Author: Matthew Horspool

The UEB macron is two cells. In New Zealand the macron symbol appears almost exclusively in te reo Māori. When Duxbury worked with us to produce a New Zealand Duxbury template, they agreed to use the single cell macron of dots 456. That was the macron introduced in the mid 1960s. The Māori macron was added to the Duxbury Braille Translator in about 2008.

Some of us with electronic Braille displays have been agitating for some time to get the single cell macron into our screen readers, in particular Jaws and NVDA. At its meeting in June 2026 The Braille Authority of New Zealand Aotearoa Trust agreed with and endorsed this effort.

The Braille translator in Jaws and NVDA is Liblouis. Liblouis is one of the Braille translators available in Apple’s iOS.

James Bowden at the RNIB has been updating and correcting the UEB tables for English over several years. He guided Clive Lansink about the creation of Liblouis tables.

Clive has written the New Zealand tables for Liblouis with the one cell macron. The tables are now in the most recent release of Liblouis 3.39.0.

So when will screen reader users be able to choose the new tables? Creators of each of the screen readers have to add new tables manually. I have seen the Liblouis announcement about the latest update. I had absolutely no idea how many changes there are because of so very many languages besides English and te reo Māori. Even so, I have hope we will see the single cell macron in NVDA by this Christmas. I have no idea about Jaws or iOS. If The Braille Authority of New Zealand Aotearoa Trust needs to write to screen reader manufacturers, I am sure we will do so.

Thank you so much, Clive, for getting the ball rolling.

For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, NV Access welcomes you to download the beta and provide feedback using their issue reporting process.

By installing the beta you will be opting into NVDA’s beta channel, and will only receive update notifications for beta and release candidate (RC) builds.

The beta/RC channel will always keep you up to date with the latest NVDA version.

The last RC in a release cycle is identical to the final stable release.

To return to the stable release channel, upgrade manually to the latest stable build.

Read the full announcement on the NV Access website

The NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2026 is now open: https://www.nvaccess.org/survey2026

We are always interested in understanding the satisfaction of our NVDA users. We want to understand clearly what is important to you and also identify what we can do more effectively.  This survey is anonymous, and we encourage you to add comments on the survey (but please add your email address if you’d like us to contact you about your feedback).

Last year we had a few questions around “Is your use of NVDA primarily for accessibility testing?” – if you use NVDA to get around the PC, even if you ALSO use it for accessibility testing, you can probably answer “no” to this.  If you are a sighted tester, or primarily use another screen reader and only start NVDA for testing…. then say “yes”.

We’re interested in hearing from as many people as possible, so please feel free to pass this on to others.

We are pleased to introduce OR-bot, Orbit Research’s new AI-powered technical support chatbot!

OR-bot provides immediate technical guidance for Orbit products, with no registration or login required. It can help you find product-specific technical information, troubleshoot problems, and get answers to commonly asked technical questions.

Try OR-bot here.

Simply select your Orbit product from the menu and type your question. OR-bot has been designed for screen-reader and keyboard accessibility. It can also respond in multiple languages, although response quality may vary by language.

OR-bot is being introduced as an early release and is still being improved. We invite you to try it with technical questions about the Orbit products you use and share your experience through the Feedback button inside the chatbot. Your feedback will play an important role in helping us make OR-bot better.

OR-bot may occasionally misunderstand a question or provide an incomplete or inaccurate response. If this happens, please try rephrasing your question. OR-bot is an additional support option and does not replace the Orbit Support Team. If you still need technical assistance, please contact us at [email protected].

Please note that conversations may be stored and reviewed to help us improve OR-bot. No personal information is collected, and conversations are not linked to individual users. Please do not include personal or sensitive information in your questions.

We look forward to hearing about your experience with OR-bot.

BrailliantConnect is out — free, open source, and finished. Plug a Brailliant in and it appears in the Finder. Unplug it and it goes away. No macFUSE, no kernel extension, nothing to start by hand.

I wrote it because I needed it. I use a BI 40X with a screen reader every day, and getting a file onto it from a Mac had stopped being possible in any way I was willing to live with.

What it does

• The display appears as ~/Brailliant in your home folder.
• One folder per storage — the display’s own memory, and a USB stick plugged into the display when there is one. Both at once: the stick is no longer invisible.
• Read and write. Copy files in and out with the Finder, or with anything else that uses the file system.
• A menu bar item says whether the display is there, and tells you when a copy is still running.

Installing

Unpack, drag into Applications, open it once. That is the whole procedure. It is signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens with no Gatekeeper warning. macOS 11 or later, Intel and Apple Silicon.

One setting, on the display

File transfer (MTP) has to be on. It has been on by default since version 2.5 of the display’s software, so it probably already is. Otherwise: Options, User settings, MTP.

Nothing is switched off by this. Your display publishes its braille interfaces and the file-transfer one at the same time, and stays usable as a braille terminal while files are copying.

What it does not do

• The Finder returns before a copy is finished. Three gigabytes come back instantly and keep going for about seven minutes. The menu bar says so while it lasts, and notifies you when it lands — do not unplug in between.
• Changes made on the display itself go unnoticed until the folder is read again. MTP announces nothing.
• One connection at a time, which only matters if you also use the command-line tool that ships inside the app.

Only one model has been tested

I have a BI 40X, and that is what this was built on. Nothing in the code is tied to a model, but nothing proves the others work either. If you have a BI 20X, a BI 40, or anything else in the family, running brailliant doctor and pasting the output here would settle it — that is the one thing I cannot do alone.

More Info and Download

View the forum post on AppleVis

Hi Braillists Team,

I hope you’re well.

I’m Shahzeb, a parent of a blind child, and I wanted to share something I created after beginning my own journey of learning Braille alongside my son.

When we started, I found it difficult to find a simple and engaging online platform that we could use together. That experience inspired me to create Braille Learn UK, an online resource with interactive lessons, games and activities to make getting started with Braille a little easier.

https://braillelearn.co.uk

I really admire the work the Braillists Foundation does to promote Braille literacy, so I wondered if you would be willing to have a look at the platform.

If you feel it could be useful to your community, I would be incredibly grateful if you might consider sharing it, mentioning it in your newsletter, or including it among your Braille learning resources.

This is a personal project built from my experience as a dad, and ultimately I just want it to reach families and learners who might benefit from it.

Thank you for your time and for everything you do to promote Braille.

Best wishes,
Shahzeb
Braille Learn UK
https://braillelearn.co.uk

Posted on behalf of Adam Wilton, Saturday 22 August 2026

Dear colleagues and friends from across Canada and around the world,

Our colleague and friend, Dr. Cay Holbrook, reached the end of her journey this morning. Cay passed away peacefully with her family by her side. When Cay entered palliative care a month ago, we were not sure how much time we had. This past month has been such a gift, with Cay exuding her characteristic warmth, thoughtfulness, and courage every step of the way.

Over this time, Kim Zebehazy and I have had the great privilege of sharing countless messages of love and support from all over the world. If you sent a message, photo, or a hug along to Cay, please know that she loved and appreciated every single one. We had what we called “dispatches time” at every visit – something we all looked forward to – Cay especially.

A “Celebration of Gratitude” is planned for Tuesday, August 25, 2026 starting at 11:00 AM Pacific time (PDT) at St. David’s United Church in West Vancouver, British Columbia. There is a plan to live stream the celebration via YouTube. The link is posted below:

Dr. Cay Holbrook – Celebration of Gratitude Live Stream, August 25 at 11:00 AM Pacific

There will also be a virtual book of remembrances available via McKenzie Funeral Services. It is not yet up online, but please check back in the days ahead.

Please keep Cay and her family in your thoughts today.

We’ll miss you dearly, Cay, but are renewed in our commitment to everything you stood for, and to carrying forward your legacy in words and deeds. Always in our hearts.

On July 3, 2026, Brother Jacob Rumph, a member of the Governing Body, released the complete New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in Polish braille. The release was announced on the first day of the 2026 “Eternal Happiness” International Convention in Warsaw, Poland.

Read the full article

A recording of the launch webinar for the Global Braille survey is now available. Watch on YouTube

The Global Braille Survey recently got a mention on the Double Tap podcast. Listen to the episode