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Talk ... Without Speaking

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the now-that's-absolutely-brilliant dept.

mjm7 writes "Finally, we might be able to get rid of all those annoying people yelling over the static on their cell phones! CNN has an article about a new technology that senses muscle movements in your face and then translates them into sound. This way all you have to do is mouth words into the phone...not actually speak!" Somehow I suspect that we'd lose a lot of the subtleties of communication, but it sure would be nice every time hemos calls me from the discotheque.

13 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Anderson by swordboy · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Anderson partner called his secretary on his cell phone and said:

    Ship the Enron documents to the Feds

    But she heard:

    Rip the Enron documents to shreds

    It turns out that this was all just a case of bad cellular...

    --

    Life is the leading cause of death in America.
  2. finally! by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 5, Funny

    We'll finally be able to understand what the hell mimes are doing! Rejoice!

    --
    "I only speak the truth"
    Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
  3. The mute and deaf by spookysuicide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Imagine what a world of difference this would make to the mute or to people who had lost the use of their voice due to throat cancer. It seems weird they didn't mention the applications this would have for people who have lost or have never had the use of their voice.

    --
    yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
  4. injured vocal chords by CmdrTaco+(editor) · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I realize people may think of this as a luxury, but there are many people that don't have the ability to speak. From crippling diseases to the negative effects of a lifetime of smoking, some people simply cannot use their vocal chords. I know I'd find his handy next time I'm sick with a sore throat!

    I'd also have to say this should be made mandatory for all people that would otherwise force me to listen to their loud cell phone conversations.

  5. I doubt this will ever work... by TheNecromancer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Think about it, don't most people move the muscles in their mouths slightly different when they are mouthing words, as opposed to actually speaking them? I would venture that the technology wouldn't be able to discern the subleties in the way we speak.

    Other than that, it sounds like an interesting technology.

    --
    Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
    1. Re:I doubt this will ever work... by Linux+Ate+My+Dog! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If the box gave feedback, people would very quickly compenstate to insert subtelty back and modulate the output just like they want to have it. The speech system is amazing that way, as you prove every time you manage to stay completly intelligible when speaking while chewing.

      When I once asked a linguist friend about this on an unrelated topic, he leaned over the table and put his thumb and index finger on the outer corners of my lower lip, and then pinched them together to immobilize it. "Speak," he said. It was wierd but I sounded near normal in less than three words.

      We adapt.

  6. Feelings in Haiku form... by MonkeyBot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Talking on my phone
    I twitch, about to sneeze hard.
    Phone thinks I said "F*CK."

  7. It's coming... by IdahoEv · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Rotate the pod please, Hal..."

    Dave ... I could see your lips moving ...

    -Ev

    --
    I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
  8. My first thought by mcc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is that this would be great for people who for one reason or another no longer have voiceboxes.

    I had a great-aunt who lost a decent portion of her lungs to cancer and cigarettes, and up until her death a few years ago she had to use one of those darth-vader vibration-amplifier things like the "Ned" character does on south park. I was terrified of her when i was six.. (Give me a break, i was six years old and stupid.)

    Anyway, i can imagine that technology like this would be just about perfect for people disabled in a similar manner through tobacco, cigarettes or who knows what. No? At least it would keep such people from having to deal with their idiot six-year-old-nephews reactions to the harsh sounds of the vibration amplifier box..

    and really, even beyond that, tech like this would be just about the only option for people who are going through whatever that intensive vocal-node-therapy thing is where you're banned from speaking for six months. and i know a number of theatrical singers who would be intensely happy to have one of these so that they could rest their voices between performances without cutting themselves off from the world...

    I hope that once this complete, they'll sell a unit where the voice-synth thing outputs into speakers rather than a phone.. I'm sure they would have looked into this possibility by now, right?

    (P.S.: While we're on the subject, sort of.. just in case anyone reading knows: This came up as an argument the other night when we were watching the Oscars and examining how much pain Enye appeared to be in from having to exert her voice. What's the difference between a vocal node and a vocal nodule?

    --
    Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
  9. This news must be especially frustrating... by JordanH · · Score: 4, Funny

    to those with Tourette Syndrome.

  10. Would this help my girlfriend? by Mononoke · · Score: 4, Funny
    Could she tell me her day's troubles while kneeled before me with her mouth full?

    (It's just a JOKE! I know I'm not the first to think of it.)

    --
    NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
  11. mouth movement + sound? by jat2 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The article seemed to imply that the technology would only use mouth movements, thus allowing the phone to ignore all sound, a lot of which is noise. Of course, as CmdrTaco points out, this could lead to a loss in some of the subtleties of communication.

    Couldn't someone use the movements in addition to the sound to filter out the actual speaker's voice from the background noise? This seems almost like a nonlinear Kalman filter application (though I am by no means an expert on such things), if you had a (presumably nonlinear) model for speech as a function of the movements of the mouth. The article didn't give too much detail. Oh well, it sounds interesting in the very least.

  12. Re:This is bad news because... by ziriyab · · Score: 5, Funny
    PhysicsGenius wrote:
    You may not be aware of this or have thought of it this way, but a microwave oven is basically just a big, unmodulated radio station broadcasting in the microwave band instead of the radio band.

    ...and lightbulbs are just microwave ovens broadcasting mainly in the visible range. And where do we put these light bulbs? Everywhere we live!!! Oh my GOD, we're all gonna die of cancer from light bulbs!

    Are you a real physics genius, or do you just play one in front of your liberal arts friends ;)