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I attended today's presentation where Deane Blazie introduced the new BTSpeak. Much of what he discussed can also be found on the Blazie Technologies Web site which was mentioned toward the end of the presentation. blazietech.com/
Here are my notes that I took which have hardly been edited.
Deane said nobody had done an equivalent Bns. Deand and Bryan (one of his sons) were working with Raspberry PI with a Braille keyboard to make a new 21st century Bns.
Based on Raspberry PI, inside is a computer module 4, has 4 cores, equivalent to a low end or possibly midrange laptop.
About the size of an iPhone Pro
8-key Braille keyboard.
Also has music and media player can stream from Pandora
Has learning application for learning how to type on a Braille keyboard
Comes with Lynx Web browser
Runs on Linux
Builtin calculator, clock and calendar
Hdmi port for monitor
Usb c for charging or plugging in keyboards, usb stick for storage
Micro Sd card slot
He was not sure of max capacity but 256 gb is possible
Has wifi
Has small CHATGpt app but you need a token
Uses Dectalk and ESpeak
Dectalk is from Human Voice LLC which is allowing them to use it for free
Has capability to do voice commands.
Deane said “weather” to get a weather forecast.
Has a around half dozen commands.
Has dictionary.
BTRadio is a Pandora app.
Has a Bible
Morse code application
From systems menu there is an audio menu for speech synthesizer selection
From any menu or application you can get context specific help for that program
Product will have two versions: basic and a Pro version.
Pro will have desktop Linux using Orca.
Uses RPI version of Debian
Pro version will have LibreOffice.
Has a PDF reader.
Standard unit supports text and Braille files, need Pro for full Office support.
Will we have NLS support: we don’t have NLS working with it. Not sure about Newsline.
Has Bluetooth but no headphone jack but it will have an adapter for the USB port for a headphone jack
1.5 ghz
Cost 795 for basic
Pro costs 1195
Web site: blazietech.com
Units are still being developed but can’t be released until software is more refined.
Shipping in February
BTSpeak architecture cannot run Eloquence
Eloquence Was written for intel-based and older versions of Arm but not arm64
Has text editor in basic unit but can use LibreOffice in Pro unit
For editor it can do Braille translation just like bns did
Has 4 gb of ram and 32 gb of rom
Chrome works on the Pro version only
Blazie Technologies, LLc makes computers and notetakers for the Blind user. Assistive Technology for the blind. BrailleBlazie Technology
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@bryansmart @tristan @tspivey @pitermach
The BTSpeak is visible on your home network with a /Public directory so you can move files to and from it with your desktop computer. The Pro version has Libra Office suite which supports Microsoft Word formats. You would be using the Orca screen reader in the Pro version.
Blog: Converse.js webchat for prosody-hosted chatrooms
I wanted to make an easily accessible webchat for the rooms hosted on the yax.im #xmpp server, and this is the result / recipe.
op-co.de/blog/posts/prosody-co…
@prosodyim @jcbrand@masodon.xyz
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Introducing Spiel - A New Speech API and Framework
blog.monotonous.org/2024/01/10…
A New Speech API and Framework I wrote the beginning of what I hope will be an appealing speech API for desktop Linux and beyond. It consists of two parts, a...blog.monotonous.org
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Our goal for 2023 is to let users control Home Assistant in their own language.Home Assistant
V podobe vianočného darčeka existujúci používatelia aplikačného setu Corvus dostali k dispozícii verejnú beta verziu nadchádzajúcej verzie Corvus 10. Kompletný popis tejto verzie zverejnili samotní autori v článku o verzii Corvus 10 beta.Blindrevue
OCR v Android aplikáciách, ovládanie pomocou brailovej klávesnice, qwerty klávesnicu či podporu pre knižnicu KTN.Ondrej Rosík (Pélion - Vzdělávací portál pro zrakově postižené)
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freedesktop.org GitLab loginGitLab
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It’s World Braille Day! A blind teacher named Louis Braille created this tactile reading system, and now his birthday, January 4, is a day to celebrate this marvelous way to read! Braille exists in multiple languages, and I recently had the honor …Haben Girma
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25 years ago Jeremie Miller made an announcement of what would become the initiation, development and propagation of the #XMPP protocol until today!
Join the journey!
slashdot.org/story/99/01/04/16…
Happy birthday,
XMPP!
#chat #jabber #opensource
Jeremie writes "Jabber is a new project I recently started to create a complete open-source platform for Instant Messaging with transparent communication to other IM systems(ICQ, AIM, etc).slashdot.org
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I want Firefox to succeed more than ever and I support Mozilla finding better revenue sources than search engine default sales, but I do not support a $7M salary for its CEO.
I canceled my recurring donation to Mozilla because I need that money more than Mozilla’s CEO needs that money.
If there is a direct funding option of developers working on Firefox, I will happily reallocate that money. Send me links.
Source: Form 990 stateof.mozilla.org/
Edit: Replaced commentary with direct source
Every year, in the spirit of openness upon which Mozilla was founded, we share publicly the ways we have protected, fought for and helped advance the internet in service of the people who rely on it every day.stateof.mozilla.org
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@ebassi @vincevlo @dekkzz76 @nojhan @louis XULRunner never really lived, tbh (I just picked the last release date as the "death" date in the post above).
I remember being psyched when ephy was ported from gtkmozembed to gtk-webkit, the code became sooo much simpler. But it was before Chrome became the problem it is today (I got my memory backwards, Chrome was released in 2008 while the first Epiphany version using Webkit is from 2009)
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I am baffled when people talk about "the atmosphere" on Mastodon. Here, there is no algorithm forcing posts into your feed. The atmosphere is the one you have personally curated.
1) Scan a person's feed before you follow.
2) Turn off the boosts of anyone you otherwise like who boosts stuff you don't want to see.
3) Mute anyone you don't want to hear from at all.
4) Filter out words/phrases you don't want to see (you will have to do much less of this if you do the first three steps right).
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Analogue FM radio transmissions turn 90-years-old today after the technology was patented on December 26th 1933.The broadcasting platform was invented as a replacement for AM and today is being celebrated by Marco Rossignoli, coordinator of Aeranti-CRadioToday UK (RadioToday)
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NVDA 2024.1 Beta 2 is now available for anyone interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before its official release!
Changes introduced in Beta 2:
- Bug fixes for installing & uninstalling add-ons
- Speech text is no longer updated when the mouse moves in the Speech Viewer
- Syntax fixes for documentation
Updates to translations
Note: This release breaks compatibility with add-ons made for NVDA 2023.3 and earlier.
Full info & Download at: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-1b…
Beta2 of NVDA 2024.1 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome yo…NV Access
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In 2014, my children’s wonderful Mum, Amanda, who is now a teacher of blind children, approached me with a problem of great significance.
She was teaching a blind girl who had written to Santa. But the child was worried that Santa wouldn’t be able to read the letter she had written, because it was in Braille. Amanda did her best to assure the child that Santa would have no problem with Braille, but the doubts remained.
Remembering the stories I used to tell our own children when they were younger, Amanda wondered if there might be anything I could do to help.
Well, it certainly made a pleasant change from my regular writing sessions trying to figure out technology and then explain it to other people.
The result was "Louis, the Blind Christmas Elf", which I gave to Amanda in written form.
Amanda loved the story, but came back and said, "why don't you do an audio version? You'd be good at that," again remembering all the funny voices I'd use when reading to our kids.
So, back I went into the studio, to create the narrated audio version.
The reaction to this little story has been so special, and heart-warming. I've heard from so many people. Teachers, parents, grandparents and consumer leaders have all written to me telling me how much the story has meant to them. And every year at this time, I get requests for it. It has now been translated into other languages and even turned into a play.
I'm deeply touched and honoured that it has meant so much to people.
In the spirit of being proud to be blind, I offer you this festive story and wish you a merry Christmas.
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This Christmas, I've finally bitten the bullet and done some serious contributing to @openstreetmap (and also joined the OSM Foundation while I was at it). Honestly, I think it's one of the great wonders of the #OpenSource internet, so I wrote a blog post about why I'm contributing (and you should too)
andreasthinks.me/posts/OSM_for…
#GIS #openstreetmap #GeoSpatial #christmas #DataScience #data
…and maybe you should too!andreasthinks.me
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MapComplete is a platform to visualize OpenStreetMap on a specific topic and to easily contribute data back to it.mapcomplete.org
As it is a long, long tradition Conversations is available for free on the Google Play store for the last week of December.
This tradition was originally born so that when I meet people at Chaos Communication Congress and they ask what I do, they have an easy way to install Conversations. In that regard it's a very special year as we are seeing the return of CCC.
However if you are meeting loved ones to celebrate something else these days that’s fine too.🎄
play.google.com/store/apps/det…
An encrypted, user friendly XMPP instant messaging client optimized for mobileplay.google.com
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This questionnaire contains questions about the usage of Braille displays in any life situation (education, work, personal use).Google Docs
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Survey Maker — LimeSurvey is an online survey tool to quickly create questionnaires, poll votes & surveys. ✦ Free ✦ Easy ✦ Open Source ➜ Start your survey now!www.limesurvey.org
@verdre published his work about reverse engineering Android app support in Sailfish OS and bringing it to GNOME/Linux mobile. 
📱
Great read
blogs.gnome.org/jdressler/2023…
#Linux #LinuxMobile #mobileLinux #GNOME #Wayland #Android #reverseEngineering #SailfishOS
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The next release of the js sdk is planning to bump the supported #matrix spec version to 1.5 or 1.6. This means it and as a result also Element Web will refuse to start on current versions of #conduit and #dendrite. This is an intentional decision resulting from a discussion between several SCT members.
I think that approach is bad and it should check for a range of supported versions instead of arbitrarily bumping the minor version to make the ecosystem move, but this is a heads up, that now is the time to contribute to both of those servers, if you use them and want to use the Element Web client on them going forward. (I already had my discussion with the SCT and I won't tell other projects, what they should do.)
JS-SDK change: github.com/matrix-org/matrix-j…Dendrite supported versions: github.com/matrix-org/dendrite…Conduit supported versions: gitlab.com/famedly/conduit/-/b…
We only claim to support a year of spec releases, so this should be fine. Part of: #3915 Here's what your changelog entry will look like: ✨ Features Bump minimum spec version to v1.5 (#3970).GitHub
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Great stuff!
Thanks to @igalia and @sovtechfund for funding this work!
iD & EVO mixer apps now offer accessibility support for vision impaired with latest drivers - navigate using just a keyboard & screen readerAnne Liversidge (Audient)
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NVDA 2024.1 Beta 1 is now available for testing. Highlights include a new on-demand speech mode, the ability to drop speech modes from the NVDA+s command, a new "native selection" mode for Firefox, bulk actions in the add-on store & ability to review add-ons & more!
Note this release breaks add-on compatibility and only works on Windows 8.1 and newer.
Full info and Download from: nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-1b…
#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Update #Beta #NewVersion #A11y #Accessibility #News
Beta1 of NVDA 2024.1 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome yo…NV Access
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BGKO - "Hévenu Shalom Aléchem". Primera canción del álbum "Imbarca". (C) 2014 Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra & Satélite K. 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 & 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲 - 𝗟𝗶?...YouTube
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Way more interesting and healthy fediverse news is happening in the shadows and is barely getting discussed! Discourse has federation between different instances of itself and other #fediverse software such as Mastodon working!
Attached is a demo video from Angus McLeod via their announcement here: meta.discourse.org/t/activityp…
Just to let you guys know, we just merged the PR that allows a Discourse category to follow any actor in the fediverse, including other Discourse categories. Yes, that means you can now federate a category between two (or three, or more) Discourses.Discourse Meta
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Hey ! We're pleased to announce that Ltt.rs [1], an email (JMAP) client, and Mercurygram [2], a new fork of #Telegram, now support #UnifiedPush. And support is being upstreamed to Telegram-FOSS :)
[1] ltt.rs from @daniel
[2] github.com/drizzt/Mercurygram/ from @timothy
Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android - GitHub - drizzt/Mercurygram: Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for AndroidGitHub
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I don't think #WebAIM has an account on the fediverse yet, but the 10th iteration of their Screen Ready survey is now live.
The vital #a11y insights created from these surveys help inform our understanding of the technological and usability landscape. This helps to shape how accessible, and importantly usable experiences are created on the web.
If you use a screen reader, I hope you'll please consider filling it out: webaim.org/projects/screenread…
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RScan lets you scan a barcode of any product, and automatically looks it up on DuckDuckGo and tries to select the most fitting and useful description. The scanning is really fast and convenient, meaning it's easy to work with even if you're blind and don't know the location of the barcode, but it's also great for sorting through large number of items, if you need to say search for a particular chocolate in a pile, or you order a large number of cans that you need to tell apart in order to sort them to groups. RScan can deal even with scanning multiple items of the same barcode, making this process easy and efficient.
I've been gradually developing this app over the last years, always reflecting my actual needs and actively using it in my home. I've been sharing it with my friends from Czechoslovakia, receiving great feedback. In our region, the automatic product identification works really well and RScan can truly identify 90% of items just by seeing their barcode.
Few days ago, I finally got to release it in google play, and given this opportunity, would like to expand it to more regions. My theory is that my algorithm should work comparably well in regions where products use metric system for describing themselves (300 g chocolate, 400 ml can etc.).
It's not yet prepared for UK, where the commonly used units are different, and completely unknown for me is USA, where a similar but different barcode standard is used than in Europe, plus they have different units too.
I would love to support as many countries and regions as I can. If you would like to help me with this, sending me barcode numbers of things you commonly use in your region (cans, chocolates, common drugs, drinks), along with the name of your country would be very useful, so I could check out how does your Internet describe things and make RScan adapt for it.
If you're technically skilled, you can read the project's readme:
github.com/RastislavKish/RScan
and directly look for the unit information required by RScan, this would save me the struggle with localization and location simulation.
Also, if RScan works well in your country, I would love to hear that too! My theory of compatible countries is still just a theory, it needs to get verified.
You can find RScan on Google play:
play.google.com/store/apps/det…
And, along with all the code and scanning tips in the documentation, on my GitHub:
github.com/RastislavKish/RScan
Happy scanning!
A practical barcode scanner for product identification - GitHub - RastislavKish/RScan: A practical barcode scanner for product identificationGitHub
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Matt Campbell
in reply to Matthias Klumpp • • •Matthias Klumpp
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •Matt Campbell
in reply to Matthias Klumpp • • •Matthias Klumpp
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •I'll ask a contact about AT-SPI specifically, but my impression was that these things were always used with some abstraction on top of AT-SPI in a larger test framework. One definite issue with AT-SPI is the documentation (more would always help, since it is very complex).
Some smaller apps I know now use QTest, which uses Qt internals for testing, so no AT-SPI is involved there.
Matt Campbell
in reply to Matthias Klumpp • • •Matt Campbell
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •Sebastian Wick
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •@matt gitlab.freedesktop.org/wayland…
See, this is exactly the problem here. The blog posts makes it seem like all the people involved in wayland don't care about making the applications work well on wayland. We suggested that this protocol can be used with another new protocol to solve 90% of the use cases. This was dismissed because of the missing 10%. Instead of pushing the protocol that everyone wants we now have another protocol that doesn't go anywhere.
staging: Add xdg-session-management protocol (!18) · Merge requests · wayland / wayland-protocols · GitLab
GitLabMatthias Klumpp
in reply to Matt Campbell • • •@matt This is in a way the session-management protocol.
But consider this: What if an application has an IDE layout[1] or a layout like GIMP's multi-window mode where windows need to be initilly placed in relation to each other? What if a window needs to show up next to a UI control, like for docked windows in docked UIs or for picture-in-picture displays?
For that, the compositor at least needs to know an initial placement as well, restoration-only will not work.
[1]: wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/im…