Dear AccessWorld Readers,
Happy holidays from everyone here at AccessWorld! For our US readers, by the time you read this, it will either be, or nearly be, Thanksgiving. When I think of what I am thankful for, aside from friends, family, health, etc., I also am thankful that I am blind now instead of any other point in history. If you think of all of the technology currently available, life is more accessible than ever before for people with vision loss. With services like Lyft and Uber, DoorDash and Uber Eats, Instacart and Shipt, I feel like I could easily move to any moderately sized city in the US and be able to live freely and comfortably with little issue. OCR and image recognition technology has also come so far from even 5 years ago. I can quickly sort packages using Seeing AI, read my computer screen if something crashes, determine where I am by scanning for signs when I am traveling, sort through my photos with image recognition, and complete countless other tasks. Technology itself is also more accessible than ever before. Whenever a new digital device is released, I can assume that it will have at least some sort of basic accessibility. The same is true for apps. I find that most apps I download, as long as they aren't games, generally are, at least mostly usable, if not perfectly accessible.
Technology aside, the attitudes towards people with vision loss are more positive than ever. We still have a way to go, but I have noticed that in employment specifically, we are finally making strides towards the attitude that a person with vision loss can do something as the default instead of the reverse.
We begin this holiday issue of AccessWorld with two articles to aid you in your search for great gifts for the people on your list. First, Janet Ingber brings us a shopping guide detailing the accessibility of three shopping apps, Chewy, Zappos, and Best Buy. Next, from myself and other staff at AFB, comes the 2021 Holiday Gift Guide.
Following our holiday content for this month, Deborah Kendrick gives us something to celebrate in an article about Joshua Miele and the MacArthur grant he received.
We finish the issue with two product reviews, Jamie Pauls reviews the BrailleSense 6 while Steve Kelley details the Vision Buddy head-mounted wearable.
As always, I am so thankful for all of you that read AccessWorld each month. Your readership is a major motivation for us. What are you thankful for this holiday season? Are there any gifts that you received or are giving that you think would be of interest to people with vision loss? I am always interested to hear your comments and often, we then share them with the rest of the readership in our Letters to the Editor piece.
Happy Holidays,
Aaron Preece
AccessWorld Editor and Chief
American Foundation for the Blind
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
