[CNET]

A team of engineers from the University of British Columbia has developed a pair of gloves that read hand gestures and convert them to speech and song, potentially giving those with speech and/or hearing disabilities another way to communicate. 

The project, called Digital Ventriloquized Actor (DIVA) and led by UBC professor of electrical and computer engineering Sidney Fels, tries to replicate the movements of real vocal cords through the use of hand gestures read by a system of sensors. 

The right glove features 3D motion sensors that can detect whether your hand is open or closed. When open, DIVA produces vowel sounds (much like real life, where vowels require the throat and lips to be open), while closing your hand creates consonant sounds. Meanwhile, the left-hand glove has finger contacts that produce stop consonants, such as “b” and “p,” when touched together. 

What’s unique about DIVA compared with other text-to-speech systems is its ability to sing. …

Read the original story here: http://asia.cnet.com/crave/singing-gloves-turn-motion-into-music-62213546.htm