Scientists showed a demonstration of the The Say It, Sign It (SiSi) project at the IBM laboratory last week in Hursley.
SiSi converts spoken and written English into British Sign Language (BSL) that is signed by an virtual character (avatar) on a computer or mobile phone. SiSi could also be used to translate voicemail on mobile phone networks.
The project is part of Extreme Blue - IBM's global programme to provide the best and brightest IT and business students with internships. 80 students from the UK and Europe, work on 12-week development projects. It's hoped that these will get taken up and developed further.
The University of East Anglia developed the signing avatar and with the database of signs developed by RNID, IBM created SiSi.
Guido Gybels, RNID's Director of New Technologies attended the demonstration event and said:
"British Sign Language users are often amongst the most vulnerable citizens as a result of services and products not being designed with their needs in mind. There is clearly still a long way to go before prototypes such as SiSi become fully capable, off-the-shelf products, but it is encouraging to see that mainstream research is contributing to the objective of a more inclusive society. It is also good to see that RNID's research in both human signing as well as avatar based signing is contributing to the efforts of mainstream businesses. Avatar signing is not intended as a replacement for human based signing, but can be used to offer information in BSL where this is otherwise not possible."
SiSi combines voice recognition technologies with the ability to translate English into animated gestures. One day, this type of setup could be used to translate presentations for deaf people in business and education environments. Other possible uses include TV interpreting, radio news and talk shows over the internet.