HearingImpaired
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Amazon’s Echo Show lets users tap the screen to access Alexa
Amazon is making it easier for those with hearing and speech impairments to utilize Alexa. Starting today, the Echo Show will have an option to toggle on a new feature called "Tap to Alexa," which will let users tap the device's screen to access the digital assistant. The feature includes shortcuts to common Alexa items like weather, timers, news and traffic, and users can also type out Alexa commands. Additionally, while Amazon launched its Alexa captioning feature in the US a few months ago, it's now releasing that feature to users in the UK, Germany, Japan, India, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Lyft offers drivers 24/7 access to support services
Today, Lyft announced a few new features for its driver support app that are meant to make the process of getting help simpler and easier to navigate. First, the Lyft Driver app will now include a button that will allow drivers to quickly connect with the company's new 24/7 over-the-phone support service. And Lyft is also rolling out phone and email support for Spanish-speaking drivers and adding Spanish-speaking team members to its on-call support team. Additionally, the company's online help center has been tweaked to make sure drivers' questions get answered more quickly.
Facebook Live closed captioning makes videos more accessible
Facebook announced today that it's extending video closed captioning to Live broadcasts. The move is part of the company's attempt to make Facebook more accessible to those with disabilities.
ICYMI: The best health innovations of the year
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-766185{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-766185, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-766185{width:570px;display:block;}try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-766185").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: It's been a pretty magical year for medical innovation, with something for everyone but most especially Star Trek fans. The FDA approved 3D-printed medicine for the first time, prosthetic arms for kids got awesome and researchers helped a man with a severed spine walk, with sensor connections on either side of his spine.
Uber's driver app now serves the hearing impaired
More often than not, most features released by Uber are designed for its customers, not drivers. Today, though, the ridesharing firm is making some changes to help a specific group of people behind the wheel: those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. These updates, planned in tandem with the National Association of the Deaf, lets drivers access an Uber Partner app that offers tools created particularly for the hearing impaired. For example, contractors are now able to modify their app to have the flashlight turn on when a trip's being requested, along with the existing audio notification. They can also set it so that riders receive a message directly on the Uber app, prompting them to enter a destination or to provide special instructions for a pick-up.
MotionSavvy uses gesture recognition to give sign language a voice
If you're fluent in American Sign Language, congratulations: you know one more language than most of the people reading this post. The rest of us? A solution to our communicative failures is on the way. A company called MotionSavvy is building a Leap Motion-equipped tablet case that can actively interpret ASL and 'speak' the translation out loud. It's an ambitious project, but it works: at a recent Leap AXLR8R event we saw company founder Ryan Hait-Campbell sign over a MotionSavvy equipped slate. "Hello, my name is Ryan," he said. "What's your name?" It was an impressive demo, but Hait-Campbell admitted it was limited -- the setup can only recognize about 100 words at present, and since signs can vary slightly from person to person, those words don't consistently register for every user. Still, the company's prototype shows enormous potential. If the firm can outfit it with a larger word database and the ability to decipher personalized signing, MotionSavvy could become an incredible communication tool for the hearing-impaired.
Netflix to bring closed captioning to all video content by 2014
The road to become the best it can be will surely be a long one, but Netflix is certainly doing all it can to be covered on all grounds. Most recently, the streaming giant announced that it has reached a settlement with the National Association for the Deaf which ensures that the company will offer captioning services on its entire video library by 2014. Currently Netflix has caption options on nearly 85 percent of its hefty entertainment repertoire, with the outfit expected to make it 90 percent by next year and, shortly thereafter, have its full set CC-ready. Needless to say, this is a win-win for all parties involved.
Regal Entertainment Group teams up with Sony to bring subtitle glasses to US theaters
We've been hearing about glasses that only display subtitles to those who need them for years (most recently with a trial run in the UK), but it looks like they're now finally about to enter the US market in a fairly big way. Regal Entertainment Group announced today that it's partnered with Sony Entertainment to bring the company's Access Glasses to "practically all" of its digital theaters in the US (that includes the vast majority of its 500+ theaters and more than 4,700 screens in all). Those glasses work with both 2D and 3D movies (the latter courtesy of a clip-on filter), and can provide closed-captioned text in up to six different languages for the hearing impaired, as well as descriptive audio for the visually impaired when they're paired with headphones. According to Regal, the glasses are already rolling out to some theaters this month, and it says they should be everywhere by the first quarter of 2013.
Nintendo, NTT DoCoMo testing DS-powered speech translator
Nintendo and NTT DoCoMo are reportedly teaming up in order to create a voice-to-text system that'll help hearing-impaired children study. Using a modified DSi, speech is converted into text which is then archived in the cloud -- accessible afterward as a learning aid. That way, a teacher can have their words instantly typed up for reading by the students, who can also play interactive games to help them get along. Trials of the system are being held in Tottori and Okinawa Prefectures, with the overall aim of letting them use it as a universal translator outside the classroom. We're worried we'd be too tempted to swap out Tactical Assault during maths class.
NHK's automated, animated sign language translator adds gestures to subtitles (video)
We've seen quite a few devices designed to help hearing impaired users communicate via phone or computer, but Japan's NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories has just announced a new animated translation system to help get important news to deaf viewers . While televised subtitles may work for those who understand the language, people who were born deaf and learned sign language from an early age can have significantly more difficulty. NHK's system, unveiled at Technology Open House 2011, bypasses this problem by automatically comparing Japanese text to sign language, converting equivalent words into animated onscreen gestures, and replacing differing words with appropriate synonyms. There are, however, a few kinks to work out. While comprehensible, the translations aren't exactly fluent and researchers have been forced to manually adjust some awkward transitions between words. The ultimate goal is to create a system that could be used during emergencies or natural disasters, allowing deaf citizens to receive urgent broadcasts as instantly as their hearing compatriots. You can see it in action, after the break.
YouTube brings human-enabled closed captioning to live video for Google I/O
If you were glued to your computer during the live broadcast of the Google I/O keynote yesterday morning, you might have noticed a new feature accompanying an otherwise recognizable YouTube video. The online video provider used this morning's conference kickoff as the springboard for its live captioning feature, which brings human input to the transcription process. According to Google's Naomi Black, a team of stenographers banged out translations during this morning's keynote. The resulting captions were then displayed on the conference floor and delivered by an "open source gadget" to the I/O YouTube channel. This new feature apparently prevents the inaccuracies experienced using Google's automatic captioning function, which, if you'll recall, provided us with at least a couple hearty chuckles when we took it for a spin. The code behind the new live captions will be available to YouTube's partners and competitors on Google Code. You can check out tomorrow's keynote to see how the humans fare.
Siemens pumps streaming audio to hearing aids with miniTek remote
See that tiny black box? It's a streaming audio hub, designed specifically for the hard of hearing who have Siemens earphones buried in their lobes. Connect special Tek transmitters to traditional TVs and stereos, or hook it up directly to a phone, audio player or PC over Bluetooth or 3.5mm jack, and the matchbox-sized, two-ounce remote will wirelessly stream stereo audio from two devices for up to five hours a time. (It's also apparently got an integrated coil for induction loop audio.) Just don't expect it to come cheap -- it's a medical product, you know. [Thanks, Klaus]
Pioneer's Navi Robo waves you in the right direction (video)
Before you dismiss this as just another crazy idea out of Japan, hear us out. The newly developed, crab-simulating Navi Robo is designed to give drivers visual navigating assistance as a supplement to their GPS device. Its primary benefit, aside from helping the hearing impaired, will be in conveying instructions without requiring the driver to focus on it, as its eyes light up for attention and its "claws" vibrate urgently when an upcoming turn is imminent. Frankly, it looks both cute and functional, and we think kudos are in order for both Pioneer and iXs Research for coming up with the idea. They'll be taking their usual good time (read: a couple of years) to refine and develop the idea, but we've got video of the robot doing its thing right now -- you know where to find it.
AT&T unleashes Real Time IM Relay for the hearing impaired
As our hearing impaired readers are no doubt aware, AT&T has been offering its Instant Messaging Relay service since early this year, allowing folks to use AIM to communicate through an operator over the telephone in a manner similar to TDD devices. Now the company has announced an upgrade to the service that will allow real-time communication between callers. Instead of waiting for the relay operator to input long strings of text, users receive the messages word by word as they're typed. "To hearing users, this may sound like a trivial enhancement," said Claude Stout, Executive Director of TDI. "But for many callers with hearing or speech disabilities, this creates a wireless and online communications experience that is much closer to what hearing people encounter when talking with others on the phone." Except, you know, with more emoticons and LOLs.
Sprint WebCapTel On the Go brings call transcription to the mobile
Sprint has just made its WebCapTel service even better. In an effort to provide greater accessibility to Americans with hearing loss, the carrier has introduced the aforementioned service to allow "hard of hearing customers to read word-for-word captions on Windows Mobile 6 web browsers," and for what it's worth, it's also compatible with Safari 2.0. The free web-based system enables hearing impaired individuals to make a call using two phones -- one of which is used for reading captions while the other is used for listening and speaking. The process seems simple enough; before making a call, the user would log onto www.sprintcaptel.com on one device in order to receive the transcription of the discussion on the other. It's available now for calls made within the US (and its Territories).[Via RCRWireless]
AT&T offers iPhone plan for the hearing-impaired
It's not surprising that the hearing impaired also want to share in the iPhone experience, but until recently they had to sign up for the same voice plans as everyone else. Now, however, AT&T is introducing the $40/month Text Accessibility Plan which offers: Unlimited SMS messages Unlimited data usage (email and web) $.40 per minute pay-per-use voice Visual VoiceMail To qualify you have to complete "the disability certification forms" found here (download link). New users activate their iPhones in the normal way through iTunes and then have to contact AT&T's National Center for Customers with Disabilities to change over the Text Accessibility Plan. [via iPhone Atlas]
