As much of a visually-centric medium as film can be, it can be practically impossible to properly enjoy a film in its entirety if you are hearing impaired. Sony’s UK Lab hopes to change that with their innovative subtitle glasses. The glasses pick up a signal transmitted by the theater to stream the appropriate subtitles for the movie being viewed. The subtitles appear as green text on the edge of the glasses.

In a video from the BBC, a representative from the UK’s film industry discusses how the broader movie-going audience don’t like attending subtitled films making them less popular, and therefore more difficult to cater to the hearing impaired. But because the glasses would reduce subtitles to the vision of the afflicted individual it would not have the same economic implications as if they were present on the screen.

As the video notes the potential for the glasses doesn’t end with film subtitles, for they can be utilized for a range of audio to text situations. For example, they envision the potential for real time translation or transcription services for the hearing impaired as well as those dealing with foreign languages.

See: psfk