#iACast 39 – Quiet New Stuff

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two Samsung Galaxy S8 phones one showing the front and one showing the back.

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On this episode of the podcast, we talk about the newest releases in technology during the last week. Here is what we discussed.

We hope you enjoy each episode of the iACast. To leave us feedback, you may email us at feedback@iaccessibility.net.

#iACast 38 – Game On!

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Game of Rocket League with AbleGamers Flag

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For the longest time, games have not been accessible for blind and low vision users. Today, gamers have more choice in what games they play, and Michael Chad and Aleeha discuss their preferences in games on this episode of the iACast.

During this podcast episode, we discuss progress made by AbleGamers and how other game companies are making games accessible. We discuss how games could be more accessible, and we encourage everyone to contact game developers and discuss how much they want games to become accessible.

Game console text to speech was discussed in this episode and how this feature has allowed gamers to navigate the Xbox and the PlayStation consoles to buy and play games.

Useful Gaming Links

We hope you have enjoyed this episode of the iACast. Please leave us feedback at feedback@iaccessibility.net or on twitter at @iaccessibility1

Amazon Brings Accessibility to Kindle for Desktop

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Amazon

Amazon has been working on accessibility in their products lately with their Fire tablets and with their e-readers, but they have started in other areas as well. Recently, Amazon has made their Kindle application for Windows accessible with NVDA, and this is a big deal for users and the assistive technology industry.

Kindle with NVDA?

Amazon chose to make the Kindle application for Windows accessible with the NVDA screen reader from NVAccess. While it is great that the Kindle app is accessible for Windows, I think it is the latest application that makes NVDA a major screen reader for users which puts it in the same playing field as JAWS or Window-Eyes

NVDA compared to JAWS or Window-Eyes

NVDA is a free screen reader funded by the community of users and other organizations that keep the project going. Because of this, it is never certain how long NVDA will stay funded. This means that NVDA could stop being developed by the developers if funding runs out. Fortunately, NVDA is open source, which means that anyone can continue the development of the project and the community would oversee its development. JAWS and Window-Eyes are developed by an organization that makes a profit by selling their products to those who use screen readers so their products will continue to receive updates in the future.

NVDA and Kindle

The fact that Amazon chose NVDA to make the Kindle app for Windows accessible means that NVDA has become a household name in screen readers enough for Amazon to think that enough people will use NVDA to read books over other screen readers at home. I think that every time NVDA gets recognized like this by an organization the project gets more recognition in the community, and that means that it is more essential for NVDA to stay around and for it to continue to receive feature updates and new features.

#iACast 37 – Drivers in Denial

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Uber App Icon

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Welcome to episode 37 of the iACast. This week Michael speaks to Jade Sharp and Aleeha Dudley on the topic of using Uber while traveling with a guide dog and how this differs between countries.

Resources from this episode

Let us know what you think about this episode by tweeting us at @iaccessibility1 or at feedback@iaccessibility.net

#CSUNATC17 – Right Hear Brings In-Building Mobility to the Blind

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Right Hear with a WI-FI symbol above the dot of the i.

Each year, the California State University of Northridge (CSUN) holds their assistive technology conference. This year the conference was in San Diego California, and was held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.

One of the biggest things that people go to this conference for is the exhibit hall, and iAccessibility was there and we continue to bring you articles based on several product seen at the exhibit hall.

Today I would like to discuss another exhibiter that I had the chance to meet and that was Right Hear. despite the pun possibilities, Right hear is a new system to provide mobility to their users through beacons and smartphones.

How does Right Hear work?

Right Hear is a system developed using smartphones and Bluetooth LE devices known as iBeacons. These iBeacons can work with iOS devices and Android devices to provide extremely accurate location based services such as alerts and push notifications.

Right Hear uses iBeacons and an app to make locations accessible. Right Hear calls these accessible locations. When the user of the Right Hear app enters an accessible location, a push notification is sent to their phone to let that user know that they have reached that location, at which point the user can use the compass view to get more information about their surroundings or get assistance from a person at Right Hear.

Where is Right Hear?

Right Hear is rolling out to businesses and organizations around the world. They are adding their technology to more and more locations as people request, and they are always interested in talking to businesses and organizations about adding their service to new places as well.

Conclusion

Right Hear is a new technology that will greatly improve the mobility of the blind and deaf-blind in navigating buildings. I think they have more to go until they will be useful in large places, but this is a start to using beacons for indoor navigation.

To learn more, Check out Right Hear’s website.

#CSUNATC17 – The Accessible Copier from Canon

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Top of Canon Copier

Each year, the California State University of Northridge (CSUN) holds their assistive technology conference. This year the conference was in San Diego California, and was held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt.

One of the biggest things that people go to this conference for is the exhibit hall, and iAccessibility was there and we continue to bring you articles based on several product seen at the exhibit hall.

One exhibitor that was in attendance this year was Canon, with cameras and copiers that provided accessibility features, which include speech and voice activation.

How do Canon Accessible copiers work?

The new copiers that are accessible look very similar to traditional copiers of today. They have touch screens and buttons for dialing a fax, but there is a new speaker to allow for speech output, and a new button for voice activation. The touch screen will allow for the user to use the machine with speech access, and you can also hold the voice command button to speak to the copier.

Text To Speech functionality

The Canon copiers have text to speech capabilities so it will speak when you make selections on the touch screen or enter commands on the keypad.

Voice Activation

The new canon copiers also have a voice activation feature for those who prefer to use their voice to complete actions, or for those with disabilities that prevent the use of touch screens and key pads. The folks at Canon demonstrated where you could say, “Make 2 copies,” or make, “Scan document,” to complete basic copier tasks.

Conclusion

There has been a need for accessible copier technology in office environments for as long as we have had copiers. I am very happy to see Canon go as far as they have to make copiers more accessible, and I hope they continue to work on this goal of accessible copier technology. I also hope this gets other copier manufacturers into the accessible copier space.

#CSUNATC17 – Dot Incorporated Makes a Braille Smart Watch For The Blind.

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Dot Watch with four Braille cells and orange crown

There were many companies showing products this year at the CSUN Assistive Technology conference this year, and one of those companies was Dot Incorporated. DOT makes a Braille smart watch that is similar to a standard braille display with four braille characters only to let someone tell time and much more.

Features

The Dot smart watch is a light Braille smart watch with four refreshable braille cells. It shows the time with these cells, so you would feel something like 1230 instead of 12:30. The watch also allows for pairing with your smartphone over bluetooth to receive push notifications and other smartphone features that you would expect on a smart watch. The Dot watch will even vibrate your wrist when you receive a push notification on your phone. One of the things I liked about the watch is that it is very light weight, and the leather band is comfortable to wear. It also appears that the watch charges with a magnetic charger that attaches to the bottom of the watch.

issues

I have a few issues with this product though and while they are not huge issues they are things that people need to be aware of. The Dot watch has an orange crown. I think the watch looks very nice until you see that orange color on the crown. I personally don’t think it goes well with the aesthetics of the watch. Also, While I think the Dot watch has great features, it does not have any fitness possibilities which puts it below other mainstream watches like the Apple Watch which are at the same price point of around $300.

Conclusion

While there are some issues with this watch, I feel that it is a good start in offering a Braille smart watch to blind and low vision users. The Dot Smart Watch is still not shipping yet, but you can pre-order it for $300 from their website at Dot Incorporated.

#iACast 36 – #CSUNATC17 Highlights

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CSUN AT Conference Feb 27 -March 4 2017

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Each year, the California State University at Northridge, (CSUN) holds a conference on assistive technology. On this episode of the podcast, Jason Earls, Jeff Bishop from the ACB and Michael Doise discuss what they feel are the highlights, and here are the topics that were discussed.

Exhibit Hall Highlights

Session Highlights

Along with the exhibit hall, CSUN AT conference 2017 contained several sessions including pre-conference sessions. Here were the discussed highlights.

  • Several sessions listed in the agenda were on topics that were not represented well in the agenda, meaning that people would go in expecting to learn about a specific topic and would be presented with other information.
  • Session on the Blind Arduino Project. We will feature this topic here on iAccessibility.net soon.
  • AbleGamers discussed a session on the state of accessible gaming with modified controllers for games in the room.
  • Twitch.tv had a session on the current state of accessibility on Twitch.
  • Many of the sessions were geared towards education or on the implementation of WICAG 2.0 standards in websites.

We hope that you have enjoyed this episode of the iA Cast. Please leave us feedback at feedback@iaccessibility.net with questions, suggestions and comments for future episodes.

First time Experience at CSUN AT Conference

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CSUN AT Conference Feb 27 -March 4 2017

Last week I had the chance to experience the CSUN Assistive Technology conference in San Diego California. CSUN is a yearly conference to show off some of the best technologies that have come out and that are to be released during the coming year, and this year there were many devices that were shown that will make an impact on the Assistive technology community. During this article, I will discuss my thoughts of this conference and talk about what I found to be the most interesting devices and sessions I saw.

The Hotel

The conference is held currently at the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown San Diego. When I booked my tickets to go to the conference in January the hotel was already booked and did not have room available, so my boss from the Austin Lighthouse and I stayed at the Residence Inn in Mission Valley.  Each day I would use Lyft to get from the hotel where I was staying to the conference hotel, and I also rode back and forth with my boss in a rental car. The trip was great to see the town, and both hotels were great. That Monday San Diego received so much rain that Monday which caused the power at the Residence Inn to go out for a day. San Diego received so much rain that much of the city had flooding beyond what they are used to which caused a lot of power issues.

On Sunday, I decided to go and explore the hotel for the convention since I was taking pre-conference classes. I learned very quickly that the hotel was very big and had a lot of space for sessions and class areas. I also learned that the restaurants at the hotel were expensive but great and serving staff was very helpful with helping customers find what they wanted to buy. I also noted that hotel staff would explain directions in terms of steps and turns which was very helpful.

The Pre-Conference

Monday saw the beginning of the Pre-conference with classes and learning opportunities from businesses in the assistive technology industry. I took a class on inclusive design from the folks at Deque Systems, and learned quite a bit about testing for accessibility and which tools can help determine website accessibility. We will have more on this here at iaccessibility.net soon. On Tuesday I took a class on Advanced Mobile App Accessibility testing and learned a lot about testing apps and their code for accessibility.

The Conference

Wednesday was the start of the actual conference, which was filled with many sessions and a wonderful exhibit hall. They also had several parties for people to attend to network and to meet others in the AT industry. I took the opportunity to look at several exhibits and went to several sessions, but here is the highlights from what I saw.

Exhibits

CSUN 2017’s exhibit hall was the size of the NFB National convention’s exhibit hall, but was made up of nothing but technology which was up my ally since I love tech. I saw several devices that I thought were nice like the ElBraille from VFO, The NeoBraille and the Braille Sense Polaris which is from HIMS.One of the things that we have been looking for at the Austin Lighthouse is accessible copiers, and Canon came to CSUN with exactly that. They showed us copiers that could be used by speaking the number of copies, and the device would also read the screen out loud. We will post more about exhibits and products that were at CSUN at iaccessibility.net soon, but you can also check out coverage from Blind Bargains for interviews on these products.

Sessions

CSUN had so many sessions that one could not possibly attend all of the topics that they would like, so you have to pick and choose which ones are the best for you and your industry. Several sessions I went to sounded great but were on different topics than I would have imagined, so I did not stay at these. Personally, I found Friday’s sessions on video game accessibility to be most interesting because they focused on entertainment for everyone which I personally think is interesting. There were speekers from AbleGamers, SSB BART and Twitch from Amazon. I think my favorite session that I attended was a session on a project called the Blind Arduino Project that promotes the concept that people that are blind can become Makers, and build projects with circuits and code. We will post more on this topic in a future article here at iaccessibility.net.

Conclusion

CSUN 2017 has been an amazing conference, and I really urge anyone to go if they have the chance. I would also suggest that everyone go and explore San Diego as it is a beautiful city in California. The town is wonderful, and so is the hotel downtown. If you do go next year, book your rooms early, and get to the hotel with plenty of time so that you can make sure to have a room for the conference.

UIAccessibilityTraits Roles for iOS developers

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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.

If you are an iOS developer then accessibility should be high on your list of priorities so that all users can utilize your app. Apple has added accessibility traits that are like Aria roles to determine what each element in your app can do. Some of these traits may include Titles, Headers, buttons and more. One that I find interesting is the UIAccessibilityTraitAllowsDirectInteraction trait. This allows the element to be interacted with without having to double tap on that element.

For more information on these traits, head over to the UIAccessibilityTraits documentation from Apple.

Amazon’s Accessibility Help Desk Describes Product Images

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Amazon

Blind Bargains reported that Amazon’s accessibility help desk will allow users to get product descriptions, which means that any product images on their website will be described on this help line. You will still have to purchase the item from their site but you can now get a description of how the item looks. This line is open from 6:00 AM to 1:00 AM Eastern time

The number to this line is (888) 283-1678

Getting Around Unfamiliar places.

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Around Me app icon dropped gps pin over blue circles

This week I will be traveling to the CSUN 2017 AT conference, and it occurs to me that it would be a good thing to get a few apps that can help me find things in San Diego, so lets look at two of these kinds of apps that can really help you in these types of situations.

BlindSquare

BlindSuare is a blindness specific app that utilizes the power of GPS and Foursquare to let users find places near them. Foursquare is an app that lets users check in and name places. You get points for each check in, and you can even make points of interest that may not be in Google Maps, or on Apple Maps. BlindSquare is on iOS. BlindSquare has a mode that lets you see what is around you by moving your phone. The good thing is that it works with Foursquare, so all of the user points of interests that have been made will show up in the app.

Blindsquare will also let you see what town you are flying over. You ca learn more about this by visiting Blind Bargains and it is on one of their podcast episodes.

BlindSquare is $39.99, and also has in app purchases. Unfortunately, BlindSquare is only for iOS and is not currently available for Android.

Around Me

Around me is a free app on iOS and Android, and is $2.99 as an in app purchase to remove ads. With AroundMe, you can select a category like hotels or restaurants and the app will give you a list of the closest points of interest in that category. Alternatively, you can select the visualization button and pick between list, map and live view. Live view is a really neat feature, because it lets the user move the device they are using around and items will float in to view. This uses the camera, and does utilize explore by touch for VoiceOver on iOS. Unfortunately, Live View is not available on Android devices, but more map options are available.

Nearby Explorer for Android

Nearby Explorer by the American Printing House for the Blind is another app for Android and iOS also assists users in this area, but will run you around $80 and will not be covered in this article.

Conclusion

While BlindSquare is a grea5 option for users, it is quite expensive, and will only be on the iOS platform. If you are on Android you can look at Nearby Explorer, but this will also run $80, so while AroundMe doesn’t have the live view feature, it does allow you to see what is in your general area.

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