So an update on Guide: I've exchanged some long emails with Andrew, the lead developer. He's open to dialogue, and moving the project in the right direction: well-scoped single tasks, more granular controls and permissions, etc. He doesn't strike me as an #AI maximalist can and should do everything all the time kind of guy. He's also investigating deeper screen reader interaction, to let AI just do the things we can't do that it's best at. I stand by my thoughts that the project isn't yet ready for prime time. But as someone else in the thread said, I don't think it should be written off entirely as yet another "AI will save us from inaccessibility" hype train. There is, in fact, something here if it gets polished and scoped a bit more. #blind#screenreader#a11y
Can someone help me? I've signed into my Gmail account with outlook but it won't update my inbox, nor will it send mails, it'll put mails that I'm trying to send in my outbox. Is there a way to fix this? #Blind
Final update: The developer is now on Mastodon via @andrew_guide.
Update: The developer has removed the ability to download Guide until the security issues mentioned in the linked thread are fixed.
Update: this product contains some code flaws that are concerning from a security perspective, beyond just giving control of your computer to an LLM. You might want to read this thread before installing the product: toot.cafe/@matt/114258349401221651
Update: I've exchanged some long emails with Andrew, the lead developer. He's open to dialogue, and moving the project in the right direction: well-scoped single tasks, more granular controls and permissions, etc. He doesn't strike me as an #AI maximalist can and should do everything all the time kind of guy. He's also investigating deeper screen reader interaction, to let AI just do the things we can't do that it's best at. I stand by my thoughts that the project isn't yet ready for prime time. But as someone else in the thread said, I don't think it should be written off entirely as yet another "AI will save us from inaccessibility" hype train. There is, in fact, something here if it gets polished and scoped a bit more.
Just tried guide for fun. It's supposed to be an app to use #AI to help #blind folks get things done. I asked "Where are the best liver and onions in Ottawa?" It: 1. Decided it needed to search the web. 2. Thought that the "stardew access" icon on my desktop was a kind of web browser, so clicked it. 3. Imagined an "accept cookies" dialogue it needed to accept. 4. Decided that didn't work, so looked for Google Chrome (I don't have chrome installed on that machine) 5. Finally opened edge from the start menu. By the way, it just...left Stardew open and running. Because apparently having Stardew Valley running in the background is a vital part of finding liver and onions in Ottawa. 6. Opened a random extension from my edge toolbar (goodlinks). 7. Clicked the address bar and loaded google.com, instead of just doing the search right from the address bar. 8. Got blocked because it couldn't sign into my Google account, even though it could have also searched from the Google homepage.
To be fair to AI, that was the kind of open-ended task AI is terrible at. If I had asked it to check an inaccessible checkbox, or read a screenshot, or something, I'm sure it would have been fine.
Anyway, I'm still better at using a computer than an AI. So is my 87 year old grandfather, for that matter. www.guideinteraction.com
With Guide, inaccessible doesn't have to mean undoable. Guide is a Windows AI assistant that helps people with low vision or blindness navigate the digital world.
There's a new product that has been gaining some buzz in the blind community, a Windows app called Guide that uses AI to perform tasks on your computer. It's pitched as a way to get around web accessibility problems in particular. I won't link to the thing itself, because I don't want to give it that validation, but I'll link to a previous discussion thread about it: fed.interfree.ca/notes/a5wf4ys…
I've spent some time taking this app apart. The level of shoddy work here is deeply disgusting. 1/?
Friends, please help make the public aware of Section 504's importance by sharing your story. Read the below post from my girlfriend, Kaleigh Brendle, to learn more. Your voice matters. Thank you. #Save504
Please share this as widely as you can: Judy’s League, the social media campaign I’ve started to help save Section 504, is launching a new initiative and we need all of you. We’re asking that you...
So the Rblind.com #IRC server is extremely busy! So busy, in fact, that it was down for four months and nobody noticed. Anyway, it's back now; irc.rblind.com if you want that. #blind#a11y
iOS Game. If you like Braille and a challenge then you will like the game Brailliance! Its like a Braille Wordle. Each word is made up of so many total dots and so many letters; like 5 letters with 13 dots. So for this word, the dots from each letter will add up to be a total of 13 dots. And of coarse its totally accessible with Voiceover. So give it a try. Here is the link to it in the app store... apps.apple.com/us/app/braillia… #ios #game #Braille #Blind #Accessible #Brailliance
Brailliance is a puzzle game where you guess the word by adding up braille dots.
This game has been carefully crafted to be playable by everyone, and it includes multiple accessibility features for people with blindness and other disabilities.
I have always been satisfied with Framadate and derivatives for quick and accessible event planning when it comes to finding a date that fits everyone. Well, the Austrian government has a tool of its own which is as accessible and it also offers the ability to book appointments, similar to solutions like Calendly or Fantastical. It's called Termino and like all things run by European governments should, it's got its own accessibility statement. Apart from the table where the number of participants voted for a given date choice being tricky to read due to wrong header cells' association, it lives up to the promise of compliance. I have reported that issue and received a response that they will look into it. Some texts, including the email messages, are also in German. I hope they can smooth that one out but otherwise it's there for everyone to use. termino.gv.at/ #Accessibility #Blind
Hello #Blind and #VisuallyImpaired community! 👋 I'm having trouble signing PDF documents with a digital certificate using my #screenreader (NVDA on Windows). I can do it in Adobe Reader but it's quite cumbersome and requires sighted assistance. Does anyone have a more accessible workflow or software recommendation for signing PDFs with a digital certificate using the keyboard and a screen reader? Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated! Could you please #Boost this so it reaches more people? Thank you in advance! 🙏 #Accessibility #NVDA #PDF #DigitalSignature #AssistiveTechnology @NVAccess
Using your wireless headphones and keyboard at the absolute limit of their range, on a different floor from the computer itself, because you didn't want to move your laptop. #BlindPeopleThings#blind
Braille Screen Input Reminder. If using BSI from your home screen to find and start an app, don't forget you can now use contractions when typing the name of the app. #ios #BSI #homescreen #blind #voiceover
Bei unserem Stand vom @metalab am Wiener Forschungsfest haben viele Kinder mit dem Braille-Alphabet geschrieben und gelesen. Dabei haben die Kinder Braille verstanden, angewendet und auch untereinander vermittelt. 😎 oskars.org/posts/wiener-foschu… #make #blind #inklusion
I'm getting a new IPad shortly. Are there any good #accessible mediaplayers and recording-apps out there which aren't just the built-in memo and musicplayer-apps? I'm asking because this IPad air has USBC so I can connect external drives to it and I'd like to play and record stuff on it without going through the standard apple-apps if possible. #accessible #accessibility #apple #blind #ipad #audio #music
#Blind users, users that rely heavily on #keyboardNavigation or anyone else with a preference on that matter (please indicate what applies in the comments):
Do you have a preference for or comments on the format of URLs? During user research, we have learned that URLs that are easy to handle are a good thing.
📣 Sei #A11y und unterstütze den Zugang zum !@metalab für Menschen mit Sehbehinderung oder Blindheit! Komm zum Do-It-Blind (DIB) Treffen 🛠️ am Montag, 24. März, Treffpunkt Ring-Passage, U3-Station Volkstheater um 16:00; Ende 20:00 metalab.at/calendar/event/7914… #make #blind #inklusion Verbesserung: März statt Februar
Have made my first ever experience with the package pickup stations of the Austrian post last weekend. They have been made accessible to the blind. The procedure is as follows: 1. You receive a physical notification about a package being dropped off at a station in your mailbox. 2. The notification has one of its corners cut off to make a tactile difference. This way you can tell where the code you need to scan is located. 3. You go to the pickup station. The tactile flooring inside will guide you to the stations. 4. You touch anywhere on the touch screen of the station. 5. You touch again, this time the area above a circle shape that can be touched on a strip below the screen itself. 6. The voice guide is activated and issues further instructions. 7. You place the code on your notification in front of the reader. 8. Assuming it has been scanned correctly, you proceed to signing the delivery confirmation on the touch screen. How you can do it without seeing the screen is still a mystery to me but I guess anything you draw is accepted by the system. 9. The locker opens and makes a ticking sound until you find it, remove your package and shut the door. I still find the way of opening it with a mobile app that some providers in other countries offer far easier but it's great those are ready for use even if you don't want or can't use a smartphone. #Accessibility #Blind
Thanks to a meetup at our local hackerspace @metalab , I have learnt about a web-based, open source, highly accessible video downloader frontend you can fire up at cobalt.tools. Really easy how it works: 1. You open the site; 2. you paste the link into the edit box; 3. You press enter; 4. The standard "Save File" dialog comes up. All the extra stuff like formats and qualities can be set in the settings and a choice between a video, audio-only or video-only version is offered under a button below the link input. #Accessibility #Blind
📣 Do-It-Blind (DIB) online Besprechung am Montag, 17. März, 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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ah did it :) How to get productive as a #blind #mac user, as explained by a very occasional #blind #mac user. Tomorrow on ye olde IC_Null and BlindlyCoding channels :) We'll talk #screenReaders, random #FOSS tools that make a big impact and all that jazz :)
Most of the time, I don't care about being #blind. I don't dwell on it, and I just go on about my business, dealing with the unique aspects of life that come up when you have a #disability. But I can't help the frustration that comes when I've just spent the last four hours doing something a sighted person could do in five minutes.
#blind #mac #voiceOver users, I'm working on a #stream idea to essentially set up a mac from scratch for efficiency/productivity for a blind power user and am gathering tricks, tools and techniques to include in said stream. I know about the obvious like VOCR, Hammerspoon, launchers like raycast/alfred, specialized apps like Drafts/Logic/Vmware Fusion/BBEdit/VS Code, even more specialized stuff like RCMD, Vollama and Shortcat, maybe some Rogue Amoeba stuff. I will also mention VoiceOver features like hotspots, item chooser, fastSearch and activities. Is there anything major I am missing? @FreakyFwoof @pitermach
Ball Bouncer is perhaps the ultimate culmination of a bunch of weird #blind traits in the #audiogames scene: random pointless destruction, casual games, 2d audio, and incomprehensible ball physics. Oh, and as with most of these types of games, I brutally suck at it, but feel compelled to keep playing anyway for some reason. For the curious, here's a recording that mostly demonstrates...why I don't have a gaming channel. Available for Windows and Linux: files.sooslandia.ru/BallBouncer/1.3.4/#a11y
Die mobile Braille-Tastatur Metabraille wird im Rahmen der Ausstellung „IMAGINE: Coral Reef. Regenerative Design“ im Museum für angewandte Kunst Belgrad ausgestellt. oskars.org/posts/imagine_coral… #make #blind #inklusion
📣 Do-It-Blind (DIB) online Besprechung am Montag, 10. März, 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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Well now that is really nice. TwBlue's latest version is getting to be a nice alternative to tweesecake. You can now get to filter posts, you can now specify the language in which a post is written... Definitely looking like a suitable alternative, more and more. Now, if only one could make it so the enter key does not post but rather make a new line, and to send with something like shift+enter or ctrl+enter, that'd be perfect. I will have one hell of a hard time to adjust.
I don't understand the #blind anger toward# QRCodes. I have to use them a lot at work and the only time I have difficulty is when there's more than one at a time and I am wanting to scan a specific one within the same screen.
Whenever I've had to scan one in public (such as at a restaurant or other venue) there's only been one and it's worked reliably and accurately every time, be that for tracking attendance during the pandemic, accessing a menu, paying a bill, reading a concert programme or so forth.
I've had to use them in place of OTP codes, to link apps (like WhatsApp etc), and never had an issue.
Awww just read of the passing of #SusanLumpkin. I didn't know her personally but recognize her name from around the #Blind community. Condolences to her husband and family. May she rest in peace.
Question for any #blind people who do video recording or streaming: How accessible is OBS Studio (obsproject.com/) with screen readers on the three major desktop platforms? I've never tried it.
OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming. Stream to Twitch, YouTube and many other providers or record your own videos with high quality H264 / AAC encoding.
So, Leasey users, have you experienced this? I had just upgraded from 9 to 10, and press Leasey then H for the help screen. Since I was in file explorer, I got explorer based help. I wanted to get back to the main list, so tabbed to where I could do that. Then, I got this:
unknown script call to: leaseyhotkeyhelpalternative
And it didn't work. I'll try restarting JAWS, but any other ideas? Will I need to reset my JAWS?
You know, if i knew how to do marketing, I would have sold digital products and made it a business. Unfortunately, my digital marketing class in College didn't work out at all, it was a nightmare and quite frankly, I regret taking it, thing is, I don't know how to market digitally now which would be a problem in this field. Making a website, making a landing page, making posts, all that stuff I should have learned but didn't. It was mostly theory on why certain marketing principles worked and not how to do them, not to mention most platforms that help you do anything from lead generation to creating websites in my experience, are super expensive and don't work with screen readers at all which wouldn't work for a #Blind person. #Business
Y'all remember that demo Be My Eyes did where GPT 4O **continuously** looked through the camera and gave updates to the guy? I'm not the only one right? Well, we ain't got that. The AI only "looks" when we ask a question right now, in ChatGPT's Camera mode. It's just an automatic camera, ain't no video about it. And as far as I've seen, so does Google Gemini on AI Studio's live page. So no, I doubt Google is going to be "peering" through my camera any time soon cause it's a plain lie. It'll blink and then try to describe what it saw the split second its "eye" was open, but it sure as shit ain't about to take actual freaking live video. Oh no. That's just too expensive!
So yeah I'll believe "Project Astra" when I hear it.
📣 Do-It-Blind (DIB) online Besprechung am Montag, 3. März, 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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