Deaf Geeks

Marco Polo is an app that was designed for video messaging, however, it has become a popular application within the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. There are two versions, the Free version and the Paid version. I will be covering the free version.

The free version does not allow you to fast forward the video playback. Free version also does not allow for you to pause the video to complete viewing at a later time. However, one annoyance I have found is that Marco Polo will NOT work if it does not have access to your microphone. Also when using the app, it will take focus of any audio feed you may have. Therefore, if you are listening to music Marco Polo will cut that off and take focus while it is active.

PROS:

• Free
• Easy to use
• Available for both iOS and Android

CONS:

• Cannot fast forward
• Cannot pause playback for review at a later time
• Audio cannot be disabled
• Audio can be turned off but focus cannot be changed.

Tip: The paid version allows the subscriber to “gift” a full version to up to five people for three months. Work with your network and you can possibly get the free version for a couple months if you are networked with someone that has the paid version.

Normally, I do spend a lot of time reviewing transcription type applications as the speech to text is usually quite terrible. Enter, the pandemic, which changed everything. Zoom basically zoomed to the forefront of market as the go to meeting software. Zoom at the time of this writing has no speech to text or caption option. I tested out Otter for our meetings, and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of speech to text that Otter provided. I must point out for legal purposes that this application does RECORD audio, therefore it is your duty to inform participants that they are being recorded for the record. Trust me this will save you many headaches down the road. Also make sure your comment that the meeting is recorded is also captured on the Otter transcription.

The nice feature of this is that it will clean up and save a copy of your meeting for sharing. It does come with a steeper than usual price for an app at $9.99 per month. Defintity well worth the price and comes with 6,000 minutes per month.

More information: https://www.otter.ai

eyeHear is dictation application that bascially piggy-backs on Siri to provide speech to text translation. Due to its dependence on Siri it of course is only available for iOS devices. I personally did not like this device as it is only good for short range and does not work with groups of people talking. It also has some glaring UI (user interface) limitations. The screen needs to be pressed and held to “record” the captions and letting go stops the captions.

The full description can be found here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/eyehear/id1321200884

Cardzilla is an app produced by Ink and Salt LLC
This is a Deaf Owned and Deaf Operated company.

Their App Store description describes it as “A fast and simple way to display your message in large text.  Communicate across distances.  Pass messages silently. Grab attention when sound is not an option.”

It is available for both iOS and Android. 

Review:  It is certainly much better than using Notes or other Text Editors on iOS or Android.  What I like about this is the large font it uses. Also you can quickly swipe left to clear the text.  Each time you swipe left it will keep a backup of your text.  It can be both good and bad.  I found reviewing the text history has reminded me just how much I may have drank the night before! It definitely my most oft used app.