Vcom3D is an American Company who has developed software that converts audio files into an animated person using sign language to convey the same message. This is great use for those with hearing impairment who are familiar with singing.
This is software, which uses known patterns to predict text input based on previous words and context. It also usually includes a hot key system to enter commonly used words.
This type of system is of real benefit to those who are slow typists or have a specific problem with spelling words e.g. some forms of dyslexia.
Stephen Hawkins
Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England. His parents' house was in north London, When he was eight, his family moved to St Albans, a town about 20 miles north of London. At eleven Stephen went to St Albans School, and then on to University College, Oxford, and his father's old college. Stephen wanted to do Mathematics, although his father would have preferred medicine. Mathematics was not available at University College, so he did Physics instead. After three years and not very much work he was awarded a first class honours degree in Natural Science.
Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no-one working in that area in Oxford at the time. His supervisor was Denis Sciama, although he had hoped to get Fred Hoyle who was working in Cambridge. After gaining his Ph.D. he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973 Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.
It was a great shock for Stephen Hawking to discover that he had motor neurone disease. He had never been very well co-ordinated physically as a child. He was not good at ball games, and his handwriting was the despair of his teachers. Maybe for this reason, he didn't care much for sport or physical activities. But things seemed to change when he went to Oxford, at the age of 17. He took up coxing and rowing. He was not Boat Race standard, but he got by at the level of inter-College competition.
In his third year at Oxford, however, he noticed that he seemed to be getting clumsier, and he fell over once or twice for no apparent reason. But it was not until he was at Cambridge, in the following year, that his father noticed, and took him to the family doctor. He referred him to a specialist, and shortly after his 21st birthday, He went into hospital for tests. He was in for two weeks, during which he had a wide variety of tests. After all that, they didn't tell him what he had.
The realisation that he had an incurable disease, that was likely to kill him in a few years, was a bit of a shock. However, while he had been in hospital, he had seen a boy he never knew die of leukaemia, in the bed opposite him. It had not been a pretty sight. Clearly there were people who were worse off than him. At least his condition didn't make him feel sick. Whenever he feels sorry for himself he remembers that boy.
He was at a loose end, not knowing what was going to happen to him or how rapidly the disease would spread. The doctors told him to go back to Cambridge and carry on with his research.
