Amazon Alexa can now respond to the Deaf!

July 24, 2018 admin 0 Comments

A smooth design covers all the aspects of user-friendliness and a smart device should be for everyone. Keeping this in view Amazon’s developer has made its smart assistant compatible for the deaf.

“If voice is the future of computing, what about those who cannot speak or hear?” – Abhishek Singh (Amazon’s developer)

Singh has argued on the Amazon’s smart device by commenting it has to be all inclusive which means working for the deaf too. Deep learning technology is used to make Alexa respond to the sign language.  That is the question posed by developer , the creator of an app that allows Amazon Alexa to respond to sign language. The devices utilizes a camera-based system to identify gestures and interpret them as text and speech. The developer also urges to work on making other home devices all inclusive.

TheSmart Audio Report survey conducted by the NPR suggests the smart speaker devices are on a boom with stats revealing people’s adaptation to technology. The survey clearly suggests that the future will see more and more smart speakers in households and thus the deaf population needs compatible devices.

How deep learning works?

The existing speech recognition software used by the smart assistants can’t absolutely catch and translate rhythm of deaf users and the deaf users could not establish communication. Alexa solves this problem by catching sign language and responding in text.  Using the camera, Alexa can decode the sign language and answer in text to the deaf user.

Singh has initially trained an A.I. system within machine learning platform Tensorflow, signing words through the webcam  in order to help the system understand the sign language. He has further leveraged Google’s text-to-speech capabilities in order to translate the sign language into spoken words.

The applications of deep learning are beyond imagination, but all in devices give hope to people with disabilities that they are not neglected. AI has made its mark in every field of life and being a way to fill in for everyone, the technology is taking over fast!

Here’s a video of Abhishek trying out the Alexa smart speakers with sign language: