EBU Access Cast

Wellcome to the 6th episode of the Ebu Access Cast. As this is our last episode before we go on the short vacation, we would like to wish you all the best for the upcoming holidays, and that Mr Santa brings to you a bunch of the assistive tech devices and gadgets under the Christmas tree.

IN the news section this time we got the following for you:

Instagram is Becoming More Accessible for the Visually Impaired With Two New Features

The following is a follow up article about current status of the social media accessibility:

NVDA 2018.4rc2 Released

In the mean time before we published our current episode , we found out that the official version of NVDA 2018.4 was released, and therefor you can check it here:

Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration

More technical detailed explanation from Microsoft on the new transition for the Edge browser

Skype launches real-time captions and subtitles

Microsoft published complete Guide for people who are blind or low vision for Windows 10 and Office

Welcome to the new Standard keyboard layout for Narrator

Free introductory webinar for Office 365 with Jaws

New  documentary about digital accessibility in the European Parliament is out and you can watch it here:

Jakob and Mario are recommending a few gadgets to purchase for the Christmas, and for the end of the podcast Mario shared the audio tip for Android users how to turn off Picture in picture mode which can be a litle frustrating when Android is being used from the blindness prospective.

As always, our e-mail is always open for the feedback from our listeners, and you can also send us the Tweet on our EBUaccesscast Twitter account. We are looking forward to be back with you in January, but  til than, enjoy in our last episode for this year, and have a wonderfull holidays!

Welcome to the newest and fifth episode of the Ebu Access Cast. After one month period of silence during October due to a few technical problems and the Jakobs trip to Amazonian forests, we are back to bring you the newest content from around the globe from the assistive industry, and boy boy, we have a lot of interesting things to say this time. If you stay with us until the end of the news announcements, you will be able to hear our surprise demonstration about the new product, which is hitting our blindness, and sight impaired community like a storm these days. We received our first contribution from one of our listeners from Denmark which means that our podcast is being listened and followed, so we'd like to say once more thank you, Keep sending us your feedback, we are looking to expand our podcast even more in the future.

In the news section, first Jakob informs us about new software update for the Orcam, which brings new voice commands, new language support and Bluetooth connectivity. If you would like to know more about the Orcam follow the next link.

GE and Alexa Work Together to Create a Voice-Controlled Microwave with Scan to Cook Technology, and Mario tells us a bit more about it

Beginning of November started with the newest updates for Jaws 2019 as well as Fusion and Zoomtext. To read what's new for Jaws users follow this link: Mario and Jakob are also mentioning why it is important to keep our screen readers up to date, and why new Jaws 2019 is much faster than the previous versions on the web as well as in the Office applications.

Good independence in orientation and mobility is very important for blind or visually impaired person. However, when new GPS technological solutions are used properly with the aids such as white Cane or a guide dog, our independence can be increased even further. Therefore, Mario informs our listeners what's new for the last few weeks in the Lazarillo application, available for the iOS and Android platform, and why the application works much better now when used in the walking mode, which is used for the pedestrian navigation.

The last thing for the end of this episode is the demonstration, which we received from Jesper Holten who is accessibility consultant for the Danish association of the blind. The demonstration talks about the Sunu band. Using radar and augmented reality, Sunu Band enables people who are low vision and blind to travel with confidence. Advanced haptic feedback guides your way around any obstacle, and navigation sensors connect you to the world that’s around you. Designed for when you can’t easily use sight or due to a vision impairment, Sunu Band enables you to walk and travel with confidence. Sunu Band is the only smart-band that guides your way around obstacles. It uses sonar or echolocation to detect objects up to 16 feet or 5.5 meters away. Then haptic vibration feedback informs how close (or far away) you are to obstacles. Sunu Band compliments the white cane, guide dog or low vision. This smart-band augments your personal awareness, and reduces accidents to the body, chest, arms and head. Sunu Band is the only intelligent travel aid with more built-in sensors than any other device in the market. Explore and navigate unfamiliar places with Sunu Band’s haptic compass, place finder/explorer and GPS navigation app. Now you can enjoy the personal freedom of always knowing where you are, what’s around you, and how to get there with Sunu Band.

As always, we love to get your feedback, so if you have anything to say to us, send us an e-mail to [email protected] or give us a tweet on our EBUaccesscast twitter account.

Welcome to our newest episode of the Ebu Access Cast. After very hot summer, our team is back with the newest news reports from the assistive tech industry. However before we get into the newest updates we would like to notify our listeners that from now on our podcast is available on the iTunes as well, so anyone who is using their favourite Apple gadget or smart speaker such as Google Home is finally able to hear us and listen to our show when and where ever you want. To find us on the iTunes you can visit the following link:

On September 12th, Apple had their 2018 event where many news about new Apple devices were announced. Besides launch of new hardware products, we also saw new update for the iOS 12, which brings new accessibility improvements. Jakob for this episode told us about what’s new for the Voice Over users, and here is the full list of the accessibility features expected for this release. You can also visit the newest The Blind Side podcast to hear recap of the newest Apple event with the accessibility prospective in mind.

While we recorded our last episode we announced the release of NVDA 2018 3RC3 which was last release candidate version before the official 2018.3 version. Highlights of this release include automatic detection of many Braille displays, support for new Windows 10 features including the Windows 10 Emoji input panel, and many other bug fixes. However just as we prepared our shownotes for this episode we discovered that day ago official 2018.3.1 officially got released, so if you want to grab it go here and download it.

On September 23rd, European Web accessibility directive will officially become new standard in Europe for public sector web sites. Therefor-new WCAG 2.1 guidelines are starting to be adopted across Europe. Shadi Abou-Zahra wrote an excellent article about it which you can read it here.

Since we can’t finish the episode without the review of some assistive tech products, this time Bart told us the news and his opinion about the Dot watch, which represents the first smart watch equipped with Braille, sells instead of the typical talking watch environment for blind people.

As always we are always opened for the comments and suggestions from you, so if you want to drop us anything interesting including something we missed out you can contact us thru our Twitter or send us email on [email protected]

Welcome to the third episode of the Ebu Access Cast, our official podcast from EBU about assistive technology for blind and partially sighted population across the Europe. In our final episode before the summer break Jakob Rosin and Mario Percinic are joined by Bart Simons from Belgium as our third member of the team who gave us one more opinion opinion about the upcoming stories which we prepared for you this time.

Apple Developing Device and Wearable to Help Deaf and Blind Travelers

How Android Phone Users Can Send Text Messages from Any Computer

Portugal First in EU to Include Braille on Passports

TalkBack App Renamed to Android Accessibility Suite in Recent Update

Using AI to empower people with disabilities

Last but not least, Mario gave us a short demonstration of "ACUSTICA - The Swiss Watch for all senses". You can checkout more information about the watch and how to purchase it from their official web site.

For any comments and the suggestions you can write to us on [email protected] or send us a Tweet on our official Twitter. We are looking forward to being back with many news and updates in September.

Welcome to our second episode of the Ebu Access Cast. Our hosts Mario Percinic and Jakob Rosin prepared a bunch of news from the assistive tech industry, and at the end of the Podcast, you will be able to hear a short demonstration about Google Home.

But first let’s check what news do we have for you this time:

Microsoft launched new version of Windows 10 for all members of their Windows Insiders program, and the version is called Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17692.

 Except many new improvements for all users, a few accessibility related topics are covered as well. Ease of Access has a new feature for partially sighted users so that all the content can be bigger; Narrator has a new list of keyboard layout, which you can find here:

Besides new keyboard layout Narrator now supports

• Automatic Dialog Reading: Narrator will now automatically read the contents of a dialog box when brought to the foreground.  The experience is for Narrator to speak the title of the dialog, the focused element within the dialog and the static text, if any, at the top of the dialog. For example, if you try to close a document in Word with unsaved changes, Narrator will speak the title “Microsoft Word,” the focus “Save button” and the static text within the dialog.
• Narrator Find: You now have the ability to search for text using Narrator’s new Find feature. If the text is found Narrator will move to the found item. Please refer to the accompanying keyboard layout documentation for command mapping.
• List of Objects: Narrator now has the ability to present a list of links, headings or landmarks present in the application or content. You are also able to filter the results by typing in the list or the text field of the window. Please refer to the accompanying keyboard layout documentation for command mapping.
• Selection in Scan Mode: Along with being able to select content in Narrator’s scan mode using Shift-selection commands, you can now also select a block of data by first moving to one end of the block and pressing F9, moving to the other end of the block and pressing F10. Once F10 is pressed, the entire contents between the two points will be selected.
• Stop on Controls in Scan Mode: Scan mode is a feature of Narrator that lets you use just a few keys to move around your screen. Scan mode is already on by default in Edge and you can toggle it on and off by pressing Caps lock + Spacebar. While you’re in scan mode, you can press the Up and Down arrow keys to read different parts of the page. With this update, the press of a Down arrow in Scan Mode will stop on interactive elements, so that they are easier to use. An example of this new behavior is that if you are reading a paragraph with multiple links, Narrator will stop on these links when you press the Down arrow.

New Accessibility Features Coming to iPhone, Mac, Apple TV and Apple Watch

To check out all the accessibility related news for the upcoming Apple OS releases follow the link above.

Jakob gave us a short review about Aira, a new system which helps blind people to navigate around by using a special glasses or a smartphone with the guidance and the assistance from professional agents.

NVDA a very popular free screen reader has a new version for this year called 2018.2, and the list of improvements can be found here.

New version of JAWS was also launched during May and besides many improvements in the May update the biggest one is the support for Firefox 60, also called Firefox Quantum, which is finally working, again, after all of the blind users had a huge problems with Firefox performance at the end of 2017.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 finally saw the day of its official release.

  WCAG 2.1 was initiated with the goal to improve accessibility guidance for three major groups: users with cognitive or learning disabilities, users with low vision, and users with disabilities on mobile devices. To check out all the features listed visit the link on the W3C website.

Those of you who had enough patience to stay and listen to us until the end can enjoy in the demonstration from Jakob about google home.

As always, you are free to contact us thru multiple channels including our email and Twitter, and we are looking forward to bring you new stuff during the upcoming summer.

Welcome to the first episode of the EbuAccessCast, an official podcast from EBU which talks about assistive technology for blind and partially sighted people across Europe. Our hosts today in the first episode, Mario Percinic and Jakob Rosin, introduce themselves and then later talk about few things which occurred during last week in the mainstream tech portals as well as a few others which happened in the assistive tech industry.

In the news:

Google's Lookout will help the blind navigate their environment

Mario and Jakob talk briefly about the description of the Lookout app and share their opinion about it. AppleVis has launched their 2018 edition of the iOS App Hall of Fame for which you can vote here, and Jakob talks briefly about the Nominees Google assistant books restaurants and hair salons for you: In future episodes we look forward to bringing you the interviews from the makers of the assistive tech products from all around the globe and the reviews about the gadgets which we tested personally so we can tell you how good and accessible they are. Also we are open for suggestions and submissions about the product reviews from the other users. If you want to contact us, you can send us email on [email protected] or check out our EbuaccessCast twitter.