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#visuallyimpaired

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Online shopping can be tough when you're blind—but Innosearch is changing that! On the latest Sightless Dungeon, Brandon ThatBlindGuy talks with Patrick about AI-powered shopping help, accessible checkout, grocery delivery, flight booking, Shop by Phone, and community game nights. 🎧

Listen now: youtu.be/-o9BVTekRUY

youtu.be- YouTubeEnjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Hey everyone! I want to let you know that the #LondonDrugs store in Rutherford Mall in #Nanaimo has an amazing #AntiAbleist #inclusive manager. My friend, Tessie, is a #DisabledEmployee there. The manager, Warren, went out of his way to help her feel supported at work. He made her a shirt & a sign for her workstation 👏

If you're on #VancouverIsland in the Nanaimo area, please support this specific store. Please let them know that the public appreciates how they treat their disabled employees & thank Warren for being a stellar, inclusive & thoughtful store #manager 👍

londondrugs.com/stores/nanaimo

Question for folks who use screen readers. Does strike-through text tend to cause problems with screen readers? If I was trying to get across how a sentence was changed, like: "The -little- girl climbed the tree." Where "little" is struck through to indicate it was removed. Are there any other factors to consider? Or do they tend to handle it well? I don't feel like the research I did is reliable. The quality of the search results were suspect.

When a chef I trust pulled me aside to tell me about someone who's fighting the odds to start a hot sauce company, I took notice. Jacob Wilkinson, who is visually impaired, turned a pandemic project into Blowing Smoke, featuring Ontario-grown produce with fantastic names like Devil’s Night and Yellow Snow.

Am so honoured he let me tell his story.

#EatLocal #WaterlooRegion #Entrepreneur #VisuallyImpaired #Accessiblity #SMB #Mastonom #Food

cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-w

#Kia's new #Soundscapes project uses #AI to turn real-world scenery into #music, allowing #VisuallyImpaired passengers to experience landscapes through #sound during car journeys. Trees become soft woodwinds, mountains resonate as deep notes, and the vehicle's speed influences the tempo, creating a unique, immersive #soundtrack for each trip.
drivencarguide.co.nz/news/kia-

Driven Car Guide · Kia Soundscapes turns scenery into sound for the visually impairedBy Jet Sanchez

So yeah. This REALLY pisses me off! I have friends who work for the #MaineStateLibrary. Grrrrr....

Maine State Library issues layoffs, cites inability to access federal funding
The Maine State Library announced Wednesday 13 staff members, whose positions are supported by federal funding, were laid off.

April 9, 2025

"The Maine State Library announced layoffs on Wednesday, citing an ongoing inability to access federal funding.

"The announcement comes after President Donald #Trump signed an executive order in March deeming the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) 'unnecessary' and slated to be dismantled, later placing the entire agency's staff on administrative leave.

"The Maine State Library said in a news release that IMLS funding represents 30 percent of its annual budget and has not received any communication from IMLS on if or when funding might be restored.

"The state library said it last received funds from its 2025 federal award advance through the IMLS on March 24.

"Thirteen employees whose positions are supported by federal funding have been laid off, the state library said. Those employees represent approximately 30 percent of Maine State Library staff.

"The Maine State Library said the layoffs could be rescinded if funding is restored.

"Starting on Thursday, the Maine State Library will close for a two-week reorganization period where its location at 242 State St. in Augusta will not be open to the public.

"'Losing access to this Federal funding harms Maine residents and will have negative consequences in communities across the state," Maine State Librarian #LoriFisher said in the release. 'Despite these significant cuts, the Maine State Library remains committed to advancing the mission of libraries in Maine and to serving every library patron to the best of our ability.'

"In 2024, the Maine State Library says it received $1,526,754 from the #IMLS Library Services and Technology Act Grants to States program which supports services including #HighSpeedInternet for public libraries; #InterlibraryLoans, #EBooks, and #audiobooks; services for #VisuallyImpaired patrons; and professional development for library staff.

"The library says it is continuing to evaluate the range of impacts on library services from the funding cuts and hopes to provide further updates as they become available.

"Following Trump's executive order, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey joined 20 other attorneys general in a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from dismantling a handful of agencies, including the IMLS."

Read more:
newscentermaine.com/article/ne

WCSH · Maine State Library issues layoffs, cites inability to access federal fundingBy NEWS CENTER Maine Staff

Hello #Blind and #VisuallyImpaired community! 👋
I'm having trouble signing PDF documents with a digital certificate using my #screenreader (NVDA on Windows). I can do it in Adobe Reader but it's quite cumbersome and requires sighted assistance.
Does anyone have a more accessible workflow or software recommendation for signing PDFs with a digital certificate using the keyboard and a screen reader? Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Could you please #Boost this so it reaches more people? Thank you in advance! 🙏 #Accessibility #NVDA #PDF #DigitalSignature #AssistiveTechnology @NVAccess

Hey all, on another instance for #music related things, so figure now is as good a time as any for a new #introduction post.

My friends call me Fox or Kayls, though my artist name is TetraChromacy.

I make #Cyberpunk music with a healthy dose of #Psychedelic, #Psybient, #Synthwave, #IDM, #Industrial, #Dubstep and too much else to mention here.

I’m a guitarist, keyboardist, virtual synth tinkerer, sequencer and then some with a love for the dark and gritty aesthetic, though I like soft things too. To say I’m eclectic is an understatement. Lol

Funny, because I used to be one of those stuck up metal elitists who wouldn’t listen to anything if it wasn’t in dropped D tuning or lower with lots of growls and all that. Don’t get me wrong, I still dig metal, but I like to paint with more than just gunmetal grey and metallic shades.

Outside of music things, I’m #visuallyImpaired/#Blind, #ActuallyAutistic, #Trans, a #Gamer, I believe in radical acceptance of all peoples and only judge based on perceived behavior, am a university student dual majoring in computer science and elementary education with a focus on STEM, sadly approaching middle aged but still live life as though I just got out of the nest yesterday, and I live in the Midwest with my girlfriend and our three cats.

Feel free to follow me here, as well as my main over at @LavenderPawprints, though all follows subject to vibe check before accepting.

You can also find me on bandcamp at:
https://tetrachromaticmusic.bandcamp.com/
And other links at:
https://linktr.ee/tetrachromaticmusic

Anything else and I guess you’ll just have to follow or reach out. I promise I don’t bite, no…Not much anyways.
TetraChromacyTetraChromacyMusic is Win! Industrial with a pinch of cyberpunk, mixed in a vat of acidic dark synthy stuff with a smattering of psychedelia stirred in for flavoring=TetraChromacy

Does anyone have any recommendation for a website or phone app that allows a #VisuallyImpaired person to read aloud a (physical) text document?

Ideally free and/or using open source and bonus points if the speech could be saved as an audio file.

Of the top of my head I just came up with Google Translate on Android, which works, but is a bit clunky (and Google), or using something like Tesseract for OCR and the inbuilt TTS to read it out.

Surely there must be a better way now though!
#FediHelp