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The Google internet homepage is displayed on a product at a store in London, Britain January 23, 2016. Google has agreed to pay 130 million pounds ($185 million) in back taxes to Britain, prompting criticism from opposition lawmakers and campaigners who said the
Google is introducing a number of improvements and apps in their various offerings such as Android, Docs and Chromebooks to help better accessibility for differently abled people.
The company has launched an app called Voice Access which lets you control some parts of the phone through voice commands. The app which is in beta stage currently, allows you to open apps by saying "Open Chrome", to scroll the page by saying "Scroll down", to go to the next page by saying "Click next" and so on. The app assigns the numeric value to the item on the screen as well so anyone can say 'Go to 2" rather than a full command.
In the upcoming version of Android, there will be a separate menu called vision settings which will modify the phone display according to a person's needs. Android N's vision menu will have Font size, display size-- which allows you to adjust the size of the items on the screen, magnification, talkback -- which is a voice service taking back to the user on what is happening on the screen.
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Google is also helping the developers to make their apps more accessible. They have released an app called Accesibility Scanner. This app will guide the developer on making her app more friendly for use for the differently abled people by giving suggestions.
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The search giant is also bringing voice editing in Google Docs. A user can issue commands such as "copy the text", "apply heading 1", "insert bullet list", "bold" and more to edit the text. Google has also partnered with Freedom Scientific to bring the JAWS reader to Docs and Drive. JAWS helps the visually impaired and people who can't access the touch screen make use the screen better.
In a blog post, they also announced that Chromebooks will have a better screen reader called ChromeVox from now on. They also introduced a product called ChromeVox Next Beta which is essentially a suite of tools including a better on-screen keyboard, a caption panel to display speech and braille output.
Apart from this social networks like Facebook and Twitter also introduced accessibility features in their apps. Facebook app now automatically reads back the objects present in the photograph. While twitter has allowed submitting the description with a photo which can be accessed later through screen readers or braille assistants.
Countess Augusta Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), English mathematician and writer. The daughter of Byron and friend of Charles Babbage, she devised the programme for Babbage's analytical Engine. She is often referred to as the first computer programmer ever. (credit:Print Collector via Getty Images)
GRACE HOPPER(02 of09)
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Dr. Grace Hopper, the originator of Electronic computer automatic programming for the Remington Rand Division of Sperry Rand Corporation. She was a key figure in the development of the computer programming language COBOL. Because of that, she is famously known as Grandma COBOL (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Shakuntala Devi(03 of09)
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Shakuntala Devi was known as a human computer. She had an amazing ability to carry out difficult mathematical calculations mentally. She holds a place in Guinness book of world records for multiplying two 13-digit numbers in 28 seconds. (credit:Vanderelbe.de/Flickr)
Marissa Mayer(04 of09)
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Marissa Mayers was the first woman employee of Google. She developed the layout of the famous Google Search page. Over the years, she was a key figure in the products such as Google Search, Maps, News, Gmail and many more. In 2012 she assumed the position of CEO at Yahoo! (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Katharine Burr Blodgett(05 of09)
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She was the first woman to work in General Electrics as a scientist. Her major achievement was developing an 99% transmissive 'invisible glass', which was used in movies and submarine periscopes later. (credit:Wikipedia)
Susan Kare(06 of09)
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Susan was on the Apple team working alongside Steve Jobs on the Macintosh team. She worked as a graphic designer for the Macintosh user interface. After Apple she worked with NeXT, IBM and Microsoft too. (credit:bringyourlayers)
HEDY LAMARR(07 of09)
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Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian film actress who invented radio guidance system along with the composer George Antheil. She developed the technique of frequency hopping which involves sending a signal through multiple frequency channels. (credit:ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Roberta Williams(08 of09)
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The American video game designer is known as the creator of the video game King's Quest. Later on, she founded the company Sierra On-line. She retired in 1999. Her other famous video games were Mystery House and Phantasmagoria. (credit:PC Mag UK)
Radia Pearlman(09 of09)
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Radia Pearman is a software designer and a network engineer. Her biggest contribution is in the development of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) which is used in network bridges. She also developed a child-friendly version of programming language LOGO called TORTIS. (credit:Wikipedia)
-- This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which
closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions
or concerns about this article, please contact
indiasupport@huffpost.com.