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Google Introduces Voice Access To Make Android More Accommodating For People With Disabilities (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has launched a new beta app called Voice Access, which lets people control their Android phone with voice commands. The company took the wraps off Voice Access as an accessibility tool to help people who have difficulties using the touch interface, such as those with tremors or paralysis. Once installed, items in Settings and apps on the Homepage are numbered. The user can tell the device, "Go Home", which is transcribed at the top of the page, and then say, "Open one", to launch the app numbered one. Twitter and Facebook also recently took some steps to make some of their services more accessible to people.
The disability thing is just a cover. They want to make sure our computers are less annoying to any time travelers from the future.
So now the phone people will be even more annoying around you.
How many people with tremors even use a phone... More because they are just so old they have some issues coping with new technology, unfortunately. This is really meant for the general userbase.
I guess I'm a time traveler as all of my Galaxy devices have had a voice activation feature to use the phone with voice commands.
Braille touchscreens
of oPen-sourcE.
This is not nice for people who suffer from Tourette syndrome.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Doesn't appear to work that way. Homepage and settings only, numbered items only.
A shame, really. If it worked as you suggest, it would be considerably more useful. To everyone including the handicapped. And an inclusive, comprehensive solution is always a great deal better than an exclusive, restricted solution if both are practical -- as they are in this case.
But it's a start.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why should big companies have to spend large amounts of money catering to a small group of people who aren't going to be profitable for the company? If I'm a business, it should be my right whether I want to make my properties accessible or give up on getting business from people who want accessible properties. Government shouldn't be telling me that I have to spend large amounts of money for disabled people. It's my right to turn away that business and government shouldn't be saying otherwise. The same is true with software. If you're blind, you don't need to be using a smartphone or tablet. If you're deaf, well, you don't need to be using a phone. It's simply a waste of money to serve disabled people.
product, BSD's Mr. Rx4ymond's Things I still
Another product for people with disabilities? I thought this site was 'News for Nerds'. Now it's overrun by SJWs! What's in it for me, me, and especially me!? More pandering to the liberal msm by greedy corporate overlords!
... add support for audible feedback that did not require one to look at the screen, it would be useful for someone that was either blind, or that could not look at the screen for some other reason (perhaps someone driving?)
And to actually control functions in individual apps where it made sense, as well, such as music apps, maps/navigation, etc.. Some of that would require app developers to add hooks/definitions of the different functions.
"Ok google, open Pandora and select 'classic rock' station"
So many opportunities missed. Like for instance Google Now's location based reminders.
For example "Remind me the next time I am near the pharmacy to stop and get aspirin" - only works if you happen to be LOOKING at the screen as you drive by said pharmacy.
More likely, you'll get home, get out of the car, and only THEN look at the phone and see the reminder, when its too late.
It should ANNOUNCE, AUDIBLY something to actually REMIND you, like "(beep) You are near a pharmacy and asked for a reminder at this location"
It came as a great surprise to me when a friend who had become totally blind was using an iPhone. The smooth featureless surface seemed the last thing that would be useful to a blind person. But there is a whole subculture of apps for the blind for the iPhone, which, "surprise", were voice activated. He could use the phone to navigate the streets in his neighborhood when going for walks. He could order books for the blind over the phone, delivered to the phone, and listened to over the phone (using Bluetooth headphones). An amazing app is called "taptapsee", to identify objects. He just pointed the phone's camera at an object, double tapped the phone, and it spoke the name of the object!! Another app lets the blind person leave "notes" for himself. There are apps that will tell him what color an object is, using the camera of course. With one amazing app, he can point the phone at paper money, and it will tell him the denomination! I don't know if Android has all these capabilities, but why not? (A funny thing happened with my friend. His iPhone went completely blank, ie, the surface display refused to come up. This didn't bother him, but his wife couldn't see what was what. Turned out that it is a "feature" of an iPhone that if you triple-tap the surface, it will turn the surface display off! Took two trips to the Apple store to discover that one.) Bottom line, there are ten times as many apps for the blind for the iPhone than for the Android. (I counted 125 apps for the blind for the iPhone on one site, and could only find a dozen or so listed for the Android - a quick and non-scientific search :)). I seriously hope this will be the beginning of a surge so that Android can catch up. I am a very happy Android user, myself.
Just see this thread. People are asking for the font on Google Maps for Android to be scalable. That would go a long way to help people with poor vision to use one of Google's main Android apps.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
As if they had a choice. There are widespread accessibility changes coming on all platforms of devices from government mandates that have to be done by the end of the year. All tv set top boxes have to have text to speech and magnification coming (as long as they are fairly recent boxes), along with phones/tablets. Good on google for getting there ahead of time and spinning it properly
Apple makes it really easy to support Guided Access in apps, basically by assigning a meaningful string to every UI element so someone can navigate an entire touch UI just by listening to what is on the screen as you list and move between active control elements.
Not every app is as good as it could be about supporting this, but even doing nothing at all the iPhone uses labels on buttons and text areas to describe what is going on with the UI. So really it's many more apps that are at least usable to the blind.
On a side note the Apple Watch is also a useful tool for the blind, as when using Maps to get directions you get coded taps on your wrist telling you to turn left, right, or to stop.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How does the system prevent control from someone else that the legitimate user?