Australia: New App Developed for Persons with Hearing Impairment
November 04, 2021
Australia’s national hearing research body has developed a free app that instantly transcribes conversations to make communication easier for people struggling to hear including due to mask and physical distance requirements.
The multilingual NALscribe app has been developed by the National Acoustic Laboratories, which is the research division of government-funded national body and service provider Hearing Australia.
The Apple app quickly and continuously translates speech into large, easy-to-read text on iPads and iPhones in real-time.
NALscribe, which adheres to accessibility guidelines, features an inclusive design with customisable settings, such as text size, screen clearing privacy options, and dark and light appearance.
The app is available in 11 languages including English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Portuguese and Russian.
NAL director Dr Brent Edwards said the app was developed to support deaf and hearing-impaired people to better understand the speech of people wearing masks.
“Our research over the past two years has identified the unique problems facing people with hearing loss during the pandemic and our innovation program continues to develop solutions to solve those problems,” Dr Edwards said in a statement.
“Our [...]