WEBVTT 00:00:11.848 --> 00:00:16.509 When I was about 3 or 4 years old 00:00:16.509 --> 00:00:22.027 I remember my mom reading a story to me and my two big brothers. 00:00:22.957 --> 00:00:26.977 And I remember putting up my hands to feel the page of the book, 00:00:26.977 --> 00:00:30.062 to feel the picture they were discussing. 00:00:30.612 --> 00:00:36.198 And my mom said, "Darling, remember that you cannot see 00:00:36.198 --> 00:00:39.118 and you cannot feel the picture 00:00:39.118 --> 00:00:41.982 and you cannot feel the print on the page." 00:00:42.072 --> 00:00:43.790 And I thought to myself, 00:00:43.790 --> 00:00:45.606 "But that is what I want to do. 00:00:45.606 --> 00:00:49.099 I love stories, I want to read!" 00:00:49.959 --> 00:00:52.016 Little did I know 00:00:52.016 --> 00:00:54.531 that I would be part of a technological revolution 00:00:54.531 --> 00:00:57.504 that would make that dream come true. 00:00:58.354 --> 00:01:01.513 I was born premature by about 10 weeks 00:01:01.653 --> 00:01:04.026 which resulted in my blindness 00:01:04.146 --> 00:01:05.988 some 64 years ago. 00:01:06.248 --> 00:01:09.182 The condition is known as retrolental fibroplasia, 00:01:09.182 --> 00:01:12.347 and it is now very rare in the developed world. 00:01:12.977 --> 00:01:14.515 Little did I know 00:01:14.515 --> 00:01:20.597 lying curled up in my prim baby humidicrib in 1948 00:01:20.717 --> 00:01:22.084 that I had been born 00:01:22.084 --> 00:01:25.602 at the right place and the right time, 00:01:26.072 --> 00:01:27.484 that I was in a country 00:01:27.484 --> 00:01:32.176 where I could participate in a technological revolution. 00:01:32.936 --> 00:01:38.268 There are 37 million totally blind people on our planet, 00:01:38.598 --> 00:01:41.476 but those of us who shared in the technological changes 00:01:41.476 --> 00:01:45.197 mainly come from North America, Europe, Japan 00:01:45.197 --> 00:01:48.317 and other developed parts of the world. 00:01:49.207 --> 00:01:53.078 Computers have changed the lives of us all in this room and around the world, 00:01:53.078 --> 00:01:55.875 but I think they have changed the lives of we, blind people, 00:01:55.875 --> 00:01:58.109 more than any other group. 00:01:58.419 --> 00:02:01.474 And so I want to tell you about the interaction 00:02:01.474 --> 00:02:04.976 between computer-based adaptive technology 00:02:04.976 --> 00:02:09.191 and the many volunteers who helped me over the years 00:02:09.661 --> 00:02:12.608 to become the person I am today. 00:02:12.978 --> 00:02:18.296 It is an interaction between volunteers, passionate inventors and technology 00:02:18.296 --> 00:02:21.219 and it is a story that many other blind people could tell, 00:02:21.219 --> 00:02:25.620 but let me tell you a bit about it today. 00:02:25.620 --> 00:02:29.453 When I was 5, I went to school and I learned Braille. 00:02:29.453 --> 00:02:33.682 It is an ingenious system of 6 dots that are punched into paper 00:02:33.682 --> 00:02:36.604 and I can feel them with my fingers. 00:02:37.114 --> 00:02:40.212 In fact, I think they are putting up my grade 6 report. 00:02:40.212 --> 00:02:42.818 I do not know where Julian Morrow got that from 00:02:42.818 --> 00:02:44.418 (Laughter) 00:02:44.418 --> 00:02:46.288 I was pretty good in reading, 00:02:46.288 --> 00:02:51.294 but religion and musical appreciation needed more work. 00:02:51.294 --> 00:02:52.737 (Laughter) 00:02:52.957 --> 00:02:54.926 When you leave the opera house 00:02:54.926 --> 00:02:58.282 you will find this Braille signage in the the lifts. 00:02:58.282 --> 00:02:59.778 Look for it. 00:02:59.778 --> 00:03:01.949 Have you noticed it? 00:03:01.949 --> 00:03:04.547 I do, I look for it all the time. 00:03:04.687 --> 00:03:06.746 (Laughter) 00:03:07.076 --> 00:03:09.361 When I was at school, 00:03:09.361 --> 00:03:12.388 the books were transcribed by transcribers, 00:03:12.388 --> 00:03:15.175 voluntary people who punched 1 dot at a time, 00:03:15.175 --> 00:03:16.996 so I'd have volumes to read, 00:03:16.996 --> 00:03:19.215 and then it had been going on, mainly by women, 00:03:19.215 --> 00:03:22.089 since the late 19th century in this country, 00:03:22.089 --> 00:03:24.925 but it was the only way I could read. 00:03:24.925 --> 00:03:26.805 When I was in high school, 00:03:26.805 --> 00:03:30.921 I got my first Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder, 00:03:30.921 --> 00:03:32.356 and tape recorders became 00:03:32.356 --> 00:03:35.931 my sort of pre-computer medium of learning. 00:03:36.601 --> 00:03:39.386 I could have family and friends read me material, 00:03:39.816 --> 00:03:43.869 and I could then read it back as many times as I needed. 00:03:44.409 --> 00:03:47.665 And it brought me into contact with volunteers and helpers. 00:03:48.115 --> 00:03:49.232 For example, 00:03:49.232 --> 00:03:54.637 when I studied at graduate school at Queen's University in Canada, 00:03:54.967 --> 00:03:58.518 the prisoners at the Collins Bay jail agreed to help me. 00:03:58.658 --> 00:04:01.530 I gave them a tape recorder and they read into it. 00:04:01.530 --> 00:04:02.739 As one of them said to me, 00:04:02.739 --> 00:04:05.678 "Ron, we are not going anywhere at the moment." 00:04:05.748 --> 00:04:07.938 (Laughter) 00:04:08.248 --> 00:04:09.144 But think of it. 00:04:09.144 --> 00:04:13.848 These men who had not had the educational opportunities I had 00:04:14.458 --> 00:04:18.752 helped me gain postgraduate qualifications in law 00:04:18.752 --> 00:04:21.432 by their dedicated help. 00:04:22.152 --> 00:04:23.204 When I went back 00:04:23.204 --> 00:04:26.996 and became an academic at Melbourne Monash University, 00:04:28.446 --> 00:04:30.496 for the first 25 years 00:04:30.496 --> 00:04:33.266 tape recorders were everything to me. 00:04:33.406 --> 00:04:39.477 In fact, in my office in 1990, I had 18 miles of tape. 00:04:40.597 --> 00:04:46.175 Students, family and friends, all read me material. 00:04:47.285 --> 00:04:48.815 Mrs Lois Dory, 00:04:48.815 --> 00:04:51.597 whom I later came to call my surrogate mom, 00:04:51.597 --> 00:04:55.346 read me many thousands of hours onto tape. 00:04:55.556 --> 00:04:57.945 One of the reasons I agreed to give this talk today 00:04:57.945 --> 00:05:00.336 was that I was hoping that Lois would be here 00:05:00.336 --> 00:05:03.934 so I could introduce you to her and publicly thank her, 00:05:04.304 --> 00:05:08.485 but sadly her health has not permitted her to come today, 00:05:08.485 --> 00:05:12.748 but I thank you here Lois from this platform. 00:05:13.978 --> 00:05:23.032 (Applause) 00:05:25.522 --> 00:05:33.363 I saw my first Apple Computer in 1984 and I thought to myself, 00:05:33.363 --> 00:05:37.032 "This thing has got a glass screen, not of much use to me." 00:05:37.032 --> 00:05:38.665 (Laughter) 00:05:38.665 --> 00:05:42.051 How very wrong I was! 00:05:42.651 --> 00:05:47.321 In 1987, in the month our eldest son Gerrard was born, 00:05:47.321 --> 00:05:49.597 I got my first blind computer, 00:05:49.597 --> 00:05:51.814 and it is actually here. 00:05:52.844 --> 00:05:54.570 See it up there? 00:05:55.060 --> 00:05:59.419 And you see it has no–, what do you call it? No screen. 00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:02.215 (Laughter) 00:06:03.145 --> 00:06:04.878 It is a blind computer. 00:06:04.938 --> 00:06:06.964 (Laughter) 00:06:07.164 --> 00:06:09.910 It is a Keynote Gold 84K, 00:06:09.910 --> 00:06:13.723 and the 84K stands for it had 84 kilobytes of memory. 00:06:13.763 --> 00:06:16.736 (Laughter) 00:06:16.866 --> 00:06:19.727 Do not laugh, it cost me 4000 dollars at the time! 00:06:19.777 --> 00:06:21.842 (Laughter) 00:06:22.012 --> 00:06:24.386 I think there is more memory in my watch. 00:06:24.456 --> 00:06:26.367 (Laughter) 00:06:26.557 --> 00:06:28.458 It was invented by Russell Smith, 00:06:28.458 --> 00:06:32.305 a passionate inventor in New Zeland who was trying to help blind people. 00:06:32.535 --> 00:06:36.050 Sadly ,he died in a large plane crash in 2005, 00:06:36.050 --> 00:06:38.165 but his memory lives on in my heart. 00:06:39.575 --> 00:06:41.340 It meant for the first time 00:06:41.340 --> 00:06:44.461 I could read back what I had typed into it. 00:06:44.821 --> 00:06:46.503 It had a speech synthesiser. 00:06:46.563 --> 00:06:51.199 I had written my first co-authored labor law book on a typewriter in 1979 00:06:51.199 --> 00:06:52.807 purely from memory. 00:06:53.827 --> 00:06:58.061 This now allowed me to read back what I had written 00:06:58.061 --> 00:06:59.688 and to enter the computer world, 00:06:59.688 --> 00:07:02.114 even with the 84 KB of memory. 00:07:02.894 --> 00:07:05.316 In 1974, 00:07:05.316 --> 00:07:08.318 the great Ray Kurzweil, the American inventor, 00:07:08.318 --> 00:07:10.045 worked on building a machine 00:07:10.045 --> 00:07:13.639 that would scan books and read them out in synthetic speech. 00:07:13.639 --> 00:07:18.668 Optical character recognition units then only operated usually on 1 font, 00:07:19.188 --> 00:07:24.538 but by using charged-coupled device flatbed scanners and speech synthesizers 00:07:24.538 --> 00:07:29.063 he developed a machine that could read any font. 00:07:29.063 --> 00:07:32.677 And his machine, which was as big as washing machine 00:07:32.677 --> 00:07:36.166 was launched on the 13th of January 1976. 00:07:36.166 --> 00:07:39.350 I saw my first commercially available Kurzweil 00:07:39.350 --> 00:07:41.537 in March of 1989, 00:07:41.537 --> 00:07:42.704 and it blew me away. 00:07:42.704 --> 00:07:45.476 And in September of 1989, 00:07:45.476 --> 00:07:50.895 the month that my associate professorship of Monash University was announced, 00:07:50.895 --> 00:07:54.025 the law school got one, and I could use it. 00:07:54.475 --> 00:07:58.605 For the first time I could read what I wanted to read 00:07:58.605 --> 00:08:00.260 by putting a book on the scanner. 00:08:00.260 --> 00:08:02.736 I did not have to be nice to people. 00:08:02.826 --> 00:08:05.220 (Laughter) 00:08:05.490 --> 00:08:07.504 I no longer would be censored, 00:08:07.504 --> 00:08:08.837 for example, 00:08:08.957 --> 00:08:10.389 I was too shy then, 00:08:10.389 --> 00:08:12.266 and I am actually too shy now, 00:08:12.266 --> 00:08:15.676 to ask anybody to read me outloud sexually explicit material. 00:08:15.856 --> 00:08:18.936 (Laughter) 00:08:19.846 --> 00:08:23.086 But you know, I could pop a book on in the middle of the night and–. 00:08:23.136 --> 00:08:25.194 (Laughter) 00:08:25.524 --> 00:08:30.416 (Applause) 00:08:32.966 --> 00:08:38.285 Now, the Kurzweil reader is simply a programme on my laptop, 00:08:38.285 --> 00:08:39.824 that is what it shrank to. 00:08:39.914 --> 00:08:41.813 And now I can scan the latest novel 00:08:41.813 --> 00:08:43.949 and not fight to get it into talking libraries. 00:08:44.109 --> 00:08:46.913 I can keep up with my friends. 00:08:47.603 --> 00:08:50.773 There are many people who helped me in my life 00:08:51.353 --> 00:08:53.047 and many that I have not met. 00:08:53.057 --> 00:08:56.386 One is another American inventor, Ted Henter. 00:08:56.736 --> 00:08:59.099 Ted was a motorcycle racer, 00:08:59.099 --> 00:09:02.582 but in 1978 he had a car accident and lost his sight. 00:09:03.492 --> 00:09:06.079 Just devastating if you are trying to ride motorbikes. 00:09:06.079 --> 00:09:06.820 (Laughter) 00:09:07.010 --> 00:09:09.712 He then turned to being a water skier 00:09:09.712 --> 00:09:13.314 and was a champion disabled water skier. 00:09:13.564 --> 00:09:19.196 But in 1989 he teamed up with Bill Joyce to develop a programme 00:09:19.196 --> 00:09:22.184 that would read out what was on the computer screen 00:09:22.184 --> 00:09:24.516 from the net or from what was on the computer. 00:09:24.516 --> 00:09:27.930 It is called JAWS, Job Access With Speech, 00:09:27.930 --> 00:09:29.587 and it sounds like this. 00:09:29.587 --> 00:09:41.414 (Fast voice synthesizer speech) 00:09:41.554 --> 00:09:42.779 Isn't that slow? 00:09:43.039 --> 00:09:44.226 (Laughter) 00:09:44.356 --> 00:09:46.694 You see, if I read like that, I would fall asleep. 00:09:46.694 --> 00:09:47.860 I slowed it down for you. 00:09:47.860 --> 00:09:50.880 I am going to ask that we play it at the speed I read it. 00:09:50.880 --> 00:09:53.057 Can you play it that one? 00:09:53.427 --> 00:10:07.405 (Voice synthesizer speech faster) 00:10:07.855 --> 00:10:09.208 (Laughter) 00:10:09.428 --> 00:10:11.627 You know, when you are marking student essays, 00:10:11.627 --> 00:10:13.606 you want to get through them very quickly. 00:10:13.606 --> 00:10:14.435 (Laughter) 00:10:14.435 --> 00:10:19.015 (Applause) 00:10:22.655 --> 00:10:26.033 This technology that fascinated me in 1987 00:10:26.033 --> 00:10:29.545 is now on my iPhone and on yours as well. 00:10:30.195 --> 00:10:31.256 But you know, 00:10:31.256 --> 00:10:35.505 I find reading with machine a very lonely process. 00:10:36.205 --> 00:10:40.630 I grew up with family, friends, reading to me, 00:10:40.630 --> 00:10:45.726 and I love the warmth and the breath and the closeness of people reading. 00:10:45.796 --> 00:10:47.847 Do you love being read to? 00:10:48.447 --> 00:10:51.313 And one of my most endearing memories 00:10:51.313 --> 00:10:53.609 is in 1999, 00:10:53.609 --> 00:10:58.906 Mary reading to me and the children down New Manly Beach, 00:10:58.906 --> 00:11:01.865 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone. 00:11:02.357 --> 00:11:04.078 Is it not a great book? 00:11:04.728 --> 00:11:07.566 I still love being close to someone reading to me, 00:11:07.566 --> 00:11:09.596 but I would not give up the technology 00:11:09.596 --> 00:11:13.291 because it has allowed me to lead a great life. 00:11:14.841 --> 00:11:18.716 Of course talking books for the blind predated all this technology. 00:11:18.876 --> 00:11:23.664 After all the long playing record was developed in the early 1930's 00:11:23.664 --> 00:11:29.263 and now we put talking books on CDs using the digital access system 00:11:29.263 --> 00:11:31.515 know as 'DAISY'. 00:11:31.835 --> 00:11:35.259 But when I am reading the synthetic voices, 00:11:35.259 --> 00:11:38.132 I love to come home and read a racy novel 00:11:38.132 --> 00:11:39.509 with a real voice. 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:41.716 (Laughter) 00:11:42.196 --> 00:11:46.043 Now, there are still barriers in front of people with disabilities. 00:11:46.133 --> 00:11:50.494 Many websites we cannot read using JAWS and the other technologies. 00:11:50.494 --> 00:11:54.028 Websites are often very visual and there are all these sorts of graphs 00:11:54.028 --> 00:11:56.966 that are not labelled, and buttons that are not labelled, 00:11:56.966 --> 00:12:00.566 and that is why the world wide web consortium 3, 00:12:00.676 --> 00:12:03.204 known as W3C, 00:12:03.554 --> 00:12:07.479 has developed world wide standards for the Internet 00:12:07.929 --> 00:12:12.695 and we want all internet users, or internet site owners, 00:12:12.695 --> 00:12:16.568 to make their sites compatible so that we persons without vision 00:12:16.568 --> 00:12:19.231 can have a label playing field. 00:12:20.321 --> 00:12:23.659 There are other barriers brought about by our laws. 00:12:24.309 --> 00:12:28.845 For example, Australia, like about 1/3 of the world's countries, 00:12:28.845 --> 00:12:33.064 has copyright exceptions which allow books to be Brailled 00:12:33.464 --> 00:12:35.824 or read for we, blind persons. 00:12:35.984 --> 00:12:38.817 But those books cannot travel across borders. 00:12:39.127 --> 00:12:40.033 For example, 00:12:40.033 --> 00:12:43.584 in Spain, there are 100,000 accessible books in Spanish. 00:12:43.874 --> 00:12:46.280 In Argentina, there are 50,000. 00:12:46.430 --> 00:12:49.706 In no other Latin American country are there more than a couple of thousand, 00:12:50.116 --> 00:12:53.942 but it isn't legal to transport the books from Spain to Latin America. 00:12:55.526 --> 00:12:57.808 There are hundreds of thousands accessible books 00:12:57.808 --> 00:13:00.952 in the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and etc., 00:13:00.952 --> 00:13:03.952 but they cannot be transported to the 60 countries in our world 00:13:03.952 --> 00:13:06.221 where English is the first or a second language. 00:13:06.501 --> 00:13:09.361 Remember I was telling you about Harry Potter? 00:13:09.561 --> 00:13:12.710 Well, because we cannot transport books across borders 00:13:12.710 --> 00:13:17.444 there had to be separate versions read in all the English speaking countries, 00:13:17.734 --> 00:13:21.446 Britain, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zeland, 00:13:21.446 --> 00:13:25.106 all had to have separate readings of Harry Potter. 00:13:25.446 --> 00:13:28.710 And that is why next month in Morocco 00:13:28.710 --> 00:13:31.217 a meeting is taking place between all the countries. 00:13:31.217 --> 00:13:35.086 It is something that a group of countries and the World Blind Union are advocating: 00:13:35.086 --> 00:13:36.394 a cross-border treaty. 00:13:36.844 --> 00:13:39.908 So that if books are available under a copyright exception 00:13:39.908 --> 00:13:42.112 and the other country has a copyright exception, 00:13:42.112 --> 00:13:44.478 we can transport those books across borders 00:13:44.478 --> 00:13:47.760 and give life to people particularly in developing countries, 00:13:47.760 --> 00:13:50.997 blind people who do not have the books to read. 00:13:51.507 --> 00:13:53.465 I want that to happen. 00:13:53.895 --> 00:14:01.306 (Applause) 00:14:01.856 --> 00:14:07.608 My life has been extraordinary blessed with marriage and children 00:14:08.178 --> 00:14:10.351 and certanily interesting work to do. 00:14:10.731 --> 00:14:13.575 Whether it be at the University of Sidney Law School 00:14:13.575 --> 00:14:15.458 where I served a term as dean, 00:14:15.458 --> 00:14:18.255 or now as I sit on the United Nations committee 00:14:18.255 --> 00:14:21.355 on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Geneva, 00:14:21.495 --> 00:14:25.676 I have indeed been a very fortunate human being. 00:14:26.706 --> 00:14:29.546 I wonder what the future will hold. 00:14:29.776 --> 00:14:32.713 The technology will advance even further. 00:14:33.513 --> 00:14:37.070 But I can still remember my mom saying 60 years ago, 00:14:37.070 --> 00:14:42.007 "Remember darling, you will never be able to read the print with your fingers." 00:14:42.906 --> 00:14:47.824 I am so glad, that the interaction between Brailles for transcribers, 00:14:47.824 --> 00:14:51.154 volunteer readers and passionate inventors 00:14:51.384 --> 00:14:54.621 has allowed this dream of reading to come true for me 00:14:54.621 --> 00:14:57.036 and for blind people throughout the world. 00:14:57.516 --> 00:15:00.917 I woud like to thank my researcher Hannah Martin, 00:15:00.917 --> 00:15:02.763 who is my slide clicker, 00:15:02.763 --> 00:15:04.023 she clicks the slides, 00:15:04.243 --> 00:15:07.077 and my wife, professor Mary Crock, 00:15:07.077 --> 00:15:09.828 who is the love of my life and is coming on to collect me, 00:15:09.828 --> 00:15:10.973 I want to thank her too. 00:15:10.973 --> 00:15:12.717 I think I have to say good bye now. 00:15:12.717 --> 00:15:13.645 Bless you! 00:15:13.645 --> 00:15:14.738 Thank you very much. 00:15:14.738 --> 00:15:16.282 (Applause) 00:15:16.282 --> 00:15:17.565 Hey! 00:15:17.565 --> 00:15:18.627 (Applause) 00:15:18.627 --> 00:15:19.537 (Laughs) 00:15:19.537 --> 00:15:26.294 (Applause continuing) 00:15:26.294 --> 00:15:30.865 Oh! Hey! 00:15:30.865 --> 00:15:41.072 (Applause)