For deaf students, employees and innovators in large gatherings or training environments, captioning is a lifeline. That’s the only way to put it. This point was clear to me after a recent conference at which eight hours of lipreading was required, because the organisers did not have a budget for captioning. On the bus home,
For the first time deaf kids in Australia can gain equal access in classrooms, with a pilot schools-captioning idea from access solutions firm, Ai Media. Ai Media, formed in 2003, dedicates itself to providing generic captioning services. In Australia about 85% of deaf children attend mainstream schools and last year AI Media began captioning in
The first-ever iPhone subtitle application promises to give movie buffs the chance to receive subtitles directly to their phone for the movie/DVD of their choice. It’s a great solution until more cinemas provide subtitled movies and as the app develops, cinemas may use it as a low-budget captioning option. This application is currently available for
Late in 2009, South Africa’s “Got Talent” show announced its winner, a deaf hip-hop dancer named Darren Rajibal. The 19 year-old had danced for just four years when during a power cut he decided to entertain family and friends by dancing. Many of his moves were learned from internet videos. After the show, the lead
In recent years websites such as CaptionTube and independent services made videos and audio more accessible to deaf or hard of hearing people. In November 2009, Google announced the automatic captioning of videos on its YouTube site to boost captioning provision and support text indexing. Existing captioning services are not always user friendly or free.
A ‘Disability Law News’ blog post, Deaf Children and Inclusive Education, cites IDK on how live captioning benefits a deaf student at Trinity College. Trinity College’s Deaf Support in Third-Level (DS3) programme, offers multiple supports to deaf students, of which captioning is just one option. Education supports help unlock deaf students’ full potential, but the
Last April (2009), Irish Deaf Kids (now Sound Advice) received an Innovation Voucher worth €5,000 from Enterprise Ireland, to be used to solve a business issue. The Innovation Voucher initiative, introduced in 2007 by Enterprise Ireland, aims to create links between Irish knowledge providers and small businesses. To qualify for an Innovation Voucher, a company