EBU Access Cast

Welcome back to 25 transcribed episode of EBU Access Cast - podcast about assistive technology for blind and partially sighted people! We started this episode with a short presentation of the EBU 2020 award best practices in web accessibility

The EBU jury attributed the first prize to EBU Czech Blind United (SONS) for its contribution in encouraging public and private sector organisations to improve their web accessibility.

The European Commission and the European Disability Forum organised on 23 September the online WEBINAR on the web accessibility directive marking this important date by which all public sector websites across the EU will have to be accessible for persons with disabilities.

If you attend often online events via Zoom and if you would like to adjust the verbosity of the events the new NVDA addon for Zoom can help you to enhance your Zoom expirience.

If you would like to separate the screen reader from the other sounds on your computer, you can do this by using Audiomixer by the Dutch company Babbage.

Have you noticed that the native Facebook website became screen reader accessible? Ingeneers from Facebook explain how they built accessibility into the new Facebook interface

Microsoft opened the Accessibility Fundamentals training to everyone. The course is composed of 4 modules that give a basic understanding of accessibility in Microsoft products.

Android 11 has been launched and we commented the new accessibility features.

The Google Lookout app has been updated and now Android users can benefit from having a similar application as Seeing AI on iOS. Pawel prepared for you a demonstration so stay tuned until the end of our episode to hear how it works.

Google Chrome started to generate accessible PDF documents by keeping the HTML structure from the saved webpage.

Libre Office 7.0 introduces accessibility checkers for documents

Wondering how to wash or iron a shirt? Laundry Lens is the app that can read care labels on clothes to determine the washing conditions.

Lego Braille Bricks, a set of bricks for children to learn Braille, launches in a couple of European countries

We also announced the new, virtual event, Sight Tech Global

which will be organised on the 2 and 3 December 2020.

If you want to stay in touch with us you can contact us via Twitter and our E-mail. Till next time stay safe!

Wellcome to the 24th episode of the Ebu Access Cast. If you are following u our  Twitter account you probably noticed that last month was unusually busy for us, because we were looking for new contributors for our podcast. After a set of interviews and selection of the Vacancies which we received from you, we are slowly starting to introduce new members of our expanded team. This time for you Xavier Ciscar and David Ciscar from Barcelona join us for almost 2 hours of very cool debate and exchange of opinions about the news from assistive tech industry. We prepared for you something really special at the end of the show, and that is the exclusive demo of Miele WDD 131 Guideline washing machine which is accessible to blind people. A special Thanks goes to Tanja Kleut who prepared very nice demo of the product.

We would like to remind you that from the previous Episode our podcast Comes with the transcript, so if you have any problems with getting our audio content, you are more than wellcome to read thru it.

WWDC20 is behind us, therefore we are bringing to you the news from New Apple accessibility features coming this fall which will make technology usable

and more accessible to all

Twitter Is Coming Out with Audio Tweets on iOS and they announced new API which might bring back many features which Twitter took away 2 years ago.

Chrome/Chrome OS Accessibility Version 83 Release Notes showed up on the internet as well, but if you in the mean time got version 84, don't worry, Google is just very quick with their Chrome releases.

Accessibility changes in the latest Firefox are bringing many improvements to screen reader users as well.

Unfortunately the future isn't so bright for the AR projects for the Moment, because we found out that Bose Shuts Down Sound Project.

If you like Computer and Video games, you will be very happy to know that Naughty Dog Makes PlayStation Game Accessible.

If you are curious to know when new Android 11 comes out, than we got  possible spoiler for you because, Google may release the stable Android 11 update on September 8th which will bring up many new accessibility improvements.

There are new releases for both NVDA (2020.2 ) and JAWS (the June

update.

In case you didn't know Whatsapp became much more integrated with Google assistant, so this time for you we bring you the tip which is explaining How to make a WhatsApp voice or video call with Google Assistant

At the end you can listen to the demo of Miele WDD131 washing machine, which Tanja prepared for us and for you.

If you would like to give us any kind of Feedback we are available as always on out Twitter and email. We will go on a month of vacation and will be back with you in September, so till than, stay safe and take care.

Welcome back to EBU Access Cast - podcast about assistive technology for blind and partially sighted people!

We are happy to say that from now on you are able to listen our podcast with the transcript which will bring better inclusion to all the listeners with different dissabilities, so if you want to read what we said, head over to it!

Lockdown measures are being eased further after 3 months of restrictions and most of us have been teleworking in that period. Owning a decent headset with a good microphone is important for virtual meetings. Tanja purchased new headset from MPOW for this purpose and shared with us her impressions.

We talk about the new features in iOS 13.5 and the Apple Exposure Notification System which lets apps from public health authorities and governments worldwide help people figure out if they've been exposed to COVID-19, and if so, what steps to take next to minimize the spread of the virus.

Staying on the same topic we spoke about SODAR - the Google's experimental web app that helps the user measure 2 metres by using augmented reality and keep the distance from other people. None of us managed to make it work on our devices. Mario recommended to use the Sunu band for this purpose as the user can adjust in the phone app the distance of an obstacle to be announced.

Microsoft released the Spring feature update for Windows 10, a.k.a. version 2004

wwith many accessibility improvements for blind and partially sighted people.

What if we could read braille without touching the surface? German researchers have developed an ultrasonic haptic speaker HaptiRead that allows to display Braille dots without contact.

New Art Scanning Method Offers 3-D Image Of Painting’s Brush Strokes This technology could help improve online art lessons and virtual museum tours as well as make paintings more accessible to visually impaired people.

As of May 2020, the alternative text has been enabled by default on the web interface of Twitter as well as iOS and Android apps. This is a great progress for our community and we hope that users will take advantage of it and describe images that they are adding to their tweets.

We take the oportunity to share you the anouncement on the webinar from Be My Eyes on how top companies like Microsoft and google are benefiting from accessibility

Be My Eyes introduces customizable Siri shortcuts for iPhone users.

Paweł presented us the project Hello Emma that uses provisoric Siri setup for the languages that don't support it natively using a system of interconnected Siri shortcuts that respond to commands and perform the usual Siri actions. The languages supported for now are Czech, Slovak and there is a development process going on for Polish and Hungarian.

We spoke about the I-Cane that is a smart cane with navigation via a connected phone app and obstacle avoidance developed through a cooperation of the Lion Club departments in different European countries.

We hope to enspire some of our listeners to start doing workout at home or to continue if they had to stop in their sport centres. We found few resources with audio described workouts.

The first is from BlindAlive where you can download different workouts from cardio, pilates to yoga meditations, whatever you prefer.

Another place to find audio described workoutss is at the website of the British Blind Sport The accessible fitness trackers can help you in monitoring your progress to help you attain your health and fitness goals.

Google Fit is one of them and Mario shared his expirience with us on the accessibility of the application on the Fosil Gen 5 watch.

As always, we look forward to you sharing your comments and feedback with us. Feel free to reach out  via our email or Twitter. Until the next edition!

Welcome back to the May edition of the EBU Access Cast, full of interesting news from the Assistive Technology and Digital Accessibility industries.

We kicked off this one by holding a small exchange of Android apps between Mario and Paweł including email clients and useful Wear OS apps.

WE then discussed all that is new and accessible in the latest release of Chrome marked with the version number 81.

Apart from browsers, both of the popular Windows screen readers, NVDA and JAWS, have had their latest versions released recently as well.

An episode recorded in May would not be complete without mentioning the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, celebrated on the 21st of this month. As always it is full of various events and activities most of which will be held online this year and so many more of you will be able to attend. Discussing accessibility gave us a chance to wonder how accessible COVID-19 contact tracing apps in different countries of Europe might be and whether this is a reliable solution in its current form.

In the last episode, we pointed to the fact that mask usage instructions in an accessible form have proven to be impossible to find. A month has passed and, surely enough, the German organisation of the blind and partially sighted DBSV have published their own page on using masks.

As we often remind you, books are a great part of accessibility and thanks to an interesting Daisy Consortium webinar, we had a chance to learn about some solutions allowing those with reading disabilities to access their favourite books using smart speakers.

One service not mentioned in the webinar is Pratsam, a Finnish solution that makes it easy for a library to setup their digital access portfolio ready with cloud, web and mobile apps as well as smart speaker skills.

Another company that has not fallen behind in delivering outstanding accessibility experience is Apple. From the patents they have applied for, we can deduce that a support for enhanced photo taking accessibility features are forthcoming and so is the ability to make binaural (3D) recordings with the iPhone. The celebration of this month's accessibility awareness activities has also been marked by their making available of a brand new accessibility website. VoiceOver improvements can be also spotted in the latest release of Logic Pro X, the music-making and sound editing software.

We may learn soon what else is new in regards to accessibility at both Apple and Google as both companies intend to hold their events on the 22th and 3rd of June respectively.

Speaking of large companies and communities, a set of Wordpress-related accessibility resources has been published by the Deque University.

Finally, we shared a way in which all of us could contribute into building amazing technology that will profit us in the future. Mozilla Common Voice is an initiative where everyone can contribute voice data for a wide variety of languages to make it possible for robust speech technologies to be built. Our listeners in Slovenia will be also pleased to know that Tina has joined the Vocalizer TTS family extending the offer of available language options.

As always, we look forward to you sharing your comments and feedback with us. Feel free to reach out  via our email and Twitter to let us know what's on your minds. Until the next edition!

Welcome to this month's edition of the EBU Access Cast. As always, we are bringing you some pretty exciting news in the area of assistive technology.

The current situation caused by the spread of the novel Coronavirus has impacted our lives in multiple ways, especially so in the case of people with visual impairments. It is therefore difficult to escape this subject completely. The news, however, will definitely be useful in coping with the new reality of self-isolation, social distancing and working remotely.

To cover the most frequently asked questions, the EBU has compiled a list of resources where the advice from different national partners regarding mobility, everyday life, safety and help, is provided.

We also mentioned some of those general tips and tricks that will let you stay safe as well as discussed campaigns of the disability umbrella organizations started to ensure that whatever strategy is applied to combat the virus in the different European countries, their disabled citizens will be a part of it.

Next up, we mentioned accessible resources allowing us to stay informed about the situation, including an accessible statistics tracker and an information website by Google.

It is also important to be sure that help is available, should you need it. IHelpYou.app is one example of a service that makes it easy to find local volunteers in your area. The website is of course 100% accessible.

Just like you, we are hoping to go back to normality as soon as possible, although the world Post-Corona will not be the same as it was. Perhaps we will be able to move freely again but how do we make sure that we are safe then? An initiative by Google and Apple may provide a solution to detect the virus where it appears before it spreads too far.

Meanwhile, as a significant part of work has moved online, video conferencing has become the everyday reality of communication and zoom is one of the most used tools to facilitate that. Fortunately, it provides a really accessible and pleasant to use experience which becomes even clearer after listening to Jonathan Mosen's "Meet Me In The Cloud" audiobook, now available for free.

The PEAT have also compiled a list of useful resources that may come in handy when arranging different aspects of working away from your office desk.

The world might have slowed down a little but it does not mean that the assistive technology industry has gone completely silent. Last month, we told you about Google working on a new Talkback version with a Braille keyboard. You've probably heard it from the news all over the Internet by now but that version is already here and, what's even better, that's not everything Android Accessibility wants to surprise us with. As spotted in the development documentation of Android 11, we may be seeing the support for multi-finger gestures rolling out this fall..

IT is meanwhile speculated that Apple may be working on support for third-party text-to-speech voices and that the feature may be seeing the light as soon as iOS 14. Should this be true, and adding to that the appearance of the brand new, long awaited iPhone SE 2020, we may be up for a real mobile accessibility showdown by the end of this year.

The first beta of NVDA 2020.1 is already out and, although not as rich in features as the previous release, welcomes some useful improvements and bugfixes.

Quite often these days, a well-designed CMS tool is capable of performing a lot of the work required to make a website fully accessible. Drupal is proving that with the accessibility tools and enhancements introduced in the 8th version of the engine and next ones are already scheduled for the upcoming release.

For our listeners who are keen on writing, Onkyo and the World Blind Union are inviting you to take part in this year's edition of the Onkyo World Braille Essay Contest. Listen on to find out what it is about and why it is worth taking part in it.

We came back to the subject of Envision Glasses. since our last announcement, the pre-sale has begun and the Envision team started organizing a series of webinars to demonstrate the product and answer all of the burning questions about the device.

Speaking of glasses, one question that comes up a lot when talking about accessibility for the blind is, to what extent can Virtual Reality experiences be enjoyable by those who can't see at all? Microsoft is trying to tackle that one with their prototype of a white cane designed to allow blind users to explore the VR independently. This piece of news allowed us to talk in more general terms about the challenges and chances stemming from VR and 360 degree videos for blind users. Many meaningful insights on this subject can be found in Equal Entry's webinar which you can access upon registration.

That is all for this month but watch this space for the next episode coming by the end of May where we'll be sure to deliver even more exciting news. Meanwhile, feel free to reach out with your thoughts and suggestions through our Email and Twitter.

Wellcome to the 20th episode of Ebu Access Cast. We have come to the 20th episode so far, and we would like to thank you for listening to us. We are preparing some nice goodies for you for the future episodes, but new surprise will be coming to you soon. In the mean time, let's check what's going on in this dark times which hovers around the world.

As the Corona pandemics is taking over the Europe and rest of the world, lots of jobs are transfered to teleworking. We made a research to see how it affects the tech giants and assistive tech industry in general and how the whole situation affects the state of accessibility in different environments.

Tech giants will keep paying hourly staff even if they are asked to stay home due to coronavirus

Mr Shadi Abou-Zahra tweeted that schools and universities should not forget to include accessibility in their online courses. Alejandro Moledo also  reminds us that all tv providers which broadcast the emergency information must be accessible to all - so with subtitles, sign language, spoken subtitles and audio description.

Pawel from our team discovered Discord, free voice and chat client which has a bunch of nice features, great audio sound and the possibility of having up to 50 users connected for free on the server during the Corona pandemics instead of 10 users. It is available for all major platforms and it offeres a nice accessibility. As the client is equipped with very good audio and video features, some people started to use it for online learning courses.

Due to the prevention of the Corona pandemics many people are transfered to work from their offices to their homes. Since lots of population is not in the offices any more, we still have to maintain our comunication, and it is important that the comunication between each other is safe and encripted. Therefore, we are introducing to you the Signal private messenger, available and accessible for iOS and Android users. Signal offers very nice audio quality of voice calls and audio messages, and what's the most important it offers true end to end encription. For the last few weeks it is recommended messaging client for comunication between European institutions as well.

To know more about the Signal check out its Wikipedia page.

Beginning of March brought up some unexpected news for many users of Android Accessibility Suite, where a thousands of public beta testers from all over the world over night were no longer available to get the newest beta versions. Google never came up with the official explanation what happened and why they pulled out so many beta testers at once. Mario and Pawel speculated that this could be because the newest beta version was not supposed to be public version, and it was supposed to be distributed only to the internal testing team. However, even if such huge mistake could be the truth, we would still like to receive the official announcement from Google accessibility team, so as soon as we get any information about it, we will forward it to you. Until that time, we really find this kind of behaviour from such a huge tech giant absolutely untolerable and disgraceful towards the whole visualy impaired Android community.

Voice Dream Scanner appeared also for Android in the last few weeks, so Pawel who tested the application explained what's different between Android and iOS version, as well as how the application works on Android platform.

YouTube gains channel filter in subscriptions, better playback control

Accessibility

Codejumper is officialy on sale for 999 Dollars.

Twitter Accessibility channel Tweeted a message about alt texts and their correct implementation for Android and iOS users.

If you are the user of new Microsoft Edge, you will find that DevTools accessibility in Microsoft Edge is Improving from each new release.

This is all we got for you for this month. We wish to all of you to stay healthy, and that you watch over each other untill the next month. As always, we are available for all comunication over our email and Twitter channel.

Welcome to the 19th episode of the EBU Access Cast. This is the second episode that you can listen our podcast in chapters in your favourite podcast player. Find out with us which podcast players support EBU Access Cast chapters.

Mario shared with us his experience about Focus 40 Blue 5th Gen refreshable braille display from Freedom Scientific. The device is light, small, sturdy and it can have 5 simultaneous bluetooth connections and one USB Type-C. It works both as braille display and notetaker and it is very responsive when used with a screen reader. Our regular listeners know from previous episodes that Mario is a musician and that he plays string instruments so he likes that the firmness of the dots can be adjusted on Focus 40.

NVDA 2019.3 is Out and it brings many new features, changes and bug fixes. Screen curtain and focus highlight are the default feature of NVDA now and you can predefine the shortcut in the input gestures menu. At the end of the episode you can hear our demo of the new features in NVDA. Note, however, that add-ons that were not updated to be compatible with the new NVDA will not work anymore and you can check the status on the NVDA add-ons repository. Mario shared with us a tip about the NVDA add-on updater that can automate the process and download updated NVDA add-ons for you.

The New, stable Chromium-based Microsoft Edge is Available And compatible with NVDA 2019.3 and JAWS 2020 February update. It starts with number 79 and it comes with the Windows update or you can download it as standalone installer. The new Edge is much more responsive, uses less resources, provides more shortcuts and the interface is very intuitive. You can check the information related to accessibility of the new Edge and the list of Edge shortcuts on the Microsoft page.

The Microsoft Accessibility Webinars demonstrate How To Use Various Microsoft applications With Assistive Technology. You can find 12 episodes from this sirie in the archive and we hope that Microsoft will do more similar webinars in the future for customers with disabilities.

Raspberry Pi Becomes More Accessible With The Addition of Orca screen reader.

APH announces new products:

Chameleon 20 braille device which main purpose is to help blind students in tclassrooms, Mantis Q40 refreshable braille display combined with the querty keyboard, handheld video magnifier with OCR functionality and 2 different desktop braille embossers PixBlaster and PageBlaster that can print braile text and tactile graphics.

We shared with you the results of a study done in UK Regarding The Accessibility Of The Online Shopping Experience that shows that persons with disabilities find difficulties in buying online groceries, train tickets, clothing, ordering food delivery, booking rooms in hotels or finding information and purchasing tickets for leasure or sport activities.

Envision AI is coming to Google glasses

with the known Envision AI features: OCR with TTS, scanning products, recognising images and the plan is to add new features like video calls. The interface will be accessible with a special screen reader done for this particular glasses. We hope that we will be able to test the product at special events dedicated to asssistive technologies for visually impaired persons in Europe.

Stay tuned with us! Send us comments or suggestions via Twitter or e-mail and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Welcome to the 18th EBU Access Cast!

Since this is the first podcast for 2020, we wish you all the best in 2020 from the whole team, and we hope that you will get some nice new gadgets which will expand and improve your daily Living.

We also made some improvements in our podcast since 2020, and that means from now on our podcast supports chapters Section, which means that if you want to listen something that specifically interests you, you can directly skip to your favorite chapter in your favorite podcast Player. The chapters do not work directly if you are listening the podcast from the web Player, therefore this is another reason why it is better to subscribe to our podcast directly from the podcast players such as Apple podcasts on iPhone or Podcast adict on Android platform.

Now let’s jump into the news Section to see what we have prepared for you:

This year CES 2020 was occupied by many more assistive technology vendors than on the previous CES events, which is absolutely a positive sign. Therefore we selected a few of the most interesting products which were shown for general public:

First Braille tablet shown at CES 2020

While we don’t have too much technical information about the Tactile Pro, it is great to see that such devices are slowly getting into the mainstream and that braille as the most important form of written form for blind people is being updated into new device.

Hap2Phone Allows Users to Feel Objects in Photos on Their Touchscreens

Hap2U, a haptics developer specialized in integrating sensory intelligence into tactile surfaces, will unveil Hap2Phone, the world’s first haptic smartphone display, at CES 2020. While this device isn’t made for the end consumers, the concept of such a device might be very interesting for System integrators and OEM manufacturers.

OrCam Announces New AI Hearing Device and Handheld AI Reader at CES 2020

OrCam is a known vendor from Israel. This time they decided to expand their product line towards the users with Hearing and reading problems with 2 new products. We don’t know what  the price of the products will be yet, however this does not mean that you should not visit their Stand on the upcoming assistive tech events such as the Sight City 2020 where you can try their products directly.

W3C Launches an Introduction to Web Accessibility Free Online Course in Cooperation with UNESCO IITE

On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (UNESCO IITE) announced the launch of the online course built on the W3C’s Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) open curricula with international expert trainers from W3C Member organizations.

[The MOOC begins on January 20, 2020.]

How to make museums more accessible for disabled people? Ask them

The Arches project took place in 6 different museums across Europe for the last 3 years and they came up with really interesting results which Pawel represented to us in the podcast.

This time we prepared really cool news for visually impaired musicians:

Building Raspberry Pi Smart Guitar for Blind, Deaf and Mute Musicians

This really cool Instrument combines various tech solutions built into one device, allowing the users with seeing, Hearing or speech problems to use it as they wish. The users can choose to receive the information via built in small Display, read the information via built in braille Display or choose the built in buttons for going through the menus in the guitar, in case the users have speech problems which they can read thru the built in Display or hear it thru the built in Speaker.

Avid and Berklee College of Music Team Up to Deliver Innovative Accessibility Features for Visually Impaired Music Creators

Musicians who are visually impaired finally can get really excited, because Sibelius will become much more accessible for Jaws, NVDA and Voice over users in the near future. That means that the Level of integration will be much improved for students and musicians who need to utilize Sibelius for composing on the daily bases. For many years visually impaired community was struggling with accessibility of Sibelius which is in todays world one of the main tools used for composing and arranging, and it looks like that this will finally change.

VIEWS International published the results of the VIPTech project, and Bart gave us more info about it.

EUROPEAN DISABILITY FORUM AND ORACLE E-ACCESSIBILITY SCHOLARSHIP 2019-2020

If you are Student who is studding IT related subjects and if you are visually impaired you may want to apply to the following scolaireship till March 6th.

Index Donation Program 2020

If your organisation is envolved with Braille literacy but you think that you are in need for a new braille printer you can apply to the following donation program and see if you wil be one of the winners.

Applications are now open for the 2020 Holman Prize

If you think that you are the next inventor who will change the future in our community, apply to the Holman Prize and get 25000 dollars. 2019 Holman Prize winner Yuma Decaux software engeneer, specialist in 3d and mixed media

creating an app to enable blind citizen scientists to participate in the search for exoplanets by listening to space.

Google Assistant Now Has Interpreter Mode on Android and iOS Devices

We checked live in the podcast if the feature Works for the smartphones, and the result was very positive. Than we also checked if the same feature is available on the Android smartwatches, but weren’t sucsessful in getting it to work. That means that the smartwatch users will have to wäit a bit longer untill the interpretor arrives.

However we were able to talk about another cool feature which allows all the users of Google Assistant to check their local air quality. IN order to activate it, just say “Talk to Air Quality Index”. After that the assistant will ask you for your location permmition, and after a few seconds you will get the results from the closest air quality measuring station.

The last information for today Comes from Pawel who presented to us Z5NBY RetroArch 1.8.2 – Accessibility features for blind people. If you are a blind Gamer who likes the old style games like a final Fantasy this will be a great news for you, since you are able to play the game which you could not do it before.

As always, we are here for you on our Twitter and e-mail so give us a Feedback about the last Episode, and we are looking forward to be back with you in February.

We are back with the latest episode of the EBU Access Cast and as it happens the last one for the year 2019 and the teens of this century. As Christmas is drawing closer, we began this episode with some tech gadget Christmas gifts discussion. Mario bought a Fossil 5 Gen Wear OS smartwatch and shared his experience of setting it up for the first time. His brief demo of this device's possibilities can be found in the demo Time section of this show.

We kicked off the news section by mentioning the winner of this year's Accessible City Award of the European Commission the Polish capital Warsaw. This was an opportunity for Paweł to tell a little bit about various initiatives, projects and good practices applied in the city to make it friendly for its visually impaired inhabitants. Among the projects discussed there was the Invisible Exhibition which explains life with blindness to sighted visitors, the social campaign "Path of Accessibility: Share Your Space" which raises awareness of issues connecting to navigating the public space of Warsaw by persons with visual impairments and the in-door and outdoor beacon-based orientation system Totupoint.

You can learn more about the Accessible City Award by watching a described Video created by the European Commission in cooperation with the EBU represented by Tanja.

WE returned to Seeing AI with its important update for many users across Europe as support for new languages is introduced.

We then mentioned some good news for all of our musician listeners as the Musescore music notation software adds new accessibility features and SM music Reader, the first Android and in general mobile app for accessible reviewing and drawing of music notes appears on the market.

Coming back to Poland for a while, Paweł shared an example of a good accessibility practice introduced by one of the local operators of self-service package pick-up stations.

This was not the only accessibility innovation in terms of self-service devices that we discussed as we also delved into what manufacturers of touchscreen-based payment terminals do to allow operation by blind customers. Valina and Pax A920 will be one of the first solutions to tackle this challenge.

New year is the time of resolutions and decisions to do something different. WE bring you some inspiration with BeMyEyes's hand-picked list of accessible museum and art experiences, most of them located in Europe.

If you prefer consuming different forms of art from the comfort of your house, we also took a look at See, one of Apple's exclusive TV shows available for their brand-new streaming platform Apple TV Plus. The show takes place in a world inhabited by a population where almost everyone is blind. We invite you to hear and read how it is like directing an action-packed show with blind actors in cast and consulted in close cooperation with blindness organizations.

Before concluding the show we also talked about one of EBU's current campaigns focused on the Marrakesh Treaty, European Accessibility Act and the accessibility in the book publishing industry. We will hear more on the matter from Antoine Fobe from the EBU who will be interviewed by Tanja.

Remember that you can send us your comments and suggestions through our email and Twitter. WE will be happy to hear them.

Last but not least, we at the EBU Access Cast would like to wish all of our listeners  a merry Christmas and all the best  for the year 2020. May all of your plans and goals come to fruition and new ones come to mind.