Author: Matthew Horspool

From Hable:

We are absolutely thrilled to share our biggest news of the year. Stactiles have officially launched. We are so incredibly excited to bring these amazing tactile stickers to our wonderful community. The best part is that we are packing and fulfilling orders worldwide starting right now.

What are Stactiles?

They are entirely unique high-quality tactile stickers. We specifically designed them to make the world around you much more accessible. They feature bright, high-contrast colors and incredibly sharp raised textures.

Every single sticker goes through a unique manufacturing process. Each sticker is 3D printed, which can take over 7 hours per sheet, making each sticker shape unique and super easy to feel. With a special coating process, we make sure they are super strong and durable. We manufacture these in the Netherlands.

Unlike bump dots where every dot feels the same, you can now label each setting, button or appliance differently to immediately identify what it is, just by touch. You can use Stactiles to mark your household appliances and organize your daily items. They even can be used on touchscreens. The pressure from your finger goes right through the sticker to the screen beneath it.

Do you want to learn more about Stactiles and where to get them? Read our full in-depth Stactiles launch article here.

Where to order your Stactiles

Are you ready to transform your daily routine today? You can be one of the very first people in the world to get your hands on them. We have stock in the USA and in the Netherlands and ship globally.

Shop the complete Stactiles collection right here.

Thank you so much for your wonderful support over the past few months. We absolutely cannot wait to see how you use your new stickers to make your world accessible.

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Sao Mai Center for the Blind is pleased to officially release SM BungSang, the first native and free Braille music translation app for macOS. The app converts MusicXML files into high-quality, accurately formatted Braille scores.

SM BungSang is developed based on the BANA Music Braille Code 2015 and the New International Manual for Braille Music Notation. It also incorporates additional features based on advice from experienced Braille music transcribers.

The software supports translation for single instruments, solo with accompaniment, as well as chamber and full orchestral scores. It offers multiple formatting styles, including bar-over-bar, line-over-line, and section-by-section. In addition, it provides a wide range of translation options to help create Braille scores in different formats and layouts, tailored to various readers’ needs and country-specific conventions.

For sighted transcribers, the software includes an option to show or hide the original print music view, making it easier to compare the Braille score with the original notation.

For more information and to download the DMG file, please visit the SM BungSang homepage; or find it on the Apple App Store.

If you’re looking for a Braille translation solution for Windows, you can try our Sao Mai Braille software.

We’re truly grateful to the Elizabeth Eagle Bott Memorial Fund, administered by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), for awarding us a £5,000 grant to support the development of SM BungSang in the first quarter of 2026.

We are a small non-profit organization based in Vietnam, primarily relying on project grants to carry out activities that support people with visual impairments. If you find our work useful, please consider supporting us through a donation or by referring us to potential funding opportunities where we can apply for project grants.

We’d love to hear from you. For any inquiries, please email us at: [email protected]

We hope you enjoy the app, and would appreciate it if you could help spread the word to your network.

Many thanks and best regards, SM Support Team

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2026.1 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version.

Braille Highlights

This release includes support for reading math content with MathCAT, which is now built-in to NVDA.

Braille support now continues to work when switching to a secure screen, like the sign-in screen or User Account Control dialog.

NVDA messages from the local computer are now shown in braille when controlling a computer via Remote Access.

Spelling and grammar errors, as well as the number of items in a list in browse mode, can now be shown in braille.

Other braille bug fixes, including in Microsoft Outlook and LibreOffice Writer, have also been added.

Liblouis has been updated. Added tables for English Grade 3, Japanese (Rokuten Kanji), and Macedonian uncontracted braille. Improved the Biblical Hebrew, Unified English Braille, Greek International, Hungarian, Norwegian, Portuguese 8-dot and Slovakian braille tables.

Visit the NV Access website to download NVDA

If you’ve been playing my Whack A Braille app, version 1.2.0 just went live! You can now set up custom moles to whack for each round, or build your own mole invasion army that you want to battle! Perfect for teachers using this for #Braille students, folks wanting to practice or refresh their skills, or for anyone who just has particular grudges against specific moles. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/whack-a-braille/id6760976367

Hi everyone,

Since 2013, I’ve worked to make MBraille a tool that is truly useful in everyday life for braille users. Over the years, many of you have shared feedback, ideas, bug reports, and encouragement, and MBraille would not be what it is today without that support. I’m very grateful for this community and for everyone who has been part of the journey.

As the app has grown and platforms have continued to change, it has become harder to maintain MBraille under the old one-time purchase model. To help keep the project going, I’m moving to a subscription model with a one-week free trial. My hope is that this will make it easier for new users and students to try MBraille, while also giving me a more stable way to support ongoing development and updates.

Important for current users: if you have already paid for the full version in the past, your purchase will continue to be honored permanently. If you ever need to reinstall the app, just tap Restore Purchases.

What’s new in MBraille 26?

I’ve been working on a number of features that many of you have asked for:

• Android version: The full MBraille experience, including TalkBack compatibility, is now available on Android.
• Voice dictation: You can now dictate notes and commands using your voice.
• AI chat with Gemini: MBraille now includes AI chat powered by Gemini, so you can ask questions, explore ideas, and get writing help directly in the app.
• Bookmarks: There is a new bookmarking system that makes it easy to drop and jump between bookmarks in your files using hold-and-swipe gestures.
• Improved aliases: You can now bind aliases to gestures and commands, or both.
• Revamped help documentation: I completely rebuilt the help system. The new documentation is much clearer, separates iOS and Android instructions, and properly explains the more advanced hold-and-swipe editing patterns.
• Third-party iOS keyboard removed: I’ve removed the third-party keyboard version for iOS, since Apple’s built-in Braille Screen Input already covers that use case well.

I really appreciate your support over the years, and especially during this transition. If you have questions, feedback, or run into any issues, please feel free to reach out through the mailing lists:

https://lists.mpaja.com/mailman3/lists

I can’t say exactly when MBraille will appear on the App Store and Google Play, but it should only be a matter of days. I’ll post an announcement on the mailing lists as soon as it is available.

Best regards,

Harri

Dear Customers and Friends,

Our new update for BT Speak and BT Braille marks a major technology milestone with the first AI integration in a braille-first editor.

Even better, these AI features are available to all customers with an active maintenance contract, with no setup required. There is no AI key to manage and no separate AI account needed. Simply use the tools when you want them.

We believe this represents a meaningful step forward in accessible computing, and we are excited to bring this capability directly to you.

These tools enable:

• Ask questions directly from your text
• Check spelling and grammar instantly
• Translate content into other languages
• Summarize passages
• Look up definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and word origins

As always, the AI features are optional and your content is only processed when you use them.

This update also includes noteworthy improvements to media controls, a new speech history access function, enhancements to BT Code, and more!

Read the full April release notes here.

In honor of Children’s Book Week, we’re highlighting our Braille Tales program! Through a partnership with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, Braille Tales provides six free books with braille and print each year to children under six years old who are blind or low vision. Parents who are blind or low vision who have a child under six are also eligible! Sign up for Braille Tales and find out how you can support this program.

NOTE: If your child is too old for Braille Tales, they might be eligible for the American Action Fund for Blind Children and Adults free braille chapter book program. You can learn more about it on their website.

The World Blind Union is pleased to share that Christopher Friend was formally presented with the Louis Braille Medal during a special ceremony hosted by Sightsavers.

The Louis Braille Medal is the highest honour awarded by WBU, recognizing individuals who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the lives of blind and partially sighted people through international service and long-standing commitment to the movement.

The presentation ceremony provided an opportunity to celebrate Christopher’s remarkable career and global impact. His contributions span more than four decades, including his leadership of the Institutional Development Programme and his instrumental role in advancing the right to read through global advocacy efforts that led to the Marrakesh Treaty.

WBU President, Santosh Kumar Rungta, shared a video message congratulating Christopher and recognizing his enduring contributions to the global blindness community. WBU extends its sincere congratulations to Christopher Friend on this well-deserved recognition and celebrates the lasting impact of his work worldwide.

This is a recorded webinar of the BrailleNote Evolve. Get a first glimps on how the BrailleNote Evolve works with KeySoft powered by a customised NVDA version. The video also covers several key questions that have been asked multiple times including how JAWS will work on the device.

Watch on YOuTube

A recording of the fourth table talk from the EBU Braille Working Group is now available.