100k for Research

NTID is getting $100,000 from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation to start research next month on how Cisco products can benefit the deaf community. Thee research should lead to recommendations related to 911 and 411 telephone response systems.

The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) is a technical college for deaf and hard-of-hearing students located at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York.

Deaf Shopper Choked

This YouTube video proports to show a security guard choking a deaf suspected of shoplifting this week at a Forever 21 store in Hollywood. The deaf man failed to stop when an alarm sounded as he exited the store because he could not hear it. His deaf friend tries repeatedly to show the guard the receipt for the purchase, but the guards refuse to try to communicate with him.

State Deaf School Property Sold

Marywood University is likely to buy the 10-acres and the 10 buildings once used by Pennsylvania's Scranton State School for the Deaf for only half a million dollars. The land was appraised for $2 million. The deal is awaiting the approval of state legislators. The deaf school may remain on the campus through 2012.

Hearing Aid Compliance Rules

The FCC is plugging a loophole in its rules that have allowed phone makers like Apple to make millions of iPhones that escape the Commission’s Hearing Aid Compliance rules. That technicality has been solved by the agency’s expansion of its list devices covered by its Hearing Aid Compliance rules. Manufacturers will have 12 months to bring themselves into compliance. The Commission has also proposed extending the rules to cover emerging technologies such as VoIP over WiFi. For years, the Commission has required equipment manufacturers to make a certain percentage of hearing aid compliant handsets available to the public. Some carriers have gotten five-figure fines for falling a few phones short or failing to file a required report.

Marlee Matlin on NPR

In this interview, through her longtime interpreter Jack Jason, Marlee Matlin reflects on her highly successful acting career , the 20th Anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and her experience as a deaf woman in showbiz. Listen to it here. No text of conversation.

Mason-Dixon Champions

The girls track team from the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind’s are the 2010 Mason-Dixon champions. The winners are decided by the Mason-Dixon Schools for the Deaf Athletic Association based on the best times and distances in each event. The boys team from the school came in second place.

elderly Woman Dies in Fire

A 92 year old deaf woman died from injuries she received in a Monday fire. Catherine Voultepsis was a Greek immigrant who lived in the Chelsea section of New York. More than 100 firefighters battled the blaze. It sent 5 firefighters and two tenants to the hospital besides Voultepsis.

Arizona Foundation

KGUN-TV talks about the Arizona Blind and Deaf Children Foundation.

Choosing Deaf Children

Blogger Katja Grace is stirring controversy with a post on whether deaf parents should legally be able to use medical techniques to ensure that their kids will be deaf. She focuses on whether having a deaf child that can share in their parents' culture (namely, through sign language) is justified. Read the post here.

Guilty of Sexual Charges

A student teacher at a Connecticut deaf school has pleaded guilty to charges of having sex with a minor in Dewitt, New York (east of Syracuse). Micah S. Brown will get a one to three year sentence for admitting his guily in county court and may get as much as 10 more years in federal court. State police arrested Brown after a 16-year-old girl said he met her online and then in person at her home in Syracuse area while her parents where gone. The girl said Brown gave her alcohol, marijuana, and had sex with her. Her parents found liquor bottles when they returned and she confessed to what had happened. Police then set up a sting operation where Brown thought he was meeting the girl again. Brown was a graduate student at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology at the time of his arrest. He was serving as a student teacher at the American School for the Deaf in Connecticut.

Deaf Musician

NPR profiles Sean Forbes here.

ASL Game Controller

Microsoft's new gesture-based game controller will support ASL. The patent for Kinect includes an illustration showing a user spelling out words with their hands. The product's main purpose will be to allow users control of a game without a hand-held device. A gesture may be interpreted as if the user were pressing a letter or number on a keyboard. It is not clear whether the feature will be part of the Kinect launch in November. It is expected to run about $150.

Senate Passes Internet Video Bill

Last night the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would require captions for Internet video. The 21st Century Video Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 reinstates the FCC's video descpription rules, which were thrown out by the courts. The bill was introduced by Senators John Kerry and Mark Pryor. The House passed a similar bill last week. The two must now either be reconciled in conference, or either bill could be voted as is by the opposite body.

SummerStage

A Seattle children's musical production includes deaf children in the cast. Read more here.

Deaf Opera Singer

AP tells the story of a deaf opera singer in Wyoming here.

Gallaudet Gives $1 Million to College

Gallaudet University is giving a community college near St. Louis one million dollars to search as the school's Midwest regional center. John A. Logan College in Carterville, Illinois won the grant to serve residents in 13 states, including Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Illinois. The Center's location allows it to serve many rural areas. It will offer outreach to schools, educational interpreter training, technical assistance to schools, aggregation of information services, as well as self advocacy and empowerment training and literacy training. The grant will be spread over a 5 year period with $200,000 going to Logan each year. Logan first began offering a one-year Interpreter Training certificate program in 1988.

The Citizens Medal

President Obama has given the 2nd-highest civilian honor to the woman who championed the Deaf Child's Bill of Rights in Georgia. Kimberly McGuiness was given the The Citizens Medal. She began working on behalf of deaf children after learning her one year old daughter was deaf. The legislation requires schools in the state to provide equal learning opportunities for the deaf. She also advocated for a law allowing ASL to fulfill foreign language requirements at state schools.

School Avoids Immediate Shutdown

The state of Illinois has picked up the tab for Chicago's Philip J. Rock Center. The school for the deaf and blind will be able to stay in operation for another month to six weeks after the payment of $300,000 in debt. The school has about a dozen resident students and more than 400 children statewide. The Center employs 40 people full time and another 20 part time.

Growing Crops at the Oregon School for the Deaf

A deaf school's garden feeds both minds and families. Read about it here.

Loud Cell Phone

A new cell phone features a ring as loud as 100 decibels. The earpiece can be set to an even higher volume of 110, louder than many motorcycles. The Amplicom M6000 also has larger and clearer buttons and uncomplicated features. Hearing aid users will be glad to make calls without having to wear their devices. The standard earpiece will go up 30. The device is available only in the U.K. for now.