Forget Iron Man, Student’s smart gloves translates sign language into speech
When it comes to technology in the 21’s century it is almost as if the moment you blink, some type of a new technology has been invented. Nowadays it is not only professional software engineers working in labs that are able to come up with new inventions such as creating sophisticated mobile phone apps or hardware for appliances. Everyday people can now create ground-breaking technology from the comfort of their homes thanks to the many tools we have online that help with researching information. Something that has recently got people talking, a pioneering creation in the world of translation services in which has seen an undergraduate duo of Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor who are studying business administration and aeronautics and astronautics engineering, respectively at the University of Washington recently invented gloves that translate sign language into text and speech.
Their invention which is called ‘SignAloud’ is designed to translate sign language in a simultaneous way as if professional translation services were being used minus a human interpreter which aims to help break communication barriers between sign language users and non-sign language users. As the University of Washington reports; ‘each glove contains sensors that record hand position and movement and send data wirelessly via Bluetooth to a central computer’. If the data matches a hand gesture then the related phrase or word is vocalised through the computer. The gloves are currently targeted to American Sign Language (ASL) users or learners of ASL but could also be commercialised to work in other fields such as medical technology to monitor stroke patients during rehabilitation as well as provide support to the ever growing world of virtual reality as the University of Washington reports.
As a result of their efforts Pryor and Azodi won $10,000 for the 2016 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize from a pool of students from over 77 universities in the US.
Watch the video below to see the SignAloud gloves in action.
