App brings the hard-of-hearing into the conversation

An international team has developed an app that transcribes conversations onto a smartphone, indicating who said what by their headshot. In this way, deaf individuals can communicate freely with those who aren't or who don't know sign language.

In appearance, it doesn't look so different from conversations on social media sites, but the innovative technology allows it to display what's being said in real time.

The founders, who hail from the US, France, Holland and Taiwan, express the challenges of living with hearing loss, saying that only 25 percent of English is possible to read on the lips.

The microphone system has been programmed with algorithms that identify the speakers, which are color coded and separated in the app for the ultimate clarification for following the conversation.

The app will become available in December and a variety of access packages can be pre-ordered starting at $25. www.indiegogo.com/projects/transcense-finally-talk-with-any-deaf-person

Using Google Glass, researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a live text transcription function that puts Google's advanced voice recognition technologies to good work.

The conversation is transcribed on the app Captioning on Glass and the user follows it on his smartphone.

A variety of apps exist that assist the hard-of-hearing. For example, LouderTV lets users adjust their TV's volume to suit their needs and ASL Dictionary contains over 5,200 signs.