I am finding it quite an intriguing concept walking around with my iPhone 16 Pro Max very securely strapped to my chest thanks to a chest harness recommended by @munchkinbear. It is the PellKing Mobile Phone Chest Strap Harness, and it's available at a.co/d/eqEuR0z

I wanted to try one of these because with it, I can use the power of all the apps on my iPhone without compromise. And if you have a Pro iPhone that includes Lidar, as of iOS 18 you can now have the Live Recognition Rotor. For example, I walked around with scene descriptions, door detection, text detection and people detection enabled. Since the phone was strapped to my chest in the harness, the phone was seeing what was in front of me, and I had my hands free. It was reading signage, identifying people and doors, and probably giving so much information that it was a little overwhelming, so it's important to be selective about what Live Recognition features you want to use. It is very effective when putting the shopping away. I still think Seeing AI is a little more effective with its instant text feature than Live Recognition, so I opened Seeing AI and had both hands free to just hold things up to the camera and instantly get told what they are.
Of course, since this is your iPhone, you can go to town here. Literally. You can run it in conjunction with a GPS app for navigation. Detailed descriptions of things are available with Aira's Access AI or Be My AI from Be My Eyes. In that regard, it works as well as I had hoped. So many great accessibility tools, hands free, without compromise. And with the super iPhone 16 Pro Max's battery life, you've got a lot of juice built in.
On the downside, it's taken me a bit of learning to understand how to put the harness on but I have that sorted now. And it's not that comfortable. It's not intolerable, but you definitely feel this bulky thing strapped to you which sticks out in front. It probably looks a little odd, but I also think in this day of many people using tech in various ways, some of us probably over-stress about how we look.
But would I walk into a fine dining restaurant with this thing strapped to me, to help me as a blind person who wears hearing aids follow a person, get to the table etc? I'm really not sure.
But it is a cool concept, and I love the power I have hands free with this option.

The last time I made a video about #Ableton, it was to do with Note, their iOS music-making app.
today in an Ableton-first, I bring you their newest piece of hardware, #AbletonMove.
It ships with a web-based screen-reader and I've been enjoying it for many months.
It uses sounds from Note, but in a hardware form.
32 poly-aftertouch pads, four tracks of midi or samples, 8 knobs, USB-C for power and controlling Ableton Live and a USB-A port for connecting class-compliant midi devices, should you wish to trigger it from a keyboard.

Please be advised that screen-reader support is currently an experimental feature and is not fully fleshed out.
Not all aspects of the experience are as desired and there are a few kinks, but it is very much better than nothing whatsoever, and I am extremely thankful to the team that made this possible.

#InspiredBySound - Let's Move! (Ableton Move Accessibility Overview) youtu.be/p8IbinbOhY4

Quienes me conocen desde hace años saben que nunca fui condescendiente con la Universidad, que nunca fui corporativo, y que pasé buena parte de los tiempos de bonanza poniéndole el cuerpo a la lucha interna para mejorar lo que funciona mal.

Hubiera sido fácil acomodarme con mediocres y aprovechados, mi carrera académica hubiera progresado mucho más rápido, y hoy tendría muchos más amigos.

Pero yo no soy así. No podría ni aunque quisiera.

Yo di todas las peleas internas que creí necesarias, y sacrifiqué bienestar y proyección para hacerlo.

Esto me pone hoy en una posición especial.

Puedo hablar de la coyuntura sin que nadie piense que lo hago para cuidar un carguito o acomodarme con mis amigos.

$friend suggested I label my solder paste spatula "science spatula", and I responded "it's an *engineering* spatula, thank you very much"

but now it is safely labeled

1,000 Free Audio Books: Download Great Books for Free

openculture.com/freeaudiobooks

It was my great honour to have been asked to speak earlier today at the launch of “Braille On Display Third Edition”.
#Braille is the most priceless, life-changing gift blind people have ever been given. It was invented by one of us, for all of us. Despite some predictions when talking computers came on the scene that Braille would be rendered obsolete, technology has made Braille more relevant and abundant than ever.
There’s no getting away from it, hardcopy Braille books are bulky. But with a Braille display that connects to a smartphone or contains its own storage, we can have hundreds of volumes of Braille at our fingertips.
The cost of manufacture of Braille displays must be spread across a small number of units, so they are expensive, even though their price in real terms has declined significantly. During my time in the Braille product management field, the thing I am proudest of is delivering on two separate 40% reductions in the cost of refreshable Braille display technology.
If you’re going to buy a Braille display, or you have been allocated funding for one, naturally you want to make sure you’re getting the one that will best meet your needs. Finding objective information about all the choices out there is very difficult. Some agencies recommend what they know, and, understandably, distributors recommend what they distribute.
When I ran Mosen Consulting, I was proud and honoured to publish two editions of Jackie Brown’s book, “Braille On Display”. Now, it’s back for a third edition, and it is available free from the Braillists Foundation.
This book begins with the basic concepts and not only covers Braille displays, but Braille-only input devices as well. The Braille display market is vibrant, with plenty of competition and innovation occurring. The line between Braille displays that only function in terminal mode and the more fully-fledged notetaker is blurring, and that means there is more functionality available to the user at a lower price. Then there is the new category of multiline devices that can display tactile graphics.
With Jackie around to cover it all, we are in good hands to ensure that our hands are on the display that suits us best.
So, pick up your free copy of “Braille On Display” today, and read objective evaluations of a wide range of Braille devices.
braillists.org/brailleondispla…

Sincere thanks and appreciation to Jackie for the huge effort she has put into this, and to the Braillists Foundation for being such epic Braille champions.

Most people in Montréal speak French and at least one other language...

We're supposed to celebrate multiculturalism and diversity...

Instead, this is Valérie Plante's priority...

This is what Valérie Plante wants to spend our taxes on...

This is why Valérie Plante keeps raising property taxes...

Valérie Plante needs to go. #polMTL #MTLpoli #montreal

montreal.ctvnews.ca/city-of-mo…

NO THEY DON'T

Montreal needs a French-language and Francophonie office: committee

montreal.ctvnews.ca/city-of-mo…

Bloat wasting tax payer money to go against their own citizen.

Welcome to the RB family, Just Listen 🥳

apt.izzysoft.de/packages/com.r…

"Just Listen" is a media player to play songs in background. Thanks to joint efforts of @obfusk identifying the culprit (sqldelight issue) and RLD-JL (the author) addressing it, we succeeded here.

This brings the number of RB apps at #IzzyOnDroid to 277, or in relative numbers to 23% now

#reproducibleBuilds

Good to see an open source alternative arriving on the scene so soon.

Source: It's FOSS Good to see an open source alternative arriving on the scene so soon.
Source: It's FOSS search.app/uXqRP6sBovBFWroQ8

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today brings you 10 updated and 2 added apps:

* PuppyGit Pro: Git Client for Android
* Vaani: a client for your Audiobookshelf server

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo

This is a seriously great improvement for Youtube.com: When you press "Reject all cookies" it now just shows a blank home page and a search bar. No more random "popular videos", suggested videos, etc.

No sarcasm, I'm genuinely very happy about this.

This is an example of why Mastodon is the future:

On Threads they have been using algorithms to moderate user content, but The Verge now reports how a large number of popular accounts have been banned, simply because Zuckerberg's software mistook their good content for bad content.

That is the difference:

On Mastodon, we have humans taking part in the moderation of humans. But on commercial social media, humans are pushed around like sheep.

theverge.com/2024/10/9/2426609…

Urteil: Rechtsextremist hat kein Recht auf Referendariat

Ein Neonazi wurde zu Recht nicht als Referendar an einem Oberlandesgericht zugelassen. Das urteilte das Bundesverwaltungsgericht. Der Staat müsse niemanden ausbilden, der die Verfassung aktiv bekämpfe. Von A. Lagmöller.

➡️ tagesschau.de/inland/gesellsch…

#Bundesverwaltungsgericht #Rechtsextremismus

Let's keep the contributor appreciation from earlier going! Our most recent Contributor Highlight is out, and we're shining the light on Toad Hall, one of our Mozilla Support (SUMO) forum superheroes! The SUMO forums are the pillar of our support, and contributors like Toad keep it strong.

#Thunderbird #OpenSource #Community

blog.thunderbird.net/2024/10/c…

The wait is over. HTML for People is OUT NOW!

I feel strongly that anyone should be able to make a website with HTML if they want. This web book will teach you how to do just that. It doesn’t require any previous experience making websites or coding. I will cover everything you need to know to get started in an approachable and friendly way.

And it’s free for all. 🚀

htmlforpeople.com

New from 404 Media: people are using AI to auto apply for jobs. Bot scrolls LinkedIn, opens job applications, writes cover letter. Users say they've got interviews

We tested it. "By the time I finished breakfast, I had applied to 12 different jobs" 404media.co/i-applied-to-2-843…