I got interesting news from the fedora accessibility room today! this concerns blind and visually impaired #linux users exclusively, however:
For a bit of time, specifically pipewire >=1.4, one can start pipewire as root. That includes the regular daemon and the alsa layer, because jack emulation is a library loaded inside programs. Anyway, more recently than that, pipewire-pulse got the ability to be launched via root, as a system service:
gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewir…
I'm not sure if ubuntu can use any of this yet, I suppose not, but most other distros which aren't debian based should be able to do so, for example arch, gentoo, probably nix and fedora starting with 42. This means that your system can start talking much, much sooner without the use of scripts, as long as you enable the system services instead of the user ones, or well, apparently the user units don't conflict, weird as that might sound. Either way, the same security is achieved, because who cares if root apps can listen to your microphone, the battle is lost if those apps are already root anyway!
In particular, this means that one can start espeakup with the system and it'll speak as soon as possible. Not in the initramfs, not at the enter decryption key prompt, but that's still huge progress in case your system crashes and so on.
What do y'all think, does this change anything, or it's still the same for you because you use scripts anyway, or because your systems rarely crash in such a way where that'd be required?
systemd: add systemwide pipewire-pulse files (dea6fa7f) · Commits · PipeWire / pipewire · GitLab
We can and it works, so why not.GitLab
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Come on #Fediverse, if you can, put some money where your heart is. The people from Framasoft are working hard on #PeerTube and are only looking for €75.000. With less than 40 hours to go, you can be part of the difference we want to see in the world :)
Soon we will be able to livestream from our smartphone to the fediverse!
Framasoft is a French non-profit, based in Lyon.
support.joinpeertube.org/en/?m…
Support PeerTube
Let's popularize videos shared by the people, for the people!support.joinpeertube.org
Australian man interrogated at LA airport and deported back to Melbourne for his writings about pro-Palestine protests. His social media posts, too, which he said he deleted before flying, were used as material.
"Clearly, they had technology in their system which linked those posts to my Esta … a long time before I took them down,” he said. “Because they knew all about the posts, and then interrogated me about the posts once I was there.”
theguardian.com/australia-news…
Australian deported from US says he was ‘targeted’ due to writing on pro-Palestine student protests
Alistair Kitchen says he was detained and questioned about views on Israel and Palestine before being deported from LA to MelbourneCatie McLeod (The Guardian)
Ghostty will soon be visible to accessibility tooling on macOS. This is increasingly important in the world of AI since this means that tools like ChatGPT, Claude, etc. can now read Ghostty's screen contents too (with permission). This feature is also relatively rare!
Only the built-in Terminal, iTerm2, and Warp also support this. Kitty, Alacritty, and others are invisible to a11y on macOS.
Beyond the screen contents, Ghostty's structure is also visible, navigable, and resizable such as its split as can be seen in the attached video. Ghostty and iTerm2 are the only terminals that expose structure too (splits, tabs).
This is a v1 implementation that is primarily read-only. I plan on iterating and improving a11y interactions in future versions.
@miki I’m not totally sure. Right now our behavior mostly mimics iTerm. It’s admittedly not optimized for humans right now and more for AI (I note that in the PR), but the foundational work is all the same. It’s just all the last mile to get to the next spot.
My thinking thoigh was to break down the terminal into more accessibility groups e.g per command then per N lines of output, and notify AX framework that new data exists.
Autoreading on Mac is though (see that writeup I made on Github at one point) because Voice Over has no built-in queuing mechanism, and you really need one in a terminal. This is not a problem on any other platform, most screen readers let you decide whether you want new speech to interrupt all existing utterances or to queue up.
This means you basically need to handle speech yourself (Mac OS and all other platforms have APIs for that and they're decent), but that opens another can of worms, as then you need a way to manage speech preferences somehow.
youtube.com/watch?v=P8y_Gn_HQP…
#BTSpeak
DG
Exploring NFB-NEWSLINE: Full Feature Demo for Users
Demo on how to use the new NFB Newsline feature in the BT Speak. NFB-NEWSLINE is a free service provided by the National Federation of the Blind, giving user...YouTube
Napřed mi mazal med kolem huby, pak zkoušel oddanost práci a pak vytáhl nejvyšší kalibr.
Pořídil pro mě úplně nový Mercedes Tourismo, který bude jen můj, nikdo jiný mi ho nebude řídit, nikdo mi ho nebude týrat...
Nebudu to natahovat místo linky do Londýna jsem od příštího měsíce Long Executive trip driver ❤️
Příští stížnosti na dopravu budou z cest po UK a Evropě 😇
Long COVID is Now the Number One Chronic Illness in Children.
"Repeatedly mass infecting kids with COVID is not a public health strategy. It's a fast pass to declining population health"
"So many children are getting Long COVID because COVID causes Long COVID, and children are not “immune” to COVID, they are not becoming healthier with each infection, and the adults around them are doing nothing to mitigate the virus."
"So if COVID is a virus that can disable them, damages their blood vessels, raises their risk of heart failure and cardiac arrest, causes autoimmune disorders, diabetes, and a range of mental health and cognitive problems, then we’d be doing something really awful by failing to deal with, or even acknowledge it. Maybe even unforgiveable."
Source: archive.md/c8aSv
NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2025.1 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version. This release introduces NVDA Remote Access, provides speech, braille, OCR & Office improvements, Native selection in Chrome & edge
Full info & Download: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2025-1/
#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Accessibility #FOSS #NewVersion #Update #News #Free
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What would a Doctor Who missing episodes drama be like? - Lovarzi Blog
The story behind Doctor Who missing episodes is almost as gripping as Doctor Who itself. Could the hunt for lost material be transformed into a TV drama?Alex Skerratt (Lovarzi Blog)
Thank you, @bemyeyes
groups.io/g/tech-vi/message/94…
Shot: mastodon.social/@mhoye/1111840…
Chaser: github.com/orgs/community/disc…
Copilot stops working on `gender` related subjects · community · Discussion #72603
As some people already mentioned here or here, Copilot purposely stops working on code containing hardcoded banned words from Github such as gender or sex. I am labelling this as a bug because this...GitHub
Nina Simone: Live in Antibes — July 24th, 1965 (Full Concert)
#ninasimone #antibesNina Simone live at Jazz à Juan — the International Jazz Festival in Juan-les-Pins, Antibes, France on July 24th, 1965. Nina performed tw...YouTube
#AudioMo day 15:
Here's a binaural recording I made while walking around a cassino when visiting Canada in August, 2019.
Can someone scan through their documentation and tell me if they reference anywhere a line about a license limit, needing to deauthorize a license to get the counter lowered, ETC? Because I sure ain't seeing it. tiflotecnia.com/documentation.…
Update: OK, that e-mail does work! FYI, they track your machine name, internal IP, and external IP of each machine. Very interesting, not entirely surprised this is kept to prevent sharing of licenses though.
Tiflotecnia Voices for NVDA Documentation
Tiflotecnia Voices for NVDA is a multilingual synthetizer based on Serence Embedded TTS.www.tiflotecnia.com
The Halifax Explosion: The Devastating Maritime Collision That Produced The Largest Explosion Of The Pre-Nuclear Age
By Austin Harvey
allthatsinteresting.com/halifa…
Books about the Halifax Explosion at PG:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?q…
"A photograph of the Mont-Blanc purportedly taken 15 to 20 seconds after the explosion."
Halifax Explosion: History's Largest Blast Before Nuclear Bombs
The Halifax Explosion occurred on December 6, 1917, after the SS Mont-Blanc and the SS Imo collided in Nova Scotia's Halifax harbor, killing 1,800 people and injuring 9,000 more.Austin Harvey (All That's Interesting)
Interestingly, Roland seems to have used the original Yyoo Dude sample when adding the patch to Virtual Sound Canvas, rather than using the SC-88Pro version of the sample, which is slightly shorter.
#AudioMo day 14:
On August 18. 2018. I took a Delta flight from Atlanta to New York City. During this flight, I plugged my Zoom H1N digital recorder directly into a headphone output at my seat, and recorded announcements from the flight deck during the entire flight, then edited out all the space between them.
#AudioMo day 15:
Remember when computers sounded like this?
For some reason, on August 6, 2007, I stuck my Zoom H4 in front of the old, even for the time, Compaq Deskpro Pentium III computer in my bedroom, which, at the time, was running FX Radio on Windows 2000. It had two hard drives, both Western Digital. The operating system was on a 10GB 5400 RPM drive, and the media was on a 30GB 7200 RPM drive.
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iOS 26 Shortcuts + Apple Intelligence is POWERFUL 🔥
Shortcuts in iOS 26 now tap into Apple Intelligence—giving you built-in tools for summarizing, rewriting, creating images, and even using custom AI prompts. ...YouTube
#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today with 13 updated and 1 added apps:
* App Lock: provides powerful app protection with powerful biometric protection and privacy controls 🛡️
Traccar Manager will no longer receive updates, as its authors decided to no longer ship a FOSS build (the other one has a bunch of proprietary components).
Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo 
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
The Decline of Cable News: A Warning Flag for Cable TV’s Last Holdout | Cord Cutters News
In a striking reflection of shifting viewer habits, the cable news landscape is undergoing a seismic transformation, with Fox News emerging as the lone victor in a sea of declining viewership.Luke Bouma (Cord Cutters News)
"Little House on the Prairie" Is Streaming Free on Amazon Prime Video as Netflix Gears Up for New Reboot | Cord Cutters News
Fans of the beloved classic series Little House on the Prairie have reason to celebrate as all nine seasons of the original show are now available to stream for free on Amazon Prime Video.Luke Bouma (Cord Cutters News)
ATU733 – BrailleDoodle with Daniel Lubiner – Part 1
Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs. Special Guest: Daniel …Assistive Technology at Easter Seals Crossroads
RT: mastodon.social/users/alatiera…
Jordan Petridis (@alatiera@mastodon.social)
You don't get to own Xorg. It belongs to the X.org foundation and community. X.org literary hosts and runs Wayland and Weston Xorg is dead and we killed it. And nobody regrets it.Mastodon
numbat.dev/ is excellent too, it's OSS as well and can be a calculator or a programming language with full units support.
Worked example (including mistakes):
numbat.dev/?q=let+radius+%3D+5…
Numbat - scientific calculator
High precision scientific calculator with full support for physical units.numbat.dev
Zach Bennoui reshared this.
Today at DIFF in Freiburg: DeltaTouch running on PostmarketOS on a Steam Deck (with a Win7 theme), owned by @ell1e 
It's time for another electric vehicle charging video.
Too many people believe EV charging solutions require expensive, huge electric circuits (or worse: service upgrades).
The really high-power ones people tend to go with can be a headache, but there are many other options!
youtube.com/watch?v=W96a8svXo1…
The "standard" car charger is usually overkill—but your electrician might not know that
Seriously, make your life easier and don't go overboard for no reason.Links 'n' stuff:OPEN SAUCE:https://opensauce.com/Technology Connextras (the second chan...YouTube
This ppackage is not free for new purchasers.
tiflotecnia.com/
Tiflotecnia Voices for NVDA | Home
Tiflotecnia Voices for NVDA is a multilingual synthetizer based on Serence TTS.www.tiflotecnia.com
I agree entirely with Rich.
BUT: there is a sound basis for not implementing mail functionality in systems that do not absolutely demand it. hachyderm.io/@dalias/114688068…
Cassandrich (@dalias@hachyderm.io)
Example of very bad modern UX: (paraphrased) "Android has detected that these apps were not frequently used and removed all permissions for them.Hachyderm.io
the esoteric programmer
Unknown parent • • •Christian Hergert
in reply to the esoteric programmer • • •There is hope with systemd-homed that we can do the encryption on a per-user basis so you'll be able to have voice/input assistants before any password is necessary.
There is also work to make virtual terminals done in user-space w/ a minimal kiosk-mode wayland compositor which would allow for a11y even on a "VT".
I actually hope to make Ptyxis work like that for Fedora in the not-distant future.
the esoteric programmer
Unknown parent • • •the esoteric programmer
Unknown parent • • •