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accessible

Starbucks partners with technology company to make stores more accessible to blind and visually impaired customers

Starbucks Corp. is partnering with a technology company to make it easier for customers with vision problems to shop its stores.

What company did Starbucks partner with and what do they do?

The coffee giant has partnered with San Diego-based Aira Tech Corp. to offer customers free access to Aira, a service that connects blind and low-vision people to remotely located agents who share visual information through an app. The service is now available in all company-operated and licensed Starbucks stores in the United States.

What kind of experience can a customer expect with the Aira app?

When a customer enters a Starbucks, they can open up the Aira app, which is free to download for iOS and Android. The customers will then be connected with someone who can see their surroundings through their phone’s camera and provide needed descriptions, from describing the items in the pastry case to reading in-store signs to finding amenities such as the restroom. read more

Super.com announces partnership to make gaming accessible to visually impaired gamers

Super.com has announced its partnership with Mars Vision in order to launch an innovative new application that will allow the visually impaired to play games without the need for modding.

What is the software called and how does it work?

This new software is called Mars Vision and it offers a technological solution to let all players who have low-vision or are visually impaired enjoy computer games. The application monitors gameplay in real-time and assists the player in navigating the game’s environment and menus. Using a neural network, Mars Vision doesn’t change the gameplay present in a game; rather, it translates gameplay so that the player has the information they need to immerse themselves fully in the world. The technology has been developed in partnership with visually impaired end users to ensure that pain points that are present in similar software are not experienced with Mars Vision. read more

Samsung’s TVs will be more accessible for people with vision or hearing loss

Samsung is working to enable its TVs to recognize sign language for commands like “turn on the television.”

What features will be available for people with hearing loss?

Samsung’s TV lineup is about to become a lot more accessible for people with low vision or hearing loss. The company said all of its 2020 QLED and Neo QLED models will come with new features like being able to move captions to avoid blocking other text on a video and the ability zoom in on a sign language window to see it better.

“We don’t want to exclude anyone,” Byungho Kim, of Samsung’s social contribution centre in Suwon, said in a video during Samsung’s event. “Our technology is for everyone.” read more

Voiceitt makes Alexa accessible for people with speech impairments

Voiceitt, a leader in commercial speech recognition for atypical speech, recently announced that people with speech impairments will be able to use the Voiceitt mobile app to access and interact with Amazon’s Alexa.

What is Voiceitt?

Voiceitt’s mission is to increase independence and quality of life for people with speech and motor disabilities. Its proprietary automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology enables people with speech impairments to access voice-activated smart assistants and to communicate and be understood by voice. read more

United Airlines updates app with accessible features for people with vision loss

United Airlines recently launched a redesigned version of its mobile app, with new enhancements intended to make travel easier for people with vision loss.

What are some of the accessibility features in the latest update?
Throughout its award-winning app, the carrier has increased colour contrast, added more space between graphics and reordered how information is displayed and announced to better integrate with the screen reader technologies like VoiceOver and TalkBack that are built into most handheld devices and read aloud on-screen messages and notifications. By restructuring the way the information is organized on the app, screen readers are better able to convert text to audio in the proper, logical sequence, allowing customers to better understand and navigate the app. read more

Laundry Lens Now Accessible for VoiceOver Users

Laundry Lens is the perfect companion for doing the laundry.

From the Developer:

Just point your camera at a care label and you will be presented to the proper instructions on how to take care of your clothes and garments. By swiping up, you can also look up the laundry symbols manually and discover many others.

Laundry Lens includes a full list of symbols, from washing to ironing, and even professional ones, so you know exactly what type of care your laundry requires.

Requires iOS 13.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. read more

Naughty Dog Makes PlayStation Game Accessible

Naughty Dog has said that The Last of Us Part II is the most ambitious game it has ever made, and the studio has also noted it is the most accessible game it has made.

The PlayStation 4 game coming on June 19 has more than 60 settings that are meant to help all people play the game, including those who have low vision or are blind. Matthew Gallant, lead systems designer at Naughty Dog, said in a blog post that from the very beginning of development the goal was to ensure that as many fans as possible have an opportunity to experience the game. read more

Software Developer Makes Corona Virus Statistics Website Accessible for the Blind and Partially Sighted

A Boston-based software developer wanted to make COVID-19 stats accessible
He created a website that would be easily readable by electronic braille readers and other assistive devices used by the blind and partially sighted.

Tyler Littlefield, a software developer based in Boston, has created a database of COVID-19 statistics meant to be accessible to the visually impaired.

Called CVStats.net, the site organizes up-to-date COVID-19 data in simple charts specifically designed to be legible to a range of aid devices the visually impaired use to access websites. read more

PlayStation Patent Makes Games More Accessible

A new patent from Sony Interactive Entertainment reveals a detachable controller pad that could make games easier to play for gamers who are blind or have low vision.

The device as outlined in the patent looks like a rectangle with rounded edges (and sometimes a button, depending on which illustration). It’s designed to either be fitted over or replace entirely the DualShock 4 controller’s standard touchpad, with some key additions. They include a series of haptic feedback mechanisms, such as localized rumble and pins that push up a flexible layer, to give players tactile feedback from the game. Though all the illustrations use a DualShock 4, the patent confirms it could also be used with PS5. read more

Carnegie Mellon Researchers Design New Tool Making Memes Accessible for Blind and Visually Impaired People

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have come up with a method that will automatically identify memes and will apply pre-written templates to add descriptive text making them intelligible via existing assistive technologies.

The six researchers came up with a system to classify and translate memes with up to 92 per cent accuracy. Visually impaired people generally use screen readers and built-in accessibility features to help them navigate around the internet.

According to the study, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow users to add alternative texts to their images but most users are not aware of the feature and simply do not use it. This has resulted in just 0.1 per cent of images being accessible for visually impaired people. Cole Gleason, a Ph.D. student at CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute said that basic computer vision techniques make it possible to describe the images underlying each meme. read more

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