MSigns - 3D Virtual Sign-Language Translation
From: Michigan Engineer - Spring 2006 - page 13
By: Bill Clayton

A young woman stands in a market looking for the price on a frozen dinner. A
stockboy notices the blank look on her face. "Six for 10 dollars," he says.
But she still doesn’t understand - the woman is deaf and, without a
sign-language interpreter, is finding it very tough to get through the day.  

Aware of this sort of problem, Jason Gilbert and Judy Yu, graduate students
in Michigan Engineering’s Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space
Sciences (AOSS), asked themselves: What can we do to make life easier for
people who rely on sign language to communicate?  

Their answer led to the MSigns program, which aims to develop technology that
would "listen" to speech and translate it into sign language that a person
could see - in 3D, in real time - on a handheld computer.  

Read the entire article at:
http://www.engin.umich.edu/alumni/engineer/06S/research/research2.html

Link:
MSIGNS
http://www.dc.umich.edu/dmc/grocs/msigns.html