Mark Rejhon

Help!

I was so frustrated that Canada doesn't have the cool wireless relay service stuff that the Americans has. So I invented my own wireless relay system! Here is the software that I invented for my own personal use. I am probably the only deaf person in Canada who has the luxury of this system in Canada.

I am a Deaf Computer Programmer -- 19 years programming experience -- Please see my resume at http://www.marky.com/resume/

Features Of My Universal Wireless Server-Based TDD Software:
- Designed to work with BELL CANADA RELAY SERVICE, but can be modified to any relay service.
- TRULY Device-Independent
- REALTIME KEYPRESS AT A TIME. No hitting Enter. No AOL/AIM/WAP.
- No delays, just as fast as a REAL TDD.
- Works on most wireless devices (BlackBerry, PocketPC, PalmPilot, TREO, J2ME, HipTop, Sidekick);
- Works on computers too (Laptops, PC);
- Transfer phone calls from one device to another seamlessly;
- Color coded text for my typing versus relay operator;
- Adjustable font size for laptop; BIG PRINT MODE;

Can some Canadian company help me commercialize this system, please? Contact me at www.marky.com ...















(Please note: The hardware isn't my invention. Only the server-based TDD software is.)

Deafness

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Mark Rejhon

My server-based TDD software can be used as both a Wireless AND Desktop TDD/TTY/Relay system. In fact, it has become my primary TDD/TTY/Relay system now, even for non-wireless desktop use at home!

Steve

I wonder if it would help to talk with CSD at http://www.c-s-d.org? I'd like to see your program licensed by all of the major cell and landline carriers to distrubute to the Deaf and HOH.



Steve

[I forwarded this link to a friend]

Mark Rejhon

Thanks. I will go check out that link. Just so you know, anyone can contact me at MiniTTY@marky.com by the way.

By the way, you may notice that the conversation is the same on several devices. That's my demonstration of the "Call Transfer" feature. That means I can transfer from my desktop PC, to a cordless HipTop/BlackBerry and continue the exact same phone call while I step away from the computer, or vice-versa. Just like switching between corded phones and cordless phones in the middle of a conversation!

Mark Rejhon

If anyone knows of any Canadian organizations or government departments where I can apply for a grant, to fund the further development and commercialization of this product, please let me know. Or any businesses I can work with, partner with, etc.

Please note, this system can be adapted/modified for use with almost any country's resident relay service (USA, UK, etc). My primary interest is commercializing this in Canada, but any commericalization in other countries would at least provide me with the funds necessary to commercialize in Canada.

I am also very happy to demonstrate this product in person in Ottawa (I live in Ottawa, though I could travel to Montreal or Toronto in a pinch).

Steve

Deaflibrarian is correct. Get your invention, software, process, etc. patented in Canada, US, and Europe! Write yourself a patent disclosure including dates and other known prior art. I'd suggest you don't go into detail on the forums without getting this done first.

Good luck!
Steve

Mark Rejhon

Yes, I knew it was a risk posting this invention publicly. However, it is much easier for me to generate ideas, get advice, spread the word, if I publicly post about such a system. The problem is that there is no wireless relay in CANADA. It`s much easier for me to find help by a public announcement like this.

A patent can be very expensive, and the lawyers necessary to make a patent good, as well as the time and money spent. Plus I don`t even know if this is a marketable invention -- yet. I am probably the first person to announce such an invention. Maybe I`d want to partner with a company such as Nexcom or some other company, as long as I can get Canadian relay service capability (or at least help me finance a Canadian version). Or maybe I`ll get a grant from the Canadian government. The problem is Canada has only ONE TENTH the population of USA -- smaller market. Meaning, paying thousands dollars for a patent is a bit risky at this stage. It`s cheaper for me to elect public comments like what I am doing right now.

My bread-and-butter Computer Consulting business (unrelated to MiniTTY) pays for the food on the table, and I can`t afford to work for free to commercialize MiniTTY unless I am able to get paid for commercializing MiniTTY.

Maybe a grant or business would like to help me commercialize this in the USA or UK or elsewhere, then that would help me have the funds to commercialize this in Canada. I am pretty willing to demonstrate this device in person or elsewhere (Transportation expenses must be covered though)

Anybody wishing to give me advice/help/pointers/etc can email me at MiniTTY@marky.com

Anyone can learn more about me at my Personal Home Page too - http://www.marky.com

I also made over 20 pages of offline documentation about my invention... so I have developed a significant amount of documentation already. I have not posted any of this documentation on the Internet at this time.

If nobody wants to buy my invention within 1 or 2 years, I`ll probably open source it, with source code published on Internet, (Linux style) for personal non-commercial non-revenue use (with some legal agreement requiring a licensing agreement of some kind if a business wanted to use my system).

It would be very complicated for an individual to set up, and cost a fair bit money per month to run just just 1 phone line for themselves. I`d rather commercialize it, get the funds to make it an EVEN BETTER PRODUCT, a universally-accessible product, that anybody can use, with one-click user-friendliness.

Mark Rejhon

deaflibrarian,

Thank you very much for posting the links. Excellent time-saving research material!

On another subject, I also got two emails giving me helpful information such as that, nothing concrete yet as of yesterday (Will check again tonight). Keep the information coming, everyone...

Mark Rejhon

How do I contact Scott Simser? I did a Google Search on him, but I could not find contact information.

Banjo

http://www.simserconsulting.com/

Thanks to a new feature... Google Local!

Banjo

LOL, I imagine I'll make a good librarian but it's the profession of graphic designing that I am involved with.

Mark Rejhon

Good point about Google Local. I'll remember that next time!

WirelessHOH

Last I heard, Scott Simser could be reached through the Canadian Hearing Society:

http://www.chs.ca/

Wasn't he on their Board of Directors for awhile?

Other agencies you might want to check with:

CCRW, the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work (since I originally got the wireless device, thinking there was Canadian wireless relay, so I could be reached any time by friends, family, and most importantly, by work) might be able to steer you in the right direction for grants and such, since they have a whole section on entrepreneurship and such on their affiliate site, workINK:

http://www.workink.com/display.asp?Page_ID=10813

Here is their main site address:

http://www.ccrw.org/en/

Also, the HRDC's Opportunities Fund is pretty good with handing out money, and/or locating funding sources.(For useful purposes, I add, contrary to what the loyal opposition had to say to Jane Stewart at the time.)

http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/epb/sid/ci.../desc_of.shtml

Hope this helps!

WHoH

Dennis

This is certainly a feature that sounds exciting. The first question I would ask is "How?!!" but telling us how would be giving away your secret and companies would copy it.

What I want to know is if your product makes it seamless and painless to transfer -- i.e., open up a menu from either device and just press "continue call on this device" or "forward call to such and such device." My father often forwards calls from his work line to cell phone when he is physically in the building but not in the office.

He'll then answer his line, talk to the person while walking back to his office, and then nonchalantly say, "Can I put you on hold for a second? I'll be right back."

He'll then transfer it to his office line, and it'll be like he was in the office the whole time. REALLLLLLLY fools his superiors (who are in another city) and customers who think he's at his desk 10 hours a day when he's really taking long lunches and walks around the office or working out in the gym.

rushabh

Mark,

Can your software support VCO on the devices that are mobile phones? Example:

Treo 650. Connect to Relay. Enable VCO. Operator connects to third party. You speak to the third party via the Treo 650 and read the response on the Treo.

This would come closest to being a mobile CapTel phone. If you can make this work with a Treo or Pocket PC or whatever, that would be great. Let me know the feasibility of this holy grail of mobile devices for the ORAL deaf. Thanks.

Mark Rejhon

rushabh,

No, not yet. It may be possible in the future, using 3-way calling, and a TDD modem, using a network that allows simultaneous voice and data. Alternatively, you can buy two phones (one for voice, one for data) and pull mobile VCO.

MiniTTY does work on the Treo600 and Treo650, though (confirmed.)

rushabh

Mark, can you elaborate on this alternative? I am really interested in having a VCO-capable mobile phone as CapTel has spoiled me big time. Thanks.

Soonersseth

you can get this device for your cell no im not affiliated with Harris.com http://www.harriscomm.com/catalog/pr...ec89c30273876a

Mark Rejhon

To pull off mobile VCO, it is very tricky. It requires 2 cellphones and a 3-way calling subscription, plus an external TTY tethered, or some kind of a VoIP server at home with 3-way calling with call-forwarding capability to the cellphone, so that your cellphone can "dial-into" the VoIP server. Some kind of a complex setup, some "programming glue" may be required to make it all operate together.

The other alternative, slightly simpler, is to have two cellphones and a TTY (one of them tethered to an external TTY, one of them for voice), and using the 3-way-calling trick.

Expensive, requires 2 cellphone plans, but pseudo-CapTel-style full-duplex mobile VCO can definitely be pulled off in a way similiar to having 2 landline phones at home with 3-way conference calling.

Mark Rejhon

Soonersseth,
That won't do full-duplex CapTel-style mobile VCO

Dennis

So why can't one cell phone have a voice portion with a data input to receive the captioned text?

Where did you see this "Class A" and "Class B" stuff?

Mark Rejhon

I know people in the industry. It's a little known FCC rules known by every cellphone manufacturer. If you have worked on an engineering job with them, you'd know. Another way to find engineers (the actual people who builds cellphones), can sometimes visit places like HowardForums at http://www.HowardForums.com ... but such people are hard to find.

A voice portion with a data input would become a Class A device if it was used on the current 2nd generation cellphone networks. And FCC Class A devices are illegal in the public, outside of an industrial environment, because of radio interference issues...

If you have an engineering degree in university, read more about FCC Class A/B:
Google Search: Explanation of FCC Class A/B
Google Search: More FCC Class A/B Info
As you can see, this is very complicated...

Anyway, this will change in the future, but be prepared to wait half a decade...

Keep an eye on WiMax. Amazing things will show up by the end of this decade, including wireless VRS in a handheld device

(Yep! You heard me right! Actually, you can already do wireless VRS today using a laptop computer with a video camera, at a Wifi hotspot, but that's kind of "cheating" because a laptop is too big, and you can't use it everywhere like a Sidekick, WiFi doesn't go everywhere like cellphone airwaves which Sidekick/BlackBerry uses)

steelers

Hi Mark,

I have checked out the site at www.marky.com I was overly impressed with the home entertainment center u setup! I would love to have mine setup like that. What is more cost effective to setup something similiar to yours? I know a real 42 inches TV would be a gastly $5k or more! Suggestion? Let me know when u have the chance.

Thank you,
Vincent Lagrotteria

Mark Rejhon

Steelers:

For the cheapest high-quality 80 to 100 inch picture for home theater, get a projector. Not a TV set, but a "digital projector" unit. Projectors are now cheaper than big HDTV's.

Get a screen:
$0 -- Find a big enough white wall in your house
or $50 -- High quality movie-projector-wall paint
or $400 -- Buy a good movie-quality projection screen [BETTER]

Get a digital projector:
$800 -- Entry level digital/computer/TV projector with HDTV inputs, 800x600 DLP
or $1500 -- Digital/computer/TV projector with HDTV inputs, 1024x768 DLP
or $3000 -- A higher-resolution high-quality widescreen DLP [BETTER]

Get a good DVD player:
$150 -- Good brand of progressive scan DVD player

Get a good deaf-friendly sound system:
$200 -- Amplifier for bass shaker
$100 -- Cheap bass shaker purchased from eBay
or $400 -- Real Sofa-SHAKING bass shaker from http://www.thebuttkicker.com
or $HIGHER -- (If you are rich and want a MOTION SIMULATOR for your sofa, try www.d-box.com ... If you have to ask for the price, you can't afford it... I can't afford it!)

Get a good blinds for your windows in your "theater" room
$0 -- Use your existing windowless basement;
or $100 -- Fully opaque light-blocking velvet drapes
or $500+ -- Special ornamental light blocking blinds for windows

You can spend as little as $2500 nowadays if you shop carefully, and you'll have a 100% fully captioned movie theater AT YOUR HOME with a sharper and better picture than the local movie theaters! (Must get a good quality screen)

If you are on a budget, for 80" to 100" wall-size video, you can spend as little as $1000 for just the projector and a good player alone! And get a mammoth 80 to 100 inch picture for just $1000 that looks great -- can be used for HDTV -- can be used for keyboard interpretor notetaking -- can be used for TV -- Can be used for DVD -- can be used for computer -- can be used for digital photo slideshows -- Can even display PAL, NTSC, SECAM, HDTV, COMPUTER, XBOX, PLAYSTATION, etc. These newer "digital projectors" can display pratically EVERYTHING nowadays!

Sometimes the cheapest "digital projectors" are at office supplies stores, but they are home theater treasures in a little box nowadays if you hook them up to DVD, computers, and game systems nowadays. The image quality is much better nowadays.

Miguex

It is quite cool about Home theatre.

Yes, I know the buttkicker I purchased it , like it but it is very limited because you need a good receiver to connect it for extra inputs like game consoles, TV, stereo etc and the sound is not good or you need to configure it.

Do you know about THUNDERBOX 3D Noiseless Sound System?

It mades in Spain and there is a distribuitor of this in Canada (Calgary, AB) and the website is www.zoundstech.com. It is a bit expensive (about $cdn 2000). That system is all one (hi-fi receiver and amplifier), has 6 inputs (1 mono!) RCA and outputs for speakers(2 front, 2 rear), subwoofer and 4 shakers too! (up to 4 and you don't need an amplifier for that). It has already everything. Also I puchased it and WOW! Believe me! the Quality of Sound is SUPERB! and throw my old Home Theatre Receiver (JVC RX-7030C).

Gaming videos, watching movies and TV!!!, music, etc...

Oh! yes. there is a video from Spain of Spaniard Deaf that show it (sorry it is in LSE (Spanish Sign Language) but it is quite to understand. Watch it:

http://www.zoundstech.com/spainvideo1.wmv

By the way the owners of the company Zound Tech Inc that sell those are deaf too.

Now I am very happy with that and everyday use it watching any channels like CSI, CNN!! (it has good bass!), etc...

Chau!

Mark Rejhon

It's been many years since this thread has been posted.
I'm replying to say that I currently use this service on BlackBerries using both MobileSSH and midpssh.

Since I use a Vonage Canada line, their Canadian 711 provider was selected to be the New Jersey relay service instead of Bell Canada, but it's relay service indepenent, and I can actually dial any TDD number.

More technical information:
That said, this can be adapted to an "IP-RELAY" platform, using WEB 2.0 and AJAX technologies (similiar to what the big sites such as Sprint Relay Online has done). Also, a pool of SIP-based IP modems running G.711 protocol running a telephony stack, can operate TDD tones directly from a data center using standard server blades with NO TDD's (using 100% software emulated TTY's running over VoIP), and would work with any relay provider that the specific VoIP line was able to access. It may require Bell Canada VoIP lines, or any VoIP provider that uses Bell Canada Relay as their 711 provider. Software-TTY-over-VoIP (100% softphone, no modem, no tty!) is already being done in someone else's program called called PCTTY (PCTTY -- A TTY for Window's PCs) so it can be done nowadays. This is the only other way Canadians can do an "IP-RELAY-LIKE" service in Canada at the moment, and PCTTY is too complex for many Canadians, especially since most deaf do not know how to set up a VoIP softphone and run a 100% software TTY over a VoIP softphone.... It works but not as user-friendly as just typing www.sprintrelayonline.com or similiar sites...

That said, in the long term, if there was ever a way to pay Bell Canada (or another Canadian relay provider) for direct IP-Relay access over TCP/IP to bypass having to use a software TTY pool to call Bell Canada lines, then it could be a niche subscriber-funded service, which may be useful until Canada finally subsidizes improved relay services similiar to those already available in the U.S. ten years ago (some Canadian funding mechanism similiar to the U.S. Telecommunications Relay Fund would be needed to make the service free).

We Canadians have invented the BlackBerry, but I am the only Canadian using Bell Canada Relay (and other Canadian relay services) on a BlackBerry thumb keyboard (without an attached external TTY)! While in America BlackBerry IP-Relay is widespread! That does not make sense.

gentle888man

Hi Mark,

It would be interesting to make your code open source so other programmers can use it. It would be not free, but this way you can make some money until you can find a way to commercialize it.

I used Bell Canada Relay Service and other service providers. Now because of the economic shutdown, I had to cut my phone line and that leaves me with my cell phone. I have 40 minutes included in my monthly invoice and I cannot use them because I cannot even use my TTY with my cell phone even if it was rated as a TTY device. Using your software would save a lot of time.

If you make it open source, it's a way. You can even sell it or use like a trial period.

On the other side, even if you wrote a lot of documentation on this, maybe for some people it would be hard to set it up, but for someone like me that has good programming skills, it won't be hard

Let me know what you think,

cheers

Marius

evil_queen_lisa

hey mark,
is this available yet? it sounds like EXACTLY what i need!
*EQL*

dude

is this available in uk? This might be of interested to you: textrelay.org and RNID TalkByText platform for real-time text