- Title: Live caption glasses let deaf people 'see conversations'
- Date: 29th July 2022
- Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (JULY 27, 2022) (Reuters) (L-R) JOSH FELDMAN, STEVE CRUMP, AND DAN SCARFE TALKING DAN SCARFE, CEO OF XRAI GLASS, LISTENING TO STEVE CRUMP, FOUNDER OF DEAFKIDZ INTERNATIONAL JOSH FELDMAN USING XRAI GLASS SOFTWARE (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAN SCARFE, CEO OF XRAI GLASS, SAYING: “So my grandad is 97 years old, still full cognitive capacity, but like most 97-year-olds unfortunately starting to lose his hearing or is very much lost his hearing.†VIEW THROUGH NREAL AUGMENTED REALITY GLASSES (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAN SCARFE, CEO OF XRAI GLASS, SAYING: “There was just a little epiphany moment where I thought, well, hang on a second, he watches TV all the time with subtitles on. Why can't we subtitle the world?†SCARFE LOOKING AT NREAL GLASSES SCARFE PUTTING GLASSES ON (SOUNDBITE) (English) DAN SCARFE, CEO OF XRAI GLASS, SAYING: “So effectively we're taking that audio stream from the microphone on the glasses. We're running it through a piece of transcription software which users have probably seen before, the ability to turn audio into sub captions. What we're doing though is then taking those captions and putting them into augmented reality. If any of you have got a heads up display within your car. It's the exact same technology that we use. So effectively those images are projected straight into your eyes.†VARIOUS OF SCARFE AND CRUMP TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOSH FELDMAN, MANAGEMENT CONSULTANT, SAYING: “Powerful. It's powerful. I can't understate the power and the importance for people who are hard of hearing all over the world to feel that they don't have to solely rely on lip reading anymore. It's a really big moment.â€
- Embargoed: 12th August 2022 14:42
- Keywords: Deaf Hearing loss Live subtitles XRAI Glass closed captions realtime captions
- Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
- City: LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
- Country: UK
- Topics: Europe,Information Technologies / Computer Sciences,Science
- Reuters ID: LVA002505928072022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Smart glasses are giving deaf people a head-up display of live, real-time subtitles, as they chat, right in front of their eyes.
The technology uses off-the-shelf augmented reality ‘AR’ glasses that are tethered to smartphones with an app that turns any speech picked into text displayed on the inside of the lenses.
“Powerful. It's powerful. I can't understate the power and the importance for people who are hard of hearing all over the world to feel that they don't have to solely rely on lip reading anymore. It's a really big moment,†Josh Feldman, a profoundly deaf 23-year-old management consultant, told Reuters.
The software, called XRAI Glass, was inspired by Dan Scarfe’s observation of his grandfather’s increasing isolation as he lost his hearing.
“There was just a little epiphany moment where I thought, well, hang on a second, he watches TV all the time with subtitles on. Why can't we subtitle the world?†Scarfe told Reuters.
The software is still being developed but Scarfe says it can already recognise who’s speaking and will soon have the power to translate languages, voice tones, accents, and pitch.
“I'm getting a real-time stream of subtitled information where ordinarily I might be behind. I might not quite catch everything, but this is giving me a real-time narrative that enables me to be informed. It enables me to be involved, enables me to make decisions because I know what is being said,†said Steve Crump, founder of DeafKidz International.
XRAI Glass are now recruiting alpha testers who either can’t lip-read or struggle to pick up multiple conversations taking place at once, to help perfect the software.
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