Listen to SeroTalk Podcast 177: WiFi On the Water
Join Jamie Pauls, Ricky Enger and Lisa Salinger as they discuss the top news stories of the week. Topics covered in this episode include:
News in A T
TapTapSee Goes Subscription-based
ONExSENSE: Michael Curran & James Teh at TEDxBrisbane
Mosen Consulting eBook, Tweeting Blind
A List of New iOS 7 Keyboard Shortcuts
David Woodbridge: Main new features of Mavericks using VoiceOver on the Mac air
Click here to report accessibility bugs with Apple products.
Accessible apps for news junkies, no rehab needed
Assistive Technology: A Necessity for Student Success | Matthew Lynch, Ed.D.
ZoomText Mac Tips & Tricks – Installing in Mavericks
Digital Accessible Books for Disabled Veterans
Mainstream Matters
Internet Explorer 11 for Windows 7 is all about performance
Mysterious Google Barge Is ‘Interactive Space’
New BlackBerry boss John Chen out to prove skeptics wrong
Apple is still shipping Macs with Mountain Lion, not Mavericks
Apple promises to restore some iWork features within six months
Apple Rolls Out Mavericks Update to Fix Email Glitch
Mailbag
From Aaron Linson
As a blind person in college, I use both mainstream and dedicated aka blindnesss specific devices. I am a big believer in braille and have been using a braille note since the first one was introduced in 2000. I use it for a lot of music braille reading and since Preview on the Mac is a pain to use for pdf’s I read those in braille as well. I also have the gps on the braille note apex and also the Samsung Galaxy S4 I have nearby explorer. I think that there are always going to be people who say well you’re not one of us because you don’t use device x or y but, we just need to say that’s your opinion and move on. Thanks, Aaron Linson Producer of The Cast Podcast
From Mike Arrigo
Great show. Regarding the experience on Android that Ricky mentioned, you can actually navigate by web element in chrome using talkback, but the way you do it is not as obvious. Open the local context menu and you will have a navigation option, choosing that will allow you to navigate by web element. I agree that using firefox probably offers the best web experience. There are some interesting changes in android 4.4, I’m actually thinking of getting the nexus 5, not sure yet. For one thing, web views in applications are now handled by the chrome browser. Also, apparently you can set what are called live regions which will bipass explore by touch, this would be very useful for applications such as fleksy. I have not installed mavericks yet, I prefer to wait until at least the first major update so any major bugs can be fixed. Glad Buddy is enjoying his new kindle fire HDX. Hopefully the stand alone kindle app will become accessible as well.
And also from Mike
Ricky and Joe will probably be the most interested in this. The swype keyboard from nuance is now accessible on android. There is a trial if you want to play with it before purchasing it. You can read the corrections, and, if you want to dictate, you can using dragon’s speech recognition, which is the same dictation that is used on IOS. Pretty cool for sure.
Roundabout
San Francisco Will Become Gotham City to Make Child’s Wish of Being ‘Batkid’ Come True
Million-Year Data Storage Disk Unveiled
It’s the official end of an era: Blockbuster just threw in the towel
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I for one wasn’t surprised by the clamour about Taptapsee going subscription. Many of the common accusations are right on. Yes, it should have been subscription from the start. Simply saying no one knew how populopar it would become doesn’t wash. No one knew how popular Jaws would become, and it’s always beenh a commercial product. I’ll grant that this trick is somewhat new to the tech world, but it isn’t new especially to the blind world. I’ve lost count of the various small startup phone access solutions that have been popularised over the years simply because they were free. All of them have followed the free gaging popularity model before going subscription, af which, of course, popularity dropped precipitously to nonexistence. No, sighted people don’t have to pay, but then again, they wouldn’t even bother with it in the first place because they have no need for it. Yes, disabilities are expensive, so it’s equally true there ain’t no free lunch. I can remember my first experience downloading Jaws. It was 15 Megs in size and took two hours to download with a dialup connection. I will eventually subscribe to taptapsee both because I need it and because it’s the right thing to do. But would be entreprenewers should take notice also, that simply using the free model to promote a product will only work until people feel they’ve been burned too many times by effectively falling into a trap that they made. For me, it is easier and more justifiable to afford taptapsee than it is a Netflrix subscription that offers no audio description.