By John D. Sutter, CNN 2/9/10
The Internet used to be a place where Ken Harrenstien could do anything.
The Google engineer, who has been deaf since childhood, loved the Web because he could e-mail and chat without the aid of a sign language translator.
But as the Web evolved and got faster, online video started to flood in. And all of a sudden, this place that once allowed for limitless communication started to feel walled off to Harrenstien.
“It was only when they started adding videos that the Net was not my means of access, but it became a barrier,” he said in a recent interview, speaking through signing interpreter. “And that was very frustrating.”
The reason for Harrenstien’s trouble is simple: Almost no video on the Internet comes paired with text captioning for the deaf.
While the U.S. Federal Communications Commission requires closed captioning for nearly all television programming, the same isn’t true for online video.
But Harrenstien isn’t sitting back and complaining. He’s dedicated his career at Google to developing technology to bring closed captioning to the Internet.
It’s a quest informed by personal experience. Harrenstien says his work is a reminder that being deaf isn’t a limitation. It’s empowering.
“It is extremely important [to my work] because I’m creating something I want and need for myself,” Harrenstien said in a second interview, conducted through an Internet chat program.
“So, I can identify very well with all of the other people who similarly need and want this. … This sometimes helps me keep going in the face of frustrations.”
Personal quest
When Harrenstien was 5 years old, he had a nightmare that changed his life.
He’d become sick with a high fever and the mumps. He went to sleep one night with the ability to hear. When he woke up from a terrifying dream, he was deaf.
“As I recall, the dream was scarier” than waking up deaf, he said.
Throughout his career and personal life, Harrenstien has found ways that being deaf is an advantage.
He met his wife, for instance, because she saw him using sign language. At the time, she was training to be a sign language interpreter. They bonded over their mutual love for ice skating, and the couple now has three children.
Being deaf also has guided Harrenstien’s work.
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harrenstien worked on a projected called the ARPANET, which was one of the first versions of e-mail and online communications.
“I was motivated because I wanted that system to exist so I could communicate with people,” he said.
He went on to help develop a project called Deafnet, an early online community and messaging tool for deaf people.
For the full article: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/09/deaf.internet.captions/index.html
- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax
