Real time text communication - making it real ITAG 2011 Jon Azpiroz and Karel Van Isacker

1. Real-time Text Communication:
Making It Real
(Jon Azpiroz, Karel Van Isacker)
Presented by Karel Van Isacker (EPR)

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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, …

5. How?

6. 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

7. 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).

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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)

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. Real-time Text brought to the mobile
● Functionality
● Select existing contact or type directly
the RTT address of the other user.

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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.

20. Any questions?
● Jon Azpiroz
● Fundación Vodafone España
● Spain
● jon.azpiroz@vodafone.com
● Karel Van Isacker
● European Platform of Rehabilitation
● Belgium
● karel@phoenixkm.eu