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NASA Develops Tech To Hear Words Not Yet Spoken
alex_guy_CA writes "Yahoo News has a story about technology that comes close to reading thoughts not yet spoken, by analyzing nerve commands to the throat. 'A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain,' said developer Chuck Jorgensen, of NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. Jorgensen's team found that sensors under the chin and one each side of the Adam's apple pick up the brain's commands to the speech organs, allowing the subauditory, or 'silent speech' to be captured. The story indicates the method could be useful on space missions or other difficult working conditions."
Wow! Combine this with a transmitter and receiver, and you get the ability to have sub-vocal backchannel communication with people--I think it was Gregory Benford who wrote a series of books that featured something like this.
Way better than text messaging.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
I wonder if this could benefit Stephen Hawking? Good thing he's got friends at NASA. ;)
but it'll probably be years before we see it commercially.
Imagine using voice commands to control your computer remotely - you're on a croweded bus, using your cell phone to connect to your house computer, telling it subvocally to turn on the airconditioning in time for when you get home, to turn on the coffee maker and download some work from the office and a movie for later. And no one hears anything, and the only thing they can see moving is your throat. What about dictating a letter on your way home, or other documents?
What about secret service agents? Or the military? No more needing to talk into their sleeves or using noisy radio to give away their position. You could have the conversation turn up on a pda screen, or have an artifical voice piped into ear phones. How cool would that be?
I'm sure there's lots more stuff you could use this for that I haven't even thought of yet, but I'm betting it is still years away.
Better start practicing singing a song in your head to block out the thought police. "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white as snow..."
Sports cheating: communicate perfectly to coach when you are not supposed to.
Croc Hunter: sneak up on animals in the wild to research, etc, and communicate with team and not startle animals.
Porn: somehow... someway...
Government: give tech 20 more years and when these signals can be picked up remotely, let FBI tap the signals without a court order because, hey, there is a War On Terror(TM) to fight.
Interrorgation: capture truth someone would have wanted/started to say but then held their tounge at the last second.
Slashdot: this tech + reconition to text + scripting = best chance at first post. Just think about BSD dying, and it's dead!
For instance, you're more likely to simply pick a quarter off the floor than to say, "I am going to pick this quarter off the floor." Whereas, you're very likely to think the sentence, "I should buy some wine on my way home from the market" if that's part of your plans.
Seems to me that this technology could, in short order, discern the verbal sentences we fashion for ourselves as part of our daily thinking. But it won't ever pick up on the million thoughts we have each day that aren't based on words.
If this technology gets deployed, society will have to learn in short order that not every thought is legitimate. My verbalizing the thought to myself, "I am Napoleon" does not necessarily mean that I think I am Napoleon.
One last thought. If we get widespread, cheap deployment of this technology, it will have as big an effect on our lives as the World Wide Web.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
At last I will not have to hear four persons shouting in their phones just around my pen in the open space. And there will not be those mad-looking people talking into the empty space on the street. On the other side, someone who talk other the phone a lot may forget actually produce sounds while talking with somebody nearby.
It should not be too much of a problem once people get used to it. And it shouldnt be too much more difficult than to control than actually (vocally) talking without thinking. .Once this technology has become mainstream, we should be able to adapt and to think only at a brain level instead of translating into vocal commands. (Qustion: Do Spanish people think differently from Chinese people who don't have a proper phonetic language if they are thinking to themselves?)
Humans right now are trained to keep their mouth shut even when they are thinking, or even talk exactly opposite of what they think. We yet are not used to controlling the previous level, ie subconsciously talking (ever noticed people at bus stops muttering to themselves or even smiling?)
And I think we have done this before. Imagine a non-humanoid alien landing on earth. I am sure he would be surprised that all the humans can actually balance themselves on 2 foot and even run around (They would probably think it a waste trying to balance yourself on a point while crawling is much less brain intensive). And Imagine, these beings can even balance themselves on 2 inch thick wheels around a metre above earth (bicycles).And this technique has no evolutionary basis, almost all the humans learned it within a 100 years or so. Looks like a very adaptable race to me.
Anyone else here feel that getting those words not yet spoken would be an absolute breakthrough in relationships with their girlfriends? Man that would have saved my butt countless times...
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Could it be used for people that have their vocal cords destroyed ?
As an educator, I see a nightmare if this technology goes mainstream. Kids will send messages through calculators, which is bad enough. How the hell would you stop this?
-Iowa
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap