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The University of Nevada Reno is conducting a survey on the challenges that the blind face when dealing with social interactions. A team of researchers is currently developing a device that will recognize faces and give the user information about the faces. They hope that the results from the survey will help them determine what information the device should give to the user. The survey is 12 questions long and should take between 10 and 25 minutes to complete.

For a number of years, WebAiM has collected data on the types of screen readers that people are using. This information is very helpful for website developers. The survey will be open until Jan. 15, 2014.

BrailleNote and VoiceNote users now have a new version of KeySoft. The main highlight of this upgrade is that users can write in Nemeth code and have it translated into print. This will make doing math much easier for users of these products. Students can write out their math using the Nemeth code and than provide it to their teachers in a printed format. The upgrade also comes with a tutorial for the Nemeth code for those who need a refresher or for those that are just learning it. The other major improvement in this upgrade is the ability to open and read Power Point 2007 or 2010 files. The upgrade is free and available now for download.

Sendero continues to make changes to their Seeing Eye GPS app, and the third update should be coming out soon. This update comes with many features that users have been asking for since it's release. Some of the highlights include the ability to run the app in the background or with the screen locked, the ability to play music and still get turn by turn updates, getting warmer routes no longer requiring a cell connection, and reduced calls to the server which uses less data and should improve battery life. The app will now also have a $9.95 monthly subscription option for those who want to test out the app, or for those who are unable to pay the larger up front cost of the yearly subscription.

A team in Italy hopes to make accessing email on the web a much better experience for the visually impaired. As it stands now, many email providers do not offer a quality experience for screen reader users when accessing their mail on the web. Some providers offer simplified options like basic html, but this strips out some if not many of the features that are available to sighted users. To solve this issue, the team has created "Voice My Mail", a web ad on that gives blind users a more feature rich experience when accessing email on the web. Since it's not a stand alone program, the idea is for it to work with any email provider website.

The team has created a working demo for people to try out, but according to the Indiegogo page, they won't be able to make the project global without extra funding. Users of JAWS and NVDA can test out the demo in the Firefox browser. Let us know in the comments what the experience is like and if you would use the app if it was available.

The American Council of the Blind has compiled a list of the white cane laws for each state. These are the laws that give rights to blind pedestrians while crossing streets and outline penalties for drivers who do not yield for travelers. It is easy to navigate to your own state by heading and there are links to each law. Having access to this information is very important. If you ever feel like your rights as a traveler with a vision impairment have been violated, be sure to check this list.

I am always on the look out for finding more ways to get access to books, in fact, I think I have more book apps on my iPhone than is really necessary. Well now I've added one more. Audio Books HQ is an app that provides access to almost 8000 free audio books. This app was previously not usable to Voiceover users, but now I can say with pleasure that the app is easy to use.

The app currently has access to books from LibriVox, PodioBooks, and the Globe Radio Repertory. Each of these three catalogs is easy to search through. Finding books can be done in a number of ways including: looking by genre, title, author, most downloaded, or in order of when books were posted. There is also an option to preview the book before choosing to download it. For me, I really appreciate this feature because it means I get to hear the narrator and decide if I like their voice before I download the book.

There are a number of features when playing books that you've downloaded. You can adjust the playback speed to be slow or very fast, add a bookmark, skip forward and backward by time or by chapter, and even start a sleep timer.

Just as a final note, the app itself is $1.99 but all of the books available in the app are free.

In November of last year, the Braille Authority of North America (BANA), decided to adopt the Unified English Braille code (UEB). After a year of discussions which included a forum in October of this year, BANA voted at their annual meeting to make January 4, 2016 the date that UEB will be fully implemented in the U.S. What this means for braille readers in the U.S. is that our braille code is going to change. Some of the changes are minor, and some will
feel very strange to those of us who have been reading braille for years. BANA has put together a list of many of the changes to the literary code. The most significant of these changes is the removal of nine contractions and no longer joining and, for, of, the, and with.

There are likely those who are still wondering why BANA made this decision since it's going to be disruptive for braille readers and transcribers. In effect, children who are learning braille now will have to know both the literary braille code and the UEB code because they are likely to encounter both. According to BANA's website, there are a number of reasons why they decided to make this change. The primary reason was to allow for more braille books to be sent across borders. The U.S. was the only English speaking country that still was not using UEB which made it challenging to provide braille materials to other English speaking countries. It will also mean that braille readers who go to other countries will not have any problem reading braille produced in those nations.

The National Library Service has put together a set of 12 videos to help users of the new BARD Mobile app learn how to use all of the features. The videos include topics such as how to read an audio book, how to adjust visual settings, how to pair a braille display and read a braille book, and both basic and advanced VoiceOver gestures that are used within the app. Check the link on this post to view the videos.

Odin Mobile is a new carrier that is only selling phones that would be accessible to people with vision impairments. The first three phones that Odin offered were either very simple, or modified Android phones. They are now offering a mainstream option with the Nexus 4. The phone costs $299, and comes with no contract. According to the Odin Mobile website, when you purchase a Nexus 4, the phone will come with Android 4.4 KitKat preinstalled, and a custom desktop with apps that will help visually impaired users access the features of the phone. Purchasing the Nexus 4 also comes with an instructional package which includes one on one training with a blind Android user and access to a help line for the first month.

It is encouraging to see that Odin Mobile is choosing to sell more feature rich phones and that they're hiring blind Android users to teach new customers how to use their new devices.

One of the reasons people often choose not to try new assistive technology is cost. The team at Serotek wants the blind community to have a chance to try out all of their products for free. So, from now until December 11, feel free to download and use any of their products for no cost.

Microsoft has a lot of catching up to do if they want the visually impaired community to start using their smart phones. Nokia is hoping that their Nokia Create contest will encourage developers to make more apps for the Windows Phone platform. There are eight categories for apps, and one of them is to make apps that are accessible to the visually impaired. According to the Microsoft Accessibility blog, developers can submit apps that are as basic as adding vibration to the compass, or as complex as using the built in camera for image recognition. There are ten categories of apps that Nokia is looking for. These include "Image and Photo, Near Field Communication, Maps and Places, Music, Cross-8,
Fun and Games, Work Life,Freestyle, Nokia Lumia Devices, and Remote Device Access." Developers have until December 15 to submit their apps.

It will be interesting to see how effective the contest is at adding to the accessible app options. Having choice is the best way to encourage innovation. It is my hope that at some point, Microsoft can add their name to the list of smart phones that the visually impaired community will want to use because it meets their needs and improves independence.

The Royal National Institute of Blind People has deemed November "Switch on Technology Month". This month, they are offering technology seminars throughout the United Kingdom, and they've put together three guides to technology that can be downloaded in either Word or PDF. The topics of the three guides are: Making Sense of Mobile Phones, Getting Online with Computers and Tablets, and "Ebooks and Downloading Audio Books".

As an adaptive technology instructor, one of the most common things I hear from clients is that they don't know what tools are available. I hope these guides can help people who are new to technology or those new to vision loss learn what their options are.

If you're a premium subscriber to Spotify and have trouble accessing Spotify content on your PC, you now have a solution. A new app called Blindspot has been released. The app gives screen reader users access to their Spotify account and more. The app can be used in five languages including English, French, German, Spanish, and Swedish. The app uses a set of hot keys for navigation which users can learn about by visiting the documentation section of the website. At this time, the app only works with premium accounts, but the developer hopes that at some point, people who only want to use the free features in Spotify will be able to use Blindspot. Spotify currently only allows the use of their API for premium accounts, thus the limitation. Spotify Premium costs $9.95 a month and also gives you offline playlists and full access to their mobile apps.

Back in my PC days, Winamp was definitely my favorite music player. It was simple to use, and worked well with screen readers. I know there are still people who do internet radio shows using Winamp playlists. Sadly though, the times have changed, and the developers of Winamp have decided to bring this chapter to a close. There will be no new updates for the software, and you will only have until December 20 to download the application because after that day, it won't be available anymore. Tell us about your experience with Winamp in the comments. Will you find a new media player or just hold on forever?

Many theaters around the country are starting to offer the visually impaired the option of listening to the descriptive audio track while they're watching a film. Sadly though, this technology is not available everywhere, and sometimes it doesn't work. The team at Solo-DX wants to make the experience better by having the blind film-goer use a smart phone app to listen to the descriptive audio track instead. Last week, I had the opportunity to test out the new MovieReading app. The interface is very simple. Once you're logged in, you visit the Marketplace, download the descriptive audio track for the film you're going to go see at your theater, and than start the track when your film begins. The app will listen to the audio in the theater and sync the audio track with where the film is so that the user doesn't have to try and match the two tracks themselves. to test the app, I downloaded the Princess Bride track and then watched some Youtube clips from the film. In all three cases, the sync option worked perfectly.

The app is now available from the iTunes App Store. The film "Philomena", opening on November 22 in select cities, will be the first movie to use the app's new features. MovieReading is currently available on iOS, and they hope to have an Android version soon.

Pasted below is a press release from Solo-DX about the MovieReading app and "Philomena".

I personally am a big fan of descriptive audio. Every time I watch a film that has a descriptive audio track, I get more out of the experience and I don't feel like I'm missing out on important parts of the film. It's great to see that many film studios are including descriptive audio, but you can only access the track if you watch the film on DVD or in the theater. Verizon has just announced that they will be the first streaming video provider to offer described films on their On Demand Service. According to the Verizon website, these are the first films that Verizon Fios users can access that have the descriptive audio track, "Wreck It Ralph, The Hangover III, Gangster Squad, The Great Gatsby, Iron Man 3 and Monsters University." Hopefully, more films will be added to the service, and maybe other service providers like Netflix and Hulu will follow their lead.

Since Amazon has let the blind community down in the past, some might be skeptical about the accessibility of the new Kindle Fire HD, but thanks to the RNIB, those who are considering buying the Kindle Fire can see it in action before making their purchase. The three videos demonstrate how to turn on magnification or speech , how to use the magnification features when reading books , and how to use the screen reader features . The videos are very informative and give users a feel for what their experience would be like. It is encouraging to see that Amazon has finally provided access to the Kindle Fire.

To see a list of all of the new accessibility features, read our previous post about the Kindle Fire HD.

. As a huge fan of twitter and the connections that it's brought me over the years, I feel like more of the blind community need to be informed about how easy twitter is to use, and how it can connect you to those who can answer questions, provide you information, and make you feel like you're part of a community. When I joined twitter I knew almost no one in the blind community, but by reaching out and searching for people who had my same interests I've been able to get employment thanks to my social media skills and even be asked to cohost a podcast.

If you are someone who has been holding off on joining twitter because either you don't know how it works or you don't know how accessible it is, then the new book from Jonathan Mosen called Tweeting Blind may be for you. The book can bee purchased in many different formats including braille and BRF from the National Braille Press, or you can get the book in PDF or RTF from the Jonathan Mosen Consulting website for $19.95.

According to the NBP website, the book is quite comprehensive. Readers will learn what twitter is, how to sign up for a twitter account, how to follow, mention, direct message, and block users, and how to access twitter on multiple platforms including windows, mac, iOS, and Android.

Being able to order my own plane tickets online is very empowering, but even in 2013, not all airline websites are as accessible as they could be. There are also no accessible kiosks for passengers to check in at any of our airports, but this may be changing. The Department of Transportation (DOT), has just issued new rules to expand access to airline websites and airport kiosks to passengers with disabilities. A portion of the press release is pasted below.