Gboard could soon be able to understand sign language with your phone’s camera

TL;DR Google Deep Mind researchers have been developing tools to use AI to interpret sign language. Now in Google’s latest Gboard update, we see the keyboard preparing to accept Sign-to-Text input. Privacy protections would keep your video on device, and only share raw gesture data with Google’s cloud AI.

Google’s Gboard keyboard wants nothing more than to help you get the thoughts in your head turned into words on your screen, as easily as possible. We already have so many different ways to accomplish that, from good old-fashioned tapping away at letters, to the oh-so-slick “Glide” swipe input, to the modern convenience of voice typing. But now Google could be about to seriously level up its accessibility game, as Gboard gets ready to understand sign language.

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