June 27: Every couple months, the geeks go wild. On Thursday, they lined up to get the newest iPhone.

There is a certain thrill to having the latest, greatest gadget, but for Alicia Lane-Outlaw and her partner Susan, the thrill is much more substantial. For them, the newest iPhone could actually change their lives.

"A lot of deaf people are really excited to get this," according to Alicia, who is deaf. "This is the first time that we've had a smartphone that can do video calls."

Alicia is the president of the Minnesota Association of Deaf Citizens, and she was so excited, she stood in line at 5 a.m.

Susan works at Metro Deaf School. In the past, they had to communicate by text or a cumbersome video phone in Alicia's office. Not anymore. Thursday's purchase was a game changer.

Cell phones are such a big part of the hearing world, we can easily take them for granted. The deaf community, though, has been waiting for the new iPhone4 ever since Apple announced it would have video calling capabilities.

Apple even called attention to signing in its online ads, and in this case, the marketing message actually matches reality.

"It's nice to be able to use video to quickly sign and discuss," according to Alicia, whose signs were interpreted by Susan. "It's more brief than going back and forth with long texts."

Alicia and Susan said video calling has been available in Asia and Europe for years, so the deaf community knew exactly what to expect when the iPhones came out, and that's why they got so excited.

Source: http://wcco.com

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