The Hindu : Front Page : Help at hand for hearing-impaired

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 07, 2005

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Help at hand for hearing-impaired

Special Correspondent

Arvindakshan Ravichandran

CHENNAI: A city student claims to be developing an easy-to-operate device to help hearing-impaired people use the phone. Arvindakshan Ravichandran, a student of Sri Sairam Engineering College, says it will aid those who can speak but are hearing impaired.

He has been invited to present a paper, explaining the theoretical framework of such a system and the protocols to be developed, at two international scientific meets. The paper, "Fast Independent Secure and Easy Communication (FISEC) for the Hearing-Impaired," will be presented at the World Informatika Conference in Prague (August 26-28), and at the meeting of the International Association for the Development of Advanced Technology at Portsmouth, United Kingdom (September 7-9).

"I have been working on this project for five months to get the theoretical part ready. For the hardware, I need a voice recogniser chip. I hope to get it from its makers in the U.K.," the fourth year computer science student said.

The FISEC methodology can be more efficient than traditional methods such as tele-typewriters, text pagers, and video relay phones, which require relay centres (with operators to relay information from one end of the link to another), Aravindakshan said. The device proposes to eliminate the need for relay centres between the hearing impaired user and the speaker at the other end. It will have electronic circuits to convert text to speech and a liquid crystal display screen, which can show a maximum of 8 lines, each of 20 characters. This display shows in text what the person at the other end is saying. A light or vibration indicates an incoming call. Once the receiver is picked up an automated message says: "Hello. You are talking to a person with auditory problems. Please talk slowly at short intervals." Looking at the LCD display, the user can carry on the conversation.

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