Author: WINAHEAD

WINAHEAD is made up of representatives from thirty institutions. Our members are professionals employed by two- and four-year colleges and universities who work directly with students with disabilities to ensure equal access to higher education. WIN indicates the geographic area we represent: Western Iowa and Nebraska. AHEAD is our national parent organization, the Association on Higher Education and Disability.

Going to the Cinema?

Video but no Audio

Exercise in any sports club or fitness club and you are likely to see banks of television screens suspended from the ceiling. These screens are usually in the equipment area and each is tuned to a different station – with no audio. Intended to “entertain” users of the various pieces of cardiovascular or weight training equipment, much of the equipment is sophisticated enough that it is possible to plug in a set of headphones and pass the time away watching and listening to whatever program strikes your fancy.

But I digress. What interests me about this scenario is the silence of the televisions. In the environment of a fitness center, the absence of audio is the norm and is accepted whereas in other settings it would not be.

I thought about this recently when I read a news item from the BBC about an innovative project from Sony Digital Cinema that could make going to movies a more tempting option for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Sony has an developed an experimental pair of glasses that will allow movie goers to see on-screen subtitles, even when none are being projected. The glasses are for use primarily by the deaf and hard-of-hearing, and use LEDs to provide a heads-up display, superimposed over the movie. The words appear to the eye to be the same distance away as the movie screen, just like any other heads-up-display.

Subtitle Glasses Anyone?

The average moviegoer dislikes subtitles. For the hearing impaired, this creates a dilemma: few theaters run films with subtitles or closed captioning, or if they do, the captioned showings are often limited to specific days and times, making DVD and Blu-ray releases the only reliable option for watching movies.

The subtitle glasses have a great deal of potential. For hearing-impaired movie buffs, the glasses will enable them to attend any screening rather than having to schedule their lives around special subtitled showings. The glasses could also be used to show different foreign-language subtitles to different viewers. Sony believes that the subtitle glasses have the potential for other applications too. The glasses could incorporate a small microphone and voice recognition software, providing real-time subtitles. This feature would make simultaneous conversation transcription possible so that deaf people could read what’s being said to them during the course of a conversation.

How the Subtitle Glasses Work

The glasses look a bit like the shutter glasses you have to wear when watching a 3D film, but the hardware on either side of the lenses actually projects the subtitles on the glass. So no matter where the viewer is looking, they’re still visible. Similar to active 3D glasses, the subtitle glasses need to have some way of syncing with a film to track proper subtitle timing. The subtitle glasses are one of the more practical and realistic implementations of augmented reality  but they aren’t perfect. Unlike regular subtitles which always sit at the bottom of the screen, those displayed by the glasses follow the movement of the head. Get used to it though; this could become a feature, eliminating the need to keep glancing down. Although the glasses are in the prototype stage now, if they ever do go into production, the electronics will be streamlined so that the glasses don’t look so bulky.

Sony anticipates that the glasses will not only to be welcomed by hard of hearing cinema-goers, but also by the film industry and cinemas around the world.  In theory, the glasses should encourage higher audience numbers at movie theaters meaning both the film companies and the cinemas make more money. Although Sony indicates they have more trials to carry out to perfect the technology, it is expected that the glasses will begin appearing in UK theaters in 2012. To see the glasses in use: Cinema subtitle glasses give promise to deaf film fans

Global Public Infrastructure Initiative

Earlier this summer, I read a short article in a library blog about an innovative project, the Global Public Infrastructure Initiative (GPII), which has great potential to provide individuals with disabilities with the assistive technology they need and are entitled to have. Although the article talked about the project in the context of libraries, the benefit and application of GPII is not limited to libraries. All aspects of life and work stand to benefit if the project is successful.

In a nutshell, this ambitious project would create a paradigm shift by moving everything to the cloud. Right now, the burden rests with the individual who needs assistive technology.  Typically, the individual has to figure out what he needs and how to meet those needs in the environments (work, home, school etc.) in which he needs the technology. Moreover, employers, educational institutions, libraries, and other entities are often faced with the challenge of also figuring out what can be vague legal requirements and identifying what assistive technology to purchase that would best fit the needs of the individual, or the largest number of users, and to do this within a tight budget and extremely limited staff time.

The growing use of the Internet in government services, employment, education, and the marketplace has led to a corresponding reduction in other means of accessing those entities. Consequently, the ability to access and use broadband technologies is moving from discretionary to essential for effective participation in society. If broadband technologies are no longer optional, then everyone needs to be included or society will have an increasing digital divide because of disability, aging, and low literacy.

The GPII Project will combine cloud computing, web, and platform services to make access simpler, more inclusive, available everywhere, and more affordable. When completed it will provide the infrastructure needed to make it possible for companies, organizations, and society to put the web within reach of all — by making it easier and less costly for consumers with disabilities, public access points, employers, educators, government agencies and others such as assistive technology and information and communications technology companies to create, disseminate, and support accessibility across technologies. The GPII would use the cloud to create a secure personalized interface for each patron using a one-time only, Wizard guided process. Accessibility software and information about a patron’s devices would be a part of that profile. This would allow any person to access assistive technologies and extended-usability features on any device connected to the Internet anytime, anywhere.

The project is the brainchild of Geneva-based, “Raising the Floor“ (RtF), an international coalition of individuals and organizations working to make sure that the Internet, and everything available through it, is accessible to people experiencing accessibility barriers due to disability, literacy, or age. Consortium members include a wide range of assistive technology consumers, developers, researchers, and manufacturers. Funded through a U.S. Department of Education grant and the Adobe Foundation, the mission of RtF is “To make the web and mobile technologies accessible to everyone with disability, literacy and aging-related barriers, regardless of their economic status.” Of particular interest are individuals that are underserved or unserved because of the type or combination of disabilities they experience, the part of the world they live in, or the limited program or financial resources available to them.

The GPII Project is RfT’s signature project to carry out its mission; the purpose of the Project is to “ensure that everyone who faces accessibility barriers due to disability, literacy, or aging, regardless of economic resources, can access and use the Internet and all its information, communities, and services for education, employment, daily living, civic participation, health, and safety. Organizations endorsing the project include the American Library Association, the National Federation for the Blind and United Cerebral Palsy. The GPII project has a five-year timeline and has about $4 million in funding from a variety of U.S., Canadian, and European Union sources, and there’s a request for $10 million before Congress for fiscal year 2012.

This video provides an introduction to the GPII project 


The International Impact of the ADA

On July 26, without much fanfare, the  civil rights act, the Americans with Disabilities Act turned 21. The ADA  is significant because it is national civil rights legislation explicitly banning discrimination against people with disabilities in the public and private sectors. The ADA is revolutionary not only because of its provisions and purpose, but also because it was forged with the participation of disability organizations, bi-partisan champions from both houses of Congress, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the business community and  had widespread support from civil society. This was the first time such a cross-section of groups had collaborated on a common cause. The ADA has come to have a profound impact both at home and abroad.

The United States was the first country to enact national civil rights legislation prohibiting discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Since its enactment, the Act has been influential throughout the world influencing other countries to enact their own domestic non-discrimination legislation. Internationally, the ADA has been cited as one of the inspirations for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The CRPD, which incorporates the same principles of equality and non-discrimination found in the ADA, is an international human rights instrument of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the Convention are required to promote, protect, and ensure the full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities and ensure that they enjoy full equality under the law.

According to a report, World Report on Disability, released in June, by the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), more than a billion people in the world today experience some form of disability. That a billion people experience some form of disability makes the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities critically important.

There are eight guiding principles that underlie the CRPD

  1. Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons
  2. Non-discrimination
  3. Full and effective participation and inclusion in society
  4. Respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity
  5. Equality of opportunity
  6. Accessibility
  7. Equality between men and women
  8. Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities

The Convention adopts a social model of disability, and defines disability as an evolving concept and that disability results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinders their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others.

Nearly 150 countries and regional organizations have signed the CRPD, and 100 have ratified it, committing them to removing barriers so that people with disabilities may participate fully in their societies.