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Speech For The Deaf
I am linus's ho writes "CNN is running a story about gloves which transelate sign language into audble speach, in a stephen hawking type mannor, only, i suppose, much different. The article can be found here"
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utterly amazed nobody has posted yet...
Another step closer to virtual reality booths....
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I can mount my expedition into the jungles of Africa and search for King Solomon's mines...
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
if there will be support built in for rude gestures?
One finger can say so much.
Kinda like that thing they had in the movie 'Congo' for the gorilla
Decent idea, I'm surprised they haven't done it yet. Wonder what happens when you give someone the finger while wearing them?
A well-mannered spokesman for Stephen Hawking assured the public today that he will continue to live in his manor. He intends to use his existing traslator to audibly speak as he does now, and will be no meaner.
I was going to post a comment about the spelling mistakes, but then I hesitated. The blatant spelling errors in the story must be a joke. Right?
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
This only helps one way in the conversation. It can help the deaf person be understood by those who do not know sign language. The deaf person still has to read lips (or have a pad with speech recognition) to know what is said in response.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
"CNN is running a story about gloves which transelate sign language into audble speach, in a stephen hawking type mannor, only, i suppose, much different. The article can be found here" "transelate"? "audble"? It seems to me that we need gloves that translate badly spelt words into the correct spelling as one types! :-)
save the GNUs!
Hmm, that sounds too complicated. I think I'll just use my eyes...
4 blatant spelling mistakes in two short sentences. Is that too much to fix in backSlash? I mean, it only takes 5 seconds of your time.
Aw, fuck it. Let's go bowling. - The Big Lebowski
I'll finally be able to understand what gang-bangers are saying when they make those hand signals.
For hizzle my schnizzle...
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Anyone who's spent any time around those who speak ASL or any other sign language as their primary language know that there's a hell of a lot more to sign language than the hands. It's also body posture, relative positions of the hands, and especially facial expressions. The main distinguishment between a question and a statement, for example, is all in head posture and facial expression. Another thing that this doesn't address is what's known as classifiers, where the signing person identifies some hand shape and/or position in space as a particular object/person and then uses that same shape and space in the way we would use a pronoun. This is not something I can see software picking up from mere gloves. (BTW all of this is hyper-simplified both by the fact that I myself do not know ASL and by the fact that I'm not discussing this in an ASL-technical forum).
Bottom line: it may have some limited utility in some very special conditions, but it will not simply allow a deaf person to put on a pair of gloves and have an instant voice.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Amy Pretty Gorilla
Pretty Gorilla
Too bad I can't post in ALL CAPS! THAT WAY the DEAF PEOPLE can HEAR ME!
I figured he was joking about being linus's ho until I saw the spelling.....hmm...hookers...text-to-speech...
...Now in development for the speech-impaired: A gesture-to-speech translator that works in a Stephen-Hawking-type manner, though, I suppose, much different...
(ANNOUNCER'S VOICE)
Thrust
*slight pause*
(ROBOTIC VOICE) That'll be $40
If I had a sig, this is where it would be.
"All art is quite useless" -- Oscar Wilde
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
Do those gloves come with a built-in spell checker?
Maybe for words like: transelate
Hay, I'm fare gaame when I mayke spelin erors two. ;)
And this is a big win over simply typing what you want to say in on a keyboard and outputting it via a speech synthesizer? This sounds like yet another case of a solution in search of a problem to me.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Is it anything like I imagine?
I wonder if they have a special macro for rapid repetitive back and forth motion to be translated into a sultry "Oh yeah, right there baby! Right there! That's the stuff!"
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
CNN is running a story about gloves which transelate sign language into audble speach, in a stephen hawking type mannor, only, i suppose, much different. The article can be found here
Microsoft has one good feature A SPELL CHECK
Microsoft correctly text:
CNN is running a story about gloves which translate sign language into audible speech, in a Stephen Hawking type manner, only, i suppose, much different. The article can be found here
Now your kung fu can speak for itself.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
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One may be interested to see that while i masquraded as Linus's ho, this story was posted. However, as my obviously pro-BSD self, the same thing was rejected. This is proof of conspiricy
... I don't typically flip people off until they're facing away.
"Derp de derp."
they did this with the signing gorilla 5 years ago. ./ editors: just because the website says it was posted today doesn't mean it is fresh news.
also, just because the website says it was posted last week doesn't mean you shouldn't post it front page just because you missed it.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
If it is a word for word thing, then it will sound like broken English, and then when I do idiomatic sign, just like speaking idiomatic english, you have to infer the context to get the meaning.
Heh. this is ridculous. Why people just don't learn sign is beyond me.
spam, spam, spam, spam, e-mail, news and spam.
A much more informative page that explains the technology (called GRASP - Glove-based Recognition of Auslan using Simple Processing) briefed in the CNN article can be found on Waleed Kadous's website:
GRASP Site:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/thesis.htm l
More generalized Gesture & Sign Language Recognition Research:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~waleed/gsl-rec/
Also see the self-proclaimed Gesture Recognition Home Page (good resource, tons of links)
http://www.cybernet.com/~ccohen/
Or just search google like I did for 'Machine Gesture Sign Language' and get a wealth of links.
</whoring>
If I had a sig, this is where it would be.
Deaf people are fun. They can't hear you fart during sex.
The awful 1995 movie Congo featured a gorilla wearing gloves that, in the movie's world, translated sign language into speech.
..."Fuck You" if you give someone the bird? Or maybe "Go Fuck Yourself?" Maybe when you give the thumbs up it says "Roger Ebert is a Homo." When you give the Texas University "Hook 'Em Horns" sign, will it say "Satan is my all powerful master?" Would it actually say "Talk to the hand, etc." if you stuck your palm in someone's face? Or if you smack a girl in the ass, maybe it'll say "Nice tush, sweetheart."
Oh, the possibilities... Now even deaf people can get slapped by a woman for saying the wrong things...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
I wonder what it will say when people wearing it flip someone off... :p
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
Unaware you've your middle finger shoved up your nose, a disembodied voice respondingly chants "f**k you" throughout the ghetto... sweet.
"I'm so hip I have trouble seeing over my own pelvis"
Upon first look these 95% does not seem that impressive. 1 in 20 words wrong or every third sentence gives across the wrong meaning. This would not be useful for effective communication.
But to give proper credit to the reseachers, understanding signs is very difficult: atleast, if not more, difficult than comprehending speach. Signs are not just a shape of the hand. Words and phrases are distinguished by differences in shape, location, and motion. Plus there are other subtle differences that usually cannot be picked upon by non-signers. Much in the same way there are subtle differences that speakers can pick up between similar sounding words but cannot hear with out the context of language.
The only reason that speakers are able to comprehand speach in real time is because they have an area of the speciallized for comprehension. Without this area - known as Wernicke's area - the mind is simply not quick enough to understand speach as quickly and fluently as it does. This is why, despite a computer's much faster processing ability, it is unable to comprehend speach as well as we do.
The amazing thing about Wernicke's Area is that in the case of signers it is able to leap from auditory comprehension to visual comprehension. So all the power that goes into speach comprehension is also used in signing comprehension. In this respect a computer picking up 95% is an impressive accomplishment.
From many years of experience as a top customer service agent for McDonalds, I can tell you that when taking a deaf person's order all you need is to know how to read.
What's the sign for Big Mac again?
One deaf friend of mine got out of many speeding tickets because the officer couldn't communicate with him. You think he's going to rush out and buy some Magic Talking Gloves?
The deaf community won't buy it. For accuracy and comfortability they'll want a skilled and gifted translater. You know, someone who cares enough to learn the language.
BOTTOM LINE: Give it to the hard of hearing or hearing impaired who don't know how to sign. Just make sure the third finger works.
One last question, does anyone know how to sign "Natalie Portman eats hot grits" ? Anyone?
p.mon
Once before when I saw your sig I thought....ASL? Well, I'm sure it's taken....but by what?
Most people (myself included) don't encounter the seriously hearing impaired in our daily lives, and never have had a good enough reason (that is, enough motivation, however wrong that may be) to learn ASL. I do, however, speak Spanish because I encounter that every day, it being the second language of the US. My grandmother is hearing impaired, but doesn't know ASL - she just uses a hearing aid. I suppose it would help, but since she can speak English it's not necessary - I just have to talk a little louder, towards her left ear.
I don't mean to be offensive...I'm just explaining the 'ridiculous'-ness of my impairment.
If I had a sig, this is where it would be.
The whole "Deaf Culture" movement that encourages deaf people to make themselves distinct (by not speaking or reading lips) from the "Hearing" people is terrible.
If a deaf person can learn to speak and read lips they can get along extremely well, almost unnoticed in everyday life.
Hey look at that!
No over there!
No, there!
Watch out!
See that?!
You missed it!
1. Are there different versions of the middle finger gesture? One 'adult', and another 'radio edit'?
:P
2. When will we see a mod of this thing to a baseball glove so that we can get a translation of what the manager converse to the players on the field, live via TV?
I'm only half joking.
geek page at KY speaks
One would think that being mute would be the main characteristic that one would need this invention for...not specifically deafness.
Thanks for everyone's comments. I'm the one who did the work. If you want to find out more, there's more info at my PhD web page.
Sure. "Computer" sign language will wind up being a "dialect" of traditional sign language-- sort of like a pidgin English. It may even become a full language unto itself. (Think of the version sign language that deaf and blind people rely on, but with even more flexibility.)
And people take it upon themselves to learn the new dialect and even contribute to its evolution it because it will allow them to communicate to a much larger audience-- namely, all of the folks in the world who don't understand sign language. A little inconvenience never stopped anyone who really wanted to make his opinions known.
now the blind can hear the deaf :-)
It is good that people are thinking about how to help the deaf, I just don't see this as all that useful. I am amazed that they have gotten up to 95% accuracy...though I suspect that this is with someone who went through a long training with the device, and they do mention that it has to be calibrated...a lot like the speech to text programs that never really caught on.
I think the annoyances would outweigh the benefits. They would be a pain to deal with...you would constantly have to turn them on and off so they don't start speaking when you are simply using your hands to say, pick something up. They would likely be very easy to break...your hands put things through a lot of stress.
Plus, a hearing person who is motivated can communicate with a deaf person if they put forth any effort. My high school had a program for deaf people, so I saw many of them around school...and never had a problem communicating with them. We did not use proper sign language like they used with each other, but a mix between gestures that we could all figure out, and lip reading. I have run into several of them since then and did not have any trouble communicating without pen or paper. My guess is many of them would rather communicate in this way, than deal with a flawed system that is a pain to use.
That being said...it is good that research is being done on the topic, because it not only opens people's eyes to the hassles that the deaf must go through...but it opens up a possibility where maybe in the future a system like this could be worked out that is more effective...though I think it would be very hard to do, perhaps it would not be impossible.
While I think you give valid examples of sign language that a glove-based translator will be hard pressed to recognize and translate, I think you may be overlooking the utility of this glove.
There is no reason to suppose that new signs cannot be created specifically for the glove so that almost anything that can be expressed in English can be expressed with the glove. A deaf person will simply have to learn the new gestures to fully utilize the glove, in the same way that a typist has to learn a QWERTY or Dvorak keyboard.
Once this has been properly tested and developed with the help and participation of the international deaf community, I see no reason that a deaf person, regardless of nationality cannot use the glove to communicate with a hearing person in his/her native language. At least, one-way communication will possible in multiple languages. Add a speech to glove-language translator and you have a two-way system.
Heck, with this glove, a deaf person will have an advantage over hearing people. He or she may make him/herself understood in several languages. Just a thought.
Okay, folks, can we PLEASE quit it with the "This is totally useless! Understanding sign language requires blah blah blah etc." comments? Just because YOU can't think of any reason to use it, doesn't mean there isn't valuable scientific knowledge being gained here. Maybe this will lead to a breakthrough in visual recognition systems. Who knows? Crapping on other peoples' work before much is even knows about it... great. What have YOU contributed to human progress?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Besides, there is no reason to suppose that new signs cannot be designed specifcically for this glove so that it can be used to say anything. And not just in English, but in any natural language. The deaf will just have to learn the new signs, a small effort compared to how useful it can be in the long run.
"...sign language into audble speach..."
I like Smints. They're really powerful mints. By the same token, are Speaches peachier or something?
I'm usually not one to fuss about spelling, but I guess I've seen so many instances of "speach" in news.admin.net-abuse.email that by now it kind of bothers me.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
This is my research, and some of what you say is absolutely true.
About facial gestures: absolutely true. Facial gestures are very important in sign, as are facial expressions and vocal inflections in human speech. But we can still talk over a phone line, or with very poor audio quality, or even with monotone voice. You can still do quite a bit within this limitation, say, if you had to visit a doctor. It would be a lot easier than having to scribble everything down, and a lot cheaper/more convenient than hiring an interpreter.
About classifiers and spatial pronouns: There's two things at work, actually. Classifiers are an ability to Bottom line: Your wife has nothing to worry about :-). She'll still have a job for many years to come.
....the the Nintendo Power Glove. Or else this is just doomed from the get go.
Pardon me for asking, and someone may have said it (I didn't see), but wasn't this the project that won first place last year at the Intel Science Talent Search? Here's the kid's bio, http://www.sciserv.org/sts/61sts/Patterson.asp, and here's the page that has the winner list: http://www.sciserv.org/sts/61sts/winners.asp. Says he built his version of the gloves for under $200.
Unfortunately your post got mangled :-). I certainly meant to cast no aspersions on your research per se, nor am I concerned about my wife's career opportunities (she's taking time off for our child for a year or so anyway). I am mostly reacting to the tone of the original post, and the sense in which it implies that this was all Deaf people really needed to join the rest of us. And I figure that more slashdotters than not had no real idea about how sign language really works. Good luck with your research, and I hope it helps a lot of people.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Secondly, I feel it does offer an advantage -- it uses the medium of communication that the Deaf themselves prefer to use. Sign languages are not a word-for-word translation of English. No offence to Deaf people intended, but if you've ever read any unedited text by Deaf (say, e-mail), their grammar is sometimes poor. It's not because Deaf are stupid, it's just it's not their language, and the language that they do use -- ASL or Auslan or whichever sign language -- is so totally foreign to spoken language that it is hard for them to come to grips with the grammar. So forcing them to use English is already forcing them to do something they'd prefer not to do. It's like saying why bother with Babelfish when anyone could learn Spanish?
The winner of this year's Intel Science Talent Search invented it.
Sign languages typically have a finger-spelling system as a fallback. Say you want to specify a name, like McGill. There's no sign for it, so you finger-spell it. Each letter has a corresponding sign. ASL has single-handed fingerspelling, while Auslan has two-handed fingerspelling.
But it's not sign language. A typical sign might be something like "thank" where you touch the chin and move the hand forward (at least in Auslan anyway).
Recognising sign is much harder. Fingerspelling is pretty much position-independent. For sign recognition, you need to track the person's position and motion.
This is not to cast any aspersions on Ryan's work, of course -- especially that he made it so cheaply. I think that's a major accomplishment. But designs for such gloves date back to Grimes' work in 1983 (patent 4,414,537), or James Kramer's work at Stanford in the early 90's (patent 5,047,952).
Everyone's going on about all the times this won't be useful... but think about when it will be.
- Asking for directions on a streetcorner
- Finding out bus fare
- Ordering dinner in a restaurant
- Picking up the phone when no one else is around
And so on. There are a ton of mundane things that will be very hard for a deaf person to do without the assistance of a hearing person, but might be pretty important. A device like this might make it much, much easier and safer for a deaf person to travel alone... like I did, traveling around Europe with my crappy little Radio Shack five-language translator. Yeah, I couldn't have deep philosophical conversations in French, German or Italian (Spanish I do ok in on my own), but I could get food and a hotel room.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Make em white and we can finally hear the mimes.. Let me outta the box!!! Let me out!!! Let me out!!!
Before I start, I should mention that I'm oral deaf; this means that while I have a significant hearing loss (total, actually, but I have a cochlear implant to make up for it) I function in the mainstream world using standard english. I'm actually a terrible signer; I always say I like talking too much.
At first look, this seems pretty interesting. Obviously, the big problem for a deaf person is understanding those who don't sign, but it works both ways; people who can't hear tend to get quite a bit of a "deaf accent". I sometimes have trouble being understoof myself, though in my case it tends to be mistaken for a European or Australian accent (don't ask me); in people I've met who spend more time with other deaf people, it's much more noticable. Clearer speech could help on both sides.
On the other side of the issue, I have to wonder how effective this can be. Aside from the fact that the hand gestures are only part of signing (there's also the position of the hands, facial expression, etc) you also have all the difficulties in translating between languages. I don't know anything about Australian sign language, but American Sign Language (ASL) is NOT a set of symbols to replace English words with; it's a complete language with its own grammar and syntax. Imagine trying to build a box which translates spoken German into English, while missing some of the original words, and still have it come out making sense..
Twenties Retirement
When it comes to deep, conceptual signs, I totally agree though -- it ain't got a chance. The ultimate goal is to make day-to-day things easier, not to replace skilled interpreters. I don't think you're ever going to see a Deaf person get on stage with some automated gloves and talk to an audience. But just as -- in English -- the average person's daily vocabulary is a few thousand words, this system may still be useful enough to level the playing field for the Deaf.
The Deaf I've spoken to are eager to see the technology mature. They raise questions like cost, reliability, etc. They like the idea, the issue seems to be the implementation.
Right now, of course, it only works in Signed English mode: one sign == one word. But the hope is to move to translation. BTW, I really don't like the CNN story -- it's probably too sensationalised. A much better article can be found at ABC online.
Why don't hearing people learn to sign? Because learning sign language is hard: I know English, French, Arabic, and a little bit of Auslan. By far Auslan is the hardest language to learn -- mainly because you're using your hands and eyes. When I was learning, I used to have signing dreams and I'd sometimes wake up finding my hands moving. Perhaps this is some kind of indication of how mentally demanding that is.
"Stop talking!", she says.
Pixels keep you awake!
Surfing autopr0n?
Fwap. Fwap. Fwap. does not compute.
There are only 17576 TLAs. Some duplication in meaning is inevitable.
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
Oddly enough, I found ASL much easier to learn than any other languages... I couldn't learn French or Italian to save my life, despite having lived in countries that spoke those languages for quite a while. ASL, on the other hand, I learned largely from watching it being used.
It's not easy to learn ANY language unless you're exposed to it regularly, though...
- Two 5DT Data Gloves (one left, one right).
- Two Ascension Flock of Birds: again, one for each hand.
The later system uses a total of 4 serial ports. The technology has improved quite a bit since 1997, so it might be possible to do it cheaper/better now.Speech recognition is not a dead concept. You can read all about the C-Print system that is being developed at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) (And RIT. Shameless plug, since I'm working there temporarily). The C-Print system uses both a typing and voice recognition system to create the captioning. The captioning is then displayed in realtime on a notebook computer screen or VGA monitor just below the line of view of a student. (There's also a webcam feed so the students can use that to watch both the captioning and the lecturer.)
Advantages of the system: Creates a transcript of the class. This is automatically saved and is avaliable for the student to review later. (Remember, deaf students can't exactly take notes while they're watching continuous action). Don't nessecairly have to pay for a notetaker and interpreter for those classes.
Disadvantages: Cam is pretty stationary, and is only really useful for lecture classes. Cost is a bit higher, in equipment and captionist fees.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
to mass produce or market...Sign language is completely different regionally. NW United States, as opposed to the NE...it is completely different; sometimes even state to state, school to school. There is Signed English, ASL, etc. One thing I guarantee, this scientist isn't deaf, and has no clue how the deaf community will react to this. Witness: cochlear implants.
Is this like "Intelligence for idiots?"
I have a great fear that we're progressing into a world where English is the norm, and that bothers me quite a bit. Sign language is by all accounts a valid and full featured language, just not a spoken one. I don't believe that people should be required or even expected to communicate in a non native language if they don't want to...and especially if they can't. For chrissake, would it kill people to learn a little bit of A/ISL? And similarly would it be that much of a problem for people in countries like the US to catch up with the much of the west and expect fluency in multiple tongues? This thing comes across as a sort of disability device and that sickens me. Sign Language is not a disability. Nor Spanish, nor Hebrew, Pashto or anything else. And despite claims by the right, English is not the official language here in America. Whew. Breathe.
It makes more sense now than it did then. Back then, it required more hardware than you could conveniently lug around. Now, you could just wire the glove up to a Palm Pilot or something comparable.
[Insert Witty Anti-AC Comment Here]
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Tokerat/21/Massachusetts
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Effective lip-reading is a myth. Real deaf people can only understand about a third of what is said in ideal conditions. Most of the structure of spoken language is made inside the throat in ways that cannot be observed.
I know of the regional difference (even in Australia, there's a northern and southern dialects and both dialects are dialects of British Sign Language) but (a) they affect less common signs (b) our system learns, so all it takes is someone to demonstrate a new sign and/or variant -- much like speech recognition systems today can cope with different accents.
Our initial attempt would be to go for Signed English to begin with (there's no translation necessary with signed english; imagine English, except the words are spoken in French, but without the grammar of French), then move on to full ASL.
I'm also aware of the cochlear implant debate. And you've missed the most important differences: (a) this solution embraces sign, rather trying to supersede it; (b) this technology can be used by those who are born deaf as well as those who are postlingually deaf; (c) it's a non-intrusive and low-risk technology - you can take off the gloves whenever you like.
spelt {Pronunciation Key (splt)} v. A past tense and a past participle of spell.
Spelt is as correct as spelled, even if it is the less common variant these days. Spell is an irregular verb. English has many irregular verbs. This is no more ironic than a black fly in your Chardonnay.
However, your use of "I" rather than "It" in a post criticizing a non-existent spelling error in someone else's post criticizing the spelling errors in a Slashdot article header partakes somewhat of ironicalness... ;-)
CNN reported this week that voyager has been in orbit for 25 years. It's easy to see their firm understanding of science and technology reporting.
You know it is the bottom of the barrel when slashdot quotes cnn.
"gloves which transelate sign language into audble speach, in a stephen hawking type mannor, only, i suppose, much different." --Yes, but if we ignore ALL the differences the two are exactly the same! This would be great while scuba diving if... was water proof, was wireless, was able to send the sound via some sort of radio link to other divers and could translate frantic swiming and fast breathing into "SHARK!" -beggs
that's idea from Congo, Michael Crichton's book. Gorilla named Amy had a dataglove and a sgi indy-lookalike computer in a backpack, which translates her gestures into words.
If it's not from M.Crichton, only A.C.Clarke can invent this.
I'm interested in learning sign language, but how do I do it?
I don't hang out with someone hearing impaired, I don't have a tv, so I don't see the news in sign... is there like a webpage or something that'll help you learn?
hearing person example: my wife knows a couple of German dialects after spending one of her high school years in Germany, an exchange program. She and I have compared notes on this phenomena and it's weird/freaky/cool.
And, oh yeah, 'will it learn'. OK, it has the capability to learn? That's good. But I don't see it being practical for mainstream use. It would just be another device to draw attention to myself. I get enough 'attention' or people looking at me warily because of their noticing my hearing aid when I go to McDonalds and place an order at the counter.
Don't let me discourage you tho. I'll go on record and say it can serve an application space in certain situations. But nothing can replace the communication and human bond, the discovery process, the mind-blowing experience of understanding that the person signing to you isn't that much different from you, once you get over the (rather small) learning hump (ASL can also easily incorporate mimetic actions...it's fun, it's playful, it gets the point across). The glove can serve as tool for initiation into their world (the Deaf), I'll give you that. But would the person who only relied on communication with the Deaf with that device, would they not feel that it felt artificial? They would chance to discard it at some point, I would like to believe. I think that's a sad thought that some would only ever be willing to communicate with Deaf folk if they had to wear THE THING.
And you don't have to sign completely pure American/British/Auslan Sign Language, lots of Deaf folks use English or have an understanding of the basics of said language in said regional area. You can 'borrow' the signs and sign in the spoken language word order. It's a bridge. It's a pidgin. Both sides can reach an intermediary form that's efficient enough for both. Then it will evolve. Give it a chance, don't be afraid.
I've always been willing to meet hearing folks halfway by looking at them directly to their face, talking as clearly as I can and asking them to repeat when I don't undertand something.
Half-way. Evem I can do it. It ain't that hard I like to quote Larry: there's more than one way to do it. :)
spam, spam, spam, spam, e-mail, news and spam.
Linus, you da pimp! yeehaw...
um, sorry got carried away...
Join the elite! Post at score:2! Ghostwheel is online.
There seems to be 2 elements of making speech, the single smooth sound coming from your throat, and the shape of your mouth to form that relatively flat sound into pockets and ripples and bubbles and curves. Words are formed by the mouth, inflection is done by constricting or relaxing the bagpipe like monotone coming from the throat. Has any algorithm ever tried to model it like that? It seems, or sounds like, the crap like the Handicap thing that comes with XP, the National Weather Service, and Stephen Hawking all try to just use a simple tone to model the word alone.
What about taking a normal human and having them read each of the most common used words in as monotone as possible, then just use the computer to change inflection?
I dont know, you just think we could do the whole computer speech thing better since 20 years ago.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Even if this technology turned out not to be useful for its original intent, I can see some applications for the general populace.
These gloves could be made considerably more portable than some of the foldable keyboards available today, and indeed might be faster for some types of input than any keyboard. At home, it'd be a handy way to launch applications and access files.
Speech recognition already partially fills this niche. But in noisy environments that hamper the recognition (or environments where even a keyboard would be too noisy), this could be quite useful.
I'd want a boost in the accuracy rate before I started using them, though.
Everyone seems to be focussing on the limitations of this thing and saying it will only be useful in a limited set of circumstances. Heck, EVERYTHING is only useful in a limited set of circumstances.
However, this will be VERY useful in a large number of circumstances. Think about how many people you interact with in your day to day business, and how often you use speech to do this, I'm sure only about 1%, if that, of people can understand the ASL for "cream and sugar please" or whatnot. This glove will allow deaf people to make themselves heard to those around them, possibly not accurately, certainly not poetically, but heard nonetheless.
Its a better idea than esperanto and vanilla coke.
This has already been done:
0 .h tml
http://www.wired.com/news/gizmos/0,1452,49716,0
He's a moron, he can't even make a lame comeback or even defend himself.
He doesn't even have a low ID number.
Spelling errors usually grate on me, though if they're occasional and minor I don't bother complaining. We all make mistakes and our fingers are all just slightly too thick for the keys sometimes. I've forced myself to add common misspellings to my visual dictionary, like "theif" vs. "thief."
But for some reason misspelled words stand out from the page as if they're bold, italic, and <blink>ing, and when I'm reading or skimming I almost always come to a dead stop when I hit one. It's kind of a sudden "something here isn't right" feeling. Severely mangled grammar gets me too, though less reliably.
And yes, sometimes when I'm reading newsgroups or message boards it's a brain feature I really wish I could switch off!
It's not all bad, though: when I was in school my friends used me as a high-speed term-paper proofreading machine. Five seconds of scanning a typical typewritten page and I'd've spotted most of the spelling errors and a lot of the grammar errors. And I don't think I ever once had to have one of my papers checked for spelling and grammar, a big time-saver in the days before decent automated spell checking.
Slashdot could use a few editors with this skill/curse, I think.
To bring this back on-topic... I wonder how strict the gloves in question will be about spelling (of words built out of signs for letters) or exact finger and hand positions. Seems like you'd want them to be as generous in that regard as possible, which probably makes the problem that much harder to solve.
One problem with the idea of a "computer" sign language or dialect--it would most likely be a verbal language. Many Deaf people whose native language is American Sign Language have a highly visual way of expressing themselves. For that reason, the majority of such people would not pick up a verbal language very quickly (if ever). Unless the glove software can deduce intended meaning (which is expressed in highly unique ways by each individual) the produced speech would be word-for-word. Consequently, it may not make much sense. It might come out like this: "gloves nice. finally talk hearing happy me. computer smart wow!" The intended meaning might be: "These gloves are nice. Now I can finally talk with hearing people, and I'm happy about that. The computer is so smart!!"
Until the software can go beyond word-for-word translation and determine the intended meaning, a "computer" sign language or dialect would only work for Deaf people who have some level of proficiency in verbal communication. I know because I interact with Deaf people on a regular basis. I'm Deaf too, but then again, I was raised in the hearing culture. The norm of people raised in Deaf culture do not think or express themselves in a verbal way.
fwoomp
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Happy Fun Ball got first post...because I taunted it.
I don't think stephen hawking does a lot of sign language.
Simple.
They pull up to the window with a note--probably already written out--at least we hope. But then again even some deaf suffer from a lack of common sense.
Just remember: Honk all you want. Negative gesturing is just not nice.
p.mon