7. March 2010 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

– Here’s some information from another HLA member about You Tube captions.  It’s a great start, though if you are NOT hearing impaired, you should look at Sandra Bullock’s Oscar acceptance speech to see why captioning by human beings is better than voice recognition captioning.  As Dana said, it can be funny, unless you really want to know what someone is saying.  –

As I hope most everyone knows, YouTube recently started providing
automatic transcription/captioning for all new videos uploaded to
YouTube.

I just did a search for a new video to doublecheck on how to make the
captions appear.  It turns out that there are a couple of steps to
take to turn the automatic captioning on for the first time, and that
merely seeing the “CC” with a red background on the bottom of the
video isn’t enough to see captions now.

For example, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtZLvFrl6qk&feature=aso

Click on the “CC” on the bottom part of the video and wait for the
menu to pop up.

Click on “Transcribe Audio (Beta)” at the top.  This turns on the automatic
transcription/captioning which is done for new videos. (Most older
videos won’t have that feature enabled yet.)

After activating the automatic captioning, one can then choose to change
the caption settings (the font and the size of the captions)  and
one’s account settings (if you don’t have an account on YouTube, it’s
helpful to set one up so you can set captioning preferences, save your
favorites, create playlists, etc.).  I just changed my YouTube account
settings so that automatic captioning is always activated.

The captioning is pretty cool!

Note that the automatic captioning will invariably have errors in it
if the owner of the video hasn’t corrected it. Some of the captioning
will probably be funny when it hasn’t been corrected yet.  <g>

Dana

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22. February 2010 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

Sometimes we take our hearing aids for granted and forget what it’s like without them.  Here are some actual stories we’ve heard lately to get you thinking about what would happen if you were in a situation without your hearing aids.  How can you let people know how much you need them (other than tattooing  “please face me, I lipread” on your forehead.)

–Before an MRI, your hearing aids are taken away.  Then the attendant talks to you through a microphone when you are inside the machine and you have no idea what he’s saying.

–You are about to have minor surgery.  You wait in the pre-op room for over an hour and don’t get taken.  You discover they have called your name and you didn’t hear them, so they thought you went home.

–You collapse at home (without your hearing aids on) and the rescue squad comes to get you.  They decide that you have Alzheimer’s because you don’t respond to their questioning while their backs are turned.   Luckily your family arrives and asks where your hearing aids are.

You will have to do some advanced planning to avoid these situations, but what to do?

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5. February 2010 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

NAD, NFL, and CBS Collaborate to Increase Captioned Super Bowl Commercials

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and the National Football League (NFL) along with CBS Corporation, the network airing Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010, have collaborated to make advertisers who purchase Super Bowl commercials aware of the importance of captioning their content. As a result of these efforts, viewers should notice an increased number of captioned commercials compared to previous Super Bowls. The NAD thanks the NFL and CBS Corporation for their efforts to promote closed captioning of the television commercials.

Working alongside with the NAD and the NFL, CBS encouraged all of their Super Bowl advertisers to close caption their commercials. The NAD appreciates the efforts of the NFL and CBS on this important issue for the deaf and hard of hearing community. The NAD will monitor the results as we pursue a fully captioned experience from start to finish for all future Super Bowls.

The Super Bowl experience includes not only the exciting battle between two football conference champions, but also groundbreaking creative ads which have become a cultural phenomenon. While the Super Bowl game has been captioned for years, the commercials have remained less accessible. With the help of the NFL, the percentage of Super Bowl commercials captioned in last year’s Super Bowl showed a significant improvement. The deaf and hard of hearing community has engaged in an annual ritual of counting the number of captioned advertisements during the Super Bowl.
–
The National Association of the Deaf
8630 Fenton Street, Suite 820
Silver Spring, MD 20910-3819
United States

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13. January 2010 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

Happy New Year to members and friends of the Hearing Loss Association, Cape Cod Chapter!

Our first meeting of the new year will be Saturday, January 23rd, at 1:30
pm at the Dennis Public Library in Dennisport. 1:30 is coffee and
conversation, and our meeting begins at 2 pm. The topic is “Hearing Help for All Ages” and we have two interesting speakers:

Cara Jordan, Director of the Clarke School East, has extensive experience working
with young children to develop their spoken communication skills. Many
are mainstreamed back into their local schools at kindergarten or first
grade.

Tom Driscoll teaches sign language at Cape Cod Community College. His topic is “Living
and Excelling in the Land of the Hearing” and will talk about his
experiences coping with his hearing loss and how he not only “survives”
but excels.

Because it gets dark so early, please make an effort to offer a ride to someone who doesn’t drive late in the day.

Please join us for this interesting program. Thanks to the generosity of Siemens Hearing Instruments and the Cape Cod Hearing Center, we will have CART at this meeting.

Our fabulous treasurer since 1991, Ken has resigned. He dedicated many hours to the duties of treasurer with never a complaint and we relied on him for all kinds of chapter information. We wish him all the best and hope to see him at a meeting soon.

See you on Saturday, January 23rd, at 1:30, Dennis Public Library in Dennisport!
Bobbie and Betty

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14. December 2009 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

You have an opportunity to help pioneer and join two great new groups within the HLAA family in Massachusetts!

Hear@Boston

Hear@Boston is a community of young adults with hearing loss in the Boston area.  Most of our members are 20-35 years old, though we welcome people of all ages.  We host monthly events ranging from happy hours to invited speakers.  In addition to these monthly events, we also set up area events that are accessible (open-captioned theater, accessible tours of the MFA or Fenway Park).  Our members are also involved in advocacy, most recently with the push to get medical coverage for hearing aids.  If you or someone you know who would be interested in participating in our next support/social function, please feel free to contact James at HearAtBoston@gmail.com

Working 9-5ers

If you are a person with a hearing loss, between the ages of 35-55 and would like to meet other people on a social basis, perhaps you may be interested in joining our active social group allied with Hear@Boston. We are a social/support group of “working 9-5ers” who would like to meet other folks with hearing loss and participate in activities such as dinners out and about in the city, cinema, theatre, sporting and museum events, pleasure trips to Foxwoods/Mohegan Sun, “happy hour”, bowling, sailing lessons, skiing excursions, concerts, poker or scrabble night, and day trips to historical towns throughout New England.   If you or someone you know who would be interested in participating in our next social function, please feel free to contact Anthony at ajcinmass@yahoo.com

Our next social event open to everyone is the December 20th performance of Mama Mia, an open captioned matinee playing at the Colonial Theatre.  Email ADABoston@BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com or call 617-880-2419 to purchase tickets.  When leaving a voicemail message, be sure to include your desire for seats closest to the open captioning.  For more details, please visit:  http://www.bostonscolonialtheatre.com/Access.html

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7. December 2009 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

Dr. Theresa Cullen announced that The Cape Cod Hearing Center and Siemens Hearing Aids will provide CART at our January, March and May meetings, approximately $1500.  CART is vital for all meeting attendees to understand the proceedings of our meetings and we are very grateful for this generous donation.

See the Cape Cod Hearing Center’s website for information on hearing loss and assistive devices available for those with hearing loss.

http://www.capehearing.com/ 

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7. December 2009 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

Posted by: “Brenda Battat, Executive Director” battat@hearingloss.org

Sat Dec 5, 2009 5:13 pm (PST)

Original Post here: http://brendabattat.blogspot.com/

* The HLAA Board of Trustees met November 6 and 7, 2009, in Bethesda,
MD. A wine and cheese reception was held on Friday night and several
leaders of professional and consumer organizations attended to meet the board members. The meeting was held for the first time in the
newly-renovated conference room in the HLAA offices. Audio visual and
assistive listening systems were coordinated by Joe Duarte of Duartek
who donated his time to design, order, and install the equipment.
Ampetronics, a UK company, donated the low-spill loop that was
installed under the carpet during renovation. We also have infrared for confidentiality. We have two flat screen TVs� one for CART and one for PowerPoint presentations. Colin Cantlie from the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association donated one of the TVs.

The Board approved the 2010 budget that included the addition of an
administrative assistant for the national walk manager. The Treasurer
reported that HLAA is in a sounder financial situation as a result of
better than expected revenues from the Nashville convention, the walks, and careful management of expenses. The 990 was approved and will be posted to the website. Three new board members were welcomed: Diana Bender, PA, Joe Montano, NY, and James DeCaro, NY. A new ad hoc
membership committee was established to be chaired by Joe Montano.

* The walks are over for 2009. We met our very ambitious goal of 1
million! and there are still donations to be posted. We are working on
getting 2010 walks up and running and preparing a final report for
national sponsors on all 2009 walks.

* The web chat on hair cell regeneration by Douglas Cotanche, Ph.D.,
broke all HLAA web chat records with 85 participants. To view the
transcript go to http://www.hearingloss.org/Community/transcripts.asp

* Video of CBS News Report on VRS Indictments: The CBS Evening News
report by Katie Couric on the indictments for Video Relay Service fraud can now be viewed with closed captioning on the website of the
Connecticut Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf.
http://ccosd.org/2009/11/20/vrsfraud/

* The big news all over the Internet is the Google/YouTube initiative
to caption videos on YouTube. HLAA staff attended the announcement in
Google’s Washington, D.C., office. Twenty hours of video are uploaded
to YouTube every hour. Video producers can easily caption their videos
as Google has developed software to automatically write the time codes
for the captions. All the video producer has to do is upload the
transcript. Then viewers click on the transcript button and captions
will be generated by machine through voice recognition. Google is
testing this with 13 educational partners to get feedback and improve
the program. The captions allow the videos to be searched by text and
even to search for specific text in the video. Also the captions can be subtitled in 51 languages. So a video could be viewed in other
languages. This is an amazing innovation. The scale is enormous and
brings captions to a very visible place on the Internet.

* FCC Field Hearing: Broadband Access for People with Disabilities
[The following excerpt is from the HLAA comments filed with the Federal Communications Commission for their Field Hearing on the need for broadband access for people with disabilities by Lise Hamlin, Director of Public Policy and State Development for HLAA on November 6, 2009. at Gallaudet University. Full text of the comments will be available after December 15, 2009, on the HLAA website and via the December 15 eNews.]

I am here today to provide another aspect on the issue of disability
and broadband. Members of HLAA tend to be adults with some kind of
hearing loss, ranging from a moderate to severe, even profound loss.

We find that we use every tool in the communication toolbox; residual
hearing with hearing aids, assistive listening devices, speechreading
and other visual clues, text, as well as sign language. Our members
typically are not two feet in either the world of people who can hear
fully, or the world of people who sign as their primary mode of
communication. A little of all helps us communicate.

I want to emphasize the need to remember that the disability community
is not monolithic. It would be far easier if we all could be
accommodated in the same way. But we can’t. Providing only enough
bandwidth to allow spoken words would exclude people who need broadband access that is fast enough and clear enough to be able to read sign language. Likewise, people with hearing loss who use their residual hearing need broadband that is visually accessible, and includes audio so we can plug into the computer and use our residual hearing, and also provides for text, preferably real time text, so we can read what we missed. We need all three provided to make broadband truly accessible. This can be done today.

Still, we are at a crossroads. Broadband presents people with hearing
loss both a great opportunity, and a great threat. It provides us with
the opportunity to level the playing field. Because much of the
Internet is text-based, it has the potential to also provide accessible connection to family, friends, employers, health care providers, teachers, professionals, entertainment and cultural activities. This translates into better jobs, better health, and with it, the possibility of greater inclusion for a better quality of life. But, if broadband becomes inaccessible or unaffordable to people with disabilities, we are excluded from all of the possibilities that are now available to those who can hear, and those who can afford it.

Broadband providers charge substantial fees to access services. They do not offer discounts to people with hearing loss when they are not able to access information. That’s why we need the Commission to step forward and mandate access companies are not providing on their own.

–
Posted By Brenda Battat, Executive Director to Brenda Battat, Executive
Director at 12/05/2009 06:41:00 PM

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4. November 2009 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

MCDHH Commissioner Heidi Reed gave an informative presentation at the Fall meeting of the HLACC. The agency, part of the Mass. Dept. of Health and Human Services has a very useful website at http://www.mass.gov/mcdh where two popular publications can be downloaded from the PUBLICATIONS menu on the right hand side: The Savvy Consumer’s Guide to Hearing Loss by Karen Rockow, and the MCDHH Resource Directory which connects state residents with over 600 agencies, educational programs, organizations and service providers.

Having the publications online is one way the agency has creatively dealt with budget cuts. In fy ‘09, in the Southeast Region, one case manager and one children’s specialist served 89 aduclts and 229 children, with 34 people on the waiting list.

The agency has collaborated with the Department of Public Health/ Early intervention for newborns, the Jury Commission, the Elementary and Secondary Education office to standardize qualifications for interpreters and provide training, the 911 Commission Equipment Distribution Program, which supported legislation to bring the captioned telephone to Massachusetts.

She warned that 9C budget cuts were looming. The meeting was well attended with many questions following the presentation.

UPDATE 10/30/09:

Impact of 9C Budget Cuts

As you know, Governor Patrick has taken action to close a $600 million gap in the state budget, and has announced that he will protect funding for core programs that keep our Commonwealth strong over the long-term. The Governor made tough decisions in order to preserve safety net programs for the most vulnerable. EOHHS received $81.9 million in cuts. MCDHH received a total of $343,500 in cuts. This figure is 6% of our operating budget.

These budget cuts will impact MCDHH as follows:

–The After Hours Emergency Referral Service will no longer be funded.

–DHILS contracts will be reduced.

–Purchase of freelance interpreter and CART services will be reduced.

The DHILS providers whose funding will be reduced include DEAF, Inc., The Center for Living and Working (CLW), and Stavros.

MCDHH will immediately begin implementing a transition plan for the After Hours Emergency Referral service. We have informed the Massachusetts Hospital Association of the option for hospitals to purchase the service from MCDHH. And as another option, hospitals may wish to arrange their own plans by working directly with freelance interpreters. MCDHH will be able to provide technical assistance including a listing of qualified interpreters.

Legislators are asking about the impact of these cuts, so please do contact your legislator to give your input and reaction to these budget cutbacks.

Additional information including plans for informational meetings will be shared with you during the coming week. Thank you for your continued support, our working together is very important during this time of economic difficulty.

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6. October 2009 by Marita.

While visiting my daughter Tracy’s singing performance at the 2009 UNH Fall Fest, I noticed an article about a new ASL club in page 8 of the Sept. 25, 2009 issue of THE NEW HAMPSHIRE. “…none of the students involved are actually deaf but are instead studying sign language at UNH. President Jessica McAloon said that “we are bringing the Rosa Lee Show to campus on October 17 - she is a deaf comedian….Tickets go on sale next week and are $7 for students and $10 for non-students.” I am wondering if a captioning club will be founded, too.

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5. October 2009 by Cape Cod Chapter HLAA Blog.

Hello again New England Walk4Hearing folks,

I’m writing to let you know about another great program that Chris
Stern has set up to raise funds for the Walk4Hearing. He has
coordinated with online print seller WallBlank.com to sell a limited
edition series of one of his photographs. Every penny of sales goes
directly to the Walk4Hearing.

There are 75 prints of the photo in size 8″x12″ ($20) and 75 prints in
size 10″x15″ ($30). I’ve attached the picture that is for sale. And
here’s a link directly to the WallBlank website.
http://wallblank.com/products/colors

Remember, 100% of your purchase goes directly to the Walk4Hearing, so
please check out the site and pass this along to your friends, family
and coworkers!

Also, the photo auction that Chris set up ends on October 11th, so bid
quickly!
http://blog.townerjones.com/walk4hearing-silent-auction.html

Thank you Chris for setting both of these up!
James Battat <jbattat@mit.edu>

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