The way my Zoom is set up at work, when I get on a call I can see the faces of the other participants but not hear the audio.
Often, of late, the faces are animated. Annoyed. There’s clearly a spirited debate, then when they see I’m finally on audio, they shut up. They’ve been arguing. If I could read lips, I’d know what they are arguing about. (I assume they are arguing about processes, because that is what gets the dander up at TeddyJ.)
If not that, the faces are equally animated. Eyes roll. People laugh. Then when they see I’m finally on audio, they shut up. They've been talking about me. Again, if I could read lips, I’d know what they were saying about me.
The technology exists to read lips.
Of course, these folks are earnestly doing good work, but how long until Zoom buys them and there’s a lip-reading checkbox in Preferences? I long for that day.
Back when we were all in the office I was able to use my heightened hearing, at times, to listen in on whatever conversations came out of the Team Leader’s cubicle. Now that I’m alone I can't use that bat-hearing superpower (and at some point in the last fifteen years that's faded into boring old tinnitus).
Or, I could learn to lip-read. How long does it take to learn that? That might be a good holiday project.
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