Microsoft Hack for Good Sydney 

March 8 and 9 2018 (in conjunction with Social Ventures Australia)

I was lucky enough to attend and judge Hack4Good at PwC’s Barangaroo offices last week with 12 of Microsoft’s  partner organisations participating hosted by David Masters from Microsoft.

The event focused on hacking solutions for people with disabilities.

There  were three winning teams: Humanitix who are transforming their event platform so that those with a disability can clearly communicate their accessibility needs to event organisers, Clinic to Cloud who proposed a personal disability passport to easily communicate with service providers, and PwC who explored the use of Microsofts cognitive services to clearly communicate the emotions of users during a  Skype call for those who may not be able to see or hear.

With one in five Australians living with a disability today, it was inspiring to see the commitment to accessibility from Microsofts  partner community. 

A big thanks to PwC for hosting the event and to Leonie from the Deaf Society of NSW, Rocco from KPMG, Kenny from Microsoft, Dianne from Social Ventures Australia and David Masters for their invaluable guidance to Microsoft  teams over the course of the hack.

Skype Accessibility from the Skype Blog

From the Skype blog, Microsoft will be working hard to improve accessibility of Skype arose iOS, Android, Mac and Windows, and are urging people to give them feedback.

https://blogs.skype.com/news/2018/03/16/improving-skype-accessibility/#.WqxltA6wSJw.twitter

A Reminder the CSUN 2018 is on This Week

If you use Twitter and you want to follow what is going on with CSUN, follow the Hash Tag CSUNATC18.

We’ll have lots to talk about next week from CSUN.

A great resource for news and audio interviews from CSUN 2018 is Blind Bargains who will be bringing us news and interviews.

Apple’s first Coding Session for Blind or Low Vision Students at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually  Impaired March 7 2018

Apple Experts visited the school and took students through coding in Swift Playgrounds to flying drones.

https://www.512tech.com/technology/with-assist-from-apple-visually-impaired-austin-students-learn-write-code-fly-drones/KbOaJnSwOoH2MHgTFNFAmL/

Apple’s Education Event in Chicago on March 27

We have know idea what the event is about which is being held at a  school in Chicago and is aimed and creativity for students and teachers, , but chances are that because its education, we’ll see new iPads, and MacBooks  announced.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3264007/techology-business/apple-is-holding-an-education-event-on-march-27-in-chicago.html

WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) Apple Set for June 4 2018

As this is a software developers conference, we’ll see updates across all of the OS platforms - iOS, Watch os, TV OS, and Mac OS.  Rmour is that Apple will be focussing mainly on security and stability improvements in iOS 12.

https://www.imore.com/wwdc-2018

JAWS 20108 Update March 15 2018

I think the great improvements in this update of JAWS is that JAWS can now unmute the sound card via JAWS key plus Escape (JAWS’s screen refresh), drivers for the Orbit reader, and added  a new layer command to turn Screen Shade  on/off JAWS key plus Space plus F11.

http://www.freedomscientific.com/Downloads/jaws/JAWSWhatsNew#Enhancements

Google Assistant now Available on the iPad

Just search for Google Assistant on the App Store on your iPad and you can start using the assistant the same way you can use it on your iPhone.

Tell Me About vision Australia Now on Google Home

Information about Vision Australia and our services can now be obtained from Google Home, just ask:

Hey Google Tell me about Vision Australia.