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Archive for the ‘International News & Events’ Category

GraciasVRS and ASL at Deafnation 2010

Monday, July 5th, 2010

LOCATION:
Sands Expo and Convention Center
201 Sands Ave
Las Vegas, NV 89109

DATES:
Monday, July 19th through Thursday, July 22nd and the hours are from 9am-5pm each day.

Life or Deaf Presentation Times:
In an Emergency You Can Make a Difference. GraciasVRS Presents: It’s a Matter of Life and Deaf”
Tuesday, July 20th at 10am and Thursday, July 22nd at 11am

COST to the public: FREE

The 2010 DeafNation World Expo will be held at the Sands Expo Center, the perfect place to truly bring the Deaf together under one roof. The World Expo will take place at Sand Expo’s 200,000 sq. feet exhibit hall, where exhibitions, workshops, entertainment, sporting activities, activities for the children and so on will come together to provide four full days’ worth of many hours of presentations, education and socializing for the attendees. The best thing about the World Expo, aside from the socializing and cultural/language opportunities, will be the free admission to all events.

The Deaf Nation World Expo philosophy is that free admission brings a diversity of attendees who can share our culture, needs, language, and information. Overall, their goal is to give everyone the chance to meet new people from all the corners of the world, ranging anywhere from historical regions like Europe, the Americas and Africa to exotic regions like Asia and Australia, and learn new languages, new cultures and new traditions, which will be all done under one great roof.

GraciasVRS and ASL Services, Inc. support that philosophy and will be participating at the event. Come stop by our GraciasVRS booth and take a memorable picture with Elvis and friends. Also be sure to stop by our ASL Services, Inc. booth to get the latest information on innovative technology for VRI (Video Remote Interpreting) Services. VRI supports the needs for Professional Sign Language Interpreters to be available through technology to interpret for Deaf Clients. Professional Sign Language Interpreting Services are now available within minutes not only locally, but throughout United States and around the globe.

Make your plans right now and come be a part of the DeafNation World Expo, the largest Deaf event there is in the world!

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Let’s Start a Letter Chain to Help Our Deaf Chilean Brothers and Sisters

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Gracias VRS received this letter below from concerned parties in Chile and support these efforts. Here is the letter we received and we encourage anyone interested in helping to support their cause.

Good afternoon dear colleagues.

We, a group of interpreters from Spain, Uruguay, Colombia and Brazil, invite all of you to join in an initiative to send hundreds of emails to officials of the Chilean Government and the media asking them to allow Chilean Sign Language interpreters to volunteer their services to the various television media in order to provide timely, rapid and inclusive information to the affected deaf population.

If you agree with this message, you may copy it and ask that many more colleagues send it to the email addresses included below. Please note that this is voluntary:

The following should be included in the subject: “Yes” to the right to information for Deaf people in Chile, “Yes” to interpreters on television for all information.

Dear sirs and madams:

We have received news that, after the earthquake in Chile, deaf people do NOT have access to much needed information in this time of anguish and emergency.

The main national television networks are not allowing sign language interpreters to provide their services for all televised news that is being transmitted, in violation as such of a fundamental right to information. It is inhumane not to allow the Deaf people of Chile to count on their interpreters for all of the daily news shown on television. This is as catastrophic as the earthquake itself. There are many Deaf people who lack information, who do not know where to go to receive help or some support from the government, and much less where to learn the magnitude of this tragedy.

That is why we turn to you, to condemn this injustice which is in violation of Article 11 of the CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES, which states:

“States Parties shall take, in accordance with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law, all necessary measures to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies and the occurrence of natural disasters.”

This is a matter of humanitarian support upheld by the rights that Deaf people have to place them on equal footing as hearing people in Chile.

We all demand: “Yes” to the right to information for Deaf people in Chile, “Yes” to sign language interpreters on television for all information.

Sincerely,

Sign language interpreter

(more…)

 

Google Adds Captions for Deaf to YouTube Videos

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

The deaf and hard-of-hearing Internet users now have a way to watch free videos on YouTube. Google announced earlier this year that it has added automatic caption capability to videos on YouTube.

The change has been lauded by advocates for the hearing impaired, such as the Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Milwaukee. The center called it “great news for deaf and hard-of-hearing Internet users” in a press release.

Machine-generated captions on videos from 13 YouTube “partner channels” will initially be available only in English, with plans to expand the feature to include more languages in the future. YouTube users have had a manual version of the service since last year, but it has not been broadly used and does not include most of the site’s content.

The caption project was led by Ken Harrenstein, a deaf Google software engineer.

“In some ways this reminds me of when closed-captioning (CC) was first introduced,” said Mr. Harrenstein in a Google news release. “Before that, little on TV made sense, and the only movies worth paying for were foreign films, because those were the only ones with subtitles! I now have the same sense of hope that I did then.”

Full Article at Epoch Times

 

Youtube’s New Technology Brings Captions to the Deaf Community

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: November 19, 2009

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — In the first major step toward making millions of videos on YouTube accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired people, Google unveiled new technologies on Thursday that will automatically bring text captions to many videos on the site.

The technology will also open YouTube videos to a wider foreign market and make them more searchable, which will make it easier for Google to profit from them.

While the technology can insert captions only on English-language speech, Google is giving users the choice of using its automatic translation system to read the captions in 51 languages. That could broaden the appeal of YouTube videos to millions of other people who do not speak English but could use the captioning technology to read subtitles in their native language.

The speech recognition technology that Google uses to turn speech into text is not new; Google currently uses it to transcribe voice mail messages for users of its Google Voice service. But Ken Harrenstien, a deaf engineer who helped develop the automatic captioning system, said the technology had never been applied on such a large scale.

“This is something that I have dreamt of for many years,” Mr. Harrenstien said, speaking through an interpreter. “To see it happen is amazing.”

Full Article here

 

Annual Deaf March – Puerto Rico

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

deaf-march
The Annual Deaf March will take place Saturday September 26, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.. The March will depart from the Hiram Bithorn Parking Lot towards Roosevelt Ave and from there to Colegio San Gabriel In Puerto Nuevo. There we would do the Protocolary act to proclaim the week starting September 27 to October 3rd as the Puerto Rico “Deaf Week”. After the protocolary act, then thee Deaf community will be able to participate in a health fair where Medical Students and the lab technicians association of Puerto Rico will provide a health fair together with the Pediatric Dentist Association. We will also have food and drinks plus booths providing information related to services specifically tailored to the Deaf. This event is co-sponsored by the municipality of San Juan and various commercial brands.

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1st Conference of Latin America Sign Language Interpreters

Monday, April 20th, 2009

This is also the location and dates for the 6th Conference of the Deaf of Latin America

Bogota, Colombia

7-10 July 2009

www.aniscol.org
www.fenascol.org.co