TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

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Apple’s New Accessibility Innovations Will Blow You Away

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photo of a MacBook anf an i-phone with the Apple logo showing

Our Takeaway: More evidence that disability is having its moment.  The major tech companies are all pioneering accessible new features for an inclusive world.

Apple previewed a handful of new features designed to boost cognitive, vision, hearing, and mobility accessibility, around Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The features are slated to roll out later this year. This comes as Apple gears up for its Worldwide Developers Conference, which kicks off June 5. 

One feature, called Live Speech, is geared toward users who are nonspeaking or who have diverse speech patterns or disabilities. Live Speech lets someone type what they want to say and then have it spoken aloud. The feature can be used for in-person conversations as well as over the phone and on FaceTime. It works on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and uses any built-in device voices like Siri. You could say, “Nice to meet you, I’m . . . ” and introduce yourself, for example, and can also save favorite phrases such as, “Can I please get a black coffee?” Read More.

EnChroma and Visit Seattle Help Color Blind Museum Guests to Experience Many Shades

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Woman wearing Enchroma glasses stands on stairs in a museum looking at artwork on the wall

Since the first person in America to test Covid positive was from Seattle,  Ali Daniels, Chief Marketing Officer of Visit Seattle, was looking for an antidote to the barrage of negative publicity that would also allow  them to control the narrative.“We noted that Tennessee received many awards and recognition by helping color-blind travelers enjoy fall foliage after having EnChroma lenses inserted in their viewfinder telescopes,” Ms. Daniels told us. “Arts and culture are one of our differentiators. Having Enchroma glasses placed at over 20 locations during our 2022 Refract Glass Art Festival resulted in video testimonials of people emotional their first time experiencing a full range of colors.”

Often overlooked, color blindness affects one in 12 men (8%) and one in 200 women (.5%), 350 million people worldwide. While people with typical color vision see over one million shades of color, people who are color blind only see an estimated 10% of hues and shades.

Our Takeaway: The positive reaction from visitors and the community was so profound that they are now exploring other opportunities to apply EnChroma’s technology to enhance the visitor experience at key landmarks. Read More.

For more information about EnChroma, contact Kent Streeb at kent@enchroma.com.

Meet the new A.I. “Virtual” Volunteer for the Blind

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photo of 3 smart phone screens showing the Virtual Volunteers screen of BE My Eyes app

Be My Eyes’ mission is to make the world more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision. Since their founding in 2015, Be My Eyes has worked to connect their 6.3 million volunteers to users to assist them with everyday tasks. Their new Virtual Volunteer tool, currently in beta testing, will push them further toward achieving their goal to improve accessibility, usability, and access to information globally, and aligns them with OpenAI’s stated principles of developing safe and responsible AI.

This technology will be transformative in providing people who are blind or have low vision with powerful new physical resources to better navigate physical environments, address everyday needs, and gain more independence.

Our Takeaway: Be My Eyes has built a huge volunteer force that helps blind and visually impaired people negotiate everyday challenges via smart phone cameras that can help them read a milk label or distinguish between shampoo and conditioner in a hotel room.  OpenAI technology will allow users to take greater control of their decision making and free up volunteer time for more nuanced requests . Read More.

QVC Rolls Out “Accessible and Adaptive” Lifestyle Collection

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Selma Blair in a pink suit sits on a teal velvet couch holding a cane. There is a large golden dog sitting next to her and leaning its head on her knee

Live video commerce giant QVC is expanding its commitment to adaptive clothing and accessible products and named actor, author, and disability advocate Selma Blair as its brand ambassador for accessibility.

In a statement, QVC said it was looking to grow its accessible and adaptive offering by streamlining how customers find and explore them and enhancing the accessibility of its end-to-end shopping experience.

The move will target those with disabilities, illnesses, injuries, recovering from surgery, or aging, by offering hundreds of products spanning fashion, home, electronics and beauty with a dedicated ‘Accessible and Adaptive’ category.

Our Takeaway: This means that QVC is one of the first US retailers to offer a full lifestyle of accessible products into a single multicategory medium that will be an enormous convenience for the disability community. Read More.

New on TravelAbility.net

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InnovateABLE:  We carefully curated selection of technology, innovations and services that can reduce barriers for people with disabilities, several of which will be part of our annual pitchfest on July 26th. https://travelability.net/summit/innovateable/

Airport Accessibility page with links in all 50 states.

New Members of Our Advisory Board:

David O’Hara, Director of Accessibility, American Express Global Business Travel 

Houston Vandergrift, Founder, Downs and Towns.

Alan Fyall, Associate Dean, Academic Affairs, UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management.

Lorraine Woodward, Founder, Becoming Rentable

Six of the most prominent Disability Holidays in 2023.

We welcome Lansing Michigan as the newest member of our “Destination A11Y Club.”

Kudos to Visit Tampa Bay for creating the Accessible Riverwalk Pass, the first discount pass designed specifically for visitors and local residents with a disability.

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