HOUSTON: Deaf people, who communicate through their cell phones using SMS messages, can now interact in their native or American sign language, thanks to a new software developed by engineers that has led to demonstration of two way video communication.
"A lot of people are excited about this. The point is you will be able to communicate in your native language. For deaf people that's American Sign Language." principal investigator Eve Riskin, a University of Washington professor of electrical engineering said.
Video is much better than text-messaging because it's faster and it's better at conveying emotion, said Jessica DeWitt, a UW undergraduate in psychology who is deaf and is a collaborator on the MobileASL project. A large part of her communication is with facial expressions, which are transmitted over the video phones.
Low data transmission rates on US cellular networks, combined with limited processing power on mobile devices, have so far prevented real-time video transmission with enough frames per second that it could be used to transmit sign language.
Communication rates on United States cellular networks allow about one tenth of the data rates common in places such as Europe and Asia (sign language over cell phones is already possible in Sweden and Japan). Even as faster networks are becoming more common in the United States, there is still a need for phones that would operate on the slower systems.
"The faster networks are not available. They also cost more. We don't think it's fair for someone who's deaf to have to pay more for his or her cell phone than someone who's hearing," doctoral student Anna Cavender said.