Kai Cenat reveals he's in the process of building a system that allows blind and deaf people to easily watch his stream "Audio closed captions describing the situations on the stream.. And then for my deaf people we have to put sign language in the background"

APPLE ACCESSIBILITY UPDATES COMING LATER THIS YEAR: VoiceOver: camera-based scene and document descriptions Voice Control: natural-language device commands Magnifier: voice-controlled zoom iPhone video: on-device subtitles Accessibility Reader: support for tables, columns and complex layouts Vision Pro: eye-controlled motorized wheelchair support tvOS: Larger Text support FaceTime: API for human sign-language interpreters iOS, iPadOS, macOS: Sony Access controller support Apple Intelligence is getting applied to accessibility before many of the flashier AI use cases. Image credit: MacRumors

My cousin's son, Kotaro, is deaf. For his first year of junior high, he laughed one second late at every joke. He would watch everyone else laugh first. Then he would laugh too. So nobody would know he hadn't heard it. He had been doing it since he was six. He was very good at it. Only one person ever noticed. An American. Kotaro was the only deaf student at his school, in a small town in the mountains of northern Japan. Nobody there knew sign language. He got by reading lips. Then, in the spring of 2021, everyone was wearing masks. No lips. No words. For a thirteen-year-old who couldn't hear, the world went silent a second time. That April, a new assistant English teacher arrived. Hannah. 23. From a small farm town in Wisconsin. Her Japanese was terrible. She had grown up with snow, so the mountain winters didn't scare her. What scared her was the silence. Nobody to talk to. Every night alone in a tiny apartment, eating convenience store rice balls, wondering why she had come. In the staff room, the teachers would laugh at something. Hannah would watch them, and then laugh one second late. So nobody would know she hadn't understood. That's how she saw him. A boy in the front row, watching his classmates' faces. Waiting. Then laughing. One second late. She knew exactly what that felt like. That night, she bought a book on Japanese Sign Language. It's a completely different language from American Sign Language. She was now learning two foreign languages at the same time. Every night, she practiced in front of videos. Her elderly neighbor later told my cousin that for two months, she believed the American girl was fighting mosquitoes. The next morning, Hannah walked up to Kotaro and signed, "Good morning." Except she got it wrong. She signed, "Delicious morning." Kotaro laughed out loud. It was the first time anyone at that school had ever heard him laugh. After that, they made a deal. Every day at lunch, she would teach him English. He would teach her to sign. One day, Hannah told him a secret. Slowly, with her clumsy hands. "In the staff room, I laugh one second late too." Kotaro looked at her for a long time. Then he showed her a sign. Two index fingers, side by side. "Same." A girl from his class saw them signing at lunch, and sat down. Then five kids. Then twelve. By winter, all 31 kids in his class could sign. Badly. Loudly. With their hands flying everywhere. They gave Hannah a sign name. Two hands opening wide, like the sun coming up over the mountains. Then, one afternoon in February, the class made a rule. Nobody remembers who suggested it. From now on, every joke goes to Kotaro first. That day, someone signed a joke across the classroom. Kotaro read it, and he laughed. First. For the first time in his life, he was the first one laughing. And 30 kids watched him, and then laughed one second late. That night, he came home and told his mother about his friends. Their names. What they said at lunch. Who was funny. She went into the kitchen so he wouldn't see her cry. In thirteen years, he had never talked about friends. Hannah stayed three years. All of junior high. In March 2024, it was Kotaro's graduation. Japanese graduations are very quiet. Each name is called. Each student walks to the stage in silence. Nobody cheers. When the principal called his name, Kotaro stood up and walked to the stage. Behind him, 400 students and parents raised both hands in the air and waved them. That is how deaf people applaud. There was no sound in that gym. Not one. Kotaro reached the stage and turned around. And he saw it. A whole gym full of hands, moving like leaves in the wind. For him. His mother covered her face. And in the very back, against the wall, Hannah was crying so hard she could barely move her fingers. But she signed it anyway, big, so he could see it from across the room. "I'm proud of you." Kotaro is eighteen now. He's in university, studying to become a teacher for deaf children. My cousin once asked Hannah why she did all of it. Why a girl from Wisconsin would spend three years learning a language nobody in her own country speaks, for one boy she had just met. Hannah looked confused, like it was a strange question. "Because nobody should have to laugh a second late," she said. On her last day, all 31 kids came to the airport. Japanese airports are quiet places. So they didn't shout. They didn't cry out loud. They just stood together at the security gate and signed goodbye. All of them. At the same time. Without making a single sound. Hannah says it was the loudest thing she has ever heard.