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On the show this week, there was some social media speculation about whether a breath-taking video demonstrating a future edition of Be My Ai was just a proof of concept of something that may happen sometime long into the future. It is not. The technology exists today and it’s going to be available soon. Earlier this week, Open AI announced and demonstrated ChatGPT 4O. This technology will change screen reading. It will change the way we travel. But we’re going to have to be careful, because AI still hallucinates. If you haven’t heard the next generation of Be My AI in action yet, it may well send shivers down your spine too.
Sonos has been talking, both publicly and privately, about what can only be described as a botched launch of their new app that has had catastrophic PR consequences. They’ve released an update with very minor, but noticeable, accessibility fixes. I am confident that we have their attention and that more tangible progress will be made very soon.
Sometimes, agencies providing information to parents of blind children forget one vital thing. Some of the parents of those blind children are also blind. We’ll hear about a recent example of an event which was more difficult to access for blind parents that it should have been, and seek your comments if you’re a blind parent on whether this is a common problem.
Recently, I was contacted by the developer of a cool new service. We all come across articles on the web that we want to read sometime later. Read later services are nothing new. But ListenLater.net lets you send all those articles you want to read later to your own personal podcast feed which you can subscribe to in your favourite podcast app. The text-to-speech that reads the articles is stunning, and it does a great job of stripping away the clutter. If you like to read content on a device not capable of running read later apps, such as the Victor Reader Stream, then this will give you access to a read later service on that device. I love this thing, and I’m using it every day now. I’ll speak with the developer of ListenLater.net, give you a demo, and tell you about a discount available exclusively to Living Blindfully listeners.
Soon, the International Council on English Braille will be gathering for its General Assembly. In the first of a series of interviews about Braille on the 200th anniversary of the code’s invention, I speak with ICEB President, Judy Dixon.
All this, and a lot more, in Living Blindfully 282. Our show is special because of all the contributions we receive from around the world, so don’t hesitate to be a part of it.