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Subtitles for life
14th December 2009
My top three inventions that would improve deaf life in this country read like this. One: realistic robotic sign language interpreters who run on electricity and can be plugged into the wall and work all day long without charging an extortionate hourly rate. Two: hearing aids that can selectively tune into any conversation we like in a crowded room (that one’s just for entertainment reasons really. And three: subtitles that appear underneath everyday life. All the time.
Actually, scrap the first two. Having subtitles alongside real life’s been a dream of mine – maybe the only dream I've ever had - since I was a little tot. I grew up watching them, these words floating helpfully underneath people while they talk on TV.
If you're not sure what I'm talking about, they're blocks of text that reveal dialogue and sound effects for hearing impaired people, sometimes known as closed captions, and I loved getting every single word of what was going on. But the minute I stepped out of the front door and into regular life - classrooms, lecture theatres and finally the workplace - I suddenly didn’t get every word any more. I was lucky to get just half of them, with guesswork filling in the rest.
If you're not sure what I'm talking about, they're blocks of text that reveal dialogue and sound effects for hearing impaired people, sometimes known as closed captions, and I loved getting every single word of what was going on. But the minute I stepped out of the front door and into regular life - classrooms, lecture theatres and finally the workplace - I suddenly didn’t get every word any more. I was lucky to get just half of them, with guesswork filling in the rest.
I nearly threw my laptop in the air with delight recently when I read a ´óÏó´«Ã½ News report saying that spectacles have been invented which will enable , in real time, during a conversation.
These gizmos are currently aimed at making conversations possible between people who speak different languages, such as a French person speaking to an Italian, but it’s just a small skip and a leap to imagine the possibilities for deaf and hard of hearing people.
Hooked up to good voice-recognition technology via a laptop or mobile phone, the specs could enable a deaf person to read the words a hearing person is saying, almost as they speak them. They could also provide subtitles when you're at the shops, a meeting, a cinema, you name it.
Hooked up to good voice-recognition technology via a laptop or mobile phone, the specs could enable a deaf person to read the words a hearing person is saying, almost as they speak them. They could also provide subtitles when you're at the shops, a meeting, a cinema, you name it.
Subtitling has hitherto only been seen on screen-based media - TV, movie theatres and so on, making it a fairly immobile and inflexible experience.
Taking cinema as an example, mainstream audiences don’t like subtitles affecting their view of the big picture (oh the hardship!). So the multiplexes tend to screen text accessible films at highly inconvenient times, like Tuesday afternoons when it just so happens that most deaf people are at work and can't go.
Taking cinema as an example, mainstream audiences don’t like subtitles affecting their view of the big picture (oh the hardship!). So the multiplexes tend to screen text accessible films at highly inconvenient times, like Tuesday afternoons when it just so happens that most deaf people are at work and can't go.
With these amazing specs, the subtitling wouldn't need to be burnt onto the bottom of films for everyone in the cinema to see. They could just be handed out every time a deaf person asks for them. You could watch any film, any time and it wouldn't bother anyone else. It would almost be like freedom..!
The specs could also become very useful at conferences that are currently palantyped – where people type dialogue phonetically into a keyboard so that it comes up on a screen soon after it is spoken (more on this next month).
The specs could also become very useful at conferences that are currently palantyped – where people type dialogue phonetically into a keyboard so that it comes up on a screen soon after it is spoken (more on this next month).
One limitation of palantyping is that deaf people have to look away from the person who is speaking, as the words come up on a screen. However with the subtitles right in your eye you’d be able to look at the speaker, and know what they were saying at the same time.
There might be other deaf-friendly ways of using the technology. You know the annoying way hearing people walk around with Bluetooth headsets on, nattering away into what at first seems like thin air?
There might be other deaf-friendly ways of using the technology. You know the annoying way hearing people walk around with Bluetooth headsets on, nattering away into what at first seems like thin air?
Imagine it. You’re on a bus, and there’s this deaf person with funny glasses on smiling at you. Laughing. You wonder why. Then you twig. They’re reading their text messages. On their eye.
I can imagine a world where deaf people become equally as annoying as Bluetooth headset wearers, taking part in instant messaging conversations as they walk, reading messages and replying to them with a few deft keyboard presses in their pockets.
No longer will we see the familiar sight of a deafie leaning down to look into a mobile phone as they walk, narrowly avoiding other commuters and head-on collisions with lamp-posts. But you will see smug deaf people multi-tasking with their expensive accessibility specs.
I can imagine a world where deaf people become equally as annoying as Bluetooth headset wearers, taking part in instant messaging conversations as they walk, reading messages and replying to them with a few deft keyboard presses in their pockets.
No longer will we see the familiar sight of a deafie leaning down to look into a mobile phone as they walk, narrowly avoiding other commuters and head-on collisions with lamp-posts. But you will see smug deaf people multi-tasking with their expensive accessibility specs.
The big limitation of the spectacles for some might be that, while it can beam spoken dialogue into the eye of a deaf person, the technology doesn’t exist yet to beam sign language dialogue back. So it might get a bit one-way. It wouldn’t be perfect but it could still make a big difference, particularly for hard of hearing people.
Now all we need to do is get onto the tech boffins about the robotic interpreters and conversation-specific hearing aids. I’ve got a feeling those might be a bit longer coming.
Now all we need to do is get onto the tech boffins about the robotic interpreters and conversation-specific hearing aids. I’ve got a feeling those might be a bit longer coming.
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Comments
Ouch, the description of this article on the home page says it is written by Charlie Swinburne. Quite a serious typo, don't you think?
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Ouch, the description of this article on the home page says that it is written by Charlie Swinburne. Quite a serious typo, don't you think?
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I see I need to take back my earlier comments. Charlie Swinbourne did write this.
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There is a certain, albeit highly underutilized, technology for moviegoers out there. Basically, those in need of subtitles are given a clear screen that attaches to their chair. Projected onto those screens are subtitles. They give assistance to those who would like it, and doesn't get in the way of those that don't. It was co-developed by WGBH, the PBS station in Boston(and frequent ´óÏó´«Ã½ programing partner, apparently), who were also the ones that helped develop closed captioning and descriptive audio.
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Yes, I'd heard about these, and had the same thought. Incidentally, I like the choice of a Dr. Who screenshot as an example :-) !
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