RAW FILE
ITU FG AVA WORKSHOP
OCTOBER 25, 2013
8:30 CET

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> YUSHI NAITO: Shall we get started? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Yushi Naito, study group 16 Chairman. And I am honored to Chair this session, session 2, improving accessibility and assistive technologies using texttospeech, are now introduced in computers and televisions and Smartphones and so on. This session provide as example what can be done to integrate assistive technologies and we were expecting to have three speakers but unfortunately Radi from Pakistan can't come to this meeting. We have two presentations today. The first one is from Ulrike Haltrich from Germany and she is the head Delegate of IEC TC100 and also these two to this Focus Group and she received IEC 196 Delegate awards from TEC 100. Now Ulrike, you have the floor.

> ULRIKE HALTRICH: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to report this morning on IEC TC100 and my name is Ulrike Haltrich from Sony Europe. So what I would like to talk about this morning are the ambient assisted living and accessibility activities. They are all related to audiovisual and multimedia equipment. Just to show you a brief overview of what devices and systems are basically covered in TC100, it was a professional and also the consumer devices side. As for the structure of TC100 just very briefly the Chairman is David Falon from the U.S. and then the Secretariat is from Japan. We have an advisory group on strategy where we introduce study sessions on ambient assisted living and accessibility already many years ago. And then we have a management group, AGM and different technical areas. So the technical areas I don't want to go through all of them but you see that so the focus is in technical area 1, for example, on terminal, audio individual yeah, and additional data services and then cover digital system interfaces, cable Networks and multimedia home server systems in T A9 and then also what is related to our accessibility activities to some extent is the work in TA 10 multimedia for epublishing and ebook technology and also considering the needs for the Visually Impaired people and then looking in to quality for audio and video and energy efficiency and Smart Grid and then environmental aspects and interfaces and measurement for personal computing and wireless power transfer. Objectives and strategies of TC100 are to enrich human life with entertainment provided by audio, video and multimedia. Some examples I think the second part contribute to society is more relevant for this group currently. So power consumption, of course, and then energy efficiency and accessibility and usability aspects of AV and multimedia equipment and then functional requirements for television and we also con ducted a survey on ambient assisted living use cases. TC100, recognized already the work of accessibility in 2007 and now extends basically the scope and sees accessibility as one part of ambient assisted living. So in TC100 the activities started already in 2007 and state civil project was established at this time and the technical report 62678 was a liveable of this project. So audio, video and multimedia systems and equipment activities and consideration related to accessibility and usability was published in 2010.
We started with a study sessions in the strategic group in May 2011 and also established a liaison for the European Blind Union with this user group be really closely cooperate and they are also attending all meetings for think the last three years or two and a half years.
In January this year we have published IEC 62731 and it defines the texttospeech functionality for television and the prestandards were both started in digital Europe. Our CE and IT industry Association, Mia was also part of the group that you commissioned will closely monitor this and the European disability Forum also actively participated and the European disability Forum they sent basically the technical experts now from the European Blind Union to TC100 and then we had a meeting in Dallas last year and there it was agreed to establish a state project on ambient assisted living and we conducted a survey related to use cases related to TC100 and the scope is much bigger than what we try to focus on AV and multimedia systems. As you probably know in IC there is also SMB strategic group established No. 5 on AAL and TC100 contribute to this work. And what we tried to do is we identify a huge work items in the area of TC100 and we are currently preparing the technical report of use cases.
The current related activities is for us, we finalized the survey and we received 17 relevant use cases. This group has also contributed use cases for audio description subtitling and spoken subtitles. This is also covered in the TR and then in the meantime we also published PAS, public available specification which is the result of a project UniversAAL. I can share this with you if you like after the session.
And then the draft PR which we currently developing on use cases will be finalized by the end of this month. So we are currently in the final review space in the project team and then in our last meeting in September in Shenzhen the European blind union, EBU is the European blind union. They proposed a new work item on digital television accessibility and usability functional specification and this is currently discussed in only the project team and there will be probably some methods before the end of the year to the national Committee.
As for the use cases I said that we received 17 and we structured them in the following classes. So communication and social interaction entertainment use case scenarios and then daily life support, safety, security and privacy at home, monitoring health care and wellness, active aging and some mobile use case scenario. This structure is basically in line with what SG5 proposed.
In terms of what use cases we received completely, so as you see the European Blind Union submitted a use case on connectivity and improvement of interfaces and then we received three contributions from the U.S. on accessible electronic programme guides and digital operators and accessible video description. As I said this group submitted accessible audio description, subtitles and spoken subtitles use cases. China also submitted a use case on smart TV and tablet and portable multimedia devices. Germany they really did not focus on much on television and AV equipment. They are looking more in to the general scope of AAL. So they delivered a telemonitoring use case, inhouse assistant and electronic butler and mobile systems use case. We received also a couple of use cases from Japan. Some of them are already either in a trial phase or already implemented. So a safety check, service using a TV set and then Smartphone as Pedometer to promote health and telemonitoring through tablet devices and then a 24hour telemonitoring assist service which I believe is already implemented. And then telemonitoring sensors and monitoring of the body composition on status of a person by television.
And then also the EU research project. Universal they delivered two use cases. Lifestyle package and traditional advisor use case and as you may know alliance this is also a research project and what they have done is they basically developed repository of AV standards and they extracted from the long list of standards the relevant standards for TC100.
So concluding my presentation or our work on AAL and TC100, what we want to do is we consider the development of functional specifications and guidelines which focus on accessibility and use ability of TVs and connected TVs. And what we will do is we define the user needs, especially of elderly, visually and hearing impaired people and want to develop guidelines and best practices in this area and then we want to develop guidelines to simplify the accessibility of subtitles and EPG and audio description. Audio output for onscreen displays and control play back and many of those issues already identified. Of course, television are also relevant for other personal devices like Smartphones and tablets and ebook readers.
So what we see here, actually in what we identified from the contributions of use cases we received that the connected TV is not just an entertainment device but also will be used as an intelligent hub and home gateway and we will also support other requirements identified in the use cases which are relevant for AAL by using televisions and the scope also include telecare and telemonitoring activities and, of course, support the Web being an independent living of elderly people. So TC100 will do further work in this area and also, of course, provide input to the requirements which are currently identified in SG5 and the work of SG5 will probably be finished in March next year. So the final meeting is in March in Brussels. And then this will maybe AAL related activities will probably go in to more assistance TC.
So this is basically what we are doing in TC100. The CR will be out very soon for national Committee ballot and what we also do with our next meeting in May that we do a bigger AAL workshop and see as this workshop will be also hosted by CA which is the consumer electronics Association of the U.S. that we involve more U.S. and Canadian experts in our group. Okay. This basically concludes my presentation. If you have any questions or comments, please.

> YUSHI NAITO: Thank you. I indicated in the programme I think it would be better to go through the presentation and then we have the panel located for questions and discussion. So I would rather go to the next presentation by Marcel Vlaming wider connection for hearing aids. He is the technical coordinator of the European hearing aid Association and project manager for wider connected of hearing aids and he has actually been in several standardization organizations and responsible editor and contributor for several IEC and ANSI centres on the hearing aid. Marcel you have the floor.

> MARCEL VLAMING: Thank you very much for introducing me. I thank you for being invited for this workshop, interesting workshop to give a presentation. My presentation will be about connection to hearing aid and my name is Marcel Vlaming and I represent for the European hearing Association and also called EHMA and represents the six hearing aid manufacturers in the world. Thank you. Are working on wireless connectivity for hearing aids and I will give you an introduction on hearing loss on hearing aids, the connectivity of hearing aids today and the requirements for the near future. Market drivers and the scenarios, roadmap that we have for that and I will conclude with a summary for that.
First I give you a small introduction for hearing loss. Hearing impairment is loss of auditive communication and that is a little bit different from just being soft sounds are not audible. An additional thing that you have to recognize is that high frequency sounds are also not audible and high frequency sounds are important for speech understanding but moreover the major problem for people with some degree of hearing impairment is the sensitivity to background noises that will reduce speech understanding of social condition text and that's one the major complaints that people have been having in hearing impairment. In general it is about 10% of the population have hearing problems. This, of course, demographic with age and as you get older it is a natural process that you will lose the ability to hear soft sounds but particularly for the high frequencies and for that you will have more problems with understanding speech and have your social context and communications by that. At present it is about that in developed countries that about 50 to 40% of the people with a hearing loss are using hearing aids. That means that a lot of people do not have the possibility or do not see the need for using a hearing aid for compensating their hearing loss.
This is in the developed countries, in the different countries even a lower percentage, a lower percentage of those people are able to have hearing aids. So depending on the prosperity level and the schemes of the world we can say about 50 million hearing aid users are currently using hearing aids worldwide.
On what hearing aids can do for you, the main function is amplification. That is the traditional function of a hearing aid since 70 years to amplify the soft sounds. What comes next is that you also need some sound compression because you like to restore the loudness of sounds. So the soft sounds audible and normal sounds will be at a normal level for you and the loud sounds will be loud but not too loud and the next thing is you need spectral compensation. That is by having an audiogram and compensation is given up to 8 kilohertz for the present day hearing aids. In future we are going to work for having hearing aids that move up to 12 kilohertz or even beyond that. We are working on new standards to get that far. The next very important function is to have some kind of suppression of the background noise. That can be done by several technologies in the hearing aids and I come also back to the presentation yesterday that is about clear audio, clean audio and I think also for that we see future use when we have wireless connections in which we can have separation of background and foreground sounds. Speech enhancement is another function to facilitate the essential requirement and help you for speech communication and speech enhancement is one of the functions that you can find in hearing aids and then I come to the real point for this workshop that is hearing aids have some direct connectivity to media sources. And by that may have indistort reception of the sound for speech understanding and having not to cope with the background annoying sounds around. That can be done by having a cable with a microphone, for instance. Very important of Tcoil, we have FM systems that are infrared systems and there are media hubs and these are offered as needed and as reached. I have to say there is something to do further on that. This picture gives you an overview just to give you an idea of what are hearing aids. Traditional there were behind the area hearing aids and these tend to be quite large 40 years ago. They have reduced considerably in size because people have hearing impairment would not like to be recognized as a hearing impaired person but recognized like a normal communicating person and for that reason they like to have a hearing aid and they would like to have it but they would not like to have as seen by other people and people are going to Act accordingly to that assuming that the person will have a communication from them. So one of the tasks of hearing aid is make those hearing aids as small as possible. When you go to the right, then you also see in the canal in the ear canal completely in the ear canal and even invisible in the canal sometimes. What I would like to point out these hearing aids they provide quite some functions and it is a real challenge to have with small battery to have a lifetime use time for hearing aid for at least five days. And all to integrate in a very small size. So that puts requirements on power on the dimensions of the electronics inside. So that is a requirement on that.
Hearing aids connectivity, what we aim for is in hearing aid connectivity to have direct connectivity to the audio source. Hearing impaired persons have an ability for background noise and also other also have also vulnerable to background noise. Use cases can be found everywhere in connection with communicating with the telephone, with audio and tablet PC and at schools, public theaters, churches, points of sale, public announcements in nations, airports, these are all situations people would need to have a direct connectivity to the audio source. Solutions Tcoil, FM, media gateway and future technologies wireless connectivity. This shows you the current system that is the magnetic induction loop, Tcoil. It is an existing system that you can find already for as long hearing aids are on the market. It is promoted in several countries, for instance, United Kingdom is very much promoting and also several states in the USA are also promoting the use of Tcoil and mostly found at churches and points of sales and also used domestically at home for your television and audio equipment. There are also regulations for that and there is hearing aid compliance directive or I don't know what to say. For mobile phones to implement such a magnetic coil in the mobile phones. So that the mobile phones will generate a magnetic field that will allow you to connect with your hearing aids. That is the that is a directive by the USA FCC. The problems today with Tcoils is that magnetic interferences from electro appliances give interferences. When you have a magnetic loop and a power supply like this will give you problems. It should be outside any magnetic loop system for that. So that case quite some quality issues and sometimes the background interferences like magnetic interference may make such a system not workable. Now the telephone range, to 3.5 kilohertz, this always mono and it has high installation cost in buildings because it has to be somewhere in the floor or walls. Within construction it should be taken care of. It should require amplifier for that. Sometimes they are not switched on or tuned to the right thing and people may have a lot of complaints about that. Because let's say the priest or figure in a church does not have any idea how to work with those things. So some instructions is needed for that. But also regular maintenance of those installations is required. Gives very limited range because it only works inside the loop and it has limited availability because some countries promote use for that but most countries do not and also it is only done at some places, in United Kingdom more and more places, introduction of those Tcoil systems.