My wife and I were in NYC recently and had the opportunity to attend the Broadway play “Wicked.” In exchange for my driver’s license, I was given a podcast much like what you have pictured above. All spoken/sung words popped up pretty much as the actors spoke/sang them. I don’t know exactly how they got the timing down if it was all pre-recorded but it WAS very cool and I didn’t miss too much of the play. This brings to mind Shane’s earlier article on accessibility technology for deaf people going to the movies… I’d hate to have to hold a podcast while watching a movie but I’d gladly accept it if nothing else were available… (otherwise I think I’d prefer open captioning or rear-captioning).

Good article! Welcome to DeafDC!

what sign language are they using at the Tate? BSL is a completely different language. I’m more interested in seeing English text translations of presentations.

I hope to gather a local consensus that will provide a voice for support. I want to be able to propose an idea with confidence that deaf people will use it and make the spending worth it. What are YOUR suggestions for getting the ball rolling?

This really does sound interesting, and it just further enhances my desire to get over for a visit to the British Isles. I have a friend (although hearing) who lives in England, and maybe I could ask her to just check it out. For that matter, I did have Deaf contacts in England, although I haven’t talked to any of them for awhile. Wonder if any of us know individuals who might be willing to check these gadgets out and report back to us?

I agree with both Josh and Deaf Pundit - I’d love to see these devices at various sites such as the Smithsonian. Hmmmm…we have the Lincoln Museum here in Springfield where I live - might be worthwhile to see if they would like to look into such devices. I might check into that.

My only little concern, and I apologize for being a “party pooper” in bringing this up - but what about the possibility of people walking out of the building with these things? Or is there really any point to doing so? Could a techno-geek find a way to reprogram these things to use them for other purposes or what?

Sorry to sound so cynical, just that I recall when I went to some tourist site with an interpreter friend who asked for one of their hand-held “tape recorders” that contained a recorded description of the various sights, etc. on the “do-it-yourself” tour, we were told they were no longer available, because people kept leaving with them instead of returning them. Guess they wanted to keep the recorded information as a souvenir!