Archive for April, 2007
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Partnering with Sorenson Communications, the Salt Lake City airport became the first airport in the United States to install video phones for deaf and hard of hearing travelers. The video phones are located on each side of Salt Lake City International Airport’s two baggage claim areas, and the service is free.
To use a videophone booth, a deaf or hard-of-hearing individual enters a private booth equipped with a Sorenson VP-200 videophone connected to both a television and high-speed Internet. He or she enters the phone number of the hearing individual being called. Through the Sorenson Video Relay Service, a qualified ASL interpreter appears on the screen, connects the individuals and relays the conversation between them. The hearing party receiving the call uses a standard phone line. (via Sorenson press release.)
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I’m going to be writing about Relay services a lot this week to increase public awareness to the different types of Relay services and how they work. In this post I’m going to talk about the service I use, and why.
I use IP-Relay for almost all of my telephone relay needs. I started using them in 2005 when they announced their new AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) service, which worked effortlessly and meant that I could make phone calls from both my desktop computer and my TMobile Sidekick. In the past, deafies made Relay calls using a TTY, which was quite cumbersome; one, you had to make extra room on your desk for the TTY, and two, it was hard to multitask between the TTY & your personal computer if you were at work, and three – the TTY screens are small, usually just one line of text. Lastly, if you were out and about, it could sometimes be difficult to find a place to plug in the TTY so you could make a phone call. Think about it – most pay phones aren’t near power outlets.
In the early part of the 2000′s, telephone companies came out with Java-enabled online relay services that allowed deafies to make Relay calls using their desktop computer – here’s an example of the one provided by IP Relay. These were a little bit more convenient than using a TTY as you could continue working at your computer while you made a phone call, but I remember the Java application crashing a lot.
The new AIM service works great; all I had to do was add the user name “My IP Relay” to my AIM buddylist and I simply click on that screen name and type “CALL” in the window that pops up to start a phone call. It looks like this when I start a call:
I simply type back and forth to the Relay operator in the Instant Messenger window and the operator relays my typed words to the hearing person I am calling, and types the hearing person’s spoken words back to me. The interface is very useful as I can switch between applications while having the conversation and keep working, or I can look up things related to the conversation in an email window or browser window. I can cut and paste text in the AIM window; this was something I couldn’t do with a TTY or with the Java-enabled internet relay. I can save the chat windows on my computer.
In addition, since my TMobile Sidekick has AIM installed on it, this also means I can make wireless Relay calls on my Sidekick. No more carrying around a TTY, and no more having to hunt for a place to plug one in when I’m out. I’m constantly on the go, and having the ability to make wireless phone calls with ease is the bee’s knees. I love how the progression of technology gives me more freedom and independence.
When IP Relay announced their AIM Relay service, they also announced a new way for deafies to receive phone calls from hearing people. In the past, to connect with a deaf person via Relay, a hearing person would have to call the 800-number for the state relay service and then tell the operator to call the number of the deaf person they were trying to reach. IP Relay now allows deaf users to register for their own phone number; deafies get a phone number with an area code that is local to them, and can share the number with anyone. When a hearing caller wants to connect with them, they dial that number and are automatically connected with the Relay operator, and the deaf recipient automatically receives an Instant Messenger window on their computer or mobile device announcing the incoming call. There’s no need to tell the operator to dial any extra numbers and there are no additional steps; the hearing caller simply just starts talking. If the deaf recipient is away from their computer or does not have instant messenger turned on, the hearing caller can leave a voice message, and the IP Relay operators will type it up and email it to the deaf recipient. Very convenient and very accessible. IP Relay works with MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger as well.
The service is free and is funded by Telecommunications Relay Service Surcharges.
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In 2001, there was a commercial on television from a major ISP that was advertising broadband Internet services – I can’t remember exactly which one, but I think it was SBC. In the commercial, a woman is sitting at her window watching a new family move in next door. They have a son who is deaf and the woman sees the mother and son using sign language with each other. She sat down at her computer and looked up web sites with sign language instructional videos, trying to learn a few words so she could say hello to her new neighbors. The next day she baked a pie and took it next door, handing it to the deaf boy and signed, “I baked a pie for you.” Unfortunately, she has a dialup Internet connection, and the sign language videos she watched over the Internet had some lag, so she got her signs wrong. She unknowingly signed “I baked a dog for you” instead. The boy dropped the pie and ran away in terror while she stood there perplexed, wondering what went wrong.
In recent years, more people have moved from dialup to broadband, and Internet speeds have gotten faster and technology has improved to the point where it’s possible to download and view more videos and movies on the Internet without troublesome lagging and slow speeds. This has been a very positive trend for deafies who prefer to communicate in sign language as they can now sign to each other smoothly over the Internet using webcams.
Video Relay Service (VRS) is one example of the many technologies that deaf people have benefitted from in the age of streaming media. A Relay service is an utility that deaf people use to make telephone calls to users that do not have a TTY. How it works:
- An individual that communicates by American Sign Language, or another mode of manual communication, such as Signing Exact English, Pidgin Signed English, Linguistics of Visual English, uses a videophone or other camera-enabled device, such as a webcam to connect via broadband Internet to a Video Relay Service.
- The caller is routed to a sign language interpreter, known as a Video Interpreter (VI). The VI is in front of a camera or videophone.
- The VRS user gives the VI the number to dial, as well as any special dialing instructions.
- The VI places the call and interprets in normal mode as a neutral, non-participating third-party. Anything that the phone user speaks is signed to the video user, and anything signed by the video user is spoken to the phone user.
- Once the call is over, the caller can make another call(s) or hang up with the interpreter.
Telephone users can contact a Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, or Speech-Disabled person via VRS. To initiate a VRS call the hearing person calls the VRS, and are connected to video interpreters who contact videophone users directly.
(Taken from Wikipedia.)
Here’s a partial list of VRS providers:
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I’ve posted about this before, and I’m going to keep posting about it, especially after reading this article in the New York Times:
In Bessemer, Ala., city employees could not get through to their own 911 system when a colleague had a seizure, at a time when the city and others like it are struggling to upgrade their systems at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Yet even the newest systems cannot adequately handle Internet-based phone services or text messages, which emerged as the most reliable form of communication during Hurricane Katrina.
“Everyone expects 911 to work perfectly 100 percent of the time,” said Patrick Halley, the governmental affairs director for the National Emergency Number Association, whose state-by-state tracking shows that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are in the forefront of adopting new technology. “And the public doesn’t really care about 911 until they go to use it and expect it to work perfectly and it doesn’t.”
They’re aware of the problems that the current system causes for the deaf:
Experts are laying the groundwork for what they call Next Generation 911, which will better handle Internet-based calls, text messages, cellphone photos and other forms of communication already in common use.
“Deaf people are using text messaging,” Rick Jones, the operations director for the national association, said by way of example. “They can’t talk to 911.”
I hope the new changes come soon – and well before someone desperately needs them.
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Tomorrow & Tuesday, I’ll be at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in San Jose, CA. If you’d like to meet up with me and discuss deaf tech, please feel free to SMS me at 626-416-9217.
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Via WebMD:
Experts Say Policy Reforms Needed for Growing Population of Disabled AmericansReviewed by Louise Chang, MDApril 24, 2007 — Experts warned in a report Tuesday that the U.S. is largely unprepared for a coming explosion in its disabled population.
As many as 50 million Americans currently live with physical or mental impairments that prevent them from taking on regular work or life activities. But that number is expected to skyrocket as an aging population and rising obesity rates take their toll on Americans, concludes a report issued by a panel at the Institute of Medicine (IOM).
“It becomes quite clear that disability will essentially affect the lives of most Americans,” says Alan M. Jette, the panel’s chairman.
The panel called on the federal government to eliminate barriers that can delay medical coverage for disabled people under Medicare. But it also pointed to a broad range of research and policy concerns.
Experts say the Justice Department should step up enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act at hospitals and other health care facilities. The law, which was signed in 1990, guarantees wheelchair and other disabled access to public buildings.
“Even just getting into and around health facilities … is really very difficult nowadays,” says Lisa I. Lezzoni, a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School Institute for Health Policy and a member of the IOM panel.
The number of elderly Americans is projected to double by 2030, a factor nearly guaranteed to push up the disabled population, the report says. Still, obesity lingers as another factor that experts says has them worried.
“The available data was very disturbing to the committee,” says Jette, director of the Health and Disability Research Institute at Boston University.
About one-sixth of U.S. children and two-thirds of U.S. adults are considered overweight or obese, according to the CDC. That puts them at higher risk for myriad causes of disability, including stroke, cancer, and diabetes.
“It clearly comes through as a major risk factor,” Jette says.
The report scolds U.S. policy makers for largely ignoring the coming consequences of disability. Jette said lawmakers and other policy makers usually fail to act unless problems are visible and personal to members of the public.
He said the public could become galvanized by the large number of U.S. military personnel returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with “terrible disabilities.”
SOURCES: Institute of Medicine: “The Future of Disability in America,” April 24, 2007. Alan M. Jette, director, Health and Disability Research Institute at Boston University; chairman, IOM panel. Lisa I. Lezzoni, professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School Institute for Health Policy; member, IOM panel. National Center for Health Statistics.
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Researchers at Madrid’s Carlos III University for the Spanish Center for Subtitles and Closed Captions developed a gadget that affixes to a person’s glasses. The gadget contains a receptor that picks up subtitles that are being projected by a computer, and displays them on the microscreen in the device. The computer installed in the theater emits the captions if you are within 50 meters.
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Mobile FYI has launched a text messaging hurricane alert system for Florida hurricanes. Very useful for both deafies and hearing people.
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Via the CaptionKeeper website:
CaptionKeeper is a software program which converts television-based closed-caption data into web streaming formats. It takes closed-caption (line-21) data as input, and creates simultaneous outputs suitable for live and archived multimedia presentations in RealPlayer™, Windows Media™ Player and QuickTime™ Player formats.
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Due to my deafness, I speak with a speech impediment. Most people can understand my speech fine when they interact with me in person, but I think that if they could not see my face and listened to a recording of my voice, they might not understand me so well.
I wanted to be able to offer podcasts to accompany my blog posts to help make everything more accessible, but I don’t feel confident enough in my speaking pronunciation to do a podcast on my own. So I started googling for text-to-voice podcasting services, and came across Odiogo, which does this service – for free. From their website:
Check out our automated podcast “to go”: your site’s RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts can be converted automatically to iPod-ready audio files ready to download and play anywhere, anytime, on any device.
I registered with the service, and it immediately created podcasts of my text posts. I don’t have to notify the service when I update my blog; it’s subscribed to my RSS feed and finds new posts as they come in. I don’t have to install any software; I simply just keep on blogging, and Odiogo will provide podcasts of my blogs.
I had a hearing person listen to the podcasts for me, and he said that the voice transcription was very accurate and extremely understandable.
This is a good option for people with speech impediments to help their blog or news service reach an even wider audience. I’ve added the Odiogo icon to the top of all my posts; if you prefer to receive my posts as podcasts, simply click on the button and subscribe to my Odiogo feed – there’s no charge.
