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News Archive
Increasing Braille Radio Reading Speed for Deaf-Blind Consumers
During 2010, a study was conducted with 30 blind and deaf-blind consumers to identify average reading speeds, and to measure if there are ways to increase reading speeds. NPR Labs implemented two techniques to try and increase reading rate while maintaining memory – telegraphic text and scaffolding. Click here to read their findings.
International Telecommunications Union supports Captioned Radio by pushing ITU standards recommendation ITU-R BS 1894.
On May 25, 2011 the ITU announced that balloting had been completed by the 192 member countries and that Captioned Radio, a standard that has been in the making for over two years was successfully adopted as a consensus recommendation. The document strongly encourages all of the internationally recognized digital radio systems to add Captioned Radio transmissions and for consumer electronics manufacturers to build products for the new service. Click here to read the full text.
NPR Labs Tests Asymmetrical IBOC Sidebands as Part of Nautel PowerBoost™ Study
A report released June 1 by NPR Labs validates the technology of Nautel’s HD PowerBoost with Asymmetrical Sideband system in improving reception coverage, power output and efficiency for HD Radio™ transmission. Click here for more information.
International Consumer Electronics Show -- NPR Labs hosted the "Radio with Vision Showcase" at the ICES in Las Vegas on January 5. Click here (http://www.nprlabs.org/ces-2011.html) for more information.
New ITU Captioned Radio Recommendation Now Out for Ballot -- Captioned Radio is nearing approval as an international recommendation by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-UIT). Click here to read the new recommendation.
NPR Labs Demonstrates New Technologies at the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act -- NPR Labs was invited to demonstrate its latest technical innovations at the White House and at the Commerce Department as part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 19, 2010. Click here for more information.
NPR Labs at NAB 2011
By: Sam Goldman
NPR Labs has returned in one piece from the PREC/NAB Show-Vegas Marathon 2011. Although we didn’t break any world records, we did win an award!
At the PREC we were able to update the public radio engineering community on work the Labs has finished in the past year, details of projects we are working on now, as well as projects we have slated for the future. Main topics were the culmination of the PAIS project, taking the next step with ISAAC (formerly iPAIS), mapping digital broadcast services for all public TV and Radio facilities, Captioning, and updates to our patent pending IBOC coverage and interference model, supporting elevated and asymmetrical sidebands.
At the NAB Show, NPR Labs sported their first booth, in the heart of International Research Park. We were pleased with the enthusiasm visitors had for our research and for Public Radio. We would like to thank everyone who came to the north hall and said hello during the NAB show.
Lastly we won the NAB Technology Innovation Award, recognizing outstanding exhibitors at the NAB Show that provide exhibits or demonstrations of advanced technology developments related to media. Gordon Smith Presented the award to Mike Starling on Wednesday, at the Technology Luncheon.
NPR Labs At CES 2011: Moving Radio Captioning Forward
By: Sam Goldman
Federal law mandates that television broadcasts accommodate deaf and hard of hearing consumers with the captioning of shows. Why not radio?
That's a question we have been exploring (and struggling with) at NPR Labs. At CES 2011 in Las Vegas in January, we hosted our annual Radio with Vision Showcase.
The ever-spreading digital revolution has made it possible to deliver radio broadcasts concurrently with a text feed of the audio. It is important to NPR that we take steps to be inclusive, making radio something that can be shared between deaf individuals and the hearing world around them.
We took a big step toward this goal during our 2008 election-night coverage when we successfully distributed captioned-radio programming to a national audience for the first time.
We think an open-source approach to radio captioning could spark the beginning of a global movement to bring radio to millions of people who lack hearing. (Our proposal for a global captioned standard for radio transmissions is nearing adoption at the ITU).
At the Showcase this year, we heard from NPR Labs’ Rich Rarey, Ellyn Sheffield and WireReady CEO David Gerstmann about the close out of our Personalized Audio Information Service (PAIS) project. DICE Electronics’ Chris Cook talked about the future of accessibly radio interface, and gave an update on the successes and challenges of launching their first talking radio, the ITR-100a. Jake Sigal, CEO of Livio Radio, showed everyone the common threads between accessible broadcast electronics and mainstream products, an important relationship that will help bring accessibility to market and make it a reality, while Joe D’Angelo of iBiquity Digital gave updates on HD Radio® upgrades and development that will aid in achieving an accessible radio experience. After lunch, Anindya “Bapin” Bhattacharyya, Technology Chief at the Hellen Keller National center and Mike May, CEO of the Sendero Group, both gave passionate talks underlining the importance of accessible broadcasting in personal as well as national terms. The day wrapped up after NPR Labs’ Sam Goldman walked app developers through plans for captioning software to run on mobile devices such as Tablet computers and Chumby devices.
We plan to establish working relationships with developers for iOS, Android and web apps, in addition to any other appropriate platforms. We are looking forward to an enthusiastic discussion at CES to kick off this new stage of our Accessible Radio initiative.
Transcripts of our conversation at the 2011 CES are available.
- Click here to view the transcript from our morning discussion.
- Click here to view the transcript from our afternoon discussion.
Click here for Sam's original blog entry.
Radio with Vision Showcase in Las Vegas
January 2011 - Click here for the agenda from the Radio with Vision Showcase.
New ITU Captioned Radio Recommendation Now Out for Ballot
December 2010 - Captioning for Radio is an exciting new development in service to the Deaf, Hearing Loss, and Deaf-Blind communities. Captioned Radio is nearing approval as an international recommendation by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-UIT), the agency of the United Nations that adopts standards recommendations for telecommunications services worldwide.
We are urging you to contact your country's Radio Spectrum Regulatory Authority requesting active support of the Captioned Radio Recommendation now out for ballot by Member States (countries) of the United Nations.
The formal balloting reference has been released in ITU-Radiocommunications Sector Circular Letter 6/LCCE/72 which provides for balloting between now and February 6, 2011.
The specific Recommendation to support is summarized in the circular as:
Draft New Recommendation ITU-R BS.[CAP.RAD] Doc. 6/303(Rev.1) -
Digital radio broadcast service, captioned radio. This Recommendation describes mechanisms to support
captioned radio broadcast services on the basis of terrestrial digital sound broadcasting systems
described in Recommendation ITU-R BS.1114 as well as traditional analogue FM system(s).
Full text of the Draft New Recommendation can be found here.
NPR Labs to demonstrate new technologies at celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Innovative Dual Screen Car Dashboard Will Enable Deaf Passengers to Experience Radio.
July 2010 - NPR Labs was invited to demonstrate its latest technical innovations at the White House and at the Commerce Department as part of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 19, 2010. At both events, NPR Labs demonstrated its captioned-radio initiative which paves the way for enabling deaf and hard of hearing Americans to experience or "listen" to radio.
Mike Starling, Vice President & Executive Director, NPR Labs, addresses the White House ADA celebration. (photo Ellyn Sheffield)
NPR was one of three organizations invited by the administration's Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra to demonstrate their innovations at the White House. The NPR Labs team showed government officials and representatives from groups representing disability communities its prototype car dashboard featuring a captioned-radio display. The display is a dual-view screen. The driver's view shows GPS navigational maps while the passenger’s view shows real-time text of the audio being broadcast over the radio. The technology takes advantage of digital radio transmissions to send a closed-captioned transcript of a live broadcast to the screen on a specially built receiver.
Read the full press release.
NPR Labs' Video Presentation: Overview of Radio Captioning
June 2010 - This short video provides a look at NPR Labs' efforts of the last two years in bringing Captioned text to HD Radio transmissions, including the first-ever radio captioning on Election Night, November 2008.
The Technical Basis of PAIS
January 2010 - Background and Technical Specifications of the Personalized Audio Information Service (PAIS) Project under NIDRR grant CFDA #84.133G‐2. Includes the history, research, program category codes and more.
"Captioned Radio" Debuts on Election Night
November 2008 - Click here for details.
NPR Labs has prepared audio samples to demonstrate the impairments resulting from elevated IBOC transmission power.
Follow this link to the samples.
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