Aimed to enrich storytime for deaf and hard of hearing kids, Huawei has announced its new AI-powered app ‘StorySign’ will launch in Australia in February 2019.
The app translates a featured book into sign language, for kids aged three to six who are learning to read.
StorySign will debut with the popular children’s book Where’s Spot, translating text into visual sign language using Huawei artificial intelligence.
With learning to read a notable challenge for deaf kids, Huawei’s StorySign app seeks to enhance storytime via a compatible smartphone and physical book.
Users can download StorySign for free from the Google Play Store and Huawei’s AppGallery, with local availability from February 2019, and compatibility with Auslan.
Watch in action below:
Huawei Australia Corporate Responsibility Manager, Lisa Connors, asserts the app was created with experts and charities from the deaf community.
The company’s partnership with local charity, Deaf Australia, is also tipped to increase awareness and app circulation.
StorySign will launch in Australia with a film by Academy Award® winning director Chris Overton, starring child actress Maisie Sly – both whom worked on the Oscar®-winning short film The Silent Child.
The app uses Huawei AI with Image Recognition and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for greater accuracy even when the phone is angled away from the book.
Huawei AI optimises the speed at which pages from the book load in the app, so children aren’t waiting too long to discover what’s next in the story.
Further information and donations for more StorySign books can be made here.
