clipped from: uwnews.org   
Signing by cell: Can you see me now?
A group at the UW has developed software that for the first time enables deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to use sign language over a mobile phone.
Computer science doctoral student Anna Cavender, who learned sign language after joining the MobileASL group, demonstrates the device. Users can hold the phone in front of them and sign with one hand, but most people prefer to set the phone on a table and sign with both hands.

This is the first time two-way real-time video communication has been demonstrated over cell phones in the United States

The video is posted at http://youtube.com/watch?v=FaE1PvJwI8E.

For mobile communication, deaf people now communicate by cell phone using text messages. "But the point is you want to be able to communicate in your native language," Riskin said. "For deaf people that's American Sign Language."

They discovered that the most important part of the image to transmit in high resolution is around the face