Communication Applications or "Extensions"

[Gary Morin]

I've already found that Skype (or Yahoo messenger) cannot be installed on the Chromebook, but what specific applications or "extensions" do work for either of these communication tools?

Is there any good documentation that describes exactly what "extensions" are and how they work and how they're implemented/installed?

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Dana Mulvany <dana.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

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

--
Gary

Gary M. Morin
(301) 980-9649 Cell and Text Messaging

[Matthew Nixon]

No skype???

OK that is a problem.

Currently it's the most universal net communication tool I know of.

I use it on a weekly if not a daily basis.

Getting access to skype would completely change the chromebook for me from a nice limited function laptop into a full-blown tool.

[Magi Shepley]

I volunteer with two Internet based disaster recovery groups who use Skype for coordination, but also promote it's use for families to reconnect during a disaster because it's so flexible. So, I'm concerned that there is no client for Skype, & the suggested solution for Google Voice or Hangout only works if all parties are using it. I think that is unrealistic in a disaster, and the options aren't necessarily accessible. I've had issues with Twitter as well... Chromevox has had trouble reading it appropriately. I'm also with the Red Cross as a digital Volunteer & we use Twitter & Facebook to connect. Twitter was invaluable during Sandy, so not having it to test now is also a concern.

Magi

[Marvin Williams]

I've got my speakers with a 3.5mm plug on it plugged right into the headphone/headphone mic jack and they're playing fine. I'll have to try it out with my 3.5mm headset to see if indeed the port does support both. 

I did a little looking and found this from the Google Hangouts folks: https://plus.google.com/109681196708311008296/posts/GXRLRM5pzbA

It gives a little info on mic set-up for a multi-person-one-room hangout. 

I think the inability to do traditional program installs might have an impact on installing anything 3rd party that doesn't run through Chrome and hence ChromeOS. Add in that Microsoft is ditching it's messenger for Skype, which probably has some influence on things. 

I've been able to use Google Talk fine on my Chromebook and the Hangouts seem to work well enough. I'll have to try plugging in the wireless transmitter for my son's hearing aids and see what that does.

[Marvin Williams]

My Google Voice has been able to make phone calls to LAN lines both in and out of state without incident. The other parties have not been users of Google Voice.

[Kyle]

According to Matthew Nixon:

> No skype???
> OK that is a problem.
> Currently it's the most universal net communication tool I know of

More universal is the ever-popular phone lol. But if you're just looking
to talk to people using your Chromebook, the Gmail app will do that for
you. There are also other applications and extensions that will do voice
chat and/or phone calls. The most popular that keeps coming up in the
Web Store is Your Second Phone, but I haven't tried it to know how well
it works. There are also some "click to call" extensions, but I haven't
tried those yet either. So far, I have only tried the Gmail app, with
great success.
~Kyle
http://kyle.tk/
--
"Kyle? ... She calls her cake, Kyle?"
Out of This World, season 2 episode 21 - "The Amazing Evie"

[Kyle]

Especially in a disaster situation, you will need something much more
flexible than Skype, Twitter or Facebook, which all assume that you can
connect to the remote server over the internet. You would actually need
the ability to create an ad hoc, preferably wireless, network easily and
quickly, which can bypass both the internet and phone system entirely if
a connection to either or both becomes unavailable. The most flexible
way to do this is using a local SIP server and clients, or using XMPP
with voice capabilities. Using either protocol is completely free of
proprietary restrictions, vendor lock-in and assumptions about
connectivity. An ad hoc wireless LAN can carry either of these forms of
communication completely independently of the internet and the phone
systems,, as long as there is a designated server computer to set up the
connections between clients, but can be made to patch in where an
internet connection does become available. This important functionality
cannot currently be achieved using Facebook, Twitter, Skype or any other
proprietary, non-standard communication protocol, although bridges to
these networks may possibly also be able to be created where the
connections to the internet become available as additional outlets for
both realtime and informational communications. Yes, my little write-up
is far beyond the scope of this list, but I'm sure Chromebooks could
very likely become quite important in setting up such a network, both
effectively and inexpensively, assuming of course that they are able to
connect to a local network that may or nay not have internet
connectivity. If this is impossible, then everything I just wrote is
entirely beyond the scope of what a Chromebook is even capable of
without installing or running an alternative OS such as Ubuntu.

[Rob DeZonia]

Here goes. I want to personalize my desktop wallpaper to a picture of the 1984 Padres which I downloaded from Google Drive to the Chromebook. I’ve gone to settings, wallpaper, and even arrowed down to custom, but there seems to be no way to select a downloaded file. The picture is a .jpg so I’m wondering if that’s the problem since I can’t seem to determine which format is supported for wallpaper. If anyone wants to tackle this one I’d be greatful. Yeah, I can’t see the 1984 Padres picture, but it would be nice to know it’s there for someone else to look at.

[Rob DeZonia]

Okay my apologies to the list. I did change the subject line, don't
know why my wallpaper question ended up in a thread that it shouldn't
have. Again my apologies.