Can't wait for these technologie's to advance

[RonJaxon]

Let's hope it comes soon.

Right now I'm doing alright with the webcaptel. I'm thinking that there will eventaully be a phone, or a service, that'll allow you to use it on one single mobile phone. Right now you'd need two of them. One with the right kind of mobile browser and one to use like a normal phone. Even the sprint webcaptel FAS says:

Q - Can I get captions and make calls using just one phone?
A - This feature will be available in a future release.

This gets me thinking of what features would be desired for a mobile phone to make webcaptel more user friendly.

One thing I think would be helpful would be to know exactly when the person you are calling answers their phone. Quite often I read, "Hello... Hello... Hello" on the caption or sometime they even hang up because I didn't respond soon enough. So they take it as some prank call or something.

Another thing that would be helpful is some kind of display that shows when sound is coming through the phone. For example an equalizer display to show the volume of the sound coming. OR maybe even a light that shines brighter the louder the sound is. This would be easy to do with an LED connected to a speaker the right way. I use to have a pocket VCO that did that. This would be very helpful because we'd not only be able to read what they say but also see when they say it.

I'm sure I'll think of other features. I'd love to hear if and of you have any thoughts on this as well. Who better to let them know what would be beneficial then us who are deaf or HOH?

Ron Jaxon

 

[ljjehl]

Let's hope it comes soon.

Right now I'm doing alright with the webcaptel. I'm thinking that there will eventaully be a phone, or a service, that'll allow you to use it on one single mobile phone. Right now you'd need two of them. One with the right kind of mobile browser and one to use like a normal phone. Even the sprint webcaptel FAS says:

Q - Can I get captions and make calls using just one phone?
A - This feature will be available in a future release.

This gets me thinking of what features would be desired for a mobile phone to make webcaptel more user friendly.

One thing I think would be helpful would be to know exactly when the person you are calling answers their phone. Quite often I read, "Hello... Hello... Hello" on the caption or sometime they even hang up because I didn't respond soon enough. So they take it as some prank call or something.

Another thing that would be helpful is some kind of display that shows when sound is coming through the phone. For example an equalizer display to show the volume of the sound coming. OR maybe even a light that shines brighter the louder the sound is. This would be easy to do with an LED connected to a speaker the right way. I use to have a pocket VCO that did that. This would be very helpful because we'd not only be able to read what they say but also see when they say it.

I'm sure I'll think of other features. I'd love to hear if and of you have any thoughts on this as well. Who better to let them know what would be beneficial then us who are deaf or HOH?

Ron Jaxon

I have a partial answer for you right now....

you CAN use only one cell phone to use WebCaptel, but you have to be on a working 3G network to have it. 3G enables simultaneous data and voice transmission. Currently, this is the only way to have it happen. Also, the CapTel phone has a equalizer type bar that detects sound on the other end, but I don't see this in WebCaptel.

Hopefully with feedback to Ultratec, Sprint, and Hamilton, the volume bar can be added.

You need a cell phone with 3G capability, such as iPhone 3g and HTC 8525 (mine) to have the simultaneous capability, as the voice and data need speed to operate efficiently.....

 

[hambon]

This is a very great discussion, thanks for starting it Ron!

My current job is now demanding more phone / conference calls so I too am looking for some solutions. I am very hard of hearing + bad Tinnitus.

What I am thinking to do is Look into a good pair of headphones which can plug into an amplifier then a converter (3.5mm jack to phone set). At the same time Have Dragon running to catch any words i missed.

I am going to research a bit more and come back and post more ideas...

 

[ljjehl]

This is a very great discussion, thanks for starting it Ron!

My current job is now demanding more phone / conference calls so I too am looking for some solutions. I am very hard of hearing + bad Tinnitus.

What I am thinking to do is Look into a good pair of headphones which can plug into an amplifier then a converter (3.5mm jack to phone set). At the same time Have Dragon running to catch any words i missed.

I am going to research a bit more and come back and post more ideas...

Go for it!! It's been a while since I used my Dragon software, as I was getting used to having a Captel captionist transcribe my conversations on the phone. The biggest issue with this is the privacy issue, though the captionists are sworn to be impartial to all conversations and transcribe everything as said in the conversations (including cuss words, whew....)

 

[hambon]

Go for it!! It's been a while since I used my Dragon software, as I was getting used to having a Captel captionist transcribe my conversations on the phone. The biggest issue with this is the privacy issue, though the captionists are sworn to be impartial to all conversations and transcribe everything as said in the conversations (including cuss words, whew....)

Yeah, I will keep you guys updated about my contraption for sure!

So how is this Captel Phone? Would really like to give it a try, but not so sure my contractor would allow me since some calls have high security items being discussed. Also how fast is it ,is it around the clock and whats the price for the service im looking at?

 

[ljjehl]

Yeah, I will keep you guys updated about my contraption for sure!

So how is this Captel Phone? Would really like to give it a try, but not so sure my contractor would allow me since some calls have high security items being discussed. Also how fast is it ,is it around the clock and whats the price for the service im looking at?

Calls usually are 24 hours/seven days a week. The Captel phone can have up to a 4 second lapse in transmission due to data constraints and voice recognition/correction of errors. Webcaotel has a little bit longer in data transfer because of the Internet transmission, but is a free service. All US services are free....of course, normal voice long distance charges still apply.

Here's the price link:

CapTel - Availability

just look for your state and check out the prices there...

 

[Dennis S.]

Yeah, I will keep you guys updated about my contraption for sure!

So how is this Captel Phone? Would really like to give it a try, but not so sure my contractor would allow me since some calls have high security items being discussed. Also how fast is it ,is it around the clock and whats the price for the service im looking at?

It's secure enough that the Federal Government uses it. Both civilian and military departments, even.

CapTel - Federal CapTel

 

[sequoias]

I don't think Captel uses voice software to convert to text. There is an operator to caption what the hearing person says, just like they do with TV. I have seen their overview video.

 

[ljjehl]

I don't think Captel uses voice software to convert to text. There is an operator to caption what the hearing person says, just like they do with TV. I have seen their overview video.

You're partially correct....they use a captionist that lip syncs what a person says to a voice recognition-enabled computer trained to the captionists voice. the computer in turn transmits the words to the screen of the Captel phone. If there's a spelling/grammar mistake, then the captionist types the correction in corner brackets (ie. <hear> to correct here)

 

[sequoias]

You're partially correct....they use a captionist that lip syncs what a person says to a voice recognition-enabled computer trained to the captionists voice. the computer in turn transmits the words to the screen of the Captel phone. If there's a spelling/grammar mistake, then the captionist types the correction in corner brackets (ie. <hear> to correct here)

Oh....so both software and the person does the job together.

 

[ljjehl]

Oh....so both software and the person does the job together.

I'm not sure what software they use for the captioning, but if you use Dragon naturally speaking, you still have to have some sort of voice training for each voice. Since there are so many different accents as well as languages, it's best to have a captionist that has a voice tag well trained, so the caption conversion is as accurate as possible. There are also so many different meanings for the same word sounds such as here=hear, (voice recognition is still not perfect) so captionist intervention by typing is necessary....

 

[hambon]

Calls usually are 24 hours/seven days a week. The Captel phone can have up to a 4 second lapse in transmission due to data constraints and voice recognition/correction of errors. Webcaotel has a little bit longer in data transfer because of the Internet transmission, but is a free service. All US services are free....of course, normal voice long distance charges still apply.

Here's the price link:

CapTel - Availability

just look for your state and check out the prices there...

I will bring it up to my supervisor this week, Im pretty sure they will okay it just worried about clients....you know how impatient hearing people can be... :roll:

I am getting an older version of Dragon Natural Speak (9) to give it a test run before i go for version 10.. the only thing im concerned about is IT picking up different voices and accents... I heard you have to train it so I will see how that goes...

It's secure enough that the Federal Government uses it. Both civilian and military departments, even.

CapTel - Federal CapTel

Sweet Thanks for the Info!