For the deaf: real instant messaging...and maybe for everybody else as well

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 05 August 2008 10:06

Business IT - Technology

A new task force has been formed to develop and promote real-time text messaging; where each character is displayed to the recipient as it is typed in. The task force is focused primarily on technology to help the hearing impaired, but real time messaging could be taken up enthusiastically by others.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has just published - as an informational document in its 'Request for Comment' series (RFC5194) - a framework for real-time text over IP using the session initiation protocol (SIP) and the Real Time Text task force  (R3TF) has been launched as "informal forum for engineers, motivated individuals, experts, companies and organisations." It is being supported by the Internet Society (ISOC)) as part of its "Enabling Access" initiative, under which it promotes a diverse range of projects aimed at breaking down the barriers to Internet access.

The goal of R3TF is "to ensure that real-time text is as readily available for all users as voice is." It promises to "create and maintain a roadmap that will provide the basis for the full deployment, seamless inter-operability and the future development and evolution of Real-Time Text as a mainstream feature/service."

The Framework was co-authored by Arnoud van Wijk, disability projects coordinator for ISOC, who was born deaf, and Guido Gybels, director of New Technologies at RNID (UK with contributions from other experts in communication and accessibility for people with disabilities.

The Roadmap will aim to identify one mainstream real-time text standard at its core with methods to interconnect with other real-time text systems. According to R3TF "having a single real-time text standard that is used everywhere would make accessibility to the communication service very easy and would eliminate interworking issues. However, with the different characteristics of communication networks and devices in use today, this is not possible.

"A real-time text standard that most terminals and networks can either use native or easily interconnect via gateways between different network borders will make the aim of real-time text that can be used everywhere possible," it says. "This will also encourage the implementation, development, evolution and support of one real-time text standard on future (communication) networks."
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