Hadeel Ayoub slips a black glove onto her hand before beginning the swish of sign language that is meaningless to the untrained observer.
Then she pushes a button on her wrist, and a small speaker relays the message drawn in the air: "Let's Dance!"
The Techxplore website cited Ayoub, working in assistive technology at the University of London, who said: "My dream is to give a voice to those who can't speak."
Ayoub's glove can transform sign language's gestures into spoken words that are converted into a special microphone, so that they come out in a language that everyone understands without the need to be familiar with sign language movements, and thus, people with hearing and speech impairments can easily communicate their voices to the world.
According to the German News Agency, the initiative comes as the World Health Organization estimates that the number of people needing assistive devices, ranging from wheelchairs to communication technologies, will double to two billion by 2050.
Tech giants, such as Microsoft and Google, are trying to spur work in this area, offering a total of $45 million in grants to developers of assistive technologies. Microsoft hopes to identify promising projects that can eventually be incorporated into widely available services.
