IBM Voice-to-Sign Language Translation Tech

[SzaboLevente]

what a fake smile from 0:07 HAHAHA :D

[TheGreenerItGets]

Cool!



[Elinitsam]

IBM = Immoral Bastard Movement

[ChadthaXMB]

Serious? wow....

[huggiehuggie1]

is BSL british sign language????

[ShaiMyst]

@huggiehuggie1 yes it is.

[schecter420]

pretty sweet! do they have anything like that for ASL?

[doodlespots2011]

sooooo coooooooooolllllllllllll!!!!!!­!!!!!

[HorseExpert]

Heyy JoeyKins :)

tis Jessicaa Here :P

u look well funny in tht vid! :)

ly bruv :)

[ppaauull22]

Hello Jess..its me...try and guess who this is, muhaha

[marcohotmai]

WTF?

[Shilott]

JOE U CHEESEY GIT!

[radiokt3k]

well the signing has to be correct. More than half the time I have used IBM's voice to speech recognition program it has failed to properly identify the words I say. Also, in this example, I never see the sign language interpreter say "My name is" and then correctly spell the name, which is the appropriate ASL method of introduction. Maybe she's just so small I can't make out her signs correctly...

[PeteVerdon]

That would be because the signs are BSL, not ASL. I certainly see a "my name" there, though I couldn't pick out any fingerspelling of "Joe". Some names have their own signs in BSL though (eg Oliver is holding a bowl, like Oliver Twist) so there might have been a sign for Joe that I didn't recognise (I'm very much a BSL beginner). It did end with "I like signing", too.

[radiokt3k]

Thanks Pete, I don't know BSL, only ASL and I assumed...

[HorseExpert]

hehe, that give me the hiccups, he my brother

ps hey joe, jess here incase ur wondering,

its funny how you just stand there and wait for it to end lol

Jess

ps c ya

[bext25]

This is a great teaching tool in classrooms for deaf and hard of hearing students. I'm looking forward to when I can afford it!

[yitive]

Thanks for this. This could help the deaf and/or a hearing person communicate when an interpeter is not available or the person they are communicating with is not fluent in sign language.

[ZenLBSL]

When is this going to be available? I am learning BSL and this would be fantastic for those signs that have been deleted from the old memory banks.

[vikingscool]

Why it is not available for spoken into the

words?! I want to captioning from spoken. :(

[Shilott]

thats my brother omg his on the internet ????

from charlie (ps did u see my new video)

[mst3kevin]

It's not useless! what if it were implimented into a phone? then a deaf person could know what the other person is saying and just speek back to them.

[Sasserdude]

if the deaf´s mate dont have time to write a sms.. he can talk in the phone and in the deafs cellphone´s screen he can see what he is saying, and send sms and the sms is "text-to-speech" and the mate can hear the deaf..

i mean that way.

[RustyCyot]

I agree on the "2 way communication" comment earlier. There's no point in developing technology if it doesn't allow a decent conversation to happen. To me it just seems like the hearies way to "fix" their side of communication but not ensure a way we can respond. Sounds controlling eh?

[Deaf258]

This is just another version of a "hearing aid" for hearies to speak to the Deaf, but how can the Deaf communicate back with them??? This is not a great technology until it allows a 2-way street of communication!

[uberblue1]

Well... being I am An Interpreter(ASL) I dont think I could be replaced by this! But if the could use this to inform the Deaf person that Yes, the Interpreter is on thier way. Yes, we are following the equal right for you yes! wouldnt that be just grand! One day we can see this happening!

[pinkpunktomato]

For many signers, (including me) BSL is the preferred language of communication. Doesn't matter how good our English is. And that means proper grammatical BSL from a proper living human, with multi-channel, adjective expression, and NMF (non-manual features), not a computer-generated avatar that either signs like a stick of wood or falls into the uncanny valley.

[kieran86uk]

I am able to sign BSL.... well said my friend

[vietboy000090000]

what is bsl mean? i use asl

[PakistanisPrince]

its from england whom deaf use! i am a deaf from england!

[ShaiMyst]

@vietboy000090000 well asl is american sign language. and bsl is British sign language.

[pinkpunktomato]

GauchoDoyle: Good point, but many signers have problems reading english, for various reasons. Often deaf kids are forbidden to sign at school - teachers try to teach english by shouting at them. (this rarely works). Deaf kids from deaf families often have better english than deaf kids from hearing families, as they grew up with BSL as a first language. Many deaf kids never had the opportunity to absorb a fluent language model, so experience problems later with reading English.

[GauchoDoyle]

Can signer not read? (sarcasm)

Pointless technology if you ask me and embarrassing for signers who would much rather voice recognition to text bar then a stupid character.

[kieran86uk]

You never know it might have it's uses

[GauchoDoyle]

Bit pointless if you ask me, would it be easier to use voice recognition translated into a rolling text bar or something. I don't know anything about sign, excuse my ignorance but I'm sure they could read a text bar much easier then trying to anymate a stupid character.

Nice idea but pointless....

[pinkpunktomato]

As for computerised sign translation, forget it. About 60-70% of the meaning in BSL is carried by the face, and nobody in the world is near to being able to do realistic animated facial expressions without falling into the 'uncanny valley'. And that's without basing it on a syntax mangled by machine translation. (I used to work in AI and machine languages)

[pinkpunktomato]

I'm a native BSL signer, and I wish hearing people would stop coming up with this crap. Especially the RNID who should know better. I'm aware this was a 12 week student project, and congratulations to the students involved how have done a lovely bit of work. But no way should this small project be on the news. Deaf people are sick of the RNID's obsession with technical solutions and blatant refusal to allow deaf signers into any management positions.

[itrafal]

This is a really great project and I hope it will be improved in future. Good luck!

[MelowM]

Will it accommodate regional BSL differences ?

[matthawkbass]

The nice thing was that it was done in conjunction with the RNID, and we had a deaf IBMer working with the team to make sure it worked. So to a certain against it does some grammar and syntax conversion to BSL. Still a work in progress, but a nice vision of things to come...

[matthawkbass]

This was part of the UK Extreme Blue Programme this year, quite amazing to think what the students achieved over only 12 weeks

[eromanaes]

Very cool technology!