Indigenous people often face an array of barriers to economic opportunity. Poverty, oppression and simple lack of access to the Internet service are among them. We'll talk about expanding opportunity through education, career preparation and extension of broadband to indigenous communities in Canada. What you'll hear applies to any population whose physical separation diminishes opportunity.

Parallel

60: Tech Inclusion and Indigenous Peoples

Three Apple news junkies give Apple's fall product announcement event a few days to settle. We weigh in on all the new hardware announcements and what we imagine could come next.

59: Apple Event: Takes Served at a Pleasing Temperature

Ten years ago, a pair of accessibility advocates decided to bring attention to the need for better accessibility in digital realms. They created Global Accessibility Awareness Day, or #GAAD. The annual event now attracts participation from Fortune 500 companies, including Apple, Google and Microsoft. But according to cofounder Joe Devon, #GAAD is still about developers doing the work to build things everyone can use.

58: #GAAD: Beyond the Hashtag

Mobile and desktop accessibility are similar, but different, just as mobile browsers can show the same pages desktop ones can, but with different interfaces and quirks. On this episode, we're talking about how to use mobile tools to test the accessibility of Web sites in iOS. My guest is the author of the [#a11ytools](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/a11ytools-web-accessibility/id1356241530) testing suite.

57: Web Accessibility Testing on Mobile

Beyond the checkboxes and status reports that tally the numbers of women, people of color, and (on rare occasions) people with disabilities an organization has hired, are the lived experiences of individuals who seek to thrive in a variety of STEM careers. We discuss these topics and lots more with an educator, an engineer and an advocate for meaningful, sustainable DEI in the workplace.

56: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Tech

NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory has a bird's-eye view of exploding stars, black holes and other distant astronomical phenomenon. Part of interpreting the massive amounts of data the telescope collects is creating data visualizations. But how can someone who is blind or visually impaired share in the beauty and the science of the images Chandra data scientists create? You're about to find out.

55: I Think I'm Part of a MISSION

Tech-assisted navigation means more than using your phone or other GPS-equipped device to find your way outside. Improving indoor navigation has long been a project for people with blindness and low vision, but its importance is growing for venues and tech companies, too.

54: Indoor Navigation: We're Working on the Sighted Experience

What's new in Android 12, and in accessibility for Google platforms? I'm visiting with my favorite Google-focused writers for a one-month-past-I/O update from Google world.

53: Nothing is Ruined in Android 12

Apple laid a bevy of updates on the waiting throng during its 2021 WWDC Keynote event. From iOS to macOS, privacy to Siri, the announcements touched most aspects of the company's operating systems. How much can we talk about in an hour? Let's find out!

52: The Simone Biles of Text Recognition

We take a look at several preview announcements Apple made in late May. Unusually for the company, and for accessibility updates, the focus was on features we'll see later in the year. They include: assistive touch for Apple Watch, eye tracking on iPadOS, vastly improved hearing aid support, enhancements to VoiceOver image recognition and the proverbial MORE.

51: Layers of Apple's Accessibility Onion

Apple AirTags have been in the wild for a few weeks now, and my guests have them. We talk about how and whether the little object-finders are useful, what using them is like, and how they work for blind users.

50: A Use for My 13th AirTag

In its second-larges acquisition ever, Microsoft is buying Nuance Communications. Variously identified as a cloud AI company and a purveyor of speech-to-text tools like Dragon, Nuance is a leader in voices for screen readers. So. What does it all mean?

49: Voices in the Cloud

Traditionally, making web sites accessible to all began with coding pages to follow established standards from the W3C. Developers can also go further to support screen reader users, people with low vision, cognitive disabilities, ADHD and more. Now, AI has been applied to this task in the form of server-side software called accessibility overlays. But while these overlays promise turnkey protection from lawsuits, many people with disabilities say they do not deliver accessibility, and sometimes compromise it.

48: The Trouble with Accessibility Overlays

A platform that first entered many people's consciousness as the social network for teens and younger has become a place many creators and viewers find joy, and respite from some of the more toxic aspects of social media. We're talking TikTok.

47: It All Comes Down to Cats

Clubhouse is the buzzy, audio-only social network with lots of venture funding and problematic privacy policies. Some call it "talk radio," – not a compliment – some say it could replace podcasts, and some are just trying to have an accessible experience. This episode was recorded inside Clubhouse with a few guests you've heard before on Parallel, and some you haven't. We'll talk about privacy, exclusivity, the tech bro vibe, how the service has benefited community in the accessibility community, and how that community has begun to come together to address some of the app's own accessibility problems. Because I recorded (with knowledge and permission from all speakers) in the app, the audio is good, but not great. Better to say that it varies. This is an edited version of a two-hour conversation – not including the after-party. I'm going to call it the first Parallel live show.

46: Welcome to the Clubhouse

Why don’t the worlds of mainstream tech and accessibility tech ever seem to collide? Shelly, who keeps one foot in each, wants to know. She and her guests from both worlds chew over the news and trends of the day, mixing in an accessibility perspective. Hosted by Shelly Brisbin.

hubhopper

Parallel

hubhopper