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.

Two decades of VR Gloves, with nothing to show

[RobertB-DC]

It seems like the VR glove concept appears over and over again, but never seems to "click". I remember the Nintendo Power Glove [angelfire.com] from the late '80s - early '90s -- for the original NES. If it had been such a hit with the gaming community, why wasn't there a N64 and GameCube version?

And outside gaming, the idea comes and just as quickly goes. Here's an article about tele-medicine using VR gloves [hoise.com], where someone at location A pushes on your abdomen and a doctor at location B "feels" whether your spleen is out of joint. The date on the article... July, 2000. Going nowhere.

And here's a telling statement from the referenced article:

Although there is more work to be done with the AcceleGlove, Hernandez-Rebollar is not sure if he will have the necessary financial support to continue his research after his dissertation.

Something is making it darned difficult to bring VR Glove technology to fruition, despite almost two decades of poking around with it.

What's the "killer app" that will have us all putting on our V-Gloves?

Facial Expressions

[DarkRecluse]

ASL is as much about facial expressions and body language as it is signing...to leave them out is to confuse the meaning of the sign, often completely. Everything is very emotionally charged.

I would suggest that more people learn sign, because if nothing else it will help them to become more expressive individuals.

Old news...

[failrate]

I remember seeing this glove on TV when I was a kid. Back then, all it could do was spell in sign language, so this is a definite step up. As far as *gaming* goes, don't tell me that y'all have forgotten the Nintendo Powerglove!

minority report

[Councilor Hart]

(I can't find a reference to this. not even on a level 2, instead of the usual level 4 comment level.)

Perhaps someone might make a new computer interface with it. Something like seen in the movie minority report, staring Tom Cruise.
Perhaps it already exist, i don't know.
But I would sure try it. I find it annoying that I always have to switch towards a mouse for certain tasks.
Hopefully it reduces RSI.
But as with everything, it depends on the design.

It can replace keyboard and mouse.
It can be used in places where you can't talk vs speech control.
It can replace a touch-screen in certain circumstances.
It could be used with a pen or a blackboard, provided it can learn your movements when writing and transfer your written words into a digital form.

Who knows, with nanotech we discards the globe and build it into our hands.
Ho, well. Your imagination/memory is as good as mine.

Really old news

[Unknown Kadath]

My parents used to tape a program on public television called Discover: The World of Science, presumably related to the magazine. Peter Graves hosted it, and my folks would stick one of the tapes in the VCR to keep me amused when I was being difficult.

The format was a series of 15-20 minute pieces on various neat pieces of science, and I distinctly remeber a segement about a "talking glove." It was a mechanical hand on a small stand with a keyboard and Hawking-esque voice synthesizer, and a glove wired with electrodes. When someone typed into the keyboard, the hand would fingerspell whatever was being typed. When a person wearing the glove fingerspelled something, the voice would read it out, a la Mac SimpleText (anyone else get in trouble with that in school when it first came out?) The system had to be trained to recognize someone's fingerspelling. They showed a deaf and blind woman going out shopping with the system, not needing an interpreter.

Based on the hairstyles I remember from the program and my age at the time, this would have been in the mid to late 80's. I have no way of proving I'm not making this up, of course.

-Carolyn

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

[Mr_Icon]

I wonder if it would make more sense for them to concentrate on Signed English instead of ASL. It's pushed strongly in schools these days anyway, and it follows the precise grammar and structure of spoken English, vs. ASL, which has its own grammar and relies heavily on facial expressions and spatial relations.

Many educators feel that ASL creates many problems for young children, who grow up signing in ASL grammar, and then go to school where they effectively have to re-learn their language in order to be able to read and write. If in English the phrase is "My father gave me these books yesterday" the ASL speaker would sign "My father (point at some position, usually to the right) give (from the position where previously pointed towards oneself) book book past day (point to where your spatial "father" is again)".

Signed English was designed to compensate for this, though the end result is that signing in SE is rather more tedious, as one has to sign out all a-an-the's, prefixes, and suffixes. Among the benefits, though, is that is't much easier to talk and sign in SE than in ASL, since you don't have to concentrate on translating from one grammar to another. This is particularly useful for teachers who have a class of both deaf and hearing children.

Yes, IAASET (I am a Special Education Teacher. :)).

Re:Mr. Holland's Opus

[I Like Swords!!!]

He wasn't really deaf, just damn near deaf, nor was he mute as he spoke as any person with similar hearing problems would. Good movie it was. Now, having seen the glove on TechTV, I could only imagine strapping TWO of those things on. I'd feel like a cyborg. Add some facial sensors to incorporate expressions into the system.... almost sounds like borg garments... o.O

Now where did that come from... -_- I need some sleep. Yes.

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

[DenialX]

Not a chance...For those that use ASL it is not uncommon for new words concepts and images to be created to express an idea. Almost all of the grammer is facial expression and without it the message is completely different. ASL is not mearly about words like english but more like mental pictures capable of expressing thoughts, emotions, and indepth ideas. It truely is its own lanugage. If you had two gloves, and a way to monitor eyes and face movements it might work. Other wise its simply an English Trasnlation. Deaf people in the US use ASL and only sign english when to communicate to those who only know the English signs and don't speak there language.