As you may remember, I'm critical of the the changes voice is bringing to the grid, particularly its move to disenfranchise the deaf, just like IRL. But, there is a new system out there that might help eventually. It's not ready for SL yet - it will require quite a lot of work to be ready for SL, because the control over avatar's hands is not good enough at the moment and I don't think expressive puppeteering, when we finally get it, will add it either, not at first. But according to the BBC, IBM and students from University of East Anglia have released a system called "Say it, Sign it" or SiSi that translates both written and spoken text to British Sign Language or Sign Supported English (which is closer to normal English, supported by signing as you see on the television signed programmes). The system is also set up to allow translation modules (e.g. for ASL) to be plugged in. The RNID are happy to see the prototype, although it will take some time before it is in wide distribution according to the director of new technologies.
Thanks to MB Chevalier for the initial lead and link.
1. This is exciting! As an RL mute I use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with family & close friends. In Second Life (SL) text chatting/IM gives me the illusion of having an actual voice. Then the Voice feature came along and some of my fears about it have come true. There are many that now rely on the feature enough that they ignore chat.
If enough avies started signing I think that, at minimum, it would raise awareness that not everyone benefits from the Voice feature. Whether it would actually be useful or not is another issue, but I welcome any opportunity to make everyone aware that some folks don't get all the benefits of SL.
Posted at 1:24PM on Sep 16th 2007 by Uccello Poultry