Engineers create smart glove that turns sign language into text

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/07/17/engineers-create-smart-glove-t.html

The headline is hyperbolic - it doesn’t turn sign language into text. It turns finger spelling into text (and if the video is any indication - it does this very slowly).

ASL is a language with its own grammar and vocabulary. This system just allows you to spell english words one letter at a time.

Something like this http://www.signall.us is much more impressive (if it works - hard to tell since its commercial).

7 Likes

I wondered if after a long day, I was missing something. What purpose would this serve? As you stated ASL is a totally different thing, and I know some deaf from birth people who are more comfortable with ASL than reading text, as it is actually quicker, and truly is their first language.

Anyone who dons this glove, obviously has the dexterity to type a text, so why wouldn’t they? If there is computer equipment available to read the glove, then there should be a way to.display the text. That is all I can see for hearing impaired people.

If the market is for sightless people to type a text, voice recognition works, and if you have it read the text back to you, so you can edit, it is almost 100% accurate.

The last thing I see, is that they just wanted to see if they could,but sensing your hand, and finger position in space does not seem like a major breakthrough, technology wise.

Reading more into it, this was not invented for hearing, or sight impaired people. It is just an attempt to make a fairly cheap glove that will sense hand position, and gestures. They mention video games, and things like virtual surgery, so I guess it is just a more stylish Nintendo Power Glove.

http://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/news_releases/release.sfe?id=2255

2 Likes

Baby steps to haptics.

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.