Research being undertaken by space scientists may hold the key to much more serene journeys on public transport – by helping technology experts devise mobile phones which can lip-read.
A prototype device was shown at the Cebit electronics show in Hanover, Germany, in early March.
It picks up signals from what is termed sub-vocal speech – the electrical signals generated by a person’s muscles when they are engaged in a conversation.
The new handset is claimed to be able to translate these pulses into synthesised speech which is then transmitted over the recipient’s mobile.
The device shown at Cebit relies on this technique, called electromyography, which is already commonly used to diagnose certain diseases, including those that involve nerve damage.
The prototype that is on display in Germany uses nine electrodes attached to a user’s face to pick up the signals.
The electrical pulses are then passed to a device which records and amplifies them before transmitting the signal via Bluetooth to a laptop.
There, software translates the signals into text, which can then be spoken by a synthesiser.
And while its developers acknowledge that this basic type of voice-formation technology is likely to be impractical for everyday use, they are hopeful that it can be adapted for use to offer instant speech translation.
Tags: mobile phones, Technology, voice integration, voice-to-text