Deaf

For deaf and hearing impaired people, voice recognition technology can be a barrier to effective communication. Now, researchers have used AI to develop a tool that converts sign language to text, potentially increasing inclusivity and accessibility.

When deaf athletes with cochlear implants take part in sports, they have to wear headgear that protects the external parts of their implant. A new wearable serves that same purpose, while allowing users to hear the sounds around them much better.

At a teaching symposium earlier this month, the world's only liberal arts university for deaf students explored the potential for remote learning by testing out a life-size holoportation device called the Epic from Proto Inc.

Checking the hearing of newborns can be challenging, in that the infants can't tell you which sounds they do or don't hear. A new system offers an inexpensive solution to that problem, by utilizing a smartphone, earbuds and a simple microphone.

Researchers at the Salk Institute have made a breakthrough that could lead to new treatments for genetic hearing loss. Gene therapy that delivers a particular protein can ensure faulty hair cells grow correctly, allowing for improved hearing.

Scientists studying the mechanisms behind deafness have pinpointed a single gene they described as a type of master switch for cell differentiation, opening up exciting new possibilities around restoration of hearing.

We've already seen camera-equipped glasses that tell blind wearers what they're looking at. Well, Voicee is a bit different, in that it's a microphone-equipped set of glasses which display the text of what other people are saying.

Over the years, we've seen a number of experimental "smart" gloves that convert their deaf wearer's hand gestures into text. The aptly named Sign Language Translation Glove, however, is claimed to be the first mass-produced product to do so.

Although cochlear implants do allow some deaf people to hear again, adjusting the devices to individual users can be challenging. An experimental new implant is designed to help in that regard, by reading the user's brain waves.

For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, it can be difficult to pick out important sounds, such as a doorbell or a fire alarm. A new smartwatch system called SoundWatch identifies sounds and alerts users to them with a buzz and a visual readout.

A landmark study is offering evidence to suggest age-related hearing loss is primarily caused by accumulated damage to inner ear sensory hair cells, and hair-regeneration technologies may offer new treatments to restore hearing loss in old age.

We've covered a number of motion-tracking gloves designed to translate sign language into audible speech, and a team of bioengineers at UCLA has just come out with another design that's more compact and lightweight than any we've seen previously.