globeandmail.com: New devices open communications for deaf

November 7, 2007 in Communication, Deaf, News, Technology

globeandmail.com: New devices open communications for deaf: “New devices open communications for deaf

SETH SUTEL
Associated Press
November 7, 2007

Five years ago the staff at Ken Gan’s auto repair shop told him they needed to find a better way of communicating with customers who were deaf.

‘I said, let me go shopping — I’ll buy you whatever’s out there,’ said Gan, of Rochester, N.Y., which has a significant community of deaf people.

For three months, Gan came up empty-handed. There wasn’t anything in the market to facilitate face-to-face communication in a situation such as a shop or office.

So Gan hired some electrical engineers and a patent lawyer and came up with the Interpretype (http://www.interpretype.com/). The small device with a keyboard and display hooks up to another Interpretype or a PC, allowing a hearing person and a deaf person to type messages to each other. It turned out to be such an improvement over passing scribbled notes that Gan gets up to 30 deaf customers a month, up from two to three per month before.

Enlarge Image
Kelly McNeill of Enterprise Rent-a-Car demonstrates a Interpretype device that is used to assist hearing impaired customers in Rochester, N.Y., Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2007. With roughly 1 percent to 2 percent of the U.S. population either deaf or hard of hearing, new technologies like Interpretype are coming into wider use in recent years, allowing deaf people to overcome many frustrations in simple commercial situations. (David Duprey/AP)

Gan started a business above the shop that has sold more than a thousand Interpretypes to schools, libraries, government offices and businesses. The basic setup starts at $995 (U.S.).

With roughly one per cent to two per cent of the U.S. population either deaf or hard of hearing, new technologies like Gan’s device are coming into wider use. They allow deaf people to overcome many frustrations in simple commercial situations such as asking: What’s wrong with my car?

Or if you want to rent a car. James Barons, manager an Enterprise Rent-a-Car branch in Rochester, said he’s seen interactions with deaf customers improve markedly after installing one of Gan’s text-exchange devices.

‘It made the whole transaction of renting a car a lot smoother,’ Barons said.

Other technologies are also making inroads in bridging the gap between hearing people and the deaf.

Jason Curry founded a company in Independence, Mo. with his father that makes a communications device similar to the Interpretype. The UbiDuo (http://www.scommonline.com) uses two portable units, connected by wireless technology. A pair, which can be folded together, starts at $1,995.

Curry has already sold hundreds since starting sales at the beginning of the year, and expects to sell several thousand next year. He said he’s talking with Starbucks Corp. about getting UbiDuos installed in coffee shops.

Curry, who is deaf, said that he was able to directly communicate with his wife’s family for the first time last Christmas by using one of the devices. Not having his wife interpret was a ‘life-changing experience’ for him, he said.

‘Deaf people have a lack of power to sit down across from a hearing person and have a conversation without a third party interpreting for them,’ Curry said through a sign language interpreter.

Another technology that has seen even greater growth in recent years is the video relay service (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/videorelay.html), which allows a deaf person to telephone a hearing person using a sign language interpreter. The interpreter and the deaf person communicate in sign language using a broadband video connection, while the interpreter speaks with the hearing person over a speakerphone.

Deaf people say video relay services mark a major improvement over the previous telephone method available, which involved an operator reading text that a deaf person would type into a device called a TTY — a technology more than 20 years old that exchanged basic text over phone lines using a modem.

Norman Williams, a senior research engineer at Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard-of-hearing in Washington, D.C., uses a video phone every day for a variety of calls including talking to his kids’ teachers, arranging doctors’ visits or ordering pizza.

‘I can’t imagine living without it,’ Williams said in an interview using a video relay service. ‘Before we could use TTY, but that’s a really slow process. Right now I can sign, just like somebody is speaking, so it’s more like real-time conversation.’

Video relay services have only come into common use in the last three years or so, and usage is growing rapidly, having jumped from about one million minutes per month in August 2004 to about six million minutes in August of this year, according to the National Exchange Carrier Association.

Under U.S. law, phone companies are required to offer those and other telecommunications services for people with disabilities, funded by the charges at the bottom of your phone bill.

A number of deaf people, however, use other technologies that don’t require sign language. Jay Wyant, the incoming president of The Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said deaf and hard-of-hearing people were ‘among the first to be heavy users of e-mail and IM, and text messaging after that.’

Wyant, who has some hearing thanks to a cochlear implant, was communicating through yet another assistive technology — CART, or Communication Access Realtime Translation.

Wyant read text being typed online by an operator who was listening in on a conference call, and spoke his answers back. A web link allowed all parties to see the text of what was being said in real time.

Alan Hurwitz, dean of the National Technology Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said many assistive technologies have been a godsend to deaf people.

‘Any technology that allows me to communicate with hearing people instantly, without any barriers — that’s amazing to me,’ Hurwitz said in an interview through a video relay service.

But what really excites Hurwitz is a brand new technology already being used in Europe and Japan, but not yet in the United States, that allows deaf people to communicate with each other in sign language over cell phone cameras using real-time video.

It’s unclear when the necessary approvals and upgrades will come in for that technology. But ‘once it gets here, that will hands-down be the biggest impact’ on communications among the deaf, he said.”

Theatres to add captions

July 26, 2007 in Closed Captioning, Deaf, Education, Hard of Hearing, News

Theatre to add captions

DAVID GEORGE-COSH
July 26, 2007

If Scott Simser wasn’t a movie buff before, he sure is one now.

Mr. Simser, who is deaf, was jubilant after a settlement was announced yesterday by the Ontario Human Rights Commission that will put captioning technology in more theatres across the province.

Major movie exhibitors – Alliance Atlantis, AMC Entertainment, Cineplex Entertainment and Rainbow Centre Cinemas – have agreed to offer captioning technology in 19 theatres across Ontario, resolving a complaint from Mr. Simser and two other hearing-impaired individuals who argued their rights were compromised by the shortage of accommodation for hearing-impaired people in Ontario cinemas.

“I am thrilled to have all us three complainants … secure an important human rights victory that assure that the deaf and hard of hearing enjoy entertainment along with all our families and friends,” Mr. Simser said.

Mr. Simser lodged his complaint with the commission following his frustration after a screening of the James Bond film The World is Not Enough in February, 2000.

He soon found kindred spirits in Gary Malkowski and Nancy Barker, who had also filed independent complaints, and they decided to fight together.

According to yesterday’s agreement, 19 theatre complexes across Ontario will have the captioning technology by the end of 2008, and it will be a required feature for every new cinema built between 2009 and 2013.

Real Progress at Gallaudet

July 20, 2007 in Business, Deaf, Education, News, Special News, World

Real Progress at Gallaudet

Friday, July 20, 2007

Gallaudet University has recently emerged from an ordeal. Robert Davila began his tenure as president in the aftermath of a schism that polarized many on campus. This divide arose from differing visions for Gallaudet today and in the future.

Mr. Davila’s challenge has been to unite all university stakeholders so that Gallaudet may begin to address the accreditation issues brought forth by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education [“Accrediting Agency Puts Gallaudet on Probation,” Metro, June 30].

The board is engaged and believes Gallaudet has made tremendous progress.

Gallaudet today is as organized and as focused as at any point in its history. Mr. Davila and his team are drawing on recommendations from students, the faculty and staff, and alumni to refine and enhance students’ educational experience at Gallaudet. Collaboration to sharpen Gallaudet’s advancement strategy is underway.

For many, Gallaudet is more than a university. It is a beacon of inspiration, of courage and of strength for deaf people around the world. It is imperative that the community ensure the survival of this beloved institution in the years to come.

BENJAMIN J. SOUKUP

Chairman, Board of Trustees

Gallaudet University

Washington