VIDEO: THE SMART GLOVE THAT TURNS SIGN LANGUAGE INTO TEXT!

Sign language is difficult to understand if you have never tried to act it out before, which can be frustrating for those that rely on it to communicate. Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a prototype that they call " The Language of Glove", a Bluetooth-enabled, sensor-packed glove that reads the sign language hand gestures and translates that action into text. 

The Language of Glove uses a method to translate the gesture into speech, it has nine stretchable sensors attached to the knuckles of a leather athletic glove, two on each finger and one on the thumb. These sensors are connected to a circuit board on the wrist, which generates a letter of the American Sign Language alphabet based on the position of the fingers. 

The code works off a binary system and the sensors are designed to change their electrical resistance when they are bent or stretched, so when a finger is straight, the device registers a 0 input, while a bent finger sends a single of 1. The system combines these singles from all nine sensors to generate a nine-digit code that responds to a certain letter of the alphabet. 

The circuit board translates these codes into a string of written letters and sends it via Bluetooth to be displayed on a smartphone or computer screen. The Language of Glove was created using inexpensive materials and fabrication methods and in the future, the design could be used to control virtual or robotic hands, for entertainment or medical training. 

Check out the video below to see the Language of Glove in action. This will definitely change the way we communicate with people using sign language as their main form of communication.