Apps & Smartphones news

• New Australian app for A.T. users to better equip themselves

  06-03-2017 23:33
  A new consumer app is helping Australians with disabilities to identify the range of Assistive Technology (AT) equipment and technology options available, with the aim of improving their independence and wellbeing.Image of Equip Myself
  The newly released Equip Myself app, that was developed by the Independent Living Centre (ILC) WA, links to anational online AT database which contains impartial information on more than 11,000 assistive technology products available right around the country.
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• Be part of 24 hours of inclusive design

  06-06-2017 08:08
  A free 24-hour online community event on accessibility is being staged on 9 June 2017 by The Paciello Group – one the world’s leading Assistive Technology providers for vision impaired people. It promises to be an inspiring event and is open to everyone.A person thinks of usability and user experience
  Inclusive Design 24 is an innovative event sponsored by The Paciello Groupto celebrate worldwide efforts to ensure people with disability have full and equal access to the web.
  This yea
  
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• New eGlasses can improve vision for many who are legally blind

  29-05-2017 06:29
  Canadian company eSight creates futuristic glasses that use images from a forward-facing camera to overcome vision loss, even for many people who are legally blind. The makers claim that their latest variant, the eSight 3 augmented reality headset, is a real wearable breakthrough for those people living with vision loss.eSight 3 electronic glasses
  The launch of this advanced new wearable was reported in the Toronto Star by Michael Liedtke of Associated Press in February 2017 and by VOA News repo
  
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• Five tips for teachers of students with hearing impairment

  25-05-2017 05:47
  So you’ve started a new term this year and you’ve discovered that one (or perhaps more) of your students has a hearing impairment or doesn't have English as their primary language. This article shares five quick tips to help you make the most of your classroom.
  Use captionsAll students benefit from captions and especially those who are Deaf or hearing-impaired, plus those with English as a second language. To cater for these students it is important to use only captioned multimedia s
  
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• Free captioning and description editing tool launched

  25-05-2017 02:43
  The National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) in the USA has just launched CADET (Caption and Description Editing Tool) which was previously only available as a Beta project. This official launch version of CADET was developed with partial funding from the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office with the rest coming from crowd-funding, and is available via a free download.Dashboard of CADET being used
  CADET has taken over two years to develop from the initial beta test, and is the result of a
  
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• 4 leading Startups in the Deaf and hearing-impaired space

  22-05-2017 03:55
  1 in 6 Australians are affected by hearing loss including around 30,000 Deaf Auslan users with total hearing loss, according to the Australian Network on Disability (AND). On a global scale, the World Health Organization puts the total number of those with disabling hearing loss at about 360 million people, so it’s no wonder more Startups are springing up to help.International Symbol for Deafness
  Around the world, dedicated research teams and tech experts working for Startups are striving
  
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• US restaurant chain has trouble on the menu

  16-05-2017 00:37
  The Olive Garden restaurant group in the US is accused of having a website that is inaccessible to the vision impaired, with a lawsuit filed in Florida in April 2017. The company is alleged to be violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which is the US equivalent of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in Australia.Red slash through wheelchair
  Olive Garden is a US casual dining restaurant chain specialising in Italian-American cuisine, and is a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants Inc
  
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• Ava app makes group conversations accessible

  09-05-2017 02:52
  For those with hearing disability, simple dinner table group conversations can be pretty painful to stay on top of. However, the Ava app aims to bring Deaf and hearing impaired people back into group conversations with each other plus people of all abilities – and the May 2017 update provides even more functionality.Ava being used on a smartphone
  The Ava threaded speech-to-text application gives people with hearing disability an easy way to stay engaged in conversation with a group of frie
  
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• Live, Work and Play: NSW the State of Inclusion Conference is on 17 & 18 May

  02-05-2017 06:45
  Registrations are now being taken for the NSW Department of Family and Community Services ‘State of Inclusion’ conference, running 17 and 18 May in Sydney. The event will showcase the progress being made in NSW towards building an inclusive society for people with disability and highlight the opportunities and challenges for the future.Live Work Play NSW The State of Inclusion
  The Live, Work and Play: NSW the State of Inclusion event is being held at the new International Conference
  
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• JAWS screen reader gets more bight

  01-05-2017 07:19
  Freedom Scientific has recently released JAWS 18.0.2738, which incorporates several important improvements made between the JAWS February 2017 release and this mid April 2017 update, plus dozens of less revolutionary but very practical enhancements.JAWS screen reader logo
  JAWS (Job Access With Speech) is the world's most popular screen reader, developed for computer users whose vision loss prevents them from seeing screen content or navigating with a mouse. It allows blind and vision-impaired pe
  
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• Aipoly Vision is a truly visionary app

  24-04-2017 07:29
  ‘Aipoly Vision’ is a very useful object-and-colour recogniser app that helps the blind, vision-impaired, and colour blind to understand their surroundings. It does so by using artificial intelligence to recognise objects through a device’s camera and then announces the name of each object to the user.Image of Aipoly Vision logo
  The Aipoly developers are on a self-declared mission to build scalable vision intelligence. They intend to add facial recognition to the Aipoly Vision a
  
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• New vision-impaired user interface launched by Virgin Australia

  20-04-2017 01:16
  Virgin Australia has become the first airline in the Asia Pacific region, and the second airline in the world, to introduce an in-flight entertainment (IFE) user interface for passengers who are blind or have low vision.‘Welcome Aboard’ main menu
  The new interface increases accessibility to IFE content through simplified screen layouts, larger icons and voice prompts. It will be available soon on Virgin Australia’s entire fleet of Boeing 777-300ER aircraft which feature a seat
  
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• AND’s ‘ANC’ is at the MCG on 16 May

  19-04-2017 01:34
  The Australian Network on Disability (AND) is staging its Annual National Conference at Melbourne’s iconic MCG on 16 May. It will attract a diverse range of employers, business stakeholders and advocates in the disability inclusion space.Melbourne Cricket Ground
  This year is the ninth that AND has staged an annual conference and the theme for 2017 is ‘Enabling change and creating impact’ which is an outcome that Media Access Australia itself wholeheartedly supports and strives
  
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• I am not a Robot! - the access implications of Google’s new Invisible reCAPTCHA

  11-04-2017 03:42
  Google has taken one more step towards a fully-automated bot-detection system with the launch of ‘Invisible reCAPTCHA’ - which hopefully spells an end to having to prove that you are not a robot all of the time. But what are the accessibility implications?Image of circle crossed robot dalek
   
  What is CAPTCHA?
  CAPTCHAs (or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a type of challenge-response test used to determine whether or not the user is h
  
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• Government forms Working Group on AD for TV

  07-04-2017 04:06
  The Turnbull Government has set up a new taskforce with the aim of improving TV accessibility. They have announced the formation of an Audio Description (AD) Working Group to examine options for increasing the availability of AD services in Australia.Man wearing headphones listens to AD on TV
  This welcome move follows the most recent ABC iview trial and the submission of a report on the trial of AD on ABC iview that was tendered to the Government in late February this year by seven leading disab
  
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• New game allows you to play face-to-face even if you’re blind

  03-04-2017 02:23
  The Nintendo Switch console has a terrific new game that's accessible for the blind. Called 1-2 Switch, it allows two players to enjoy game-play scenarios by looking at each other and not the screen.A cowgirl and a cowboy point fingers at each other
  Played on the recently released Nintendo Switch console, 1-2 Switch is like a party-style game for two players, with the main innovation being that rather than looking at the screen, you look at your opponent or what you’re physically doing. Yo
  
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• Latest tech releases from Apple

  28-03-2017 04:51
  Apple has announced a new iOS 10.3 update, some updates to iPad, iPhone and their Apple Watch, plus they have launched a new app called ‘Clips’ which makes it possible for pretty much everyone to create quick and fun videos on an iPhone and iPad.Apple logo
  Apple has just released the iOS 10.3 update, marking the launch of the third major update to the iOS 10 operating system since it launched. This one features an improved file system to what is called Apple File System (AFS) —
  
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• Opera House more accessible – on and off the stage

  27-03-2017 03:02
  The Sydney Opera House has launched its biggest ever Access Program for 2017. The line-up of events features more than 70 accessible shows, workshops and experiences that are sure to delight children and adults of all abilities, with more mobility access options, and an expanded array of accessible performances.Main theatre of Sydney Opera House
  Underpinned by the Sydney Opera House’s Access Strategic Plan of 2016-18, the 2017 Opera House access program is their biggest yet, increasing the
  
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• New muppet with autism joins Sesame Street

  22-03-2017 00:30
  Over the decades, iconic children’s TV show, Sesame Street, has always been good at raising awareness around a wide variety of sections of the community. The latest character to join the muppet family is Julia, who has autism, and makes her debut in April 2017.New muppet Julia
  Julia actually made her debut in late 2015 in print and digital artworks as the focus of a Sesame Street workshop titled ‘Autism: See Amazing in All Children’ which also led to a series of videos, an app,
  
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• Registrations now open for 2017 Round Table Conference in May

  20-03-2017 00:21
  Registrations are now being taken for the 2017 Round Table Annual Conference, to be co-sponsored again by Media Access Australia. This year’s theme is ‘Information Access – new modes, technologies and opportunities’. It is being staged at the Mercure Perth hotel in the city from Saturday 6 May to Tuesday 9 May.Round-Table-on-Information-Access-for-People-with-Print-Disabilities-Inc.
  The 2017 Round Table Conference provides three full days of presentations, panel sessions,
  
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• Don’t miss The Future of Accessible Work

  13-03-2017 00:42
  The 14th International Web for All Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2017), run in conjunction with the 26th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2017), is taking place in Perth from 2-4 April – with the overall theme being ‘The Future of Accessible Work’.W4A 2017 logo plus Perth skyline
  The featured keynote address at the end of the first day of the conference will be from Alastair McEwin, the Australian Disability Discrimination Commissioner, who
  
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• 2017 Sydney Access and Inclusion Campaign launched

  08-03-2017 00:05
  Accessible Arts in partnership with the City of Sydney launched the new Accessing Sydney Collectively (ASYD.CO) knowledge exchange partnership program on 8 March 2017, as part of the Sydney Access and Inclusion Campaign.Sydney Access and Inclusion logo
   
  Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Mr Alastair McEwin, officially launched this world-first initiative at the Sydney Theatre Company on International Women’s Day. Media Access Australia CEO, Dr Manisha Amin, attended the launch a
  
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• New report on the trial of A.D. on ABC iview

  07-03-2017 06:17
  Media Access Australia was one of seven leading advocacy organisations that have just tabled a report, including consumer feedback, perspectives and analysis, of the Government-funded trial of Audio Description (AD) on the ABC's iview service, from April 2015 to July 2016.Image of Audio Description
  The new report was submitted in late February 2017 to Senator Mitch Fifield, Minister for Communications, and also provided to Sophie Kowald (Advisor to the Shadow minister for Communications) and Sen
  
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• Design-a-thon event showcased innovative thinking

  02-03-2017 04:38
  The recent Enabled Design-a-thon event was held in Sydney on 25-26 February 2017 with two Media Access Australia accessibility specialists taking part – Heidi Laidler and Monica Regalado. It attracted 16 teams of from 4-10 members who worked over the two days to design and develop prototypes of solutions to assist people with disability.Image of four members of ‘team Post-It’
  This hands-on event was organised by Remarkable, a division of the Cerebral Palsy Alliance. The first d
  
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• Check out the world’s least accessible website

  27-02-2017 00:20
  Mehmet Duran, a developer in the accessibility team at the UK Government’s Digital Service group, created a website with two colleagues that is the most inaccessible on the planet. He did so in order to check the accuracy and efficacy of automated testing tools, and the results were surprising.A screenshot of 'the world's least accessible website'
  The British team built a stand-alone webpage full of accessibility fails so that they could conduct an audit of 10 popular automated testing too
  
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• Don't miss Meeting Place 2017 on 2 March in Perth

  23-02-2017 02:42
  Hosted in partnership with the Perth International Arts Festival and DADAA WA, Arts Access Australia’s Meeting Place 2017 will be held next week in Perth and promises to be a memorable and thought-provoking event.Arts Access Australia
  Arts Access Australia is dedicated to broadening understanding and improving skills and access in the field of disability and the arts. The annual Meeting Place gathering supports cultural exchange between outstanding national and international artists with d
  
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