Caption Your ASL Videos

Thanks to Jess for pointing us to this: www.jaelstrom.com

This whole Internet captioning tide is to be welcomed. These efforts are something we can all applaud and work on together, no matter your language – English, Sign Language, French….

Notre vie, c’est le texte et la traduction…our life, it’s text and translation.

That’s the word :-).

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Is the Internet a Public Place?

Your view please.

In our view, it IS.

If it were not, then for whom is it?

Or how to say it in a better way? – Hey, it’s for all of us. If not, will you be excluded one day?

 

 

Captioning Action: Maryland and All of Us

Next Wednesday, March 2 at 1pm,  there will be a hearing for SB 596 – State Government – Human Relations – Discrimination in Housing, Employment, and Places of Public Accommodation — Really important legislation. The bill would essentially make the internet website of ANY entity that does business with ANYONE in the State of Maryland a “place of public accommodation and requires that these websites be accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The one “caveat” is that to apply, the business must earn at least $1 million/year. But lawyers see the potential – (just a few examples here: Comcast, Verizon, Netflix) – all would have to ensure their content is accessible to people who are deaf/hoh if they want to do business without penalty in Maryland.

The hearing is at 1 PM on March 2 in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Testimony must be submitted by Noon on the day of, so if you are interested, send your thoughts to Maryland, or comment here and we’ll add them to our own.

Anyone living close enough to get there? Please go (and keep CCAC informed), with thanks.

See http://www.odhh.maryland.gov/

 

Netflix needs captions

Pleased to share this here:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1731715/is-netflix-hard-of-hearing

And Mike Chapman is a member of the CCAC too. Are you?  Join from http://www.ccacaptioning.org

 

Internet Captions Important

From one of our CCAC member advocates – nice article.

http://www.philly.com/philly/health_and_science/20110224_TV_captioning_gradually_goes_where_viewers_are_-_the_Internet.html

 

CCAC means Captions for Life and…

The CCAC is not a deaf nor a hearing loss organization. CCAC advocates for inclusion of quality captioning universally – all the time, in all places needed.

Captions are a visual language. Text is useful (useful? whoa – it’s totally essential!) for many important modern life requirements:

a -to have a transcript,

b -for translations,

c -for global communications,

d -for research, knowledge-building, and record-keeping,

e. for people who need text due to different learning styles,

f. and…right…for millions of people globally with hearing loss and deafness who use captioning as their primary ramp for equal communication access (real time speech-to-text).

More reasons? Talk to us.

We still love words and captioning

This article is SO good. Not about captioning nor speech to text, yet we might say it’s all about…well…life.

What’s true, who’s courageous, how can we say it “like it is”?

See http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/opinion/24iht-edmurong24.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hpw and comments invited here, your words, as always.

Good News on Captioning for Movies!

See this link now – with CCAC thanks to John Waldo and his teams to make this happen!

http://www.hearinglosslaw.com/

A short excerpt: Regal Cinemas, the nation’s largest movie-theater chain, has committed that as it converts its first-run movie theaters to digital projection, it will provide the necessary equipment to display closed captions for all showings of all movies for which the studios have provided captions. Regal began that process in the greater Seattle area, where it has made all the auditoriums at its Auburn, Thornton Place, Landing and Bella Bottega complexes caption-capable.

See the full article. Let’s make inclusion of quality captions happen in all places needed! Join the CCAC, all volunteers.

CCAC Provider Members on CCAC Web Now

We enjoy the participation of many providers in the CCAC, all volunteers who advocate and educate regularly for more inclusion of quality CART and captioning universally, in all places needed.

Provider members join equal numbers of “consumer” CCAC members, also striving to educate and advocate for inclusion of real time speech to text – it’s vital in the ten CCAC categories of life!

Today we have created the new page on the CCAC web: https://sites.google.com/site/ccacgroup/ccac-provider-members

We hope it’s handy for you to refer to. Check it out. We invite more providers to join the CCAC all the time too :-). And consumers. And supporters! And all who support the CCAC mission.

 

Text, Speech-to-text, and Captioning

Text is a vital word for all of us who advocate for inclusion of quality captioning (subtitles) universally. After all captions are “speech-to-text.”

The origin of the word text includes “context” and “texture” and “weave” and we like this. We love words. We who advocate for text as our language want to be included in the fabric of life – we want to weave our own days and lives.

From Webster’s online: Text: Middle English, from Anglo-French tiste, texte, from Medieval Latin textus, from Latin, texture, context, from texere to weave —

We want inclusion, participation, and giving back too. We are able. We need text. We look forward to the day, as soon as possible, when all places routinely include quality real time speech-to-text (without being asked).

Costs for this are not the main issue. Society pays for all sorts of things, new things, which many do not use or want. Why not include text also for all soon? We require it. It’s good for literacy, for learning languages, and can be translated into many other languages as needed (including translation into sign languages). Text is used by others with different communication needs, different hearing needs, and for all these other good reasons. Why is it not already everyplace we need it?