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Youtube recently announced automatic captions for YouTube videos. While the technology is imperfect, the system will analyze videos and make best guesses about the script. This is beneficial to Google of course, in analyzing the videos to deliver better ads, and eventually, translate videos into a multitude of languages. The core benefit to me is as a hard-of-hearing person.

This is definitely a step in the right direction, and personally, I think it’s long overdue.

While there are regulations in place to ensure equal access to television and like media, regulating such a thing on the internet cannot, and indeed, should not be done. It’s encouraging to see the de-facto standard distributer of video content on the web take this issue seriously and use the advances in technology to improve everyone’s lives, even in areas of lesser importance to a larger audience.

This is one of the many reasons I am a supporter of Google as a company and a brand. There’s still further steps to take, but I am very happy today to see this announcement. Making captioning easier for publishers and accessible to those that need it is an entire ecosystem of solutions for these kinds of problems. I hope Google and other companies continue to develop technology that pushes the limits of what can be done to ensure access for everyone to online channels of communication.

Check out the video from the California School For The Deaf, Fremont (where many people I know and family members have attended)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXZdhMyPHsQ

Colored hearing aids have been available for a long time. While the trend is to try to hide hearing aids, I can see why people would want these (although the pictures leopard print design? garish!)

If you hide a HA – you get the benefit of being treated normally. People don’t yell at you or make ridiculous gestures based on an ignorance of how to treat the HOH or Deaf.

If you DON’T hide the HA, you get the the benefit of people NOT treating you normally – exasperated looks or rolled eyes when you ask someone to repeat themselves, turn down the TV volume, sit in a certain position at the table, or anything else that makes hearing easier.

If hearing is a daily struggle, the second option gets more and more attractive. With cochlear implants, they are usually quite obvious anyway, so why not decorate? I wouldn’t mind seeing this offered for hearing aids. A bit tacky, maybe, but a small price to pay for some cooperation from the “Hearies”.

Abdelkareem Bedri
“Speaking Gloves: Arabic Deaf Sign Language”
Sudan
Age 22

‘Helping the deaf be heard’ is Abdelkareem’s way of making a difference in people’s lives. Through the development of a microcontroller based system to translate Arabic sign language to an audible voice, this project will help the hearing impaired be more productive in the community through easing their communication with hale persons.

More here: http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Jordan/245979