Apple is set to launch three new accessibility functions to enable greater usability for people with disabilities. The Assistive Access, Personal Voice and Point and Speak functions will be operational later this year, the company announced earlier this week. Other features to help deaf or hard-of-hearing users and those with low vision across Apple products including Macs and iPads are also being introduced. Guide dogs are dedicated to enhancing our service delivery and empowering our service users to embrace the opportunities that technology offers, enabling them to live life on their own terms Tommy Dean, Guide Dogs It comes as the company welcomed several guide dogs from the charity Guide Dogs to its store in Birmingham as part of Global Accessibility Awareness Day on Thursday. The Point and Speak function allows those who are blind or have vision issues to point a camera at text and hear back what can be seen, helping people to navigate their visual environment. Tommy Dean, Guide Dogs technology development lead at Apple, said: “In today’s digitally driven world, Apple devices offer users with vision impairments the freedom to live life on their own terms. Technology is a part of our everyday lives and plays such an important role in making the world a much more accessible place Siobhan Meade, Guide Dogs “With inclusive design and comprehensive training, these devices become essential tools for independence. “Guide dogs are dedicated to enhancing our service delivery and empowering our service users to embrace the opportunities that technology offers, enabling them to live life on their own terms.” As part of the launch, Apple gave 85 vision rehabilitation specialists from Guide Dogs specialised training in iOS accessibility settings and features for individuals with vision loss in March. Siobhan Meade, digital technology content officer at Guide Dogs, said: “Technology is a part of our everyday lives and plays such an important role in making the world a much more accessible place. “I use the Maps app daily to navigate the world through my fingertips along with my guide dog Marty. “It’s great to be able to mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day with the training with Apple that will allow our specialists to continue supporting people with a vision impairment to use technology with confidence to live the life they choose.” The Assistive Access feature helps to distil apps including Camera, Photos, Music, Calls and Messages to their essential features, so as to lighten the cognitive load and help users with cognitive disabilities. Users will be able to use high-contrast buttons and large text labels, or emoji-only keyboards for people who prefer to communicate visually. The Live Speech function will allow users to type what they want to say so that it can be spoken out loud during phone conversations, to help those who are losing or have lost their speech. The Personal Voice feature also allows those who are losing their speech to keep a voice that sounds like them, made by recording 15 minutes of audio on an iPhone or iPad. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Self-driving cars will cause ‘moral panic’ – transport minister Cryptocurrency trading should be regulated as gambling, says treasury committee WhatsApp offers new password protected feature to hide messages

A new report claims that Strava could be used to track people down – despite the platform’s efforts to make their data anonymous. Strava is a fitness tracking platform that allows people to log their exercises as well as engage with other based on their workouts. But it also includes other tools, such as its heatmap feature, which is intended to anonymously gather together people’s journeys and show them on one map. The tool is intended to allow people to see which parts of the world are particularly active, which can be helpful for finding particularly good areas for workouts or trips. But it can also be used to find out people’s personal information, according to a new report. That heatmap data is anonymised, so that it shows more general trends and cannot be used to track specific people who might mark their routes private. But the new research suggests that it is possible to de-anonymise that data, at least in some cases, to work out who lives where. The paper, published by three computer science researchers at North Carolina State University, says that “the home address of highly active users in remote areas can be identified, violating Strava’s privacy claims and posing as a threat to user privacy”. They detailed a complicated process that they claimed was able to find addresses and then combine that with other data from Strava to find the home address of a certain individual. In short, they were able to use the heat map to identify locations where people lived, and then take other location data to work out who might live at that specific house. The attack will not work on everyone: they need to live in remote areas where people’s houses stand on their own, those users need to have the heat map setting switched on, and might run in patterns that do not identify their home addresses, for instance. But the researchers claimed that a significant number of users could be identified based on publicly available information on Strava. That is a “violation of user privacy”, the researchers said. And it could also pose a threat to those users, by allowing people’s addresses to be made public, and then matched to certain activities, such as when they work out or where they tend to travel. The researchers suggested two ways to avoid the attack. One would be to remove heat map data that is clearly near a home, and another would be to add Strava’s existing “privacy zones” tools that block out data from certain locations to its heat map, which is not currently the case. Strava said that it looks to ensure users’ data stays private, and suggested that people concerned about potential issues turn off the use of aggregated user data on their account. “The safety and privacy of our community is our highest priority. We’ve long had a suite of privacy controls (including Map Visibility Controls) that give users control over what they share and who it’s shared with,” the company said. “Strava does not track users or share data without their permission. When users share their aggregated, de-identified data with the Heatmap and Strava Metro, they contribute to a one-of-a-kind data set that helps urban planners as they develop better infrastructure for people on foot and bikes, and makes it easy to plan routes with the knowledge of the community. “The Global Heatmap displays aggregated data from a subset of Strava activities and will not show ‘heat’ unless multiple people have completed an activity in a given area. Any Strava user who does not wish to contribute to the Heatmap can toggle off the Aggregated Data Usage control to exclude all activities or default their Activity Visibility to be only to themselves (’Only You’) for any given activity. “We are consistently strengthening privacy tools and offering more feature education to give users control over their experience on Strava. This includes simplifying our Privacy Policy with our Privacy Label at the top.” Read More Breakthrough could soon allow us to actually use quantum computers, scientists say Three and Vodafone are merging. Here’s what that means for your phone McDonald’s, Delta among websites down after Amazon Web Services cloud crashes Breakthrough could soon allow us to actually use quantum computers, scientists say Three and Vodafone are merging. Here’s what that means for your phone McDonald’s, Delta among websites down after Amazon Web Services cloud crashes

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SpaceX will not be cleared to launch its 400-foot-tall (121 metre) Starship rocket until a “mishap investigation” is completed, regulators have said. A statement from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned of a launch delay for the biggest rocket ever built, just hours after SpaceX boss Elon Musk said the craft was “ready to launch” on Wednesday. SpaceX made its first and only attempt at an orbital Starship launch in April, with the rocket exploding over the Gulf of Mexico just three minutes into the 90 minute flight. The crewless rocket broke up into pieces over an empty stretch of water, however the debris blast created by Starship’s huge engines at its launchpad drew heavy scrutiny from regulators. Concrete dust drifted more than 10 kilometres from the launch site, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, while concrete chunks and metal shards were discovered within a 700-acre zone surrounding the pad. SpaceX claimed the mission was a success, as Starship and its Super Heavy booster were able to lift off on its maiden test flight, however the FAA launched an investigation soon afterwards. Following Mr Musk’s latest comments that the latest version of the rocket is ready to launch pending regulatory approval, the FAA warned SpaceX that it would need to wait for the investigation to conclude. “The SpaceX Starship mishap investigation remains open,” the FAA said in a statement. “The FAA will not authorise another Starship launch until SpaceX implements the corrective actions identified during the mishap investigation and demonstrates compliance with all the regulatory requirements of the licence modification process.” SpaceX has made numerous alterations and improvements to Starship and its launch pad, including remedial measures aimed at preventing launch debris and a new method for separating the upper stage from its booster rocket. Nasa has already awarded SpaceX a multi-billion dollar contract to develop Starship for its Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Mr Musk also plans to use the rockets for more ambitious longer term goals, including establishing a permanent human colony on Mars before 2050. “As the most powerful launch system ever developed, Starship will be able to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights,” SpaceX notes on its website. “Starship will also help enable transport of many satellites, large space telescopes, and significant amounts of cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.” Read More ‘It’s becoming like an airport’: How SpaceX normalised rocket launches SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter Starship ‘ready to launch’, Elon Musk says SpaceX crew streak across sky before splashing down off Florida coast SpaceX smashes rocket launch record as Musk eyes historic Starship mission