Subtitled phone calls for the hearing impaired. "Roger" means received and understood. Millions of persons worldwide with hearing impairment cannot use the phone. Roger instantly transcribes your phone conversations, in several languages, in any country, using any connected device.
Hi, yes it should be available Down Under. Sign up on www.rogervoice.com if you haven't already and you'll be notified of app release (expected around March).
This article first appeared in The Limping Chicken, the UK's top Deaf news and deaf blogs from the UK! "Lays eggs every weekday"Â
I’m sitting in an office, in a clean white shirt and tie, impatiently tapping my fingers on the desk. My coworkers, Javier and Franck, are opposite me. A conference call is underway and the phone is on loudspeaker mode. I look intently at them for a while, then my attention wanders off.
I grew up with a hearing loss. Communication has never been something I took for granted. But rather as an experience in itself.
Born and raised in California, schooled at UC Berkeley, I became captivated by life in Europe, and challenges in general. I love adventure and travels. My deafness has not stopped me from mastering several languages – English, French, and Spanish.
I can lip-read at an astounding rate, and catch most of what other people say.
Lip-reading however is not an exact science. It’s a lot of guesswork, which I do almost unconsciously. But at the end of the day, I’m usually drained from the sheer effort.
At my office, Franck is handling the call and Javier asks with a raised eyebrow if I’m fine. I flash back a smile and a thumbs-up. But in fact, I had no clue what is being said on the line.
My coworkers understand though. Javier indicates the call is boring and not worth following. He then types on his screen “they’re saying the new business plan needs to be revised.” Why? I ask. “It’s complicated. I’ll explain later.” I drum my fingers again.Â
Because of my deafness, I am not able to use a telephone. It is something I just learned to get by without, or to ask others to handle for me. I manage most situations just fine with SMS and email. But it always seems to me like my life would be so much easier if I could just pick up a phone. And call. Anyone. In any language.
After my studies I eventually spent a career at Orange. The irony of being deaf and working for a telecom operator hadn’t escaped me.
America has had a phone relay system in place since the 1990’s. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Only a handful of countries have such a system. The rest of the world doesn’t.
Technology, I felt, would eventually change the game. There just had to be a way to make telephone conversations universally accessible even for the deaf.
I teamed up with a friend, Sidney Burks, and explained my challenge. A talented coder and problem solver, Sidney switched careers after his PhD in quantum physics to pursue programming. Together with another friend and serial entrepreneur, Pablo Seuc-Rocher, we’ve cooked up various schemes to change the world.
This time, I wanted to change my own life. I wanted to stop depending on others to handle a conference call, dial a plumber, or even just to call my parents.
“Impossible, it’s not going to work” said Sidney. “That’s why we can do it!” I countered.
So this year at age 33 I quit my job and launched RogerVoice.
When people start talking about accessibility, handicap access, or disability services in general, what generally comes to mind are infrastructure regulations, costly adaptations, governmental standards, expensive equipment, burdensome care … basically, nightmare scenarios.
When I was a student in Paris, I wasn’t all that surprised to discover that the school had no disabled student services. After all, I am an American, and this was the Old World. Still, I enquired at the administration desk. “Course note-taking services? No, we’re sorry, but that is not possible.” I was met with looks of disbelief.
Before arriving in Paris, I had just completed a four-year degree at UC Berkeley. The administration staff had contacted me even before I had arrived on campus, asking if I needed any special services. Since I was hard-of-hearing, they suggested paying students in each of my classes to be my note-takers. The students were given carbon copy sheets of notepaper. I sat next to them as they wrote the notes, to better follow the classroom lectures. At the end of each course I was given the copy of the notes.
These and other such services were not disproportionally costly nor burdensome. The campus had a thriving disability community.
In Paris, I approached my school’s administration with a proposal to launch such basic-level accessibility services. I was told that they had already researched into it. “Have you put anything in place?” No, but they had a stack of paper listing 40 proposals. They didn’t know where to start, and the challenge seemed daunting, not to mention costly and time-consuming.
To achieve big goals, take small steps
Eventually I persuaded the school to set up a website where students could get information about accessibility services. They could contact the right person in the administration to address their concerns. With the support of school administration and minimal expenses, efficient adaptations went a long way to providing a better experience for disabled students.
Applying common sense created an optimal response to an imperfect environment. These small measures addressed 80% of the issues on accessibility that the school faced. And slowly but surely they began their gradual awareness of and transition towards accessible services. So that they would eventually be able to make the push to address the remaining 20% of issues.
The name of that elite institution? Sciences Po Paris.
Accessibility is a big goal. It doesn’t matter how smart you are or how big the goal. Start small. Use common sense. And you will get to your destination.
Through the concerted effort of individuals, today Sciences Po Paris boasts of being one of France’s leading disability-friendly schools.
Eye-opening visit to Gallaudet University, Washington D.C.
Gallaudet is the most famous school for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. The state-of-the art facility provides a total immersive educational experience.
Classrooms are designed so students face each other and rotating cameras capture speaker's and student's hand signs for later note-taking.
The buildings are designed with abundant light and space.Â
The visit was held with delegates from Bauman University, Russia. Bauman also boasts facilities specifically designed with the deaf and hard-of-hearing in mind.
These features could benefit any student, not just the hearing impaired. Imagine having such a well-connected and well-designed campus!
Thanks to everyone that's been sending us news about Microsoft Skype's new translation feature. It's good to know we have a loyal following. And yes, it's a pretty incredible announcement. Let me break it down a bit, though.Â
Microsoft made a first announcement way back in 2010 with Frank Seide's Transcriptor service. In 2012 their R&D director Rick Rashid made a big show of it in Hong Kong. I've written about it on my blog back in February.
Text-to-speech has been around for half a century, and automatic translation can be had on everyone's smartphone.Â
What's the hype now? New Microsoft CEO comes along. There was probably a board meeting last month "Ok guys, I'm stewing here. Let's make an announcement. What have we got?" -- "But sir, that Translator isn't ready, it's total alphabet soup." -- "I don't care, put it out there. It makes a good story."
So they're announcing "experimental release" this year. For Skype-to-Skype calls. And it's expected to be ready for public release in ... 2017.
Google also made an announcement for a similar product back in January. Google Glass with Transcription and Translation... coming soon!
This is all great news, and I'm really looking forward to all of this BabelFish stuff. When and if it gets released. But right now, there's a solution we can already deploy, which addresses concrete problems. A real-time captioned telephone for the hearing impaired, to any phone number, in any language.
Roger that?
www.rogervoice.com (new website revamp this week!)
We all have our misconceptions. I have one about the government: the big bully in the school playground, pushing around the little guys. That's how I felt as I entered the National Assembly (French Congress) this morning. But by the time I walked out, I had quite a different feeling.
Certainly, they're still big. And not always very fast. But now, new technologies are changing the rules of the game.
Like in Road Dahl's story, the Big Friendly Giant, governments are listening, and we hope they're learning from the little guys.Â
Here we are, Sidney Burks and Olivier Jeannel, on a bright Paris morning in front of 200 early risers, with a very humble and charismatic Muhammad Yunus listening next to us on stage.Â
Thanks to SenseCube & Danone Communities for the event. Thanks to Muhammad Yunus and Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem for listening.Â
Photo @olivierperri Â
Is there such a thing as social business? Apparently, Nobel peace prize laureate Muhammad Yunus thinks so, and has proven it. His initiative, the Grameen Bank, has improved the lives of millions through micro-credit schemes in third-world countries.Â
Makesense is a 15 000 strong global community. Their focus is on socially responsible projects that make a difference in people's lives. MakeSense have recently launched a program for startups called SenseCube. And we are in the very first exclusive batch of 5 selected projects!
Come discover the other fantastic SenseCube projects here  http://www.sensecube.cc/our-startups/Â
French mobile operator SFR awards best prize for digital services to RogerVoice. Â Here is a link to the press release (in French).
Earlier this year, on a whim, we had decided to apply for SFR's contest Startup Jeunes Talents. Last month we were amazed to find out that we were finalists in not one but three different categories. Audience's Choice, Cloud Services, and Digital Innovation. We were happy to win one of these (otherwise we'd be accused of doing a hold-up!)Â
What's in it for us? An exclusive partnership with SFR along with communication and distribution opportunities.Â
Posted on February 25, 2014 on The Limping Chicken Deaf news and deaf blogs from the UK! Lays eggs every weekday.
Last month I wrote an article about new years resolutions and one of those resolutions was to try to use the phone a bit more.
This had generally been going quite well…up until last week.
You see phones are somewhat of an arch nemesis for me.
I can hear enough over the phone to know that someone’s talking but not enough to know what they’re talking about. A recent example would be when my Nan’s friend Maureen called and I thought it was a gardening client called Marion.
Now, there are rare occasions when everything goes very smoothly and the person at the other end of the phone probably has no idea that I’m Deaf.
“No problem!” I thought, “I can do this all online!”. So there I was, happily typing and clicking away….and then….THE HORROR!
It was of course, the van insurance company I was looking at online. Suddenly random words came tumbling out of the telephone.
At first I tried to struggle through the conversation but before long, I admitted defeat.
But their verbal onslaught continued at a slightly increased volume.
I tried to remain calm as panic at times like this only make things worse. After a few deep breaths I just about managed to make out his last sentence.
My card details?! Who was this man who wanted my money? Who did he work for? And would I still get my free meerkat?
All of these questions buzzed around my head as the man’s voice became more confounding. I tried to reason with him yet again.
The voice continued, unwavering and so I did what any sane 28 year old woman would do. I cried for my dad.
According to my father, the man on the phone was saying it would cost less to purchase insurance over the phone than it would online….despite quoting me the exact same price.
Now, call me paranoid but I still didn’t want to give this guy my card details over the phone and so I purchased the insurance online, where I could see all the information laid out in front of me. All done and dusted….or was it?
I went straight to dad this time and sure enough, it was the same man. Apparently there was a mistake in my policy that needed to be fixed and would cost me an extra ÂŁ60.
My rage began to boil.
My father tried to explain that any mistakes due to miscommunication were not my fault and I should not be penalised for one small amendment. The man’s overall response was “OK, but your policy might be void if you ever need it.”
Did I just pay hundreds of pounds for a void, useless policy?!
I was not a happy bunny.
One last phone call had to be made…by dad again.
This time we got through to a female employee and explained the situation. She replied with a pleasant and somewhat frustrating; “That’s no problem, a tiny amendment like that wont cost a thing. It doesn’t really effect the policy anyway.”
And that, was that.Â
Drama over.Â
The van is finally insured and all that’s left to do is cancel the old insurance renewal…which apparently can only be done over the phone for security reasons.Â
Il y a aussi de rares occasions où tout se passe très bien et où la personne à l’autre bout du fil ne se rend même pas compte que je suis sourde.
Ils ne s’en rendront jamais compte ! Ahahahaha !
Mais la semaine dernière, quelque chose d’horrible s’est produit… j’ai dĂ» renouveler l’assurance de ma camionnette.Â
Mes informations de carte bancaire ?! Pourquoi cet homme voulait-il mon argent ? Pour qui travaillait-il ? Et est-ce que je recevrais quand même mon suricate en cadeau ?
This is only the latest in a series of cutting edge developments we have done pairing speech technology and telecommunications. It's hard work. At over 6 prototypes and counting, we're getting ever so much nearer to our goal: providing you with an easy way to have instant written transcriptions of a phone call. Â
And there's more to come. We know we've been keeping you on your toes. We're impatient as well, and we hope to share our work soon !Â
The French startup scene does not lack for accelerators, incubators, and a whole host of state-funded innovation programs. But TheFamily really stands out from the lot with their youthful spirit and game-changing approach. And we're proud indeed to have them support our project. Check out their website. And why not try it out for yourself!Â
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