HandTalk: Assistive Technology for the Deaf

One of the many areas in which embedded systems show great promise is assistive technologies, which address the special needs of those with impairments. This article presents HandTalk, a "smart glove" that can recognize basic hand gestures and convert them into speech using low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. A low-cost, portable gesture-to-speech glove prototype demonstrates that embedded systems don't have to be expensive to be effective.