#iACast 61: All These Devices!

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On this episode of the iA Cast, Aleeha, Michael, and Jason discuss all of the latest devices announced for this holiday season and what everyone would like to get their hands on.

Apple

Amazon

Google

Microsoft

Other

iA Democast 12: Twitterriffic 5 for Mac

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On this episode of the iA DemoCast, Matt Dierckens demonstrates Twitterriffic 5 for Mac, which brings accessible Twitter features to macOS.

Twitterrific 5 for Twitter on the App Store – iTunes – Apple

#iACast UnboxCast 11: VP Columbia Braille Embosser

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On this episode of the iAUnboxCast, Aleeha unboxes the VP Columbia Braille embosser from ViewPlus with commentary from Jason and Michael. At the time of this posting, the embosser is still selling for $1495 on the ViewPlus website. This is a 100 character per second, interpoint, tactile graphics embosser. Aleeha goes through the initial setup of the device, including giving a demonstration of the sound of the embossing and the text-to-speech voice.

iA CodeCast 2: Language Syntax

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iAccessibility App Development

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On this episode of the iA CodeCast Michael, Dan and Aleeha discuss the differences in language syntax between different programming languages.

Dan has issued challenge number 2 where a person must write a program with two different conditionals. One being an if, and else if condition, and the other being the same condition with a select or switch case conditional. You can submit challenges to our mailing list at iacoders@iaccessibility.net and you can join by emailing iacoders-join@iaccessibility.net.

Access Your Movies From All Your Accounts with the Movies Anywhere App for iOS

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Movies Anywhere

Recently, a new app was released, in collaboration with Disney and several other movie studios, called the Movies Anywhere app. It’s available for iOS and Android, and offers some unique functionality for blind movie lovers. You can sign into Amazon, Google, and iTunes to link all your accounts together. For a limited time, if you link your Google Play Movies account with the app, you will get access to five free pre-selected movies. How, though, can a user access audio described content? The answer is this: once all your accounts have been linked, go into iTunes on your Apple device, access your purchased movies, and, voila!, you have access to your purchased movies from all platforms, enabling audio description for those that have it in the iTunes store, even if you bought them elsewhere.  So, essentially, you can use the Movies Anywhere app as a method of collecting all your movies into one place, but don’t use it to watch them if you want audio description. Access them from the iTunes app and you’re all set!

iA UnboxCast 10: Amazon Element 50 inch TV

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Amazon Element TV

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On this episode of the iA UnboxCast Michael, along with Aleeha, and Jason unbox the 50 inch Amazon Element 50 inch TV with Fire TV built in. This is an accessible TV with FireOS built in.

All‑New Element 50‑Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV ‑ Fire TV Edition$549.99Amazon.comFree shipping

#iACast 60: Problem Solving

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On this episode of the iA Cast, Michael and Aleeha discuss the importance of problem solving and some techniques for adopting the problem solving mindset.

  • New Question and Answer segment announced for the iA Cast. seen any questions to our Twitter @iaccessibility1, our facebook page or through email at feedback@iaccessibility.net. Your questions will be answered on the next recorded episode.
  • Michael announced that there will be a new book written called Finding Success Through Problem Solving in the Digital Age. We will talk more about it as the project is written.

This episode has been dedicated to the family.y of a friend of the show who has been going through a lot the past couple of weeks. Keep Buddy Brannan’s family in your thoughts and prayers.

#iACast 59: Augmented and Virtual Reality

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HTC Vive Virtual Reality Headset

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On this episode of the iA Cast, Jason, Michael, and Aleeha discuss the latest in augmented reality and virtual reality as it relates to mainstream technology and in the areas of accessibility.

Mainstream Devices

Accessibility Devices

Texie for iOS: Does it Work as Advertised?

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Texie App Icon

This morning, I discovered an app called Texie for iOS. The app claims to be able to perform quick text recognition, kind of like the Short Text mode of Seeing AI. It’s free do download, but, in order to perform scans, you must purchase credits, which start at $0.99 for 100 scans. You get a few extra credits with this purchase (I think I received 10 extra, giving me 110.)

The app is a bit misleading, however. There are no instructions when you start it for the first time, only a blank home screen for VoiceOver users. There are tabs across the bottom: Home, Settings, IAP (the screen where you can purchase credits), and Info.

The home tab allows the user to scan. Although blank to VoiceOver users initially, the app will emit beeps when it thinks it’s recognized text. The trick is to find the button that “text found, click screen to read” button. This cannot be found by flicking left and right, and the user must use explore by touch to locate it. If, however, the user turns VoiceOver off, they can tap anywhere on the screen other than the tab bar at the bottom to recognize the text. Once the text starts to read, there is no good way to stop it other than using a two finger double tap to start other media or going to the home screen.

The settings tab allows the user to replay the last scan, change the mode from single to multipage, or clear the current pages. Unfortunately, there is no way to adjust the speech rate or voice.

The IAP tab allows the user to purchase more scan credits. Finally, the info tab explains a little about the app.

In conclusion, I don’t really believe this app, even with its claim to read well written handwriting, is worth the price with the availability of Seeing AI and KNFB Reader. The OCR is not as good as the other two, and it does not automatically read as Seeing AI does. The accessibility is a little iffy, and it uses online OCR, which just isn’ helpful with a slow data or WiFi connection. The app is fairly new, and my hope is that it will continue to improve and find its place among its competitors.

#iACast 58: Linux as an Alternative to Windows

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In this episode, Jason and Jeremy discuss using Linux as an alternative to Windows and macOS.

Topics include:

  • Ubuntu and Debian, two distributions of Linux,
  • The Orca and Speakup screenreaders,
  • BRLTTY, a braille display daemon for Orca and other console screenreaders,
  • The Debian Accessibility Wiki which has great information about the accessibility options available for Debian. You can also apply the information to other distributions as well.
  • DistroWatch where you can find and download different Linux distributions,
  • and more.

Correction: In the podcast, it is stated that Debian doesn’t offer a liveCD. Debian does in fact offer a liveCD. You can find it on the liveCD page.

#iACast 57 – Advocating for Accessibility

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On this episode of the iACast, Aleeha, Jason, Meaghan and Dan discuss a wide variety of topics relating to advocating for accessibility. Topics range from getting accommodations in school and in the workplace to contacting developers about access issues in apps or websites. We also mentioned that every state in the U.S. has a disability rights organization that can help advocate in situations where your actions aren’t enough. The contact information for each state’s organization, called a protection and advocacy organization can be found on the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) website. As of the publication of this article, we are unable to locate a similar list for Canada, so if you know of such a list, please leave a link in the comments below.

What’s New in VoiceOver for macOS High Sierra

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Image showing VoiceOver icon. icon is a grey gradient to white with a universal access symbol and a speaker with sound waves going to the right.

On September 25, 2017, Apple released macOS High Sierra to the public. Here are some new enhancements to VoiceOver.

Enhanced Multilingual Support

If VoiceOver detects that a language has been associated with text that it’s reading, it Will automatically switch to another voice and will read the text in that language. You can set the voice VoiceOver uses for different languages in VoiceOver Utility. For example, if you were to add the Spanish language and set a voice for it, VoiceOver will then use that Spanish voice to read text that has been tagged as Spanish for screen readers.

Image Descriptions

VoiceOver can describe images, just like it does in iOS. To do this, press VO (Control plus option or caps lock, depending on how you have the VoiceOver modifier set) + Shift + L when focus is placed on an image.

Improved Grade 2 Braille Experience

VoiceOver provides a more seamless Braille experience when you are working with text and using Grade 2 Braille. For example, your Braille display now shows “the context of what you’re typing,” and when you edit text, it is no longer translated back into Grade 1 Braille.

Improved Web and Email Navigation

VoiceOver  navigation is more consistent and reliable when navigating webpages in Safari. VoiceOver has better support for navigating tables in richly formatted email messages in mail.

Improved PDF Accessibility

VoiceOver has better support for reading tables, lists, and forms in tagged PDF documents.

Let us know if you’ve discovered anything else new.

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