Good news!!!
Written by admin2 on November 21st, 2009Filed under: Themes, Deaf Jam
On November 19th, software engineer/mastermind Ken Harrenstien took to the official Google blog to announce some VERY exciting news:
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Quoting The Official Google Blog:
Since we first announced captions in Google Video and YouTube, we’ve introduced multiple caption tracks, improved search functionality and even automatic translation. Each of these features has had great personal significance to me, not only because I helped to design them, but also because I’m deaf. Today, I’m in Washington, D.C. to announce what I consider the most important and exciting milestone yet: machine-generated automatic captions. Since the original launch of captions in our products, we’ve been happy to see growth in the number of captioned videos on our services, which now number in the hundreds of thousands. This suggests that more and more people are becoming aware of how useful captions can be. As we’ve explained in the past, captions not only help the deaf and hearing impaired, but with machine translation, they also enable people around the world to access video content in any of 51 languages. Captions can also improve search and even enable users to jump to the exact parts of the videos they’re looking for. However, like everything YouTube does, captions face a tremendous challenge of scale. Every minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded. How can we expect every video owner to spend the time and effort necessary to add captions to their videos? Even with all of the captioning support already available on YouTube, the majority of user-generated video content online is still inaccessible to people like me. To help address this challenge, we’ve combined Google’s automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions, or auto-caps for short. Auto-caps use the same voice recognition algorithms in Google Voice to automatically generate captions for video. The captions will not always be perfect … but even when they’re off, they can still be helpful—and the technology will continue to improve with time. In addition to automatic captions, we’re also launching automatic caption timing, or auto-timing, to make it significantly easier to create captions manually. With auto-timing, you no longer need to have special expertise to create your own captions in YouTube. All you need to do is create a simple text file with all the words in the video and we’ll use Google’s ASR technology to figure out when the words are spoken and create captions for your video. This should significantly lower the barriers for video owners who want to add captions, but who don’t have the time or resources to create professional caption tracks.
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Quoting Jamie Berke, writing on deafness.about.com in a post titled “Way to Go, Google! Thanks for Automatic Captions!”:
You could literally FEEL the joy today in the deaf community when Google announced it was introducing automatic captioning on Google-owned YouTube! … The importance of Google’s accomplishment can not be overstated. The HR 3101 bill’s internet captioning requirements do not apply to user-generated content such as that on YouTube. Google has solved that problem for us! The National Association of the Deaf echoed my thoughts when they said: ”Yes, we still need HR 3101! Google’s technology is an awesome first step. We look forward to seeing the same initiative from other companies. HR 3101 does not cover user-generated content so Google is a boon to that glaring need. The goal for NAD is 100% access where we are not an afterthought and this is precisely why we need legislation such as HR 3101 to spur on such commitment, quality, and innovation.”
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Quoting Alison, writing on grumpyoldeafies.com:
Are we just totally in love with Google? … For the past few years, how to make user generated content (UGC) has played on my mind, and I could see the internet becoming less accessible to deaf people (a decade ago we had more access). Did people have the will to innovate, and get around this? People like Ken Harrenstien (Deaf Software Engineer at Google), are vital to any workforce. Kind of a very good example as to why workplace diversity matters. Bring people in who’ll think outside your traditional box, and push for something that your average Joe won’t be so bothered. That said, geeks seem to run on creativity, and a perfect example of tech working with people not trying to change them. This doesn’t just have implications for deaf people, but the captioning will be made available in 51 languages. That’s a significant chunk of the world’s population, and bridging across cultures. Captioning is also beneficial for Google’s business, in that it’ll be able to index content better; so everyone wins. A major development in bridging people globally with huge implications on accessing content (even via basic search), yet the mainstream doesn’t notice. The current trending topic on Twitter? #newmoon, which says it all. I for one cannot wait, its certainly better than any (material) present I may receive this Christmas!
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Quoting the abledbody.com blog:
I knew Google Voice would have multiple uses for people who are deaf and hearing impaired, but I didn’t expect this news to come so fast . . . Thanks, Google, for taking a giant step towards video accessibility for all.
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Quoting deaf blogger/vlogger Amy Cohen Efron, writing on deafeyeseeit.com:
Google made a giant leap forward to make this automated. Netflix and Disney—it is time for you to stop making excuses about not having technology available, or making ridiculous marketing decisions. Shape up and get it moving!
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Quoting Toshio Meronek, writing on whereslulu.com:
Google just announced that by the end of the week, it’s gonna be easier than writing a half-assed blog post about closed captions to make any video featured on YouTube more accessible to people with hearing impairments. Meanwhile, the Goog’s making it harder and harder for me to care whether or not they’re monopolizing the internet, the world, and beyond.
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Quoting Megan, writing on hearingsparks.blogspot.com:
I was really excited to see on my news feed today that YouTube will begin automatic captioning for videos. The captioning will be using voice recognition (like Google Voice does) to caption videos. I love YouTube, but mostly only for music, where I can pull up the lyrics as I go—I’ve always been wary of watching anything involving people talking. Automatic captioning, while being rolled out for a few select sponsors right now, will eventually help me and others to be more confident in watching any kind of YouTube videos.
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Quoting Meryl K. Evans, writing on meryl.net’s Bionic Ear Blog:
Like speech recognition technology, it won’t be perfect—but it’s a fantastic start.
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Learn more at google.com/accessibility
Then…
Read Irked posts tagged “accessibility”
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