Liam O’Dell: Twitter invited a deaf person to test out Spaces – here’s what they think…. “Credit where credit’s (over)due, Twitter seem to have finally learned their lesson after the mishap over voice tweets in the summer of 2020. Deaf people are finally involved in the process of developing new audio features, and it’s been […]
TechRadar: Social media is embracing audio more than ever – but deaf users are being left behind. “… in the fast-paced corporate world of social media, deaf and hard of hearing users are still seeing accessibility forgotten about when features are developed or reviewed. Even when a decision is considered to negatively impact them, advocates […]
TechCrunch: What will tomorrow’s tech look like? Ask someone who can’t see. “When I was pronounced legally blind in 2009, I didn’t know one other person who called themselves blind – least of all ‘low vision’ or ‘visually impaired.’ Today, I manage the largest blindness community in the world, Be My Eyes, a support platform […]
Marketplace: Twitter is finally thinking about accessibility first. “There’s been a lot of talk this week about new Twitter features, mostly disappearing tweets. But Twitter also announced Tuesday that it’s planning voice-only chat rooms called Spaces where you talk instead of type. Earlier this summer, Twitter experimented with letting people send audio-only tweets, but didn’t […]
PR Newswire: American Foundation for the Blind Announces Access and Engagement Report, Illustrating Impact of COVID-19 on Students with Visual Impairments and Their Educators (PRESS RELEASE). “The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) today announced the release of the Access and Engagement research report, based on the Spring 2020 survey that investigated the early impact […]
Courthouse News Service: Judge Orders White House to Include Sign Language in Covid Briefings. “The Trump administration may have violated federal law by not including American Sign Language interpretation in televised briefings on the coronavirus pandemic, a federal judge in Washington ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg granted temporary relief that will require the […]
Niagara Gazette: Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service goes online. “In 1987, Bob Sikorkski founded the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service. It’s designed to give people who are blind, have low vision or have other print disabilities, the ability to hear books as well as local publications. On July 31, they took, their service online for […]
Voicebot: Amazon Launches Alexa Accessibility Hub. “Amazon has brought together all of the accessibility features and initiatives for the Alexa voice assistant into a central website. The new Alexa Accessibility Hub demonstrates the ways people with different kinds of disabilities can use Alexa as a helpful tool and the accommodations in place to make using […]
CNET: Google debuts a braille keyboard for vision-impaired Android users . “Braille has been helping the blind and vision-impaired to read and communicate for more than 150 years. Now Google wants to help blind and vision-impaired Android users put braille to work on their smartphones.”
Daily Mail: Software developer creates a simplified website of coronavirus statistics to make them accessible for the blind or visually impaired. “Tyler Littlefield, a software developer based in Boston, has created a database of COVID-19 statistics meant to be accessible to the visually impaired. …the site organizes up-to-date COVID-19 data in simple charts specifically designed […]
TNW: Google Chrome can now show devs how their sites look to users with visual impairments. “Google’s popular Chrome browser has launched a new tool to help developers tune their websites for different visual deficiencies such as color blindness and blurred vision.”
Wired UK: Online Altruists Are Making Reddit More Accessible. “These volunteers are from a little subreddit called r/TranscribersOfReddit, who voluntarily type out extremely detailed descriptions of various content so that visually impaired people can access it. The band of noble souls have the goal of making Reddit, and the internet as a whole, a more […]
PRWeb: Communication Service for the Deaf Expands “SignVote” to Empower America’s Deaf Voters for 2020 Elections (PRESS RELEASE). “Communication Service for the Deaf (CSD) announced today the expansion of its SignVote campaign designed to help inform and increase voter engagement among the deaf community throughout the 2020 elections. SignVote is a nonpartisan platform that spotlights […]
Neowin: Mozilla launches Firefox 73 with global zoom settings. “Mozilla has launched Firefox 73. It’s not a particularly big update this time around, however, if you like to adjust the page zoom on websites you’ll appreciate the fact that this version allows you set a global default zoom level setting. It also improves High Contrast […]
Mashable: Twitter knows GIFs dominate the platform. A new accessibility feature will allow more people to enjoy them.. “If you’ve ever looked at Twitter while sports were happening, you’ve probably seen countless GIFs posted as reactions to big plays. Twitter made that slightly more accessible on Friday, adding the ability to add text descriptions to […]