Image Source: Baidu

BEIJING, March 3 (TMTPOST) — Baidu AI Cloud announced the launch of its digital avatar platform Xiling that enables real-time translation of sign language on Thursday.

Xiling is designed to help lower the threshold for generating sign language avatars to serve people with hearing impairment in both online and offline scenarios.

The AI digital avatar platform can generate a virtual sign language translator in videos and livestreams. It also supports translating texts and audio into sign language. Baidu said that it only takes a few hours for users to deploy an avatar. After deploying a virtual avatar, users can then convert existing videos into videos with sign language. Users can also add sign language to their livestreams. Users can hop the digital avatar on mobile applications, websites and mini programs. This means that users with hearing disabilities can easily read information on the Internet and mobile applications with the help of Xiling.

Xiling has already been used in news broadcasting of China’s state media CCTV and livestreams of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games. It has accumulated over 100 million views.

Xiling was developed by Baidu and originally launched in January, 2022. The platform can provide creation and operation services covering virtual host, virtual idol and brand spokesperson for various sectors such as radio, television, internet, finance and retail, according to a news report from China Daily.

Over 5% of the world's population – or 430 million people – are affected by 'disabling' hearing loss (432 million adults and 34 million children), according to statistics from the World Health Organization. It is estimated that by 2050 over 700 million people – or one in every ten people – will have disabling hearing loss.

In China, around 27.8 million people have hearing impairment, a number that is similar to the total population of Australia. People with hearing impairment also wish to be able to enjoy content on TV and on the Internet. The emergence of AI avatar that translates texts and audio into sign language can help them break the information barrier.

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