Weekend reading: Apple is celebrating 20 years of Voiceover - I wrote an article about it based on the amazing chat I had with the man who brought it to life on the Mac, and also with people who use it on their iPhone every day. https://doubletaponair.com/20-years-of-apple-voiceover/

@mfeir How does the expert system features work?

@mfeir Cool, thanks

@RareBird15 @kaveinthran @mastoblind @main I haven't been a student in decades, but recently found an iOS app called Essayist. It's been designed to be accessible with VoiceOver but is made for sighted people also. It sounds like the kind of thing you're after.

@JamiePauls I sometimes use Good Maps Outdoors, its free. You can bring up a complete list of all of the turns and the distance between each one for the entire route. This not only lets me tell my wife the next turn coming up and how far away it is, but even look at the next few turns to see what is coming up ahead.

This is going to be a very niche request, but here goes. When my wife and I travel, I am the navigator. She drives, I use Google maps to get us where we need to go. It works great. As much as I have wanted to like Apple Maps, I just haven’t enjoyed the experience as much as Google maps. One key feature of Google maps is the ability to find the next turn in our route and swipe up with one finger to see which turns follow that. I have noticed lately that Google maps is becoming more and more cluttered and less pleasant to use. I am wondering if any of my Blind friends use any other apps especially when in the car going anywhere. Would love thoughts.

🤖Google has finally shared some more up-to-date Android version statistics, and Android 15 is barely on the radar:

- Android 15 has a 4.5% share
- Android 14 is on >27% of devices
- Android 13 makes up ~17% of the share

Full breakdown👇

🔗 https://www.androidauthority.com/android-platform-stats-3548280/

@freakboy3742
NVDA: The only freely available and sustained screen reader for Windows is written in Python. The next alternative costs more than $500 per user per version.
I used NVDA to learn Python (since it has a built-in Python REPL), get my undergrad, MBA, and DBA degrees, and finally land a software engineering role.
https://nvaccess.org/

Safari 18.4 contains a huge number of new features for web developers, including Declarative Web Push, shape(), sideways writing modes, text-auto-space, P3 support for color pickers, preset device sizes in Responsive Design Mode, and 78 more features!

https://webkit.org/blog/16574/webkit-features-in-safari-18-4/

One of the things I miss most from my time at Spotify is having long, insightful conversations about accessibility with my friend Quintin. That's why this new Focus Trap episode is such a treat! Absolutely recommend giving it a listen!

"Lowering the lift is one thing; education is another; but to really convince someone to do it, we need to inspire them."

https://focusring.io/podcast-focustrap/accessibility-advocacy-automation-and-best-practices-quintin-balsdon

#Accessibility

Mp3s are 30-years-old? Wow! The filename extension .mp3 was chosen by the Fraunhofer team on 14 July 1995 (previously, the files had been named .bit). With the first real-time software MP3 player WinPlay3 (released 9 September 1995) many people were able to encode and play back MP3 files on their PCs.
MP3 - Wikipedia
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org

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

#TecTip: for Outlook: To attach a document, select it in File Explorer and press Ctrl+C. Then go to the body of your email and press Ctrl+V. The file will attach instantly—quick, simple, and all with keyboard shortcuts.

Articles: Foreword to Accessibility Cookbook by Manuel Matuzovic

The foreword to the O’Reilly book on creating inclusive experiences.

🔗https://adactio.com/articles/21876

For $279, this seems like another great value budget Android phone from Nothing!

Check out C. Scott Brown's review of the CMF Phone 2 Pro over on Android Authority:

https://androidauthority.com/cmf-phone-2-pro-review-3548372/

ChatGPT's recent update caused the model to be unbearably sycophantic - this has now been fixed through an update to the system prompt, and as far as I can tell this is what they changed https://simonwillison.net/2025/Apr/29/a-comparison-of-chatgptgpt-4os-previous-and-current-system-promp/

@pixelate @valiant8086 Sorry I missed this; it came in along with a flood of other mentions and got buried. I use ExplorerPatcher, Win11Debloat, Winaero Tweaker, and OpenShell. The first three have overlapping functionality but each bring something unique to the table: ExplorerPatcher hooks into Explorer and makes some seriously cool changes. Win11Debloat is mostly useful for removing all the stock apps you don't want. Winaero Tweaker has some options you don't find in anything else, like the ability to disable the lock screen. OpenShell goes on every single system of mine, even Windows 10. It's just way more responsive and less bloated, even after changes to the default start menu. I didn't ask for a webpage when I press the Windows key, Microsoft.

Viewpoint is a Windows program that uses Gemini AI to make user interfaces that aren't accessible, pretty accessible! I was able to navigate the PPSSPP interface with it pretty well! So yeah, it's starting to happen, the use of AI for more than just image descriptions.

https://viewpoint.nibblenerds.com/

#accessibility #blind #ai #ViewPoint #GeminiAI #google