I know we have a bunch of people who are more or less into slightly unusual tech here, so figured I would ask. Does anyone know of a #bitcoin hot #wallet which has #A11y for #blind users? I don't care if it's #Jaws or #NVDA which works with it, but do prefer #Windows if at all possible. Accessibility, though, is the main thing. If anyone knows of one which works well with #Voiceover on #iOS, or even with TB on #Android, I'd appreciate hearing of it. Boosts would, of course, be very welcome.
Die digitale Kommunikation entwickelt sich stetig weiter – und mit ihr auch OpenTalk. Das Update unserer Videokonferenzlösung auf die Version 25.1.3 bringt wesentliche Verbesserungen.
It is bewildering to me how many #blind people share content that they've copied from another source without fixing up issues with #screenReader readability. The latest example is an email starting with 13 lines—for NVDA and Chrome at least—of silent unicode characters at the beginning.
Actually, it's confusing why so many blind people copy and republish content from other sources rather than linking to the original, but that's a separate conversation.
#Accessibility hive mind, I have some questions about #ChromeVox as well as #Chromebook accessibility & #usability in general. I'm working with a #PixelBook that has never been used. ChromeVox is telling me to use commands involving the search key as a modifier, but these seem not to work as any use of the search key invokes #Google #Gemini. What's going on here? Additionally, how are #blind people using #Chromebooks? In what tasks do they excel. In what tasks do they fall short? Any input and/or information would be greatly appreciated.
📣 Do-It-Blind (DIB) online Besprechung am Montag, 19. Mai, um 20:00 Uhr. Du bist eingeladen! bbb.metalab.at/rooms/joh-szv-o… Wöchentlich am Montag besprechen wir neue Formen der digitalen und inklusiven Zusammenarbeit. Mach mit! 🛠️ #make #blind #inklusion
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Also totally forgot to talk about this yesterday. As a part of global accessibility awareness day, we put out a new update for the Be My Eyes app for Windows that is completely rebuild from the ground up. Along with giving us a better base to build amazing new features for desktop in the near future, this new app also fixes a lot of the accessibility issues that people have reported over the last 1.5 or so years. In addition Chat History is now also available on Desktop, so you can start a conversation from mobile and continue it on desktop (and vice versa).
On our May 6 webinar, we announced our second competition for BT Speak customers. The theme for this competition is third party apps that you may have installed on your BT Speak. While the BT Speak ships with many useful applications, it is possible to install additional apps to extend the device’s functionality, just as you can do on other devices. Have you installed any applications on your BT Speak? Examples might include additional Web browsers, games, book readers, useful utilities, etc. If you have, we invite you to submit an audio demo of how you use your favorite third party app. You might want to indicate the method that you used to install the app and a demo of how you use it, how it benefits you and why you might recommend it to other BT Speak owners. This demo can be recorded using any device or any microphone, as long as it’s clear enough for us to hear. We ask that the recording be no longer than 5-7 minutes in length. A video submission is not necessary; audio-only submissions are absolutely fine. To send us a submission, pleased email the recording to info@blazie.net with the word contest in the subject field. The recording can be sent to us as an attachment or as a shared link to the file, such as a Dropbox or OneDrive link. The last day for sending submissions for this contest is Friday, June 6. #BTSpeak #Blind DG
Be My Eyes and Innosearch Join Forces to Bring Seamless, AI-Powered eCommerce to Blind and Low Vision Users
Be My Eyes announced today – on Global Accessibility Awareness Day – a strategic alliance with Innosearch.ai, an AI-powered eCommerce portal. The alliance will provide super-accessible online shopping to the users of the Be My Eyes app,, without the clutter and noise present of many other websites.
Be My Eyes users will benefit from an exclusive 2% cashback credit into their Innosearch account for use against future purchases made through the Be My Eyes app. The service is currently available in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, with more regions to follow.
The alliance represents a significant step and new direction for Be My Eyes, as it lays the foundations of the Be My Eyes app and the underlying technology platform becoming the de-facto access-tech of choice for people who are blind or have low vision, wherever they are – at home, at work or at play.
Am Welttag der Barrierefreiheit wollen wir, über digitalen Zugang/Inklusion und Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Behinderungen sprechen, nachdenken und lernen. Durch den Zugang zu digitalen Produktionsmitteln hat die Do-It-Blind Gruppe selbst herstellbare Beschriftungen für Menschen mit Blindheit oder Seheineschränkung entwickelt. oskars.org/posts/gaad-2025/ #make #blind #inklusion #gaad
> The Window Switcher tool makes it easy to switch windows in desktop mode with just a couple keystrokes. To use the Window Switcher, press dots 4-5-8-chord and wait a few moments for the Window Switcher tool to open. Window Switcher presents a list of currently open windows and announces the currently active window Your cursor will be placed on the currently active window. Use dot-4 chord to scroll through the list of windows and press enter (dot 8) or space to select the window you would like to move your focus.
I can't tell y'all how much I love #Emacs. It was the first interface that really intrigued me. It was the first interface where I felt like there was so much I could learn about. And Emacspeak brought it to life for me. Headings spoken by a deeper voice. Italics spoken by a higher, rather fuzzy voice. Bold spoken by a deep voice, almost like headings. Because headings are bold, and large. A calendar where I could move around the actual calendar, not just a list of events. Want to know what date next Friday is? Find Friday of this week, and simply press Down arrow. Or C-n if you're really into Emacs. And there it is. Oh and Nov-mode (nov.el). I can't say enough about that package. An EPUB reader that doesn't choke on a huge book. And Markdown-mode and Org-mode, and even HTML-mode. With Emacspeak, I could hear the syntax highlighting. That way, I knew if I didn't close a bracket pair, or quotes, not only by the punctuation itself, but how the voice sounds.
And now Emacspeak hasn't been updated in a year. Luckily, I think T.V. Raman has made fixes up to Emacs 30. But beyond that, I don't know. I hope it's not abandoned forever. I maybe could use Emacs through Orca, or BRLTTY, or maybe Speechd-el, if I can figure out how it's supposed to be set up and used well. But it feels like such a pail imitation of Emacspeak. But then, unconfigured Emacs doesn't feel all that special either.
Well crap. Tried Slint, but it like, uses Alsa and doesn't have sound drivers for my main sound card, and using a USB sound card, well it broke after I saved Orca settings. Not even a restart fixed it. Meh. Ah well. Linux breaks.
I don't usually subtoot, but in this case I just had to. If you are calling a user of #Linux a failure because they're #blind, you deserve nothing more than a burning Q-tip shoved up your rectum. See this? This is why I fucking hate the Linux community.
Old? Dell? How old are we talking? I have to act as if I know none of you around here per my biologic mom's orders; No talking to #blind #people on the #FuckingComputer . She's my God, not #God which oughta make #Father, #Son and #Ghost extremely angry with me!
We have released a patch for the May 2025 BT Speak update. This update includes some minor bug fixes only. No new features or functional changes have been added. To install the update, go to Options, Operating System, System Administration, Check for Updates. DG #BTSpeak #blind
📣 Do-It-Blind (DIB) online Besprechung am Montag, 12. Mai, heute um 19:15 statt um 19:00 Uhr. Du bist eingeladen! bbb.metalab.at/rooms/joh-szv-o… Wöchentlich am Montag um 19:00 besprechen wir neue Formen der digitalen und inklusiven Zusammenarbeit. Mach mit! 🛠️ #make #blind #inklusion
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Wonder what the most screen reader accessible linux distro is in 2025. Over 5 years ago, I tried Ubuntu mate, but it was hit and miss, and was told at the time, that it would the best.
A listener's perspective on what he calls a 'crisis' when it comes to #blind people accessing kiosks and payments terminals in stores and restaurants. Read the thoughts of Derek here: doubletaponair.com/the-growing…
Listener Derek has raised a pressing concern about the increasing use of self-service kiosks and digital payment terminals, highlighting how their inaccessibility continues to create significant barriers for blind and visually impaired individuals.
I know that a few months back one of the people I have interacted with on here was wroking on retro systems like Dos, Win95, Win98 etc. I havea friend @storm is working on a games project and he would like some assistance getting a software speech driver working with Asap. Would who ever that was reach out to him and see what help he may need? Thanks. #accessibility #blind
So, I'm about to try Slint! Thanks to @JessDail for reminding me about it. Except this time I'm going to try it in a VM because I do not want a repeat of the Fedora incident from a week ago. Ugh.
For my disabled followers, what do you consider when thinking about inclusive swag? Swag in this case meaning t-shirts, coffee mugs, backpacks, stickers, etc. that you acquire through conferences, work, or other places. I struggle to name what I look for in swag for it to be inclusive as a blind person; I think the most I'd look for is cool tactile design on t-shirts and perhaps embossed designs on stickers. But even that's a stretch; I've never felt strongly enough to remotely consider this, and that's why I'm here! I also consider things like Braille to be a novelty, and don't feel excluded when it doesn't exist. In a nutshell--I don't really care. But I'm sure someone out there does. Surely there's at least one of you. Please boost for reach. #disabled #accessibility #blind #swag
For #Accountants and #Bookkeepers of #Mastodon, do most companies use Excel for accounting/bookkeeping? or is quickbooks the main driver? if excel is used, is there some sort of template specifically made for accounting and how would I gain access to it? I'd like to know how to make 4 documents and credit and debit each, statement of financial position, Income statements, Statement of cashflows, and invoices. It would really help because I'm #Blind and Excel is very #Accessible with #ScreenReaders, and I would love to get back into accounting if at all possible, as it was my favorite subject in College and if I could gain employment in that field, I'd gladly do it again. Thank you for your assistance, and if you don't know the answer, please boost for reach.
Version 1.1 of our BT Speak users’ manual is now available from our Web site’s Guides and Media page. blazietech.com/guides-and-medi… If you have installed the May 2025 software update, you can already read this new edition of the manual on your BT Speak, complete with relevant links and lots of headings. Just go to Options, Help, Guides and Tutorials, the Users’ Manual. DG #BTSpeak #blind
According to NVAccess, there are over 2,000 #NVDA open issues and if seeing one fixed is "particularly important" to me, they would "encourage hiring someone to work on it."
So how about it, #blind programmers? Your serious quotes for fixing this bug on a freelance basis:
When a control on a web page is given an accessible name via aria-label or aria-labelledby, and NVDA's focus mode is active, the text of the control's name cannot be spoken or spelled with the "rep...
In theory, our Crock-Pot is one of the pseudo-accessible models. It literally has one physical dial with four distinct clicks: Off, Low, High, and Warm.
Except after not using it for over a year, my #blind partner and I both forgot the order of those clicks. We made a decision to set it to the rightmost position based on logic, because Low and High are both hotter than Warm. Then we asked a sighted person to verify, but the labels are in English and they only speak Spanish so somehow they got mixed up.
The end result is that our raw chicken has been sitting on the Warm setting, in 32 degrees C weather, for 2.5 hours. This is a cascading set of bad circumstances, all because a device manufacturer can't put tactile markers on their products. It's also why I like devices with companion apps, not as an alternative to physical controls but as an extra line of defense and piece of mind against human error.
Wednesday. A terrible night's sleep, the good wife had a migraine after work, so nobody was very content.
Meanwhile, I've gone from having a single planned outing next week for work to going to Liverpool at the weekend, Birmingham on Monday and London on Thursday.
Friday: Liverpool is a volunteer trip to show refreshable Braille to a primary school student. I'm going alone, so maybe some reading time on the train! And I get to expense my travel. Was only about £30 return on the train, which for about 240 miles round-trip seems pretty reasonable to me!
Monday: Birmingham is to get a phone battery replaced in the work iPhone, very important. Not sure how easy I'll find it navigating New Street without any sighted help, but I'll give it a go I suppose: what's the worst that can happen? Google maps wants me to walk a couple of hundred feet. I have legs, I can speak up and ask for help if I need it. I am not going to refuse to get it done just because nobody I know can accompany me. #BigBoyPants time. Anyone have experience of #Apple's #GeniusBar if you are #blind, by any chance?
Thursday: It's Global Accessibility Awareness Day, and work are putting on a to-do. In reality I don't think I have much to do but stand around looking blind and answer the odd question. WeWalk, Microsoft, Be My Eyes etc are all turning up, so it'll be a bit of schmoozing but sadly no boozing.
6AM train and I'll have to tube it from Paddington, which I always enjoy. The office is literally across the road from Aldgate East, so no worries at all on the navigation front there - I enjoy feeling like a ping pong ball zipping around the underground.
So I was browsing the Internet today, and so I found some weird script someone made for Linux which takes a screenshot and describes it with Gemini. As usual, read the script before running it and all that, I obviously wasn't the one who created it because I don't code, so I cannot answer any questions about it or make new features or anything like that. But yeah I mean it's also AI, so don't use it, and Linux will obviously be filled with slop because of this awful person who added A11yAI to Linux, but yeah here it is:
@DavidGoldfield I have a curious question. What, if anything, can those of us in the #Blind & #LowVision community do to persuade #Microsoft to fix the issue of #Voiceover not speaking tab names in the tab viewer in Edge on iOS? They broke it a few years ago, fixed it with the next update, broke it again with the update immediately following that one & have yet to fix it again. I've reported it numerous times. I'm using @brave at the moment & love it, but would much rather use Edge. Any advice?
Did you know that you can hide boosts from people? If your client doesn't support this, pester the devs until they either build it in or quit creating the client. The second one is more likely so meh. Anyway, it's really useful.
Mastodon works on boosts. If you see something cool, you boost it. There are no "posts you may like" mechanisms on Mastodon. There are no algorithms. So, if you want people to see something, you *have* to boost. If some one boosts too much, though, you can hide those boosts, especially if you already follow the source they boost from.
In the May 2025 update, version 1.1 of our users’ manual is now available under Options, Help, Guides and Tutorials. It has many additions since the last update and it also includes headings, allowing for heading navigation. Because the manual loads in our new smart reader, this means that you can search for text and you can copy part or all of the manual and paste it into a new file. This also means that if you paste the manual into a file with a .brl extension, you’ll have a translated version of the manual according to the Braille table you are using. blazietech.com/may-2025-update DG #BTSpeak #blind
Smart input is a new BT Speak feature that lets you use natural language to type keystrokes and commands when you're in desktop mode. For example, if you want to close a program or save a document, just type "Close" or "save" and the command is sent. You can also type keystrokes, such as control a or alt+f4.
This morning on paratransit, my driver started talking about how Musk will develop some kind of neural implant to restore people's vision. He was aghast to hear that another #blind passenger wouldn't want that. I explained that we really weren't missing something we've never experienced.
Zum Europäischen Protesttag 📢 zur Gleichstellung von Menschen mit Behinderungen am 5. Mai 2025 haben wir ein Schild ℹ️ gebastelt. Auf einer Station der öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel haben wir eine taktiles Schild für Menschen mit Seheinschränkung oder Blindheit 👩🦯 angebracht. oskars.org/posts/europaeischer… #make #blind #inklusion #5Mai #barrierefreiheit #protest
📣 Do-It-Blind (DIB) online Besprechung am Montag, 5. Mai, um 19:00 Uhr. Du bist eingeladen! bbb.metalab.at/rooms/joh-szv-o… Wöchentlich am Montag um 19:00 besprechen wir neue Formen der digitalen und inklusiven Zusammenarbeit. Mach mit! 🛠️ #make #blind #inklusion
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