Interesting tech from Transcense which is running an Indiegogo funding for $25,000 US to make their app available on major mobile platforms to allow real time captioning on mobile phones so deaf or hard of hearing persons can follow group conversations.

46 sec Transcense demo in action : http://youtu.be/sC3Q21WCEVc

3min 30sec video Indiegogo funding video : http://youtu.be/vvoglCTd6x8

From the Techcrunch story: http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/14/an-app-that-lets-you-converse-with-the-deaf-no-sign-language-necessary/

"Transcense is a new app that accurately translates conversations in real time so the deaf and hard of hearing can participate in meetings, presentations and conversations.

Founders Thibault Duchemin, Pieter Doevendans and Skinner Cheng say one-on-one conversations are easy for the deaf. Either they are speaking with someone who can sign or they can just read lips. However, it’s very hard to follow group conversations with several people speaking at once. This makes it hard to catch things and converse during group meals with friends who don’t sign or at an office meeting where they might miss something important.....

..... It works by catching conversations from the voices of different individuals and assigning them a color bubble so the deaf person knows who said what. It works with a distributed microphone system on all the devices using the app so that it can distinguish each person from another. It then translates those words and starts jotting them down in real time on the app. The deaf and hard of hearing can then read what is going on as it happens."