The power of captioning for deaf/hh organizations

I see this again and again the lack of captions in videos by organizations that serve the deaf and hard of hearing community, and even for parents of deaf and hard of hearing children. The lack of captions or subtitles is actually quite prevalent which makes the whole situation an awkward oxymoron of sorts. You'd half expect a transcript be available if captions or subtitles aren't available but that end up missing, too.  Really, for an organization, how hard can it be to include captions?  For any organizations worth its salt would have the common sense and smarts to make sure all of their videos are captioned.

Why do some deaf/hh run organizations cannot include captions or subtitles in their own videos in their effort to get the message out?  There is NO TRUTH at all for a non-captioned (and no transcript) video in getting the message out to the larger society who either cannot hear well to understand the spoken words completely or do not know or have trouble following sign language. If an organization want to build a bridge make sure the span crosses completely the communication chasm by including captions and/or transcripts (must remember the deaf/blind people out there, too!). By not including captions/subtitles the message will simply spin on its own going nowhere. It'd be even worse if the message only stayed within a certain deaf/hh community when the intent was to get the message out.  How can that happen if videos are not inaccessible to the majority of the population? Why practice hypocrisy and commit the same communication oppression?

Bottom line, organizations that serve deaf and hard of hearing community have a better chance in getting the message out if their videos are captioned. Otherwise your "truth" will simply go nowhere. A wasted time and effort.

A win-win-win situation

For any organization that serve the deaf and hard of hearing population as well as for parents of deaf and hard of hearing children should take every effort to accommodate the potentially wide ranging communication access needs for an audience with deaf, hard of hearing, culturally deaf and hearing people when doing live presentations.

The concept and idea are quite simple. Three things are needed at the same time.

1) Real time captioner where the spoken words can be displayed visually for the audience.
2) Sign language interpreter.
3) Voice interpreter.

Using that prescription it wouldn't matter if the people in the audience or the speakers are deaf, hard of hearing, culturally deaf or hearing, communication access wouldn't be missed by anyone. This is how you "walk the walk" instead of talking out of the sides of your mouth.

Using the three communication access points satisfy 6 different possible outcomes for people who are:

1) Culturally deaf people who rely exclusively on sign language can take advantage of sign language interpreters.
2) Hard of hearing and deaf people who are not native signers can get assistance from captioning to help supplement their weak signing skill.
3) Hard of hearing and deaf people who can hear well with their hearing aids or cochlear implants and sign well can take advantage of either voice interpreter, captioning and/or sign language interpreter to help fill all of their communication gaps.
4) Hard of hearing people who can hear well and understand the spoken words well but do not know sign language can take advantage of voice interpreters and captioning.
5) Deaf people who do not know sign language or cannot hear well to understand the spoken words can take advantage of captioning.
6) Hearing people who do not know sign language can take advantage of voice interpreters and, if they need to, captioning.


If you're a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that caters to deaf and hearing people, and even hearing people such as parents of deaf and hard of hearing children would be wise to use take advantage of all three communication access points if you plan to do presentations at a workshop, training session, or at a convention where the public is invited. It just make smart sense to do this because no one would be left out of the communication loop. No one would feel discriminated or left out. Everybody can participate and be a part of the larger discussion. Catering to only a specific group of people with hearing loss or cultural identity helps no one when the bigger picture is to help everybody understand deafness-related issues and concerns. 

Can you spot the video difference?

Can you spot the differences between these three videos? Maybe the irony? Before you complain, think first. Keep it clean...and nice. That's my only request.





The last video talks about this guy in a screenshot which can be found here.

Enjoy.

Matt Hamill Interviews Compilation

For historical blogging purposes and convenience I decided to place all of the interview links of Matt Hamill into one place from 2006 to 2011. Four of those interviews were done by myself while others were done by somebody else.

Funny thing tho, I continue to get a lot of hits on one of the Matt Hamill interviews coming from a Wikipedia source on Matt Hamill (see reference #27) with a reference to a Matt Hamill interview blog piece I did in 2006. People are always looking up in Google or Bing info on Matt Hamill and get directed to one of my blog pieces on him.

Probably no surprise but I'm one of the very few deaf/hh bloggers who have done interviews with Matt Hamill. It was great interviewing him at the time. I was honored when I was given several photos of him practicing his sparring from Matt Hamill including exclusive photos of him joshing around with Tito Ortez and others. He gave me permission to use them in my blog.


Kokonut Pundit's Exclusive Interview #1 with Matt Hamill (with exclusive photos from Matt Hamill)- June 27, 2006


Kokonut Pundit's Exclusive Interview #2 with Matt Hamill about his 2008 Olympics dream - July 3, 2006.


Another Matt Hamill Interview (with picture) - July 16, 2006


Kokonut Pundit's Exclusive Interview #3 with Matt Hamill - July 17, 2006


Kokonut Pundit's Exclusive Interview #4 (post fight) with Matt Hamill - September 29, 2007.


Matt Hamill post fight video interview - captioned. Oct 24, 2010


Matt Hamill - pre-fight video interview - May 27, 2011

Captioned Viral Videos

Rarely has viral videos on YouTube ever been captioned simply because the originator of the video didn't take the time to include captions.

VIRAL videos may be good for sharing ideas and spreading funny foreign pop hits, but they are also leaving millions of deaf and hearing impaired people out of the loop. 

Online video is becoming a more ubiquitous part of American life. Netflix videos made up one-third of online data used in the United States last year. YouTube expects 90 per cent of online traffic to be video in the next few years. By 2016, Cisco estimates, 1.2 million minutes of video will be streamed or downloaded every second. 

That video explosion has been great for small-film and TV producers, who are able to reach an audience without a big studio budget, and fans of niche programming. But in some ways, it has left the deaf and hard-of-hearing community starting from scratch after years of advocating for captions on traditional television.

Forget YouTube's speech-recognition software since most times it simply doesn't work well and you get a bunch of garbled nonsense captions, especially when background noise or music interferes with the speech-recognition process. So much for inclusion but they are certainly trying their best. But should a Federal or company's regulation be done to ensure that these independent videos uploaded by hearing John Qs be captioned or else it cannot be uploaded at all? Which is better? By force via regulatory fiat or by gradual educational awareness by making captioning fun and popular?  I'd say the latter is better. Otherwise if it's the former by regulatory force then I'm sure people would like to see it be equally done for deaf people who upload their signing videos without captions as well. That's the idea. Provide open communication access to hearing, deaf and hard of hearing people with different languages whether it's by sign or speech. Just because you're deaf doesn't supersede hearing people's need on wanting to see what's being said in signed videos.

Be a positive role model when it comes to uploading your video by including captions whether the video is in voice or by sign. Others will soon get it and start including captions.

Hypocrisy when it comes to captioning vs transcript in videos?

This has been an ongoing hypocrisy for quite awhile when it comes to signed videos that do not provide any subtitles or captions but instead provide transcripts for those who do not know sign language. For years culturally deaf people have complained loudly how videos they watched were never captioned such as TV shows and movies over cable and the internet, including YouTube videos. But that has been changing slowly (or quickly depending on your perspective) while captioning and easy to use subtitling technology catches up. But imagine instead of subtitles or captions you have a transcript for each video. Why not just provide a transcript instead?

Well, it's not quite the same thing since it provides an obvious disconnect between the viewers and those in the videos because other visual cues and emotions would be entirely lost.  So, it makes good business sense is to provide captions/subtitles along with the signing in a video. This allows non-signing viewers a certain connect with signers seen in a video. It is just not those who do not know sign language but those who may be weak in sign language and having captions helps. It also makes good common sense to include captions in videos since that will help reach a wider audience regardless of who the viewing audience is.

But the hypocrisy continues. Some bray saying that putting captions in a signing video "pollutes" it. If that is their logic for an excuse then putting captions in a speaking video also "pollutes" it. Laughable on both sides.

So, if you are running a deaf/hh business or an organization and have the means and wherewithal to include captions to your videos then please do it. If you believe in communication access and inclusion your business or organization ought to be including captions/subtitles in their videos otherwise you and your organization or business  just end up as a bunch of hypocritical people with a stupid excuse not to provide captions/subtitles but tosses out a transcript instead. If you do that, then please do not complain again about the lack of captions or subtitles in movies, TV shows, news shows, internet videos, and on YouTube.  In fact, you would have no right to complain because your organization or business refuses to provide captions/subtitles in their own videos. In fact, by refusing to do so you've become just like....them.

Apps for your Android phone on voice recognition

Here's an app, Closed Capp, that you can download to your Android phone where you can ask a person to speak into your phone and two seconds later have their words transcribed across your phone screen. This is a great app for those who have trouble hearing or are unable to hear.  Not exactly real time captioning nor real time conversation which last only 5 to 10 seconds long for a limited conversation to be transcribed each time.  But it's the next best thing for those who would want to opt for that piece of technology with the help of Google. Voice recognition technology is getting better and better as more people use it, and Google is constantly updating the service and accuracy they offer.  To understand how it works check out the Closed Capp video demo page.

It's only a matter of time that technology will improve to a point where voice recognition technology with the aid of powerful and fast computers will see accurate transcription, in real time, of at least at the 95 percentile range that will enable real time conversation without pressing the button every 5 to 10 seconds to transcribe what was spoken.

Communication is a two way street...captioning, please!

The one thing I've learned in life is that people's perspectives are different from each other based on their life experiences, their upbringings, their interests, and the people they associate with on a daily basis. Those are the things that makes a person for who he or she it. I have met all kinds and are friends with them. Those who have mild hearing loss to those who are profoundly deaf to those who are culturally deaf to those who are hearing whether they know signing or not. And then you have those who prefer to speak/listen to those who prefer to sign only to those who prefer other methods of communicating. They have their own way of communicating and I respect that. That is not for me to judge. But the one common thing we all have in connection, especially among the 36 million people in the United States with hearing loss, is that many of us need captioning in our everyday lives.

But the funny thing is that some people do have a habit of judging others simply because they can hear a little bit better, talk a little bit better, sign a little bit better or the fact they prefer a different way of communicating. So, exactly what is the difference if deaf people on a theater stage signs in ASL but provide no captioning for the audience versus hearing people on a theater stage talking with no captioning for the audience to see what's being spoken? Both are purposefully excluding people who can't hear quite as well to understand fully the spoken words and those who know some, little or no sign language to understand fully what was signed. Both situations discriminate against the majority of people with hearing loss. Both situations do not invite people into their world because of their own ignorance.  Just because a person is deaf or hard of hearing does not mean one is fluent in sign language or knows sign language. Just because a deaf or hard of hearing person can hear some words being spoken does not mean one can hear all of the words being spoken on a theater stage, on television, in a social setting, in a movie theater, and so on.

Why is it ok to have sign language interpreters at a rock concert but not captioning to help caption the lyrics being sung and to help caption what's being said on stage for the listening audience? Why is it ok to have a signing concert but no captioning for those who may not be able to understand it all or do not know sign language? Why is it ok to have a Deaf Awareness Day at Six Flags as a way to help promote awareness about deaf and hard of hearing people but only provide sign language interpreters throughout the park when being deaf or hard of hearing does not mean people magically know sign language?  Communication is a two way street benefiting a variety of people with hearing loss and communication preferences. Providing captions help them feel they as if they are a part of a larger family.  

A Dine and Sign TV Internet Show

Here's an interesting and fun show to watch called "Dine and Sign." A humorous show between a hearing son named Alex and his deaf father having some insightful and funny discussions done in sign language. There are now 35 episodes or almost 3 hours worth of shows beginning on September 26, 2011 broadcasted by Podsmiths Internet Televsion on YouTube. Since then the show has slowly gained a following.  If you want to talk and interact with the Dine and Sign please visit their Facebook page.

What makes this show fun and easy to watch is the accessibility they provide. Each show comes with captioning, signing, and a voice-over for each of the two father and son duo sparring lightheartedly with each other over a variety of topics. With a combination of communication access available it can reach a much broader audience than just the signing community. If you ever want to see what the interaction is like between a deaf father and hearing son then come and watch their first episode and catch up with the rest of their shows at your convenience. Dine and Sign, not exactly a three course meal but satisfying.


Episode one: What's the problem with long hair?

Technology is king for deaf users when it comes to communication

Technology is the key to success for deaf and hard of hearing people. It is true today and it will be more so true into the very near future when it comes to helping provide communication to deaf and hard of hearing with the rest of the world. Google has come out with a new fangled technology that has been in the works for some years called Google Glasses where it hints at speech-to-text display for deaf users:

Perhaps most interestingly, one patent shows Google is working on a system to help hard-of-hearing and deaf users detect and interpret nearby sounds. The glasses' heads-up display would show arrows and flashing lights to indicate the direction and intensity level of the sound, and even display the words nearby people are speaking. The patent, #8,183,997, was issued to Google today and is titled "Displaying sound indications on a wearable computing system." The system would integrate a speech-to-text feature that determines the text of speech and displays it for the wearer of the glasses.

This concept on augmented reality will be a boon to deaf and hard of hearing users in the near future by allowing the extra-dimension of space, time and information of sound and visuals through the use of these glasses.

Hard of hearing person interviews Sarah Churman

Here's an interesting captioned video interview of Sarah Churman by DJ Demers of Sharp Focus. What makes this an interesting interview is that you have two hard of hearing people talking back and forth on a live video feed with DJ Demers out of Toronto, Canada and Sarah Churman out of Burleson, Texas. They're able to understand each other quite perfectly. The only difference between the two is that DJ Demers wears regular hearing aids in both ears while Sarah wears her Envoy implantable hearing aid in one (but soon to have her other implantable hearing aid that was donated to her for free by Envoy Medical will be activated in March).

D.J. DEMERS is a funny dude who wears hearing aids, but he doesn’t talk about them much.

He was recently nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award for best standup newcomer and was also a finalist in the prestigious Cream of Comedy competition. All this despite his hearing impairment. He also showcased for NBC at the Comedy Store in L.A. for their Stand-Up for Diversity initiative. What makes him diverse? Possibly his hearing aids.

D.J. has appeared in two episodes of the extremely intellectual show, ‘Cocktales’, on the Comedy Network. He has been profiled by the Toronto Star and ‘The Morning Show’ on Global. His videos have been featured in Eye Weekly and Bite.ca, and he has written for the Walrus Laughs and Virgin Mobile Canada. Most of the content had nothing to do with hearing aids.

These days, D.J. hosts and produces a monthly comedy show with Chuckle Co. at the Comedy Bar in Toronto. He is also the host of ‘Sharp Focus with D.J. Demers’ on The Accessible Channel. With his mixture of intelligence, playfulness, and not being able to hear-ness, D.J. is always a crowd favourite.

He also wears hearing aids.

Interesting! Be sure to visit DJ Demers in Facebook and support your hard of hearing comedians! But, hey, I did some stand up comedy before. And it wasn't easy but I sure did have some fun doing it. And ya gotta have a passion for doing it if you want to make something out of it. Although I do have a creative side in me like doing my Uncle Bob's House - a Pepsi parody video (you gotta watch the original Pepsi commercial to understand my parody video).



Ahem, anyway, the video interview of Sarah Churman is already captioned so be sure to turn on the CC button on YouTube if you need captioning. Thank you Sharp Focus for including captioning! The 36 million people with hearing loss in the United States thank you! I maintain my own standard to include captioning to my own videos at every opportunity.

The most accessible stadium...evah!

I've said this over four years ago at Gallaudet University while giving my  speech presentation regarding technology and communication access in the future. I explained that technology will play a major role in how we will interact with anyone on and off campus. Today we continue to see this happening as communication access technology slowly unfold before us such as voice recognition smart phone to text feature. As for entertainment communication access here's a video of Kevin McGuire, an attorney and an ADA consultant, pointing out features accessible for all patrons with mobility, sight, and hearing impairments at Gillette Stadium. A positive example of how a business can become the most accessible business to wide ranging number of people.  This is a true example of how the use of technology and engineering combined can easily make accommodations a part of every day business and still be successful. Gillette Stadium is not just for baseball but certainly for football as well and for any other venue event.

Unapproachable Deaf People?

Are deaf and hard of hearing people really that "unapproachable" simply because they have a different way of communicating? In some ways I'd say "yes" and in some ways I'd say "no." That would depend on the context of a situation. Let me give you one "unapproachable" example and that would be the Deafhood Foundation organization.  On the outside they look to be very "approachable" but at closer inspection one would began to realize they are quite the opposite. The foundation's mission is:

"....dedicated to achieving economic and social justice for all Deaf people." 

 Now, note the capital letter "D"eaf in their mission statement as they are attempting to convey that word to mean all people with hearing loss, deaf and hard of hearing. But the problem is that the term "Deaf" with the upper case "D" has always denoted to mean culturally deaf people. According to Carol Padden and Tom Humphries, in Deaf in America: Voices from a Culture (1988) explains the meaning and difference between "D"eaf and "d"eaf:

We use the lowercase deaf when referring to the audiological condition of not hearing, and the uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group of deaf people who share a language – American Sign Language (ASL) – and a culture. The members of this group have inherited their sign language, use it as a primary means of communication among themselves, and hold a set of beliefs about themselves and their connection to the larger society. We distinguish them from, for example, those who find themselves losing their hearing because of illness, trauma or age; although these people share the condition of not hearing, they do not have access to the knowledge, beliefs, and practices that make up the culture of Deaf people.

Some organizations even attempted to change that very definition by inserting "Deaf" into their own bylaws without giving any real definition to it and could easily be construed to mean only culturally deaf people. Over the last three decades Deaf (culturally deaf) people have made it a point that they "own" that word and for it to mean explicitly one thing, a group that uses ASL and have a culture. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But what is obvious here is that 98% of the deaf and hard of hearing population who do not know sign language, who are not affiliated with Deaf culture, and have other preferred means to communicate such as speaking, using Cued speech, listening and speaking, or preferring the use of Signing Exact English, for example. We still have an extremely large majority deaf and hard of hearing population that simply do not sign and they certainly are not "Deaf" people.

Deafhood Foundation is far from approachable because on their main web page it may look inviting except that their Gratitude video is only limited to those who know sign language which leaves the rest of  99.96% of the U.S. population out. So much for "social justice" when they've been demanding that "hearing people" ought to include captioning in their speaking videos. The irony is palpable here. With a signing video there is no way to approach the remaining U.S. audience if captioning isn't being used to convey their message. Not some social gabbing amongst Deaf people but a message they are trying to convey and put out for all to see.  Their own message largely resonates only to those within their own Deaf group rather than to the rest of the 98% of the population of people with hearing loss which numbers around 36,000,000 people. That's a lot of people to ignore when trying to put out a message of unity, acceptance and communication accessibility.


As for "approachable" deaf and hard of hearing people (i.e.. everybody with a hearing loss), they are increasingly using technology to allow themselves to become more approachable by giving them the ability to converse and interact with hearing people in a variety of ways.  Lately I have noticed that more and more deaf/hh people are using captioning technology to include with their own personal videos, this is true among a rising number of Deaf people taking advantage of that technology to spread their message to the rest of the English using U.S. population by using the captioned English language.  A good example of that (i.e. signing deaf) is Barry Sewell's latest video about John Yeh on conveying his message to the rest of the U.S. audience. Another approachable example would be the people who run HLAA whose own donation had already hit the million dollar mark last month since starting in January.

It's not just captioning technology but other technologies like face to face communication technology, and internet relay technology. Something that would allow the ability to interact easily with people and make them approachable. It's not about the competition of ideologies but about acceptance and understanding when it comes to accessible communication for all.

In the end the question becomes are you Frieda, the lovable, vain, unapproachable perhaps angry deaf person or are you one of those people who find a way to make themselves approachable as possible without the need to be so ungainly politically correct?

Refusing to subtitle your own videos

One of the lamest excuses for a deaf or hard of hearing person to say regarding their own videos is the refusal to subtitle their own videos (whether it's voice or signing) until a good majority of videos in YouTube gets captioned or subtitled by their own authors. The funny thing is that the best way to spread awareness is to include subtitles in your own videos. Doing that tells other people that you are for inclusiveness for those who cannot hear, understand the spoken words or understand signs. Recently today, on the John Tracy Clinic Facebook page it had a historical JTC video in it that was up but had no captions or subtitles to it. I responded by saying there's no captions. A quick reply was given saying they don't have the resource or time to add subtitles. I then wrote a quick response that was respectful in nature.

I caption my videos I put on my blog by listening to it. I need anywhere from an hour to three hours of my own time depending on the length of the video whether it's my own personal video or something else. I use Overstream (or physically add the captions for my own videos), for example, http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2010/10/matt-hamill-post-fight-video-interview.html, a video I captioned last year. And my video tribute to JTC (http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2010/09/video-tribute-to-john-tracy-clinic.html ).

Yet I'm hard of hearing (moderate-severe) and I took the time to do this by myself because my main audience are mostly deaf and hard of hearing. I know what it's like to be left out, so why would I do that to them even though I can understand the spoken words?

It'd be better to have video captioned first and have it ready to go rather than doing it later. Otherwise, it'd give the appearance of not caring first for people with hearing loss their consideration when it comes to accessibility. It'd be better to caption first in light of the organization's connection and name. Not doing so only serve an ironic reminder on the lack of inclusion.

Let's not use excuses and include everyone whenever a video first comes out by JTC using whatever medium format (e.g. Facebook, JTC website, YouTube, etc.).

Respectfully yours. Mike

Needless to say that video on JTC Facebook disappeared 10 minutes later. I hope they understood my  message on making sure any videos put out are to be captioned. Not to be mean but just showing them the futility in trying to use the "no time" or "no resource" excuse when it comes to adding subtitles to a video. It's very easy nowadays. Nothing complex about it all. All I had to do was prove to them that including subtitles in a video does not take a whole lot of time and resources. I used my own subtitled videos as examples to prove my very point! They relented and removed the video and the comments that went with it.

I include captions/subtitles to my spoken videos but in videos where I signed in a video called "Professionalism or name calling? knowing full well I'd have an audience that do not know sign language. This includes hearing parents of deaf/hh babies! Regardless, this is the surest way to reach the widest number of people out there in YouTube land. Barry Sewell finally saw that light last year and began including captions to all of his signed videos with his first Open Letter to NAD and the Community on June 9, 2010. He has been one of the most prolific signing vloggers out there and among the very, very few who include captions. Adding subtitles to his videos are a guarantee that his videos can be watched by both signers and non-signers alike.  Barry Sewell now has a huge edge over those who refuses to include subtitles to their own signing videos. If one thinks about it, 99.9% of the U.S. population does not know sign language. By including English subtitles to a signed video will ensure a capability of a captioned video to reach a majority of the U.S. population because it then becomes completely watchable.

If you have the means and capability to include subtitles or captions you should do so. Using the excuse as a reason to not include subtitles because you're waiting for the rest of the English speaking population to include their subtitles becomes a very lame one. It simply becomes a cop out excuse and a way to conveniently avoid doing any additional legwork for your signed videos and that you purposely discriminate because of a stupid ideology.  For Barry and I, we don't think of it as doing extra legwork but rather the huge opportunity and potential to reach a much larger and wider non-signing population which amounts to potentially several tens of millions of people in the U.S. alone not counting many more countries outside of the U.S. who know the English language. Remember, I said "potential" and not that the figure I gave is the actual number people will watch. I encourage those who sign in their own videos who have the capability and the means to include subtitles to consider that opportunity. Inclusiveness goes both ways. Let's not be selfish about it and let stupidity be your answer. 

But to focus on a very, very, very small segment of the Deaf community which amounts to potentially some 600,000 (maybe less or more) Deaf people, your non-subtitled signing videos would only reach a fraction of that 600,000 number because about half of those people are adults or older teens who can watch, and then you have an even smaller number of people who even bother or have an interest going onto the internet to watch YouTube videos or even visit DVTV (which btw continues to thrive despite a miserably failed boycott against it) and watch those signed videos.

All in all you have a potential Deaf audience of maybe 50,000 to 100,000 vs a potential audience if you include English subtitles to your signing videos will go up to perhaps several tens of millions of English speaking audience that actively use the internet.  I'm just guessing on the potential side of things but assuredly the number is much, much larger on the English speaking/listening side than the signing side. No one can dispute that one bit.

So, which signing message do you think will have a better chance of getting out to the wider audience? A signed video with no subtitless, or a signed video with subtitles?  Waiting for the hearing population to do the subtitles first is a losing proposition because those that do include English subtitles to their own signing videos have the distinct political advantage and leading edge over those who do not subtitle their videos in getting the word out.  And it is those people whose words are the ones that get out to the general population...and not the signed videos with no subtitles. They will be the ones forever relegated to the eyes of a very small population of Deaf people. And will forever fall on, literally, deaf ears in the hearing population because they do not understand a signed video.

Midwest Living magazine

Here's something I found interesting. Dan Kaercher who helped start Midwest Living magazine grew up with deaf parents.

Kaercher compiled his travel notes into a chatty book, "Best of the Midwest: Rediscovering America's Heartland" released this May. His observations and experiences also formed the basis for "Dan On the Road," a one-hour special airing on Iowa Public TV and other Midwest PBS stations this spring and summer. A series of half-hour programs based on the trip will debut this winter.

It was Kaercher's ability to read other signs, though, that fostered such storytelling abilities. Kaercher's parents, Edward and Lillian, both were deaf and mute.

"Some of my verbal skills came from the fact that I was their interpreter many times from an early age," Kaercher says during a phone conversation from his office in Des Moines. "They would call on me to talk to the guy at the furniture store, to call my grandmother in Omaha. I had to develop my verbal skills very early."

It was a unique parent-child bond that came to an end only last summer when Kaercher's mother died at 95 years old—days before he was to begin the second leg of his journey. Lillian Kaercher caught a cold, then developed pneumonia. She spent one day in the hospital before dying. "Somebody who's 95 dying that mercifully and swiftly, if you will, was a blessing to us," Kaercher says.

Still, "it was a shock. It was tough. We buried her in Council Bluffs on Monday and then Tuesday afternoon I had to be in Chicago to start the next leg of the trip. I thought, ‘How can I get through this?' But . . . sometimes parents are helping you along when they're not physically along."

Roots

Married later in life, Edward and Lillian Kaercher were "totally not expecting a child" when their son came along in 1949. "Life was hard for my parents because life was hard for disabled people then," Kaercher says. "It's not easy now. Employment and things like that were very difficult."

Kaercher's father, a Philadelphia native, graduated from Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, Gallaudet College and Lutheran Theological Seminary. He is cited in the book, "Deaf Heritage: A Narrative History of Deaf America," as being the first deaf Lutheran pastor to be ordained, in 1929. Edward later established "preaching points" in various East Coast cities before illness forced him out of the pulpit in 1942.

Sometime after that he came to Nebraska, ostensibly to visit his sister, Hilda, who in 1943 formed Immanuel Lutheran Church in Bellevue. His real motivation was to meet a woman spoken of by a friend from Gallaudet College—Lillian, a Nebraska School for the Deaf graduate and recent widow. "There aren't all that many people to pick from, sometimes, if you have this disability of deafness," Kaercher says. "At that time, a deaf person almost always married a deaf person."

Edward and Lillian did just that, then moved to the Finger Lakes region of New York. Kaercher was born there, in Elmira, N.Y. "Despite that blemish," he jokes, "I can claim safely that I've been a Midwesterner for 52 out of my 56 years. I couldn't have asked for two better parents. Both very loving. My father . . . really opened up the world to me. He loved to travel."

When he was 4, the family "got a fresh start," moving to Omaha. They lived in Logan Fontenelle Homes, segregated public housing in North Omaha. Edward began a new career, teaching at Iowa School for the Deaf. Their son attended Kellom Grade School at 24th and Paul streets. "The project we lived in was segregated until the mid-'50s," Kaercher says. "The school was integrated. The majority of students in my grade school through fourth grade were black, which opened my horizons, too. At the time, I thought it was just normal."

The family moved to Council Bluffs in 1959, Kaercher attending Hoover Grade School and Abraham Lincoln High School (which has inducted him into its hall of fame). At Hoover in the fifth grade he met his wife-to-be, Julie. The two didn't begin dating until their senior at A.L., however. They graduated in 1967, Dan heading for the University of Omaha, Julie for Iowa State University.

Just to let you know that Julie and Dan Kaercher donated money to the Iowa School for the Deaf and was mentioned in the 2009/2010 newsletter. But upon researching the video magazine of Midwest Living as seen in YouTube isn't captioned which is strange considering Dan Kaercher's background on having deaf parents. I wonder if he realizes that there are over 30 million people in the United States with hearing loss that could benefit a lot from captioned videos? 

Why no swear words in captioning?

I wrote an email to the National Captioning Institute asking the question on why swear words are bleeped out on captioned television shows when in the audio portion of the same show you can hear them clearly? The response I got may surprise you as well as raise questions about the not-so-logical reasoning for allowing bleeped out captions.

The policy for captioning swear words is set by each network, not by the various captioning companies. Our standard policy is to make all captions verbatim, so if a swear word is bleeped out, then it is also left out of the captioning. Some networks tell us to never caption a swear word and let them know if one gets left in the audio of prerecorded programs. For live programs, we just have to leave out swear words for these networks. Some networks tell us to caption all swear words. Other networks only allow us to caption certain swear words. I cannot explain why some networks feel that it is O.K. to have swear words in the audio but not in the captioning.

So, in other words, the shows you watch on a network that have a habit of bleeping out swear words when the audio is clearly heard, you'll have to write to that network asking them not to request from their captioning company to bleep out swear words if they allow audio version of it in a a television show. Write to your network and not to the captioning companies that permits the bleeping of captioned swear words.

Video: Matt Hamill post fight response with reporters - captioned

Captions courtesy of Kokonut Pundit

Will Matt Hamill soon become one of the top 10 UFC fighters for his weight class? Only time will tell.

When technology allows 100% communication access to language anytime

Imagine this futuristic scenario that may come sooner than later within our lifetime. Forget stem cells or gene therapy and consider the use of technology as the ultimate the answer to every deaf and hard of hearing person's communication needs. One hundred percent accessible to language and communication for every deaf or hard of hearing person. A technology so advanced, its own processor power, artificial intelligence built into a micro-computer smaller than the smallest hearing aid. It has the computational ability to pick up sound, voices, speech patterns, advanced speech recognition algorithms, artificial intelligence, smart grammar software and such that it's able to process spoken words almost instantly in the form of captioned words that would seemingly float before your eye in specially designed eyewear (or perhaps contact lens). No more would you guess what a person might be saying and instead understand 100% of what was spoken to you in a conversation. The ability converse in either a noisy or quiet environment would be easy as apple pie. Let's say this technology come into existence 50 to 75 years from now. That's 2 or 3 generations away.

If available today would you love to have this piece of non-invasive, highly intelligent piece of technology and software? And become easily part of the hearing world at your own time and choosing? Would you love to have this piece of this technology?

Who wouldn't?

Now, imagine this technology does become available and it'd be relatively inexpensive to own. Wouldn't that be fantastic?

Ok. Let's go a step further. That means just about every deaf and hard of hearing person from little children to adults could have this piece of technology just as easily as wearing a hearing aid or eye glasses. It would become so easy for users become an integral part of the hearing world indistinguishable from anything else. A technology so advanced that it would allow 100 percent access to communication and language in the written form without the need for interpreters. Would this piece of technology eventually make obsolete the concept of a deaf/hh community? What about the Deaf community? Would this advanced technology actually create a disincentive on the need to learn sign language when a deaf or hh can easily help with the communication in a hearing world? How would this technology impact on the socialization of deaf and hard of hearing people? What about the size of the Deaf community? Would it go down because of this technology?

Just food for thoughts, folks.

Oh, by the way, people are working on such an idea for several years now. Like here, here, and this video example this year that shows exactly where we are going with eyewear video and speech recognition ability. It's only a matter of time until we get to the point of total indepence with the full and complete ability to interact with the hearing world in person at anytime and any place.

New technology on captioning and audio at theaters

This is what I'm talking about. Let innovation drive technology as a solution rather than have laws forcing companies to do the impossible.

New technology will start being rolled out later this year in major movie cinemas, making it possible for deaf and blind people to follow the film they are watching.

The digital technology, which includes providing captions and audio descriptions, will be introduced for films screened by the four major cinema groups.

New ideas and innovation are what make these things possible. There are always new technologies being developed for deaf and blind people, and people with various conditions or disabilities.

Do I support the Closed Captioning bill HR 3101?

NAD has the latest information regarding on trying to get Congress to pass a Closed Captioning bill this April 15 (HR 3101 -Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009 ) though it does not contain language to enforce YouTube or iPad.

There was a bill before HR 3101 and that is the H.R. 6320: Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2008. That bill never became law and died in Congress. Congress moves slowly in passing laws while technology moves even faster and is based on demands, marketing potential, improving technology in the computer chip and programming sector, and a greater understanding of the need for closed captioning by corporate and public entities. Since the introduction of H.R. 6320 technology on closed captioning, especially over the internet, technology moved ahead with its own self-propelling captioning initiatives along with people who are passionate about closed captioning in getting it pushed out into the public mainstream.

Google adds real time automatic closed captioning although not perfect it's a start and they recognize the need and marketing potential as well. Google sets the stage and worldwide example on the importance of investing in captioning of videos whether on television or internet. And that speech recognition technology has now gone mainstream, this will only continue to improve to the point where all videos will automatically transcribed and include closed captioning. This is fast becoming a reality. Law or no law.

Hulu adds captioning to their movies and television shows. The list continues to grow.

Blackberry phones are beginning to have Closed Captioning capability to view videos on your smart phones' screen which is definitely smaller than a 13-inch screen television screen. So does the iPhone.

Captioning is available on digital television as opposed to analog television where a 13-inch screen exempts it from any captioning requirement. A digital television is different set of technology that includes captioning where it continues to improve.

The Television Decoder Circuitry Act of 1990 (“TDCA”) requires, generally, that television receivers contain circuitry to decode and display closed captioning. Specifically, the TDCA requires that “apparatus designed to receive television pictures broadcast simultaneously with sound be equipped with built-in decoder circuitry designed to display closed-captioned television transmissions when such apparatus is manufactured in the United States or imported for use in the United States, and its television picture screen is 13 inches or greater in size.”

The Federal Communication Commission\'s Digital TV (DTV) proceeding incorporated an industry approved transmission standard for DTV into
its rules. The standard included a data stream reserved for closed captioning information. However, specific instructions for implementing closed captioning services for digital television were not included. The Electronics Industries Alliance (EIA), a trade organization representing the U.S. high technology community, has since adopted a standard, EIA-708 (High Definition Closed Captioning for purposes of this document), that provides guidelines for encoder and decoder manufacturers as well as caption providers to implement closed captioning services with DTV technology. In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in its DTV proceeding, the FTC proposed to adopt a minimum set of technical standards for closed caption decoder circuitry for digital television receivers in accordance with Section 9 of the EIA-708 standard and to require the inclusion of such decoder circuitry in DTV receivers.

Simultaneous closed captioning companies in finding a niche market that exploit closed captioning needs.

Closed captioning included in DVR via TiVo.

ETV is metadata that cable providers recently began integrating into their broadcasts, and the TiVo patent will allow the company to sync both this as well as closed caption information and display it in an interactive method. This includes closed captioning text, a menu or digital video and sound effects. TiVo also promises more advanced uses thanks to this type of technology, such as marking sections of a program they find particularly interesting and then sharing them with friends who also have a TiVo DVR.

Prior to the patent award on February 9th, TiVo already offered ways for customers to view closed caption data, and viewers can also subscribe to a show or order more product information when watching a commercial.

ABC takes the lead on internet captioning.

HTML5 captioning effort with demo videos of an earlier HTML5 version.




What I've listed so far is just an short example of things to come in the world of closed captioning (or subtitling). Let the market forces send a message to corporate and public entities on providing closed captioning on digital tv, smart phones, and online videos over the internet. The trend is clear and that technology is increasingly making it easier, such as YouTube's automatic captioning service, for companies and businesses to include captioning in their videos, whatever the format.

I have mixed feelings about getting the government involved to force companies to comply, especially when technology continues to leap frog ahead with the embedding of closed captioning as a standard practice. Let the market dictate this direction at this point in time. Consider where we were 2 to 4 years ago for online captioning opportunities. There were essentially none. Currently, the trend in captioning is clearly picking up. It's a matter of time till captioning is done as part of any video programming since advertising and marketing pressures will help ensure that. And that social awareness and consciousness will be another factor in pushing closed captioning to the top of their collective consciousness. Bottom line? It's coming and without the need for government intervention to make closed captioning mandatory for all online videos. Technology moves faster than the government could in trying to pass a bill. And that's encouraging.