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Signtime.apple: One-on-one sign language interpreting by Apple
- hyperfuturism 3y agoI didn't know that Apple had their own TLD. Apparently they got it in year 2015.
- dinkleberg 3y agoI was going to comment the same thing. I’m not surprised that they have one, but this is the first I’ve ever seen it.
- popcalc 3y agoA closer look at .apple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37890187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37890187
- jsjohnst 3y agohere's the full zone file for the TLD... https://pastebin.com/NAnMzk3P https://pastebin.com/NAnMzk3P
- bdcravens 3y agoInterestingly enough, it seems they don't use it for much, even redirects. Domains like store.apple don't resolve. You can of course find pages via Google: site:*.apple
- callalex 3y agoThe body governing TLDs really jumped the shark. The out in the open corruption and extortion is a serious dark mark on the tech industry.
- TylerE 3y agoThe funny thing is they’re actually doing themselves in. By refusing to moderate they only further reinforced “not .com == scam”.
- charcircuit 3y agoIf people are already able to video chat, then why not call Apple directly?
- avianlyric 3y agoBecause most customer service agents don’t understand American Sign Language, and it’s quite hard view sign language over a phone call, hence the whole sign language interpreter thing.
- 0ct4via 3y agoBecause (a) video chat doesn't work brilliantly with sign language (signing can be rather quick, so any latency or artefacts could results in words or expressions being missed, and (b) not every Apple CSA knows how to sign ASL -- most don't. Most places don't have ASL interpreters on-call or even to any degree among their staff, and often rely on external companies to provide (often pre-booked) ASL interpreter sessions to D/deaf clients. It's really nice that Apple is making this available so easily and accessibly, and in-house. Just being able to click and connect to an Interpreter is a great improvement in accessibility for ASL users.
- Ensorceled 3y agoAnd then wait while they get redirected to the ASL agent or bring an ASL interpreter in on the call? Why would anyone want that?
- zamalek 3y agoI was hoping to see something along the lines of ASL recognition. I strongly suspect that (an extension of) ASL could be an excellent way to interact with VR UIs. ASL natively exploits spatial context, which is what initially piqued my interest. Sadly this is an extremely difficult problem to solve. As a bonus more people would learn ASL.
- morelisp 3y agoI think if you had automatic interpretation, removing much of the financial incentive to learn it, and even likely a large portion of the social incentive, far fewer people would learn it.
- aldebran 3y agoI’m confused. Is the statement that people learn ASL for money and some social kudos?
- techsupporter 3y agoI'm not sure I understand; why would automatic interpretation reduce the incentive to learn ASL? I learned ASL, as a hearing person, to be able to communicate with deaf friends anywhere and with my (hearing) spouse and other friends in noisy or large places. It's also a hedge against my future potential hearing loss from tinnitus. Automatic interpreting wouldn't solve any of those and neither it nor automated captions take the place of human-understood interpreting. I think putting ASL in something like VR where it is more visible to the hearing world might broaden its reach?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- morelisp 3y agoYou think if you make it a less commercially viable skill and make it easier to communicate with deaf people without learning it, more people will learn it? Or even the same number of people?
- alberth 3y agoIt’s so confusing (and could lead to security issues) for Apple to use .apple TLD It’s super easy for someone to get confused between example.apple and example.app/le (since both .apple and .app are TLDs) They did this with music first, now this. https://learn.applemusic.apple/apple-music-classical https://learn.applemusic.apple/apple-music-classical (And it’s further confusing because sometime .apple redirects to .com) What’s the logic Apple uses to decide between .com or .apple TLD usage?
- clnq 3y ago> It’s so confusing (and could lead to security issues) for Apple to use .apple TLD Rest assured - anything under .apple brand TLD is Apple's. https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/tld/registration-policy/ https://www.apple.com/legal/intellectual-property/tld/regist...
- alberth 3y ago.app/e or .app/le are not but look quite similar.
- tiltowait 3y agoDon't most (and possibly all popular) browsers these days hide or de-emphasize the path in the address bar, showing only the domain?
- RockRobotRock 3y agothe full host, including subdomains.
- jeroenhd 3y agoIn my URL bar, .apple is bold and bright white, the /le on .app/le is grey and faded. With modern browsers, I don't think this is a problem anymore. Subdomain attacks and query length attacks have already made browsers put address shenanigans mitigations into the address bar.
- richbell 3y agoFor anyone unclear of the purpose, this seems to be an Apple-run Video Relay Service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_relay_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_relay_service
- tpmx 3y agoThis one could have the benefit that the "interpreter" is aware of common apple-specific product topics and be able to directly solve problems themselves, advise on stuff, etc. And then fall back to interpreting when more expertise is needed - with the added benefit of having a baseline understanding of the topics discussed.
- GeekyBear 3y agoIn an era where having customer support at all is not a given, paying real human beings to offer customer support through ASL is pretty next level.
- plibither8 3y agoAgreed! However, I also wonder what their ratio of spam vs. actual ASL-requiring-customer calls is. Since it's so easy and quick to connect to a real human with comolete audio and video enabled on both ends, won't it be prone to abuse? The more such a service gets attention from regular media (instead of the niche, targeted audience it aims to serve), I fear it'll be another case of "why we can't have good things".
- SteveDR 3y agoWouldn’t the spam calls be pretty minimal if they make it known that they will not provide support to non-ASL callers?
- pjerem 3y agoIt’s already pretty easy for anyone to talk to an human at Apple tbh, be it by phone or by going to a physical store, their support is already really accessible for everyone. Here if I understand you don’t get access to support but to an interpreter who will call the support for you. It’s of no interest if you don’t know ASL
- plibither8 3y ago> Here if I understand you don’t get access to support but to an interpreter who will call the support for you. It’s of no interest if you don’t know ASL I might receive some slack here, but I gave it a try (I don't know ASL). Within 5 seconds of clicking the button, I was connected to a live human, with both my video and sound, as well as the other person's, turned on (although I did have the ability to switch them off). There was no intermediate step to filter out spam calls. I did cut the call quickly though to avoid wasting their time!
- 3y ago
- patricklorio 3y agoSounds like a smart way to build a high quality dataset of captioned ASL videos while also providing a great service. Guessing in 2 years they’ll have a decent ML model.
- akira2501 3y agoASL does not have a 1:1 correspondence with spoken language and it uses a large amount of "short hand" and "place holders" for various situations. Throw in fingerspelling, which many signers can do at a very fast rate, and I strongly doubt the ability of a fixed location camera to accurately read an ASL conversation at any useful level.
- joshstrange 3y agoI’m not saying they won’t do that but Apple has been committed to accessibility in a way that no other company comes close to for decades. It’s in their core DNA and something their CEOs have said they will do even though the return on investment doesn’t really exist. Though I think overtime, it will. I wish “accessibility” wasn’t such a dirty word for most people (thinking it’s only for “disabled” people, or people with a problem). Accessibility is for everyone and I encourage people to dig into that section of their phone settings. Most people will be surprised at what is there and that there are probably 1-2 things at a minimum that they might be interested in turning on for themselves.
- criley2 3y agoI'm surprised to hear that "Apple has committed to accessibility in a way that no other company comes close to for decades" because Microsoft has already been doing that for over a decade, and is by far the most used OS for accessibility reasons. Apple is actually pretty behind in accessibility on desktop from what I've seen. Their apple designed peripherals (kbb/mouse/etc) are extremely anti-accessible and seem to be designed for the youngest and coolest crowd with zero thought for anyone with any disability. Unlike Microsoft, they do not sell any accessibility or disability focused peripherals. And their OS doesn't make accessibility a first class experience. Third party support for hardware and software is massive for accessibility, and OSX is notoriously bad for third party support. Major third party peripherals from the biggest companies often have pretty bad support, and so the accessibility minority gets the short end of a short stick on OSX.
- fatih-erikli 3y agoIt always feels like my router page filled with javascript by my ISP when I visit a domain doesn't end with regular tlds. Is apple domain really belongs to apple? Nobody is questioning that, what a shame for hn users. Edit, it seems legit: https://support.apple.com/en-us/101572 https://support.apple.com/en-us/101572
- Tempest8 3y agoThere are multiple comments talking about Apple tld…
- fatih-erikli 3y agoYup, shame on me
- phineas1500 3y agoAll companies with Apple-like cash reserves should be doing this.
- bdcravens 3y agoInteresting that it's actual people. I would have expected it to be generated AI, something like Signapse https://www.signapse.ai/ https://www.signapse.ai/
- extraduder_ire 3y agoSame, thought apple would never call it AI. I got moderately excited about iPhones interpreting one or more forms of sign language from reading the title. I'm sure that's not too far off though. I expect it would be somewhat limited until sane conventions evolve for adjusting the grammar to English/user-language. (or sidestep that, and just display and store messages using memoji)
- chpatrick 3y agoMaybe this is a stupid question but what are the use cases for this where text and subtitles don't work?
- spacecrafter3d 3y agoASL is not signed English. It has its own distinct grammar. Many people who use ASL are more comfortable and fluent using ASL than communicating using English text.
- chpatrick 3y agoOkay but now you need this very complicated video system to communicate, rather than text which works everywhere and you can read at your own pace. Also with this system it would still be auto-translated from written English so I can't see it being more expressive than the source text. How many people find the video of the guy easier to understand than the text saying King's Cross - 14:29 - Cancelled? https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c30a4d_0430c75ba26545c0b7bbf71183471985~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_657,y_0,w_607,h_1064/fill/w_586,h_1030,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/RailPoint%20x%20Signapse%20Image%203.jpg https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c30a4d_0430c75ba26545c0b7...
- abaymado 3y agoWorked on software that enables users to share their screens with customer service for troubleshooting purposes. Certain "customers" will call, hang up if the representative sounded like a male voice, if it sounds like a female voice, they would turn their Photo Booth app and flash themselves naked. A particular user flashed himself 100 times. Every time there is a non automated customer service, certain groups tend to abuse it, leading to an automated customer service.
- cat_plus_plus 3y agoOk guys, please actually explain instead of just pouncing. Why wouldn't text chat be more appropriate in this situation? I understand that ASL could be much more quick/fluent in a person to person interaction, plus it doesn't need any technical means of writing, whether pen and paper or a computer. But isn't technical support a rare use case where typing speed is not a big bottleneck and where also writing things out can help precision and cut down on having to repeat yourself? Given that resources are always limited, wouldn't it be better to invest in accessibility where that has the most impact rather than a corner case where other workarounds are available?
- erik_seaberg 3y agoASL doesn't seem to have a written form in common use. That user might read English, but only as a second language.
- avianlyric 3y agoOn the basis of that argument, why provide a voice service either? I understand that talking could be much more quick/fluent in a person to person interaction, plus it doesn’t need any technical means of writing, whether pen and paper or a computer. But isn’t technical support a rare use case where typing speed is not a big bottleneck and where also writing things out can help precision and cut down on having to repeat yourself? Given that resources are always limited, wouldn’t it be better to invest in accessibility where that the most impact? Accessibility is about meeting people where they are, rather than just trying to cater to the lowest common denominator by finding “workarounds”. Apple already provides a technical chat service, and I’m quite sure deaf people are capable of using it. Is people are choosing to use this Video Relay service, its for a reason, presumably because they find ASL easier to work with than written language. Perhaps it’s an age thing, personal preference, or maybe they have other difficulties that make reading and writing difficult. But forcing people to use the cheapest form of communication simply because catering to their needs is a “corner case” isn’t providing accessibility, it’s ignoring the needs of individuals because they’re inconvenient.
- vedosity 3y agoWritten english is often only a second language for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Sign languages have their own idioms, culture, and identity; ASL isn’t signed English. I previously worked at a video relay service company (VRS in the US is a service paid for by the TRS fund through the FCC, and allows Deaf and hard-of-hearing people to make phone calls through video-chat with a ASL interpreter). In written English-based interactions with Deaf and hard-of-hearing colleagues, there is often a communication barrier as there often is with anyone speaking a second language. In my personal experience working on tickets written by D/deaf colleagues, while sometimes we could communicate by whiteboard or text-based chat, it was indispensable to have the option to discuss the ticket with someone who could interpret present.
- deafpolygon 3y agoI wish we could see more of this in other industries. Not related, but as a deaf person fluent in ASL-- where do I find people to talk to online these days? Where I live now (NW Europe) _ there is sadly no one to talk to.