See-Through Captions

A transparent display system that shows real-time captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing people. The system enables communication while maintaining face-to-face visibility, solving the problem of traditional captioning where users cannot see facial expressions. Winner of the James Dyson Award 2021 Japan National Winner and Good Design Award 2021.

Technologies

Key Outcomes

• Won James Dyson Award 2021 Japan National Winner
• Won Good Design Award 2021
• Won Innovative Technologies 2021 Special Prize – inclusive media
• Featured in major media outlets including NHK, Nippon TV, Fuji TV, TV Tokyo
• Exhibited at Digital Content Expo 2021, Miraikan Science Museum
• Published in ICCHP-AAATE 2022 conference proceedings

Technical Challenges

Achieving low-latency speech recognition while maintaining high accuracy, and designing a system that works seamlessly in various environments including museums and government offices. Also needed to ensure the system was usable by both deaf and hard-of-hearing people with different communication preferences.

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