807
purely from memory.

122
00:06:53,827 --> 00:06:58,061
This now allowed me
to read back what I had written

123
00:06:58,061 --> 00:06:59,688
and to enter the computer world,

124
00:06:59,688 --> 00:07:02,114
even with the 84 KB of memory.

125
00:07:02,894 --> 00:07:05,316
In 1974,

126
00:07:05,316 --> 00:07:08,318
the great Ray Kurzweil,
the American inventor,

127
00:07:08,318 --> 00:07:10,045
worked on building a machine

128
00:07:10,045 --> 00:07:13,639
that would scan books
and read them out in synthetic speech.

129
00:07:13,639 --> 00:07:18,668
Optical character recognition units
then only operated usually on 1 font,

130
00:07:19,188 --> 00:07:24,538
but by using charged-coupled device
flatbed scanners and speech synthesizers

131
00:07:24,538 --> 00:07:29,063
he developed a machine 
that could read any font.

132
00:07:29,063 --> 00:07:32,677
And his machine,
which was as big as washing machine

133
00:07:32,677 --> 00:07:36,166
was launched
on the 13th of January 1976.

134
00:07:36,166 --> 00:07:39,350
I saw my first 
commercially available Kurzweil

135
00:07:39,350 --> 00:07:41,537
in March of 1989,

136
00:07:41,537 --> 00:07:42,704
and it blew me away.

137
00:07:42,704 --> 00:07:45,476
And in September of 1989,

138
00:07:45,476 --> 00:07:50,895
the month that my associate professorship
of Monash University was announced,

139
00:07:50,895 --> 00:07:54,025
the law school got one,
and I could use it.

140
00:07:54,475 --> 00:07:58,605
For the first time I could read
what I wanted to read

141
00:07:58,605 --> 00:08:00,260
by putting a book on the scanner.

142
00:08:00,260 --> 00:08:02,736
I did not have to be nice 
to people.

143
00:08:02,826 --> 00:08:05,220
(Laughter)

144
00:08:05,490 --> 00:08:07,504
I no longer would be censored,

145
00:08:07,504 --> 00:08:08,837
for example,

146
00:08:08,957 --> 00:08:10,389
I was too shy then,

147
00:08:10,389 --> 00:08:12,266
and I am actually too shy now,

148
00:08:12,266 --> 00:08:15,676
to ask anybody to read me outloud
sexually explicit material.

149
00:08:15,856 --> 00:08:18,936
(Laughter)

150
00:08:19,846 --> 00:08:23,086
But you know, I could pop a book on
in the middle of the night and–.

151
00:08:23,136 --> 00:08:25,194
(Laughter)

152
00:08:25,524 --> 00:08:30,416
(Applause)

153
00:08:32,966 --> 00:08:38,285
Now, the Kurzweil reader is simply 
a programme on my laptop,

154
00:08:38,285 --> 00:08:39,824
that is what it shrank to.

155
00:08:39,914 --> 00:08:41,813
And now I can scan the latest novel

156
00:08:41,813 --> 00:08:43,949
and not fight to get it 
into talking libraries.

157
00:08:44,109 --> 00:08:46,913
I can keep up with my friends.

158
00:08:47,603 --> 00:08:50,773
There are many people 
who helped me in my life

159
00:08:51,353 --> 00:08:53,047
and many that I have not met.

160
00:08:53,057 --> 00:08:56,386
One is another American inventor,
Ted Henter.

161
00:08:56,736 --> 00:08:59,099
Ted was a motorcycle racer,

162
00:08:59,099 --> 00:09:02,582
but in 1978 he had a car accident
and lost his sight.

163
00:09:03,492 --> 00:09:06,079
Just devastating if you are trying 
to ride motorbikes.

164
00:09:06,079 --> 00:09:06,820
(Laughter)

165
00:09:07,010 --> 00:09:09,712
He then turned to 
being a water skier


166
00:09:09,712 --> 00:09:13,314
and was a champion 
disabled water skier.

167
00:09:13,564 --> 00:09:19,196
But in 1989 he teamed up with Bill Joyce
to develop a programme

168
00:09:19,196 --> 00:09:22,184
that would read out
what was on the computer screen

169
00:09:22,184 --> 00:09:24,516
from the net or from 
what was on the computer.

170
00:09:24,516 --> 00:09:27,930
It is called JAWS,
Job Access With Speech,

171
00:09:27,930 --> 00:09:29,587
and it sounds like this.

172
00:09:29,587 --> 00:09:41,414
(Fast voice synthesizer speech)

173
00:09:41,554 --> 00:09:42,779
Isn't that slow?

174
00:09:43,039 --> 00:09:44,226
(Laughter)

175
00:09:44,356 --> 00:09:46,694
You see, if I read like that,
I would fall asleep.

176
00:09:46,694 --> 00:09:47,860
I slowed it down for you.

177
00:09:47,860 --> 00:09:50,880
I am going to ask that we play it 
at the speed I read it.

178
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:53,057
Can you play it that one?

179
00:09:53,427 --> 00:10:07,405
(Voice synthesizer speech faster)

180
00:10:07,855 --> 00:10:09,208
(Laughter)

181
00:10:09,428 --> 00:10:11,627
You know, when you are 
marking student essays,


182
00:10:11,627 --> 00:10:13,606
you want to get through them 
very quickly.

183
00:10:13,606 --> 00:10:14,435
(Laughter)

184
00:10:14,435 --> 00:10:19,015
(Applause)

185
00:10:22,655 --> 00:10:26,033
This technology
that fascinated me in 1987

186
00:10:26,033 --> 00:10:29,545
is now on my iPhone
and on yours as well.

187
00:10:30,195 --> 00:10:31,256
But you know,

188
00:10:31,256 --> 00:10:35,505
I find reading with machine
a very lonely process.

189
00:10:36,205 --> 00:10:40,630
I grew up with family, 
friends, reading to me,

190
00:10:40,630 --> 00:10:45,726
and I love the warmth and the breath
and the closeness of people reading.

191
00:10:45,796 --> 00:10:47,847
Do you love being read to?

192
00:10:48,447 --> 00:10:51,313
And one of my most endearing memories


193
00:10:51,313 --> 00:10:53,609
is in 1999,

194
00:10:53,609 --> 00:10:58,906
Mary reading to me and the children
down New Manly Beach,

195
00:10:58,906 --> 00:11:01,865
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone.

196
00:11:02,357 --> 00:11:04,078
Is it not a great book?

197
00:11:04,728 --> 00:11:07,566
I still love being close to someone
reading to me,

198
00:11:07,566 --> 00:11:09,596
but I would not give up 
the technology

199
00:11:09,596 --> 00:11:13,291
because it has allowed me 
to lead a great life.

200
00:11:14,841 --> 00:11:18,716
Of course talking books for the blind
predated all this technology.

201
00:11:18,876 --> 00:11:23,664
After all the long playing record
was developed in the early 1930's

202
00:11:23,664 --> 00:11:29,263
and now we put talking books
on CDs using the digital access system

203
00:11:29,263 --> 00:11:31,515
know as 'DAISY'.

204
00:11:31,835 --> 00:11:35,259
But when I am reading 
the synthetic voices,

205
00:11:35,259 --> 00:11:38,132
I love to come home
and read a racy novel

206
00:11:38,132 --> 00:11:39,509
with a real voice.

207
00:11:39,519 --> 00:11:41,716
(Laughter)

208
00:11:42,196 --> 00:11:46,043
Now, there are still barriers
in front of people with disabilities.

209
00:11:46,133 --> 00:11:50,494
Many websites we cannot read
using JAWS and the other technologies.

210
00:11:50,494 --> 00:11:54,028
Websites are often very visual
and there are all these sorts of graphs

211
00:11:54,028 --> 00:11:56,966
that are not labelled, 
and buttons that are not labelled,

212
00:11:56,966 --> 00:12:00,566
and that is why 
the world wide web consortium 3,

213
00:12:00,676 --> 00:12:03,204
known as W3C,

214
00:12:03,554 --> 00:12:07,479
has developed world wide standards
for the Internet

215
00:12:07,929 --> 00:12:12,695
and we want all internet users,
or internet site owners,

216
00:12:12,695 --> 00:12:16,568
to make their sites compatible
so that we persons without vision

217
00:12:16,568 --> 00:12:19,231
can have a label playing field.

218
00:12:20,321 --> 00:12:23,659
There are other barriers
brought about by our laws.

219
00:12:24,309 --> 00:12:28,845
For example, Australia,
like about 1/3 of the world's countries,

220
00:12:28,845 --> 00:12:33,064
has copyright exceptions
which allow books to be Brailled

221
00:12:33,464 --> 00:12:35,824
or read for we, blind persons.

222
00:12:35,984 --> 00:12:38,817
But those books cannot travel
across borders.

223
00:12:39,127 --> 00:12:40,033
For example,

224
00:12:40,033 --> 00:12:43,584
in Spain, there are 100,000 
accessible books in Spanish.

225
00:12:43,874 --> 00:12:46,280
In Argentina, there are 50,000.

226
00:12:46,430 --> 00:12:49,706
In no other Latin American country
are there more than a couple of thousand,

227
00:12:50,116 --> 00:12:53,942
but it isn't legal to transport the books 
from Spain to Latin America.

228
00:12:55,526 --> 00:12:57,808
There are hundreds of thousands
accessible books

229
00:12:57,808 --> 00:13:00,952
in the US, Britain, 
Canada, Australia and etc.,

230
00:13:00,952 --> 00:13:03,952
but they cannot be transported 
to the 60 countries in our world

231
00:13:03,952 --> 00:13:06,221
where English is the first 
or a second language.

232
00:13:06,501 --> 00:13:09,361
Remember I was telling you 
about Harry Potter?

233
00:13:09,561 --> 00:13:12,710
Well, because we cannot transport 
books across borders

234
00:13:12,710 --> 00:13:17,444
there had to be separate versions read
in all the English speaking countries,

235
00:13:17,734 --> 00:13:21,446
Britain, United States, 
Canada, Australia and New Zeland,

236
00:13:21,446 --> 00:13:25,106
all had to have
separate readings of Harry Potter.

237
00:13:25,446 --> 00:13:28,710
And that is why 
next month in Morocco

238
00:13:28,710 --> 00:13:31,217
a meeting is taking place
between all the countries.

239
00:13:31,217 --> 00:13:35,086
It is something that a group of countries
and the World Blind Union are advocating:

240
00:13:35,086 --> 00:13:36,394
a cross-border treaty.

241
00:13:36,844 --> 00:13:39,908
So that if books are available 
under a copyright exception

242
00:13:39,908 --> 00:13:42,112
and the other country 
has a copyright exception,

243
00:13:42,112 --> 00:13:44,478
we can transport those books 
across borders

244
00:13:44,478 --> 00:13:47,760
and give life to people 
particularly in developing countries,

245
00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:50,997
blind people who do not have 
the books to read.

246
00:13:51,507 --> 00:13:53,465
I want that to happen.

247
00:13:53,895 --> 00:14:01,306
(Applause)

248
00:14:01,856 --> 00:14:07,608
My life has been extraordinary blessed
with marriage and children

249
00:14:08,178 --> 00:14:10,351
and certanily interesting work to do.

250
00:14:10,731 --> 00:14:13,575
Whether it be
at the University of Sidney Law School

251
00:14:13,575 --> 00:14:15,458
where I served a term as dean,

252
00:14:15,458 --> 00:14:18,255
or now as I sit on 
the United Nations committee

253
00:14:18,255 --> 00:14:21,355
on the Rights of Persons 
with Disabilities in Geneva,

254
00:14:21,495 --> 00:14:25,676
I have indeed been 
a very fortunate human being.

255
00:14:26,706 --> 00:14:29,546
I wonder what the future will hold.

256
00:14:29,776 --> 00:14:32,713
The technology will advance even further.

257
00:14:33,513 --> 00:14:37,070
But I can still remember my mom
saying 60 years ago,

258
00:14:37,070 --> 00:14:42,007
"Remember darling, you will never be able
to read the print with your fingers."

259
00:14:42,906 --> 00:14:47,824
I am so glad, that the interaction 
between Brailles for transcribers,

260
00:14:47,824 --> 00:14:51,154
volunteer readers
and passionate inventors

261
00:14:51,384 --> 00:14:54,621
has allowed this dream of reading
to come true for me

262
00:14:54,621 --> 00:14:57,036
and for blind people throughout the world.

263
00:14:57,516 --> 00:15:00,917
I woud like to thank 
my researcher Hannah Martin,

264
00:15:00,917 --> 00:15:02,763
who is my slide clicker,

265
00:15:02,763 --> 00:15:04,023
she clicks the slides,

266
00:15:04,243 --> 00:15:07,077
and my wife, 
professor Mary Crock,

267
00:15:07,077 --> 00:15:09,828
who is the love of my life 
and is coming on to collect me,

268
00:15:09,828 --> 00:15:10,973
I want to thank her too.

269
00:15:10,973 --> 00:15:12,717
I think I have to say good bye now.

270
00:15:12,717 --> 00:15:13,645
Bless you!

271
00:15:13,645 --> 00:15:14,738
Thank you very much.

272
00:15:14,738 --> 00:15:16,282
(Applause)

273
00:15:16,282 --> 00:15:17,565
Hey!

274
00:15:17,565 --> 00:15:18,627
(Applause)

275
00:15:18,627 --> 00:15:19,537
(Laughs)

276
00:15:19,537 --> 00:15:26,294
(Applause continuing)

277
00:15:26,294 --> 00:15:30,865
Oh! Hey!

278
00:15:30,865 --> 00:15:41,072
(Applause)