Abstract :
Norwegian Telecom Research (NTR) has been given a special responsibility for research and development in telecommunications for people with special needs by the Norwegian authorities. NTR have run internal projects and also assisted in external projects with both funding and manpower. These projects have resulted in various applications and types of equipment, both for direct use by people with special needs, and also for use in supervision of training and rehabilitation of people with special needs. Norwegian Telecom Research have since the late 1970s had research activities in video coding. As a result of these activities, NTR in 1987 produced a coder/decoder in cooperation with the Norwegian company Tandberg Telecom. This included a proprietary video encoder and decoder. It was not a fully integrated terminal. The codec had connectors for connecting camera, monitor, modems or adaptors and when set up the system consisted of several units and a lot of cables. The codec could be used either with 19.6 kbit/s modems on the telephone network, on leased 64kb/s lines or with an ISDN adaptor on ISDN. The audio had to be set up separately on a normal telephone for most of the trials. At a later stage a proprietary audio codec was incorporated. The author describes the use of this videophone: with deaf users for sign language training and autistic children and for habilitation supervision. Further developments in videotelephony by NTR resulted in a second videophone which includes the standards for videocoding, audiocoding and terminal protocols as defined for videotelephony on ISDN. It also includes the user operating procedures as proposed by ETSI for videotelephony functions. This is an integrated terminal with ISDN line interface, handsfree operation and an online help facility. The unit has connectors on a back panel for connecting external equipment like camera, loudspeakers, microphone, PC, etc. During the development of the second videophone, there was a high emphasis on user requirements and user interface issues
Keywords :
handicapped aids; human factors; standards; telecommunications computing; user interfaces; videotelephony; ETSI; ISDN adaptor; ISDN line interface; Norwegian Telecom Research; Norwegian authorities; Tandberg Telecom; audio codec; audiocoding; autistic children; coder/decoder; deaf users; direct use; external projects; funding; habilitation supervision; handsfree operation; integrated terminal; internal projects; manpower; online help facility; rehabilitation; research activities; sign language training; special needs; standards; telecommunications; telephone network; terminal protocols; training; user interface issues; user operating procedures; user requirements; video coding; video encoder; videocoding; videophone; videotelephony;
