Daily WOW: Gloves Translate American Sign Language Into Spoken Word

University of Washington sophomores, Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor have been awarded the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for inventing a new pair of gloves that translates the gestures of American Sign Language into spoken word:

The “SignAloud” gloves have built-in sensors which read the wearer’s hand positions and movements, then wirelessly transmit them to a computer. The computer then runs the information through a gesture database, using an algorithm to determine the best translation, which is then spoken.

This promising Technology has the capability of revolutionizing the way that the hearing impaired interact with the world. it can open up job opportunities, allow the hearing impaired to visit businesses that may not have been able to accommodate them, and even help them to make friends who otherwise would never have been able to connect with them. To this we say WOW.