IBM System Is a Virtual Sign-Language Interpreter
From: IEEE Computer Magazine - 02/2008 - page 23
By: Lee Garber

UK-based IBM scientists have developed a prototype system incorporating
avatars that translate speech into sign language.  

The SiSi (say it, sign it) system uses speech-recognition technology to
convert a conversation into text and then translation technology to generate
commands that animate an avatar so that it makes the correct sign-language
gestures.  

The system - developed with assistance from sign-language users and the UK's
Royal National Institute for Deaf People - is not designed to replace human
interpreters. Instead, it could be used when no human interpreter is
available or when confidentiality is important.  

Possible applications include the teaching of sign language, as well as
services that translate TV shows, voice mail, or public announcements into
sign language, said Helen Bowyer, an IBM emerging-technology software
engineer.  

The SiSi prototype uses IBM’s ViaVoice speech-to-text technology, noted
Bowyer. The text input is then passed through a translation software module,
which conducts syntactic parsing, lexical analysis, and other processes to
convert the content into grammatically correct British Sign Language.  

SiSi tags sentences with grammar markers and restructures them into BSL
grammar. The system then sends commands - written in the Sign Gesture Markup
Language, a format the UK's University of East Anglia developed for working
with avatars - to the user's PC.  

Read the entire article at:
http://www.computer.org/portal/cms_docs_computer/computer/homepage/0208/News_Briefs.pdf

Links:
IBM Research Demonstrates Innovative 'Speech to Sign Language' Translation System
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22316.wss

SiSi Technology Turns Speech Into Avatarian Sign Language
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/09/17/sisi-technology-turns-speech-into-avatarian-sign-language/

In Love with SiSi
http://jeroenarendsen.nl/2007/09/in-love-with-sisi/