Sign Language Out Loud

hcetSJ writes "CNN.com has an article about a glove that reads sign language and can translate to spoken English. Although it's only one-handed now, and can only handle about 200 words, the inventor has further plans for a second hand and wider vocabulary. I wonder if this could be linked with the Rosetta Stone idea, to quickly expand the vocabulary. Also mentioned in the article is the possibility of military use...gaming control can't be far off." grvsmth points to a more detailed article on GWU's website.

Wrong Product

[patch-rustem]

"I want to produce something that deaf people can use in everyday life," he said.

Don't get me wrong, mod me down if you want, I'm sure he's tried his best, but isn't this the wrong invention. My experience working with people with impaired hearing is that their speech is fine. It's hearing that they have a problem with.

A glove that translated other peoples speech into sign language would be much more useful.

Re:Two decades of VR Gloves, with nothing to show

[divbyzero]

Actually those old, originally inexpensive Power Gloves now fetch fairly high prices on the used market because they are in such high demand for projects like these, and there is no current off-the-shelf product at the same price point. I ended up having to build my own out of a bicycling glove, some accelerometers, and switches. You're right that they never caught on in the mass market, but they're great for academics and hobbyists.

Re:not sure how easy this would be...

[hcetSJ]

That's where the Rosetta Stone method could be helpful. A word-for-word translation might be stilted, but by comparing entire sentences, a system might learn that one idiom in one language translates (loosely, at least) to another idiom or phrase in the other.

Hands are only half of the language...

[Garridan]

I studied ASL for 2 years... there's a helluva lot more to the language than hands... and much of the language would be impossible to translate with a computer.

Facial expression is nearly as important as the hands. "should" and "need" are the same sign, with a slight difference in the shape of the mouth. Its like trying to understand somebody who enunciates poorly, speaks in monotone, and doesn't pause between words or sentences...

A lot of the language relies on physical description... there's no way a computer could interpret a lot of it.

At best, this will be able to translate "SEE", or Signed Exact English. Not ASL. There's a HUGE difference. ASL is as different from English as sculpture is different from music.

ASL Translator

[penguin_bear]

American Sign Language also includes hundreds of gestures that express single words and simple sentences, but most require two hands.
He said the device usually is accurate, though the precision declines with complicated movements; for example, words that start with the same hand movement or orientation.

Though not an expert on signlanguage by any means, I do remember learning about ASL as a grammatically complete language, i.e. that it was not merely a series of words but used some forms of particles and has a full grammar (strict syntax and temporal expressions) Also, as far as I recall, this slight variation in the complexity of the signing accounts for such important distinctions as time and space as well as who the actor was or whom it concerned. These kinds of kinks would need to be ironed out significantly if emergency information is to be conveyed accurately. However, the AcceleGlove is not a new technology that would simply be useful for deaf people in emergency situations. The ability to communicate through hand gestures could also be used to teach ASL, along with being modified for use in virtual reality, military settings, and in different forms of sign language.

These ideas are interesting (and better conveyed in the GWU arcile!)

Maybe I'm just reluctant to believe someone has created a translator for a language when he has merely translated a small set of words. You don't learn to speak (or sign) a language by learning words. As in any language its either inflection or word order that lends meaning (among other things)- how should the meaning of a signed phrase be any more clear just by knowing what the individual words mean...