Democratic US Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts is backing a bill that would require major producers of web videos to provide captioning, a piece of legislation that provides many other benefits for people with hearing, vision and other disabilities. Markey is one of the most senior legislators in Congress and a leader in shaping the nation's telecommunications policies. When he puts his whole weight behind a piece of communications legislation he usually gets it passed. So my recent cry for more web captions has been answered from on high! Federal legislation might also help motivate more standards for web-video formats, especially captioning, which still requires some work. Another element of the legislation would require that phones used for Internet calls (voice over IP calls) be compatible with hearing aids in the same way regular phone equipment now must work with hearing aids. For more on this landmark legislation, read today's Boston Globe article. I'll be tracking this one closely.
Posted by David on May 13, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Why Don't Hearing-Aid Companies Caption Their YouTube Videos?
My blogger friend Dr. Tom Goyne has several interesting posts with links to videos that Phonak, Widex, Oticon and other major hearing-aid companies are putting on the web. Great, but....Why aren't any of the hearing-aid manufacturers' videos captioned?!??! Some of the videos are really slick productions. Like Tom, I applaud their efforts to reach out directly to consumers to erase the old stigma of hearing aids and educate people about the new technologies that make hearing aids so much better than they used to be. (They are the next step in the consumer marketing trend kicked into high gear last year by Phonak, which blitzed the fashion world with its high-glam Audeo ads.) How ironic, and what a disappointment, then, to find that none of the videos are captioned. I really would love to see what that earnest Widex customer has to say in her testimonial.
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Posted by David on Apr 25, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)
More Good News From WGBH NCAM: Easy Captions For Adobe Flash Videos
While I'm going on about WGBH NCAM's web video captioning success with its industry-wide coalition, I should also mention their recent introduction of a software utility that makes it easy to create captioned Adobe Flash videos. This gives me an excuse to brag: at my consulting company's site, Aquarius Advisers LLC, we've had captioning on our Flash videos for two years now. It wasn't easy back then, but we had the assistance of a brilliant digital animator, Dave Counts, whose far-left site TooStupidToBePresident.com has won him fame and infamy as one of the most creative digital animators and satirists in the country. He figured out how to put Flash captions on our site then, but WGBH NCAM has made it easy with its new software utility, so mere mortals can make it happen now.
Posted by David on Oct 5, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! Collaborate On Web Video Captioning
There's some GREAT news in the captioning world this week from the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) at WGBH, the public broadcasting station in Boston. AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to collaborate with NCAM to establish and manage a new International Captioning Forum to set standards for captioning on any kind of video presented on the Web. This critical mass of industry leaders provides real hope that captioning on the Web will one day be as common as closed-captioning on TV, which is now required in the U.S. by the Federal Communications Commission. It follows other recent positive developments, including Apple making its Quicktime video player caption-friendly, and NBC making a bold decision to invest in captioning for all its prime-time shows that are streamed over the web. It's yet another breakthrough move by NCAM and WGBH, which have led the way in not only advocating for accessible media in all forms -- whether it be captioning on TV or in the movies, or audio description technology for blind moviegoers, or the booming video-on-the Web medium -- but also in actually making it happen.
Posted by David on Oct 5, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
CapTel Captioned Telephone Service Finally Gets A Hearing In Massachusetts
Since I last wrote about CapTel captioned telephone service, a dozen additional states have started offering this vital lifeline for hard-of-hearing consumers. To my chagrin, my home state of Massachusetts now is one of only six states in the union that have not approved it. For a state that prides itself in being among the technology leaders in the U.S., this is a huge embarrassment. I learned last week that my state legislature is finally considering legislation that will enable CapTel service for residents through the public relay service. It turns out the state senator from my district, State Sen. Cynthia Creem, is on the joint committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy that is considering SB#1943, which will enable the service by allowing a relay center based outside the state to process CapTel calls. I emailed Sen. Creem's office to find out her position and lobby her to push it through to passage. I got an email back telling me that I won't get my questions answered until either she or a staff member responds to me via the U.S. mail at some point. It's not reassuring that my state senator prefers snail mail to email, as it makes me wonder how sensitive she will be to the need for a newfangled electronic solution for her hard-of-hearing constituents. Especially when the overall legislature - including the committe she is on - has moved at its own snail's pace over the past several years.
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Posted by David on May 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Let's Boycott Super Bowl Advertisers Who Don't Supply Captions
What do BlockBuster, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Expedia.com have in common? Their Super Bowl ads this year didn't have captions. They must not want our business. Captionless ads have been bothering me ever since I began noticing how many advertisers don't supply them, even after the first of the year when the FCC began requiring broadcasters to caption all their regular programming. The number of captionless ads on SuperBowl XL was especially disappointing. Now I've stumbled across some data to back up my gripe. It turns out that nearly 50 percent of this year's Super-Bowl XL advertisers didn't bother to provide captions with their ads, according to the accountability site Captions.Com, which notes: "A 30-second ad during the Super Bowl is 2.5 million dollars ($2,500,000.00). The cost to caption that ad is approximately $200." So I've got a modest proposal. Why don't we start a public hard-of-hearing-consumer boycott of the brands that don't bother to offer captions? And let's start favoring caption providers like Pepsi, FedEx, Sprint and VISA who apparently do want our business.
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Posted by David on Apr 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
I'm Still Waiting For CapTel Captioned Telephone Service In Massachusetts
Last night I finally got some answers to my questions about why CapTel service still isn't available in my home state of Massachusetts, even after 35 other states have gotten the captioned telephone service up and running. Those who have tried it say that CapTel is simply awesome. As easy to use as the closed captioning on your TV, it's a breakthrough in communication that truly has life-changing potential for thousands of deaf and hard-of-hearing people throughout the U.S. At the monthly meeting of the Greater Boston Chapter of Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH), Dennis A. Selznick of Sprint Relay Services gave an overview, and Greater Boston SHHH President Karen Rockow gave a clear update of the progress it is making toward approval in Massachusetts. CapTel is offered under the same state-run relay services that provide TTY and Voice-Carry-Over (VCO) for written translations of conversations and Video Relay for on-line sign-language interpreters. TTY and VCO services require the user to first engage an operator, who transcribes and transmits what the other party is saying and displays it over a TTY or computer terminal. The user can't hear what the other person is saying, and there are delays as the operator mediates the conversation. With CapTel, the operator is invisible, and the caller can use whatever hearing he or she has to listen to the other party, using the scrolling captions on the five-line LCD screen of a special CapTel telephone to fill in the gaps, just as they would when watching captioned television. The service is so easy to use that people who in the past would did not bother going through the steps required to learn and to use VCO or TTY services are gravitating to CapTel quickly and easily. But adoption of the service is a state-by-state proposition, and some states, including the one I live in, apparently have had a hard time getting out of their own way. Karen Rockow explained that an outdated Massachusetts state law that originally created the state relay service was written in such a way that it's technically illegal to offer the CapTel service as it's currently configured. It will require a change in the law by the state legislature to get CapTel on track. When that legislation will be voted on, and whether it will pass, still are open questions.
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Posted by David on Nov 15, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
CapTel Phone Captioning Now Available In 32 States (But Not In Massachusetts!)
I'm still a CapTel wannabee. With Sprint Nextel's recent announcement of the addition of CapTel Relay Service in New Hampshire, the real-time telephone captioning service is now available in 32 states. It's also available to current and retired federal employees including military veterans, as well as to U.S. tribal members. But it's not available in Massachusetts, where I live. I'm going to get after the state telecommunications regulators to see what's taking so long. The CapTel service is the next giant step beyond traditional voice carry-over (VCO) relay services. VCO service engages an operator who transcribes the conversation of the hearing person and transmits it to the hard-of-hearing person's computer or TTY terminal. With the CapTel service, the operator transmits real-time captions directly to a display on your CapTel-ready phone, so you don't need a second device to read the captions. Plus, when you make an outgoing call, the service is engaged immediately, versus VCO services where you have to place the call through the service provider. And the captioning is done in real-time, just like the captions on TV, by an operator who uses court-reporter transcription technology combined with some voice-recognition software.
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Posted by David on Sep 19, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
