Ebu Access Cast 12
Jun 20, 2019
Welcome to the 12 episode of the EBU Access Cast. We decided to
refresh the way how our podcast is presented, so from now on every
month you will hear somebody different from our team who will be
the main host for the episode. In the June episode Tanja took the
position of the captain and she is joined by Mario, Bart and Pawel
who became our newest team member. This time we are bringing you
the accessibility news from the Apple conference WWDC 2019. In its
opening Apple announced that technology is the most powerfull when
everyone can use it and they showed clearly their commitment by
presenting plenty of new accessibility functionalities on Apple
devices that we can expect from this autumn. Starting from iOS13
and iPadOs the accessibility menu will be moved from the general
settings to the top level settings which clearly shows the
importance that Apple gives to accessibility. The feature that
received most attention is the full voice
control that will be available starting from MacOSCatalina and
iOS13. The feature is ment for persons with motor disabilities, but
this is another functionality that everyone can benefit from. Read
more on the
Apple VIS blog and listen to the
Apple VIS podcast with Sarah Herrlinger, Director of Global
Accessibility Policy and Initiatives at Apple and Dean Hudson,
Accessibility Evangelist at Apple.
Another functionality that we are looking forward is the automatic
recognition of unlabeled buttons in inaccessible apps. Custom
gestures, a feature that we know from other screen readers, will be
available in VoiceOver and will allow easier access to predefined
functions. Liblouis will be supported on all Apple devices and the
response time for braille screen typing will be increased for those
who type in braille very fast. Low vision users will benefit from
hover text functionality that will allow to enlarge the selected
area on the screen.
The major news for Apple WatchOS 6 is that applications can run
independently from the iPhone and it will have its own Appstore.
Applications for listening audiobooks, voice memo, calculator and
other interesting applications in the health section will be
available from the WatchOS6. Check out the keynote on
Youtube
Microsoft released the 1903 spring update with several accessibility improvements in Narrator, for the full list check out the Windows 10 help forum
Talking about accessibility and screen readers on Windows, the
Vispero Group just launched the June JAWS update and the list of
improvements is available on the
Freedom Scientific webpage
Automatic image recognition is becoming much better and accurate as
we move forward, therefore mobile application TapTapSee that most of us used some
years ago brings a new, completely AI-based image
recognition. The quality of descriptions will be much more
accurate and the recognition will be faster.
We tested the Clew
application that serves for path retracing in the indoor
navigation, it is available only for iOS devices and it uses Apple
ARKit and camera to understand the surrounding. While the accuracy
of the application is very high in the current version, we found
out that the next update will provide the functionality to save the
recorded path and we hope that the list of features will be
extended to help visually impaired persons to orientate more easily
in an unknown indoor environment.
At the end of our episode listen to the interview that we made with
Feelif and discover a new way
of experiencing shapes and images by haptics and sound.
As always feel free to leave us a comment or suggestion on our
Twitter
account or by e-mail and we are looking
forward to be back with you in July.