The EnableTalk gloves allow sign language speakers to communicate more easily with non-signers. The gloves work through a complex combination of sensors which send the position and movement of the user’s hands to their smartphone via Bluetooth. The EnableTalk app then translates this information into text, and then into speech using software similar to that involved in screen reader technology.
Medical Daily reports that “the system can learn new gestures and users can modify the gestures that the team plans to include in its collection of standard gestures. Researchers believe that the feature will make it easier for the hearing impaired or the mute to communicate given the high degree of variation among sign languages.”
It is not yet known which sign languages EnableTalk will support, however, given the software’s adaptability, Australian signers have reason to get their hopes up. The developers estimate that when the product becomes commercially available, each glove could cost as little as $US200.
There are demonstration videos, although with imperct captions, available on the EnableTalk website.
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