Moviegoers with disabilities may soon have a unique option for watching films with closed captioning without losing visibility of movie screens.Technology has made notable improvements in terms of accessibility in recent years, and audiences that may have gone overlooked in previous years now have other options to allow for a night at the movies. Sony has a new kind of device that may enhance the moviegoing experience for those with hearing difficulties, and its arrival could signal the importance of acknowledging such audiences by making user-friendly items more continuously available.
Set to be released in Regal Cinemas locations nationwide, Sony’s solution is a pair of enhanced glasses that provide subtitles for corresponding films, describing both dialog and sound effects as they occur without obscuring the action on movie screens. The same device will also allegedly provide narration for the visually-impaired, and in both circumstances these glasses are designed to keep the additional content accessible only to the wearer, so as not to disturb those sitting nearby.
According to NPR, these glasses are known as Sony Entertainment Access Glasses, and will reported be launched by the end of this month. The story has a bit of a personal element to it as well, since Randy Smith Jr., Regal’s CEO, has a deaf son, and as such told NPR that he has been eager for this development of a solution like this for more than a decade.
While it may be some time before solutions this elegant are available to everyone, those organizing film viewings can take such ideas as a launching point to consider ways of addressing the needs of attendees with disabilities, thereby inviting others to take part.