@wouterla

451 Followers
714 Following
2.2K Posts
Agile Coach, Continuous Delivery, Lean Startup/Enterprise. Finding ways to make software development better and more fun.
Twittodonhttps://twittodon.com/share.php?t=wouterla&[email protected]
TapType is out. It's a keyboard for blind Android users.
There are no visible keys. You tap where QWERTY keys would be from muscle memory, and a spatial prediction algorithm figures out what you meant. It scores nearby keys using a Gaussian proximity model and runs a beam search against an 80,000 word dictionary. You don't need to be precise. That's the whole point.
Swipe right to commit a word. Swipe down or up to cycle through suggestions. Swipe left to delete. It learns what words you use most and ranks them higher over time, and you can add your own words to a personal dictionary.
Every letter has its own unique sound, from Andre Louis's keyboard sound recordings, so you can learn to identify keys by ear without relying on speech. Each swipe direction has a distinct sound too. TTS is there when you want it, adjustable speed, and you can turn it off entirely if you prefer sounds only.
It has emoji search with skin tone selection and favourites, a number pad mode, an upper case mode, and full punctuation support with a customizable quick list. Two-finger gestures handle things like send, close keyboard, switch keyboard, and voice input.
Everything works with TalkBack. I built this because FlickType was a fantastic keyboard for blind iOS users and then it was gone. Nothing like it existed on Android, so I made one.
It's free, no ads, no tracking, no metrics. I'm not evil.
Download: https://github.com/aaron-gh/taptype-releases/releases/latest
#TapType #Accessibility #A11y #Android #Blind #VisuallyImpaired #TalkBack #Keyboard #AssistiveTech
Release TapType 1.0.1 · aaron-gh/taptype-releases

Bug fixes Fixed touch passthrough breaking other keyboards when TalkBack is active. Passthrough now only activates when TapType is the current keyboard, and clears immediately on keyboard switch, ...

GitHub

The goal isn't to protect children,
the goal is to de-anonymize every comment and action on the internet, associating it with a legal ID, by eventually requesting official identification from every adult using a computer.

Some politicians have already stated this plainly.

This leads to censorship of anyone criticizing their government.

This leads to repression of marginalized people, especially immigrants, people of color, and trans and gender diverse people.

This leads to self-censorship of any comments or actions that could be interpreted against the system. Such as speaking out against fascism and authoritarian surveillance, or defending human rights publicly.

This leads to total control of the population and its tools of communications.

This leads to the end of democracy, centralizing power even more in the hands of a few.

Do not let them do this to us.

#MassSurveillance #AgeVerification #Authoritarianism #HumanRights

"A law that the largest companies in the world already comply with, and that hundreds of small projects cannot comply with, is not a child safety law. It is a compliance moat. It raises the regulatory cost of providing an operating system just enough that only well-resourced corporations can afford to do it."

Ageless Linux — Software for Humans of Indeterminate Age
https://agelesslinux.org/

Ageless Linux — Software for Humans of Indeterminate Age

A School in Manchester banned a lot of books,. And destroyed a librarians career. I read a lot of these as a teenager from my School library, this is nuts, they were fine. https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/school-book-banning-escalates-in-the-uk-as-greater-manchester-secondary-school-censors-scores-of-books/
School book banning escalates in the UK as Greater Manchester secondary school censors scores of books - Index on Censorship

A school librarian faced a disciplinary hearing and scores of books were removed from her school library after she stocked Laura Bates’ Men Who Hate Women

Index on Censorship

Hey all,

If you haven't seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer
identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside
the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent
and open source Android developer directly.

The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org.

The more projects
that speak up the harder it is for Google to ignore.
#keepandroidopen #android #foss #opensource #developers

Reading Thomas Nagel's classic 1974 paper, "What Is It Like to Be a Billionaire?"

Nagel argues that these bizarre, cursed entities *are* able to experience introspection, but choose to pretend otherwise, lest they be haunted to the end of their days by the memories of their innumerable, unspeakable crimes

Grant me the (Saskatchewan pirate?) strength to not throw my laptop out the fucking window as I try to write parts of the text for the American Astronomical Society's response to SpaceX's infuriating, arrogant, ignorant, irresponsible non-response.

So QCon is not just a Comic Con dedicated to John de Lancie?

:P

Seeing both Google founders flee the state, then Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and now Uber CEO Travis K they're all cowards who want to take their ball and go home instead of slicing a tiny portion off their insanely high wealth that will already last them hundreds of years