That's the dadgum truth, right there.
#disabled #disability #disabilityawareness #spoonie #accessibility #mentalhealth
accessibility
I’m quite enjoying the new Ally app from Envision. Being able to customise the AI is interesting, although the iOS app doesn’t seem to have all that many voices yet.
It’s very good at reading digital displays which other apps sometimes struggle with, but it’s not perfect. I was using it to check shopping items and it misidentified a couple of things. Still, it’s not bad and reasonably fast, although not as good as the Meta Rayban’s Look and Tell feature. Still since Meta have withdrawn that in the UK, Ally is a decent enough alternative.
#Accessibility #AI
Navigating iOS WhatsApp message threads is becoming very difficult with VoiceOver. Management of focus position, especially after performing an action is atrocious, it jumps largely back up the thread losing your position, this happens a lot especially on a busy thread. How can we get Meta to take heed of these issues #WhatsApp #VoiceOver #Accessibility #A11Y #iOS
📣 Announcing Altbot 2.0: The Privacy & Green Update 🔒💚
Exciting news! After months of development, Altbot 2.0 is officially launching with major improvements to privacy, efficiency, and description quality.
What's new in Altbot 2.0:
100% local AI processing for true privacy - unlike Google Gemini which saves data for training, Altbot 2.0 retains ZERO information about you or your images using the powerful Ovis2:8B model running on my custom AltTron server equipped with an A5500 GPU and expansion capacity for two additional GPUs
Full GDPR compliance with clear informed consent - I've implemented comprehensive privacy measures including transparent data handling policies, user rights protection, and minimal data collection practices that exceed GDPR requirements
Better quality descriptions across all 11 supported languages thanks to a newly developed translation layer specifically optimized for local LLM models
Significantly more energy efficient with a new feature that shows you exactly how much energy was used for each request! This efficiency comes from using a server-grade GPU optimized for lower power consumption, and 36% of the energy consumed is from clean sources mainly nuclear power (thanks to being based in Georgia)
The only data Altbot 2.0 records:
That a request happened
How long it took to complete
What type of media it was (image, video, or audio)
What language was used
No images, no content, no personal data saved - ever.
For those who don't know, Altbot has been helping make the Fediverse more accessible by automatically generating alt-text descriptions for images. The project has grown beyond anything I imagined, now serving thousands of users across the network.
Support Altbot's Future 💝
To bring these privacy and efficiency improvements to life, I had to invest in a more powerful server than initially planned. The server costs exceeded my budget by around $900, which I've covered out of pocket. Who woulda thought that competing with a $1.98 trillion dystopian mega corporation would be expensive? Shocking, I know.
I've set up a Ko-fi fundraising goal to help recover these costs and support ongoing development: Ko-fi.com/micr0byte
Your contributions will help ensure Altbot remains:
Free for everyone
Continuously improved
Sustainably maintained
Even small donations make a huge difference and motivate me to keep enhancing accessibility across the Fediverse!
This milestone represents a commitment to ensuring accessibility doesn't come at the cost of privacy or environmental impact. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together.
As Altbot continues to grow, I'm open to sharing more about this journey with anyone interested in accessibility, ethical AI, or Fediverse projects.
For press inquiries: inquiries@micr0.dev
Feel free to boost or reach out!
#Accessibility #Fediverse #AltText #EthicalAI #OpenSource #Privacy #Altbot
Able to Play, a game repository that helps you find games that match your accessibility needs, just launched!
For gamedevs/game requests: Here's some info on how to make a game available on there:
https://help.abletoplay.com/docs/how-can-i-request-a-game-be-available-on-abletoplay/
It's still a young platform, so please give them lots of feedback to help improve it!
@games
Edited 5d ago
Saying "No-one using our service has accessibility needs" is a bit like saying "We don't need a ramp, no-one in a wheelchair has ever come up the stairs".
Why you shouldn't use sites like YayText to simulate text formatting in social media posts.
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/03/dont-use-fake-bold-or-italic-in-social-media.html
#accessibility
This journal article explores institutional repositories. It found out of 107 IRs only 26 had specific contact information related to accessibility. Over 50% of the IRs sampled had some form of accessibility documentation. Only 39 of the IRs had a link to an institutional wide accessibility policy. Please check out the full article for more information. #accessibility https://www.iastatedigitalpress.com/jlsc/article/id/18208/
From @LFLegal’s CSUNATC, a reminder that if you feel like you aren’t able to push back on the illegal actions of this administration:
“Staying the accessibility course is resistance right now.”
#a11y #accessibility
Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, March 13, 2025 - Volume 1006 ♿️
https://toptechtidbits.com/tidbits2025/03132025/
The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #technology #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #toptechtidbits
Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.
Subscribers: 36,538 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.
#introduction
Hi! I'm Michael, or Fubsepude.
I'm a #blind #autistic music and tech-enthusiast from Denmark.
I love listening to and creating music, computers and just hanging out and meeting new people.
#accessibility
#audio
#blind
#autistic
#music
#tech
Edited 6d ago
Surge XT is such a great synth, I don't think I'll ever need to get anymore synths.
#accessibility #audio #blind #music
The Web #Accessibility Slack community attracts an unfortunate share of asks that go something like:
"I have an interview/have been tasked with giving a presentation/have been promoted to a role and need to become an expert in accessibility by tomorrow, but I know nothing. Can you please send me free resources?"
And like... it's up to every community member whether or not to respond to these, and I'm all for encouragement. But does accessibility really need people who aren't willing to pay for materials, have unrealistic expectations of how much there is to learn, and may have even lied their way into a position they clearly don't want?
I think not, personally.
Okay, this is just stupid! One of the benefits of having a #website is that people can access your services at any time, day or night, right? Well, I just went to the #SocialSecurity website to try and get a benefit verification letter, which I need because I'm trying to reestablish a #VocationalRehabilitation case. I clicked "Sign In" and was greeted by this message:
This service is not available at this time.
Please try again during our regular service hours (Eastern Time):
| Day | Service Hours |
|-----|--------------|
| Monday-Friday | 4:15 a.m. - 1:00 a.m. |
| Saturday | 5:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. |
| Sunday | 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m. |
| Federal Holidays | Same hours as the day the holiday occurs. |
If you need immediate assistance:
You may call us Monday through Friday: 8:00AM - 7:00PM at: 1-800-772-1213
If you are deaf or hard-of-hearing, call our toll-free TTY number: 1-800-325-0778
This of the website limitation is especially frustrating for me because I have a #Non24HourSleepWakeDisorder and an unpredictable schedule. It feels like the website is designed without thinking about people like me who need flexibility.
Has anyone else out there had similar issues with government services or other websites?
#Vent #Venting #Disability #ChronicIllness #Accessibility #DisabilityRights #InclusiveDesign #GovernmentServices #PublicServices
@disability@a.gup.pe @disability@beehaw.org @disabilityjustice @accessibility @chronicillness @spooniechat @spoonies
This study explores using Spatial Audio, musical cues, and audio descriptions to enhance the video game experience and to make it accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. The study included a mix of participants with and without visual impairments. The feedback highlighted the importance of accessible keyboard controls and sounds that convey character movement and object location. #accessibility https://journals-sol.sbc.org.br/index.php/jis/article/view/4439
Anyone got any details on the firmware updates and such?
> The time has finally come for the most exciting conference of the year! Visit Selvas BLV at booth #508, where our staff will be there to share with you exciting firmware and product updates we have in store for 2025!
🟡 Accessible Design Checklist
by Laura Kalbag
at @penpot
Someone sent me a podcast called Accessibility and Gen AI by @Ted_drake and, aside from doubting if they'll have disabled AI critics on the show, my main response to their latest episode is https://robertkingett.com/posts/6593/ #AI #Accessibility #Luddite
Wow, it's been about 3 weeks since I got my OnePlus 13. The only times I've turned on my iPhone is to update it, and like once to try out Braille support in the betas, and to show off the kinda updated Siri voices VoiceOver can use. But about 97% of the time, it's all Android! I can't believe I'm finally doing it!
Last night I started writing a blog post about why LLMs don't generate good #accessible markup, mainly to get some thoughts out of my head. Now that I've sunk two thousand words into it I feel like it's tipped the scales into "deserves to be finished" territory. #accessibility
My apologies if this is common knowledge among screen reader users, but I’ve just learned something new. Often, when scrolling social media, my Voiceover voice would change to a non-English speaking voice and read a post in another accent. It was so pronounced that I could not understand the post even though swiping through one word at a time did allow me to read the words which were clearly in English. But I’ve had French, German, Russian, Arabic & Oriental accents cropping up for no obvious reason.
I thought this might be something to do with Language Detection but it’s not. The way to fix it is quite bizarre.
I use Fiona as my Primary voice. But someone suggested I revert to some other voice as the primary one, then add Fiona as a Rotor Voice. So I put good old Daniel back as my primary voice, then added Fiona to the Rotor. After selecting Fiona from the rotor, I went back and checked one of the posts I had been unable to read and this time it worked perfectly.
Quite why a Rotor voice reads a post in English but the Primary voice doesn’t is beyond me, but if anyone else is having this problem, this is how to fix it.
#Accessibility #Voiceover
"A really cool sight I stumbled upon yesterday in Salthill... A solar-powered park bench serving as a phone charging station and offering public WiFi!
*Very* #Solarpunk! 🌞"
h/t to @VallescuraRule, copied from his BS account
I love this. I love big, grand, multi-problem-solving / #accessibility solutions in #UrbanPlanning - but sometimes, just a single bench can do so much. 🎉
Well now that is really nice. TwBlue's latest version is getting to be a nice alternative to tweesecake. You can now get to filter posts, you can now specify the language in which a post is written... Definitely looking like a suitable alternative, more and more.
Now, if only one could make it so the enter key does not post but rather make a new line, and to send with something like shift+enter or ctrl+enter, that'd be perfect. I will have one hell of a hard time to adjust.
Having issues with #accessibility on #HamRadioPrep for #ios and the developers don't care. I'm using the #VoiceOver #ScreenReader and the app reads two choices for each answer as if they are shuffling the choices to prevent memorization of the letters. Example: A D all of these choices are correct. Also it doesn't tell me if the answer is correct when I tap on it. I work around this by utilizing the retake missed questions feature
Edited 9d ago
J'éprouve un grand respect envers @Framasoft et tout ce qu'ils font. Mais il y a un point très grave : la plupart des solutions alternatives ne sont pas accessibles pour les utilisateurs de lecteurs d'écran… #accessibilité #accessibility