Latest from The Guardian about myFriend
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- Category: Uncategorised
- Published on Wednesday, 02 May 2012 14:22
- Written by David Jackson
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Jack Schofield has written an article for The Guardian about various telecommunication systems for Deaf people. He quotes about myFriend "...such as myFriend. This offers a fantastic array of options for deaf people, including video, audio and real-time text calls.....(video is important because it allows for sign language and lip-reading.)"
You will find the full article in
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/askjack/2012/apr/26/ask-jack-type-talk-deaf-telecoms
Uk Partners
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- Category: Uncategorised
- Published on Monday, 09 May 2011 13:56
- Written by Super User
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The Centre for Deaf Studies
The Centre for Deaf Studies at the University of Bristol opened in 1978 and was Europe's first academic institution to concentrate solely on research and education that aims to benefit the Deaf community. The majority of teaching staff on the programme are Deaf and all tutors sign. Students at the Centre for Deaf Studies in Bristol will study within a bilingual environment, with an emphasis on acquiring fluency in British Sign Language (BSL).
The first research work began at CDS in 1978 with a study of how people learn and use BSL and was then broadened by further work in the Deaf community. Since then CDS have expanded their work in five main areas:
- The study of sign language and sign linguistics
- The study of sign language acquisition
- Deaf community, Deaf culture and Deafhood
- Cognition, mental health, education
- Video telecommunications, video information and e-learning
CDS Role in REACH112
User identification, training, installations, support to users and evaluation procedures and reporting protocols
www.bris.ac.uk/deaf -
AuPix
AuPix is a telecommunications company based in Bristol. Since 1993 the team at AuPix has been working on the video telephony endpoints for Deaf and Hard of Hearing people.
From early 2006 AuPix has also been supplying the infrastructure to enable video telephony calls over the internet.
The products are desktop videophones, PC based softclients, Video PBXs and a Video Call Centre Currently the company's products are being used by two Video Relay Services in the USA They generate 100's of thousands of VRS minutes every month.
Aupix Role:
- Creation & management of network infrastructure
- Provision of TC client
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RNID
Largest charity working to change the world for the UK's 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people (Membership charity, 37,000+ members)
We aim to achieve a radically better quality of life for deaf and hard of hearing people by:
- Campaigning and lobbying vigorously
- Raising awareness of deafness and hearing loss
- Providing services
- Research and Development
- Partnerships
RNID Role:
- Provide access to existing TextRelay
- Use of standard T140 text in TalkByText, a text only system with editions for Windows on the Internet and Mobile phones via the Internet
- Links for MyFriend TC application to existing user base of TalkByText and textphone users
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Avon Fire and Rescue Service
Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AF&RS) provides emergency and protection services to the communities of Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, ensuring a safer place to live and work for a population of more than one million people.
- fire stations and eight Community Safety Centres.
- Attended 13,181 incidents in 2010.
- Staffed by more than 1,000 people, including approximately 902 operational firefighters and Fire Control Operators and 167 support staff.
- Promotes community safety through events and education work and attends a wide range of incidents and emergencies from road traffic collisions and fires, to flooding and chemical spills.
AF&RS role in Reach 112
- Train contact centre staff and relay services.
- Enable Total Conversation within the emergency control centre for the pilot period.
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Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Covers a population of almost 1.5 million people
The Communications Department deals with:
- All non-emergency calls
- All emergency calls through 999 and
- Subsequent dispatch and control of operational resources to manage incidents.
April 2007 to March 2008:
- 347,108 emergency calls,
- 843,640 non emergency calls and
- Carried out 112,838 Crime Recording operations
Communication centres are based at Portishead and Taunton.
Avon and Somerset Constabulary Role
- enable TC in the communications centre during the pilot
- evaluate the interactions with disabled users
Information
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- Category: Uncategorised
- Published on Monday, 09 May 2011 13:52
- Written by Super User
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REACH112: REsponding to All Citizens needing Help
The goal of the REACH112 project is to make 'telephones' accessible for all people. That includes the range of services from person to person communication right through to 999/112 Emergency Services. The solution is to add video and real-time text to the calls (forming Total Conversation TC - a European standard) so that it is possible to continue to connect to voice telephones. The benefit of adding video is that sign language, lip-reading and general face recognition can be used. The benefit of adding real-time text (RTT) (where the users can see each other's text as it is being typed) is that a rapid text conversation can be performed when one or both users have limited use of voice or video for communication.
The concept is presented simply in the illustration. In the UK, users will be able to see each other when they call, will be able to use interpreter relay services (from May 2010) and will also be able to reach 999 services directly (from January 2011). They will be able to use standard telephone numbers and will be reachable by textphone users and by hearing people who will be automatically routed to the interpreting service.
In a nutshell, there are to be
- 1200 home installations of TC & RTT
- Creation of TC relay service
- New framework for registration, download and online support service to users
- Network infrastructure validation
- Installations of TC in contact centres for direct routing
- Interface to textphones & text relay & 112
- Testing of all components from user to contact centre
- Collection of user data, analysis and reporting
- Creation of business model and sustainability
More details on the project can be found at www.reach112.eu. There are 22 partners in the project include major telecoms companies, as well as Deaf and hearing organisations in five countries. The emergency services are also partners. The work is to be analysed and reported on as a pilot which is of strategic importance to European policy making for future emergency service arrangements throughout Europe. The project is supported by co-funding from the EC ICT PSP for €4.4m. ( http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/ict_psp/index_en.htm) For more information contact: JLIB_HTML_CLOAKING
Sign Up
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- Category: Uncategorised
- Published on Monday, 09 May 2011 13:54
- Written by Super User
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To sign up to the project please visit the UK distribution website www.myfriendcentral.com, here you can download the software and start chatting straightaway.