Excerpt below:
"From alt-text GIFs to a new Sony Playstation controller, here are the products that pushed technology in a more accessible direction this year.
Every year, the news cycle inevitably picks up a story about the latest tech innovation promising an accessibility solution through its design. And while that latest product might be big on style, it often also comes with a hefty price tag, putting the technology out of reach for the majority of its intended users. Take the Cionic Neural Sleeve, an AI-powered wearable device that uses custom algorithms to deliver electrical stimulation to leg muscles to improve stability and endurance for users with mobility limitations like MS or cerebral palsy.
Even though Cionic’s Neural Sleeve is FDA approved, because technology like FES (functional electrical stimulation) is still considered experimental most insurance companies won’t provide coverage or reimbursement for the $2,600 device. Instead, the company charges a $200/month/per leg payment plan that users pay off over 12 months, but they’re still locked into an ongoing $120-to-$200 monthly service subscription to maintain updates and customer support.
In general, assistive technology costs more than general consumer tech products. According to the National Institute on Disability, households with a disabled family member need an average of 28% higher income (equivalent to an extra $17,690 annually for a median-income household) to maintain an equivalent quality of life compared to a similar household lacking a member with a disability. So for this roundup of the most promising assistive-tech innovations from 2023, we focused on products that are more financially accessible, as well as general consumer tech innovations that may offer accessibility solutions for people with disabilities even if they’re not technically assistive devices.
GIPHY’S ALT-TEXT DESCRIPTIONS
Giphy helped to further democratize internet culture by partnering with digital accessibility provider Scribely to write expressive alt-text descriptions for its most frequently shared GIFs. Rather than relying on AI to generate the content, Scribely enlisted a team of about 15 writers well-versed in accessibility, pop culture, and creative writing to add alt-text to more than 10,000 GIFs in the first phase of the initiative. While opting for human-generated descriptions that might take longer to scale, the nuances of describing memes or humor in general cannot be replicated by a bot. Giphy and Scribely also plan to run a pilot program to integrate descriptive text within a GIF’s metadata, enabling it to accompany the file across various platforms such as Microsoft, Google, and Apple workplace software."