I look around for gadgets and technology that can help us who are deaf or hard of hearing. I know I'm not the only one. Sometimes we make a discovery that can be helpful. Other times we can feel frustrated because we know the technology is out there but not many are really putting them together. As mean as this may sound a part of me wishes some of those people who design various devices such as mobiles phones would loose their hearing then put their minds to using their expertise to solve some problems we deaf and hard of hearing face. Could you imagine if the ones who made the iPhone lost their hearing? They'd probably create a device that would really help us.
As a professional magician and inventor of a number of tricks and props for magicians. I enjoy putting my mind to ideas and try to find solutions. Most of my ideas are terrible ones but sometimes I get lucky. Of course being someone who use to be able to hear and is now deaf I've put some thought into ideas that might make life a little easier in that area. So I thought I'd come here and share some of these ideas and also express what I hope will some day be possible as technology advances. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these ideas have already been done before but I always look around to see if they are already available. So far I haven't found any of the ones I'll mention below but if they do exist I'd love to know about them so please let us know.
One technology that I think is really going to help us is voice recognition. I know this technology has already been put to use for deaf but I don't feel they are using it to it's fullest potential. Currently the most advanced "Speech to text" program that is readily available is Dragon Naturally speaking. I know there are others but this one is fairly priced and pretty much the on the top of the list. The claim 99% accuracy right now. I'm not sure that's true but I use it on my computer and it's pretty accurate once it learns your speech. I have a little hard time using it because I have a slight slur in my speech but I don't use it for my voice anyway. I mainly use it for real time closed captioning. For instance when I talk to a friend he'll talk into the microphone and I'll read it off the screen.
This brings me to one of my ideas. They now have a Dragon Naturally Speaking mobile device. It's basically a memo recorder that when you plug it into a computer you can turn what was said into text. That alone can be helpful for us but what I'd love to see if if it would actually display the text on the screen in real time. So when you friend talks to you everything they say will show up on the screen. Even better yet. Imagine if a micro display (Worn in front of your eye) displays the text.
To go a step further what if you hooked a braille monitor to it. I've seen braille monitors that you wear on your finger and the pins pop up to spell the words so your finger doesn't have to move. If you learned braille and used this you'd be able to read the text while keeping eye contact.
Voice recognition technology is picking up and someday this is what I think, or hope rather, will be possible. This is going to sound a bit like a science fiction movie but keep in mind so was a mobile phone not long ago. Remember the Communicator on Star trek that everyone dreamed of having some day? What I hope we'l have in the future (Near future) is voice recognition technology that can easily distinguish one person's voice from another. This technology is already possible but not really up to par yet. So for example let's say you're in the room with Mike, Paul, John and Lisa. The only ones you want to talk to are Mike and Lisa. Simple tell the program they are the only ones you want to hear and you'll only read what those people say. Not only that it'll some day be able to distinguish one sound from another. For example a (red tailed hawk squawks) is what you'll read as appose to just (bird sound).
I for one can't wait for this technology to focus on it's full potential. I'm waiting for the days when I can make a private phone call with no relay operator. To really enjoy a movie in a theater and to be able to easily order a pizza. I do believe many of these things are already possible if someone would just put them together.
We shouldn't need an extra device to make TTY or VCO calls on a mobile phone because mobile phones already have all that's needed except to simply install the program into it. The keyboard, display screen and microphone is already there. They just need to put it together. The above ideas I mentioned are already here. With some limitations right now but the technology is improving. Right now we'd have to have the device learn the peoples speech we wan to use it to communicate with it. But most people only talk to a hand full of people on a day to day basis. It'll store quite a number of voices (I think over a 100 right now). So that's more then enough. And those on this list would become instant interpreters.
Just thought I'd share some of these ideas and thoughts.
What do you think?
Ron Jaxon
As a professional magician and inventor of a number of tricks and props for magicians. I enjoy putting my mind to ideas and try to find solutions. Most of my ideas are terrible ones but sometimes I get lucky. Of course being someone who use to be able to hear and is now deaf I've put some thought into ideas that might make life a little easier in that area. So I thought I'd come here and share some of these ideas and also express what I hope will some day be possible as technology advances. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these ideas have already been done before but I always look around to see if they are already available. So far I haven't found any of the ones I'll mention below but if they do exist I'd love to know about them so please let us know.
One technology that I think is really going to help us is voice recognition. I know this technology has already been put to use for deaf but I don't feel they are using it to it's fullest potential. Currently the most advanced "Speech to text" program that is readily available is Dragon Naturally speaking. I know there are others but this one is fairly priced and pretty much the on the top of the list. The claim 99% accuracy right now. I'm not sure that's true but I use it on my computer and it's pretty accurate once it learns your speech. I have a little hard time using it because I have a slight slur in my speech but I don't use it for my voice anyway. I mainly use it for real time closed captioning. For instance when I talk to a friend he'll talk into the microphone and I'll read it off the screen.
This brings me to one of my ideas. They now have a Dragon Naturally Speaking mobile device. It's basically a memo recorder that when you plug it into a computer you can turn what was said into text. That alone can be helpful for us but what I'd love to see if if it would actually display the text on the screen in real time. So when you friend talks to you everything they say will show up on the screen. Even better yet. Imagine if a micro display (Worn in front of your eye) displays the text.
To go a step further what if you hooked a braille monitor to it. I've seen braille monitors that you wear on your finger and the pins pop up to spell the words so your finger doesn't have to move. If you learned braille and used this you'd be able to read the text while keeping eye contact.
Voice recognition technology is picking up and someday this is what I think, or hope rather, will be possible. This is going to sound a bit like a science fiction movie but keep in mind so was a mobile phone not long ago. Remember the Communicator on Star trek that everyone dreamed of having some day? What I hope we'l have in the future (Near future) is voice recognition technology that can easily distinguish one person's voice from another. This technology is already possible but not really up to par yet. So for example let's say you're in the room with Mike, Paul, John and Lisa. The only ones you want to talk to are Mike and Lisa. Simple tell the program they are the only ones you want to hear and you'll only read what those people say. Not only that it'll some day be able to distinguish one sound from another. For example a (red tailed hawk squawks) is what you'll read as appose to just (bird sound).
I for one can't wait for this technology to focus on it's full potential. I'm waiting for the days when I can make a private phone call with no relay operator. To really enjoy a movie in a theater and to be able to easily order a pizza. I do believe many of these things are already possible if someone would just put them together.
We shouldn't need an extra device to make TTY or VCO calls on a mobile phone because mobile phones already have all that's needed except to simply install the program into it. The keyboard, display screen and microphone is already there. They just need to put it together. The above ideas I mentioned are already here. With some limitations right now but the technology is improving. Right now we'd have to have the device learn the peoples speech we wan to use it to communicate with it. But most people only talk to a hand full of people on a day to day basis. It'll store quite a number of voices (I think over a 100 right now). So that's more then enough. And those on this list would become instant interpreters.
Just thought I'd share some of these ideas and thoughts.
What do you think?
Ron Jaxon
