349: Accessible Voting in the US, New Microsoft Surface Devices, and VoiceView on Fire Tablets

Welcome one, welcome all... to Tech Talk! Your weekly dose of accessible tech news, reviews and gossip from RNIB Connect Radio! Joining Steven Scott on this week's show - Robin Christopherson, Tim Schwartz and Andy with the emails, and boy what a show we've put together for you! Coming up, Steven and the team discuss the new arrivals in the Microsoft Surface range: the Surface Laptop Go, and the Surface Pro X tablet. If you're listening to this in the US, both of those devices are out today, for those in the UK, you'll have to wait until the 27th. Are they worth putting on your Christmas list? With the US election drawing ever closer, we discuss just how accessible it is to vote, especially as we remain in a pandemic; Can absentee and early voting options truly be accessible? Tim explains the situation, and we also hear from Chris Denielson of the NFB in the States. Also, we've teamed up with RNIB's Technology for Life team to give you some much needed hints, tips and advice on things it would take us half an episode to explain! This week, TFL's Mohammed Atif offers his demonstration of how to set up an Amazon Fire tablet with Voice View enabled.  All that, plus: Robin now owning a braille display, and weirdly it has an ejector seat button, virtual machines, pet shop sounds, "Algorithms done a boo-boo", Steven speaking French, accessible ATMs, spongey braille, Andy "just works", Columbus collaborations, and Andy apparently being ideal for voicing SatNav systems in your car. Plus emails! What happens when Google blocks you from your emails, because you're not in your usual city? And a very technical question about adding a spellchecker to a Win32 application. Robin of course has the answer! Speaking of Robin, his World Sight Day interview with Amazon on their Day One Blog, can be found here - Making the digital world accessible to all On the topic of emails, yes, we do have an ever-expanding list still to read out, but trust me - we have secret plans for the rest of the year that will see us chomp through those 15 pages with ease! So now would be a great time to email in, and get it featured. Get in contact with us at [email protected] - every single one will be read out. Tata!