Joanne Milne has not heard a single word, bird chirp or music note for 39 years. Four weeks ago, she got electronic cochlear implants. This is the exact moment when she hears for the first time and starts to cry overwhelmed by the feeling and emotion.
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We recently took a look at LEAP READER, which is a device that’s currently in development that helps those of us who don’t read sign language understand those that only have it as their primary form of communication. If you are going to be doing a lot of sign language in the future, you may want to actually learn the language, or at least help in understanding someone who is deaf or hard of hearing. Luckily, the Sign Language Ring has been conceptualized to hopefully help all of us someday. (more…)
Sign Language Ring Concept Will Help Translate In Realtime original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Though early Kinect patents showed its potential for sign language translation, Microsoft quashed any notion early on that this would become a proper feature. However, that hasn’t stopped Redmond from continuing development of the idea. Microsoft Research Asia recently showed off software that allows the Kinect to read almost every American Sign Language gesture via hand tracking, even at conversational speeds. In addition to converting signs to text or speech, the software can also let a hearing person input text and “sign” it using an on-screen avatar. All of this is still confined to a lab so far, but the researchers hope that one day it’ll open up new lines of communication between the hearing and deaf — a patent development we could actually get behind. See its alacrity in the video after the break.
Filed under: Cameras, Science, Alt, Microsoft
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Microsoft Research
While there’s plenty of hype going on about smartwatches these days, most of the watches out there solve fairly superfluous problems – like seeing that you have a phone call because you’re too lazy to get the phone out of your pocket. On the other hand, this smartwatch could really help deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
The Android 4-powered Moneaual Smart Care System (SCS1000) can be used to alert people with hearing difficulties to emergency situations by relaying information to the LCD screen of the watch, as well as an accompanying vibration alert.
The device can detect specific sounds and alert users to them on the watch display. In indoor mode, the watch is smart enough to identify everything from the sound of a doorbell ringing, to a smoke alarm beeping, to a crying baby to a phone ringing or boiling water. In outdoor mode, it can detect car horns and other loud noises to protect wearers from dangerous situations. The watch also offers an emergency mode which can call 911 and request help on your behalf.
There’s no word yet on pricing or a release date for the Moneaual Smart Care System, but it could definitely be a great gadget for those with partial or total hearing loss when it’s ultimately released.
How do you learn a concept if there is no word for it? That’s a question people who are deaf and pursuing science often struggle with. The answer is not exactly easy, and involves a group effort across the non-hearing community. More »
A few months ago we saw a concept for a camera-based device that is meant to recognize sign language and translate it into spoken words. A Ukrainian-based team has something better: a working prototype of a smart glove with the exact same capability.
The quadSquad team won the 2012 Imagine Cup – Microsoft’s technology competition for students – for their invention, which they call EnableTalk. The glove has 15 flex sensors, an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a compass, all manned by an onboard microcontroller. The glove sends input via Bluetooth to a custom app made for Windows smartphones, which will then interpret the data and output spoken language.
The brief demo below show the tester spelling “hello” letter by letter, which the app is able to translate after just a brief delay:
Head to EnableTalk’s official website for more information on the product. I tip my hat off to quadSquad; I hope the team succeeds in releasing a commercial version of their device.
Not that hearing aids are unsightly, but some people who use them actually find how they look pretty annoying. But it’s better to have them than not be able to hear what people are saying around you, right?
But if you’re looking for a sleeker, sexier alternative, then Flutter might just be the thing for you. It’s a fusion of fashion and robotics, as the garment was designed to allow those who have trouble hearing to “feel” the sounds around them.
There’s actually a complicated framework of wires and microphones under the dress that detect where the emitted sounds are coming from.
The ‘leaflets’, which are the leafy things on the dress, then flutter to give the wearer a sense of where the sound is coming from. So while it might not be a substitute for hearing aids, it’s a pretty enough start.
It’s only for the ladies, though, but maybe designer Halley Profita might have to come up with something for the gents the next time around.
[via Yanko Design]
If you’re have difficulty hearing or are deaf, going to the movies can be a challenge unless you manage to find a showing or a theater with special projected captions. Thanks to a new Sony technology, you can now view captions on any showing of a digitally-projected film, without requiring that everyone watch the captions.
Sony’s Entertainment Access Glasses contain a pair of tiny projectors which can superimpose captioning in front of just your eyes. The glasses offer a variety of adjustments for the size, color, position and language of the captions, providing flexibility for a variety of eyes and viewing conditions. In addition, the glasses can support 3D without another pair of lenses. While you might imagine these glasses are just a concept, they’re not. They’re already in production, and you can find them at some Regal Cinema locations already.
The glasses are currently compatible with Sony’s 4K Digital Cinemas, though it’s unlikely that they’ll ever work with other projection systems.
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