Facebook launches iOS tool for visually impaired people
According to an announcement that was posted yesterday on Facebook's Newsroom, the social network has just released a tool designed to make things easier for the people with visual impairments. This new functionality is called "Automatic Alternative Text" and, at the moment, is only available in English. The function only works on iPhones and iPads, but the company doesn't want to stop here and plans on expanding support for more languages and platforms.
Automatic Alternative Text
Automatic Alternative Text is an accessibility tool that helps people with eyesight-related problems "see" what is in a photo. In very simple terms, in case a user has the screen reader feature currently in use, Facebook will try to describe the items from any picture that they stumble upon while using the iOS app. Up until now, the Facebook users who relied on screen readers would only hear the name of the person who shared the pic and the word "photo" whenever they stumbled on an image. With this new technology, the application will use Facebook’s object recognition technology to give the users a list of the identifiable items in a photo, practically describing it to them. (Example: "Image may contain: two people, outdoor, laughing".)
This is just one of the interesting features that Facebook has added in the last couple months. Two weeks ago, the social network announced a new security function that will alert the users whenever someone tries to impersonate them, while last month the IT giant began allowing Messenger users to share music from Spotify directly in the chatting app.
