A neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals has been used to demonstrate a “voiceless” phone call for the first time.
With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound. These signals are picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly to a computer that converts them into words spoken by a computerised voice.
New Scientist (Thanks Andrew)
Nice for those who might have a need for it. I wonder whether some do prefer this technology above writing.
Writing is more simple and they can stick to their normal being. The skill that they probably will need for this technology is not as simple ofcourse, and will force you into another state which takes out the fun of communicating.
I think I know which area they will have to use to steer this technology, like many of us will know of I guess.
This skill is not so healthy by the way .. it isn’t there without reason. It can trigger emotion quite massive.
Too much for the body .. whereas the emotion on the other hand is an excellent stimuli to enhance this skill with the extra feature that it can boost your normal emotional system on the inside as well (the left emotional system that is, not the right one). Can become addictive and will make your normal brain function less well. Which effects the body in the end as well (as your standard bases in your brain will control you body systems). So controlling yoruself while using the skill is probably best, but makes it less nice. And then it gets way harder to do it. I think.
I think they will need the use the part behind your forehead, brain part I mean. But maybe this differs in people, and maybe it would not work like this. Would like to try out such a system. But as it is not there for fun … I do hope it will serve lots of people the way it was supposed to do.
This just has so much potential. In particular, the idea that someone who has lost the ability to speak through illness or accident would be able to communicate again via speech is fantastic. I wonder if the vocal cords have to be intact or just the nerves carrying the signals?
Another potential application could be as a translation device, with the software converting the words you think into another language.
They’ll put ventriloquists out of a job.
I don’t beleive this!
It’s real, and for me – as a technical writer – it would be a real boon in the workplace (even at home, for that matter).
There are occasions when my lousy typing would be better replaced with speech-to-text software so that I could speak aloud what I need to write, but working in an open cubicle that would be a problem for others around me (I know that, because someone else is using such software to comment their source code some cubicles away from me and I get to hear every word, courtesy of terrible acoustics).
There are military/police uses of course – being able to instruct members of a team without making a single audible sound could be very useful indeed.
And there are obvious benefits for those who have lost the ability to speak (for whatever reason), or who never had that ability to begin with.
However, the demo that I saw of the current state-of-the-art technology illustrates quite clearly that it has a way to go yet before it becomes as ubiquitous as the QWERTY keyboard…
> There are military/police uses of course
Hmmmm … and very useful in interrogations as well 8-P
John: Not really, as they’re not so much reading thoughts, as reading the nerve signals to the vocal cords. That means you have to at least think of vocalizing said thoughts. If you don’t want to say anything, you’re still quite able to not say anything.
It’s interesting to watch, you definitely can see how it’s controlled by the signals to the vocal cords and other speech-generating muscles (vocal cords just regulate sound or no sound, the rest is your uvula/palate/lips). The guy wearing the thing moves his mouth a bit while ‘talking’ silently.
I hope it’s real, not just a convincing act. I do have a hard time understanding how a device placed around the neck picks up signals to so many different muscles, most of which aren’t themselves in the neck. But if it’s real, I think it’s a wonderful piece of technology.
not so long ago i asked this question on another forum …weather there are already devices who can read and interpret brainwaves and convert them….rather then the other way around..brainwave generators and the such…..this is interesting too so i take it if this muscle interpreter works they can take it a notch up and actually work on a brainwave interpreter too……
uh?
It’s wonderful! Ooh I love the idea of those without speech being able to speak again with this sort of technology. All they need to do now is work on Microsoft Sam’s voice.
Some experimental work has been done to visualize what a subject is looking at by analyzing brainwave patterns. An article about the research can be read online here (assuming the links aren’t deleted):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16267-mindreading-software-could-record-your-dreams.html
and a Cell paper is accessible online here (for a price):
http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(08)00958-6
Interesting step in a direction that may have disturbing potential…
Great thanks for the link
…the potential is way bigger then the possible disturbances which are ,just as anything new, a matter of ethics…
Fantastic!
When I was a child, such devices would only have been seen on Blakes 7. Now they are in development.
I feel privileged to live in such interesting times.
The first thing I thought of: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
http://craphound.com/down/
Doesn’t this sound an awful lot like the “subvocal” technology he uses as a prop?