EBU Access Cast European Blind Union

Wellcome to the last transcribed edition of the Ebu Access Cast for 2021. Stay tuned till the end because we prepared many nice things for you and if you stay listening, you will hear surprising announcement at the end. However if you are really curious skip out to the end of the shownotes to find out what did we say.
Mario bought him self a nice and cheap pair of Sennheiser HD 206 studio headset. On the current list of the best budget studio headsets for 2021, this one sits on the first place.
Hlynur got him self Roborock S7 – vacuum cleaner, and Tanja got Seagate One touch 5 tb hard drive as well as SanDisk Ultra Trek™ USB 3.0 Flash Drive 128 GB
Another piece of a cool and free gadget is LION - Live, intelligent OCR for NVDA which is able to read direct subtitles. Pawel discovered new addon for NVDA called NVDA Advanced OCR which is able to make direct OCR from the PDF document. Keep in mind that the addon is still in the early stages of development, but it is already very promissing, so if you want to know more about it check it out on its Github page.
We are very close to Christmas and black Friday is just behind us, therefore we bring to you a nice article fromm Kelly Ford called Black Friday Accessibility Deals Free for the Taking
TwBlue, a famous third party Twitter Client has new version out, and we will talk about what you need to do in order to get it running because direct instalation over previous version will not work.
Whatsapp started offering their new beta version of their Client for Windows which we found out to be much more accessible than official release, therefore if you wish to try it out on your pc, here is what you need to do.
If you own Samsung Android smartphone which you recently purchased, you are probably wondering when you will get the update to the newest One UI 4? Which comes with Android 12? Well no worries, Android Police prepared a nice article with all information.
StSolutions is the company which makes nice online accessible software by using a JS library called designer.js, and Pawell will tell us more about it.
AstroAccess is a website which talks about persons with dissability travelling into space. Our inspector gadget Pawell knows more about it.
 
Our show lasted since May of 2018, during this time we had a nice long season with all of you, and we really enjoyed making it. However due to the many different occupations from each of us who are having our daily jobs, Ebu Access Cast will be taking a break for a while, therefore EBU will keep you informed if the show returns with new crew members, or if the podcast will transform into something different. In the mean time, Mario, Tanja, Pawel and Hlynur wish you all the best for the upcoming holidays, so  if you want to follow us individualy, search for us on Twitter and you will find us for sure.

Welcome back in the 34th episode of the EBU Access Cast where, as always, we provide you with the news around assistive technology and accessibility. This episode, hosted by Paweł and co-hosted by Tanja, Mario and Hlynur contains big amounts of news from the Big companies out there, impressions of technology we have ourselves tested and a nice demo at the end so tune in and enjoy!
You can always review the transcript of the podcast if that form suits you better.
For any lovers of movies and TV Series, Paweł has tested Teleparty, a browser extension that allows a group of friends to watch a movie together with everyone keeping their individual audio and subtitle settings intact.
We then head of to find out what Microsoft has in store. The announcement of the Surface Adaptive Kit  has made rounds all over the Internet. We discuss possible use cases for the blind helped by Tanja who has recently tested one of the Surface laptops.
 Of course we did not forget that Windows 11 has recently been released. WE start off the discussion on that particular topic by diving into running Android apps on Windows 11 and how accessible and usable that is going to be. Those of us who have had a chance to run windows 11 share their first impressions.
But Microsoft doesn’t just stop there. They also organize a handful of webinars addressing all that changed in Windows 11 in regards to accessibility. Speaking of events, this year’s editions of the NVDACon and Sighttech Global are taking place soon.
On a more negative note, Apple has recently made itself a bit of a bad name with the blind community. Firstly, the developer of the Flicktype keyboard has had problems publishing into the App Store then he discovered his app was turned into an Apple Watch feature. Next, a blind developer has had issues updating one of his games. Finally, a rain of headlines fell upon the Internet as many blind users discovered that Siri features such as checking the call log or sending E-mails were gone. These examples show how lack of awareness on accessibility issues appearing in some departments of even the biggest companies, coupled with the politics behind technology can severely affect our access to solutions we use every day.
On the Google front, a new version of the Android Accessibility Suite was released  with a surprisingly huge jump in the version numbering. Are the changes significant enough to justify such a change?
We also congratulate the users in Slovenia and Belgium, as Slovenian and Belgian French join the family of Vocalizer voices on Android.
Further down the Google line, Youtube is rolling out a slew of new features that should make audio more accessible. Can you hear that audiodescription coming? Come and find out!
We also had a last-minute, surprising news from Mastercard who have announced their brand-new accessible card design.
We also discussed the appearance of Susan Bennett, the voice actress behind the original Siri voice, in the latest campaign by UserWay. Can the gap in accessibility be bridged by a single line of code and how does the marketing in the accessibility space look like today?
To top the whole show off, Hlynur introduces us to Isak, an Icelandic developer behind Retinaid, a way to revolutionize playing tabletop games by blind people. Feel free to contact Isak to find out how you can get involved in testing and check out the list of currently supported games (PDF).
You can get in touch with us by sending an e-mail to ebuaccesscast@euroblind.org or reaching out to us on Twitter at @EbuAccessCast Until the next time!

Welcome back to the 33rd episode of the EBU Access Cast
Here we provide transcription of the 33rd episode of the EBU Access Cast.
In this episode Hlynur, Mario, Tanja and Pawel cover a wide range of topics regarding accessibility, from Pawel’s birthday present to himself to a new software suite that turns up Mario’s cravings for cheesecake to the maximum… and everything in between.
We cover the ongoing European Commission survey on digital accessibility, where the objective is to seek feedback to improve public sector website and mobile apps accessibility. We encourage everyone to partake in the survey and let your voice be heard.
Also we took a look at a new mod for the game Hearthstone by Blizzard, how it works and how the new mod has increased its accessibility. The website named Can I play that was also mentioned.
Mario went with us through the new Sunu app update for the Sunu band and how he used it patience as a weapon in dealing with some bluetooth issues regarding it.
There were not let-downs in the Gadget section. The show’s number one online shopper, also known as Pawel, showcased his new JBL Link Portable speaker and Tanja spoke about a Minimize to tray option she finds handy. Some discussions were also about Chromecasting music and more related topics.
Tweesecake, not Cheesecake, is a new light-weight, multi-purpose, robust software suite that allows users to easily use keybord commands to control Twitter and Telegra, navigate your file system and much more. We looked in to it.
An easy way to create a digital copy of your Covid certificate and store in your phone wallet? Yes please! We took a look at getcovidpass.eu before taking on Apple’s “California Streaming” online event and their newcomings.
We took a look at what is new inside the newest Beta version of Android 12.
And if that wasn’t enough already we had discussions on digital accessibility matters from Hlynur’s point of view after his Siteimprove conference input.
Last but not least, an interview with Gleb Zevkov, CEO of Voxmate.
We hope you guys enjoy the show, we sure did!

Welcome back to EBU Access Cast - podcast about assistive technology for blind and partially sighted people. This is transcribed episode 32.
Some of us got the EU Covid certificate and we shared our experiences of showing the digital version on the mobile phone as blind persons. We found out that not all PDF viewers on mobile phones open the QR code maximised and therefore this creates difficulties to blind persons to show properly the certificate on the Covid-19 travel checkpoints. Feel free to share your experience with us!
Pawel discovered a very handy app for taking notes Simplenote. The notes are synced on all your devices and can be accessed via the web interface as well. We were thrilled to discover that the interface is accessible on all platforms and that every action has an assigned shortcut.
We discussed the new accessibility features in iOS15 and compared them with Google announcement of the changes which will come in Android 12.
We also commented the Windows 11 accessibility announcement.
The NVDA 2021.1 was released in July with many new features and bug fixes.
We discovered the NVDA Unmute addon that checks the status of the Windows audio system when NVDA starts. If the sound is muted - the add-on forcibly turns it on. As blind users we find it very useful.
Mario discovered the RHVoice, open source TTS engine, that supports 8 languages.
Get in contact with us, share your comments or suggestions via email ebuaccesscast@euroblind.org or via Twitter @ebuaccesscast.

It is almost summer, but we are not giving up, in fact we came to the Episode 31 of the Ebu Access Cast, and boy we found many different topics to discuss. However if you think that you herd anything, no no you didn't because we have a Special interview for you about Navilense which you can hear towards the end of the Episode.
But at the beginning Pawel said that he found a nice iOS app called Replica which allows iOS user to make audio and Video stream thru their Browser, and Mario told us his positive Opinion about newest generation of the Svarovsky white cane which is very different than the previous canes from the same Brand.
After gadgets we talked about Twitter and different ways how you can use it, thru its native interface and a bunch of integrated shortcuts which you can find in the very nice Review, as well as Usage of 3rd party clients for Twitter.
Different Messenger clients are todays Standard in the comunication, but are they equally accessible? Mario Talked about Whatsapp web set of scripts which are being developed by blind developer Juliano Lopes which bring up more accessibility features into Whatsapp web while using it thru your Browser, and Pawel found out the Add-on for NVDA for desktop version of Whatsapp Client. We touched the topic of accessibility of Telegram for Android and iOS as s Signal which became very populär in the last few months.
Since we mentioned many different Messengers we thought that its the best time tob ring you the news that Clubhouse became available for Android, and Mario introduced Clubdeck, very accessible unoficial Clubhouse  Client to the general audience. However if you thought that this is everything from us for todays döse of how to comunicate, wait a second. Pawel is also having the anouncement about Elten, new very advanced audio Network from Poland for blind people.
It As the Summer started to show its strenght, it looks like that after a long long time of not being able to travel, we will be able to do that with new Covid green passports, and in the next article you can read more about itt.
After all the topics which we had, it is a time for dezert, and that is the interview about Navilense, very nice System which uses specially made QR codes developed to help blind people to use them in so many different ways. CEO and founder of the Navilense company Mr. Javier PIta gave exclusive interview to Hlynur and Pawel and Tanja prepared also a Short demo of their newest feature called Navilense 360.
In this Episode we prepared so many things for you, but now its time for you to tell us what do you think about it. As always contact us on Twitter or send us e-mail and we will look forward to be back with you in 6 weeks just at the end of July.

Welcome back to the 30th episode of the Ebu Access Cast, the big THREE ZERO!
In this episode, Hlynur makes his debut as a lead host, joined by the always charming Tanja, Mario and Pawel. We covered a lot of current issues... everything from binaural recordings of a volcano in Iceland to an audio version of an IKEA catalogue.
Pawel told us about his new gadget, the Sennheiser Ambeo Smart Headset and we even get to hear some recordings he created for us and let us take a peak into his daily adventures.
Hlynur told us about the Dark Reader Chrome Extension, which enables users to customize the way webpages look, turn light theme pages into dark theme, increase color contrast etc.
There were some news we covered, like Microsoft's acquisition of Nuance, who are most famous for the much-loved Siri, the Accessibility Mousepad from Iceland, that was based on a design from UK Home Office and has been shared in GitHub for others to use, translate and produce and the ongoing issue with external bluetooth keyboards not working with many special characters if using both Android 11 and Talkback together. We also discussed how a normal user can get in touch and report bugs and errors to Google 
We took a close look at Accessible Overlays, what they are and what they are meant to do and how they are really not working and often making matters worse than fixing them. We also discussed some companies who are offering these overlays as a paid-for service and also how you, as a user, can get rid of them. There are many articles and podcasts who have covered this issue, for example a deep-dive 3 hour podcast of Mosen at large, especially covering it. For those who wish to read more about this, here is a link to an extensive Fact sheet on accessibility overlays.
We also talked about how audio-only media seems to be on the rise with large platforms like Clubhouse growing rapidly and huge companies like IKEA releasing their catalogue as an audio book.
The Sight City 2021 conference, that was supposed to take place in Frankfurt in May, will be hosted as a virtual-only event. We discussed how that might affect the conference as a whole, the number of companies showcasing their products and more.
Finally, Mario shares a piece of his limitless brilliance and expertise, giving us a demo of how you can easily transfer audio from your smartphone to a PC via bluetooth.
We really hope you enjoy this landmark episode and will join us next time. Should you have any questions, remarks or content you would like to contribute, you can reach us by email at ebuaccesscast@euroblind.org or twitter!
As always, you can also explore the transcript of this episode.
 
All the best from our entire team!