TECHNOLOGY
SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 2017
High-tech backpacks open world of whales to deaf students SAMANA: Every winter, whale-watching excursions take tourists to ride alongside humpbacks frolicking in the Caribbean. One voyage this week pursued whales for their mysterious, multi-octave songs, but with passengers who didn’t hear the grunting and squealing. The dozens of deaf students wore high-tech backpacks that turn whale songs into vibrations, opening the world of whales to children who gasped and marveled at feeling the sounds for the first time. “When I first felt the vibration, I felt it in my heart,” said Nicole Duran, 15, a student at the St. Rose Institute for Deaf Assistance in Santo Domingo. “It reminded me of a heartbeat,” she said through a sign language interpreter. Nicole was among 47 students on the field trip from Santo Domingo, the capital on the south coast, to Samana province on the north coast, a three-hour bus ride. In grades 7 through 12, the children used their hands to express the thumps, pings and gentle massage they felt on their skin. Stretching their arms high and low to follow the varying tones they sensed, the students opened and closed their hands rapidly to express strong impacts. “I feel the pulses it’s like boom, boom, boom!” Melissa Castillos, 18, said aboard a 48-foot, power catamaran in the Bay of Samana. “I’ve seen photos and videos of whales, but this is the real thing.” The migration of several thousand humpbacks from the northern Gulf of Maine to the Dominican coast brings some 50,000 tourists to the area from January through March annually, the Tourism Ministry says. Music: An educational tool For three consecutive years, the visitors have included children and teachers from several Dominican schools. Introducing deaf and hearing-impaired students to the whales and their music was the vision of Dominican artist and musician Maria Batlle, 34, who in 2013 founded the Muse Seek Project. Her nonprofit’s goals include using music as an educational tool for deaf children. Batlle said she learned in 2014 of the Subpac technology, developed for music producers and aficionados by a Los Angeles company, and a year later incorporated the devices into a music program she launched for the 500-student National School for the Deaf in Santo Domingo. The annual whale migration to the Dominican Republic made it a natural learning opportunity for students interested in marine life, Batlle said. “They learn about whale behavior, anatomy, the environment,” she said. “They learn why the whales come here, what they do when they’re here. They learn to appreciate why whale watching is important and why whale hunting should stop.” Passengers aboard this year’s voyage included teachers, students and guests from four academic institutions. Silent disco Eric Quinlan, originally from Brockton, Massachusetts, and teacher of English and sign language at the 200-student St. Rose school, served as interpreter for the deaf passengers. “Being deaf, the students are never really going to know what sound is, but to experience it this way is just awesome,” Quinlan said as the boat trailed a pod of six adult whales through choppy waters. Quinlan also interpreted in February when Batlle took 40 deaf students to see the hit musical “La La Land.” Instead of high-tech gear, each child held a simple balloon, which vibrated to the music and dialogue. It was the first sign-language interpretation at a Dominican cinema, Batlle said. In 2016, ornithologist Richard Prum, a hearing-impaired professor at Yale University, lectured deaf students about birds and their melodies in another blending of education and music, Batlle added. And just for fun in 2016, she organized a beachfront silent disco, where deaf students danced to the rhythms they felt through the wearable technology. In another first for deaf services, the Popular Savings and Loan Association, a Muse Seek partner, has a bilingual (Spanish-sign language) employee in each branch, Batlle said. While the whale excursions in 2015 and 2016 picked up clear melodies from the humpbacks, the hydrophone lowered from the boat Tuesday mostly transmitted the static of rough seas. Ready with Plan B, Batlle used a recording of last year’s robust melodies instead. —AP
Microsoft Teams rolls out to Office 365 customers worldwide KUWAIT CITY: Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced the general availability of Microsoft Teams, the company’s new chat-based workspace in Office 365. The new tool for team collaboration is now available to Office 365 business customers in 181 markets and 19 languages. Customers worldwide are choosing Microsoft Teams to enable collaboration within their organizations. Since announcing the preview in November, more than 50,000 organizations have started using Microsoft Teams, including Alaska Airlines, ConocoPhillips, Deloitte, Expedia, J B Hunt, J Walter Thompson, Hendrick Motorsports, Sage, Trek Bicycle and Three UK. “In a world where information is abundant and human time and attention remain scarce, we aspire to help people and groups of people be more productive, wherever they are,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Office 365 is the broadest platform and universal toolkit for creation, collaboration and communication. Today we are adding a new tool to Office 365 with Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace designed to empower the art of teams.” Office 365 is designed to meet the unique work style of every group with purpose-built, integrated applications: Outlook for enterprise-grade email; SharePoint for intelligent content management; Yammer for networking across the organization; Skype for Business as the backbone for enterprise voice and video; and now, Microsoft Teams. According to Laurie Koch, vice president of global customer service at Trek Bicycle, Microsoft Teams is already streamlining the company’s work by providing assets and tasks in context: “Across Trek’s global teams, the integrated collection of Office 365 apps serves up a common toolset to collaboratively drive the business forward. We see Microsoft Teams as the project hub of Office 365 where everybody knows where to find the latest documents, notes and tasks, all in line with team
conversations for complete context. Teams is quickly becoming a key part of Trek’s get-things-done-fast culture.” Microsoft has introduced more than 100 new features to Teams since November, including: an enhanced meeting experience, with scheduling capabilities; mobile audio calling, with video calling on Android and coming soon to iOS and Windows Phone; email
integration; and new security and compliance capabilities. The company has also delivered new features to make Microsoft Teams accessible, such as support for screen readers, high contrast and keyboard-only navigation. Guest access capabilities and deeper integration with Outlook, and a richer developer platform are targeted for June of this year.
