Besides fundamental research, I am also involved in some applied research, such as SpeechView. SpeechView consists of a pair of video glasses connected to a microphone that records the speech output of an interlocutor and transmits it wireless to a computing unit running speech-to-text software.
The converted text is presented in the video glasses where the person wearing the glasses can read what the interlocutor has said. For sudden-deaf or bad-of-hearing people this system improves the intelligibility of speech significantly and can potentially increase their quality of life.