The glove that transmits ‘touch’ over the internet
13 March 2015
The glove that transmits ‘touch’ over the internet
Blind-deaf people are often forced to live in a small and
isolated world. But can a new glove open the way for easier communication?
Lesley Ogden Evans reports.
It’s good to keep in touch – something that Edi Haug and
Laura Schwengber know only too well. The pair have been friends since
childhood. Within the first year of their friendship, nerve damage inflicted by
an inherited genetic condition robbed Haug of his sight and hearing. He was
nine. But children are natural innovators. “We started to invent languages and
forms of communication just because we were kids and we wanted to play,” says
Schwengber. “It was annoying that he couldn't hear me, and I couldn't write
something down,” she says. So the two invented their own tactile language.
As Haug and Schwengber grew older, they replaced their
private language with one that is more widely understood: Lorm, a tactile
alphabet spelled out with strokes to the hand. It was invented in the nineteenth
century by Hieronymus Lorm – an anonymous pseudonym, for Austrian-born poet,
journalist, and novelist Heinrich Landesmann – and is still used today by the
deaf-blind community in German-speaking countries.
Lorm can only become part of a deaf-blind individual’s
social network with time and practice (Design Research Lab)
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Lorm to
Haug and Schwengber. But Lorm, and other forms of tactile signing, have their
limits. A reliance on physical contact between communicators has historically
constrained the social circles of the deaf-blind to those they can meet
face-to-face (or more accurately hand-to-hand) on a regular basis – and even
within this relatively small group of people, only those who take the time to
learn and practice Lorm can really become part of a deaf-blind individual’s
social network.
For instance, Haug’s social circle currently consists of
about five people: his mother, Schwengber, teachers, and therapists. Once a
year he spends about 10 days visiting relatives in Stuttgart in Southern
Germany. “The first five days they need to practice Lorming, so they can
remember the letters, and by the tenth day when they are quite fast, it's time
to go back home,” explains Schwengber.
But these drawbacks might soon disappear, if a new
invention by Tom Bieling is commercialised.
Tactile translation
Bieling, a researcher at the Design Lab in Berlin, has
developed a glove kitted out with fabric pressure-sensors. By translating a
tactile hand touch alphabet into digital text, the mobile glove could eliminate
the necessity of hand-to-hand physical contact for deaf-blind communication.
Even better, because a great deal of online communication is text-based, the
glove could act as a translating device that allows people who are deaf-blind
to communicate freely with anyone – and for anyone to communicate with them.
It's an invention reminiscent of the outlandish gadgets
seen in James Bond movies, and it won Bieling first prize in the 2014 Falling
Walls Lab competition – a kind of TED Talks meets Dragon’s Den – held annually
in Berlin.
The first prototype was made from Gore-Tex fabric and
felt much like an ordinary glove, Bieling explains. It’s embedded with small
vibrating motors, and “as soon as you receive an incoming message, it starts
vibrating on those dots where the letters are positioned”, he says. In the
current version, users can adjust the intensity and speed of the incoming
tactile messages according to their reading skills.
What’s more, the whole hand area of the glove is now
wired for sensory input, “just like a tablet [computer]”, he says. “The system
recognises both the position and pattern of the finger movement.” So users can
also spell out their own messages. If a sign isn’t “typed” quite correctly, the
Lorm glove system recognises the closest symbol – just like a spell checker on
your smart phone. For example, a circle in the hand would be an ‘S’, explains
Bieling, and even if you type a triangle or a square, the system is clever
enough to recognise the letter ‘S’ as the closest correct symbol.
‘Enhancing independence’
Speaking through Schwengber’s translation, Haug describes
the glove prototype as a bit slower than what he is used to in terms of
receiving messages. “It’s like his teacher or his mother Lorming,” says
Schwengber, compared with her own speedy pace. “But he really likes it,” she
says.
Using the glove, “I can send and receive – it’s easy,”
says Haug.
Bieling’s project is part of his doctoral studies
exploring links between design and ability. He argues that feeling disabled is
a question of design – a ramp, for instance, is easy for anyone to ascend, even
if they are in a wheelchair. He hopes that his design will enable deaf-blind
people to engage with a broader spectrum of their community and “gain access to
a broader range of information, thus enhancing their independence”. But he also
hopes that gaining knowledge about alternative communication systems can profit
everyone.
The glove could help Haug stay in touch with people even
when he is living far away from them (Design Research Lab)
Haug, now 22, currently lives with his mother in
Spreewald, about 100km south of Berlin. He is studying massage therapy in the
hopes of pursuing it as a profession. He would like to move to Berlin, explains
Schwengber, but it’s a possibility that has thus far eluded him because of the
lack of assistance available. The glove could expand Haug’s ability to stay in
close touch with those closest to him while living at a distance. But it could
do more than that: it could allow him to expand his currently small social
circle dramatically.
World in your hands
Lately, Haug, with help from Schwengber, has been having
fun on Twitter, a medium enabling him to converse with people who need never
know that he is deaf-blind. On social media, Haug is “just a person behind the
Twitter account saying something”, explains Schwengber. Haug describes it as a
bit like playing carnival, because “you just mask up and say anything you
want”, translates Schwengber. “Content matters, not the person,” she explains.
So Haug gets a kick out of the reaction from followers when he Tweets amusing
things, something he’d be able to do more easily and independently with his own
Lorm glove.
Asked about the first thing he would say with a Lorm
glove of his own, Haug says he would talk to his cousin in Stuttgart and ask
him if he can remember the name of an interesting film they recently spoke
about. (Schwengber and Haug often go to the cinema – where Schwengber
simultaneously translates the movie for Haug via Lorm).
Most of us take for granted the digital revolution and
the amazing new connections it has offered. For those constrained by a barrier
of unseen sights and unheard sounds, it was once unexplored territory – but
with the Lorm glove, they might just have that world in the palm of their
hands.
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