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Twitter makes images accessible for visually impaired

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Twitter has officially added support for Alternative Text (alt text) which will help make images accessible to visually impaired users. Upto 420 characters can be added to describe an image that can be added as soon as it starts getting uploaded.

The feature can be enabled by selecting the “compose image descriptions” option in the accessibility settings section of the app. Previously, workarounds like Alt Text Bot were used to post descriptions for images.

Twitter has also extended its platform products to the REST API and Twitter cards which will help support clients like EasyChirp, Chicken Nugget and The Qube, designed specially for visually impaired users.

[Via Twitter blog]

Yep, Twitter really is altering your timeline to show the ‘best’ tweets first

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As suspected over last weekend, Twitter has announced the introduction of a new Home timeline – you’ll see the ‘best Tweets’ first. Or rather, what Twitter thinks are the ‘best tweets’ first. So expect top tweets from the people you follow, which will be grating if you don’t want that kind of thing.

Twitter says it will be listening to feedback and making the feature even better over the next few weeksn before turning on the feature for EVERYBODY in coming weeks – look out for a notification in your timeline. Twitter is appealing for any feedback our way, and you can turn the new timeline off in settings.

This is what Twitter has to say about the new system:

“If you turn on the feature in your settings, then when you open Twitter after being away for a while, the Tweets you’re most likely to care about will appear at the top of your timeline – still recent and in reverse chronological order. The rest of the Tweets will be displayed right underneath, also in reverse chronological order, as always. At any point, just pull-to-refresh to see all new Tweets at the top in the live, up-to-the-second experience you already know and love. We’ve already seen that people who use this new feature tend to Retweet and Tweet more, creating more live commentary and conversations. Once it’s live just go into the timeline section of your settings and choose ‘Show me the best Tweets first’.”