Sign Language over Cell Phone
27 02 2009All..
This is an old news according to a friend I video chatted with, but maybe the completion of the product is not so far in the future now?
VRS industry now has four mobile VPs that I know of: Purple’s MVP, two from CSDVRS’s Z-340 and PC-100, and Viable’s VPAD+. This one is cell phone and it uses H.264 that uses an open source program.
Of course, many of you probably already know that laptops with built-in web cameras can do VP and VRS as well.
Let me know what you think? Would you purchase something like that? Cell Phone/Pager with video conference capacity? Should I put it to a vote?
eyes open & thumbs up,
Ed
A deaf friend send me this via chat mode…so I thought I’ll share with you all as well. It is about the same product, but explains some on technical issues.
http://mobileasl.cs.washington.edu/
Ed
Thanks for sharing Ed!
Here is a research project for a Ph.D. candidate:
“The invention and general availability of the TTY and Closed Captioning had major impacts on the Deaf Community and Deaf culture. What will be the impact of MobileASL?”
For example, an education specialist could focus on the English literacy impact of TTY usage; with a long range follow up study on the impact of MobileASL.
A sociology specialist could look at the history of Deaf Clubs, percentages of Deaf/deaf who use ASL as a primary language beginning with the general availability of Closed Captioning while the long range follow up focuses on the impact of the video phone and MobileASL.
Will MobileASL increase, decrease, or have no impact on the number of hearing people who become fluent in ASL?
Using 2009 as a baseline, researchers could build a ten year matrix to follow changes in our community as MobileASL proceeds from an interesting YouTube video to a pervasive service that shows up in the hands of every Deaf person in the US.
Graduate students at MIT could study the effects of Deaf/deaf community demand on technological development.
Graduate students at Gallaudet and Northridge could study the effects of technological development on Community structure and organization.
We all do live in “interesting times”, eh?
Ed -
This technology was demonstrated at one of the NASRA conferences two or three years ago and at a Washington Relay Taste of Technology conference in Seattle last year. The technology was amazing! We were very impressed with the research University of Washington developed. I agree, I don’t think it will be long before ASL video communication becomes part of the wireless industry on a cell phone. I honestly believe Mobile ASL will play a large role as WiMax and other wireless services become more available. This could make touch type mobile devices will become more popular because they have a larger screen compared to those with a qwerty keyboard.
Nice post. Recall reading about MobileASL sometime ago. Deaf and hearing people who embraces real-world standards can make quite a difference. How does CDSVRS’ PC-100 fit in the picture of being a mobile device? It’s software. Figuratively thinking, my book says there’s three bona fide mobile videophones that are VRS-compatible. Perhaps you can give this some thought, Ed? =)
Wow! If it becomes true that it will happen in the future, I am sure that there are other well-known cell phone companies such as T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T, and others will want to join this business competition! That’s for sure!!!
Commentators,
Thanks for your comments.
JK-II – Yes – hmm – ten – fifteen years ago, it seems that the world has run out of inventions, but we know now inventions never will end. The impact of inventions on persons with communicative disabilities are awe-inspiring and inventions will continue to enhance lives of all people. It does not take much brainpower to realize a high quality mobile cell phone or pager will most certainly enhance lives of deaf/hoh persons. What may be interesting is will it be VRS or VRI (video remote interpreting)? Will try do a vlog on VRS vs VRI soon.
What I am particularly excited about is the holographic TV. Holographic TVs are out now. Just they’re doggone expensive. Wait a few years, maybe the price will go down where deaf/hoh and VRS industry can use, when that happens, it will look like you are looking at a live person within a TV.
Robert, I guess that anything that is easily portable is mobile. I know it is not necessarily true.
Cheers….
Robert,
Have you thought about put on PC100 on your laptop and hook up 3G usb by att, verizon , and etc. Even you can put on any window Mobile devices too. Whatever you go. It does fit this picture. Scratching on my head. You are owner of Hawk Relay? (Head shaking) Never mind.. Oh one more thing.. Which school do you go?
John,
I can answer one question. Sam Hawk is the owner of HawkRelay, not this one. It did cause me a pause in the past, but realized not the same person.
Ed
In my humble opinion I perceive PC-100 as a softphone as in software meaning not a videophone as in hardware. But, this is semantics because eventually many terms will reconcile into universal usage. Even Viable will “reconcile” (as I quote one of theirs) some of their products and what category this and that falls under. This is my softlogic here. I do know for a fact there’s mobile solutions to VRS or video conferencing solutions utilizing laptops or netbooks but these hardwares aren’t videophones. Aren’t they? There we go again! Samuel Hawk and I both attended a national-enrollment secondary school for the deaf in Washington, DC but we don’t know each other on a personal level. I was in fact a borderline low-functioning commoner at that school who, after a few years in and out, decided to move on and graduate elsewhere out there within the “mainstream.” He’s in no way related to me.
I think cell phone sized VRS equipment is definitely where we are headed in the future. I doubt they will be free like much of todays VRS equipment, but I would be more than happy to pay for one as soon as the contract on my text based blackberry expires. The biggest knock on phones this size is the size of the screen. The designers are these phones are going to have to figure out the optimum size for a screen or develop a new technology that allows the viewing area to be larger than the device itself. Holographic TVs are an obvious way to go but there my be other cheaper ways to accomplish this that we have not thought of.