Appointments for Hearing Health

 

Copyright : Hilton Lac Leamy

 

After  an extraordinary summer and in spite of  days still very sunny, it’s already the return.

Fall is often synonymous of professional events, and this year the Hearing Health professionals are lucky: 2 major events will take place in October in Canada :

-          First, the show organized by the Canadian Academy of Audiology (CAA), which will take place in Montreal from 5^th to 8^th of October 2010 in the Grand Sheraton hotel.

-          Then, the annual congress organized by the Order of the Hearing-Aid Specialists of the Quebec, which runs from October 14^th to 17^th, 2010 in Gatineau in the Hilton Lac Leamy.

We’ll give more detail on these 2 events.

The company “The helping Hand” in the honor

The weekly magazine “Les Affaires” (Business), in its edition of March 27 to April 2, devotes a section to Louise Bellavance and  the workshop “The Helping Hand”. This company of Quebecois social economy  is to “allow the deaf and hard of hearing persons to earn their living by exercising a job adapted to their conditions”.

We had the pleasure to meet Louise and visit her company, it’s completely remarkable, and show how it’s important to worry about the integration of deaf and hard of hearing people in the middle of work. The most cynical will say that these people will cost cheaper for the society, those who have empathy will say that it’s an excellent way for the persons to fulfil themselves in the society, but in reality it’s much more than that, the deaf and hard of hearing persons have a real potential to participate in the collective efforts of creation of wealth. These persons don’t ask to be in pity but to make their job.

The newspaper “Les Affaires” reminds that Louise Bellavance, this atypical religious entrepreneur will be welcomed within the Academy of the Big Quebeckers.

Adapted theaters

Some theaters or auditoriums  equip themselves with FM system  allowing hard of hearing  people to hear better what the speakers say on the front of the stage.

This week it is the case of Heritage College in Gatineau, Quebec – Canada, that appealed to Harmonya Technology Inc. to install an FM system of brand Decade.

The principle is to tune the headphones to the same  FM radio transmitter frequencies. Often, hard of hearing people purchase earphones FM in the traditional commerce, but some rooms hold them at the disposition of the hard of hearing persons.

In Quebec, a directory of the adapted theaters is published every year by the Association of Become Deaf and Hearing impaired people of Quebec ( ADSMQ)

France : a wide plan for Death and Hard hearing people

The French government through his Minister of Labor, Xavier Darcos, and his Minister of Family, Nadine Morano, announced a wide action plan of 52 million euros ($70M) for the period 2010-2012 for Deaf and Hard Hearing people.

The main theme of this plan is the integration with topics regularly covered in our blog :

• The safety of Deaf people, including how to contact help in case of medical trouble…
• Improve the integration in workplace of Deaf people who are more affected by unemployment than hearing people;
• Improve access in public places;
• Make  the public  aware of noise pollutions  at the young persons or in the workplace
• The establishment of relay centers…

This plan is available in fifty measures, we will present some related items mentioned above, and how technology could support the plan

A new mobile phone for Deaf and Hard hearing people

Yanko  Design has just revealed a very new mobile phone for Deaf and Hard hearing people. This phone was imagined by a student, Suhyun Kim, who is closed to Deaf and Hard hearing people.

This phone converts words into texts and texts into words.  This phone is of an unbelievable design, we have not been able to test it yet and it seems to us a little bit “big” for a mobile phone, whereas these last  already have a function “texts messages”.

But we only can encourage Suhyun Kim in this design process and wish her the greatest  success.

Credit photo: Su

Designer : Suhyun Kim

SFR launches its customer service in sign language

In France, Websourd and SFR (cell telephony like AT&T) have just announced the launching of service to  customers of SFR  available in sign language from the platform Visio008.

VisiO08 is a range of innovative services designed by the company Websourd. On the phone, in interview or in meeting, VisiO08 allows Deaf , hard of hearing or hearing people to exchange freely in sign language, supplemented spoken language or written.

The sign language with Skype

On the side of CES 2010, Skype made noise by announcing its presence on television in spring 2010. “Skype brings you  therefore voice on IP via your television…right in your living room…”

This announcement of Skype aims the millions of hearing users who use it as a free phone when they call other Skype users. We could think be remote  from the worries of Deaf people, but with a compatible webcam, we’ll also have access to the image, what means  that the Deaf persons and their families who use the sign language will be able to communicate via their television.  When  we know that there are more and more emissions and subtitled movies, television will not stay long device “reserved” for hearing people.

With Skype on TV, no computer required, on the other hand it will always be needed an internet access, and high speed for an efficient use of the webcam.

Skype finalizes its tests, and two producers of television sets, LG and Panasonic, have already confirmed launch  on the market  television sets equipped with Skype from spring 2010.

To follow this file on Twitter : @skypeonyourtv or on the blog.

3D revolution

Except  Netbooks or Smartbooks  , for which we’ll have to get accustomed, the main tendency 2010 is the 3D.

Last year, we noted some prototypes of television set 3D, this year it’s the confirmation with the presentation of several models from different manufacturers. Japanese Panasonic and Sony will confront Koreans Samsung and LG. Japanese lead with the Blu-ray technology and the presence of Sony in Hollywood in the field of film production. But again, as for smartphones, we’ll assist to a big technological and commercial competition.

The movie Avatar from James Cameron which is a real success is an excellent illustration.

We only wish that audio-visual 3D think to include the captioning for deaf people.

Microsoft, Google and Apple…

The bulk of this word, the “innovators”, are well represented this year at CES in Las Vegas .

In addition to its new operating system Windows 7, which replaces the controversial Vista, Microsoft will submit its draft  “Natal” to the CES which should allow the Xbox to play without a controller. “Natal” incorporates visual recognition technology to recognize movements of body, facial recognition to identify the player but also a voice recognition technology. Microsoft wants to compete with the Nintendo Wii.

About computer, the last two years have been marked by the arrival of “netbooks”, the very small laptops (12 Po max Diagonal) with the latest Sony, the Vaio P. The firm DisplaySearch forecast that it will be sell 40 million netbooks in 2010.

Trends in 2010, we also find more and more shelves and electronic books as the Kindle from Amazon. In the news, rumors are growing on a project from Apple, including CEO Steve Jobs, nominated best CEO of the year by the very serious Harvard Business Revue. The  Tablet, which runs a name already : “iSlate” should be disclosed next January 26 . But, Apple is not present at CES this year as every year, Apple prefers to dedicate himself to its Mac World which will take place from 7 until 13 February.

But the star is unquestionably Google with the launch, on Junuary 5^th on the fringe of CES, of Nexus one, its smartphone which is going to compete with the iPhone and Blackberry. This smartphone will allow Google to promote its diverse applications for smartphones, these clever phones which replace little by little the traditional cellular phones. Smartphones allow to send and receive e-mails, to browse the internet , to listen music and to look at videos. This day there are 100 000 differents applications for Apple and 20 000 for Google. Blackberry, the Canadian manufacturer is also very innovative in this field.

The great battle of smartphones is just beginning, to the big benefit of consumers, particularly for deaf or hard of hearing persons for whom applications are going to develop.

Opening of CES in Las Vegas

Once more, this year the team of  “I hear” will be at CES ( Consumer Electronic Show) which is opening its doors today in Las Vegas and which will be held until January 10^th. CES is the biggest world show concerning the electronic equipments : multi-media, computing, telecommunication, assistance to persons, equipments, and hearing aids…).

Our team is on site in search of new items and unusual finds and will be happy  to share his discoveries with you.