[dbaust] mobile phone sms can be transmitted to a glove.

From: "claire tellefson" <desktalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "deafblind freelist" <dbaust@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 10:47:11 +1000
Glove designers plan messaging path for deaf-blind 
April 7, 2012 by Nancy Owano -
















(Phys.org) -- People coping with the double absence of vision and hearing can 
communicate via mobile devices with the help of a special glove, now under 
development in Germany's Design Research Lab. The Mobile Lorm Glove is a 
wearable device that lets the user compose messages to be transmitted to the 
receiver's smartphone. This same glove allows the deaf-blind user to receive 
incoming messages as well. Basically, the person who cannot see or hear can use 
tactile feedback to send and receive communications. 

The lab developers tell the story of what kind of difference their glove can 
make: People who are deaf-blind may depend on a touch sign language alphabet 
called Lorm that assigns characters to different areas of the hand. Such 
dependence seriously limits the number of people with whom they can 
communicate-with others who know Lorm and are within physical contact. 


The alphabet gets its name from the creator, a philosopher and poet who lost 
his hearing at 15 and found that he was losing his sight. To cope,. he came up 
with a hand touch alphabet for the deaf-blind, and the alphabet eventually 
became known in some European countries as Lorm's alphabet. Mikulov Heinrich 
Landesman was the creator's real name but he had to use the pseudonym 
Hieronymus Lorm to escape persecution, according to accounts. 

What the glove does is resolve the alphabet limits; it translates the Lorm 
alphabet into digital text and vice versa, using pressure points. Incoming 
messages are received by small vibrators on the back of the glove, which 
translate messages into vibrations. Outgoing messages are also served by the 
glove's textile pressure sensors on the palm of the glove. They translate 
"Lorm" into text or speech via mobile phone. These pressure sensors correspond 
to the Lorm alphabet to construct the words and sentences.

A Bluetooth module manages the transmission between glove and phone The 
Bluetooth connection sends data from the glove to the user's phone. It is 
forwarded to the receiver's phone in the form of an SMS. When the glove wearer 
gets a text message, it is forwarded via Bluetooth from the phone to the glove.

The project was developed at the Design Research Lab by Tom Bieling, Ulrike 
Gollner and Gesche Joost. The Mobile Lorm Glove is in prototype, and the next 
phase of research will include direct speech input and output. Eventually, they 
see the glove as beneficial in broader ways than email and texting. The 
developers suggest the device will make reading e-books easier, as they put it, 
"to also 'feel' E-Books or Audiobooks."
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-glove-messaging-path-deaf-blind.html
[dbaust] mobile phone sms can be transmitted to a glove.

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