Well, the title of this blog doesn’t need much explaining: some programmers from the École Supérieure d’Informatique Électronique Automatique (ESIEA), in Paris, have come up with a clever programme for the Xbox Kinect, which is able to translate sign language.

For those who don’t know, the Kinect is a motion-detecting webcam that allows the Xbox games console to be played with the player’s own bodily movements, rather than a traditional controller. The programme uses this technology to recognise certain body shapes and then displays the corresponding word on-screen.

So far, this project is in the development stages, and can only recognise the words “hello” and “sorry”, but this is a huge step toward an accessible gesture recognition programme for sign language. Now that the framework of the programme has being laid out, adding words to the software should be a relatively minor task. Once the software’s vocabulary is increased, this could prove to be a very useful tool for non-signers who need to know what a specific sign means. As the word is displayed on-screen, rather than spoken, the deaf person can verify that the sign has been translated correctly, and won’t have to worry about their words being misinterpreted without their knowledge.

The applications of this software aren’t limited to translation, either: it has already been widely suggested that this could be a useful teaching tool for students of sign language, and it is almost certain that other uses will reveal themselves as time goes on.

What do you think? As someone who often struggles to understand more complex signs, I think this could be a boon to anyone who regularly needs help with the language (provided they have access to an Xbox with Kinect, that is…). What do you think?

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