deafbiz.com

One of the biggest problem with Super Bowl commercials is that they tend to make at the last minute and despite spending a fortune for production and air time, closed-captioning is always an afterthought.

This time, Pepsi made a commercial ahead of time, using deaf actors signing in ASL with subtitles.

Click Here to see the commercial.

I didn’t understand the joke of “Bob’s House” until I saw the commercial. I do recall this folklore told in different versions. One was a deaf couple staying at a hotel and the guy had to go out to get something but then he couldn’t remember his hotel room so he honked his car’s horn and all the lights were on, except one. That’s how he found his hotel room.

Found it at CNN’s Money section where readers submitted bulls**t jobs and I didn’t expect to see Relay Services Operator on the list.

Relay is supposed to be a service for the deaf, hard of hearing, and speech disabled where a person using the Internet, cell phone or text telephone reaches an operator, I dial a number for them and relay conversation between a text and voice user.

90 percent of the calls we get are from people who are not deaf, most of them are scam calls or prank calls, so for eight hours a day, 40 hours a week I relay bogus conversations. The benefits are good though. The turnover rate is extraordinary. A few weeks of Nigerian scam calls and teenagers with nothing else to do can take a toll on some people.

Pay: 10.00-10.50 starting with the availability of a promotion after 6 months.

Can anyone from the Relay Services verify that 90% of the calls are NOT from or to deaf people? That’s pretty high and a huge waste of taxpayer’s money.

When there’s a disaster, Red Cross is there. What happens if the disaster victim happens to be deaf? How can a hearing rescuer communicate?

UbiDuo to the rescue!!

Rochester Red Cross now has TWO UbiDuos - one in the office and one in the disaster rig.

Thanks to 13Wham.com, Rochester NY’s ABC Television station for getting the word out.

If you want you local Red Cross to considering purchasing the UbiDuo, please contact Winfreepcs.com for assistance.

(full disclosure - Judy S. Gunter, webmaster of deafbiz.com is also Manager of winfreepcs.com and has helped Red Cross with the UbiDuos).

From LifeHacker:

Stuck in the UK trying desperately to figure out how to sign “where’s the loo?” Then point your cellie to MobileSign.org, a visual dictionary of British sign language. You enter the word to look up, and Mobilesign will spit back a downloadable video viewable on your phone demonstrating how to sign the word.

Mobilesign was created by the Centre for Deaf Studies. Nothing against you Brits, but I want this so bad for American sign language it hurts

Zdnet has more details.

Anyone know of something similar in ASL? And will it work in Treo 650?

These are the new websites approved and published at Deafbiz.com. I am grateful that a few have filled out the submission form, which makes my job easier to to promote their websites sooner.

U.S. Deaf Ski & Snowboard Association (USDSSA)
Prism Mortgage Inc
Christian Vogler: Research
New Jersey Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf (NJRID)
Deaf Women and HIV/AIDS in Africa
GUAANEWS
United States Flag Football for the Deaf
AJ Hlibok Cost Constulting
Wolmah Webs
BiblioMarket