Live 24/7 subtitling was the greatest advancement made for deaf people in recent times. Television subtitles, scrolling texts, and live sign language performers have all helped make the disability easier to deal with. Google Glass is coming out with a new technological advance that can literally let the text scroll across your glass lens.
William Mager tried out the glasses in the beginning of August. He remarked how light the glasses were on his face but how difficult they were to position. Once the lens was in perfect focus, he sat in a meeting room where people were engaging in a heated conversation. The glasses picked up every word. Mager was shocked by the speed of words flying across his lends and the accuracy text was.
As he was extremely impressed, he also claimed that he wasn’t a fan of all aspects. There is a setting option in which you can wink to take a picture, which can get rather annoying if you are somebody who likes to wink often. There are also voice commands for the glasses, which are hard for deaf people to use considering their speech is most likely impaired.
Other companies, such as SignVideo, in the UK are also working on live sign language interpreting. This can actually translate hand motions to words for people who aren’t deaf to use these glasses. This is offered via android and IOS software. Other major technology companies such as Microsoft and and Samsung are working on there own.
Nevertheless, glasses “old technology” is now converging with “new technology” to improve life around us. These steps that we are taking to better technology can help the lives of the disabled and the lives of everyone else.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/05/google-glass-gives-the-deaf-an-asl-interpreter-even-in-the-dark/