Deaf

Most people don’t understand sign language, to the frustration of those who rely on it to communicate. Now engineers have developed a prototype called “The Language of Glove,” a Bluetooth-enabled, sensor-packed glove that reads the hand gestures of sign language and translates them into text.

​The idea that a group of sign language users are equipped with better vision mightn't come as a surprise. But what if we told you that among that group were adults whose hearing is perfectly intact?

​​Meniere’s disease is a debilitating condition, causing severe dizzy spells. While there is a treatment, it can cause permanent loss of hearing. Now, however, it turns out that a steroid injection to the affected inner ear may be just as effective, but without any side effects.​

Speech-to-text systems already exist, as do augmented-reality displays. Now, a group of tech-savvy teens have combined the two technologies to form the Live Time Closed Captioning System. Once up and running, it could revolutionize the way in which deaf people communicate with the hearing world.

For people with limited hearing, understanding movies or plays can be challenging. That's why engineers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technolgy have developed a system that streams audio from the stage or screen to the user's earphone-equipped smartphone.