65% of vision impaired people are over 50 years of age, despite making up only 20% of the world's population.
Accessible technology benefits everyone. As we age vision impairment becomes more likely. NVDA's free and open-source technology ensures no one is unfairly disadvantaged because of their vision.
You can support NV Access providing accessible technology by donating:
Access for All: Two friends helping change opportunities for blind people with an open-source screen reader for all. Now on Microsoft Unlocked: https://unlocked.microsoft.com/nvda/
This Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we have something special to share! @github made a movie about our founders Mick & Jamie & the story of not only NVDA, but also OSARA. Two life-changing open-source projects. Both actively providing access & employment to blind people around the world.
In this episode, of Next Gen Access, our roundtable dives into what they'd like to see next in the screen reader NVDA. Topics include improving the Add-on store , exploring ways for NV Access to generate revenue, simplifying the experience for brand new users, and how AI can inform and enhance the future of NVDA. Our roundtable includes JJ @blindbargains@ricky_enger@ShaunOfTheShedhttps://pnc.st/s/next-gen-access/bc7cd44d/episode-3-nvda-what-we-hope-is-next-#a11y#NVDA
how you move to next elements, e.g. headings, comments, footnote in a google doc? here goes! ctrl+alt+n, ctrl+alt+c for next comment, except when you press ctrl+alt+n, nvda starts/quits,
so what's the alternative? #accessibility#nvda#screenReader#googleDocs
This week's In-Process is out! Featuring the latest on NVDA 2024.1, add-on updates, the Microsoft FOSS Fund, Philanthropy Australia awards, an Interview with our GTO Gerald, and more! All available now at: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-22nd-april-2024/
Cool. Each time I start #NVDA now, the AI Content Describer pops up a dialog that says:
> Some of the dependencies required for this NVDA add-on to run are not available on your computer. Would you like to download them now?
Except I have no idea what the dependencies are, how much space they'll take up, why they're needed, and if the add-on will work without them. All I can do is answer Yes to commit to something I don't understand, or No and keep being prompted by this nag message over and over again.
If you too are wondering what the heck this is all about...
The file downloaded for the most recent version of NVDA is aic-py-3.11.zip. It's 33.6 MB zipped, 105 MB extracted, and contains a bunch of Python packages includeing: cv2, html.parser, markdown, numpy, PIL, pygrabber, xml, and supporting files.
My verdict is that it's safe/acceptable to download, but I was initially worried it was going to download all of the pieces for local model support or similar.
"A project of the Microsoft Open Source Programs Office, the FOSS Fund provides up to $10,000 USD in sponsorships to open source projects as selected by Microsoft employees."
Congratulations also to The GNU Compiler Collection, Urllib3, CLAP & MSW.
New blog post! Free #accessibility consulting for #tidal! #music recommendations from yours truly! #ScreenReader testing! Click here and find out how #NVDA clearly wins this iteration of the series:
Our new Chief Technology Officer, Gerald Hartig, is being interviewed on Vision Australia Radio tonight at 8:10pm AEST (About 1hr 15mins after I post this). You can tune in online at: http://player.listenlive.co/65731/
#SpeechHistory for #NVDA has been updated for 2024.1 compatibility, and even includes a new feature!
You can now capture multiple speech history items in realtime, which is useful for e.g. bug reports without copying from the Speech Viewer. Press NVDA+Shift+F11 to start recording, use NVDA as normal, and then press NVDA+Shift+F12 to stop recording. All recorded speech will be copied to the clipboard, with items separated by a line break (\n).
If you missed it yesterday, #SpeechHistory for #NVDA has been updated for 2024.1 compatibility, and includes a new speech recording feature. Use NVDA+Shift+F11 to start recording, and NVDA+Shift+F12 to stop, at which point the recorded speech will be copied to the clipboard.
Note that the add-on should also be listed in the Store soon.
In March 2023, I submitted #SpeechHistory to the #NVDA Add-On Store, which at the time was very new. I ran into errors with the process NVAccess had in place, some of which were caused by problems with my submission. Unfortunately, my PR was closed before I had time to address them, and I didn't have the mental energy at the time to try again.
I gave it another go this week, now that the Store and related procedures have undergone a lot of testing and growth. This time, I needed to be approved as a new add-on submitter, which is a totally reasonable requirement. Unfortunately the process seemed to become stalled on the NVAccess side with no information as to why, including after a follow-up from me.
Thankfully, somebody from the community approached me privately tonight, and offered to submit the add-on using their existing trusted contributor status. The end result is that Speech History is now in the Store, and I guess I'll come back in 2025 and hope for third time lucky.
I just updated my screen reader, #NVDA, to version 2024.1.
A few notes of interest:
All add-ons I consider essential work. Remote isn't updated yet but TeleNVDA is.
Unspoken, which I maintain, hasn't been updated but can be force enabled and works. Some time this week I'll issue a new release.
Of the non-essential add-ons that I'd like to have but haven't tried forcing, I'd highlight Instant Translate and Calibre.
I've also made a donation. I encourage others to contribute to NVDA, with code, translations, time or money, if their situation permits. NVDA doesn't update itself. It's not only my favourite screen reader, but it's essential to keep our needs in focus, maintain our independence, and avoid monopoly.
The third edition of David Kingsbury’s popular free digital book, “The Windows Screen Reader Primer: All the Basics and More,” is coming soon! Author David Kingsbury, an Assistive Technology Instructor here at the Carroll Center, wrote this comprehensive resource to help JAWS, NVDA, and Windows Narrator users work more effectively with the most important PC applications—like Microsoft Office, email clients, and web browsers.
Join author David Kingsbury via Zoom on Thursday, April 4 at 7:30 pm ET to find out what’s new in this edition, hear a few tips and tricks, and ask your questions. Save your seat here: https://lnkd.in/e7ct_C8B
I think I'd like to see #NVAccess consider moving one add-on per major release to the core functionality of #NVDA as a way to quickly enhance the capabilities of the actual screen reader. Perhaps a vote of the users could be taken to decide where to focus such work. I'm perfectly fine with voting for functionality, but not voting for #accessibility as that just has to be there no matter what.
NV Access is very pleased to share the release of the NVDA 2024.1 Release Candidate. Unless any major issues are identified, this will be identical to the final release. We encourage all users to test the Release Candidate. Many updates including on-demand speech mode, native selection in Firefox, bulk actions in the add-on store and much more! Read the full details and download at: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-1rc1/
Someone should replicate some/most of leasey into nvda Addons. Previously we had v-terbo and v-mouse, but it has been discontinued. #nvda#screenReader#addon