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Electrode Implant Gives Mute Man a (Synthesized) Voice

Posted by timothy on from the paradoxically-enough dept.

Iddo Genuth writes with an excerpt from The Future of Things: "A surgical procedure performed by a team from Boston University, Massachusetts led by Professor Frank Guenther, has enabled a mute man to speak again. An electrode implanted in the patient's brain made it possible for the patient to produce vowels by thinking them, using a speech synthesizer. In the future, this breakthrough may help patients with similar injuries produce entire sentences, using signals from their brains."

6 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Keep going by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Eventually you might get to a direct brain-computer interface that healthy people (like me) will want to get installed.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Keep going by Merls+the+Sneaky · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I am technically blind in my right eye due to a congenital defect in my lens. I lack sterioscopic vision. My right eye is extremely long sigted, so my brain ignores the input. If i close my left eye input is recieved but it of very poor quality. My left eye is better than 20/20. I would be willing to try out any cybernetic implants that would restore funtionality to my right eye. I would also have perfect vision with which to compare the effectivness with.

      I would like low light and infrared vision, as well as repaired normal light vision installed. One eye, is basically 0 risk to my my existing vision.

  2. Re:I am an optimist... I hope! by mikael · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Modern voice synthesizers have very realistic sounding voices now . That was one problem Steven Hawking found out - his voice synthesizer wore out after a good few years. Much to his annoyance, the modern synthesizers were too human-like and really took away part of his character. I believe he had to go to one of the electronic components surplus stores to get his voice "repaired".

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  3. Re:I am an optimist... I hope! by phorm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I dunno. Losing an eye and having it replaced (in the future) with a bionic implant having telescoping vision and infrared would beat a synthesized voice... although I'd imagine that if you could tweak your own software to produce any voice you want it could be fun.

    Of course, at this point neither of these technologies are quite so well developed yet.

  4. Interesting by d3l33t · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is it possible this technology could be applied in reverse? Using electrode implants to imprint the sound of a vowel in a persons mind?

  5. Re:Small Jump to Telepathy by icegreentea · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Or you can make it even more insane and transmit not just to an earpiece but to a cochlear implants. And not just any cochlear implants, but one of those newer experimental ones which are totally internal. No external pieces at all. Upon a casual examination, it really would seem like telepathy.

    On another note, does anyone know if the speech production areas of the brain overlap with those with sub vocalization, or mouthing words? Just curious.