From: lance@csd.mot.com (lance.norskog)
Subject: Re: Virtual Reality and Deaf Education
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 91 18:41 PST



The secret of the Power Glove is broken, you can get them for
< $40 in close-outs at Toy'R'Us.  They are a little limited
for signing, though, in that they require you to aim your
hand at the screen to get spatial information.
They measure the thumb and first three fingers.

With some hardware hacking you should be able to surround
yourself with a cage of sensors and thus be able to point
your hand in any direction.  You may want to do some
hardware hacking anyway because the PG as is only gives
two bits of resolution per pixel.  

Everyone who approaches this subject immediately thinks,
"Ah!  The computer can interpret the sign language!"
but this is not really necessary.

The Unix 'talk' program, and IRC network chat programs,
show how to do a chat system for the deaf with
just graphic screens, Power Gloves, and no interpretation
at all.  Chat systems do not interpret your text at all;
no language parsing, no spell-checking, nothing.  They
just pass it through.

David Barberi's "Virtual Handshake" project is an excellent
illustration of this idea.

Lance Norskog