I am really, really, REALLY irritated by what I just saw. The #ImageDescription function of Microsoft's #Bing is outright lying to people with vision impairments about what appears in images it receives. It's bad enough when an #LLM is allowed to tell lies that a person can easily check for veracity themselves. But how the hell are you going to offer this so-called service to someone who can't check the claims being made and NEEDS those claims to be correct?
How long till someone gets poisoned because Bing lied and told someone it was food that hasn't expired when it has, or that it's safe to drink when it's cleaning solution, or God knows what? This is downright irresponsible and dangerous. #Microsoft either needs to put VERY CLEAR disclaimers on their service, or just take it down until it can actually be trusted.
What Braille displays (preferably 32 cells or above) would people recommend for use with NVDA? Price doesn't matter, I'm going to get the rehab agency to pay for it because I really need a display for my math, but I can't do it with my current, 14-cell display. #Braille#Math#Blindness
I asked several AI services how to compost, but I was not impressed with the answers. Composting is both simple and complicated, with not one recipe or method that works for everyone. AI is not a sustainable solution and contributes to #climatechange. Not using AI can be seen as an act of resistance.
One of my concerns with AI is that it often provides incomplete answers, despite the race to develop the latest and greatest AI technology. If you want to learn how to compost, it's best to turn to books and your local library, YouTube channels, or websites for guidance.
This is why we created this account - to help those who are interested in composting, especially since there has been a surge in interest due to the pandemic and mandatory composting laws in some areas.
@compost Are there any books that give tips for people with #chronicIllness, or #blindness. I haven't seen a lot on how to compost when you have a #disability yet. I would be an good conversation to start, if it isn't out there yet. I want to compost, but I would need confidence from people who have had experiences that would be similar to mine.
This is probably going to be a longshot, but I want to get an idea of what its like to be a #accountant from the #Blindness prospective. I have heard that #Blind accountants exist within the profession but I'd like to ask some questions about how this could work and how successful I could be. If someone is willing to talk to me about this, I'd love to have an informal interview. Please boost if you could, I would very much like to get as much knowledge as possible. #Accounting, #FinancialAccounting, #ManagerialAccounting
Remembering the time I posted on Reddit about a waitress at a chain restaurant treating a blind person like she didn't exist, repeatedly, despite very pointed suggestions from both the blind and sighted customer that she not do that. I got a lot of interesting responses from all over the map, and most of them sided against the waitress, but there were two diametrically opposed arguments that were repeated many times:
"She probably didn't know how to make eye contact so she felt awkward and didn't know how to address a blind person."
"I'm not blind, but am <insert disability here>. This happens to me all the time."
Some non-disabled people will defend ableism at all costs. Obviously, there are lots of solutions to argument #1, but it's clear that isn't even the problem. What would happen if I substituted "blind" with some other disability? Would people find another way to apologize on behalf of the abled, or is blindness just at the bottom of the totem pole?
We all need to learn to call this out when we see it. We are never in the wrong when we demand autonomy. #disability#blind#blindness#ableism
To anyone who's played with an Olympus LS-P5, does it have voice guidance? If so, it looks like an absolutely amazing replacement for the impossible-to-find LS-P4. #Blindness#Accessibility#A11y#Olympus#recorders
Interestingly, I see no blind people complaining on social media about the lack of progress in visual prosthesis development (retinal implants, brain implants for restoring vision, no invasive devices on the market); #NeuroTech#BCI#blind#blindness
for those who need #image descriptions or #AltText for photos, here is a model that pretty much does it. It is called #LLaVA. I will post a sample image with a description on my next post and let you sighted friends comment on it. 😁
I got my first call from someone on the Be My Eyes app that lets the sighted step up for blind & low-vision people today.
I’m a late adopter, having only heard about it this week. You register, & when time permits, you can answer video calls placed by blind app users asking for help seeing, reading, selecting things.
question for #JAWS users and to @freedomscientific as well. when going to the #windows context menu with windows+x, JAWS says "Context Menu. Installed apps. 1 of 18. Alt followed by p".
why does it have to say "alt" when you can just activate an item there using the letter shortcut without the alt key. is it #Microsoft that put alt on the shortcuts there and JAWS just happened to read it?
"Alt followed by p". again, why does it have to say "followed by". I completely understand that this "followed by" thing is used on the shortcut keys on ribbons in Microsoft office to inform the user to press alt and then the letter combination to activate certain items. but in this context, it doesn't apply.
@freedomscientific#question and #suggestion here. can you add #OpenAI#Bing or #Bard to the sources of image descriptions from the #PictureSmart feature in #JAWS? this picture smart feature is very efficient because on a press of a keystroke, you can get descriptions of image files and controls. except sometime, it provides descriptions that are totally not helpful, for example identifying logos that are really not in the picture. i think it will be grate and much more efficient if these #AI things could be intigrated to this feature. #Blind#Blindness#Accessibility#ScreenReader#JFW
I’ve found a way to be at peace with the current state of #Siri.
In tech terms, it’s old. 12 years is a long time in technology. When you’re old, it’s often the case that you develop a hearing impairment.
Due to the condition that causes my #blindness, I also have a hearing impairment. It’s tough when I can tell people are getting frustrated because I ask them to repeat themselves.
So, the golden rule applies here. Hearing impaired virtual assistants have every right to do the job to the best of their ability. So even though I am repeating myself to Siri more and more of the time now, I do so willingly in the name of #inclusion.
See? It’s all in the way you think about things.
📖 @mariaromeiras estudou o Centro Infantil Helen Keller, com um foco particular na revista "A Pérola", produzida por trabalhos dos alunos, reflexo do espírito cooperativo entre docentes e discentes, onde eram divulgados os objetivos pedagógicos da escola.
What is the sound of an eclipse? For Atlas Obscura, Sara Mellas writes about the LightSound Project, which was started by astronomers and engineers in 2017 and uses a sonification device to sense light changes and translate them into flute, clarinet and bassoon tones, as well as percussive clicks. The original objective was to serve the blind and low-vision community. Listen to their "Symphony of Light" here, and learn more about how you can build your own LightSound sonification device.
A total solar eclipse will move across the U.S. on Monday, April 8. People who are blind or visually impaired will be able to experience it as they grow colder and hear birdsong change along with the dimming light, but much of the effect is visual. Planetary scientists Cassandra Runyon and David Hurd have written a guide called “Getting a Feel for Eclipses,” which has tactile graphics that illustrate the paths of the 2017, 2023 and 2024 eclipses. They write for @TheConversationUS about why they made it, and how it works.
to my #Blind friends, do you know of any site or app that can create a slide show of images? i would like to create like a video of photos i took from a trip and i'm looking for an accessible way of doing that. thanks! #Blindness#Accessibility