Author Archives: pbravin

Interesting Stories on Using Mobile Devices (#1)

Dr. Z has been on the road and while on the road he picks up interesting stories on how people use mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone or the iPod Touch.

One story he picked up the other day is as follows:

A deaf couple went on vacation and asked their oldest daughter to house sit and dog sit their dog.

One night, the daughter came home and found out that she misplaced the key to the house and she called her parents via video (she had an iPhone 4.)

The parents explained where the key was hidden but the daughter couldn’t locate the key so the parents asked the daughter to use her phone to show the parents where she was in the garage and with more guidance and the daughter moving the camera phone all over the garage and that led her to a drawer. The parents then told her to have the camera view the drawer and they explained where the key was hidden.

Lo and behold–the key was found and the daughter went in the house and the dog, the parents and the daughter lived happily ever after.

Thanks to a mobile phone!

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

FaceTime for the Mac-(Smartphone Update #5)

Yoo Hoo!

Now there is another way to communicate with the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch using video?

How?

Apple has just announced FaceTime for the Mac. This means you can use your Mac (and its built-in webcam) to communicate via video with another Mac, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch (4th generation).

The video quality is so clear and astounding–you have to see it to believe it!

The Mac can either be connected via Ethernet (blue wire) or wireless–the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch can be used wirelessly (but not 3G or 4G).

This means when you are traveling and in a wifi hotspot, you can call your family and friends who have a Mac via video!

For ZVRS relay calls, you can use the Z4 downloaded to the Mac and the ZVRS app downloaded to the iPhone 4 and iPod Touch.

Every week, we are getting more communication choices.

We are getting more independent in communication.

For a video demostrating FaceTime for the Mac, click this link.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

Editorial #67-3 Things the Hearing People Have the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community to Thank For

Dr. Z did some research and looking back on technological developments the past 100 years, he has identified 3 things that hearing people have the deaf and hard of hearing people to thank for.

The first is the telephone-which supposedly came about while Alexander Graham Bell was working on an hearing aid for his deaf wife, Mabel. Out of that work, he came up with the telephone, which the deaf people didn’t have full benefit until almost 75 years later with the development of the TTY modem by Robert Weitbrecht.

The second thing is closed captioning. When the concept was first brought to the public in the 1970’s, the hearing community found it distracting and they went back to the drawing boards and made captioning “closed” instead of “open”. Today, we see captioning in bars and gyms and well-used by hearing people. Without captioning, they would be “deaf” in those environments to enjoy TV.

The deaf people were quick to pick up video communication when it was first commercialized in 1999. For the past 11 years, the hearing community used video only in business environments to cut down on travel costs, and they did not think it would be useful in the consumer community–preferring voice communication instead. With the introduction of the Apple iPhone with FaceTime, the HTC EVO, the Apple iPod Touch and the Samsung Epic so far this year with front-facing cameras–the concept of video communication has been well received by the hearing community. The video app “Tango” for smartphones was downloaded a million times in just 10 days.

The bottom line–with a diverse community worldwide–each segment of the community has values and developments that benefit the rest of the community–this is true with those 3 developments Dr. Z just mentioned.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

Editorial #66-132 Years of the Videophone: From Futuristic Fantasy to Flops to FaceTime-A Guest Article by Technologizer (A Blog)

Is a videophone a new invention? This link will link you to a slide show on a well-known blog (Technologizer) which shows 14 slides of 132 years of the videophone.

Dr. Z remembers seeing his first videophone at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and he had a videophone for his computer with a webcam in the late 1990’s. Now we have the videophone reduced to a small size like the Apple iPhone 4, the iPod Touch and the Samsung Epic.

Enjoy this link.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

I Have a Blackberry…how can I do mobile video?–iPod Touch!

Dr. Z has been analyzing various ways as to how you all out there use your pagers and smartphones.

Many of you with Blackberries and Sidekicks do not want to get out of your 2-year commitment with your provider (ATT, Verizon, T-Mobile.)

But you want to do mobile video–how??

Simple–get an iPod Touch from Apple, download the ZVRS app to call your hearing friends or relatives via ZVRS video relay. Use FaceTime that comes with the iPod Touch to call other iPod Touch and iPhone 4 devices–then you have mobile video!

But does that mean you have to pay a monthly charge for your iPod Touch? The answer is a resounding NO! No monthly charge to do mobile video with the iPod Touch? Yes, that’s right. How come? The iPod Touch works only in a wifi environment. You can find wifi in public places such as McDonalds or Starbucks or in your home if you have a wireless router. Wifi is usually free and that is why you do not need a monthly charge.

When your Blackberry’s 2-year commitment expires, you have a choice of keeping your Blackberry or get a new Blackberry because you still have the iPod Touch for video. If you want to do video in a 3G environment, you can get a new Samsung Epic and you can give your iPod Touch to one of your family members–it is a very useful device with many features and you can play games on the device.

You can start your mobile video experience TODAY with an iPod Touch, without the need to wait for the end of your 2-year commitment for your Blackberry or Sidekick.

If you have any questions, send a message to Dr. Z using the contact box on the upper left corner of this web page.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

Editorial #65-FCC Proposes New Rules for 800 Numbers–Proposes Use of Local Numbers as Primary Numbers-Not 800/866/877 for VRS

The FCC has issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on September 17, 2010. It should be published in the Federal Register anytime now to set the clock for comments and reply comments (within 30 and 45 days.)

In the discussion leading to the proposed rules, the FCC states that “our goal is to encourage iTRS users (current deaf and hard of hearing users who have a local number on the national data base) to use the local number as their primary—and in most cases exclusive—telephone number.” This could be interpreted to mean that the FCC wants to discourage VRS users from using 800/866/877 numbers as their primary number and to require everyone to use local numbers as their primary number. The 800/866/877 numbers will continue to be available using a different method.

The proposed rules are as follows:

The provision of 800/866/877 numbers shall not be automatic. This means local numbers will be given with each videophone, not 800/866/877 numbers.
The issuance of 800/866/877 numbers shall be provided by a toll free provider and be billed to the deaf/hard of hearing user. The VRS provider shall transfer the number to the toll free provider at the request of the deaf/hard of hearing user. This works the same way for hearing people today.
The FCC is not responsible for the cost of a 800/866/877 number and will not pay for any administration costs to any VRS provider.
The toll-free number if used, shall be tied (or mapped) to the deaf/hard of hearing user’s local number.

There are other items that the FCC wants comment on such as having a transition period to enable deaf/hard of hearing users who do not want to pay for a 800/866/877 number to inform their inbound callers of the change to a local number; doing an outreach program to educate consumers about the change in rules and other things.

Bear in mind these are “proposed’ rules. After comments, and reply comments, some of the proposed rules might change. It is now up to us all to comment to the FCC on these proposed rules. Dr. Z is of the opinion that those rules are fair, and functionally equivalent–being like what the hearing people have today. The transition period and the outreach is going to be important to be sure deaf and hard of hearing people do not lose their inbound calling capability if they do not switch to their local numbers.

The document can be found at the FCC website with this link.

Dr. Z (and the FCC) cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

What is Wifi? Where can I find a hotspot?

Dr. Z has received those questions on the web and in person when he speaks at events.

The latest mobile phones/devices such as the Apple iPod, IPhone 4, HTC EVO and the Samsung Epic use wifi to do video communication. For some of these devices, you can use a 3G (cellular connection) to make video calls, but for this blog, Dr. Z is focusing on wifi.

What is wifi? It is a router which makes it possible to have a wireless connection at high speed. You normally do not find wifi on highways for example. But more and more public places have wifi coverage. If you are in a place that has wifi coverage, this means you can use those devices mentioned above to do video communication. For the most part, wifi video usually is of high quality. If you want wifi in your home, you need a router that is wifi enabled–it usually comes with an antenna or two.

A wifi hotspot means that the place where the hotspot is has wifi coverage. As an example, the following public places usually have wifi coverage: Mc Donalds, Barnes and Noble, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Panera Bread, many hotels and motels, and rest areas on highways. Most wifi hotspots have a sign at the door where they are to tell the public that that place has wifi. You can download apps on the devices to tell you where the closest wifi hot spot is.

In the coming months, it is expected that the number of hotspots will grow, which means you will have more places to have high quality video communication.

If you have any questions, send a message to Dr. Z using the contact box on the upper left corner of this web page.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

P.S. Dr. Z is traveling and he apologizes for not having a vlog to accompany this blog.

How to Use Your iPhone and iPod Touch with ZVRS-Learn with Dr. Z

Dr. Z at a recent Deaf Nation show met many customers who were interested in the Apple iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch for video communication. As can be expected with any new product, they had questions to ask and Dr. Z had both models on hand to demonstrate and they left our booth awed! This blog/vlog will explain how one should set up their iPhone 4 and iPod Touch so they can use it for video communication and also with the ZVRS video interpreter.

Some things one must do before you start using the iPhone 4 and the iPod Touch for video communication and they have to be done in this order:

Set up an iTunes account on apple.com
Set up a profile with ZVRS on zvrs.com (if you have done this already, no need to do this again.)
Download the ZVRS app from the iTunes store. It can be done in either of 2 ways, downloading it to your iTunes account on your computer and syncing it with your iPhone or iPod Touch OR click the “Applications” icon on your device, search “ZVRS” and then click “FREE” to download it to your device. It will ask for your password. Use the same password you used when you set up your iTunes account with Apple.
Enable FaceTime on your device by clicking the “Settings” icon and scrolling down to “FaceTime” and click FaceTime and turn FaceTime “ON.”

To make calls to other iPhone and iPod users, click contacts and click the button which has the FaceTime icon (video camera.) You will be connected in about 15-30 seconds.

To make calls using ZVRS to a hearing person, click the ZVRS icon and use either “Call Contacts” if you already have that person’s phone number on your contacts list on your device or “Dial Number” if you are calling the hearing person just once or do not have that person’s number on your contacts list.

At this point, you should be all set to make calls and live “happily ever after.”

For more step by step information, you can click any of the following links:

– www.zvrs.com/iphone

– www.zvrs.com/ipodtouch

– www.drzvrs.com/learn

If you have any questions, send a message to Dr. Z using the contact box on the upper left corner of this web page.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

Editorial #64-A Race to a New Telecommunications Paradigm-A Guest Blog by Cousin Vinny

From time to time, Dr. Z puts up blogs from other bloggers–some of whom are independent of ZVRS but have thoughts that Dr. Z feels you all need to be aware of.

In our history, we have seen how new inventions or technologies have changed how people behave, think and live. The blog by Cousin Vinny is one example–he gives an insight into how he sees the VRS industry changing with what is coming down the road (some of which have come on the scene in recent months and weeks.) Recently, Dr. Z wrote a blog on “What will Videophones in the Future Look Like?” If you read Cousin Vinny’s blog and then read my blog, you will understand why things are happening the way they are.

A common term to describe a major change is “paradigm shift” which according to Wikipedia is “change in a fundamental model of events.” We have VRS as a fundamental model–the VRS industry is 10 years old today and the past few months we have seen many events that are accelerating the change, such as the FCC and the emergence of mobile devices.

To read Cousin Vinny’s blog, click this link.

To read Dr. Z’s editorial on what videophones in the future will look like, click this link.

You can read the text of the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry (NOI) with this link. The NOI asks a lot of questions that impact the industry.

Dr. Z wants to express his appreciation to Cousin Vinny for allowing him to share his blog. Note that he wrote this last June, not in recent days.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.

ZVRS for the Apple iPod Touch-(Smartphone Update #4)

ZVRS has announced a new app for the Apple iPod Touch. This means you can make relay calls using ZVRS from an iPod Touch. You can download the app from the Apple iTunes store. It is a free app.

You can connect with other FaceTime users by their email addresses. Remember, it works with other FaceTime devices–meaning just Apple devices such as the iPod Touch and the iPhone 4–it will NOT work with other videophones such as the Z-series (Z-150, Z-340, Z-Ojo and the Z4, or the VP-200.) Be aware that to make video calls on the iPod Touch, you need to be in an area where there is wifi coverage.

The iPod Touch comes in 3 models, priced from $229 to $399, depending on how much memory you want. The amount of memory does not change the function of the iPod Touch, it just allows you to hold more videos, more music. For more info, go to the Apple website using this link.

For another video demonstrating the ZVRS app for the iPod touch click on this link. This video is not captioned yet.

For more information and FAQ’s on the ZVRS app for the iPod Touch, click on this link.

We are getting more independent in communication.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.