Deafness

The ability to recognize sounds and identify their location is possible thanks to the auditory system. That’s comprised of two main parts: the ear, and the brain. The ear’s task is to convert sound energy into neural signals; the brain’s task is to receive and process the information those signals contain. To understand how that works, Douglas L. Oliver follows a sound on its journey into the ear. [TED-Ed Animation by Cabong Studios]

La capacidad de reconocer sonidos e identificar su ubicación es posible gracias al sistema auditivo. Se compone de dos partes principales: el oído y el cerebro. La tarea del oído es convertir la energía del sonido en señales neuronales; el cerebro es recibir y procesar la información que contienen esas señales. Para entender cómo funciona eso, Douglas L. Oliver sigue un sonido en su viaje hacia el oído. [Animación TED-Ed por Cabong Studios]

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Think that assistive technology for the deaf and hard of hearing community is all about your run-of-the-mill hearing aids here in 2018? Think again! From signing robot arms to mind-reading hearing aids, the next few years are going to be pretty darn amazing for accessibility technology if this list is anything to go by. Here are some of the most impressive tech projects we’ve come across in this area.

Signing is all well and great, but like any language, it’s not much good if one side of the conversation doesn’t speak it. That’s where a multi-year robotics project from researchers at Belgium’s University of Antwerp comes into play. They have developed a 3D-printed robotic hand capable of translating spoken and written words into sign language gestures. The device recognizes these words using a webcam and then communicates them to the user through “fingerspelling,” a mode of sign language which spells out words letter-by-letter with single hand gestures.

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