Archive for January, 2007
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I recently asked Apple why the movies offered at the iTunes Store do not have closed captioning, and was told that QuickTime does not deal with CEA-608 Closed Caption data.
However, the sneak peek on Leopard accessibility says:
QuickTime currently supports closed captioning by including a text track alongside audio and video content. But improved QuickTime support will automatically display the CEA-608 closed captioning text standard in analog broadcasts in the U.S.
Hopefully when Leopard is released with its improved captioning features, Apple will start offering closed captioning on movies and television shows being sold at the iTunes Store.
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Georgia Tech’s GT Research Institute has been developing a wearable captioning system that utilizes mobile wireless technology to receive spoken audio and convert it into text captions. The goal is for the system to be used at public venues such as “movie theaters, conferences, museums, playhouses, schools, government meetings, sports arenas, transit stations and places of worship.” (Quote taken from article.) The captions would either be pre-recorded, or generated live using a CART captioning service, and then transmitted wirelessly to a device that can receive captions, such as a laptop or PDA, “or patrons can use a micro display that plugs into a PDA and attaches to their glasses or is worn on a headband. Although positioned close to the eye, the micro display uses optics that make its screen appear to float several feet away, giving users relaxed viewing of text seemingly overlaid on their visual field.” (Quote taken from article.)
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I just discovered a new technology called Earize, which calls itself an internet text streaming service. From their website:
Earize is an Internet streaming text service. This service can be used exclusively for caption radio, and to assist deaf and hard of hearing people in meetings, telephone conferences, and seminars, to name a few. Audiences can be increased by 8.6% just by reaching the folks with hearing loss. The service is also a vehicle for additional advertising to this sometimes overlooked segment.
Users can read the text from a computer, PDA, or cell phone, and can customize the text by font size and color. Also, if something is missed, users can scroll back and read the transcript. Broadcasters pay a small fee to have their show transcripted; the service is free for the receiver.
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I was pleased to discover that a company in the UK called IMS has been providing closed captioning services on web-based movie trailers. The subtitles for Spider Man 3 are easily readable on the video at that size.
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One of the most popular internet technologies today is podcasting, which is the act of creating and sending audio files over the Internet. Podcasts are used for media such as radio shows and audio blogging. Users can listen to podcasts over the Internet, or download them to a MP3 player like an iPod.
Unfortunately, not all podcasts come with a text transcript, which means that the deafies get left out. I’d love to know what’s being said on the now-defunct Penn Jillette Show, as I’ve been told that it’s quite funny. I’m also interested in The Splendid Table and This American Life. Sadly, none of these shows provide text transcripts that I can find.
NPR and American Public Media offer text transcripts for a fee. Apple offers hundreds of thousands of podcasts at their iTunes Store for free, and yet I cannot find any text transcripts.
So, after much Googling, I found a few services that offer text transcribing for audio podcasts:
- Casting Words – transcription services that start at $0.75 per minute
- Automatic Sync Technologies – they make captions for iTunes. You have to contact them for a price quote.
I can’t seem to find a service or software program that transcribes audio podcasts to text without charging fees. Right now, text transcripts fall within the realm of the podcaster deciding whether they want to provide a transcript or not. Obviously, there is a need for no-fee transcripts.
So far, I have only found two podcasts offering no-fee transcripts – thank you! Hopefully more podcasters will follow their example.
Deaf people are interested in reading the content of podcasts. All media – whether its content is emergency information, news, or entertainment – should be accessible to everyone. Everyone has a right to knowledge & information, and access to it. Podcasts communicate information that should be made available to all audiences.
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Steve Jobs just announced a new Apple product at Macworld – the iPhone. So far, it looks pretty sweet, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one and examine it up close.
Of course, my first question is, “is this product deaf-friendly?”
My checklist right now is:
- Is it TTY-compatible? Can I call 911 emergency services on it? My biggest beef about cell phones/Smart phones is they aren’t TTY-compatible. Relay services do not allow you to make 911 emergency calls. The only way deaf callers can reach 911 is to dial 911 directly from a TTY. This means that if I were out and about and had an emergency, I would have to find a hearing person to call 911 directly for me.
- The touch-pad QWERTY keyboard. How reliable is it for heavy data users like the deaf?
- Can this be used as a video phone? Most deafies who use ASL prefer VRS over regular text Relay as they can talk in the language they’re most comfortable with, and most deafies prefer using iChat to video conference with each other as they can communicate in ASL that way.
- Alert modes. Ringtones and audio alerts are useless to deafies. Does the iPhone vibrate and have visual alerts?
- OSX and Bluetooth allow seamless syncing with your Mac computer. This is indeed a cool feature. I keep a lot of data on my Sidekick, and it’s quite cumbersome to back it up; TMobile offers a desktop interface, but it’s slow and clunky. Being able to sync everything via an application on my Powerbook to the phone would be GREAT. I hope this means it will have Growl integration or at least a visual alert that will pop up on the screen of my Powerbook when I receive a SMS; I often miss my SMS messages on the Sidekick when I’m really engrossed in work, or when I’m in another room with the laptop and forget to bring the Sidekick with me.
- Will it run AIM, YIM, etc? Deafies use Internet Relay Services through AIM, MSN, and YIM. Danger got smart and saw the Sidekick had great potential as a deaf-friendly device, so they developed downloadable Relay applications for the Sidekick.
- Does it have caption capability on the digital video feature? A video iPod that plays captions has been high on deafies’ wish lists for a long time. Does this have a built-in caption feature? Can I download movies and television shows to it and watch them with captions?
- Data-only plan. TMobile got smart when the Sidekick I debuted in 2002 and saw that it had potential in the deaf market, so they introduced a data-only plan that offers unlimited web, email, IM, and text messaging for $29.99 per month. Obviously, we don’t need phone minutes. Phone calls are billed at 15¢ per minute. Has Cingular considered this? Will there be special deafie-friendly data-only plans for the iPhone?
That’s all I can think of right now.
Other features I’m wondering about that have nothing to do with deaf accessibility are:
- Switching between applications. I often go from email to web browser to IM to SMS with easy shortcut keypresses on my Sidekick. Jump + B takes me to Web, Jump + E takes me to Email, Jump + i takes me to IM, etc. I’m curious as to how the iPhone lets you switch from application to application.
- Alert notifications from applications. On the Sidekick, it notifies you if you have a new email, IM, SMS, phone call, or loaded Web page by putting little icons in the top right corner and leaves those icons there until you switch to that application. I’m also curious as to how the iPhone’s application alert notification is set up.
- Security. Can the iPhone mail application run GPG and send/receive encrypted emails? Can the Instant Messenger application run OTR?
Boy, if that thing could run GPS on top of the deaf-friendly wishlist stuff, it would be a dream come true.
