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Below is a link to an interesting article from The New York Times about engineers at the University of Washington creating a technology able to transmit American Sign Language (ASL) via mobile devices. They are also running a study using this technology.
What is interesting is that MobileASL should work on any phone with a video camera, unlike current technology which can only be used on 3G phones. Additionally, MobileASL will take up less bandwidth. Does anyone know of anything similar technologies or similar studies? Or is anyone out there participating in this study and want to share their experiences? For more please click here.
Engineers at the University of Washington are developing the first mobile technology able to transmit American Sign Language (ASL) over cellular networks. The software called MobileASL currently runs on phones imported from Europe while being tested, but it could be configured to run on any device in the near future.
If you’re wondering how the engineers are claiming “first” when video conferencing solutions, most notably Apple’s FaceTime and mobile video applications like Fring, already provide face-to-face communications ideal for signing, the difference is in the technology behind mobileASL itself.
Non-profit social media expert Beth Kanter posted an interesting analysis of social media’s role in emergencies on her blog yesterday.
Indeed, the geo-platform Ushahidi, which allows users to crowdsource crisis information to be sent via mobile devices, assisted many survivors, aid workers, and organizations during the Haiti crisis (most would say it played a critical role). AWARE Forum did a spotlight on the crowdsourcing phenomenon back in June.
However, the question is whether or not social media is becoming a viable outlet for all sorts of other disasters, crises, or emergencies? Can the Ushahidi effect extend to our daily lives?
According to a new American Red Cross survey, 49 percent of web users would either “probably” or “definitely” use social media to “let loved ones know they are safe.” Also, 69 percent of web users expected emergency responders to be “monitoring social media sites” to send help; in fact, 74 percent expected help within an hour of their tweet or Facebook post.
This is a brand new phenomenon, and it’ll be interesting to see how emergency responders adapt within the next couple of years (especially in conjunction with traditional 9-1-1 calls). The rise of social media has given the general public a viable and extremely fast way of broadcasting their status—good or bad—to their family and friends, but there are few cases where such status updates have been used for such utilitarian purposes.
Twitter was originally started as a quick SMS service within small groups, to the great benefit of fire departments: now are they ready to listen outward?
For the original article on Beth’s blog, go here.
Let us know in the comments what you think: is social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) a viable option for emergencies updates and responses in your daily life?
In order for alert and warning messages to be interoperable among the various stakeholders, we all need to be talking the same “language”. One organization promoting this standardization in emergency alerting is OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. OASIS is developing a family of standards it calls the Emergency Data eXchange Language, or EDXL. One EDXL standard that AWARE readers may be familiar with is CAP, the Common Alerting Protocol. Other EDXL standards deal with hospital availability, resource messaging, situation reporting (sit-reps), and the distribution and security of emergency messages.
OASIS recently presented a webinar called EDXL101, which explains the features of the various EDXL standards. This webinar has been archived and is now available for viewing. During the live presentation, over 100 people logged in to watch it. Anyone with an interest in alerts and warnings will find this webinar valuable. It is especially helpful for developers looking to incorporate these protocols in an alert and warning product line. Implementers and originators of emergency alerts will also get a good overview of the protocols available and how they might be used. Interoperability is an important priority in the alerts and warnings field, and EDXL101 is an excellent opportunity to learn the latest on where emerging standards are currently at. The archived EDXL101 webinar and slide set can be viewed at: www.oasis-open.org/events/webinars/
