Communication
Seeing EyePhone: Could Your Phone Be Your Service Animal?
Jun 10th, 2011
iPhone App developers, take note: for the first time in awhile, I’ve found a situation where I can’t say, “there’s an app for that!” and I need one.
Have you ever found yourself in a situation when you simply didn’t hear something, such as the kettle whistling? or the water running because the TV was too loud, or there were screaming kids? It happens to everyone, whether or not you’re deaf. These are situations that can have negative effects if unattended. In this post, I’m going to explore the possibility of our mobile devices being able to provide us with essential More >
How Well-Crafted Podcast Descriptions Help Me Hear
Jun 1st, 2011
Have you ever stood in front of a piece of very abstract art at a museum, and been like, “Ok. I don’t get it.” Of course you have. And then you look at the small placard below it, and it gives you some explanation, and all of the sudden the abstract colors, shapes, and lines come together in a way that makes sense? Yeah. That’s how I hear.
Well, anyway, it’s how I hear NPR. I learned how to listen to – and understand – podcasts from well-written descriptions about each episode to help me out. Let me explain.
Ok, let’s face More >
How Twitter can be an #accessibility tool for #deaf / HoH.
Apr 27th, 2011
Last week, President Obama held a Facebook Town Hall event via live video-streaming to promote the StartUP America Partnership, which was followed by a panel discussion by start-up veterans. As an entrepreneur and a fan of this initiative, I “tuned in” to this live video stream to learn more about the program and learn from the panelists. Except…there was one road-block.
Road-Block: Lack of Captions at the Live EventThe live video feed wasn’t captioned. Now, I’m not here to whine or point fingers, but to tell you about an interesting accessibility “alternative” that I stumbled upon. This “solution” was instantly available, didn’t More >
Museums & Social Media: A Step Towards Accessibility
Apr 19th, 2011
“The Brontosaurus skeleton in the @AMNH is so tall!”
When was the last time you went to a museum or a cultural / community event? (Such as the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C.) Did you provide any insight on your activities on your social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, or mobile photo sharing site Instagr.am? Chances are that you likely did, as a way to tell your families & friends what you’ve been up to. Perhaps you wanted to strike up a conversation, or remind people that the Cherry Trees were a gift to the American people by Japan. More >
How to Caption Voicemail Messages
Mar 31st, 2011
“You have 1 Voicemail”
Seeing the voicemail icon on my phone makes my shoulders tense up. That’s because I can’t always understand the voicemail messages due to a number of factors, one being the obvious if you know me: I am deaf. I can use the phone, thanks to my cochlear implants, but I really depend more on seeing visual cues. The other factors to not understanding voicemail messages include the clarity of the caller’s voice, background noise, and/or my listening focus. There was one particular voicemail that I couldn’t understand, and it was nagging at me for a couple of More >
Verizon iPhone: Not as accessible as AT&T’s iPhone.
Jan 12th, 2011
On 1/11/11, Verizon announced the release of the iPhone on their network. This means some competition for AT&T, and you can check out Mashable’s iPhone Faceoff infographic to compare between the two iPhone 4′s. In summary, while the design and hardware are nearly identical, there is one (obvious) significant difference: the network technology. This is particularly important for one piece of accessibility, and with the help of accessibility expert Lisa Goldstein at Purple Communications, I’ll tell you why. First, some background:
UMTS (3GSM) vs. CDMA, in plain English: (nerd alert!)AT&T uses the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) network on its carriers. UMTS supports the Global System for Mobile Communications (3GSM), which More >
Hearing Technology: The Cochlear Implant
Oct 22nd, 2010
A Technology Pioneer
I’ve been a gadget head since I was 3 years old. Literally. I got a cochlear implant, a small, complex electronic device that can provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or hard-of-hearing. This experience marked the beginning of my personal vision for universal design in accessibility through technology. I get a lot of questions about this experience and how it’s relevant to developing Keen Guides, a company committed to universal design and accessibility to engage with the arts and culture around us. If you’re interested, I’ve included insights on what it was More >
Captioning Online, on Phones, and iPods: Improvements on the Horizon.
Nov 16th, 2009
submitted by Catharine
Either I’m hearing more about new accessibility initiatives with captioning / as well as goof-ups, or I’m paying more attention to the news. I thought I’d share a few with you!
1. The FCC is listening. A lot of content online is not captioned, eventhough the number of U.S. broadband households watching premium online content via online has doubled to 25 million in the last year according to Broadband, Communications, and Entertainment Bundles, a new study from Parks Associates. That’s a lot of online content! There was a recent FCC Field Hearing by members of the Coalition of Organizations for More >
H.R. 3101: Communications Accessibility Act
Sep 4th, 2009
submitted by Catharine
Believe it or not, most major networks do not carry closed-captioned videos / TV broadcasts online, and the only smartphone on the market that supports captioning is the iPhone.
Surprising, isn’t it?
Thanks to a new bill on the floor in Congress, “The 21st Century Communication and Telecommunications Act,” that just might change.
There are two components to this bill that are appealing to me – and to Keen:
1. It calls for more requirements for closed captioning availability of online videos.
That means that we’ll be able to share more educational videos with you. We’ll get to spend more time looking More >
first shoot, first day: a glimpse of Keen's potential
Mar 25th, 2009
This week, Keen Guides is shooting our first two full video tours at Wake Forest University, as well as a few prototype tour stops around Winston-Salem, NC. Welcome to the adventure…
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
At 9:05 Tuesday morning, we had an unseasonably cold and windy Winston-Salem day ahead of us, a box truck in the way of our camera shot, an American Sign Language interpreter with two very cold hands (a true occupational hazard), and a lot of butterflies in our stomachs for our first tour shoot. But at 7:00 pm, the butterflies were gone. Six beautiful tour stops had been successfully More >