Google Science Fair

This year's Google Science Fair 2nd place winner has invented a device for hearing music better. High Schooler It converts sound into tactile vibration to improve the music-listening experience. Jonah Kohn idea came from to him at school when he bit his guitar while showing off to a friend during a noisy class. When the 14-year-old from San Diego realized he could hear the music better with his teeth on the guitar, he got the idea of making use of tactile sound. His creation filters sound into frequency ranges applied to different body parts. It improves the listening experience of cochlear implants wearers by more than 95%. He told the judges, “I suddenly realized that there are lots of different means by which we understand things, and there is not just a single medium, it’s not just voice: but it’s what we see, what we hear and now possibly what we feel. I wanted to just stop everything and go back to school.” The Grand Prize winner was Brittany Wenger of Sarasota, Florida. She put together a computer program that can help doctors diagnose breast cancer less invasively. The winners were announced last night in Palo Alto, California near Google Headquarters.

The Text Glove

A new gesture-sensing glove works with an Android app to translate sign language into text. Still in its early stages, the Text Glove would allow someone wearing the glove to use sign language and the non-signer could read the text version on a smart phone through an Android app. The developers use sensors to detect hand gestures along with an accelerometer, a gyroscope, and Lilypad Arduino. They demonstrated the prototype at a Google developers event in Tel Aviv last month. See a demonstration in the video below.

show&Tell glove - introduction from sarohm on Vimeo.

Ref for the Deaf

The invention of a Texas 4th grader designed to help a deaf athletes is now available online for purchase. At soccer camp, Celia Beron noticed the difficulties of a deaf player who could not tell when the play was over. Her idea was a bracelet that would be triggered by a whistle, the deaf player’s receiver vibrates. The idea won a kid invention context and now, some seven years later, Ref for the Deaf is now available through Pungo.  Read more about the device here.

Vibration Device for Deaf Athletes

A team of students at NTID’s Innovation Lab have came up with a vibration notification system for deaf athletes. Through a wristband (though it can be worn on any part of the body) the device would help to avoid confusion, false starts, and inequality with hearing players during competitions. A signal would be sent through a coach’s smartphone to receivers, causing them to vibrate. The invention took second in the Shark Tank competition, earning the team a cool $1250. There were 50 teams in the fourth year of the event.

Ready-to-Wear Speaker Gear

You might have seen Ann Marie Bryan on ABC's reality show American Inventor a couple of years ago. The deaf filmaker introduced viewers to her Ready-to-Wear Speaker Gear. It is a vest with speakers that are designed in a way that deaf people can feel the vibrations of the music coming from the speaker. She is now hoping to raise $55k through the project startup site Kickstarter.com  which you can read about here or you can watch the video of her appearance on the TV show in the video below.

Sony Working on Subtitle Glasses

Sony UK is developing a pair of glasses that display subtitles right along with a film. Through the glasses, the subtitles look like they are on the actual movie screen. But only the wearer of the glasses sees them. Plus, the words appear to be the same distance from the wearer as the film itself. The new glasses could show up in UK theaters as soon as next year. Sony is also looking at other applications for the glasses. Such as creating transcriptions of conversations. In this case, the deaf people would be able to read what someone is saying. There's a video report about it from the BBC here.

The Enough Already Project

There's a new invention making use of TV's closed captioning. The Enough Already Project allows users to program specific names, commercials or voices into a device. When it is connected to a cable box, it will mute the TV when the selected items come up. Anyone sick of hearing about Kim Kardashian or tired of certain commercials or someone just wanting to censor parts of the audio of particular shows, this will do it for you. Creator Matt Richardson says it will connect to any cable box. He explains the technical aspects of his invention in the video below.

Lego Robotics League

A teenager in Huntsville, Alabama helped to create his team's science contest submission based on the knowledge of hearing he has gained through having a cochlear implant. Read about it here.

Imagine Cup 2010

A team of students from Thailand won Microsoft Imagine Cup’s $25,000 grand prize in the Software Design category. The group came up with what it calls eyeFeel technology, which allows the deaf to communicate with others through augmented-reality.. It combines speech and face recognition, converts it to English from text, and generates virtual real-time conversations in text balloons and sign-language animation. The team attends Thailand’s Kasetsart University. While the finals were held in Poland this year, next year’s event will take place in New York City. It will be the first time in its 8 years that the Image Cup finals have beeen held in the US.

Glasses that Create Text

New glasses are designed to turn speech allowing the deaf to read what's being said. The Babel Fisk glasses from Danish designer Mads Hindhede uses built-in microphones to pick up voices within the line of sight. An embedded speech to text program creates a text version of what's being said that is projected onto the inside of the lenses. Voices can also be recorded for later use.

The Door Knob Alarm

A Maryland woman has created a device to alert people with hearing loss when someone is turning a door knob. Janet Williams' Door Knob Alarm sends out a piercing tone and a series of red lights when the door knob is turned from either side. The donut shaped alarm will fit on any door and detects movement.

Earphones to Protest Your Hearing

A British company says it’s come up with a way to provide music lovers great audio at a low volume – a combination necessary for protecting hearing. Advanced Communication Solutions is offering custom-molded earphones for $1000. With nearly all external noise blocked out, listeners can drop the volume of MP3 player by half.

ASL Virtual Tours

A global positioning system has added sign language to its virtual tours. The GPS Ranger is a handheld device with a four-inch LCD screen. It uses a tool developed by BarZ Adventures of Austin, Texas that allows captioning and American Sign Language options to accompany virtual tours. The technology was launched along with a multimedia tour of the Texas capital with the help of CSD (Communication Service for the Deaf). The tour is available from the The Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau for $11.95. It will become available in other cities as well.

The Horseradish Fire Alarm

Your next smoke alarm could alert you to trouble by sending off a strong odor. Researchers at Japan’ Shiga University of Medical Science Hospital say their research shows the smell of horseradish can usually wake people from the deepest sleep and they say it is especially effective in waking up people who are impaired people. The equipment seals the odor inside a can and sprays them out when triggered by smoke. The product could be on the market in two years.

Portable Videophone

A WiFi-enabled, portable videophone will be available to the public this week for $99. Viable first unveiled its VPAD a few months ago for $699. To get the discount, you have to be registered for the DeafNation Expo in Pomona, California. But if you are not on the west coast, don't worry. The expo will probably be visiting a city near you before the end of the year. Check the DeafNation website for details. Later on, the VPAD will be available online. Viable is a Rockville, Maryland, deaf-owned company owned.

ASL Virtual Tours

A global positioning system has added sign language to its virtual tours. The GPS Ranger is a handheld device with a four-inch LCD screen. It uses a tool developed by BarZ Adventures of Austin, Texas that allows captioning and American Sign Language options to accompany virtual tours. The technology was launched this month along with a multimedia tour of the Texas capital with the help of CSD (Communication Service for the Deaf). The tour is available from the The Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau for $11.95. It will soon be available in other cities as well. More Info

The Horseradish Fire Alarm

Your next smoke alarm could alert you to trouble by sending off a strong odor. Researchers at Japan’ Shiga University of Medical Science Hospital say their research shows the smell of horseradish can usually wake people from the deepest sleep and they say it is especially effective in waking up people who are impaired people. The equipment seals the odor inside a can and sprays them out when triggered by smoke. The product could be on the market in two years.

Text Radio

A new devise could show deaf people what’s being said over the radio. It’s a product developed by the Harris Corporation and involves a receiver and screen that would scroll text much like closed captions roll by on TV. The feature has the backing of National Public Radio. NPR put a prototype text radio on display at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The text-scrolling service will use the new HD Radio technology. When radio broadcasters switch from analogue to digital, they get extra bandwidth to use for other transmissions. Texting is just one of the possibilities. To begin with, the radio text service would operate like closed captioning, where someone will type what is being said on the radio into a computer system in real time. One of the big manufacturers of HD Radios, Radiosophy, plans to produce a tabletop radio this fall, capable of providing the transcripts. Listeners will have to sign up and register their radios in order to get an unlock code sent to their radios that will activate the reception. Congress granted a conditional access exemption from most copyright laws for the deaf, so they aren't in violation for receiving copyrighted material in a usable format.

New Videophone

Viable Inc. has developed a new wireless videophone called the VPAD. Gallaudet alum John Yeh created the device and unveiled it at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. While the technology does not break any new ground, it integrates it in a unique way. The VPAD is a video phone about the size of a small notebook with a 10.2-inch touch screen. It supports two-way video conferencing at 30 frames per second. The system will work with any broadband Internet connection, but is designed specifically for use with WiFi networks. One extra the VPAD offers is that can be used as a digital picture frame when it is not being used as a videophone. VPAD is in beta-testing now and will be released commercially later this year.