You can get a Raspberry Pi 4 for $35, add a $5 Micro SD card, a $5 cellphone charger, and a $10 keyboard/mouse combo, and you have a full fledged modern computer running a modern OS (Linux kernel 5.10) for $55. That is more in line with the DIY spirit of the subject, and certainly more capable, without requiring commercial software.
I taught a Linux workshop to blind/visually impaired in Virginia this summer.
orca is the main screen reader used in Linux. Most of them were familiar with Jaws on Windows. Orca offers a kinda similar screen reader experience but the hotkeys are different (ability to re-read a line, jump a word, jump a section, etc)
They were on laptops so I could still look over their shoulder if they needed help, but after a while they all got the hang of it and we were "off to the races". It was thrilling to see it click for them and to see such a completely different user experience.
The short of it is that he uses a screen reader. The thing reads out what is shown on the screen. Things like application title when you alt-tab, page contents on websites, field and button labels/names in forms when you tab through it, etc. I see that u/grendelt already gave some software examples; for mobile I might add that you could try Talkback (built into Android).
> It’s amazing to see someone in full sun using a phone, face not pointing at the phone.
Hello 2006! It was super convenient back when that was normal.
Me on a Nokia with barely a color screen and unlimited GPRS data: playing music/podcasts, reading news, chatting, taking pictures, listening to radio, watching short video clips after minutes of downloading.
Me today with more than a decade of innovation: playing music/podcasts/audiobooks, reading news, chatting, taking pictures, listening to streaming radio, using satellite navigation.
The difference is that in 2006, you didn't have to constantly look at a screen. You can be walking outside and watch where you're going, not even taking the phone out of your pocket for some things like switching songs or turning on a recording when the teacher was throwing a tantrum again (I was not the nicest teenager; I hope I do better now). We're trying to find workarounds for this using bluetooth headphones' buttons that don't work half the time or get passed to the wrong app (Newpipe, Antennapod, VLC, all can take audio focus) or by using long presses or double presses on buttons like power to quick start the camera, but it's very limited what one can do with those.
I've been in some really, really poor parts of the world, and nearly everyone's home I ever visited, they had a tv set. What they didn't have was round-the-clock electricity (sometimes it was scheduled, sometimes it was just off and on at random) or running water.
