There's still time to register for one of our most requested Access On webinars, a look at AI-assisted coding. Panelists include @FreakyFwoof, @technocounselor, and others. We'll cover how to get started, how to be successful, and the work the Federation is doing to make input and output more #accessible.
Join us on October 27 at 2 Pm Eastern. We'll send the full recording to registrants. https://nfb.org/programs-services/center-excellence-nonvisual-access/trainings/accessibility-webinar-registration

This hurts, because, it's true: "Silicon Valley will spend millions developing a glove that translates sign language into speech (badly), but they won't spend ten minutes adding Alt-Text to their images. They will build a headset that describes the room to me (poorly), but they won't use semantic HTML headings so I can actually navigate a webpage."

lots of fun confusion on flights today, as a bug in some automated system somewhere has sent everyone messages about the flight being delayed 1 hour, while in reality, we just changed the clocks.

Many interactions on mastodon are like:

Me: Wow, my microwaved popcorn was too hot and I burnt my tongue!

Responder A: You could maybe put the popcorn inside a bucket made of ice to quickly cool it.

Me: I don't want to do that and I also don't have any buckets made of ice.

Responder B: A bucket of ice can be made by putting water between an inner form and an outer form and freezing it.

Me: Ok, but I don't want to do that and it would also take many hours to freeze the water. I am eating popcorn right now.

Responder C: Liquid nitrogen will freeze water in as little as a few seconds and can be purchased at many welding-gas suppliers

If you can't share or release something in an inclusive and accessible way, it's okay to not share or release it at all.

Some people will vehemently disagree with this. They'll say things like, "But then nobody wins," missing the powerful point that nobody loses either.

I got this notification from Subway.

"You know I can hear that, right?

That stomach's not suttle. Let's check your subway app for deals"

I have to wonder if there was any concern before they pushed that one whether people might think the Subway app was listening in and really did hear such a thing. With all the snews about devices listening to us, and the stories of older people with hard questions, and comspiracies to muddy the water even more, not that it wasn't already...

Me, I appreciated the humor in it, I hope everyone did. Since it's me bringing this up of all people, gotta say it reminds me how tricky it is to be public and not displease people.

Besides all that, this here notification was very attention grabbing, which was Subway's whole purpose, right? I heard it, I laughed, I didn't dismiss it, I heard it again this morning, had to grin and come up here and post about it, nice work, Subway.

Ok Subway, you stop that listening to my Stomach. Besides, it's a lie. My stomach is perfectly silent, how dare you insinuate otherwise, humph! I don't fart either and I don't have to whipe when I poop, either before or after, regardless of whether I ate Subway, so there! 🤣

Experiences of playing around with iPhone duo for 5 minutes in a store:
It is fast. Obviously couldn't test processing, but folding and unfolding with voiceover works really seamlessly. If you unfold the phone like a.book, or passport, VO announces, that navigation has flipped to landscape.
As you'd expect from apple, the hardware feels gorgeous. I'm afraid once I get my duo, using a matte touch screen is a luxury I couldn't go back from.
You can't feel the grease with your finger, when the phone is unfolded.
When unfolded, two column apps behave just as they do on iPad with VoiceOver.
Noisy store, so couldn't test sound properly unfortunately.

Neighbour said my garden wasn't mowed. I said 'Yeah but I get lots of butterflies and you don't'. He's now posting photos of lone butterflies in his garden. Evidently butterfly envy is a thing.

I've yet to find an iPhone Duo review to describe how is it to use as an actual phone. You know, for calls.

Set up this little page on my website last night as a place to host all the useful little Windows utilities I've made, although it doesn't yet have every single one of them. It currently has Micstate, Taskmon, and uphide, with more to be added. https://quin.fyi/win/

Honestly Apple music has done a good job with its discovery algorithms. Its discovery station is superb. The other day it played 70s and 80s poolside disco as my working soundtrack . Now its been playing obscure sounding cafe jazz and folk jazz for hours.

I didn not preorder an iPhone duo just now. Nope, totally did not. That wasn't me, at all, who just did do that. Or well, did not do that.

My Zoom F3 talks now.

As a blind field recordist, I've modded the F3's firmware so it speaks: every menu item as you scroll, which option is selected, popups like "SD Card Full!", confirmation dialogs, and even the date and time setup. No sighted help needed.

Would you want a step-by-step guide, with no technical knowledge needed, to put this on your own F3?

#Accessibility #Blind #ZoomF3 #FieldRecording

The joys of accessibility bugs. I focused my email client. All my screenreader was able to focus or say was "yes, button." No tabbing, arrowing or cursoring otherwise revealed more context. So what the hell, I klicked it. It went away. I am not shure what changed, but life is back to normal.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@fribbledom/117434510588886831

Yes; terminals will always rules. Same can be said of physical buttons: when a smartphone does bad, you don't tape to enter some recovery mode, but press and hold the power and/or volume buttons.

This. Blind and visually impaired people fear smart glasses backlash:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmx2qlz7ney2o

Why are food delivery times extra long after a 20 hour flight marathon? Its like the app knows I want the meal fast and sleep.

[ADMIN MESSAGE]
On Sep 30, Reddit announced that they will kill their RSS feeds on November 13, 2026 with no replacement offered.

As this bot is using the RSS feed of https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/ it will stop on the same date.

The open internet is dying, bit by bit and it makes me sad. Anyway, thank you for being with us all these years and take care.

https://www.how2shout.com/news/reddit-rss-public-api-shutdown-dates.html

Maarja and I are about to take off from Baltimore after a wonderful week here in the US.

We joined the Access the Future Technology Summit at the National Federation of the Blind, where I had a chance to share how accessibility and user involvement are approached across the pond. we left with fresh ideas, new friends and renewed confidence.

@JonathanMosen also gave us a tech nerd’s dream afternoon at the International Braille and Technology Center where I could finally experience all the wonderful assistive tech I keep reading about on socials and hearing of via podcasts. And the food? Every meal in Baltimore was more than phenomenal.

Goodbye, Baltimore. You were warm, generous and energising. We’ll be back.

How Artemis 2’s tech will improve life on Earth https://www.astronomy.com/space-exploration/how-artemis-2s-tech-will-improve-life-on-earth/