Well. Just a week after Mark Nelson wrote about how technological advances and the rise of voice recognition could leave deaf people behind – in his ‘Peak Deaf Access’ theory, this story appears in the Metro.
Apparently, a portable sign language translator app has been invented, that will allow deaf people “to talk to everyone.”
The article says that “sign language can be used in front of a camera built into a laptop, tablet or phone and the app will instantly translate gestures into text on the screen.”
(“Gestures”? Surely they mean “signs.”)
The app will be available in late 2013 and is said to be affordable. The makers claim the app has a customisation tool and can cater for regional variations.
Sounds amazing – I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried this out.
The big question for deaf people will be ‘how well will it actually work?’
Bearing in mind the complexity of sign language, taking in facial expressions, hand movements and body language (for starters), plus the difficulty companies have had in the past of creating equivalent systems, this statement from the article: “It will work on all types of phones – no matter how cheap they are, as long as they have a camera” doesn’t fill me with confidence.
But I’m ready to be proved wrong.
Update: this BBC news article offers further background on the development of the App
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Mike Gulliver
March 12, 2012
Will it also read out the translation for illiterate hearing people?
*grin*
PSLT (@PSLTTechnabling)
March 16, 2012
Once we have the text produced there would be nothing stopping a screen reader from reading it out for you!
David Whittaker (@GeekWhitty)
March 12, 2012
Whilst I applaud them for their innovation, I am going to be sceptical about this app as not sure how it will cope with 3D depth/facial expressions/multi-channel signs.
PSLT (@PSLTTechnabling)
March 16, 2012
Don’t worry David, these are all things we are paying close attention to during development.
Pamela Graham
March 12, 2012
Yeah, I would want to know how well it could cope with Multi-channels and the general grammar/structure of the language. I would worry that if it could not cope with that, then it may force people to use their signing in a more SSE sort of way.
I also want to know how affordable is “affordable”.
It would be cool if it did work, and worked well. But as a language learner myself ( BSL included) I always cringe at the use of online translators or ‘auto’-translate tools as they are never really 100%. I suppose, that the main thing is to be understood and that the ‘jist comes’ across. I will deffo be watching this space!
PSLT (@PSLTTechnabling)
March 16, 2012
Our aim is to have our system adjust to the signer, not the signer adjust to our system so no forcing people to use SSE for us thank you very much!
We want users of our system to be understood as clearly and as accurately as possible so are looking at a range of Natural Language Generation techniques to help make sure the text our system produces is as close to ‘standard’ written language as possible. Getting a ‘google translate’ standard which gets the jist across would be good but we have our sights set much higher than that!
Watch our facebook and twitter spaces as well! facebook/PSLTTechnabling
Neil Warnes
March 12, 2012
Good one, but what about via verse live texts (subtitle) recevied from hearing person chat with all accent that would be brilliant
Barry C
March 12, 2012
I hate to be skeptical, but “I’ll believe it when I see it”… Last year I saw a demonstration of ASL translation using the X-Box Kinect, but it was VERY rudimentary. A good START, to be sure, but signed languages involved MUCH MORE than the ability to identify signs and insert printed words… Facial expressions, speed of signs, depth and direction of signs, etc, etc, are all vital… And realize, too, that such “interpretation” needs to be bi-directional — it shouldn’t just print out words – it would also need to REPLY in the signed language!! Lets see a whiz kid develop the APP for THAT!!! Technology is helping Deaf people in MANY WAYS today. 20 years ago, TTY’s were the top of the “technology pyramid” but today TTY’s are viewed like the telegraph! Anybody sent a telegram lately? I’m sure the NEXT 20 years will produce products and services we can’t even DREAM about today… But the dream of eliminating signed languages (nightmare, actually) is unlikely to be achieved in my brief lifetime…
PSLT (@PSLTTechnabling)
March 16, 2012
” it shouldn’t just print out words – it would also need to REPLY in the signed language”
Try a search on “sign language avatar” something else we have been thinking about, but I think we’ll focus on the Sign to Text translation first, as you’ve pointed out there is plenty of things that need considered there!
PSLT (@PSLTTechnabling)
March 16, 2012
Never feel bad about being sceptical (or skeptical for that matter!), the sceptics are the people who keep us on our toes and keep us working hard to prove them wrong!
Editor
March 16, 2012
This thing about the app working no matter how good the camera – is that really true? Surely the quality of the camera has an effect on how well the phone can read the signs?
PSLT (@PSLTTechnabling)
March 16, 2012
What is meant is that you won’t need to have the latest, fastest and most expensive camera phone on the market to run the software. Of course if your camera quality is so poor that it only picks up the colour blue and can’t see anything on the right hand side then you might run into problems, but as long as you have an average quality camera phone you should be fine.
Part of our testing procedures is running the system on a range of phones at different stages in development (ranging from low end models to the high end) so we can make sure the latest developments still work everywhere and make correction where they don’t.
jonathan
April 29, 2012
Whilst I applaud the idea of making acces easy by the model allowing use with the most basic of technology. The technology of tomorrow on everybodies phone and laptop will be 3d. If this project embraces that then I think it will succeed. MS recent release of the Pc Connect, tuned for closer object interpretation being typcal leader. Put these two in a room together.
Erik
June 3, 2012
I would love to be a beta tester …….. Taking any?
tony
October 2, 2012
Of course this app DEVELOPMENT will be a typical experience with typical development issues, BUT if it is aimed at helping deaf people GO FOR IT!!!! I love this worthy endeavor. Now how about the other way around? An APP that listen to vocal communication and translates it? maybe that already exists. I am so happy to see things that are invented to help the disabled live better.
justin
April 2, 2013
How can I install app please help