The Assisted Listening System will be at Birka for afternoon/evening Court.
by Joel Messerer
The East Kingdom Assisted Listening System (ALS) will be at Birka for afternoon/evening Court.
Since the initial tests last year, the ALS has been rebuilt completely as a ruggedized commercial product that will be able to handle the rigors of life on the road with the Eastern Court. It also now has a smart phone app which is far, far better than what I had hacked together. The ALS is purely used to stream audio in real time, but does not record or broadcast outside of the event. It may reach through walls, but it has a limit of about 300 feet from the dais.
To use the system, you will need your (charged) smart phone and ear buds (or hearing aids, etc). You will also need to, in advance, install the “Listen Everywhere” app from the app store from Listen Technologies.
There will be, around the room for Court, QR codes and written instructions for getting on the SCAEK wifi. Once you’re on the wifi, open the Listen Everywhere app and it will pop up with our “EKPB ALS” (East Kingdom Public Broadcasting Assisted Listening System) as a stream choice with our populace badge as it’s logo. Select it and listen to court.
If you have a new enough phone (Android 10 or newer, or iPhone 13 or newer) you can enable Live Captioning and get the entire court subtitled on-the-fly as well. One caveat about the live captioning: their technology doesn’t generally do well with “An Dubhaigeainn” or “Ynys y Gwaun” or…, try to keep the laughter to a minimum when you see how it mangles your name. But if it’s mangling YOUR name you’ve been called in to Court, stop reading the captions. 😉
See you (and hear you!) at Birka!