My wife and I used to spend some of our spare time with people with cerebral palsy. Many of them were deaf and could only communicate using sign language. On a holiday weekend, one of these people was clearly distressed and I was the only person immediately to hand. But I didn't have a clue what she was trying to tell me. Fortunately it was a matter of moments before help arrived. But, I wondered, what if ithe situation had been more serious?

So I determined to learn sign language. My wife and I went to night school (me when I was in the country—I flew 52 times that particular year). The end result? My wife passed the exam and I failed. But I'd learned enough to be able to communicate at a fairly basic level.

As you might imagine, I was impressed to read about SiSi—Say it, Sign it—software which takes speech, converts it to text, then displays an avatar 'signing' in British Sign Language. In fact, it can be adapted to other sign languages as well.

The software was developed at IBM Hursley by a team which included four student interns: Benjamin Cox, Tom Klapiscak, Maria Vihljajeva and Josef Waldron. The signing avatars and the technology for animating sign language from a special gesture notation were developed by the University of East Anglia and the database of signs was developed by RNID (Royal National Institute for Deaf People).

Here's a movie. It would take some getting used to for a deaf person, but what a great stride forward.

Would it be too greedy of me to ask for lip movements on the avatar and another program to recognise BSL? Imagine how the lives of the 55,000 deaf people in Britain could be improved if more of us could chat with them.