Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mango?
Speaker 1: What's that will?
Speaker 2: So a lot of us listen to audiobooks these days,
Speaker 2: But something I learned just the other day. Did you
Speaker 2: know that they were created almost one hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: That's right, Mango audiobooks one hundred years ago, and they
Speaker 2: were originally produced specifically for blind people.
Speaker 1: Wait, really, I thought audiobooks were invented like twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Nope. Actually, back in the early twentieth century, the main
Speaker 2: way for blind people to access written text was braille.
Speaker 2: But you know, braille wasn't widely taught, so most folks
Speaker 2: didn't know it all that well. And after World War
Speaker 2: One there was this influx of soldiers coming home with
Speaker 2: vision impairment from various war injuries. They didn't know how
Speaker 2: to read braille either, so there was this sudden need
Speaker 2: for technology to help them out. Now Conveniently, around the
Speaker 2: same time, there had been this huge advancement in phonograph technology.
Speaker 2: Early records only played five minutes of sound per side,
Speaker 2: but now they could make records that could play up
Speaker 2: to twenty five minutes of sound per side. So an
Speaker 2: organization called the American Foundation for the Blind worked with
Speaker 2: the US government and other organizations, and they produced these
Speaker 2: spoken recordings of famous titles. They called this new medium
Speaker 2: talking books.
Speaker 1: I love a straightforward name. So what did they record first?
Speaker 2: Well, the first talking books, which came out in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty four, included two Shakespeare plays, The Constitution, you know
Speaker 2: had some good listening, and Washington's Farewell Address. But there
Speaker 2: were also books by popular authors at the time like
Speaker 2: Rudyard Kipling, PG. Woodhouse. And the creators of talking books
Speaker 2: had some disagreement about whether they should focus on serious
Speaker 2: books or things that people might actually be interested in
Speaker 2: listening to. So they decided to compromise a little bit,
Speaker 2: as you could from what we just mentioned there, and
Speaker 2: so they did a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean no shade to George Washington's farewell Address,
Speaker 1: but I'd rather curl up with a good novel.
Speaker 2: I agree with you on that. Now you'll be shocked
Speaker 2: to learn that Talking books listeners also agreed with us.
Speaker 2: The audio novels were especially popular, and as the program grew,
Speaker 2: celebrities like Joan Crawford and Ossi Davis they all recorded
Speaker 2: books for these. There was also an actor named Alexander
Speaker 2: Scorby who became famous for his talking books work. He
Speaker 2: recorded over four hundred of these things, including heavy tones
Speaker 2: like the Iliad or in Peace, even the Bible, which
Speaker 2: you can actually still listen to.
Speaker 1: That's an impressive amount of reading and listening, I guess well,
Speaker 1: from talking books to hearing aids to faucets of the future,
Speaker 1: today's episode is all about assistive technology. It's high tech,
Speaker 1: it's low tech, it is every tech in between, and
Speaker 1: it makes life a little easier for millions of people
Speaker 1: every single day. So let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to part time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson, and as always, I'm here with my good
Speaker 2: friend Mangush hot ticketter and over there in the booth
Speaker 2: recording his audiobook autobiography titled Here It is the Shocking
Speaker 2: true story of a Palain producer. That's our Palain producer,
Speaker 2: Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to listen to that on my next
Speaker 1: road trip at full volume because Dylan talks softly. Okay,
Speaker 1: so quick note before we get started, the terms assistive
Speaker 1: technology and adaptive technology are often used interchangeably, but there
Speaker 1: is a slight difference. Assistive technology includes things that can
Speaker 1: assist anyone. Adaptive tech is specifically designed for people with disabilities,
Speaker 1: and today we'll be talking about both.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And while we're mostly talking about innovations
Speaker 2: from the past couple of centuries, it is good to
Speaker 2: remember that assistive and adaptive technology has been around for
Speaker 2: thousands of years because people with disabilities and assistants' needs
Speaker 2: have always existed.
Speaker 1: For example, take the wheelchair. Today, there are all sorts
Speaker 1: of specialized versions, right wheelchairs for athletes, wheelchairs for kids,
Speaker 1: and hands free wheelchairs. But the history of the wheelchair
Speaker 1: actually goes back to China around five twenty five CE,
Speaker 1: and that's the date of the first known representative image
Speaker 1: of a wheelchair. It's a stone carving of a man
Speaker 1: sitting in a chair with three wheels. Now, over the
Speaker 1: next century, wheelchairs gave people mobility, but they didn't provide
Speaker 1: much autonomy. Early wheelchairs had to be pushed by someone else,
Speaker 1: and that bothered a young German watchmaker named Stefan Farfler,
Speaker 1: who had become paraplegic after breaking his back as a kid.
Speaker 1: He was sick of relying on others to get around.
Speaker 1: So in sixteen fifty he built the first self propelled wheelchair.
Speaker 1: It looked like a bulky recumbent tricycle, but it worked
Speaker 1: by turning hand cranks attached to a gear front wheel.
Speaker 2: Of course, he was a watchmaker. He knows his gears right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he certainly did. Now fast forward to nineteen thirties California,
Speaker 1: there is a mining engineer named Herbert Everest, and he
Speaker 1: too relied on in a wheelchair to get around after being
Speaker 1: paralyzed in an accident. And like Farfler, he had issues
Speaker 1: with his wheelchair, namely because it was really heavy and
Speaker 1: hard to transport. So Everest talked to a mechanical engineer
Speaker 1: named Harry Jennings, and together they designed a new lightweight
Speaker 1: wheelchair that was also foldable. And this X frame wheelchair
Speaker 1: is more or less what the standard wheelchair you see
Speaker 1: in a hospital is based on. And what is so
Speaker 1: cool about these stories is neither Farflur nor Everest were
Speaker 1: trained in this kind of product design, but as people
Speaker 1: with disabilities, they knew firsthand what the problems were and
Speaker 1: they decided to solve them. Well.
Speaker 2: Sticking with the historical angle for our next fact, let's
Speaker 2: talk about ear trumpets, which is just such a great
Speaker 2: name for our product. And now the idea of an
Speaker 2: ear trumpet has been around for hundreds of years and
Speaker 2: actually maybe even more than that.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I really associate them with like the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, Like didn't Beethoven use them?
Speaker 2: He did, yes, you remember from your history books, and
Speaker 2: that was in their heyday. But there are reports of
Speaker 2: folks using hollowed out horns to help with hearing issues
Speaker 2: as far back as the thirteenth century. So the way
Speaker 2: they work is pretty simple. You can actually picture these things.
Speaker 2: The funnel shape strengthens the impact of sound waves on
Speaker 2: the ear drum, making the sound easier to hear. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, hearing aids have made them obsolete, but unlike
Speaker 2: hearing aids, ear trumpets came in all kinds of incredible
Speaker 2: elaborate designs. So today the largest collection of ear trumpets
Speaker 2: in the world is owned by a man named Michael Briggs.
Speaker 2: He's this retired engineer from England and he's also the
Speaker 2: owner of the website eartrumpets dot net, which, if ear
Speaker 2: trumpets are your thing, that is pro probably worth bookmarking.
Speaker 1: Mango I'm definitely going to check that out right after this.
Speaker 1: How many trumpets does he own.
Speaker 2: So as of this recording, because I feel like he's
Speaker 2: probably going to have more soon. It was five hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty four, and he has some great examples. There's
Speaker 2: this one from nineteen hundred that looks like a beehive,
Speaker 2: or one from eighteen eighty six where the trumpet is
Speaker 2: concealed within a folding fan, another one where the funnel
Speaker 2: is made from a conk shell. But you know, I'm
Speaker 2: partial to the tortoises shell one that has this pair
Speaker 2: of matching glasses attached to the end. It's just pretty
Speaker 2: fun to look at.
Speaker 1: I know, I like the idea of assistive devices as
Speaker 1: basically doubling as fashion accessories Like that feels like a great.
Speaker 2: Thing, totally stylish and functional, sort of the best of
Speaker 2: both worlds.
Speaker 1: So next, I want to talk about a technology that
Speaker 1: has become absolutely much more recently. It was created in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and it was called the opticon.
Speaker 2: That sounds that sounds like something from a sci fi novel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or like a shape right, Well, it definitely seems futureteristic,
Speaker 1: and it was when it was invented. As you were
Speaker 1: saying at the top of the show, braill is useful,
Speaker 1: but it has limits. So not only do you have
Speaker 1: to know how to read it, someone has to translate
Speaker 1: the original text, which may be possible for books and
Speaker 1: public signage, but not for all the text you encounter
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. Like I was reading an account
Speaker 1: by this woman named Debbie Stein, and she was reflecting
Speaker 1: on her life in the nineteen sixties and early seventies.
Speaker 1: Now Debbie is blind, and she gave the example of
Speaker 1: cleaning out her purse. If she wanted to sort through
Speaker 1: her receipts and old grocery lists in order to decide
Speaker 1: what to keep and what to throw out, she'd have
Speaker 1: to wait until a friend or a paid reader was
Speaker 1: there to help.
Speaker 2: I mean that sounds like a constant hassle.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so these days there are text to speech
Speaker 1: devices and other technologies that can scan and read written text.
Speaker 1: But back then, people like Debbie were stuck. Enter a
Speaker 1: Stanford electrical engineering professor, his name was John Linville. Now
Speaker 1: John was cited, but his daughter Candy was blind and
Speaker 1: she struggled with limited materials in braille. So in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two. With help from his colleagues, John began work
Speaker 1: on a solution, a portable device that could read almost
Speaker 1: any written material, regardless of what or where it was,
Speaker 1: and in the early nineteen seventies the opticon was born.
Speaker 1: So here's how it worked. With one hand, you'd move
Speaker 1: a small camera over the text you wanted to read.
Speaker 1: In your other hand, you'd have a fingertip sized receiver
Speaker 1: filled with one hundred and forty four tiny metal rods.
Speaker 1: When the camera scanned the text, the opticon would convert
Speaker 1: each letter or symbol to a specific vibration pattern that
Speaker 1: was sent to the rods, which you would then detect
Speaker 1: with your finger.
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to understand how this works. So would
Speaker 2: you feel the shape of the words or what?
Speaker 1: Basically like? It took some practice to get the hang
Speaker 1: of it. In fact, a two week training course was
Speaker 1: required with each purchase, but for people who learned it
Speaker 1: it was life changing. Like Debbie, you know, the one
Speaker 1: with the clutter purse. She got her first opticon in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, and while she said it was slower
Speaker 1: than using braille, it gave her access to a lot
Speaker 1: more text so she could read whatever she wanted whenever
Speaker 1: she wanted, not just magazines or newspapers, but like bills
Speaker 1: or flyers, menus, LP jackets, basically anything.
Speaker 2: This guy's a lemon. I feel like you should keep naming,
Speaker 2: just keep going.
Speaker 1: Well almost deb said the only thing that optacons struggled
Speaker 1: with was cursive writing, but clearprint was generally fine. So
Speaker 1: if you're going to write her a letter, you had
Speaker 1: to do it neatly, which is probably good advice anyway,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: All right, so what you said, this is obsolete now,
Speaker 2: though like it sounds like it could still be pretty handy, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean a company called Telesensory Systems manufactured and sold
Speaker 1: opticons for a couple of decades, but they discontinued them
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six as optical character readers became more popular.
Speaker 1: If you dig around on eBay, though, you can still
Speaker 1: find some vintage opticons out there.
Speaker 2: That's very cool. All right, we have to take a
Speaker 2: quick break. But when we come back, synthesized voices, future faucets,
Speaker 2: and the assistive technology that was so powerful started its
Speaker 2: own effect. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to part time Genius,
Speaker 2: where we're talking about assistive technology. All right, mego, I
Speaker 2: got a question for you. How many times a day
Speaker 2: do you use the sink?
Speaker 1: I mean, wash my hands, brush my teeth, and glass
Speaker 1: of water? I don't know, maybe a dozen times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't always think about them, but the fact
Speaker 2: is we all depend on faucets. Now. The problem is,
Speaker 2: if you have a spinal cord injury or something that
Speaker 2: limits your arm or hand mobility, standard faucets might not
Speaker 2: work well for you. Of course, there are motion sensor faucets,
Speaker 2: as you probably know, but those aren't perfect either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I mean I feel like I was
Speaker 1: in airports this week trying to get the sinks and
Speaker 1: the motion tests with work, and you've just spent so
Speaker 1: much time like waving your hand into these things. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to find the combo of the sink
Speaker 2: that works and the soap dispenser that works, So you
Speaker 2: end up like just waving it under the soap then squirts,
Speaker 2: then you move on to the wrong sink and it's
Speaker 2: just but anyway, but think about the nozzle too, Like
Speaker 2: it points straight down, which works for washing your hands,
Speaker 2: but isn't great if you have limited mobility and you're
Speaker 2: trying to wash your face or brush your teeth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually I hadn't thought of that, but I
Speaker 1: can see how that would be a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a problem that a new faucet called
Speaker 2: the Access H two O is actually trying to solve.
Speaker 2: So what's cool about it is instead of just one
Speaker 2: way to control the water and one way to access it,
Speaker 2: there are multiple options and it really depends on the
Speaker 2: user's needs and their various abilities.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So tell me how does this work.
Speaker 2: Well, it's not available to the public just yet, so
Speaker 2: most of what I know comes from this study that
Speaker 2: was published last year. But according to that study, there
Speaker 2: are three ways to activate the faucet and adjust the
Speaker 2: temperature and the water volume. There's a motion sensor, an
Speaker 2: I gay sensor, and a voice sensor, so you can
Speaker 2: choose what works best for you. Plus there are different
Speaker 2: nozzle options. There's the downward facing nozzle and two on
Speaker 2: the top that can point up and can be used
Speaker 2: like a drinking fountain or you know, for washing your
Speaker 2: face or something like that. It's all still in development.
Speaker 2: So the study was testing its effectiveness with a group
Speaker 2: of eighteen people with various spinal cord injuries. So with
Speaker 2: standard faucets, most of the people needed some level of
Speaker 2: assistance for drinking or rinsing their mouths or even washing
Speaker 2: their faces. But with the access H two O faucet,
Speaker 2: almost all of the testers could do these tasks independently,
Speaker 2: which is pretty great.
Speaker 1: You know, what I'm really taking from my conversation today
Speaker 1: is the best assistive tech lets people do the things
Speaker 1: they need and want to do on their own terms.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. It's all about allowing people
Speaker 2: to live their lives as autonomously as possible.
Speaker 1: So another new device in this vein is something called
Speaker 1: the Obi robot. Obi's creators call it assistive tech for
Speaker 1: inde pendant dining, and it is for people who can
Speaker 1: chew and swallow on their own, but have trouble with
Speaker 1: the mechanics of feeding themselves. Because if you're relying on
Speaker 1: a caregiver to like help you eat, not only do
Speaker 1: you not necessarily get to choose when to eat, you
Speaker 1: might not get to choose the exact bite you wanted
Speaker 1: at that moment or the piece you want to eat at.
Speaker 2: Which I know can be incredibly frustrating and losing that
Speaker 2: independence and making those choices. So how does the OBI work.
Speaker 1: Put Simply, it mimics the human arm, So it does
Speaker 1: require another person to put spoon sized food into one
Speaker 1: or all of its four bowls, but then Obi takes
Speaker 1: it from there. The robotic arm connects to a spoon
Speaker 1: or a spork, It scoops up a bite of food
Speaker 1: and then brings it to your mouth.
Speaker 2: And the person eating is controlling all of this or what?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly? They can choose which bowl Obi takes from
Speaker 1: and when they take the bite. And also it's portable,
Speaker 1: so you can take it to restaurants or a friend's house,
Speaker 1: or you can use it whenever you'd like. There's this
Speaker 1: example from one user, a ten year old girl. She
Speaker 1: said one of the things she liked about OBI was
Speaker 1: that now she could join the school book club, which
Speaker 1: meant during lunchtimes, she could bring Obi with her to
Speaker 1: the meeting and eat her meal with everyone else, all
Speaker 1: while they hung out and talked about books.
Speaker 2: Hey, you got to love anything that makes it easier
Speaker 2: to join a book club. I think that's top of
Speaker 2: the list there. But all right, mego, So for my
Speaker 2: next fact, I want to talk about augmentative and alternative
Speaker 2: communication or AAC. Now, the term actually encompasses any way
Speaker 2: you might communicate without speech, like even physical gestures. But
Speaker 2: I'm going to focus here on something called aided modes,
Speaker 2: which refers to using a device that assists in communication. Now,
Speaker 2: the overarching goal of AAC is to give someone with
Speaker 2: speech disabilities a way to communicate, either through words or
Speaker 2: expressing emotions or opinions like indicating yes or no. Now,
Speaker 2: when it comes to aided AAC, perhaps the most famous
Speaker 2: example is Stephen Hawking. So Hawking had als and had
Speaker 2: of course lost the ability to speak, and this was
Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty five. So he used a computer
Speaker 2: system where he could select letters, words, even phrases on
Speaker 2: a screen and a synthesized voice would speak them. Now,
Speaker 2: after losing the ability to press the switch with his hands,
Speaker 2: he began using his cheek muscle to control the selection.
Speaker 2: But what I actually find most interesting is that he
Speaker 2: used the exact same voice for the rest of his life,
Speaker 2: and even when his software became outdated, he didn't want
Speaker 2: to give it up. And I kind of see that, right, like,
Speaker 2: there was the voice that we all associated so strongly
Speaker 2: with Stephen Hawking.
Speaker 1: In some ways, I totally get that, because, like, you
Speaker 1: want that continuity. But I'm also kind of surprised like
Speaker 1: someone in that position, you know, a professor, a scholar,
Speaker 1: like public intellectual, like, it also feels like you might
Speaker 1: want to keep your cutting edge and it's funny that
Speaker 1: you relied on older technology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was kind of interesting to hear him talk
Speaker 2: about this. So when he was asked about this, he said, quote,
Speaker 2: I keep it because I have not heard a voice
Speaker 2: I like better, and because I have identified with it.
Speaker 2: And if you think about it, your voice is such
Speaker 2: a strong personal thing, like it's of who you are,
Speaker 2: and so it'd be tough to give up a voice
Speaker 2: just for a software update, you know. But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: There are millions of people with communication disabilities, and not
Speaker 2: everyone has access to high tech AAC devices like the
Speaker 2: custom Intel setup that Hawking was using, and people who
Speaker 2: aren't as famous as Hawking often run into other challenges
Speaker 2: like people getting impatient with the time it takes for
Speaker 2: them to express themselves, or people assume that a lack
Speaker 2: of verbal ability indicates a lack of intelligence.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So while there is incredible AAC technology out there, it
Speaker 2: only makes an impact if people who need it have
Speaker 2: access to it. And if people are given the time
Speaker 2: in the space, they need to communicate in their own way,
Speaker 2: you know, whether they want to talk about theoretical physics
Speaker 2: or the latest Marvel movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, we did
Speaker 1: say at the beginning of the show that we talk
Speaker 1: about some low tech, and this next tech is about
Speaker 1: as low as it gets. I'm referring, of course, to
Speaker 1: the curb cut. So you know those little inclines that
Speaker 1: lead from the street to the sidewalk or vice versa.
Speaker 1: The first intentional curb cut was built in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five. But the movement that really made
Speaker 1: curb cuts such an integral part of American sidewalks happened
Speaker 1: in Berkeley in the nineteen sixties. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of progressive activism in Berkeley at that time, and among
Speaker 1: the people calling for change was a group of students
Speaker 1: with disabilities. And for all the peace and love going
Speaker 1: around Berkeley, sidewalks were not accessible for wheelchair users, so
Speaker 1: people had to roll down the street hoping they didn't
Speaker 1: get hit by a car.
Speaker 2: It must have been terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, these activists call themselves the Rolling Quads,
Speaker 1: and they did whatever they could to make themselves heard.
Speaker 1: There are even stories about members blowing up curbs and
Speaker 1: installing their own ramps in the dead of night as protests,
Speaker 1: and some of these stories are probably exaggerated, but the
Speaker 1: point stands right like, the city needed to change, and
Speaker 1: thanks to these activists work, in nineteen seventy two, Berkeley
Speaker 1: finally installed its first curb cut, right on the edge
Speaker 1: of the university campus on Telegraph and Bancroft, and the
Speaker 1: disability rights movement kept up the pressure and slowly other
Speaker 1: cities began to install curb cuts as well, and finally,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety the Americans with Disabilities Act made curb
Speaker 1: cuts mandatory in a lot of places. The law is
Speaker 1: not perfect. I'm sure you've seen examples of sidewalks without them,
Speaker 1: but it has made a huge difference.
Speaker 2: You know, for most of my life, I didn't really
Speaker 2: have to pay attention to curb cuts, but you know,
Speaker 2: once you have kids, and especially kids in strollers, like
Speaker 2: that makes you really notice them and you know where
Speaker 2: they were and where they weren't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, same, And that's one of the great things about
Speaker 1: this humble dip in the pavement right. It is like
Speaker 1: such a great example of assistive technology because it helps
Speaker 1: people with strollers, people using walkers, people pushing carts or
Speaker 1: carrying luggage. Right, Like curb cuts basically make life easier
Speaker 1: for everyone, so much so that there's even a term
Speaker 1: for it, the curb cut effect. It's the idea that
Speaker 1: if you design for all abilities, you actually make a
Speaker 1: better product for everyone.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of inclusive design, the last item on our
Speaker 2: list is another example of something that's become so much
Speaker 2: more than it was initially meant to be. I'm talking,
Speaker 2: of course, about closed captions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even if you're a hearing person. Captions
Speaker 1: are great when you're trying to watch a show without
Speaker 1: waking someone up, or if you're watching something in another language,
Speaker 1: or even with like a thick British accent.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's helpful, super helpful, you know. So
Speaker 2: a couple quick definitions because the terminology is a little
Speaker 2: counterintuitive here. Captions are different from subtitles because they include
Speaker 2: descriptive sound information like sound effects or music. They'll also
Speaker 2: indicate if someone is yelling or singing or whatever they
Speaker 2: happen to be doing. Close captioning refers to the text
Speaker 2: that you can choose to see or not. Open captioning
Speaker 2: means the text is always visible on the screen anyway.
Speaker 2: To get back to our story here, in the early days,
Speaker 2: TV wasn't made with deaf and hard of hearing people
Speaker 2: in mind. By the early nineteen seventies, there were some
Speaker 2: education films with open captioning, and PBS had a few
Speaker 2: shows with open captions, but it wasn't until March nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty that the first closed caption programs were Broadcast networks
Speaker 2: worked with a newly formed organization. It was called the
Speaker 2: National Captioning Institute, and they provided this service. However, to
Speaker 2: access the captions, you had to have a separate closed
Speaker 2: caption decoder set up on your TV.
Speaker 1: So in practice it was still pretty limited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the selection was also limited, so before long people
Speaker 2: began asking for more closed caption programming. Soap operas, kids shows,
Speaker 2: talk shows, all the things that people watched in the
Speaker 2: eighties when you think about it, and over time those
Speaker 2: started getting captioned. But all of these programs have something
Speaker 2: in common. They are pre recorded, which meant there was
Speaker 2: an important category that was missing.
Speaker 1: I know, live TV, right like you think about sports
Speaker 1: or like the Oscars, no one wants to watch that
Speaker 1: the next.
Speaker 2: Day, right, And the same goes for things like breaking news.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen eighty two, real time close captioning debuted
Speaker 2: to minimize lag time as much as possible. The National
Speaker 2: Captioning Institute actually hired court reporters who are notoriously fast hypers.
Speaker 2: By the early nineteen nineties, all new TVs came with
Speaker 2: a caption decoding microchip built in so you didn't have
Speaker 2: to buy a separate device, and almost all shows were
Speaker 2: required to have captioning, which is how we got to
Speaker 2: where we are today, where it's ubiquitous and again useful
Speaker 2: for so many different people.
Speaker 1: Well, well, because you introduced me to my new favorite website,
Speaker 1: ear trumpets dot net, I think you deserve today's trophy.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I can't believe you had this trophy made
Speaker 2: in the shape of an ear trumpet. I think I
Speaker 2: feel like you saw this coming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's easier to do that than a curve cut.
Speaker 1: But that is it for today's episode. If you have
Speaker 1: a questioner idea for the show, please give us a
Speaker 1: call at three oh two, four oh five, five nine
Speaker 1: two five. We really really love hearing from you. You
Speaker 1: can also email us at High Geniuses at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: Hi Geniuses at gmail dot com, or find us on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Blue Sky at part Time Genius. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by the wonderful Marissa Brown. Thank you so much, Marissa.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week, but in the meantime, from Will, Dylan, Gabe, Mary,
Speaker 1: and myself, thank you so much for listening. Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. It is
Speaker 1: hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who I've known
Speaker 1: for almost three decades now. That is insane to me.
Speaker 1: I'm the other co host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer. I'm
Speaker 1: going to fix that in post. Our writer is Gabe Lucier,
Speaker 1: who I've also known for like a decade at this point,
Speaker 1: maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the boot. He is
Speaker 1: always dressed up, always cheering us on, and always ready
Speaker 1: to hit record and then mix the show after he
Speaker 1: does a great job. I also want to shout out
Speaker 1: the executive producers from iHeart my good pals Katrina and
Speaker 1: Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media support from
Speaker 1: Calypso Rallis if you like our videos, that is all
Speaker 1: Calypso's handiwork. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: App, Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 1: Tune in wherever you listen to your favorite shows. That's
Speaker 1: it from us here at Part Time Genius. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening