Technology is about improving the lives of people

Technology - has got to do with how it improve the lives of people. Simple. Technology does not have to be the most complicated engineering. It does not always need to satisfy - all at the same time - a patentability criteria for being novel AND non-obvious to a person of skilled art AND useful. I choose to stand my grounds that a scientist or inventor with 20 patents to his/her name does not make he/she more innovative whilst if you are just a "normal" ordinary person, it does not make you less creative and innovative.

Here, a group of researchers from IBM has developed a technology that translates spoken or written words into British Sign Language (BSL), especially useful to the deaf. With more and more webinars, and online conferences, this technology will enable deaf people to attend the same presentations and conferences that their non-handicapped "counterparts" are attending via the web. This technology enable simultaneous sign language interpretations of meetings and presentations using speech recognition to animate a digital character or avatar.


You can read more about the technology(SiSi-also known as Say It Sign It) if you are interested in the specifics technicals. For me, I'm just amazed by how this will benefit the minority group. Now, this is another service and product being designed with their needs in mind.