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#accessibility

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Today I learned: If you use #Chrome and are annoyed by those "Sign in with Google" dialogs stealing keyboard focus on certain websites, you can disable it at the browser level.

In the address bar, type or paste in "chrome://settings/content/federatedIdentityApi" (without the quotes. You should land on the "Third-party sign-in" Settings page.

On that page, there'll be two radio buttons: "Sites can show sign-in prompts from identity services", and "Block sign-in prompts from identity services". Set it to the second one, and you should find that the problematic dialogs are no longer present.

Thanks to a meetup at our local hackerspace @metalab , I have learnt about a web-based, open source, highly accessible video downloader frontend you can fire up at cobalt.tools. Really easy how it works: 1. You open the site; 2. you paste the link into the edit box; 3. You press enter; 4. The standard "Save File" dialog comes up. All the extra stuff like formats and qualities can be set in the settings and a choice between a video, audio-only or video-only version is offered under a button below the link input. #Accessibility #Blind

cobalt.toolscobaltcobalt lets you save what you love without ads, tracking, paywalls or other nonsense. just paste the link and you're ready to rock!

I’m quite enjoying the new Ally app from Envision. Being able to customise the AI is interesting, although the iOS app doesn’t seem to have all that many voices yet.
It’s very good at reading digital displays which other apps sometimes struggle with, but it’s not perfect. I was using it to check shopping items and it misidentified a couple of things. Still, it’s not bad and reasonably fast, although not as good as the Meta Rayban’s Look and Tell feature. Still since Meta have withdrawn that in the UK, Ally is a decent enough alternative.
#Accessibility #AI

📣 Announcing Altbot 2.0: The Privacy & Green Update 🔒💚

Exciting news! After months of development, Altbot 2.0 is officially launching with major improvements to privacy, efficiency, and description quality.

What's new in Altbot 2.0:

  • 100% local AI processing for true privacy - unlike Google Gemini which saves data for training, Altbot 2.0 retains ZERO information about you or your images using the powerful Ovis2:8B model running on my custom AltTron server equipped with an A5500 GPU and expansion capacity for two additional GPUs
  • Full GDPR compliance with clear informed consent - I've implemented comprehensive privacy measures including transparent data handling policies, user rights protection, and minimal data collection practices that exceed GDPR requirements
  • Better quality descriptions across all 11 supported languages thanks to a newly developed translation layer specifically optimized for local LLM models
  • Significantly more energy efficient with a new feature that shows you exactly how much energy was used for each request! This efficiency comes from using a server-grade GPU optimized for lower power consumption, and 36% of the energy consumed is from clean sources mainly nuclear power (thanks to being based in Georgia)

The only data Altbot 2.0 records:

  • That a request happened
  • How long it took to complete
  • What type of media it was (image, video, or audio)
  • What language was used

No images, no content, no personal data saved - ever.

For those who don't know, Altbot has been helping make the Fediverse more accessible by automatically generating alt-text descriptions for images. The project has grown beyond anything I imagined, now serving thousands of users across the network.

Support Altbot's Future 💝

To bring these privacy and efficiency improvements to life, I had to invest in a more powerful server than initially planned. The server costs exceeded my budget by around $900, which I've covered out of pocket. Who woulda thought that competing with a $1.98 trillion dystopian mega corporation would be expensive? Shocking, I know.

I've set up a Ko-fi fundraising goal to help recover these costs and support ongoing development: Ko-fi.com/micr0byte

Your contributions will help ensure Altbot remains:

  • Free for everyone
  • Continuously improved
  • Sustainably maintained

Even small donations make a huge difference and motivate me to keep enhancing accessibility across the Fediverse!

This milestone represents a commitment to ensuring accessibility doesn't come at the cost of privacy or environmental impact. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built together.

As Altbot continues to grow, I'm open to sharing more about this journey with anyone interested in accessibility, ethical AI, or Fediverse projects.

For press inquiries: inquiries@micr0.dev

Feel free to boost or reach out!

Ko-fiBuy Micr0byte a Coffee. ko-fi.com/micr0byteBecome a supporter of Micr0byte today! ❤️ Ko-fi lets you support the creators you love with no fees on donations.
You can’t say ”it’s not worth making it accessible for only 1% of our users”. That’s a logical fallacy. And reveals a lot about your understanding of the subject area, and your value system.

If you had made it accessible to begin with, people with disabilities could’ve been 20% of your user base.

And it would have been better for 100% of your users.

#a11y #accessibility

This journal article explores institutional repositories. It found out of 107 IRs only 26 had specific contact information related to accessibility. Over 50% of the IRs sampled had some form of accessibility documentation. Only 39 of the IRs had a link to an institutional wide accessibility policy. Please check out the full article for more information. #accessibility iastatedigitalpress.com/jlsc/a

Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly CommunicationAccess for Whom? An Examination of Public-Facing Accessibility Practices in Library Accessibility Alliance Members’ Open Access Institutional RepositoriesIntroduction: Open access aims to provide access to research and scholarship without barriers. An important tool in this process has been institutional repositories (IRs), which disseminate and preserve open scholarship. The goal of this research project was to examine the extent to which IRs in the U.S. are incorporating publicfacing accessibility practices to make their open access works accessible to users of all abilities. Method: This environmental scan reviews the IRs of Library Accessibility Alliance member institutions to identify the prevalence of accessibility practices across those IRs, including contact information, accessibility statements, instructions for submitters, and accessibility-related metadata. Results: This environmental scan found that all but two institutions offered contact information, an avenue for requesting remediation and asking questions. Just over half of the institutions offered IR accessibility documentation, and many linked to other institutional accessibility documentation. Additionally, slightly under a quarter of the institutions provided support for researchers hoping to make their submissions accessible, and three included accessibility information in item-level metadata. Conclusion: While many IR teams are taking some steps to ensure that their IRs are accessible, many accessibility features are not standard across the IRs examined in this study, which suggests the potential for future improvement. Expanded adoption of accessibility best practices would improve access to IR materials and help achieve the ultimate goals of the open access movement.

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, March 13, 2025 - Volume 1006 ♿
toptechtidbits.com/tidbits2025

The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #technology #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #toptechtidbits

Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.

Subscribers: 36,538 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday, March 13, 2025 - Volume 1006 ♿
toptechtidbits.com/tidbits2025

The Week's News in Access Technology
A Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Publication
#news #technology #accessibility #a11y #disability #blind #deaf #deafblind #toptechtidbits

Top Tech Tidbits. The world's #1 online resource for current news and trends in access technology.

Subscribers: 36,538 🔢️ subscribers were sent this issue via email.

This study explores using Spatial Audio, musical cues, and audio descriptions to enhance the video game experience and to make it accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. The study included a mix of participants with and without visual impairments. The feedback highlighted the importance of accessible keyboard controls and sounds that convey character movement and object location. #accessibility journals-sol.sbc.org.br/index.

journals-sol.sbc.org.brUnseen: Advancing Digital Accessibility with Binaural Audio Technology in an Immersive Gaming Prototype | Journal on Interactive Systems

Okay, this is just stupid! One of the benefits of having a #website is that people can access your services at any time, day or night, right? Well, I just went to the #SocialSecurity website to try and get a benefit verification letter, which I need because I'm trying to reestablish a #VocationalRehabilitation case. I clicked "Sign In" and was greeted by this message:

This service is not available at this time.
Please try again during our regular service hours (Eastern Time):

| Day | Service Hours |
|-----|--------------|
| Monday-Friday | 4:15 a.m. - 1:00 a.m. |
| Saturday | 5:00 a.m. - 11:00 p.m. |
| Sunday | 8:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m. |
| Federal Holidays | Same hours as the day the holiday occurs. |

If you need immediate assistance:

  • You may call us Monday through Friday: 8:00AM - 7:00PM at: 1-800-772-1213
  • If you are deaf or hard-of-hearing, call our toll-free TTY number: 1-800-325-0778

This of the website limitation is especially frustrating for me because I have a #Non24HourSleepWakeDisorder and an unpredictable schedule. It feels like the website is designed without thinking about people like me who need flexibility.
Has anyone else out there had similar issues with government services or other websites?
#Vent #Venting #Disability #ChronicIllness #Accessibility #DisabilityRights #InclusiveDesign #GovernmentServices #PublicServices
@disability@a.gup.pe @disability@beehaw.org @disabilityjustice @accessibility @chronicillness @spooniechat @spoonies

The Web #Accessibility Slack community attracts an unfortunate share of asks that go something like:

"I have an interview/have been tasked with giving a presentation/have been promoted to a role and need to become an expert in accessibility by tomorrow, but I know nothing. Can you please send me free resources?"

And like... it's up to every community member whether or not to respond to these, and I'm all for encouragement. But does accessibility really need people who aren't willing to pay for materials, have unrealistic expectations of how much there is to learn, and may have even lied their way into a position they clearly don't want?

I think not, personally.

There's a special place in H E double hockey sticks for folks who set their site's base font size to 16px.

I'm sure it's fine on small displays, and I dunno it's probably adjusted for in HiDPI displays.

But me in between @ 5120 x 1440 and preferences adjusted for steadily aging vision such that default font size is 20pt, or about 26px?

My eyes hurt.

Just don't set base font size, or set it to 1rem if you must have a value.

Today I learned about Able To Play, a website that will apparently match you to #videogames based on your specific #accessibility requirements. It sounds potentially excellent.

Unfortunately it requires you to create and log into an account, linking a personal identifier (email address) to a bunch of metrics about your accessibility needs in a database owned by someone you probably don't know or trust.

This is such an astonishing misstep that it makes me question whether #disabled people were involved in its development at all. They could've let people use it anonymously, trading some repeat visitor convenience for trust or storing the data locally on their device.

Replied in thread

And municipal accessibility planners should spend even one day in a wheelchair after a snowstorm and try to take transit.

I'm not sure that will result in municipal sidewalk clearing and better accessibility, but I'll enjoy the schadenfreude while they find out what it's like.