Headline: "I Don't Understand why we Need This!": Sighted User Furious at Accessibility Feature for Blind People.
Reginald Cavendish, of Castle Combe in Wiltshire, today made an impassioned plea for a technology company to reconsider their new #accessibility feature for #blind and #lowVision users, aimed at creating visual descriptions of images in a privacy-preserving way.
Speaking to reporters from his 1,800-acre estate, Reginald communicated his confusion about why the feature was being considered in the first place.
"I'm not clear on exactly who asked for this," he said. "When I need something, I ask one of my staff, and it just tends to get done. I take great Solace in that human touch, and I can't really comprehend why people would want computers doing things for them! My son has some friends who've seen disabled people on the television, and he didn't understand it either."
When asked whether he supported increased independence for people who are unable to see, he responded: "Look, some people have the money to pay people to be at their beck and call, to describe images or pick up their eyedrop bottles or what-have-you. I understand that doesn't go for everyone, but if someone can't afford human help, I'd suggest they'd be much happier making peace with the scraps they're thrown by society."
Editor's note: Reginald was asked to describe the featured image for this article. "Man on lawn," he offered over one shoulder, before moving off for a spot of afternoon shooting.
Can someone link me to an article or something explaining how utterly terrible #hCaptcha is for #blind people? I need to slap a VPN provider in the face with it.
#AccessKit question. I'd like to recommend this to developers so they can make their projects more #accessible. I noticed there's no documentation. Is it easy enough to learn without the need for documentation? If not, I'm hesitant to recommend something that I know developers are going to struggle with. It's tough enough asking them to make their apps accessible when they don't know much about us, let alone asking them to learn a new library with no docs. #Accessibility#Blind#VisuallyImpaired
Hi #blind folks, especially software developers! I'm taking part in a #GitHub research meeting and I hope to raise as many #accessibility points as I can. I was told this fact is not at all confidential, so I may gather feedback.
Here's what I remember: multiline comments are inaccessible (eternal story); sometimes menu roles are used where they shouldn't be (watching repos, reactions etc.). Anything else that really bugs you at GitHub? Thanks!
Linux blind users, listen to this and let me know what you guess this actually is, and most importantly, what you think! I'm just gauging interest as this is still in its early infancy, and I was wondering if it was worth continuing. As you can infer, I'm already far enough to have a working yet incomplete prototype!
I also find it interesting how there are entire organizations who all they do is find ways to end blindness altogether instead of helping people live with it. Sort of the cowards way out honestly. Can't live like a real human being and be tough enough to be a blind person in society. Foundation fighting blindness is a joke. #Blind
I'll never understand the hatred for #AI. For me, AI is like any other tool plus it makes things a whole hell of a lot easier and more accessible. Be my AI, for example describes pics I otherwise wouldn't be able to see. I just can't understand the hate. I hope AI continues developing itself to the absolute extreme. I want self-driving cars. #Blind
If you are #blind and you have been locked out of being able to use your InstantPot after the inaccessible app update, please email support@instantpot.com and refer to Case 02284154 asking that they restore #VoiceOver#accessibility to their #iOS app.
So... This will probably be a long-shot and I reckon finding this archive will probably not be possible in the slightest, but I am looking to find the NHB Radio Show archive that was released a few years ago. 16 gigs worth of shows spanning from 2006 to the end of 2015. I have part of 2014's shows, and all of 2015's shows, but I wanted to find it to archive the rest. Out of respect for Liam though, I would ask for a private link as I don't want this getting around unintentionally, as I worry that it would effect his now more mature outlook in life and his professional stance that he's got going on now, but I originally paid $90 for the archive but lost a majority of it when I didn't have a place to store the data. If anyone has this, please reach out so we can work something out privately. I will not be sharing this content anywhere, I just want it for my own entertainment and because I miss the shows of the past. #Blind#Archive
@mutualaid Sorry for continuously posting this, but this is an emergency! If £9.49 isn't paid today, my phone number will be deactivated! I'm very stressed and anxious right now!
A friend taught me about this thing called step recording using #Reaper. I can use this to make custom sounds for my programs. Is there some sosrt of person who is teaching this? #Blind, #MusicProduction
I had given up on pleading for more alt-text but I'll try again!
Please add alt-text to your photos/pictures it only takes a minute and does not have to be fancy. My policy is not to boost images without alt-text and I am not the only one.
This is one of the cultural things I like about Mastodon, the inclusiveness. Please don't ruin it.
So, I know generative AI is supposed to be just the most incorrect thing ever, but I want you to compare two descriptions. "A rock on a beach under a dark sky." And: The image shows a close-up view of a rocky, cratered surface, likely a planet or moon, with a small, irregularly shaped moon or asteroid in the foreground. The larger surface appears to be Mars, given its reddish-brown color and texture. The smaller object, which is gray and heavily cratered, is likely one of Mars' moons, possibly Phobos or Deimos. The background fades into the darkness of space. The first one is supposed to be the pure best thing that isn't AI. Right? Like, it's what we've been using for the past like 5 years. And yes, it's probably improved over those years. This is Apple's image description. It's, in my opinion, the best, most clear, and sounds like the ALT-text that it's made from, which people made BTW, and the images it was made with, which had to come from somewhere, were of very high quality, unlike Facebook and Google which just plopped anything and everything into theirs. The second was from Be My Eyes. Now, which one was more correct? Obviously, Be My Eyes. Granted, it's not always going to be, but goodness just because some image classification tech is old, doesn't mean it's better. And just because Google and Facebook call their image description bullshit AI, doesn't mean it's a large language model. Because at this point in time, Google TalkBack does not use Gemini, but uses the same thing VoiceOver has. And Facebook uses that too, just a classifier. Now, should sighted people be describing their pictures? Of course. Always. With care. And having their stupid bots use something better than "picture of cats." Because even a dumb image classifier can tell me that, and probably a bit more, lol. Cats sleeping on a blanket. Cats drinking water from a bowl. Stuff like that. But for something quick, easy, and that doesn't rely on other people, shoot yeah I'll put it through Be My Eyes. #accessibility#AI#LLM#BeMyEyes#blind
Hey, if you don't like the fact that many #blind people have to rely on AI to describe images for them, you can help by, you know, describing images for them.
So fellow #blind#Android folks. I'm not as impressed with my Google Pixel Watch as I thought I would be, and am contemplating switching to a Samsung one. How #accessible are they with #Talkback? I have a #Pixel phone, in case that matters. Thanks in advance!
New instance, new introduction. Hello, I am Adam from Ottawa Canada. I am a totally blind man, identifying as he/him.
My primary interests are technology and music. I was a former professional drummer, playing the bar stages of Ottawa and the ocasional out-of-town show.
I've always been rhythmical, annoying the heck out of my parents at the tendor age of four on up banging on pots, pans, spoons, and whatever else I could get my grubby little hands on.
I got my first drum kit when I was 12, back in 1999. I got a couple of upgrades over the years, and then switched to electronic kits in 2007 when I managed to save and purchase a Roland TD-12 kit with my own money. That was like buying a car for me, LOL.
I was professionally active from 2007 until 2019.
Some hearing issues with extended loudness causing anxiety and unease started my issues with playing live shows, and then COVID19 really finished that career.
I've been interested in technology from a young age as well, receiving my first electronic note taker for the blind, a Blazie Engineering Braille Lite in 1996 at the age of 9.
I then got my first computer in the summer of 1998, learned DOS, then eventually Windows 3.1, 95, and on up.
I've had many, many, many computers and other technological devices since those days, and I have done any serious compute work in Linux, where in I am mostly referring to running servers, hosting things, and distributed compute projects.
Professionally, I am currently a systems/server administrator, backend web developer, database administrator, and infrastructure administrator.
Other interests include animals, documentaries, listening to most kinds of music, having deep intellectual conversations, and pondering the meaning of life. #Mastodon#Introduction#Ottawa#Canada#Blind#Music#Technology
Alright. Here's how it is. Once you appoint yourself as gatekeeper, you become part of the problem. We as #disabled people have precious few allies as it is, without actively alienating the ones we have. You can stand up and offer to help, stand up and provide constructive feedback on how to improve, stand up and show appreciation, or just sit your ungrateful self down. Just stop. Thanks @stefan for raising awareness of #AltText. #blind#accessibilityhttps://stefanbohacek.online/@stefan/112451222240570433
Just listened to my second podcast of the day 🎧, where the hosts are puzzled about who wants all this AI vision stuff they've seen this week. All they can come up with is blind people. Yes! Yes! Yes! We do! 🙌✨ #Blind#AI#TechForGood#Inclusion#Accessibility#ThisDayInAI#Verge
It's June 10, 2024, at 4:00 PM Central US time. Almost every blind person that owns an iPhone has installed the iOS 18 beta. Some are playing retro games with the new, AI driven screen recognition. Others are gladly using DecTalk as their main voice, the Enhanced Siri voices that use ML to speak using emotion and context, as their reading voice, Eloquence as their notification voice (sent to one ear to minimize distractions), and finding it amazing that VoiceOver emphasizes italic text, and emboldens bold text. Others are finding it amazing that they can navigate their whole phone using Braille screen input, searching to find things by typing a few letters, or just swiping down through everything. A few are connecting their multi-line Braille displays, and feeling app icons and images, made much more understandable through touch, using an AI filter.
The next day, when news of all these features filters down to Android users, they quickly begin hammering Google, wanting DecTalk and Eloquence on their Pixel phones, like iOS users have. But Google is silent as always, only just now having given Chromebook users high quality Google TTS voices.
Note: great liberty has been taken to imagine the coolest outcome for the vague feature announcements Apple gave for VoiceOver users. We'll see just how cool, or not, they actually are on June 10.