Leap Motion Tapped For Deaf Communication By BabyTaxi, Too

Earlier this month we covered a great project called MotionSavvy that seeks to help deaf people communicate better with the hearing using Leap Motion technology that converts sign language into audible speech. Another company working to deliver essentially the same service--also with Leap Motion--reached out to let us know what they’re up to.


The company is called BabyTaxi, and founder Tarik Sayeed told us that they’re six months ahead of MotionSavvy in terms of a product release. “We actually have 30 transactional sentences completed”, he said. “Happy to report that we have recently partnered with University of British Columbia to turn this subject into a academic research project as well.”


BabyTaxi is building an application that will convert ASL into both text and speech on mobile devices, and in particular is aiming to make person-to-person transactions in places such as airports, banks, and stores a better, simpler, and more clearly communicative experience.

Whomever is doing this work, it’s a needed innovation. Leap Motion seemed like a neat technology when it first debuted, but it’s refreshing to see it put to such important use.