Double Tap News Roundup: 18th November

This week, Double Tap News shone a spotlight on Be My Eyes once again, after they made headlines with its innovative AI customer support service developed through a partnership with Microsoft. The “Be My AI” employs OpenAI’s GPT-4 to describe images and tackle customer service queries with a remarkable 90% resolution rate without human aid.

Also, Microsoft’s Ignite conference was abuzz with AI developments. They’ve rebranded Bing Chat to Copilot, unveiled Microsoft Loop for collaborative workspaces, and announced new AI processors that promise to power cloud workloads and, possibly, future Surface devices. Plus, TuneIn’s collaboration with HumanWare now offers the blind community accessible audio media through the Victor Reader Stream 3, diversifying entertainment options.

The excitement was tempered by concerns from the disability community over Humane Inc.’s AI Pin. Despite its innovative wearable AI capabilities, critics, like Pneuma Solutions’ CEO Mike Calvo, voiced the need for disability-focused accessibility considerations.

In other news, Abby Duffy’s AI image description feature for the JAWS screenreader won Freedom Scientific’s Next Big Thing contest, demonstrating the community’s commitment to inclusivity, and Portugal’s João Santos addresses what he perceives as a “general neglect of MacOS accessibility” by developing a third-party screenreader, Vosh, for the Mac, and Cameron Cundiff introduced a Chrome extension that describes images with a click, a tool currently in beta testing following OpenAI’s recent updates.

And AbilityNet TechShare Pro’s conference in London closed with a focus on AI, media representation of disability, and hands-on product demos, with Mark Walker highlighting AI’s role in this “new dawn” for accessibility.

AMI Technical Producer Grace Scoffield reads this week’s Double Tap News.