Smart Talk Gloves???

Now here is the deal that no one ever knew such thing exists or not. Four Ukrainian students have created gloves that allow speech- and hearing-impaired people to communicate with those who don’t use or understand sign language. The gloves are equipped with sensors that recognize sign language and translate it into text on a smart phone, which then converts the text to spoken words.

Team QuadSquad came in first place for their glove prototype in the Software Design Competition of the 2012 Microsoft Imagine Cup, winning $25,000 and garnering interest across the world, including developers anxious to bring their expertise to the project. Now the Ukranians have launched Enable Talk, a website that openly shares their ambitious vision, design documentation, and a business plan for how to bring the device to market. Furthermore, the team is looking into the possibility of enabling the same technology to allow cell phone conversations using the system.The video that the Ukranian team used in the Microsoft competion gives a better feel for how the glove works:

The inspiration for the gloves came from observing fellow college students who were deaf have difficulty communicating with other students, which results in them being excluded from activities. In their glove, a total of 15 flex sensors in the fingers measure the degree of bending while a compass, accelerometer, and gyroscope determine the motion of the glove through space. The sensor data are processed by a microcontroller on the glove then sent via Bluetooth to a mobile device, which translates the positions of the hand and fingers into text when the pattern is recognized. Using Microsoft APIs for Speech and Bing, the text is spoken by the phone running Windows Phone 7. The glove can also plug into a PC for data syncing and charging of its battery.

The base cost of each glove is currently $150 but they forecast that this will drop 50 percent once they refine the development and being mass production. The projected initial retail price of one glove is $250 and $400 for a pair but with minimal competition, EnableTalk is optimistic about their ability to find customers. For deaf people or those with significant hearing loss, these gloves offer hope against the locked-in feeling that the community can experience due to the low numbers of signers in the general population.