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[Gabey8]

I just tried a free service from Sprint that allows a person who has speech, but difficulty hearing, to place a phone call and see LIVE real-time captioning of their phone call on the web.

I don't have hearing loss (not yet -- it does seem to run in my family, however) but I registered anyway because I wanted to be able to demo this on the XO, if necessary.

https://sprintcaptel.com/index.asp is the site to register with. It's a pretty amazing thing, and yes, it does work on the XO with Opera. (I didn't try it with Browse.) You sign on, enter your own phone number and the number you want to call, and Sprint calls both numbers. Then whatever is being said on the other end of the phone line appears on your screen, in what looks like a giant IM window.

Great stuff. Even greater that it's usable on a highly portable device like the XO, so people who use the service will have that many more options for when and where they'd like to place a call.

[LesleyT]

Oh holy s**t!  I've been trying for years to get my uncle to do this.  He has profound hearing loss from an RH incompatibility at birth.  Now he's in his late 50s, age related hearing loss has really set in.  He's relied on lip reading his whole life, but the telephone is particularly difficult for him. 

Can't wait to show this to him with my XO at Easter.

[pgf]

so, is someone listening in on the call and typing the transcription?  surely automated recognition isn't good enough for this yet, right?

paul

[wolf9545]

What happens if your phone company is Verizon, is it still free?

[Gabey8]

As far as I know, it's free no matter what. Especially since I can't find any place where we enter billing information.

I figure the same thing -- it's most likely live captioners typing the information in real time. Speech recognition still has too many gaps to be reliable in an application like this.

[pgf]

well, they might refuse to connect the call if at least one of them isn't a sprint number.  after all -- this service, like most phone company services, exists in order to entice you to use more airtime.  and they probably want those airtime minutes to be theirs.  :-)  (or maybe it's just a trial service to see how popular the concept is.)

paul

[Gabey8]

well, they might refuse to connect the call if at least one of them isn't a sprint number.  after all -- this service, like most phone company services, exists in order to entice you to use more airtime.  and they probably want those airtime minutes to be theirs.  :-)  (or maybe it's just a trial service to see how popular the concept is.)

paul

So far, so good -- the test run I gave the service involved a Verizon Wireless cell phone number, and a Philly-based Verizon number that provides a recording of the weather forecast. The call went through with no problem.

I'm thinking along the same lines as you -- they'd probably like to see people using their phone services. So, making the phone more accessible to people who might not currently use phones much or at all, is one way to go about that. And if this potential new customer finds this new service indispensible, chances are it's a Sprint cell phone they'll be getting, because they'll connect that brand name with the provider of the service that enables them to use phones more easily. Win/win for Sprint and the new consumer.

[unrequited]

I'm not proud of it, but guys in my fraternity used to use this service amongst others like the AIM ip-relay relay (or using their website here @ http://www.ip-relay.com/faq.html ) to prank others.

The operators and the companies they work for are paid by tax dollars (at the rate of about $1.50 a MINUTE) so they don't care who uses the system.

You have to learn a couple control words to let the operator know what you want to say and when, and the receiver of the phone call has to abide by certain control words as well.

As for content? They're interpreters which are trained and bounded to relay information and not judge. You can imagine the pranks these guys did using the service... the operators will say anything you type to them, because that's what they're paid to do, and they will type back anything which is said to them by the voice receiver.

More here:
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/54275

Please don't abuse this system, it's expensive, and we're all paying for it.