Would there be any interest in Having the KittenTTS voices integrated as an NVDA add-on? before I do the work, I want to know whether people are actually interested. This sounds like an interesting project. The voices are ML based but they use the CPU for processing.
Turns out @fastfinge has already done an early version of it. I might look at the code but sounds like it's not worth the time.
https://github.com/KittenML/KittenTTS
#accessibility #NVDA #NVDASR
let's see how some people sell their tutorials for NVDA
imagine you are a newly Blind person that need audio guided demonstration and you want to buy this, I'll stop here and let you read the rest.
Accessible Learning Lounge β NVDA Audio Lessons (by Charmaine)
Welcome to the Accessible Learning Lounge! I'm a highly experienced instructor of Assistive Technologies for people living with blindness or low vision, and I also happen to be totally blind myself. My hope is that the lessons I provide here, will help as many learners as possible who wish to have s
from the lovely, visionary, @joslee
Community proposal: celebrating, reflecting, and envisioning NVDA's past, present, and future together as a community throughout 2026
Joseph Lee
12/23/25
Hello add-ons community,
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for folks celebrating them.
Please circulate the following community proposal throughout the NVDA community (if you want, please do translate them into your languages). While I will be offline from the community for majority of the time in 2026, I will do my best to offer advice in terms of event planning:
Proposal: community events to celebrate, reflect, and envision NVDAβs past, present, and future throughout 2026 (NVDAβs twentieth anniversary):
Hello NVDA community,
Hope all of you are doing well and staying safe and healthy.
In a few days we will usher into year 2026. The upcoming year is special for the NVDA community: it is NVDAβs twentieth anniversary, and the NVDA community should come together to mark this occasion by celebrating, reflecting, and envisioning NVDAβs past, present, and future.
Background: in April 2006, an early version of NonVisual Desktop Access was released to the world. In the midst of competition between several commercial (and free) screen readers for Microsoft Windows, NVDA made a mark by being an open-source, free screen reader made by the blind for the blind. For the next twenty years, NVDA and NV Access, the nonprofit in charge of developing NVDA, became a recognized force in the access technology landscape, with numerous awards, sponsorships, and a community of people driving its growth and adoption, including being adopted as a primary screen reader for an upcoming braille-centric computing hardware.
In 2016, I and several NVDA community members organized NVDACon, a weekend of fun and reflection on NVDAβs ten years of service and impact. Starting out as a small screen reader targeting Windows XP in 2006, NVDA became a centerpiece of a community dedicated to equal access to technology ten years later. Not only the screen reader itself became an example of community involvement, things around it such as add-ons, localization, tutorials, and others strengthened NVDAβs ecosystem and its message that people should not have to pay extra to access information anywhere. The 2016 event was global in scale and featured talks from members across countries, languages, and backgrounds, including a keynote from NV Access discussing their reflection and vision for NVDA for years to come.
So, as we approach the twentieth anniversary of NVDA, let us work together as a community to organize events throughout the year celebrating, reflecting, and envisioning NVDAβs past, present, and future. The events can include workshops on submitting bug reports and feature suggestions, a showcase of community add-ons and their development, a collection of video testimonials from community members, in-person or online gathering of community members organized by local communities or on a more global scale, or something creative and memorable. Ideally, the events should happen throughout the year, with some of the memorable ones happening to coincide with NVDAβs twentieth anniversary in April 2026. Or, if we want, let us try resurrecting international NVDACon and make it more modern such as webinars over Zoom and other more modern (and accessible) possibilities.
While many events might be organized at the level of local communities by country or language, I think we should aim to have at least one global scale event in 2026 to celebrate NVDAβs impact in the past, reflect on NVDAβs present strengths and challenges, and collectively envision what NVDA will be for the next five years or so. While I may not be able to coordinate various events including the global event I envision happening later in 2026, I will be available should any NVDA community seek advice on event planning and organization.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Joseph
Joseph S. Lee, M.A.
PhD student and instructor of record (communication), University of Colorado Boulder
Certified NVDA Expert, 2025
Member, NVDA Advisory Group
Founder and initial event planner, NVDA Users and Developers Conference (NVDACon), 2014 to 2016
#nvda #screenReader #nvda20 #blind nvdacon #openSource #accessibility
Even when people are being harsh, it's a training ground for us to test our nicety, Quentin exactly knows that.
wow, I guess we had this much of civility and responsiveness from the earlier freedomscientific, @BlazieTech and David Holladay times.
I am young, so I don't know much of the Blind tech history.
so chime in about Blindness and low vision companies that are charitable, shows community love, open and friendly towards their competitors and always respect users even when the users are hharsh or disagrees with them.
context, read the whole thread here, https://nvda-addons.groups.io/g/nvda-addons/topic/new_official_nvda_users_email/113963757
Poignant comment by @joslee
"The story goes something like this:
In June 2025, someone posted an add-on to the add-on store which turned out to be a "repackage" of another add-on. This person opened their NVDA user config folder, modified an existing add-on, renamed it, then zipped up the entire add-on folder and gave it an ".nvda-addon" extension. Later, someone in the NVDA ad-dons community did a code review and noticed oddities, including the add-on accessing a specific website that wasn't advertised. After a long discussion, the person was forced to withdraw the add-on from the add-on store (the add-on entry was removed from the store by an admin).
Several months later, someone posted an add-on, which upon doing code review (by someone else, not me), was flagged as AI generated. This led to a long discussion on the add-ons forum about the use of AI for add-on development. Then, this month (March 2026), someone posted three pull requests on the NVDA screen reader project that were purely AI generated, with the last of them including a statement from Claude (AI usage was evident as the pull request used AI generated PR template instead of NV Access's PR template). This, coupled with the linked NVDA add-ons thread, led to the statement on AI usage by NV Access.
I see potential with AI usage in development, it's just that I am skeptical of the moves made by some organizations on their promotion statements. While I don't use AI for my own coding work, I think responsible AI usage such as giving vibe coded result a second look (which would not really qualify as vibe coding anymore in a more strict sense) should be taught as part of software engineering/computer science curriculum, just as people were (and still are) talking about how to cite Wikipedia responsibly. By the way, feel free to study my own add-on source code and ask AI agents to duplicate my code and compare results - the best way to collaborate with AI when writing an add-on is to compare what's out there versus what the AI will produce and adjusting prompts/parameters/models."
For those who wants to give NVDA a second look, NVDA Coach add-on may be very useful
Introduction to NVDA Coach
I'd like to share a free NVDA add-on that I think would help power Jaws users like me to get more familiar with NvDA. It is just recently released by a chap named tony gebhard and its called NVDA Coach, an interactive, in-screen-reader training tool designed to help new users learn NVDA through hands-on guided lessons, without ever leaving the screen reader environment.
I would say it's liken to the built-in voiceover tutorial that we are familiar in the iOS system.
The recent access on podcast episode #66; NVDA in the Past, Present, and Future has invited a lot of curiosity from new users and even seasoned jaws users that want to give NVDA another look.
Anyone that's starting out from that route may want to try this add-on alongside not so beginner friendly user guide and the reasonably priced Basic Training ebook by NVAccess.
As a side note, an NVDA-like add-on store is much needed in the jaws ecosystem. That would be the first place new people would want to go to find cool stuff.
What is NVDA Coach?
NVDA Coach walks students through real NVDA commands step by step, with immediate feedback as they practice each gesture. No need to switch between a tutorial document and NVDA β the coaching happens right inside NVDA itself.
What's Included ? 34 Lessons Across Five Chapters, among them are
How to activate it? Press NVDA + Shift + C to open the lesson picker at any time.
The latest version as of now is NVDA Coach v1.1.0.
What's New in here, among others,
Lesson Content
Hotkey Note
NVDA+Shift+C can be remapped via NVDA menu > Preferences > Input Gestures > NVDA Coach
Many people are trying this add-on and the interest is brewing. Thanks to Joseph, Gene, and Darrell Hilliker for the feedback that shaped this release.
Download the add-on
Source code & documentation
According to the Author, It will soon be available in the official NvDA add-on store, last I check its already submited for review.
This add-on was built with AT instructors, orientation and mobility specialists, and self-directed learners in mind. Feedback, bug reports, and suggestions are always welcome [[https://github.com/tonygeb23/nvdaCoach-/](via GitHub).
NVDA Coach v1.1.0.
What's New in here, among others,Lesson Content
All steps now labeled [NVDA command] or [Universal shortcut] so you know which is which
All lessons include "why" framing (sighted equivalent context)
New chapter: Object Navigation β 6 lessons
New chapter: Customizing NVDA β 2 lessons (keyboard layout, speech settings)
Browse Mode lesson 9: Find Text on a Page (NVDA+Ctrl+F)
Browse Mode lesson 10: Toggle Single-Letter Navigation (NVDA+Shift+Space)
Hotkey Note
NVDA+Shift+C can be remapped via NVDA menu > Preferences > Input Gestures > NVDA Coach
Thanks to Joseph, Gene, and Darrell Hilliker for the feedback that shaped this release.
@darrell73 @joslee https://github.com/tonygeb23/nvdaCoach-/releases/tag/v1.1.0
#nvda #screenReader #training #accessibility
Rare is the opportunity to meditate with Cornell's elite decision-makers, elitely contemplating the status quo.
We are proud to bring you this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: A meditation retreat with Cornell Trustees and Corporate Bosses!
Don't miss it. Be enlightened.
Friday, March 20, 12-1pm in front of Day Hall.
Optional RSVP at link in bio.
#climate #highered #meditation #nvda #activism #protest #cornell #Sunrise #ithaca
Time to confront our reality - with meditation.
Join @CornellonFire, @SunriseCornell, @CornellYDSA, @tiaadivest and the Cornell Chapter of the @AAUP for a meditation action.
When: 12-1pm on Friday, March 20
Where: In front of Day Hall
What: 40-minute sitting-and-walking guided outdoor meditation. Cushions and seats provided.
Who: You, us, and an exclusive group of Cornell trustees and corporate bosses.
Learn more and optional RSVP at link in bio.
Pratik Patel
kaveinthran
Cornell on Fire