Hamilton CapTel is a company that provides a free, nationwide service available with captions in both English and Spanish to US citizens. The company recently launched the Hamilton Mobile CapTel captioning application, an iPhone application that uses Hamilton CapTel’s captioning service to provide captioned telephone calls in real-time. The application and the captioning service are both free.
To access this service via the iPhone application, users make a call using the Hamilton Mobile CapTel application. This automatically connects you to the captioning service, and you can listen to what is being said while reading the captions on the screen. Captions are currently available in both English and Spanish.
An article on the Hamilton Mobile CapTel reports that Hamilton spokeswoman Stephanie Vanderholm said in an e-mail that "This is the only iPhone app available for captioning calls -- free or paid." It is hoped that this technology will spread outside the US, allowing people who are Deaf or hearing impaired access to captioned telephone calls wherever they are, and whenever they need them, through their mobile technology.
The Hamilton Mobile CapTel application is currently available for the iPhone 3G and 3GS (and presumably the iPhone 4), with versions of the application for the iPad with WiFi and the iPod Touch expected in the future.
The free Hamilton Mobile CapTel iPhone App can be downloaded at the iTunes App Store. Search "Hamilton Mobile CapTel" or download the application directly.
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