News from the cutting edge of assistive technology
Hello from the CSUN Technology and persons with Disabilities conference, where many of us at Freedom Scientific and the wider VFO family are here to exchange ideas and information. Once we’re back to reality, one of my delightful tasks will be to assemble an audio congratulatory card for Ted Henter. If you’ve been using blindness …
Read More Contributing to our audio congratulations card for Ted HenterUsers of our JAWS® screen reading software know it’s packed with features that make using a computer as a blind person efficient and effective. It’s such a powerful product that we all benefit from the nuggets of information JAWS users share with one another about how they use JAWS effectively in a given situation. Some …
Read More Got a favorite JAWS feature? Share it for possible use in “JAWS Bytes Live”Last October, we recommended that our customers who use Mozilla’s Firefox web browser migrate temporarily to its Extended Support Release (ESR). Beginning with version 57, Firefox adopted a multiprocess methodology, which drastically impacted screen reader performance. This post updates you on the steps Mozilla and Freedom Scientific have been taking to make newer versions of …
Read More Mozilla and Freedom Scientific working together on Firefox compatibilityMost of us visit a few websites regularly, and our familiarity with those sites speeds up our use of them. A well-structured website is a pleasure to use with JAWS, thanks to all the navigation quick keys that provide for moving by common elements such as links, form controls and headings. You can also invoke …
Read More Responsive Web Design: Why one site can behave differently on different PCs and browsersIntroduction Recently, we received a Blog comment from a reader who was concerned about what he perceives to be the excessive cost of the technology we produce at Freedom Scientific. We were grateful to the customer for engaging with us. Rather than bury our response in a comment to an existing post, we want by …
Read More Extending Our Reach. Making JAWS More Available Outside the WorkplaceThose of us old enough to have watched TV ads from the late 70s might remember the commercial for Remington shavers, with the famous line, “I liked it so much, I bought the company”. Here’s a variation on that theme. At this time of year, many of us are at our most reflective, as we …
Read More Meet Chad Hays. He liked it so much, he bought a companyBackground Have you ever been frustrated by all the clutter you’re confronted with on web pages? The web seems to offer so much promise. You know the material you want is there somewhere, but it can be difficult sometimes to find that gold nugget of information you’re after. You know that if you could see …
Read More Flexible Web. Clear the clutter, harness the powerOverview On November 14, Mozilla is expected to release a new version of its Firefox web browser. Firefox 57 represents such a significant technical and performance change that it’s going to be known as Firefox Quantum. Mozilla and mainstream reviewers of the beta code agree, the browser is much faster and more memory efficient. …
Read More Important information for users of Mozilla FirefoxUpdate. Since this post was originally written, Microsoft has addressed the issues referred to promptly, and Edge is now responsive in all versions of JAWS supporting Edge. As we have blogged previously, Freedom Scientific and Microsoft have been collaborating closely to make Microsoft Edge accessible. If you are on Microsoft’s Windows Insider program, you …
Read More JAWS and the Windows 10 Fall Creators UpdateIt seems there is an international day for just about everything nowadays, from your favorite food to talking like a pirate. Perhaps, next year, we’ll take up the challenge of blogging like a pirate and seeing how effectively we can get the various text-to-speech engines JAWS supports to do it right. Since 2014, 30 September …
Read More Celebrating International Podcast Day