mastodon - Link to source

Will you be at #FOSDEM or in Brussels next week and want to meet some of the team? 👀

We have a few more spots open to register for the event at Little Delirium on Jan 31! If you haven't registered yet, do so before space runs out 👇🏼

#HomeAssistant #SmartHome #HomeAutomation #OpenSource
luma.com/ptshwcqn


Meet the Home Assistant team - FOSDEM Brussels

We'd love for you to join us 😎 Join the Open Home Foundation and key members of the Home Assistant team for a meetup in Brussels during FOSDEM 2026! 🤩 We're hosting a casual evening for the open-source community to connect.
luma.com
#opensource #homeassistant #fosdem #smarthome #homeautomation

mastodon - Link to source

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/?radd=1… today brings you 21 updated and 1 added apps:

* Be nice: lets you launch apps in split-screen mode 🛡️

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repository :awesome:


IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).
IzzyOnDroid App Repo
#android #free #apps #AndroidAppRain #izzyondroid

mastodon - Link to source

Accessibility, by @bogdanlazar.com and @mgifford (@httparchive.org):

almanac.httparchive.org/en/202…

#webalmanac #studies #research #metrics #accessibility #colors #contrast #zooming #scaling #internationalization #keyboardnavigation #skiplinks #forms #labels #placeholders #multimedia #images #aria #overlays #ai


Accessibility | 2025 | The Web Almanac by HTTP Archive

Accessibility chapter of the 2025 Web Almanac covering ease of reading, navigation, forms, media, ARIA, and accessibility apps.
Bogdan Lazar (HTTP Archive)
#Accessibility #AI #aria #research #images #forms #overlays #internationalization #scaling #metrics #multimedia #colors #contrast #studies #WebAlmanac #labels #keyboardnavigation #Placeholders #skiplinks #zooming @Mike Gifford, CPWA @FOSDEM

mastodon - Link to source
Hi @Tamasg I'm trying NVSpeechPlayer 2026 v10, I'm not sure if this is the latest version, but the voice sounds a bit different, even when using Adam, than the original SpeechPlayer. Were there some changes that could change how the overall voice quality sounds? It's hard to pinpoint it, but the voice itself sounds less harsh and consonents like P sound very short now. I see several settings in the voice dialog but I have no idea what any of them do, but they did not seem to make much of a difference. Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to any input you may have. Thanks.
@Tamas G
in reply to Brandon Tyson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

yeah, there were like 3 missing phoneme fields: preFormantGain. , GlottalOpenQuotient, ETC. these got added in the later pack and are now tunable per vowel, in the past they would just be set to the engine default and everything got the same treatment. So this allows more flexibility but some things could have shifted with the change. Every letter now needs to define these new 3, they are very important for shaping and leaving them out in the past until now has been a disaster.
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Brandon Tyson

Awesome, I'll take a look. I also notice weird inconsistencies with phonemes in general with US English, not just in speech player, but in eSpeak in general. Are we stuck with eSpeak's limitations? Or can I make other changes in the phoneme editor? For instance, certain words with "ong" in them sound more like "onng" instead (with Eloquence, "onng" will produce more of an "ah" sound instead. It's like eSpeak has specific exceptions where "ong" sounds correct. Can I overwrite this for speech player? Or are we stuck with this weird inconsistency?
in reply to Brandon Tyson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

This is a really good observation, and you’re not imagining it.
What you’re hearing isn’t specific to SpeechPlayer, it comes from how eSpeak phonemizes certain vowel + nasal combinations in English, especially around “ng”. Depending on the word, eSpeak may output slightly different vowels before /ŋ/, and that can make some “ong” words sound more like “onng” or overly nasal.
Eloquence handled this differently: it didn’t rely on a generic phonemizer, but used hand-tuned rules that deliberately adjusted vowel quality before nasals. That’s why those cases often sound more natural there.
The good news is that we’re not stuck with eSpeak’s output as-is. For SpeechPlayer, we can override or normalize specific IPA patterns in the language pack (for example, adjusting vowel quality before /ŋ/ or mapping those cases to dedicated internal vowel variants). We’ve already done similar overrides for other tricky cases like “fear/hear” and UK vs US differences.
So while eSpeak itself has limitations, SpeechPlayer isn’t limited to reproducing them exactly — it just means the fixes live in the language/phoneme rules rather than in the core engine. You can check out our other normalization rules to get an idea for this.
in reply to Brandon Tyson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

ahaha darn it. Now I hear it too. On words like "beyond" - yeah, it might be really an ESpeak thing. We're not limited to it as our phonemizer, actively exploring others, but bundling any other one could drastically increase the size of SpeechPlayer as the add-on. Right now we kind of highjack Espeak from within NVDA itself, and that gives us a neat little advantage but does lock us in.
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Brandon Tyson

Oh and we can't forget about the "hazz bean" bug that's in some earlier NVDA and eSpeak versions... I'm still on NVDA 2024 and I heard that with Speech Player and eSpeak. I need to see if it's fixed in 2025.3, I think it might be. I'll keep using it, but also the O phoneme in words like "box" sounds like it's way overdone. Book still sounds like it's in UK english too. Support has a wrong "or" sound, this one's again on eSpeak, eSpeak keeps breaking US english and making it way worse. This used to be handled correctly, but I think they broke it in 2024 and it still sounds like that today.

mastodon - Link to source
NVSpeech Player 2026 v10: Removes all pops/clicks from stream, 100% for sure now.
Spanish can now say "yo" properly. First attempt at "hear" and "dear" but it's not perfect yet. Other tweaks to voice quality.
Sample rate added. You can now choose from 4 of them if you don't like the default.
eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
This entry was edited (19 hours ago)
in reply to Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@clv1 You’re right, the schwa rule was present, but it didn’t trigger before "rã" in pt-br because we normalize ã into a Brazil-specific nasal vowel symbol Ã, and our PT_VOWELS class didn’t include Ã. I’ve added à to PT_VOWELS (and PT_NASAL_VOWELS) in pt.yaml, so consonant + ɾ + à now correctly becomes consonant + ᵊɾ + Ã. That should fix the missing schwa before rã / ram / ran-style sequences.
@Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

It makes sense that people who have completely abandoned their humanity want to replace humanity with software. The people pushing AI have no idea what art and music are.

They have no idea how a story can make a soul shiver and bend and laugh and weep.

They have no idea what it means to be truly human in this world, knowing that you are connected with all life.

They only want to replace humans with sickly, unthinking toys.

in reply to Hisham

mastodon - Link to source

miki

And that's a good thing. The concept of "saving" (as well as the OK button) only exist as historical artifacts. Nobody ever wanted them, but in the age of slow CPUs, slow HDDs, slow floppies, and single-threaded everything, there was no choice but to have them.

It's pretty ridiculous that all the major desktop OSes are still based on 1980's-era Apple concepts... except Apple's.

mastodon - Link to source
Oh – look how many subscribers the #LibreOffice YouTube channel has! Check out our videos about the software and events, and be subscriber number 25,000: youtube.com/@libreoffice-tdfor…
Screenshot from YouTube analytics, showing 24,996 subscribers

LibreOffice - The Document Foundation

LibreOffice is a powerful, free and open source office suite, used by millions of people around the world, and compatible with Microsoft® Office. It respects your privacy and freedom to work as you wish.
YouTube
#libreoffice

mastodon - Link to source
I'm looking for a secure Messaging app replacement for #GrapheneOS but my web searches haven't turned up any clear answers. I use Signal and love it - I'm just looking for something for SMS/MMS that isn't as unsightly as the default Messaging app, with better use of the available screen real estate, and perhaps has some basic theme and/or layout options. Any recommendations from personal experience?
#grapheneos
in reply to DJ [REDACTED] 🇨🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦

mastodon - Link to source

ArcaneChat

I think people will get confused by the way you formulated the post "secure messaging app" that is why you will get recommendations for Delta Chat and other encrypted messengers, maybe better clarify you mean "secure SMS app" to avoid confusion, and btw I recommend you to give a try to #DeltaChat as replacement for Signal, no phone number or any data required, decentralized, good multi-device, etc.

for SMS I liked "QKSMS" but that was years ago, see successor:
f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.oc…


QUIK SMS | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

Open source replacement to the stock SMS app on Android. A revival of QKSMS.
f-droid.org
#deltachat
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Catelli

mastodon - Link to source

ArcaneChat

actually, #email (#SMTP + #IMAP) can totally be used for #InstantMessaging it is not the protocols it is the specific email providers and "big fishes" like #gmail and #Outlook the ones that put extra limitations on top like graylisting etc. with #ArcaneChat and #DeltaChat you can have sub-second (#ENCRYPTED) email delivery
#email #GMail #encrypted #deltachat #outlook #imap #instantmessaging #arcanechat #smtp
in reply to categulario 🐍 🦀 🦎 🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Federico Mena Quintero

@categulario sipi, la tarima tiene tapas y el zapatero sus puertitas corredizas. Bajo la tarima tengo las mochilas de viaje, estufa de acampar, cosas de costura, bolsas pa la bici, tripié y pendejadas de la cámara, el tapete de yoga...
En el zapatero, los zapatos y las mochilas más utilizadas.
@categulario 🐍 🦀 🦎 🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Hello Mastodon!

I’m Avi Lewis and I’m running to be the next leader of the federal NDP. Very excited to be part of the Fediverse!

I’m running for NDP leader because it’s time for the NDP to return to its roots—fighting a system rigged for the rich that leaves the rest of us behind.

We can build a Canada based on care instead of greed, but only if we do it together. There are only 4 days left to join the NDP so you can vote in the leadership race, so get your membership before Jan 28th and let’s fight for a government that serves the many, not the money.

avilewis.link/join

youtu.be/IVy99oiYszY?si=TdW_Ul…

#cdnpoli #NDP


Join the NDP to support Avi Lewis for Leader

Join a party ready to fight for nation-building projects that put people before profit
avilewis.link
#cdnpoli #ndp
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

mastodon - Link to source

when you are trying to sleep at night and suddenly remember that #ArcaneChat / #DeltaChat are the only piece of software out there that makes it possible easily and for free to have a #decentralized #e2ee #mailinglist #newsletter (called "channels" inside the app) that is portable, doesn't depend on a specific/central #email server and can be easily migrated to a completely different server / address without any visible change or disturbance for your subscribers

all FREE and without limits 🤯

woman in bed with big opened eyes
#email #decentralized #newsletter #deltachat #e2ee #arcanechat #mailinglist

mastodon - Link to source
Wellp, I've had it with the Asus routers. I'm simply done with their absolutely useless JAVA Script-infested-and-100%-dependence to make anything in their web interface do anything. Clickable buttons that at least NVDA recognizes as such, but still majority remain useless, JFW only sees text, with no label or control state information communicated. Sometimes clicking these random clickables/words of text do things, such as the main navigation, but try to set up VLANs, more detailed WAN configurations, port forwarding, pretty much 99% of the router interface, and its useless with a screen reader. For the longest time, I was figuring out equivalent CLI commands, and writing scripts to do more advanced stuff, hacking its NVRAM settings, and BASH scripts, but I'm just done with the whole damn thing. Of course, the Netgear switch web interfaces are no better, and that makes two of my switches management useless. I was able to enable an unsupported telnet feature in one of the switches, and was able to configure VLANs there through trial and error, and reading manuals for other switches using a similar Broadcom FastPath OS stack. I managed to make that work, but yet again, another ridiculous workaround that has about as much chance of breaking in a future update, as shit has a chance to come out of the end of a biological organisms digestive system on a regular basis. So its time to find a whole new stack and rip out my entire network and rebuild it.
⇧