Device lets fingers do the talking

A glove that operates on wireless technology to allow communication across
the globe between deaf-blind people has been invented by an Australian design
engineer. 

Swinburne University graduate Peter Hvala came up with the idea after seeing
a television documentary on the difficulties of communication between people
who are deaf and blind. 

The Tacticom Alpha glove stores the information conveyed by deaf-blind
people, who use a method of palm communication called deafblind
fingerspelling to spell out words. It is then transmitted in much the same
way as a mobile phone text message. 

"In the documentary the woman described how when she lets go of the hand of
the person she is communicating with, they could be 1000 miles away," Mr
Hvala said. 

"It made sense that if they need people to be around all the time to
communicate, there was a need for a device to emulate that second person. 

"It's a basic data exchange and could be used like we use SMS messages at the
moment."  

Deaf-blind people use a wide variety of communication techniques. Those with
some vision are often able to access email, while others use Braille keypads,
but these are complex and many deaf-blind people rely on tactile
communication. 

Media release:
http://www.swin.edu.au/corporate/marketing/media/Glove%20for%20deafblind.htm

Contributed by: David Boonzaier