NARRATOR: Radio has long been
the most compact,
portable, moveable source
for information,
music and opinion,
keeping us informed
and entertained
virtually anywhere we go,
but in an age of accessibility,
radio has had major challenges.
A strategic partnership
between NPR Labs
and Towson University aims
to change all of that.
NPR is interested in this
because that's part of our DNA.
NPR grew out of the Public
Broadcasting Act of 1967,
and part of the guiding
premise of that act
was service to the unserved
and the underserved.
Towson University and NPR Labs
formed a partnership
about 4 years ago
to explore the possibilities
of making radio more
accessible for the deaf,
in particular by providing
radio captioning.
ICART, the International Center
for Accessible Radio Technology,
was formed
between Towson and NPR
so that we could include
everyone that has a disability--
a hearing loss
or a vision loss--
into our world of media.
One of the things that
will motivate people
around this subject very quickly
is thinking about
the Hurricane Katrina situation
in which people who were deaf
or hard of hearing
had virtually no way
to get information.
They couldn't listen
to the radio.
NARRATOR:
But while new technologies
in digital radio have opened
the door to accessibility,
the challenge is making
this technology
both accurate and affordable.
Traditional TV captioning
relies on the use
of stenographic transcribers.
STARLING:
Very specialized process,
very specialized equipment.
Takes a long time
to be trained on that,
and naturally as a result,
the costs are not insubstantial,
so we took
a look around and said,
"What else is being done
with new digital technologies
"that are reshaping the whole
landscape of the globe?"
and discovered something
called voice writing.
NARRATOR: National Public Radio
sends a program feed
to Towson University.
The audio is then fed
to a voice writer,
who's listening on headphones
and continually respeaking
everything that they hear.
STARLING: The output
of the respeaker is then fed
to the caption editor.
They listen to it,
and they're cleaning it up
live real time.
At the same time that we're
doing the live captions
that go out to the deaf users,
we're also feeding over
to a transcription editor,
who's making
the letter-perfect copy of it
that will be posted
to the web later.
So all in all,
that's a very efficient process
that we've really not seen done
anywhere else before,
and it can improve
turnaround time,
as well as lower the cost
of the overall process.
Those involved in the project
have been interested, as well,
in turning that digital signal
for the captioning
into something that could
produce a Braille output
so that it would serve
the blind in the same way--
or the deaf blind in particular,
who may not have access
either to hearing or seeing
the captions but would be able
to receive the same information
through a Braille output.
NARRATOR: Anindya Bhattacharyya,
known as Bapin,
is just such a person.
Bapin is both deaf and blind.
He talks about
being able to access
the 2012 presidential debates
on Braille radio.
BAPIN: It was wonderful for me
to have access to those debates
because it was very important
to me to know what was going on
so that I could make
an informed decision.
I did become a U.S. Citizen
and am now eligible to vote
for the first time,
and so I wanted to have
complete information
so that I could make
my own decision.
I wanted to know
what the issues were
and what the candidates
were supporting.
We see this
as a growing movement
that will eventually mean
that any time there's audio
there will be an expectation
that it's readable audio
provided, as well.
It's cool to know that people
who have never heard the radio
and people who have heard
it once but can't anymore--
it's really cool to know that
we can provide it for them.
It's just cool
to include people.
STARLING: This is really
an exciting time.
When you can have
that kind of impact,
what greater privilege
is there than creating
a technology like this?
NARRATOR: NPR Labs
and Towson University,
a partnership
in providing equal access
to information and technology.
