Snapchat enables American Sign Language lenses to educate people about the visual communication

On account of the International Week of the Deaf, Snapchat rolls out a new type of lens that will allow Snapchatters to use their fingers to spread awareness of American Sign Language (ASL).

Basically, ASL is native to America. It is a type of visual language that is expressed by gestures as well as non-verbal movements. This nifty Lens uses AR technology to teach you the expressions of the American Sign Language Alphabet while testing your recognition in several social gaming and community engagement experiences. In short, using Artificial Intelligence and advanced computing, Alphabet Lens would be able to fingerspell most of the words such as Thanks, Have Fun, Love,etc. This will also enhance the knowledge of users to understand the basics of ASL. Snapchat has launched this AR-based sign language in partnership with Hungarian startup SignAll, an application striving to build a bridge of communication between impaired hearing and normal individuals. SignAll has hand-tracking technology incorporated in the system that is able to translate fingerspell into spoken language.

Previously, the company’s hearing-impaired employees requested to launch a mechanism by which they can easily communicate with each other. So, Snapchat engineers worked really hard to incorporate AR lenses in the application to help the hard-hearing individuals and aware people more about hand gestures and learn sign language by playing games and various exercises within Snapchat. Before this Lens, a similar series of lenses were launched last year to motivate deaf people and encourage others to fingerspell unlimited alphabets and words.

This feature seems exciting as it will allow Snapchatters to play different games to put new skills to test and also be able to learn sign language so that one can spell their name via fingers. Along with other community benefits, Alphabet Lens also facilitate marketers to keep in touch with their target audiences. Amazingly, this update will also give rise to generating more revenues and potentially boost the business.

ASL Fingerspelling lenses are now available on IOS as well as on the Android version of the app.


Read next: Snapchat has enabled its users to share YouTube videos on their snap stories, here’s everything you need to know about it
Previous Post Next Post