real time text communication - making it real itag 2011
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Real time text communication - making it real ITAG 2011 Jon Azpiroz and Karel Van IsackerTRANSCRIPT
Real-time Text Communication: Making It Real (Jon Azpiroz, Karel Van Isacker)
Presented by Karel Van Isacker (EPR)
The background
● Voice communication
● Not possible for everyone
● Alternative manners (BSL over MSN, in the past ICQ, now AOL IM)
● But what about mobiles?
● Quest for alternatives to traditional voice telephony that could be accessible across desktop and mobile communications devices.
The vehicle
● FP7 AEGIS project
● Project title:
– Open Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards
● Starting date: 1 September 2008
● Duration: 48 Months
● Integrated Project (IP) within the ICT programme of FP7
The directions
● FP7 AEGIS project
● Desktop accessibility
– odt2Braille, odt2Daisy, Symbol support, …
● Web applications accessibility
– ARIA, …
● Mobile accessibility
– Tecla (mobile switch), …, and RTT
● Available on iPhone/Android market, SourceForge, …
How?
Background Of Text Communications
● ICT pushed
● the device for the deaf (TDD) or teletypewriter (TTY) (1964) (also used for people with speech impairments)
● Problem: different textphone standards, need for landline
Background Of Text Communications
● ICT pushed
● Short Message Service (SMS) (1984)
● First SMS message sent over the Vodafone GSM network (UK) on 3 December 1992, from a personal computer to an Orbitel 901 handset. Text was "Merry Christmas".
● Commercialised in 1993 (Nokia only handset manufacturer whose total GSM phone line supported user-sending of SMS text messages).
Background Of Text Communications
● Some SMS numbers
● 2010: 6.1 trillion SMS text messages were sent. 192,192 SMS per second.
● SMS industry worth over $81 billion globally as of 2006.
Background Of Text Communications
● Advantages of SMS
● Used by the hearing impaired community.
● Text-based, easy to use, affordable and mobile.
● Vibrating function of the handset alerts the user about a message.
Background Of Text Communications
● Disadvantages of SMS
● Unreliable system
● No guarantee that an SMS message will get to its destination or will get to its destination quickly
– Delay messages for minutes, days or even lose them completely.
– Most common cause of delivery failure is due to destination busy, memory full or destination out of service.
– Limited interactivity
Increase interactivity
● Instant Messaging (IM) for mobile devices
● More interactivity as users can exchange messages faster and more efficiently.
● IM Messages are cheaper than SMS.
● Problem: lack of standardisation (BlackBerry, MSN, Google, AOL, Yahoo, ICQ, FaceBook, WhatsApp,…)
– Few IM clients work with different networks (Pidgin for Win, InstantBird for Linux)
Increase interactivity
● Instant Messaging (IM) for mobile devices
● Deaf users like IM for its interactivity, the possibility for both parties to type at the same time and the ability to display emotions through the use of emoticons.
● However, IM is not as interactive as voice communications.
– delays in the conversations
– they cannot interrupt each other
Real-time Text
● Real-time text (RTT) is conversational text that is sent and received on a character by character basis.
● A more natural, bi-directional flow of conversation takes place.
● Pioneered by ICQ in 1996.
● Based on standards (SIP +
RFC4103) for interoperability
Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● Based on J2ME
● Wide availability of the application is one of the most important requirements.
● Roughly 78% of the mobile phones sold in 2010 were inexpensive feature phones that run the Java Micro Edition (Java ME) environment.
● Application will be compatible in mobile devices with different OS such as Symbian or BlackBerry.
Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● Functionality
● User should login with a user name and password to start using the applications.
● Once registered, the application provides three main functionalities: make / receive real-time text calls, see the call logs and manage the RTT contacts.
Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● Functionality
● Select existing contact or type directly the RTT address of the other user.
Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● Functionality
● Once the call is accepted by the other user
– 2 text boxes appear
– upper one show what the remote user is typing
– lower box shows what user of device is typing.
Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● User testing
● Spain, Belgium, Sweden, and the United Kingdom
● 26 users with hearing impairments
● 11 experts and 11 tutors
● Feedback overall positive, and desire to have this functionality directly embedded in IM they use now
● But: 2 window conversation is new
Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● Next version (by August 2012)
● Chat based user interface (both conversations shown in same screen).
● New modalities of communication.
● Character-by-character, versus word-by-word.
● New client will be developed for LWUIT Java devices. This will make RTT compatible with touch screen devices.
Any questions?
● Jon Azpiroz
● Fundación Vodafone España
● Spain
● Karel Van Isacker
● European Platform of Rehabilitation
● Belgium