New tech-glove Translates Sign Language to speech

A team of UCLA scientists announced Monday that they have developed a glove that translates Sign Language into speech in real-time.

They published their findings in the journal Nature Electronics.

How does it work?

The glove contains sensors in each of the digits that identify words, phrases, or letters in American Sign Language.

Collected data is then transmitted wirelessly to a smartphone app that translates them at a rate of one word per second.

Optional sensors can also be attached to a user’s face to register facial expressions used in ASL.

“Our hope is that this opens up an easy way for people who use sign language to communicate directly with non-signers without needing someone else to translate for them,” said lead researcher Jun Chen.

“In addition, we hope it can help more people learn sign language themselves,” he added

Although the translation rate is still relatively slow, the new technology is a huge improvement over previous translation devices which were large and impractical for extended use.

Click here to watch a video of the tech-glove in action!