STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog

RIP Sidekick LX – Hello Samsung Epic 4G
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog My TMobile Sidekick LX finally bit the dust so I got a new Epic 4G yesterday and switched from TMobile to Sprint after 8 years with TMobile.  It was an easy decision because Sprint offers deaf-friendly data-only plans and a larger selection of phones. First impressions of the Epic: love it! My only “complaints” are, [...]
Sun, Oct 10 2010

Captioning blooper
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Captioning blooper found on an unknown TV network - someone passed this along to me but doesn't know which TV station it is.
Wed, Apr 23 2008

Jaman - offering downloadable foreign films with subtitles
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Jaman is an online movie site that specializes in indie, art house, and foreign films.  Full-length feature movies can be downloaded to watch on your computer or television (no iPod or iPhone capability, yet) and cost $1.99 to rent and $4.99 to purchase.  There are over 1,000 titles to choose from, and being that a [...]
Tue, Feb 12 2008

Emirates Airlines becomes first airline to offer closed...
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog In November, Emirates Airlines became the first major airline to offer closed captions on inflight entertainment.  All seats in all classes of the airline are equipped with their iCE (Information Communication Entertainment) system, which offers over 600 channels and other snazzy features, such as viewing the aircraft’s external cameras, and sending SMS or email from ...
Mon, Feb 11 2008

Making the grade: the candidates and accessibility
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog This post over on Daily Kos by “slinkerwink” describes how Barack Obama is the only candidate with consistently captioned videos. That got me thinking, and I did some research: a report card grading each presidential candidate on their accessibility to the deaf. DEMOCRATS: Barack Obama - Grade: A+ Barack Obama's website lists disability as a major [...]
Mon, Feb 11 2008

Deaf Porn gets noticed in Penny Arcade & Wired
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Wired recently found my post on Deaf Bunny and did an article covering them. Then Penny Arcade picked it up and turned it into a comic. I think it's funny. Share This
Sun, Feb 10 2008

Text4Deaf Web to Text Message Service
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Text 4 Deaf is a web-to-text message service that allows users to send a text message from the web site to a cell phone belonging to an individual or a group. The recipients can return the messages via their cell phones, and the messages will be delivered to the sender via Web. Text4Deaf is [...]
Fri, Feb 08 2008

Podcasting on Stone Deaf Pilots
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog You may have noticed that at the top of my posts on this blog, there's a blurb that says “Listen to this as a podcast” with a button labeled “Odiogo.”  I received a comment from a reader asking me what it was for, so I am going to relink to the post I made in [...]
Fri, Feb 08 2008

LAPD seeks to let 911 callers send text messages, photos
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Officials in Los Angeles are looking into implementing a text message system for 911 emergency services that would allow people to send not only text messages, but also photos and videos from their cell phones when immediate assistance is required. Officials told the L.A. Police Commission that they were beginning to seek money to install the [...]
Fri, Feb 08 2008

Deaf race car driver uses technology to communicate with...
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Russell Errigo, a deaf race car driver, emailed me these pictures showing him using an Ultratec Compact TTY as a wireless TTY radio to communicate with his pit crew while zooming around the track at 100+ mph speeds. Photos courtesy Russell Errigo - thanks! Previously: Hiptop Sidekick - why it’s so popular among the deaf Text messaging [...]
Tue, Feb 05 2008

TV-B-Gone
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog The gym I work out at has five television sets in the cardio room. I noticed that when I went to work out, sometimes the closed captions would be displayed on one set, but not all five sets. And sometimes the closed captions wouldn't be turned on at all. For the past [...]
Tue, Feb 05 2008

dotSUB allows users to create their own captions
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog dotSUB allows users to create their own captions/subtitles on online videos.  From their website: dotSUB is a browser based tool enabling subtitling of videos on the web into and from any language. There is nothing to buy and nothing to download. Recognizing the potential of global communication powered by the Internet, the founders of [...]
Tue, Feb 05 2008

Data-only plans and AT&T
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Gizmodo, DeafMac, and TUAW all report that AT&T offered a data-only plan and then retracted it. A Colorado AT&T store was offering a text/data-only, no-voice plan at the price of $27.99 a month, but had to cease when AT&T Corporate told them that people were complaining about deaf people getting “special treatment.” First, let me [...]
Sat, Dec 01 2007

Portal is deaf-friendly
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog I discovered over the weekend while playing Portal on a friend's orange box that it has closed captions AND subtitles, and the handheld controller vibrates during certain events, such as firing the gun or impacting. Previously: Subtitles needed in video games
Mon, Oct 15 2007

Blinkx
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Blinkx is an Internet search engine for video (and audio) content. It's unique from other video search engines in that it uses speech-to-text technology, advanced video analytics, and reads text transcripts (including closed captioned files) to find videos. An useful feature for deafies: type "captions" in the search field and it will find caption...
Fri, Oct 05 2007

GotVoice - read your voicemail
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog GotVoice is a service that converts voicemails to text and sends them to you via email or text messages. It's a paid service, but very useful if you're deaf and need to be in contact with hearing people who don't do Relay services, email or text messages. Previously: Jott - getting the hearing & deaf in touch via voice-to-SMS Spinvox: voicemail ...
Fri, Oct 05 2007

QuickTime - now with closed captioning
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog In May of this year (yes, I'm a little behind, sorry) Apple updated their QuickTime media to include support for closed captioning. This is very good - the road to bringing captions to the online world has been filled with potholes, and Apple's recent update has helped make the road a little bit smoother. There is still a long way to go, however. TV epi...
Wed, Oct 03 2007

Preserving closed captions in upcoming technology
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Currently, television stations broadcast in analog television. In February 2009, all television stations will start broadcasting in digital television (DTV.) People who continue to use analog television sets after February 2009 will have to get an analog-to-digital converter box so they can continue to watch TV. There are concerns that closed captions will not tran...
Wed, Oct 03 2007

LAMA - Location Aware Messaging for Accessibility
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Research students at IBM's Extreme Blue research laboratory in the United Kingdom have developed a new technology that is being tested in the UK. Called "Location Aware Messaging for Accessibility," or LAMA for short, it aims to be an alert system for the deaf and hearing impaired in public places such as airports, train stations, hotel rooms, and c...
Tue, Oct 02 2007

IBM unveils `Speech to Sign Language´ translation system
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Via IBM's press release: HURSLEY, UK - 12 Sep 2007: IBM (NYSE: IBM) has developed an ingenious system called SiSi (Say It Sign It) that automatically converts the spoken word into British Sign Language (BSL) which is then sig...
Tue, Oct 02 2007

Subtitles getting outsourced?
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Information Week has an article about subtitling jobs in the UK getting outsourced to India, with disastrous results.  This is not good news.  Non-native speakers + subtitling = too many mistakes. From the article: For example, in the movie My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Uma Thurman utters the line "We have a zero-tolerance policy for (sexual harassment)." But as...
Tue, Oct 02 2007

AOL is testing captioning on online videos
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Via Accessible Web Design Workshop: AOL is now testing closed captions for streaming news content from CNN that will enhance the online media experience for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Captioned CNN video content will beavailable throughout the AOL network, including the AOL service, the free AOL.com Web portal, and the AOL Video portal. I checked it out m...
Sun, Sep 30 2007

Showtime´s new mobile video service - is it deaf-friendly?
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog In October 2006, Showtime announced that they would be launching a new mobile video service. Of course, my first thought was, "will it have captions?" From the above link: NEW YORK, NY- October 9, 2006 - Mobile Streams and Showtime Networks Inc. announced today that Mobile Streams has built an Off-Deck WAP portal to provide mobile users with access to co...
Sun, Sep 30 2007

Looking for a new phone
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog After 2 years my trusty Sidekick 2 has finally crapped out on me. The D-key is broken (it couldn't hold up to my aggressive Tetris playing) and sometimes sticks, which moves the cursor all over and keeps me from opening windows. On Monday it started locking up and freezing, and I couldn´t switch between applications. Rebooting did not help. I´ve been considering...
Sun, Sep 30 2007

Stem cell research might help restore hearing
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Deafness and hearing loss are a result of varying circumstances. In my case, I contracted Haemophilus influenzae meningitis at age 3.5 years, which destroyed the stereocilia in both my cochleas.  The stereocilia are important for hearing since they act as "microphones" and sound filters.  Without them, sound doesn't travel to the brain.  In a [...]
Wed, May 23 2007

Text transcripts on LiveJournal voice posts
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog The LiveJournal blogging platform offers members the ability to do voice posts, and text transcripts are either made by the creator of the podcast or the readers; it's a community-driven effort and works quite well - many people are willing to do this. Podcasts that are under three minutes are automatically transcribed by SpinVox. Previously: Spinvox: [...]
Wed, May 23 2007

Casting Words transcripting services
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Casting Words transcripting services are text transcripts made of podcasts and other MP3/MP4 files and are created by humans, not computers. Turnaround time is 3-4 working days and the cost is $0.75 per minute. If you need it done in 24 hours, the rates are $2.50 per minute. Previous: Project ReadOn - free web captions Speche Communications: real time text streaming [...]
Tue, May 22 2007

Fully Accessible Airport Paging System at PHX
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Yesterday I had a connection at Phoenix SkyHarbor Airport, and noticed a new piece of deaf-friendly technology there. Throughout the airport large screen monitors have been installed, and they display the names of people being paged over the airport intercom system. There are over 30 terminal stations for the intercom system that are fully accessible - these are [...]
Tue, May 22 2007

Airport improvements made for deaf travelers
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Deaf travelers at airports are obviously oblivious to verbal announcements that come over the intercom.  Some of these announcements might contain pernitent information, and should be made accessible to all. Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan installed new technology into the public address system that allows verbal announcements to be [...]
Thu, May 17 2007

SDP gets a shout-out on BlogHer
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Virginia DeBolt gave Stone Deaf Pilots a positive review on BlogHer.  Thanks! The deaf tech blog is Stone Deaf Pilots. This blog is by Kathryn Hill. It covers deaf technology, assistive technology, and tech-related accessibility issues faced by the deaf and hard of hearing. It's a fairly recent addition to the blogosphere, but has gained a substantial audience [...]
Tue, May 08 2007

Telecommunications Relay Service
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog A Telecommunications Relay Service (also known as TRS, Relay Service, or IP-Relay) is a service that the deaf and hearing impaired use to make and receive phone calls to and from hearing people who do not have TTY/TDD's. There are many kinds of Relay calls, such as video relay (which I recently blogged about) and the most common is TTY/Voice - Voice/TTY, or [...]
Mon, May 07 2007

Stone Deaf Pilots: 105,000 visitors since 3/23/07
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog I started Stone Deaf Pilots for many reasons, the main one being that I wanted a place where both deaf and hearing people could come to learn about deaf technology.  With so many different technology options on the market these days, it's difficult to keep track of them all, and I wanted to provide an organized catalog for them.  Technology helps people with [...]
Fri, May 04 2007

IP-Relay
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog 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 [...]
Mon, Apr 30 2007

Video Relay Service
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog 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 [...]
Mon, Apr 30 2007

911 centers need to upgrate to accommodate new technology...
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog 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 [...]
Mon, Apr 30 2007

Subtitle reading glasses
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog 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 [...]
Thu, Apr 26 2007

CaptionKeeper - captions from TV to the Web
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog 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 RealPlayerTM, Windows MediaTM Player and QuickTimeTM Player formats.
Wed, Apr 25 2007

Odiogo - text to voice podcasts
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog 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 [...]
Wed, Apr 25 2007

CART
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog CART stands for Communication Access Real-Time Translation and is a method of interpreting. Deaf and hard of hearing people who do not sign (and therefore cannot use a sign interpreter) can use CART to keep up with speakers at conferences, multiple speakers in meetings, videocasts, and so on. A trained stenographer works either on-site or remotely and uses a [...]
Tue, Apr 24 2007

Subtitles for DivX movies
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog DivX movies and video torrents downloaded from the Internet can be played with an accompanying subtitle file called XSUB that is embedded in a .divx container. Here's a selection of some subtitle resources: DivX Subtitles: subtitle files for DivX, DVD, and HDTV. Offered in other languages besides English. Subtitles are created by forum users and have a [...]
Tue, Apr 24 2007

Project ReadOn - free web captions
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Project ReadOn is a standalone caption player that provides captions for online media such as videos and podcasts.  They are funded by sponsors, ads, and grants.  The captioners watch online videos and transcribe the spoken text into captions which are viewed online using an interesting web browser technology - there are no fees, and there is no software to download [...]
Thu, Apr 19 2007

Speche Communications: real time text streaming
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Speche Communications provides real-time text streaming over the Internet via their eScription service.  A very useful service for providing captions for internet radio, podcasts, vlogs, and videocasts.
Thu, Apr 19 2007

Voicewriting
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Voicewriting is an emerging interpreting technology. A transcriptionist uses a stenomask to repeat spoken words without being heard by others. The stenomask is connected to a laptop computer which has speech recognition software installed in it, and a text transcript of the conversation is automatically created. Since the stenomask allows full focus of only the [...]
Thu, Apr 19 2007

CapTel - captioned telephone
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog CapTel is a captioned telephone service that is useful for people who have good speech but cannot hear well - hard of hearing or late deafened people, for example. To use this service, one must purchase a CapTel phone.  The CapTel user will speak directly to the person they are calling; both parties will hear each other's voices and speak directly to each other [...]
Tue, Apr 17 2007

Emergency notification service for email and SMS
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog The Emergency Email & Wireless Network provides SMS and email notification services that notify subscribers about local, regional, and national emergencies such as natural disasters, Amber Alerts, breaking news, and Homeland Security information. They also offer a bird flu alert. The service is free in exchange for agreeing to receive messages from sponsors.
Tue, Apr 17 2007

Fomdi, the captioned movie search engine
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog It used to be a real pain in the neck to find rear-window and open captioned movies.  Here's the old way of searching: 1]  Go to Mopix and find out what current films are rear-window captioned.  Pick one that looks interesting. 2] Find out when and where it was playing.  This page shows a listing of all RWC-equipped theaters in the US.  There is no single [...]
Mon, Apr 16 2007

Jott - getting the hearing & deaf in touch via voice-to-SMS
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Text messaging is a wonderful tool for the deaf and hearing impaired. I was one of the first people among my peers to have a cell phone that had SMS/text messaging. Since I'm text-heavy, I made sure to invest in a phone that had a QWERTY keyboard. I excitedly sent text messages to all my friends, only to have them complain that sending a reply on their slower [...]
Mon, Apr 09 2007

Conference calls for the deaf
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog Recently I had a job interview where I met with the interviewers in an office in downtown San Francisco.  Two of the other interviewers were in Brazil, so they set up a conference call so that the people in Brazil could listen in.  They assured me that the conference room would have Internet access, so I planned to bring my laptop so I could connect to IP-Relay via [...]
Tue, Apr 03 2007

Mobile TV
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog This week, Orlando hosted CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association) 2007, which has been described as "the Super Bowl of mobile conferences." One of the top forecasted trends for mobile phones is mobile TV. Subscribers of mobile TV are able to watch specially-formatted television programs on their mobile phone screen that are [...]
Fri, Mar 30 2007

Mobile TV
STONE DEAF PILOTS - the deaf tech blog This week, Orlando hosted CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association) 2007, which has been described as "the Super Bowl of mobile conferences." One of the top forecasted trends for mobile phones is mobile TV. Subscribers of mobile TV are able to watch specially-formatted television programs on their mobile phone screen that are [...]
Thu, Mar 29 2007