[Nimer's blog] The symphony and the static: When sound design makes or breaks the experience https://nimerblogs.blogspot.com/2025/08/the-symphony-and-static-when-sound.html Personal blog by Nimer Jaber, accessibility analyst at Google https://www.linkedin.com/in/nimer-jaber-68b96ba5 #blind #a11y #accessibility #blindness
You can find The vOICe for Android on Google Play by searching for "seeingwithsound" or "sensory substitution" (including the double quotes!), or head directly to https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=vOICe.vOICe "sensory substitution" for the blind. #BCI #NeuroTech #blindness
To Grok: Create a movie clip showing why opting for a Neuralink Blindsight brain implant for restoring vision is a bad choice. https://x.com/i/grok/share/N3AlNRNLlYGtuBOhOxO3F3rhB #BCI #NeuroTech #blindness
the new feature on #BeMyAI that allows you to save photos including the description directly on the photos app on IOS is amazing. it's like having a realtime AI camera for taking photos. the only downside of this is, you're not able to take photos on high resolution like the camera app does. but at least, good thing for taking photos for our up coming trip to #Riccione. #Blind #Blindness #BlindPhotography #Photography #AI #Accessibility #BeMyEyes #Italy
Before I begin, I am totally blind and have never seen. I agree with most of this, but not all of it. I simply use things that work. I never buy things without real dials or buttons, including all of my appliances. I don't need an app to turn on my microwave or use my toaster. I don't shop on inaccessible sites. Most restaurants have websites with menus, many of which are fully accessible. If I don't simply ask someone who is with me what's available, I use my computer before we get there and decide what I want, or if I absolutely had to, I would pull out my keyboard and check it on my phone. I see no issue with 3.5mm jacks, since I use them every day in my own devices. I usually just buy things online, negating the need for cash entirely, though I do usually keep some in my wallet. I have no problem asking for help when needed. I fail to see what dignity has to do with it. It's not my fault that idiots make idiotic technology.
Having said all of that, on the whole, I do agree with this. Many sites are inaccessible, and in 2025, with WCAG (website accessibility guidelines) available to all, this shouldn't even be an issue. I can understand very small businesses not knowing much about these things, but some of these sites are owned by multi-billion dollar corporations (ahem, Facebook, Google for GMail and Youtube). They claim accessibility while destroying the versions of their sites that were actually accessible in the first place (Basic Mobile site, Basic HTML, and pre-2018 mobile site, respectively). The obsession with touchscreens and digital everything is also utterly ridiculous. Even cars aren't made normally anymore. I'm surprised people don't have computers to think for them! There do need to be more normal options available. Nowhere is this more obvious than with phones. Why can't we have a qwerty phone that runs the latest version of Android, works well, and receives updates in a decent amount of time? At the very least, why can't we have a phone that's a good size (around that of the iPhone SE 2016-20-22 or smaller), instead of being almost as large as a tablet! I have to carry that and my folding bluetooth keyboard around with me, and then, people wonder why I don't bring my phone everywhere and am not addicted to it? I already own one, but why can't there be more microwaves with dials sold alongside the annoying touchscreen ones? What about stoves which are completely flat and can literally kill or severely burn us? Since when did putting real burners on them become a problem? Why can't people actually say whether something such as a fan or heater uses a touchscreen or dials? Most of the time, they do, or it will say "digital controls" which is a dead giveaway, but that's not always the case. And why, in 2025, can't we have simple braille labels on products, or at least labels and bar codes that are easy to scan with ocr software?
I don't work, but I also understand things from that perspective. I've heard a horror story of a woman who had a great job and did it well. One morning, she went to work and the updated software wouldn't work with her screen reader, so she lost her job. I've seen many applications for jobs that require vision, even when you think they wouldn't, or jobs that, by all rights should be doable, until, again, the software causes trouble.
https://nimerblogs.blogspot.com/2025/08/congratulations-youve-unlocked-expert.html?m=1
€ 4 million of taxpayer money was spent on the Sound of Vision project https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/643636/results What is their legacy? Where to get or buy their device? "The Sound of Vision project will create a wearable system allowing visually impaired users to navigate the environment." #blindness
Back home and in a particularly misanthropic mood - and then I came across this prize shit, Niall Ferguson’s pulpit in the Times.
It doesn’t surprise me that he is given a pulpit - contributes nothing and a leech on society, andselective on evidence.
'Well, as the author of War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred (2006), I am qualified to disagree.' - no it was a badly written, poorly researched piece of fiction.
A few months ago, ReVision Implant announced on LinkedIn that they have entered a research partnership with Cochlear Inc. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7307520278517932032 There seems to be no official press release; #BCI #NeuroTech #blindness
Bloomberg: #Neuralink sees $1 billion of revenue by 2031 in vast expansion https://archive.ph/h4EZV "Neuralink Corp. expects to put its chips in 20,000 people a year by 2031"; #BCI #NeuroTech
"By 2030, #Neuralink sees the launch of its sight-restoring chip #Blindsight, expanding to 10,000 surgeries a year and bringing in over $500 million" with "a conservative reimbursement of $50k per surgery"
Until then, you can try The vOICe vision BCI for free https://www.artificialvision.com/neuralink.htm #blindness
In ‘Slow Light,’ Past and Present Merge in the Uncanny, Animated Life of a Unique Protagonist — Colossal https://www.inbella.com/1166166/in-slow-light-past-and-present-merge-in-the-uncanny-animated-life-of-a-unique-protagonist-colossal/ #Blindness #Entertainment #EntertainmentNews #Kijek/Adamski #movies #narrative #PAPER #senses #VIDEO
I got a question last night that I really appreciated, because I think it's one of those questions a lot of people ask themselves, answer themselves and never think about again. The question was "Wouldn't a blind person rather produce a podcast than a video?"
Many a person would grab the pitchforks at this point and cry #ableism, but I feel that would be supremely unconstructive so I answered the question, albeit with a minor helping of snark. This is still me, after all.
I'd be curious to hear if anyone else is willing to challenge their assumptions, so consider this an #AMA or #AskMeAnything.
Question about #blindness, how a #blind person would do X or IF a blind person does Y? Go, you shall not be yelled at. Embarrassing question? I've seen it all, DM if you're worried about backlash or propriety. And yes, asking about wiping is permitted :P
CLÉANTE:These are the arguments of all your kind:
Since they can’t see, they think that no one ought;
Whoever does, is tainted with free thought;
Whoever balks at pious affectation
Fails to hold piety in veneration.
Come now, for all your talk, I’m not afraid;
Heaven sees my heart, and I know what I’ve said.
[Voilà de vos pareils le discours ordinaire:
Ils veulent que chacun soit aveugle comme eux;
C’est être libertin que d’avoir de bons yeux;
Et qui n’adore pas de vaines simagrées
N’a ni respect ni foi pour les choses sacrées.
Allez, tous vos discours ne me font point de peur;
Je sais comme je parle, et le ciel voit mon cœur.]
Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite [Le Tartuffe, ou L’Imposteur], Act 1, sc. 6 (1669) [tr. Frame (1967), 1.5]
Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/moliere/77776/
Hmm weren't reps of #Meta just at #Blindness conventions touting their commitment to #Accessibility? How do such breaks make it through to public releases. 
Stevie Wonder Shuts Down Rumors He Is Not Blind https://www.inbella.com/1150560/stevie-wonder-shuts-down-rumors-he-is-not-blind/ #Blindness #disability #EntertainmentNews #StevieWonder
Well shit. Just when I go all-in on #instant #coffee (#MaxwellHouse #FrenchVanilla), and after I've already consumed almost 5 "containers" full over the last month or so, I read an #article yesterday that #consuming instant coffee #increases your #risk of an incurable #blindness disease by 700%.
Guess it's back to the Keurig.
https://nypost.com/2025/07/08/health/type-of-coffee-increases-risk-of-incurable-blinding-condition-by-700/
Being a blind student isn't easy.
Making a difference for kids in school, enables them to make a difference as adults in their community. Does your school have a student who could benefit from a screen reader? And a budget which could benefit from it being FREE? We have the solution!
And if you can help us, it would make a huge difference too!
To ChatGPT: What is the evidence pro or con that a Neuralink Blindsight brain implant in visual cortex will give vision to congenitally blind people as claimed without any evidence by Elon Musk? https://chatgpt.com/share/6870e34e-1abc-8004-a243-772964c39afa I added the case of Mike May as evidence con. #BCI #neuroscience #blindness
The Lumina Probiotic May Cause Blindness in the Same Way as Methanol
[To ChatGPT] What is your advice to congenitally blind people: better spend effort to master The vOICe visual-to-auditory sensory substitution, or better wait for Elon Musk's Neuralink Blindsight brain implant? https://chatgpt.com/share/686c0879-2904-8004-b138-318cd95cdc24
[To Grok] What is your advice to congenitally blind people: better spend effort to master The vOICe visual-to-auditory sensory substitution, or better wait for Elon Musk's Neuralink Blindsight brain implant? https://x.com/i/grok/share/1WgRLpKYjdSs5Um3I9CutERck
