Glove Won't Speak for the Deaf
From: Wired News - 08/07/2003
By: Elisa Batista

Some hearing-impaired people have conflicting feelings about technology
designed to translate American Sign Language into spoken and written speech,
the latest example being Jose Hernandez-Rebollar's AcceleGlove, a
sensor-laden glove that converts hand and arm movements into vocalizations or
text messages. Previous glove technologies take a long time to spell out
words and have a small vocabulary. The AcceleGlove can translate almost 200
words and a few simple phrases, and can understand both the alphabet and
dynamic gestures. George Washington University doctoral student
Hernandez-Rebollar notes that a two-glove system will be needed to allow the
wearer to communicate the entire ASL vocabulary, while a preinstalled
dictionary would expand the range of gestures the glove can translate.
However, fellow glove translator inventor Ryan Patterson of the University of
Colorado observes that the technology is limited because it cannot take
facial expressions into account. American Sign Language Institute director
Paul Mitchell says that deaf people may be resentful of such technology, not
just because of its limited vocabulary, but because it goes against their own
cultural view that deafness is a unique trait rather than a disability.
Certain organizations believe that imposing such technology on deaf people as
a "cure" for their condition would force the hearing-impaired to radically
alter their lives at the behest of the hearing world, rather than let the
hearing community accommodate them. 

Read the entire story at:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59912,00.html
