Anyone who is blind, or who has worked with the blind, knows how expensive our technology can be. This couldn't be more true with relation to braille displays. Even the cheapest costs at least $799, and it's already behind the newest in that line, at $899. This is the Orbit Reader 20 and 20+. Now, a student in India wants to change that by creating a display that is truly affordable (under $50)! Please pass this on, so that we can give him greater recognition within the blind community. Even if it costs a bit more than he initially suspected it would, there is no excuse for the $2,000 to $5,000 average price of such technology when cheaper alternatives can be designed! He is determined to bring this to market, so let's help him do it and show our appreciation for his hard work on this life-changing project!

forbes.com/sites/kevinanderton…

#access #ACB #accessibility #affordability #blind #braille #BrailleDisplays #children #education #employment #independence #India #learning #NFB #ocr #parent #reading #science #school #students #teachers #technology #work #writing

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

Guide - AI assistant for people with low vision or blindness

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.

^Guide

Matt Campbell

2025-03-31 18:00:52

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

facebook.com/share/1L2JxLxgS1/

#Section504 #Blind #BlindMasto #BlindMastodon #BlindFedi @blind @mastoblind #LowVision #Disabled #DisabledMasto #DisabledMastodon #DisabledFedi @disability@a.gup.pe @disability@beehaw.org @disabilityjustice @disabilityhistory

Kaleigh Brendle

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...

^{www.facebook.com}

Is it just me, or does Sero for Android, on Google play, lead to a "not found" error?

play.google.com/store/apps/det…

#Sero #blind #accessibility @pneumasolutions

#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.

We are currently considering to introduce URLs that do not need more reserved usernames in #Forgejo, such as codeberg.org/-/something/ or codeberg.org/_something/.

#a11y #accessibility

Sensitive content Reveal/hide

Happy first anniversary to the BT Speak!!
We have just released our anniversary Update: featuring one-handed mode, numerous Editor enhancements, append mode, time announcements, expedited web searching, YouTube expansion, improved Bluetooth, new languages, and much, much more.

blazietech.com/march-2025-anni…
#BTSpeak #Blind

Es geht um die #Zukunft auf der Tagung der Evang. #Seelsorge für blinde und sehbehinderte Menschen.

Ich kümmere mich ein wenig um Töne die rein und raus gehen...

#DeBeSSZukunft #DeBeSSTagung #blind #Selbsthilfe

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, February 27, 2025 - Volume 1004 ♿️
toptechtidbits.com/tidbits2025…

The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #technology #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #toptechtidbits

Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.

Subscribers: 36,455 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

@HeikoKunert@norden.social hat mich in diesem Gespräch beeindruckt und es hat mir Spaß gemacht, vielen Dank!

bildung.social/@komin/11407137…
#Inklusion #blind #Hamburg #Selbsthilfe

New site for Linux users that are sightless. Pun intended. Anyway:

blindlinux.com/

#accessibility #blind #linux #foss

First, they shut down the Basic HTML site, forcing many of us to switch to clients such as Thunderbird. Now, they're using qr codes which are not only inaccessible to the blind but also to those who don't use smartphones! This is ridiculous! Yes, they do still have the option to click whether it's you trying to sign in or not (which still requires a smartphone and a carrier, which they claim to be concerned about), but how long before they remove that, too?

pcmag.com/news/google-is-repla…

#accessibility #Android #authentication #blind #Google #GMail #IOS #Narrator #NVDA #sms #Talkback #technology #Voiceover #Windows

Demo of new Siri voices in VoiceOver on iOS 18.4.

#blind #accessibility #iOS #apple #tts

Well hot damn, my Steve scammer is back. Same first 2 messages, a third "You didn't reply to me, so I'm guessing you don't know me," followed by a pic and "Remember me?"

I'm going out on a tenuous limb here and suspecting that, no, I don't in fact know this person.

As an aside, any #blind folks know how to accessibly find a Matrix ID in @element? At the very least I want to find if this person is coming through a bridge, then shut that down if needed.

And this is why Element accessibility is important. When I review the interface, I see what look like a ton of noisy stale ARIA announcements hanging around at the bottom of the interface, making it very hard to do the "move to the bottom to find if new interface elements were added to the DOM" trick. It's not just an inconvenient annoyance. It makes defending against potential pig butchering and other scam attempts much harder. How can I feel confident on a network if I can't safely use its flagship client?

• Yes (100%, 7 votes)
• No (0%, 0 votes)

So now that bit.ly is showing ads, if you need a URL shortener, #lynx is decent and #accessible and easy to host. And before you tell me that we don't need URL shorteners anymore and how they're a security risk, I need them for:
1. Business cards, slides, signs, and other physical objects that need a URL. While most phones can scan QR Codes, you can't read them out loud for #blind folks. If you're doing a presentation, "scan the QR code on screen" isn't good enough. You need to have a URL that you can speak and another human can remember. Yes, NFC is a thing, but it doesn't solve that problem.
2. Places that still don't allow URLs (LinkedIn) or where long URLs are awkward to work with (text-only emails, the terminal, etc.)
3. Times (like a phone call) where I need to tell someone a URL using the noises that come from my face-parts

Find it here: getlynx.dev/#a11y#bitly

Lynx

The sleek, powerful URL shortener you've been looking for.

^getlynx.dev

Any interest in learning to #code from the #Blind community on an old-school platform?

a MOO is a text-based virtual world. if you ever played an old interactive fiction or text adventure game you'll be familiar with the idea. you type in commands like "go north" to move, "put coin in box", "kill dragon with sword" and so forth, and you get written responses unfolding the story.

This type of interface was taken online with a MOO in the 1990's, and rather than a playable story, you can join in and work with other people in an interactive, virtual world.

More than that, as well as just playing, MOO has a rich and beginner-friendly programming language, so you can create objects and code them to do things to your own specifications.

through a series of structured lessons with code samples and plenty of explanation you'll learn some of the basics of any programming language, all whilst having fun and playing about. The world is always open and you can build as many rooms and items as you like. You can practice your written English, socialising and programming all at once, in a 100% text-based environment perfect for screen readers and Braille displays.

This will be my twenty-seventh empty MOO. Each one has gone off in a different direction with between 1 and 15 participants, mostly young visually-impaired school-children and teens needing an introduction to programming in a fun way when the UK introduced coding as part of our national curriculum.
I taught high school computing and college for a decade, and I'm wanting to open this opportunity up to more blind and visually-impaired people because coding is fun, and a MOO is a fun thing to play with.
it's Only worthwhile if we have the numbers though, so if you're not interested please pass on if you can.

forms.gle/LkKhqsbYXh6ondQz8

MOO coding, expression of interest

^{Google Docs}

If anyone uses Android with TalkBack and the onscreen Braille keyboard, please try to reproduce and report this issue:

In Talkback, if onscreen keyboard echo is set to words, and a word with punctuation after it is typed, TalkBack does not read the word when Space is typed. Similarly, if an emoticon is typed, like ":)" nothing is spoken when Space is typed.

Steps to reproduce:

• Turn on TalkBack, and open TalkBack settings by tapping once with three fingers. Set up the TalkBack Braille keyboard under the Braille section.
• Go to Verbosity settings, then the keyboard echo option for onscreen keyboards, and set it to "words."
Now, open a text box, turn on the TalkBack Braille Keyboard, and type something like "this is a test." Note the period after test. Then, swipe right with one finger to enter a space.

Expected results:

TalkBack should read "this" "is" "a" "test period."

Actual results:

TalkBack reads "this" "is" "a" and is silent after test is written.

I also put it up on Google's issue tracker if anyone wants to start it.

issuetracker.google.com/issues…

#accessibility #android #blind #TalkBack #Braille