From: iaf@uk.ac.cam.cl.ely (Innes Ferguson)
Subject: Re: Chris' Ethics Paper: Report from Cybercon 2
Date: Thu, 2 May 91 12:05:20 GMT



In <1991Apr29.200959.17885@milton.u.washington.edu> Alan Kilian says:

>>From: seguine@girtab.usc.edu (Christopher Seguine)
>
>>SCENARIO I (Adam uses a glove to sign which gets translated into speech)
>
>This is the coolest application I have ever heard for VR technology.
>Very very very cool. Congratulations. Now Do you think that this will EVER
>get done? I sort of doubt it really.

Something similar has been done already (or is being done).
The system I saw didn't use a glove per se; rather it used a full
sensor-clad robotic hand that the hearing-impaired user could "mould"
into the desired sign. When satisfied the user could "push a
button" and generate a synthetic spoken version of the sign.
I can't remember who's doing it, what TV program I saw it on,
or how advanced it is. Sorry.

BTW, this surely isn't a VR application. It's a "plain old"
HCI/speech synthesis one. I'm not saying it's easy, but it
must be easier than speech recog./understanding given the more
constrained form of input (hand signs vs. speech signals).

Regards... Innes

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Innes A. Ferguson          Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge,
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