DeafDigest Mid-Week edition, October 12, 2011
-- A deaf person on a TV talk show that was not captioned!
Kayla Stubbs, newly crowned Miss Deaf Utah, was a guest on a recent local Utah TV talk show. There was a video of her appearance, and yes, it was NOT captioned! It is a big time shame.
-- Steve Jobs and the deaf
1. Steve became late-deafened and people complained that loud iPod made people deaf!
2. Sarah Palin has thanked Steve for the iPad which will help her disabled deaf child communicate later in few years.
3. A TDI board member visited Apple headquarters in early eighties to see if the Apple II computer could be TTY- compatible. Steve was not interested.
4. AMRAD, an organization of radio and electronics hobbyists in the Washington, DC area, asked a deaf woman to program the Apple II to function as a computer TTY. The deaf woman was successful. It was during the early eighties.
5. Steve Jobs was wealthy. Did he donate money to deaf organizations? No. He was tight with his money.
6. Steve had Apple come up with many devices, which greatly helped the deaf with their communication needs.
7. A deaf business owner said: I don't use a TTY thanks to Steve Jobs
-- Captions on smartphones?
A husband-wife team of Michaela and Robin Nachtrab has founded a company, called VerbaVoice. It is based in Munich, Germany. This company wants to develop software that will produce captions on smartphones - without sign language and without interpreters! When a deaf person needs captions, he will press on a button in smartphone. A captioner, from a remote distance, will type in captions. A perfect example is an appointment with a doctor, without notepad, and without interpreters. Will it work? Time will tell.
-- A Personal Care Attendant was fooled
In South Australia, a Personal Care Attendant was hired to take care of an individual that needed constant attention at home. No one told the Attendant that the individual was deaf and needed to communicate by sign language. The shocked Attendant then tried to communicate with the deaf man via gestures and body language but failed. She gave up but had to fight her way out of the house since the deaf man grabbed her and would not let her go!
-- World's best deaf scrabble player?
This coming December, Malaysia will be hosting the World
Youth Scrabble Championship. This event will involve
champion players from 33 different nations. One of the
participants is Amir Andi-Abdoerrachman, of Trinidad &
Tobaggo. He is deaf.