» Speaking of which …

Tom Simonite over at New Scientist magazine reported recently about a new development in thought-to-* devices.

Named “Audeo”, the device intercepts and interprets the nerve impulses your brain sends to your vocal cords, reproducing the words you thought to speak electronically. Outwardly, it’s just a neckband, but it’s hard to determine from the information what other equipment is needed, assuming the neckband is just the “receiver” that catches the impulses.

The device was “unveiled” at a Texas Instruments conference, with Michael Callahan, co-founder of Ambient Corporation, demonstrating the device in a cross-stage phone call.

YouTube direct - Audeo Demonstration

Going by the video of the device above, there are obviously some technical issues still to be worked on. Currently, it only recognizes around 150 words, although the company plans to release a new version that detects the impulses of phonemes themselves. This will remove the reliance on a “dictionary” of words, in theory making the device’s vocabulary unlimited. It looks from the video that triggering the device not only requires training, but also a lot of concentration, given what looks like lag in speaking.

Even so, given this may now be simply a matter of fine tuning the engineering work, the benefits of such a device are obvious, and thankfully Ambient Corporation seem to be fully aware of them (unlike Emotiv Systems and their EPOC neural headset). Plans apparently are to trial Audeo in the near future with people who have ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and to my mind there’s one person who should be right up on their list of candidates - Professor Stephen Hawking.

Audeo has also been used to control a wheelchair by “thought” it seems.

YouTube direct - Thought Controlled Wheelchair

With all these new neural devices being developed, assuming costs can be brought down to manageable levels and availability be widespread, we may be looking at a new era in assistive technology potential. The possibilities to increase the independence of people with disabilities are being expanded on a technological level - the question remains however if society can keep pace with the technology and grant social independence to members of the community at the same time.