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Today, we are opening up auto-captions to all YouTube users. There will even be a "request processing" button for un-captioned videos that any video owner can click on if they want to speed up the availability of auto-captions. It will take some time to process all the available video, so here are some things to keep in mind: While we plan to broaden the feature to include more languages in the months to come, currently, auto-captioning is only for videos where English is spoken. Just like any speech recognition application, auto-captions require a clearly spoken audio track. Videos with background noise or a muffled voice can't be auto-captioned. President Obama's speech on the recent Chilean Earthquake is a good example of the kind of audio that works for auto-captions. Auto-captions aren't perfect and just like any other transcription, the owner of the video needs to check to make sure they're accurate. In other cases, the audio file may not be good enough to generate auto-captions. But please be patient -- our speech recognition technology gets better every day. Auto-captions should be available to everyone who's interested in using them. We're also working to provide auto-captions for all past user uploads that fit the above mentioned requirements. If you're having trouble enabling them for your video, please visit our Help Center: this article is for uploaders and this article is for viewers.

Since we first announced captions in Google Video and YouTube, we've introduced multiple caption tracks, improved search functionality and even automatic translation. Each of these features has had great personal significance to me, not only because I helped to design them, but also because I'm deaf. Today, I'm in Washington, D.C. to announce what I consider the most important and exciting milestone yet: machine-generated automatic captions.Since the original launch of captions in our products, we’ve been happy to see growth in the number of captioned videos on our services, which now number in the hundreds of thousands. This suggests that more and more people are becoming aware of how useful captions can be. As we’ve explained in the past, captions not only help the deaf and hearing impaired, but with machine translation, they also enable people around the world to access video content in any of 51 languages. Captions can also improve search and even enable users to jump to the exact parts of the videos they're looking for.

Making online programming accessible to people with disabilities

The new Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act will make it easier for people with disabilities to access TV programs over the Internet. While the law is a tremendous step in the right direction, a surge in new types of online programming, such as Webisodes and streaming movies, are still not captioned for the deaf and hard of hearing. This issue has drawn the attention of federal law enforcers, including the Department of Justice, which is considering the possibility of revising the Americans with Disabilities Act to address accessible web information and services, movie captioning and video descriptions.

In a typical classroom, a teacher may find many students who are struggling readers, whether they are beginning readers, students with language-based learning disabilities, or students who are English language learners (ELLs). One motivating, engaging and inexpensive way to help build the reading skills of students is through the use of closed captioned and subtitled television shows and movies.

The man behind the curtain has been at it again. PLUK has instituted the first in a series of closed captioning services for PLUKtelevision's Youtube videos. The first video to get the wordy treatment is PLUK's interview with Liz Miller. In time, all of PLUK's videos will be captioned, as well.Also, as some may have noticed, the PLUK homepage has undergone some remodeling, too. Everything from the events calendar, to news feeds for the PLUK Library and e-News, along with our Youtube videos can be viewed right from the homepage. This is just a few of the surprises we have in store, so be sure to stay tuned.

Our mission is to promote and provide equal access to communication and learning through described and captioned educational media. The ultimate goal of the DCMP is for accessible media to be an integral tool in the teaching and learning process for all stakeholders in the educational community, including students, educators and other school personnel, parents, service providers, businesses, and agencies.

Amy Weitlauf, Ph.D., assistant professor of Pediatrics, will be leading a study among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness training as part of early interventions for children with ASD. Amy Weitlauf, Ph.D. Through a nearly $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau (Grant No. R40MC27706), Weitlauf and colleagues from Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders (TRIAD) will teach all participating parents to use the Early Start Denver Model, an intervention method aimed at early treatment of ASD.

There are several amazing websites that do an excellent job of incorporating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. As you know, UDL is all about creating learning environments that meet the needs of all types of learners—closed captioning for the hearing impaired, read-aloud capabilities for the visually impaired, for example.

Many talented, creative clients and colleagues have physical limitations, such as blindness or vision impairment, hearing loss or limited hand use or mobility. When you schedule a meeting, do you take potential disabilities into consideration? Accessibility considerations help people with disabilities overcome barriers they may experience in participating fully in your meeting. And, these same considerations can benefit others, especially remote attendees. For example, captioning is useful for people who must attend a meeting from a noisy environment such as an airport. The following list should help you design your meeting and include everyone.

What:The hearing will focus on the importance of accessible technology and how this issue is impacting K-12 and higher education. Witnesses include:Panel I with Eve Hill,  Senior Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice. Panel II with Mark Riccobono, Executive Director, Jernigan Institute, National Federation of the Blind, Dr. John B. Quick, Superintendent, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Columbus, IndianaMark Turner, Director, Center for Accessible Media, Accessible Technology Initiative, California State University We hope to see you there. If you are unable to attend, the hearing will be broadcasted live online at www.help.senate.gov.Real time captioning and sign language interpreters will be provided at the hearing.When:February 7, 201212:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time Where:Dirksen Senate Building Room G-50Washington, D.C.Contact:Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions428 Senate Dirksen Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510Phone: 202-224-5375

Webinars from the Clerc Center Our webinars are a convenient way to meet professional development requirements as well as supply families with needed resources. Without incurring traveling expenses or workshop fees, individual educators, professionals, and parents can interact with professionals in the field of deaf education from the comfort and convenience of their own office, school location, or home computer. It's also possible for groups of colleagues, teachers, and/or families to view the webinars from one central location. The webinars are presented in American Sign Language (ASL) with a spoken English voiceover and captions.

Sharing Autism Research on Deaf or Hard of Hearing Students

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About ASL/English Bimodal Bilingual Education

Universal design (UD) is an idea that developed in the mid-1990s as advocates of making buildings and products accessible to people with disabilities realized that these features often had benefits for a broader population. Examples include curb ramps, automated doors, closed captioning in television sets and accessibility features for computer operating systems.

He's part of a growing group of gamers with disabilities who are speaking out against accessibility issues in games and who run the whole gamut from big-budget AAA fare to tiny one-person indie productions. They're backed by charities, such as AbleGamers and SpecialEffect, plus dozens of passionate individuals doing their best to make the hobby more inclusive to everyone — disabled or not. There are signs that more developers are listening, too. Infinity Ward included a colorblind option and a special "N0M4D" control layout for disabled players in the latest Call of Duty. Indie survival adventure The Last Door has a dyslexia font and closed captions. The recently released MMO WildStar has, among other accessibility features, support for all three main types of colorblindness. Games are finally opening up to audiences that previously couldn't enjoy them, and everyone's gaining from the trend.