That presents an interesting privacy conundrum. It would undeniably be an incredible capability for you to have, but pretty much all of your day-to-day interactions would be sent off to Google or Microsoft for processing.
Privacy issues aren't my number one priority. I have lost count of the number of times people misunderstand me thanks to not knowing I am deaf or believing it, or me misunderstanding them.
And as a techie I am not too bothered by Google and MS using my data to sell me stuff.
What bothers me much more about is the dark architectural decisions that misguide/divides people or get them addicted to their streams and devices screwing their lives up.
It's not your privacy that's the issue (Well, it is, as a user of the device) - it's also the privacy of the persons speaking with you. Single-party consent for digital recording of audio is a controversial topic.
But that should not be issue for kopo, he should have means of comfortable communication without giving up on his privacy. That is just basic human right, there is nothing about people he is going to speak with, that is secondary issue.
But it's also the privacy of everyone close enough to the microphone that single processing can extract what they are saying. That's 0 party consent that I'm not ok with for always on devices.
I don't know. Single party consent is great if you want proof that someone is threatening you (or something similar) or even just to have a personal record of a conversation, but I don't know about single party consent to give a copy of the recording to a non-law third party. (There are still ethical issues with providing a copy to authorities when the incriminating information doesn't affect you, but that's beside the point.) For one, it's a huge breach of trust, but it could be very damaging for the non-consenting party. For instance, secretly recording a partners voice during sex and distributing that online would be pretty similar to revenge porn but in audio form. I don't think anybody would be "all for" that
Now this piqued my interest, so I took a look at Wikipedia[1]. Interestingly enough, England seems to allow recording phone calls without notifying the other party as long as it is only for personal use and not made available to a third party, but US Federal law does not seem to have such a stipulation, thus presumably allowing people in one-party consent states to post recordings of phone calls on social media without the other party's consent (unless the state forbids that. It's a bit hard to find concrete information on this), which is pretty troublesome I think. However that is only for telephone recordings and not for private conversations, so maybe the laws are a bit more sensible in that case.
One part of me is happy that someone impaired can use products from Google or MS and it will actually really improve their life. On the other hand you should not be putting privacy issues as secondary matters.
Governments have a lot of work to do and that is part of 'how things should be' for people to be equal.
I don't think 'people deserve things' but enabling people to be the best they can is government responsibility.
I'm as staunch a privacy advocate as anyone, but if a deaf person wants to give up their privacy in order to be able to "hear", who are we to stand in their way?
I'm not even sure which outcome I think I prefer, let alone which outcome is right.
It seems unfair for a hearing person to deny a deaf person the right to "hear" if he has a technological solution available, but it also seems unfair for the deaf person to be streaming everything the hearing person says to the cloud for analysis.
Maybe the deaf person can stream whatever he wants to the cloud, but you can refuse to talk in his presence if you don't want your speech to be streamed to the cloud?
Then people, because they have the right to know, pass legislation forcing deaf people to identify themselves in public. People refuse to have normal conversations with the deaf because they can't speak to them in confidence. Everyone is much worse off as a result.
The societal reaction to Google Glass was overwhelmingly negative, because it turns out that people don't want to be knowingly recorded all the time. Throw in some people that are easy to "other" and you have a pretty ugly situation on your hands.
Cochlear implants and hearing aids are available, and do work for people; throwing networking into the mix sounds really unnecessary, in the same way that a smart fridge talking to the internet does.
To be clear: cochlear implants and hearing aids cannot "fix" hearing. They are not a solution. Hearing isn't just volume—it's also clarity. I have profound hearing loss, and hearing aids help me to hear your voice, tone, and inflection, but I can't take the sounds I hear and turn them into words I can understand. Because of this, I rely entirely on lip reading for conversation, which is a poor, error-prone, and exhausting substitute.
Legislation focused on people with hearing impairments is exclusive and discriminatory. Legislation needs to instead focus on data use and storage.
Hearing loss is socially isolating and has tremendous impact on quality of life and opportunity. Only 20% of Canadians with profound hearing loss have full-time employment; 40% are unemployed and another 40% are underemployed.
Throwing "networking" into the mix, if it brings essentially real-world captions into the world for people with hearing loss, isn't on par with a smart fridge talking to the internet. It's a profoundly life-changing breakthrough that will improve the quality of life for 5-25% of the population that have some degree of hearing loss (2).
There are some people who can be helped with speech-to-text but who can't be helped by cochlear implants or hearing aids.
I completely agree that a speech-to-text tool for the deaf shouldn't be doing any networking, but in a (hypothetical or not) world where the only viable speech-to-text equipment is doing networking, what do we do?
I don't understand the question... What I wrote was that deaf person should not even ever consider giving up their privacy. They should have possibility to "hear" without giving up their privacy, and government should take care of it.
These types of glasses seem like they've been around for a while. Here's an article where they were introduced 6 years ago, they've been available in US movie theatres for a while. Also, not sure if this article is behind the times, but here's another article from a year ago where they talk about The National Theatre unveiling these glasses.
These glasses react to live speech and stage cues. The ones developed for movie theaters can be much simpler technology since the pacing of a movie never changes. You just have to sync to the subtitles once and then they are synced for the entirety of the movie. Theater performances can vary from show to show and therefore these glasses have to be able to continuously react and adjust in order to keep in sync.
The software that this article talks about is the big deal in this context. Having set up and run open caption systems for live theatre before I can say it can be really hard to do manually, so having software be able to do this effectively really is a feat.
I'm a big believer in the idea that accessibility will be the driving force behind technological change into the future.
The market for these type of cybernetic devices is driven primarily by people with accessibility needs; which is ironic, because only then the general population wants access to the same technology.
The economics behind this is pretty straightforward. Firstly, in my states, accessibility is subsidized by the government and health insurance. Secondly, because demand is low, the costs are incredibly high which allows the accessibility solution, whatever it is, to contain high-priced components.
Boston Dynamic's SpotMini is a recent example of a high-priced device designed for people with accessibility needs.
The article touches on a lot of the software and UX issues, but I don't really see much about the hardware.
> The theater has bought 50 pairs, at a cost of around $1,050 per pair
So pricey, yes, but who is currently selling anything like this? Things like the privacy of the contents of the display and the bulkiness of the unit are interesting aspects of this technology as applied to other use cases.
Searching for "heads-up display glasses" yields a bunch of actual products of varying appearence. I know AR is all the rage, and that's what most of these products seem to advertise, but even having some limited real-time data seems like it has enormous applications.
Looking into this more its using the Epson Smart Glasses,(1) and custom developed speech following software.(2) This is one of the first real practical applications of AR that I have seen available for the general public to use in public that would have a real impact on the users experience. To me this seems like something that the public could understand and widely accept as into in the the world of AR.
In the last Off-Broadway show I saw here in NYC (I Was Most Alive With You), they had sign-language interpreters signing for their respective actors on an elevated platform. It was a cool effect that suited the subject matter (it was a play about deafness whose main character is deaf), but obviously not practical for every play.
In another (Light Shining in Buckinghamshire) there were subtitles projected at the front of the room. You could get used to it, but it was somewhat distracting and not ideal. This approach seems much better!
Both plays were incredible, btw. Light Shining in Buckinghamshire blew my mind and I highly recommend picking up a copy if you haven't read/seen it.
My local theatre has ASL interpreters, available for select (?) shows, for patrons that are deaf or hard of hearing. They aren't up on a stage, though.
Does anyone know more about the underlying software? QLab[1] is the standard theatre light/sound/video/etc tool, and I can think of a couple of ways you could (in theory) build this in there. Is that what they did, or something else?
From what I can find and I believe it pretty much all custom right now. I would guess it has ether MSC or OSC to receive key cues from QLab or other show control, but actually being run by custom software.
Thats an expensive and dirty solution to a solved problem.
Many opera houses have subtitles in the backs of seats. While not as ideal as in your glasses, it is certainly more comfortable, cheaper to buy and maintain, and clean.
I get that you have to glance down now and then, as compared to the glasses, but I really think that's a cost worth living with.
Maybe.... Wiring up all the seats wouldn't be trivial, especially in a concrete building, like the National.
Also, and I'm speaking from sad experience here, it'd be waaaay easier to persuade a sponsor to underwrite branded glasses than it is to solicit donations for an infrastructure project.
Though they may be less robust, if the glasses break you can hand the patron another pair; when the seat-back LCD goes on the fritz you'll have to move them to another seat, which is always disruptive, and not always possible.
Overall, I suspect the glasses end up being much cheaper.
I assumed the parent was referring to an asynchronous, staticly rendered offline protocol running over paper. The cellulose displays are hosted in marsupial pouches stitched into the seat in front of you.
Perhaps I am mistaken and some theaters have gone full xzibit on all the seats.
Right now getting people to speak into a phone and getting the text creates a pretty unnatural (and usually short) interaction.