The news may best be stated as smart neckband makes “telepathic” chat possible. But it is more appropriate to say that a group of cunning neurological researchers and engineers have found a way to tap thought about speech and recreate speech, even where the person in question chooses not to utter a word, or is unable to.
The new device does not actually achieve telepathy, but it does appear to tap into the specific impulses that would create specific sounds through the vocal chords, allowing it to recreate those sounds, and achieve speech where no words are spoken. The end-user will have to “train” both mind and voice to work with the device, to produce the highest level of accuracy.
In an on-stage demonstration, seen in the following embedded video from YouTube, there appears to be significant delay in this early version of the technology, but it’s ability to capture the colloquial word-choice and the manner of speaking of the individual are surprising.
The device detects impulses intended to stimulate muscles in the throat that manipulate the vocal chords to create the desired sound memes that make the words intended to be spoken. If the neckband detects these impulses, but the individual does not actually speak, then the effect can be a “silent” conversation, where only the person on the other end of the connection hears anything, and those in one’s environment are none the wiser.
This could have applications for business or for journalists, who may have a use for communicating verbally while in an environment where their ability to speak aloud is limited for a given time period. It could also allow for more private communications in public places, or more importantly, give voice to those suffering from muscular, throat or neurological disorders, depending on the individual case.
The same technology has been applied to a system that allows thought about words to command an electronically-equipped wheelchair, giving new mobility and versatility to those suffering severe or total paralysis. Other medical applications could help develop new treatments for a number of muscular disorders which impair speech.
The ability to use “thought-control” to produce speech, or to reconstitute a physically-inhibted speech ability, is a powerful, if unexpected level of integration of the physical individual into the phenomenon of digital hyper-convergence. Neurological signal capture may also allow thought-control to radically transform informational media and online services, depending on the technology an individual uses to interact with those media.
The Ambient presentation of the voiceless speech neckband —branded ‘Audeo’— includes mention of a powerful, though at this date perhaps clumsy potential use for the technology: Ambient suggests that the neckband could be used to dramatically enhance the value of online information searches.
For instance, voice-enabled map searches could allow someone to “ask” —through voiceless speech and remote speech recognition— an online service how to get to a given place, or what address to go to, and receive in response a physical or audible response to that voiceless search query.
In a way, this would appear to “enhance” human intelligence, by giving access to the collective wisdom of the world wide web. But as with all such advances, it is important to recognize that certain technological “enhancements”, while they expand our access to information, do not actually expand our basic personal abilities, and to distinguish between potential complements and limitations to those abilities.
- New Scientist: “Nerve-tapping neckband allows ‘telepathic’ chat”
- New Scientist: “Thinking of words can guide your wheelchair”
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