For over a decade, smartphone cameras have been used to help blind and low-vision individuals connect with the world around them. We’ve looked at some of these apps before, including “Be My Eyes” and “Seeing AI”, and while those apps are still very much worth using, today we are going to take a quick look at a new entry in this space.

TapTapSee is an app for iOS and Android that is designed to help blind and low-vision individuals identify the world around them without the use of a third-party. This is an important distinction because unlike some of the visual assistant apps that already exist in this category such as the aforementioned app “Be My Eyes”, TapTapSee is designed to be used independently.

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iOS 18 has recently been released, and with that release comes even more built-in accessibility features. Today we are going to look at those new tools, along with some new updates that were released to improve upon pre-existing tools. Let’s take a look!

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Today we review some apps for students including Anki Flashcards and MyStudyLife. Then we review some exciting new AT hardware including the Palma 2 e-reader, and more.

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Today we are going to look at one of the higher rated flashcard apps on the app store. We’ve looked at a few of these apps in the past, and today we’re going to look at a flashcard app that does things a bit differently.

Anki is a highly customizable flashcard app that supports images, videos, markup languages such as LaTeX and more. The browser version of the app is free, and through this version of the app, users can have the most freedom in how they create and review their deck.

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When you’re a student studying multiple subjects, staying on top of your school, homework, social life, and work is not an easy task. Of course, you’ve likely been given an agenda at the start of the school year, and while an agenda serves as a decent paper-based organizational tool, you’re probably going to be better off seeking out a digital alternative instead. This is especially true for students with learning differences who tend to perform better within a more flexible digital space.

MyStudyLife is a personal academic assistant that is designed to keep track of your commitments through scheduling, tasks, and reminders. Essentially it does everything that an agenda does, in a digital space, so that you can access your schedule from anywhere on virtually any device. The app was specifically developed for students, so it’s based around an academic calendar where users can input term dates, holidays, classes, exams, extra-curricular activities and more.

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Huge congratulations to Hearing Solutions Audiologist, Danielle Lafleur, on being awarded the 2024 Student Poster Outstanding Research Award (1^st Prize). The project investigates the primary care providers’ behaviour attitudes, and knowledge regarding the hearing health of their older patients. This project was co led by University of British Columbia School of Audiology and Speech Sciences and Wavefront Centre for Communication Accessibility, and was co funded by Vancouver Foundation and Michael Smith Health Research BC. Danielle accepted the award at the Canadian Academy of Audiology conference this past week.

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Notetaking apps are one of our favorite ways of staying organized, whether it’s in the classroom, at home, or in the office. And while these apps were brought into this world as fairly simple word processing programs, the very concept (and execution) of notetaking has evolved greatly thanks to the growth and evolution of the internet.

And while there are already so many great options for notetaking apps already available, the app that we are looking at today is unique enough that it definitely deserves some attention.

Obsidian is an open-source notetaking app of virtual infinite possibilities. And while that statement might sound hyperbolic, it’s also true. Because the app is open source, individuals can create their own plugins to enhance the apps default functionality. As of right now, there are 1,924 plugins available to download, for free.

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Today is a short, news and app round-up episode. We look at some recent assistive technology news, new apps for learning math, a low-cost text-to-speech alternative, and a whole lot of scholarship opportunities across New Brunswick and Canada.

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We’ve tested a variety of Math apps in the past and generally these apps focus on one or two functions or features. Today we are going to look at a collection of math learning apps that cover a wide variety of math topics. And while the mobile versions are available for iOS only, the web version of each app can easily be opened or installed on any operating system.

The Math Learning Center by Bridges in Mathematics offers a suite of completely free math apps and activities for students from pre-K to grade 5. The best way to access this collection is by going to www.mathlearningcenter.org/apps. From there, you can navigate the various apps and activities that are available.

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We’ve discussed a few different text-to-speech apps in the past, and while there are plenty of great choices for iOS users (Voice Dream Reader is a perfect example) many of those apps, including the one we just named, are not available for Android. So, in an attempt to identify some suitable text-to-speech alternatives for Android, we are going to look at an app that IS available for Android users.

Speech Central AI Voice Reader is a text-to-speech app that offers users a full app experience for free, with the caveat that the free version of the app limits your daily usage. And unlike many other apps that offer their pro versions on a subscription basis, Speech Central Pro is available for a more reasonable one-time purchase fee of $12.99 CDN.

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