🟢 "Duolingo for Sign Language" by Nvidia
Nvidia, in collaboration with the American Society for Deaf Children and the creative agency Hello Monday, has launched Signs—an interactive platform for learning American Sign Language (ASL) and developing accessible AI applications for the deaf people.
"Most deaf children are born to hearing parents. Giving family members accessible tools like Signs to start learning ASL early enables them to open an effective communication channel with children as young as six to eight months old," said Cheri Dowling, executive director of the American Society for Deaf Children.
There have long been dictionaries and apps for learning various sign languages—such as SpreadTheSign—but they mainly provide video lessons.
Signs takes a more advanced approach: a 3D "teacher" demonstrates signs for the learner to repeat, while AI monitors the accuracy of movements and provides real-time feedback.
Currently, the platform includes 100 basic signs, but Nvidia plans to expand the vocabulary to 1,000 signs. Users can contribute by recording their own gesture demonstrations. Since ASL also relies on facial expressions and head movements, the project team is working on integrating these elements into future versions.
Sign languages are fully developed, autonomous languages that are frequently very different from their spoken "counterparts," having their own syntax, idioms, and even dialects. The Signs team is exploring ways to account for regional variations and slang to create a richer and more inclusive database.
Around 500,000 people speak ASL, and millions use other sign languages around the world.
➡️ Try Signs here—no registration needed.
More on the topic:
➡️ "The World Needs Robots": Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang
