Researchers Say This System of 7 Smart Rings Can Translate Sign Language
Key takeaways
- Researchers in South Korea developed a wearable system that uses seven smart rings to read finger and hand motions to translate American Sign Language and International Sign Language into text.
- According to the study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, the system reliably recognized 100 ASL and ISL words during testing.
- ASL and ISL are the everyday languages of more than 72 million deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Researchers in South Korea developed a wearable system that uses seven smart rings to read finger and hand motions to translate American Sign Language and International Sign Language into text. The purpose is to make communicating easier between those who sign and nonsigners without needing a separate human interpreter.
According to the study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, the system reliably recognized 100 ASL and ISL words during testing. It also performed well with users the system had not seen before, and it didn't require recalibration for each person. Because the system detects words in sequence, it can produce sentence-level translations without extra training on grammar.
ASL and ISL are the everyday languages of more than 72 million deaf and hard-of-hearing people. However, most hearing people do not know any words in these languages or have a very basic understanding. That gap makes certain tasks, like ordering at a restaurant or asking for help, much more difficult.