source: bhNEWS
Government Technology - July 30, 2008
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Real-Time Text Aims to Improve Internet Accessibility for Deaf and
Hard of Hearing News Re****t
The blossoming of multimedia content on the Internet in recent years
has revolutionised personal interactions, business communications, and
other online services. But for millions of Internet users with sensory
disabilities, many of the communication tools remain frustratingly out
of their reach.
Arnoud van Wijk, disability projects coordinator for the Internet
Society (ISOC), who was born deaf, knows only too well the frustration
Internet users with a disability experience from many current Internet
services.
"During the past few years, the use of the Internet as a modern
replacement for telephony has accelerated," said van Wijk. "The
ability to include more media in calls provides an excellent
op****tunity to include people with disabilities in online
conversational services. But too often discriminatory voice telephony
services are simply re-created."
With this motivation, van Wijk and other researchers have do***ented a
technique for "real-time text" combining existing Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) standards to enable text streaming over Internet
Protocol networks.
The technique uses Internet telephony protocols to ensure
compatibility with voice, video and other multimedia services on the
Internet. It allows text to be sent and received on a character-by-
character basis, with each character sent and displayed immediately
once typed, giving text the same conversational character as voice
communication.
According to van Wijk, "Internet Telephony is rapidly becoming a major
way of staying in touch. But it breaks the traditional text telephone,
which deaf and hard of hearing people used in the past to call each
other. The real-time text technique addresses this problem and can be
integrated with Internet telephony."
Along with fellow technologist Guido Gybels, director of new
technologies at RNID (UK), and with contributions from other experts
in communication and accessibility for people with disabilities, van
Wijk edited and co-authored'Framework for Real-Time Text over IP Using
the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)' which the IETF has just
published as an informational do***ent in its 'Request for Comment'
series as RFC 5194.
To further progress work in this field, this week sees the launch of
the 'Real-Time Text task force' (R3TF), an informal forum for
engineers, motivated individuals, experts, companies and
organisations. The R3TF has received incubation sup****t from ISOC, as
part of its "Enabling Access" initiative, under which ISOC promotes a
diverse range of projects aimed at breaking down the barriers to
Internet access.
Michael Burks, chairman, and Cynthia Waddell, vice chairman of ISOC's
Disability & Special Needs Chapter, welcome the announcement of the
new task force.
"Accessibility for persons with disabilities is critical and must be
maintained in the coming convergence," said Waddell, an accessibility
expert to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), who is hard
of hearing herself. "But it is worth pointing out that, like many
disability projects, this effort has the potential to provide more
options and greater usability for all users in many situations."
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