Being able to obtain the best audio possible can be quite important
for people who have partial hearing loss (and/or for people who have
vision loss).
1) The Samsung Chromebook's speakers face downward from the bottom of
the device into one's lap or table. For maximum clarity, it seems to
me that the speakers ought to be located by the top corners of the
screen to be as close as possible to people's ears. (This location
would also minimize the dangers to circuitry from liquid spilling onto
the device.)
2) The audio jack on the Chromebook uses a single 2.5 mm headphone
and microphone jack that is similar to those used by many older
cordless phones, but which is not common, I think, on computers,
tablets and many smartphones. The use of a 2.5 mm jack without
providing 3.5 mm jacks makes it harder for many hard of hearing people
to use accessories with the Chromebook as most of these use 3.5 mm
plugs. My guess would be that most people with disabilities who use
accessories with computers also have separate headphone and microphone
cables with 3.5 plugs, not an integrated 2.5 plug.
3) It would be helpful to be able to choose whether to receive
monoaural audio rather than stereophonic audio through all physical or
Bluetooth audio outputs, even if a stereo accessory is being used.
Because many people do not have even hearing in both ears, or may hear
out of only one ear, it's important to have the option to choose
receiving all sound into one or both ears.
4) It would also be very desirable if there was robust equalization
available for all audio from the Chromebook, and wide dynamic range
compression as well.
5) Google Hangout has not been publicized as providing its users
access to wide band audio. Skype has provided its users wide band
audio if all parties use compatible hardware. Wide band audio
provides a much wider range of audio than traditional phones do, but
Chromebooks do not currently appear to provide access to the video
capabilities of Skype. I myself frequently use Skype because it
provides both video and wideband audio, but I can't use Skype on my
Chromebook. (While it would be very helpful for Google Hangout to
provide wide band audio, it also needs to be much easier to use, and
it needs its own app.)
Because most people who are hard of hearing are still able to hear the
low frequencies very well, and because a great deal of useful
non-verbal information in speech is generated at frequencies below 300
Hz (including indicators for some of the speaker's emotions), the
ability to hear low-frequency sounds can make a tremendous difference
in improving one's ability to understand as much as possible of what
other people are communicating (not just their speech). However,
phones and videoconferencing systems that use only the traditional
telephony system provide only the sounds between 300 Hz and 3300 Hz or
thereabouts.
Therefore, to obtain the best speech discrimination possible, hard of
hearing people benefit greatly from being able to use wide band audio
for real time communication while also using video for
lipreading/speechreading. (Lipreading helps clarify which consonants
are being used even if one cannot hear all of the components of
speech.)
(Wide band audio requires the use of compatible hardware capable of
transmitting lower and higher frequencies, whereas most consumer
microphones used for standard telephony are not rated as being able to
work with frequencies below 300 Hz (hertz, or cycles per second). For
maximum accessibility, therefore, it would be helpful if all companies
and organizations that wish to communicate as well with the public
would use wide band audio hardware and telephony along with video.)
Dana Mulvany, MSW
Consultant
dmul...@usa.net
dana.m...@gmail.com