What’s new in JAWS 2022?
This update to JAWS brings a lot of fixes and tweaks to existing features, but there are not any big new features in the 2022 version. Here are some things you should know about JAWS 2022.
Discontinued Support for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1
Freedom Scientific has discontinued their support of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. What does that mean? It means that JAWS 2022 cannot be installed on these operating systems. However, earlier versions of JAWS will continue to work, so if you have not upgraded yet, things should continue to perform as normal with your current version of JAWS or ZoomText Fusion.
Voice Assistant Improvements
Freedom has continued to tweak and improve their 2021 Voice Assistant feature. In past versions, the default wake word for using the voice assistant was “Sharky”. In 2022, they changed it to “Hey Sharky.”
Another change is for Fusion users who can now say either “Hey Sharky” or “Hey Zoomy” to interact with either voice assistant (in the previous versions, Fusion users only could use the ZoomText voice assistant. Previously, Fusion users could only access ZoomText features using the voice assistant.
JAWS Tandem Changes
This is actually a change that was added to JAWS 2021 in November, but it was an easy one to miss, so I wanted to include it here. Freedom upgraded the security of the JAWS tandem and now Tandem only works for users with JAWS 2020 or later. Further, you’ll need to have the November 2021 updates to versions 2020 and 2021 for tandem to work.
Want More Update Info?
There are many, many more updates and changes in version 2022. You can read about all the updates by following the links below:
Vermont DBVI Training 