Connected TV could open the doors of the labor market to people with disabilities

Researchers from the ETSI of Telecommunications at the Polytechnic University of Madrid design a connected television platform. The platform, developed within the framework of the Indra-Adecco Foundation Chair in Accessible Technologies, will be the meeting and dissemination point for people with disabilities and employers.

The potential created with next-generation televisions that can connect to the Internet opens enormous possibilities for providing new services to users.

Researchers from the ETSI of Telecommunications have seen how this potential can facilitate the social integration of people with disabilities. In this area, the INLADIS project was born, “Multiscreen Platform for the Labor Integration of People with Disabilities”, a platform with services for the labor integration of this group, developed within the framework of the Indra-Adecco Foundation Chair research in Accessible Technologies at the Polytechnic University of Madrid.

The HbbTV standard is an international initiative that has created an open specification for HBB (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband) systems, also known as hybrid television or connected television. It is characterized by the existence of hybrid screens that are capable of receiving and displaying content that comes from both the traditional broadcast network (that is, DTT) and the broadband network (Internet). The television, equipped with an Ethernet or Wi-Fi connector, thus becomes another piece of equipment in the home network, capable of accessing audiovisual content on the Internet.

Thanks to this standard, researchers from the Visual Telecommunications Application Group (G@TV), through the Indra-Adecco Foundation Chair, are developing a television platform in which people with different disabilities can access services such as teletraining and job offers and, on the other hand, employers themselves and any citizen will be able to obtain information about disability and labor integration.

Users of this new platform will define the way to interact with the interface when registering and specify the type of technical aids they need. For example, a blind person will receive information from the platform in the form of speeches through an audio file transmitted over the Internet. In the case of people with remaining vision, the platform will play with the size of the font, with little ornate fonts and with the contrast between the color of the text and the color of the background.

Deaf and hard of hearing people can benefit from sign language videos and subtitles, as both types of information are included in the standard. People with reduced mobility or an intellectual disability will benefit from a careful graphic interface, where the most visual aspects have been taken care of and the aim has been to achieve more intuitive navigation, which makes it easier to navigate through menus and screens.

Access to the labor market

One of the most notable features of the platform is access to job offers, which are added in real time when they are edited by Adecco Foundation staff. The content of the offers is automatically spoken using voice synthesis software to make it accessible to people with visual disabilities.

This project aims to contribute to the labor integration of people with disabilities, who constitute a particularly vulnerable group in situations like the current one, given the deterioration of the labor market.

According to José Manuel Menéndez, director of the Indra-Adecco Foundation Chair and G@TV, this platform “is only an example of the great potential of connected TV to offer innovative content to users thanks to the personalization capacity provided by the Internet connection.” For Professor Menéndez, “the added value of the project is that it also involves a social use of technology.” G@TV has been a national pioneer in the research of new services and applications on the HbbTV standard, with work dating back to 2010. The use of a standard specification, such as HbbTV, allows interoperability between interactive content, TV operators and screens, compared to proprietary specifications of specific screen manufacturers.

The HbbTV initiative was born in 2009 at the proposal of different companies in the electronic and audiovisual industry (Philips, Samsung, Sony, LG, Loewe, Sharp, among others) and the Internet, as well as standardization organizations (European Broadcasting Union) and broadcasting (RTVE, France Télévisions, TF1, Canal +, NRJ 12, RTL Group, Astra, Eutelsat, Abertis Telecom, TDF, ITV, BSkyB), which aims to unify the different technological criteria existing until then that would harmonize the convergence between television and the Internet in an open standard.