Your daily frequent11y newsletter, brought to you by @ChrisBAshton:

This is a two-article special, covering accessibility advances by Android and Apple!

Google Improving Smartphone Accessibility

• Two new features are coming to Android smartphones: “Camera Switches“, and “Project Activate”. These features will allow users to use gestures like smiling, raising eyebrows, or looking in a particular direction, to issue a command such as returning to the homescreen or opening notifications.
• The gestures are configurable: users can set how long to hold the gesture for, or how big the gesture must be, to issue the command.
• “The updates are aimed at people with motor and speech disabilities, Google said, and the new tools were developed with feedback from people who rely on alternative communication technology.”

Apple is testing AirPods as possible hearing aids, posture improvers and in-ear thermometers

• Apple is prototyping to see motion sensors inside AirPods can be used to tell users if they’re slouching. They’re also experimenting with measuring core body temperature, and perhaps most excitingly, whether or not AirPods can be used as “proper hearing aids” (they already come with a ‘conversation boost‘ feature).
• Under US federal law, devices marketed as hearing aids must “be sold through licensed specialists, who adjust them to the specific user”. However, “in July, President Biden signed an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter and be adjusted by consumers”; promising news for Apple.

Prefer longer newsletters? You can subscribe to week11y, fortnight11y or even month11y updates! Every newsletter gets the same content; it is your choice to have short, regular emails or longer, less frequent ones. Curated with ♥ by developer @ChrisBAshton.