George Sutton Made His Name Playing Billiards After Losing His Hands (Cool Weird Awesome 1289)
For National Billiards and Pool Day, the story of an accomplished billiards player who made his name by playing the game after losing his hands.
These Smart Glasses Can Generate Real-Time Speech Captions For Deaf People (Cool Weird Awesome 1072)
TranscribeGlass is a new set of glasses powered by artificial intelligence that can transcribe speech in real time and create captions for people who need them.
How Two Deaf Mountaineers Plan To Climb The Seven Summits (Cool Weird Awesome 828)
For mountaineers, success and safety can depend on good communication. These climbers have their own communication system, which they plan to use in climbing the highest peaks on each continent.
Helen Keller Once Flew A Plane, No Matter What People On The Internet Think (Cool Weird Awesome 797)
Today in 1880, the birthday of Helen Keller, the activist, author, speaker, and, on one occasion, a pilot. Never mind what randos on social media have claimed, here's the real story.
Happy Birthday To Closed Captioned Television (Cool Weird Awesome 497)
Today in 1980, the big U.S. TV networks began regularly using closed caption technology to serve Deaf viewers as well as hearing ones. That alone was a game-changer, but closed captioning has proven useful in some other big ways as well. Plus: in Russia, fans of a certain TV show set in a galaxy far, far away have built a replica of a certain ship that's home to a certain adorable baby puppet.
Kids In Nicaragua Created Their Own Sign Language (Cool Weird Awesome 335)
In the 1980s Deaf children in Nicaragua were sent to a new school that was supposed to help them learn finger spelling. Instead, they built up their own language.
How To Perform Opera In American Sign Language (Cool Weird Awesome 281)
The University of Virginia's Disabilities Studies Symposium has produced a version of a 1950s opera called “Dialogues of the Carmelites" featuring both traditional opera singers and Deaf actors performing together and living up to the name of their workshop, "Breaking the Sound Barrier."
Here’s A Shirt That Can Feel Sound (Cool Weird Awesome 143)
The Soundshirt, from high-tech fashion company Cute Circuit, has embedded sensors that can sense sound and turn it into vibrations. In other words, it helps deaf people feel music.