The lights dimmed and Dimitri Kanevsky took the stage at HLAA’s Convention 2022. He was there to accept the HLAA Innovation award on Google’s behalf. There was momentary confusion in the audience as the CART captioning disappeared. But it was quickly replaced by a screen share of the small phone in Dimitri’s hand. Dimitri, who has heavily Continue reading
Technology
The Joy of Open Captions at the Movies!
I haven’t been to the movies in a movie theater for more than two years. At first the pandemic scared me away, but I continued to stay away because it was much easier to watch things at home with captions enabled than to battle the captioning devices at the movie theaters. While very helpful when Continue reading
Would a Different Look for Hearing Aids Boost Usage?
Why does hearing loss stigma linger while other cultural stigmas successfully fade away? Is it because hearing aids are not like glasses and don’t fix our hearing loss entirely? Is it because hearing loss is invisible so it doesn’t get taken as seriously? Or maybe it is the hearing aids themselves? In this article for HHTM, Continue reading
Zoom Continues to Miss the Boat on True Accessibility
“Please enable the audio so I can participate in your Zoom meeting,” said no one ever. So, why is advance notice still needed to enable captioning? Zoom made its high-quality ASR captions available FREE for all accounts in the Fall, but in a practical sense, its platform remains inaccessible for people with hearing loss. I Continue reading
OTC Hearing Aids: A Positive for People with Hearing Loss
Last week I was an invited panelist for an ASHA Special Interest Group (SIG 8 public health audiology) Webchat on Over-the-Counter (OTC) hearing aids. The other panelists included: Karl Strom, the editor-in-chief at The Hearing Review; Jani Johnson, an assistant professor in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Memphis; and Kim Continue reading
