The "Show & Tell" texting glove is a curiously innovative new tool that is designed to break down communication walls, especially for individuals with impaired hearing. The device definitely evokes a bit of curiosity due to the context of its use, as it can be questioned why an individual with a hearing disability would need a high tech glove to send a text message.
Created by Oleg Imanilov, Tomer Daniel and Zvika Markfeld, the "Show & Tell" glove first made its debut at the 2011 TEL-AVIV Google Developers Day. Equipped with flex sensors in the fingertips, a gyroscope, accelerometer and a Lilypad Arduino, the glove uses custom software to detect a variety of different hand gestures and translate them into text messages on an Android phone.
After a one time calibration and training period with the wearer, the glove learns all of the necessary sign language gestures and is ready to be used for real time translation. Although the glove may be useless to an individual who is already adept at sending text messages, perhaps the "Show & Tell" glove will be useful for real time subtitling of sign language presentations or conversations. The device is still in its prototype stages, so perhaps further down the line it'll even be quicker to text message with the glove than traditional input systems.
