3 replies to this topic

[synaesthetic]

In two years time a technology that will enable users to speak without uttering a sound might become commercially available. The ability to communicate silently could assist us in every day situations such as a phone conversation on a crowded subway or simply anytime we'd prefer that others wouldn't hear us. It could aid security and special operations forces, people with vocal cord problems, and might even find a place in gaming.

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I have heard that the army already has a primitive subvocal system working, the current system can decode the subvocal speech and send it in a robotic voice into the headset of other army personel. They plan to improve the technology until the subvocal communication sounds exactly like a human voice, with ideas such as enabling groups of people to speak to each other with various levels of volumes depending on the distance, so you could hear all of your squad no matter where they are.


I feel that once this sub vocalization technology goes to the public sector it means that we are going to have a huge leap in information transfer - communication with anyone in the world instantly.

Edited by synaesthetic, 24 November 2009 - 06:04 AM.

[KalaBeth]

That's awesome!

Two questions -

1. Does the neural signal actually have to go all the way out to the throat, or is there a way of picking it up closer to the brainstem for a sort of "telepathy" effect? Ditto for needing an aural pickup I suppose.

2. If the latter's possible - would you need to grow up with such a system in your head to make use of it, or could an adult brain be induced to be plastic enough to learn to use such a device naturally? I imagine this goes back to the "magnet under the skin" new sense experiment the gentleman at... was it MIT? ... was working on?


I remember once upon a time as a teenager - when all this stuff was on the far-distant strictly science fiction stuff - thinking no way, I am never putting a chip in my body.
But a "telepathic cell phone" just might be enough to get me to reconsider... provided there was a way to keep the spam out.

[Singularity]

I think that it will take some skill to learn how to edit your subvocal speech to keep from transmitting things that you intended to keep private. Therefore, I can see law enforcement using this on people who are unskilled in that area and inadvertently divulge information that they would have rather kept secret. And, what about using this on someone while they are asleep, or under general anesthetic? This could be a real privacy killer leading to thought crimes.

[KalaBeth]

Good points.

I'm more interested in what human development would be like if we got those things as kids though. If we grew up "inside each others heads" as it were - to what extent would we still develop as individual personalities I wonder? I mean, as long as we're all in separate bodies I'm sure we'll retain that sense of "I-ness" ... but I can definitely see the edges getting fuzzy.

I think that it will take some skill to learn how to edit your subvocal speech to keep from transmitting things that you intended to keep private. Therefore, I can see law enforcement using this on people who are unskilled in that area and inadvertently divulge information that they would have rather kept secret. And, what about using this on someone while they are asleep, or under general anesthetic? This could be a real privacy killer leading to thought crimes.