Talk to the Hand may take on a new meaning if the engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University have anything to do with it. They have developed a glove that can understand 32 sign language words. The HandTalk project is being developed to allow deaf people who sign to communicate with others who do not understand the language.
Mechanically, the sensor laden glove unit connects with a standard cell phone by means of Bluetooth. The phone, in turn, translates the sensor data to speech via a text to speech program, allowing the receiver to understand the translated gestures.
This simple but effective approach illustrates how computers and a little applied creativity can help those with disabilities as well as helping others that do not understand a language to communicate effectively. I only hope that the gesture vocabulary stops before translating certain gestures.
Aloha from the Beach
