19th March 2007

Deaf Volunteers Find New Ways to Communicate

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).

posted in Current Affairs, Deaf, Hearing Loss, Technology, deaf culture, sign language, ubiduo | 0 Comments

16th March 2007

Sign Language for your cellphone

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?

posted in Deaf, Hearing Loss, Technology, deaf culture, sign language | 0 Comments

28th February 2007

Deaf websites using Joomla

This is a casting call for websites related to deafness and hearing loss using the Open Source program called Joomla! . I have an opportunity to be interviewed and to showcase my other website DeafJoomla.com, which has a list of deaf websites using Joomla. Currently, the list is pretty sparse and I know there’s a lot more out there so please help make my work easier by sending me URLs of your Joomla website and in return the website will get a valuable backlink as well as free PR.

You can also use the contact form on this website to send the links.

posted in Deaf, General, Hearing Loss, Search Engine, Technology, deaf culture | 0 Comments

26th February 2007

BitTorrent to Launch Movie, TV Downloads

One time about 2 years ago, I forgot to set up a VCR taping of the “Amazing Race” second to last episode to find out who was eliminated. The only place to find the episode was on BitTorrent. I managed to download the show (really huge file!) and watch it on my PC. Only one problem. It wasn’t captioned or subtitled. I guess the person who was gracious enough to upload the show was either hearing or there’s really no simple way to burn CC on the shows.

Fast forward to today:

BitTorrent to Launch Movie, TV Downloads

So when I see this news making the big splash today, I just had to write to BitTorrent to inquire if the movies and television shows will be closed-captioned or subtitle. I’ll keep you posted if they replied to me.

If anyone else has the inside scoop please spill it out in the comments.

Update: As soon as I submitted the email, I got an instant notification that someone is going to read my email. A minute later, I got another notice that the matter is solved and is now closed. I guess is that there’s no closed-captioning or subtitle available. I will neither spend my time nor $$ to test it out.

posted in Captioning, General, Technology, deaf culture | 0 Comments

21st February 2007

UbiDuo in daily life, Part 1

Watch how Jason Curry, Inventor and Owner of Scommonline.com communicate with his hearing buddy at a donut shop.


posted in Deaf, Hearing Loss, Technology, deaf culture, ubiduo | 4 Comments