MyVoice is a new technology that translates sign language into audible words and may finally eliminate the communication barrier between those who can hear and those who cannot.

Last month we reported on a three Cornell University engineering students who had developed a high-tech glove that can translate hand gestures into spoken letters.

Now students at the University of Houston have taken this one step further with a prototype sign language translation device that converts motions and hand shapes into complete audible words.

The development of the innovative translation device known as MyVoice was a collaborative effort by UH’s engineering technology students Anthony Tran, Jeffrey Seto, Omar Gonzalez and Alan Tran and industrial design students Rick Salinas, Sergio Aleman and Ya-Han Chen.

The device has already earned first place among student projects at the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) -- Gulf Southwest Annual Conference.

"The biggest difficulty was sampling together a databases of images of the sign languages. It involved 200-300 images per sign," Seto said. "The team was ecstatic when the prototype came together."

"We got it to work, but we hope to work with someone to implement this as a product," Aleman said. "We want to prove to the community that this will work for the hearing impaired."

Alex Dupont

See Also

• More about machine translation
  Machine translation in itself is not good enough if you require a translation of publishable quality.
• High-tech glove to interpret ASL letters
  Three Cornel University engineering students develop high-tech innovative glove.
• Prototype Device Translates Sign Language
  Too often, communication barriers exist between those who can hear and those who cannot. Sign language has helped bridge such gaps, but many people are still not fluent in its motions and hand shapes.