The Ambient Corporation has developed a technology
that allows for voiceless phone calls. The gadget is in the form of
a neckband and and translates thought into speech by picking up
nerve signals from the vocal cords.
According to the company's co-founder Michael Callahan, a person
can be trained to send signals to the vocal cords without speech.
These will then be picked up by the neckband and relayed wirelessly
to a computer.
The said computer converts the signals into
words spoken by a computerized voice. Callahan added that inner
thoughts can't be picked by the device so users need not worry. The
co-founder further explained:
I can still
talk verbally at the same time. We can differentiate between when
you want to talk silently, and when you want to talk out loud. That
could be useful in certain situations.
As of now, the gadget build demonstrated to the microchip
manufacturer
Texas Instruments can only recognize about 150 words and
phrases. Michael Callahan said that an improved version without
vocabulary limit will be released this year.