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Items tagged with: blind

Staying in the spirit of ticket machines accessibility, France is doing it right, at least in the city of Metz, not sure about other places.
Have a recording of a ticket machine that speaks three languages: French, English and German. Upon pressing a dedicated button above the card read we activate the speech component. Everything that is displayed on screen is read back to us. On starting, the machine greets us in the language of our choice, tells us to insert our travel pass if we have one and reads the minimum and maximum amounts for card and cash payments. The upper part of the touchscreen acts as a navi pad with the left corner taking us to the previous option and the right one to the next. In the lower part, the left corner is "Cancel", while the right is "Confirm". This way we can choose our desired ticket, the preferred payment method and complete our transaction.
The recording is a montage of different clips from the machine indicating a chosen ticket in English, through its welcome message in French and German with the latter going through some ticket options, coming back to the full welcome message in English. The recording is peppered with occasional Polish from me as it was originally recorded for our Polish podcast. It was taken using the built-in mikes of my Motorola One smartphone. Now that I listen back, it sounds kinda condensed.
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #France #Metz #PublicTransport #Audio #recording #FieldRecording

#Accessibility #blind #audio #france #metz #publictransport #adventcalendar #fieldrecording #recording

Welcome to Innsbruck, Austria again. This time we go to the main train station where I spent a part of my mobility training. Through this training I have learnt that there is a semi-independent way for blind passengers to operate the on-site ticket machine. How come semi, you might ask?
Well, on the front of the machine, there is a dedicated customer service number embossed in Braille where you can call and tell the representative where you would like to go. They are able to remotely operate the machine, find your connection, choose the right ticket options for you and bring you to the payment screen. Once the payment is complete, the ticket comes out as usual. Kind of makes me wonder: if the railway staff are able to access these machines remotely, why isn't this possibility open to those who might need it for accessibility reasons?
I am not sure whether this works in other Austrian cities, I haven't also heard of this implementation in any other place.
Unfortunately, I have never had a chance to use this so no recordings or first-hand experiences this time.
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Railway #Transport #Trains #Austria #Innsbruck
#Accessibility #blind #trains #transport #adventcalendar #austria #railway #innsbruck

Since some time I have been drawn to research Minitel, a French Videotex-based system for accessing information that predates the Internet. It was a revolution in terms of digitalization which made activities such as buying train and plane tickets, signing up for classes and reading newspapers digitalized as early as the 80's. You can read more about it in the following Wikipedia article:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel
There were many devices invented to make Minitel accessible to the blind, although the system itself wasn't designed with this target group in mind. Mostly, they were external speech synthesizers like in the case of Lectel:
lemonde.fr/archives/article/19…
or the Valentine text-to-speech card for the Apple II:
blog.atalan.fr/valentine-carte…
The history of the Eurobraille company, the makers of the popular Esys, Esytime and B.Note Braille displays, starts also with a speech synthesizer for the Minitel terminals.
eurobraille.fr/notre-histoire/
As I found out, however, most of France's blind community at that time did not have access to this kind of technology and Minitel only became accessible on a global scale in the 90's when regular PC's did but then it was almost the time of the Internet so it never gained the same momentum as it did with the society at large. Pity as this could have been an opportunity to push the inclusion of blind and partially sighted people to whole new levels.
Always design with accessibility from the start!
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #France #Internet #Minitel #Videotex #RetroTech

Les ordinateurs ont la parole

Un Salon vient d'être consacré aux machines parlantes et aux innovations techniques destinées aux aveugles. Le matériel existe, pas encore le marché !
CHRISTIAN TORTEL (Le Monde)
#Accessibility #blind #france #Internet #adventcalendar #minitel #videotex #retrotech

Today's one might be familiar to some of you as this has received a bit of media attention bacccccccccccccccccback in 2016 when Sweden hosted the Eurovision Song Contest.
To celebrate another win, for the time of the contest's duration, the audible traffic lights at some of Stockholm's locations have been revamped to play Loreen with "Euphoria" (winner of the 2012 ESC) when the lights are red, then when they turn green, they ticked to the beat of Mans Zelmerlow's "Heroes", the song that brought the contest back to Sweden in 2015. What a fun twist on an accessibility feature!
youtube.com/watch?v=pj3V06Thvo…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Sweden #Eurovision #ESC #UrbanEnvironment #Music #SoundDesign

Music Traffic Lights Stockholm Eurovision Song Contest 2016 (Take 1)

This was take 1 - I decided to re-record this a second time.
YouTube
#Accessibility #blind #music #Sweden #Eurovision #sounddesign #adventcalendar #urbanenvironment #esc

Somehow we made it through the first half of this calendar. Thank you for all of your interactions and encouragement. It's very motivating to see how far these little posts can reach.
So I realized that all the time I have been doing this calendar, I haven't mentioned Poland, where I come from, once. Shame on me! Let's try to make it right.
Inpost is the pioneer as the provider of parcel locker technology in Poland. It's quite common to order something and, instead of requesting that the package is delivered directly to your door, have it dropped at one of the lockers which are often located quite centrally, at a post office or another place of significance in a given city, town or village.
Inpost have come up with quite a clever way of allowing blind people to open these lockers and find the right door. Not only is the app itself accessible so you can track your delivery all the way through but once your order arrives, all you have to do is go to the place where your locker is located, open the door for your parcel from within the app and read the instruction telling you which door is yours E.G. third up, sixth to the left of the touch screen. The system has become so useful for the general public that in order to become more sustainable, Inpost have begun installing screenless lockers so that everything has to be done with the app. This way, it is also possible to send a package somewhere without the need to stick a physical label on it. Other accessibility accommodations include the "easy access zone" as per the link below.
inpost.pl/en/help-easy-access-…
What are you ordering this Christmas and how is it delivered to you?
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Poland #Shopping

Easy Access Zone - we answer your questions | InPost

inpost.pl
#Accessibility #blind #Poland #adventcalendar #shopping

As the app that is the star of today's window has updated on my phone today, let me introduce you to Greta, the German app for audiodescription, closed captions and other forms of accessibility in movies.
It works by first downloading an encrypted, I believe, copy of the movie's audio and then when we want to watch it described or subtitled, we just start the app, let it listen to the sound around us and it will tune in at the right spot in time with the accessibility accommodations we need. Should you forget your headphones to hear the audiodescription in, you can still listen to it over the earpiece. The system is not context-aware so it can tune into the movie at a cinema or at home when watching on the Internet or on TV which gives universal access to all the accommodations. The only wish I would have is more independent cinema productions and the ability to combine multiple adjustments so that I could watch that movie with a lot of Austrian dialect in it with both audiodescription and subtitles.
Today's update brings sound amplification. If I understand correctly, you can also have the actual audio track of the movie played through your phone in sync with the original.
I believe the concept was replicated in other countries already so you might know it under another name.
gretaundstarks.de
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Germany #Culture #Movies #Audiodescription #Cinema #TV #Subtitling

Kino einfach gemeinsam erleben mit GRETA und STARKS

Barrierefreies Kino für Alle! Audiodeskriptionen und Untertitel überall und einfach auf dem eigenen Smartphone mit den Apps GRETA und STARKS.
GRETA und STARKS | Audiodeskription und Untertitel
#Accessibility #blind #Germany #culture #movies #cinema #tv #AudioDescription #adventcalendar #subtitling

Today's is more of a handy implementation rather than best practice example per se. Still, I haven't seen it anywhere else and I find it a socially mindful design.
You know the talking info boards at public transport stops, right? The ones that you press a button on and it reads the next few lines that will depart even when all you really need is the next one? I'm pleased to tell you that Luxembourg is doing it differently:
The spoken information is given only as long as you hold down the button that activates it so it is a kind of walkie-talkie that does the talkie part instead of you. This way, you can hold it down, listen to the next train or two arriving then release the button and be done with it. Not a perfect design as it excludes those with limited dexterity but it is a start.
Sadly, the information is given only in French which goes to show that accessibility should also include those who can't speak the country's language. This is in Luxembourg which boasts three official ones so most of the native population has grown multilingual from the start. Unfortunately, I have seen these info boards only at some train stations in the Luxembourg city - would be amazing to see the availability expand.
Again, no links and also sadly no recordings so have some more interesting facts instead:
1. Luxembourg is the first European country to make the public transport completely free of charge to everyone. Bear this in mind if you ever come to visit.
2. The city of Luxembourg has been awarded the European Commission's Accessible City Award of 2021.
#Accessibility #Blind #Adventcalendar #Luxembourg #PublicTransport
#Accessibility #blind #Luxembourg #publictransport #adventcalendar

Back in 2018 I spent a month in Brussels. It was the first time I lived in a capital city so it was quite a stressful experience: not much time, a couple of routes to learn, pretty loud and congested streets and trash bags put directly on the pavements - an easy target to hit with a white cane. I enjoyed it though and one takeaway I've got is how easy to read the tactile plans at the Brussels central station are.
Normally, I have difficulties relating what I touch on a tactile plan of a building to the real world. That station made a heavily simplified version of the experience by placing a pole at each crossroad of the tactile floor marking, with a simplified tactile plan at the top telling you where each of the forks of the floorline would take you. It looked a lot like the four navigation keys and the confirmation key on a classic mobile. Each of the arrows ended with a Braille description of the destination in both French and Dutch. This was a great help.
Also QDos to the sound designers who created the jingle for the Brussels public transport company. It's a pretty dancey beat of five notes played on a synthesizer which would make a nice text tone. Find it at the end of the company's promo video below:
youtube.com/watch?v=kmNBW0jdms…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Belgium #PublicTransport

Go Easy MIVB

http://goeasy.mivb.behttp://www.stib-mivb.be/https://twitter.com/STIBMIVBhttps://www.facebook.com/lastibhttps://www.facebook.com/mijnmivbhttps://www.linkedin...
YouTube
#Accessibility #blind #publictransport #adventcalendar #belgium

As there were no links today, have a binaural audio postcard from Amras, a village that became a part of Innsbruck itself some hundret years ago. The recording was taken in the lovely park near the Schloss Amras castle which is located somewhat uphill and makes for a good basic hike for starters. Recording made using the Ambeo Smart headset hooked up to an iPod touch 7th Gen.
The recording is a 1:26 long collage of several clips taken in the park.
Clip 1: Birds chirping with some cars driving past in the background (the park was located directly over a highway);
Clip 2: The call of a group of peacocks mixed with footsteps and somewhat strong wind blowing into the mikes;
Clip 3: A waterfall flowing to my right and footsteps over a wooden bridge;
Clip 4: Moving further past the waterfall so that it's moving in the stereo spectrum and a white cane hitting the wooden bridge;
Clip 5: Another perspective of the waterfall;
Clip 6: Clearly can't get enough of waterfalls;
Clip 7: The last sounds of a waterfall, peacocks and the white cane;
I recommend listening in headphones for the best spacial experience.
#Accessibility #Blind #Austria #AudioRecording #BinauralRecording #FieldRecording #Nature #AdventCalendar

#Accessibility #blind #nature #adventcalendar #austria #audiorecording #BinauralRecording #fieldrecording

For almost one year and a half I had the pleasure of living in Innsbruck, the charming Austrian city which is the capital of the Alpine region of Tirol which is very popular with tourists. While my stay there was heavily marked by the Covid situation, lockdowns and a really difficult start to building a stable social life, it presented me with some highlights of interest to us so here are they:
- A tiny version of the Czech remotes system, at that time capable of triggering the audible traffic lights, currently also the talking public transport info boards;
- an exceptional training of the public transport drivers who always stopped the bus right in front of you as long as you stood at the designated, tactile spot; opened the door and told you the bus/tram line they were driving;
- a tactile line going across what seemed to be all of the city's market square which made for a nice walk through the city center;
- the general feeling of safety that encouraged me to take long walks and explore the city by myself;
- the amazing community around my former workplace, Freirad, the social, community-driven radio station that focused on giving voice to those who wouldn't find it in the mainstream media. This meant tons of content from marginalized groups, a wealth of diverse cultural, music and linguistic spectrum and plenty of social initiatives on air. Of course, blind and partially sighted radio hosts were more than welcome and I was happy to be a part of this journey, organizing workshops for prospective hosts with visual impairments, including a really fun group of kids and spreading the word about the importance of accessibility which was always well-received. My former show on Freirad aired for the last time today so it's a bit of a chapter closing.
#Accessibility #Blind #Austria #BuildEnvironment #PublicTransport #Radio #AdventCalendar
#Accessibility #blind #radio #publictransport #adventcalendar #BuildEnvironment #austria

From America’s Test Kitchen Kids, the Season Six Finale Mystery Recipe #Podcast Cook Along dropped today! Everyone’s favorite #blind, bilingual, bright-yellow egg timer Meggy-Eggy is putting together the ingredients young chefs have learned about all season, and baking up a batch of… You’ll just have to tune in to find out! americastestkitchen.com/podcas…
Meggy-Eggy is a bright yellow timer in the shape of an egg. She wears glasses, and has a series of hashmarks indicative of numbers around her waist. With hands on her hips, she smiles.
#blind #podcast

A lot of countries employ voting templates to allow blind votees to cast a ballot in local or state elections. It's the same in Poland and in my experience it has been pretty much prone to mistakes such as the ballot paper slipping a fraction underneath the template. This is why I was happy to learn that Australia and New Zealand employed the "voting by phone" system. Blind citizens of these countries are one of the groups elligible to vote by phone. In order to do that, one calls the central voting committee to register, is assigned unique credentials that allow the person taking the vote to identify the elligibility in an anonymous way. On the day of voting, the elligible person calls another number where only the previously agreed credentials are taken from them, the ballot paper is read and the vote is cast by telling the committee representative. Sounds simple and flawless but perhaps there are some security flaws I am not aware of that made it not a more globally adopted solution. Thoughts?
ecq.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/p…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Australia #NewZealand #Voting #Phone
#Accessibility #blind #voting #australia #phone #newzealand #adventcalendar

The 6th of December is traditionally the day when Santa comes and brings small gifts to children in Poland and several other countries (not to be confused with the 24th of December which is also when gifts, bigger ones, are distributed). Obviously somebody's got to pay for all these nice things so how to do it in an accessible way?
I thought of including Handsome, a French fintech dedicated to serving customers with visual impairments, as a part of this calendar, as it offers an accessible voice payment card; a dedicated concierge service, insurance in case of damage to assistive devices or stranding with no immediate mobility options. They can be found at:
howtobehandsome.fr/
Imagine my shock this morning when I discovered that through cooperation with the Tales Group, Handsome's voice card has become global so it's a matter of time before banks start introducing it.
The card is equipped with a Bluetooth LE chip, connects to the customer's smartphone either through their banking app or a specially designed one; then, once its inserted into the terminal, it delivers all of the status messages to the app E.G. the amount to be paid or the current state of the payment process. This way it is possible to avoid being scammed on the amount and we can make sure all is well with our transaction.
I'm curious if any banks are going to introduce this any time soon.
thalesgroup.com/en/markets/dig…
#Accessibility #Blind #France #Banking #AdventCalendar

Thales Gemalto Voice Payment Card

Discover how visually impaired people can make each payment transaction more secured and trusted.
Thales Group
#Accessibility #blind #france #adventcalendar #banking

@Paweł Masarczyk Oh btw almost 20 years later some cities e.g. Prešov or areas (Banskobystrický samosprávny kraj) are trying to pursue these remote controls for their public transport services too. Majority of our country coverage is still ahead of us.
#Accessibility #blind @Paweł Masarczyk

Is it possible to have audiodescription on TV if the broadcasting mode is analogue and the ability to employ several language audio tracks does not exist yet? Italy has had the solution, at least a decade ago still, where audiodescription for the movies aired by RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, would have the descriptive track delivered on a designated FM radio frequency. A blind person wishing to watch such a movie would turn on their TV to the right channel and then tune a radio receiver to the right frequency to enjoy both the original movie track and the audiodescription in sync. As it turns out from the paper below, keeping both in sync is difficult.
By the device of anecdotal evidence I know that a similar system existed in Slovenia.
Another thing that was available in Italy, and I haven't heard of it anywhere else before, are accessible audio menus on DVD's.
openstarts.units.it/bitstream/…
#Accessibility #Blind #Audiodescription #Italy #Slovenia #Radio #AdventCalendar
#Accessibility #blind #radio #AudioDescription #Italy #adventcalendar #slovenia

4 years using and championing the #fediverse full time and I've never written a #introductions toot. Well, or I have and can't find it.

I'm a #blind guy from 🇬🇧 with a passion for #technology and #programming, particularly #lowLevel #systemsProgramming in #C, #C++, #Rust, etc.

I've been a huge #freeSoftware / #openSource advocate for the majority of my life. I run #Linux and I love open, #decentralised technologies like #ActivityPub, #Matrix, #bitTorrent etc.

In my view, technology is built to make our lives easier, and in many ways, it isn't these days. It is truly my opinion that the only way #tech can be sustainable is if it's built using #FOSS, and does not give ultimate control to any 1 entity, individual or corporate. If technology is to help the people, it must be built *for* the people.

Currently working on odilia.app, various projects with the rest of the Lower Elements gang at lowerelements.club, and a Computing Science BSC at the #University of #stirling

Home | Odilia Screen Reader

Welcome to Odilia! Odilia is a new screen reader for the Linux desktop. It’s written in Rust, for maximum performance and stability.
odilia.app
#FreeSoftware #linux #foss #matrix #opensource #introductions #activitypub #fediverse #blind #technology #programming #bittorrent #rust #tech #c #decentralised #university #stirling #systemsprogramming #lowlevel

Today's window comes a little later than usual but as there's still the 4th of December somewhere in the world, I hope it's forgiven.
Inspired by a conversation I had with @adela, I decided to dedicate this one to the central purchase receipts storage system in Slovakia.
The Slovak government runs a central point where all of the receipts issued by merchands and service providers are registered. Upon issuing, a receipt is assigned a unique number in that system which then is printed onto the slip of paper given to the customer. What you can then do is, using a dedicated app for this purpose, load that receipt onto your phone by entering that number or scanning the QR code printed onto your receipt in order to have all the details of your purchase presented on your smartphone. This is a great way for blind individuals to check whether their transaction has been dutyfully conducted or to help in obtaining the necessary data to maintain your spending tracking record, so even though this solution was not conceived with blind people in mind, it is a valuable enhancement towards a more independent life.
technologiebezzraku.sk/2022/07…
#Accessibility #Blind #AdventCalendar #Slovakia #Shopping

Over doklad – prístupná aplikácia na čítanie príjmových dokladov - Technológie bez zraku

Over doklad je aplikácia vyvinutá Finančnou správou pôvodne určená na overovanie príjmových dokladov, ktoré prešli cez eKasu.
Michaela Dlhá (Technológie bez zraku)
#Accessibility #blind #slovakia #adventcalendar #shopping @adela

To all #blind #ScreenReader users on various platforms who use #Firefox: The project to speed up web page and screen reader interaction, code-named Cache-The-World, is now at a phase where in Nightly 109, it has been enabled for all users. So if you spot anything that is unusual or not working as before, please let the #accessibility team know. Next step is an experiment for 50% roll-out on Windows in the 111 beta.

The page where you can track the progress is here: wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility…

Accessibility/CacheTheWorld - MozillaWiki

wiki.mozilla.org
#Accessibility #firefox #blind #screenreader

To mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, today's window opens up to one of my favourite treasure troves of good practices regarding accessibility for the blind - the Czech Republic which I am currently only one hour of a car drive away from.
Did you know that by 2004 Czech Republic was the second European country right behind Sweden with the widest network of audible traffic lights? Not only that but they already started installing tactile floor markings and my favourite invention, the remote controls for the build environment.
The Czech remote control is a tiny box with six buttons that each blind individual can purchase. Using this aid, a blind person navigating through a Czech city can check any public transport schedule available at any stop, confirm the line of the bus or tram that just came, alert the driver to their presence so that they can let them in or out of the vehicle, navigate around the Prague underground, trigger audible traffic lights to be switched on and locate some of the key buildings such as the Blind Union's HQ's.
Although many cities of Europe have meanwhile tried to implement a similar system, the Czech Republic is the only country I know of that offers such a wide range of services in the entire country this way. I was very impressed the first time I tested this and I love coming back to our southern neighbours. Ahoj a zdravim vas s Polska!
Below, an article of the Czech radio broadcaster back from 2004 explaining the accommodations along with audio samples in Real Audio, if you can still play that.
english.radio.cz/czech-blind-u…
#Accessibility #Blind #UrbanEnvironment #BuildEnvironment #CzechRepublic #AdventCalendar

"Czech Blind United" - making Czech towns and cities friendlier to the blind and visually impaired

Many foreign visitors to Prague or elsewhere in the Czech Republic are often puzzled by the ticking sound of traffic lights at pedestrian crossings. It is the acoustic…
Radio Prague International
#Accessibility #blind #czechrepublic #adventcalendar #urbanenvironment #BuildEnvironment

As an extra creative exercise, a question: how would you imagine the services you enjoy every day thanks to the Internet if our ultimate mode of accessing data was audio over the telephone? How would Mastodon sound like? What about internet shopping, spam, viruses, all that lovely stuff? Sound effect examples are welcome as are vague descriptions. #AdventCalendar #Accessibility #Blind #Sound #SoundDesign
#Accessibility #blind #sound #sounddesign #adventcalendar

When I was 9 or so, I discovered that one of the cineplex complexes in Poland operated a phone line with an IVR system that would let you explore the entire schedule of currently running movies. This was my first means of accessing information independently and on-demand. I was the movies expert in our house at that time and with movies like "Shrek", "Matrix", "Starwars" and "Harry Potter" coming out this was the time to be alive. I dreamt then that we will be able to access all of the info we want through a telephone. Turns out that's what #Switzerland is doing right now.
Voicenet is the service of the Swiss Union of the Blind, where you can call in and receive all the information you need to access culture, shopping, receive advice, benefit from the organization's services etc.
Some things you can find there:
- the current supermarket prospects with all of the weekly discounts and special offers read by volunteers;
- TV and radio schedule, including information on movies with audiodescription aired throughout the week;
- traffic and construction works;
- rail schedules;
- signing up for the Union's events;
- a voice forum where users can ask for advice and exchange information;
All of that provided by volunteers and an editorial team in three languages: German, French and Italian with the ability to navigate through content E.G. jumping from beverages to dairy products with the phone's keypad.
I realize that things like the NFB Newsline exist but it seems that, as Switzerland is a much smaller country, it is easier to offer much more local information.
sbv-bvas.ch/voicenet-2/
#Accessibility #Blind #Phone #languages #Switzerland #German #French #Italian #AdventCalendar

Voicenet des Schweizerischer Blinden- und Sehbehindertenverband Sektion Aargau-Solothurn

VoiceNet ein interaktives Hörmedium +41(0)31 390 88 88 und bietet umfassende Informationen des Schweizer Blinden und Sehbehindertenverband
Bith (sbv-bvas)
#Accessibility #blind #languages #german #french #italian #phone #switzerland #adventcalendar

In #Japan, the concept of accessible phones has been known since the early 00's and has its own term, "Raku Raku Phones" and means simplified phones. Those are adapted for the needs of elderly users and those who don't feel as familiar with modern technology so a lot of concepts are, well, simplified. This is especially important given that the 00's saw the emergence of Japanese mobile phones with capacities comparable to today's smartphones. Sending emails, taking photos, mobile payments, music recognition and downloads; even TV watched on a phone were all there by 2005 and formed an important part of how the Japanese society accessed information. This is why the Raku Raku phones manufactured jointly by Fujitsu and NTT Docomo, the leading Japanese mobile carrier, were so important. Fujitsu called to the corporate social responsibility of other companies to follow suit and also formed the basis for accessibility guidelines for I-Mode, the gateway to all of Japan's mobile internet services. Apparently, 80% of Japan's blind population used these phones as they were equipped with a screen reader and allowed accessing I-Mode this way. fujitsu.com/global/documents/a…
#accessibility #blind #Japan #adventcalendar #mobile #phones
#Accessibility #mobile #blind #japan #phones #adventcalendar

#Dev recommendations 6. #RegEx can be a hard topic for every new person starting with #programming. However don’t be scared of them because they are useful and fun! If you struggle to learn #RegularExpressions here are my favorite resources.
1. regex101.com. This website is your all in one toolbox for regular expressions, with tutorials, reference and a very advanced debugger which can visualise the expression’s output. All for free, and with #accessibility for the #blind out of the box.
2. youtube.com/watch?v=r6I-Ahc0HB…
A little course on regular expressions. The teaching is cler and the guy explains everything on the way.
As always, if you have any questions about #RegEx, #csharp #dotnet, #swift or anything else, feel free to ask me!

regex101: build, test, and debug regex

Regular expression tester with syntax highlighting, explanation, cheat sheet for PHP/PCRE, Python, GO, JavaScript, Java, C#/.NET.
regex101
#Accessibility #blind #programming #dev #swift #dotnet #RegEx #RegularExpressions #csharp

#blind #wackywednesday @Martin from Toronto

I need some help with #nvda & #wikipedia.
I'm assisting a blind student in learning how to navigate the web using a laptop.
NVDA reads out the title first, then properties about the document, then the summary box on the side.
I can't find any way to skip that whole box and move straight to the main content. There is no main content landmark, nor is there a heading, not is it in the Contents section.
Take en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurgood… as an example. How can I navigate to the first sentence of the main article?
Thanks for any help.
#blind #accessibility

US Supreme Court justice from 1967 to 1991

Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)
#Accessibility #blind #wikipedia #nvda

Consider hiring The Social #AudioDescription Collective for your next in-person or digital event. SADC believes in diversity and the human voice. Their AD reflects the multi-cultural and multi-racial world we live in. Many SADC team members are POC, Disabled, visually impaired, women, and or LGBT+. Their credits include movie trailers, music videos, documentary films, + a variety of other content. Learn more and make contact at adcomrade.wordpress.com/ #blind #accessibility

Social Audio Description

Diverse audio description reflecting society
Social Audio Description
#Accessibility #blind #AudioDescription

Every year, #MushroomFM, a station run in the main by #blind volunteers, produces a top 100 #holiday #music countdown based on the votes of listeners. We also have a social media #Christmas party in conjunction with the live 10-hour broadcast. This year, for the first time, it’s happening on Mastodon.

This programming is produced by blind people, for the world. Everyone is welcome to vote for their holiday faves, listen in, and join in the social media fun if they want to. Here’s the blog post announcing the 2022 countdown. Looking forward to the votes of our regulars and, maybe, some new Mastodon friends as well. mushroomfm.com/node/3137

It's time! Vote for your top 10 holiday songs, receive an invitation to our holiday countdown and party where we play back the top 100 | Mushroom FM

mushroomfm.com
#blind #music #christmas #mushroomfm #holiday

Google publishes the source code for their TalkBack screen reader. GrapheneOS maintains a fork of it and includes it in GrapheneOS with the help of a blind GrapheneOS user who works on their own more elaborate fork. Eventually, we'd like to include more or all of their changes.

TalkBack depends on a text-to-speech (TTS) implementation installed/configured/activated. It needs to have Direct Boot support to function before the first unlock of a profile. Google's TTS implementation supports this and can be used on GrapheneOS, but it's not open source.

We requested Direct Boot support from both prominent open source implementations:

RHVoice: github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice/iss…
eSpeak NG: github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng…

eSpeak NG recently added it but it's not yet included in a stable release and their licensing (GPLv3) is too restrictive for us.

RHVoice itself has acceptable licensing for inclusion in GrapheneOS (LGPL v2.1), but has dependencies with restrictive licensing. Both these software projects also have non-free licensing issues for the voices. Neither provides close to a working out-of-the-box experience either.

Google's Speech Services app providing text-to-speech and speech-to-text works perfectly. Their proprietary accessibility services app with extended TalkBack and other services also works fine. However, many of our users don't want to use them and we need something we can bundle.

There aren't currently any usable open source speech-to-text apps. There are experimental open source speech-to-text implementations but they lack Android integration.

We also really need to make a brand new setup wizard with both accessibility and enterprise deployment support.

GrapheneOS still has too little funding and too few developers to take on these projects. These would be standalone projects able to be developed largely independently. There are similar standalone projects which we need to have developed in order to replace some existing apps.

AOSP provides a set of barebones sample apps with outdated user interfaces / features. These are intended to be replaced by OEMs, but we lack the resources of a typical OEM. We replaced AOSP Camera with our own app, but we still need to do the same with Gallery and other apps.

Google has started the process of updating the open source TalkBack, which only happens rarely. We've identified a major issue: a major component has no source code published.

github.com/google/talkback/pul…

Google has been very hostile towards feedback / contributions for TalkBack...

This is one example of something seemingly on the right track significantly regressing. Another example is the takeover of the Seedvault project initially developed for GrapheneOS. It has deviated substantially from the original plans and lacks usability, robustness and security.

In the case of Seedvault, GrapheneOS designed the concept for it and one of our community members created it. It was taken over by a group highly hostile towards us and run into the ground. It doesn't have the intended design/features and lacks usability, security and robustness.

All of these are important standalone app projects for making GrapheneOS highly usable and accessible. What we need is not being developed by others and therefore we need to the resources including funding and developers to make our own implementations meeting our requirements.

#grapheneos #privacy #security #android #mobile #accessibility #texttospeech #speechtotext #talkback #blind #backup


add Direct Boot support for Android so RHVoice can be used with TalkBack before the initial unlock · Issue #271 · RHVoice/RHVoice

More information: https://developer.android.com/training/articles/direct-boot https://github.com/GrapheneOS/platform_packages_apps_Updater is a trivial example of using this. You need to mark a sub...
GitHub
#Accessibility #android #privacy #mobile #blind #security #talkback #grapheneos #backup #texttospeech #speechtotext

If you're like me, then you were really happy to learn about Mastodon's enthusiastic support for image descriptions, and you were really eager to join in.

Then you went to actually write something and realized you have no idea how to present visual information in a way that is helpful/enjoyable to those who are #VisuallyImpaired or #Blind.

I found this guide really informative: uxdesign.cc/how-to-write-an-im…

Of course, I'd also love to hear any additional tips y'all might have!

#Accessibility

#Accessibility #blind #visuallyimpaired

I've launched a #Mastodon instance focused on #AudioDescription. This is a space where professionals and fans can come together to learn, advocate, and work together towards the goal of quality AD in all environs. The server is bare-bones right now, so your patience is requested as we build things out. You can also make an impact by boosting this news across your networks. To join, head over to adforward.org/auth/sign_up
#blind #a11y #LowVision

Audio Description

Sign up on Mastodon today! With an account, you will be able to follow people, post updates and exchange messages with users from any Mastodon server and more!
Mastodon hosted on adforward.org
#a11y #blind #Mastodon #AudioDescription #lowvision

#blind #mac #voiceover

#a11y #Accessibility #blind #webdev #Disability #uxdesign #visuallyimpaired #visionimpaired #WebAccess

Just learned about this really cool theme park in Texas specifically designed for kids with disabilities. Apparently this guy was having tons of trouble finding a theme park able to accommodate his daughter Morgan who has multiple disabilities. Eventually, he soled his successful business and spent $50,000,000 to build his own.
It's got 25 different attractions, tons of events, thousands of positive reviews ETC.
morganswonderland.com
#accessibility #A11Y #disability #blind #VisionImpaired #VisuallyImpaired #Deaf #DeafBlind #Autistic #Autism #CerebralPalsy #Wheelchair #WheelchairUser #ThemePark #ThemeParks

Morgan’s Wonderland: Closed

Morgan's Wonderland is the world's first Ultra-Accessible™, family fun park located in San Antonio, Texas. Visit our park to experience accessible rides.
Morgan's Wonderland
#a11y #Accessibility #blind #autistic #Disability #deafblind #autism #visuallyimpaired #deaf #visionimpaired #cerebralpalsy #wheelchair #wheelchairuser #themepark #themeparks

Liam Erven is now live for his annual marathon! He'll be playing lots of #audiogames and giving away over $300 worth of prizes. Also, there's the wheel of pain!
Here's the stream link, followed by his marathon info page with the list of games, prize info ETC. You can also tune in via audio via that page or on Quenton C playroom.
Youtube Stream
youtube.com/watch?v=D__KLTJfas…
Info page
lerven.me/marathon22
#AudioGame #blind #LiveStream #Youtube

Liam’s 2022 Marathon

00Days00Hours00Minutes00Seconds Welcome to Liam’s 2022 marathon. The marathon will take place over the weekend of November 19 and 20 2022. What is it? Starting in 2018, I have been running ye…
Liam's Live Streams
#blind #youtube #livestream #audiogames #AudioGame

#Accessibility #blind #FediTips #followfriday #ff #EsViernesDeSeguirA #accesibilidad #ceguera @Robert Kingett updates @jaguarunileiro

Just learned about GridReader, a free tool for Blind programmers that might make it easier to explore complex nested code. My #Python experience is limited to experimenting with the BBC Microbit, and so far i've just set my screen reader to report indentation level. #Blind coders: how do you handle indentation and navigating complex code bases? Does GridReader seem useful? psu.edu/news/information-scien…
#blind #python

The latest episode of my #Podcast, @MosenAtLarge, has nearly an hour discussing how #Blind people like me use Mastodon and how to get started. I discuss some MastoDos and MastoDon'ts in general and focus on #accessibility on several platforms including the web interface, #Pinafore, and #Metatext. It's in any podcast app. The #audio is at mosenatlarge.pinecast.co/episo…. The #transcript is at mosen.org/malp0206transcript/
Hope blind people find it helpful and sighted people find it interesting.

Podcast transcript, Mosen at Large episode 206, Mastering Mastodon, how do you get started with ham radio, and a fix for the Eset issues plaguing screen reader users

Transcripts of Mosen at Large are made possible by Pneuma Solutions, a global leader in accessible cloud technologies. On the web at You can read the full transcript below, download the transcript …
Mosen At Large
#Accessibility #blind #podcast #audio #pinafore #metatext #transcript @Mosen at Large Podcast

A small group of #blind people have come together to raise funds, after 11 blind children were killed in a fire at Uganda’s Salama School for the Blind. This is such a terrible tragedy and there is considerable need. Times are tough right now, but if you have a little to spare and would like to, I’m sure they would be grateful if you #donate. gofundme.com/f/eedz7x-help-sal…
#blind #donate

#a11y #Accessibility #android #foss #app #opensource #mobile #blind #antennapod #podcast #RSS #audio #anleitung #player @AntennaPod @James Cridland

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