News Headline Archives

If you missed out on the headline news that appeared on the front page, Most of it is on here.
If you didn't get a chance to see other headlines, email us for the artciles. Feel free to save the information off this site.

We're changing the way we serve the archives here .. it will be better !

West Nile virus : How to protect yourself from West Nile virus

The government of Canada has released information regarding the West Nile virus in ASL video format.
Click here for more information.

Ontario offers flu information in American Sign Language

Who should get the flu shot? To find out, just
watch the ASL video clips and get more information, click here

How to view closed captions with the iPhone.

Bob's House -- Pepsi's new Super Bowl Ad

NEW YORK - Amid the wall-to-wall sound during next Sunday's Super Bowl,
one commercial from PepsiCo could send some viewers grabbing for their
remotes to check whether they'd accidentally hit the mute button.

The pre-game advertisement features a joke that originates from the
deaf community and will play out on screen over 60 seconds of total silence,
a veritable eternity when it comes to the noisiness of Super Bowl ads.

"It's a popular story and we just turned it into an advertisement,"
said Clay Broussard, a supply and logistics manager at PepsiCo who proposed
the idea for the ad. "This is the PepsiCo flavour of that joke."

The joke goes like this: Two guys are driving to their friend Bob's
house to watch the Super Bowl. Once they get to Bob's street, neither knows
which house is his. They sit in the car, arguing, until one of them has an
idea. He starts laying on the horn, and one by one, the houses light up and
dogs start barking.

One house stays dark and quiet: It's Bob's.

Deaf people will be falling out of their chairs in disbelief, National
Association of the Deaf president Bobbie Beth Scoggins wrote in an
e-mail response to questions. Hearing people, Scoggins wrote, will stop what
they're doing to see why there are no sounds. She believes it's an
historic first for an ad featuring American Sign Language to get such prominent
play.

"I was glad to see this part of deaf culture awareness shared in a most
clever way," Scoggins, who is deaf, wrote by e-mail as she was
traveling.

Broussard, who plays Bob in the commercial, has worked for PepsiCo in
Dallas for 27 years. He got involved in the deaf community through a church he
and his wife attended, where the services were conducted entirely in sign
language. Broussard is not deaf.

The two actors who play Bob's friends - Brian Dowling and Darren
Therriault - are also PepsiCo employees, and are deaf. Dowling works for Frito-Lay
in Arizona, and Therriault works for PepsiCo in Chicago.

Broussard worked on the ad concept on his own time. He said, "This was
all extra credit."

It was 18 months before he showed it to senior managers, who decided
they wanted it for the Super Bowl.

The ad was directed by Baker Smith, with creative help from BBDO-NY. A
PepsiCo spokeswoman declined to say how much the ad cost.

511 highway info now availble on Blackberry
or any mobile device with web-enabled feature.

The Government has now put the information available from the 511 phone number on their website. It can now be accessed by Blackberry or any other webenabled mobile device as well as any desktop or laptop computer. .... read more about it .. click here.

President Obama's New Sign Name given !

As you probably know by now that new American President Obama will be sworned in on today. Neat youtube video to have a Sign Name for Obama given by a Deaf person or community. (Personally maybe a bit too early to give a name sign for Obama, thought it looks good though).

Happy viewing!

New youtube Closed Caption features ! .. check it out !

A pretty neat new tool for Youtube users and viewers where you can read any languaged encoded in teh video for everyone to use captions and subtitled to read on for short films, videos, or music.

This is in the beta stage so be patient when it fixes all the errors in their closed caption softwares.

SCHOLARSHIPS, BURSARIES FOR ADULT LEARNERS

Literacy Nova Scotia offers scholarship and bursary awards for learners in all programs in 2009-2010. There are two scholarships of $1,500 (one is designated for a Nova Scotia Community College student in Truro), for adults who have completed Grade 12 through an adult learning program and who are going on to or continuing in college, university, or a trades and technology program. Three bursaries of $500 are for adults who did not finish Grade 12 in the public school system and who are currently enrolled in or planning to attend an adult upgrading program. The money for these grants comes from the PGI Golf Tournaments for Literacy.

The application forms are available at: http://www.ns.literacy.ca/learner.htm#schlburs .

To receive a paper copy, call: 1-800-255-5203 or 902-897-2444 or email: [email protected] .

The deadline for applications is October 2, 2009, no later than 4:30 p.m.

NEW TTY PAYPHONE – UPDATE

"Thank you" to everyone who participated in the tty payphone test at the Halifax Shopping Centre in 2006. Your comments were heard across Canada! The T-9 technology that was going to be used for tty payphones is no longer going to happen because you did not like it. Based on your feedback, a new "blackberry" (qwerty) style keyboard is now available on many, many payphones across Nova Scotia.

These new payphones can be found in more places than the old tty payphones with the slide out drawer. They are being installed in hospitals, malls, grocery stores, corner stores, gas stations, the airport, ferry terminals, bus and train stations, etc.

Now, we all agree that it would be nice if Aliant would set up videophone payphones, but that's not going to happen for a while. So until then, it will be great to have tty payphones available in many more places across Nova Scotia.

What do they look like? Below are two pictures – one of the full payphone and one of the qwerty keyboard seen under the key pad of the pay phone

new pay phone.jpg new pay phone 2.jpg

RDSP Grant and Bond national awareness campaign

Subject Line: For your information ~ RDSP Grant and Bond national awareness campaign launched on July 6, 2009 It is our pleasure to inform you that on July 6, the Government of Canada launched a National Campaign to raise awareness and promote take-up of the RDSP, Grant and Bond. The campaign will run to the end of July and will include radio and print information. The campaign will direct Canadians to www.disabilitysavings.gc.ca <http://www.disabilitysavings.gc.ca/> and 1 800 O-Canada for more information.
We invite you to visit www.disabilitysavings.gc.ca <http://www.disabilitysavings.gc.ca/> to read or listen to the advertisements. Click RDSP Advertising Campaign under Updates.
Best regards,
RDSP Grant and Bond Outreach Team
Office for Disability Issues

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