Electrode Implant Gives Mute Man a (Synthesized) Voice

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."

Using your brain to talk ...

Using your brain to talk ... just imagine what that would mean for Slashdot! Total upheaval.

Re:Using your brain to talk ...

Or complete silence.

Re:Using your brain to talk ...

If I involuntarily said whatever I was thinking, my girlfriend would never stop slapping me.

Re:Using your brain to talk ...

I think my girlfriend would forgive me, but I'm pretty sure I'd find myself out of a job, in a dozen harrassment suits, and pepper-sprayed blind, and that's just by the end of the week.

Keep going

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

Re:

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

I am an optimist... I hope!

Losing your voice would suck.

But having a synthesised voice on the other hand, is way cool.

You could go around quoting robotic things like "would-you-like-to-play-a-game-[?]", or configure yourself to sound like GLADDoS or that machine thing from robo cop.

Or Microsoft Sam.

Of all the disabilities this would be the most "Ohhh... well.. huh. Guess that's kind of cool".
I'm serious.

Re:

Losing your voice would suck. But having a synthesised voice on the other hand, is way cool. You could go around quoting robotic things like "would-you-like-to-play-a-game-[?]"

or you could start a career as a stephen Hawking impersonator.

Re:I am an optimist... I hope!

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".

Re:I am an optimist... I hope!

There is no way Stephen Hawking had to go to a surplus store to get a Centrino Pentium M, running XP [hawking.org.uk], made by Intel for him repaired.

And the software "Equalizer" was ported to XP for him.

In short, I call BS.

Re:

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.

Re:I am an optimist... I hope!

"Duck, could you please make dinner tonight?"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

Re:I am an optimist... I hope!

You could go around quoting robotic things like "would-you-like-to-play-a-game-[?]", or configure yourself to sound like GLADDoS or that machine thing from robo cop.

Oh yeah, I can't wait to make myself sound like a [growling tiger|squealing pig] when I do fall down or aim at someone!

Heck, if we're talking about giving ourselves robotic voices I want to shout "EXTERMINATE!" in a shrill voice whenever I see a British man with bad teeth, a brown coat, and an outlandishly long and colorful scarf. :-D

Re:I am an optimist... I hope!

You could have macros too, of course; predefined wave files you could play whenever you want. You'd be a meatspace ventrilo harasser.

Tourettes syndrome

<robotvoice>Damn she's got a nice pair of...</robotvoice>
"Pig!" *SLAP*

Now what about....

if you have a fear of public speaking? I'm not a doctor, but what happens first, the thought of what you want to say or the fear of saying it in front of people? Along the same lines, what about thoughts becoming verbalized?

Re:Now what about....

...what about thoughts becoming verbalized?

I would imagine it would depend on the part of the brain being used by the device...one would hope that they tap into the part of the brain that has already decided what sounds it would like to make rather than picking up random unfiltered thoughts.

Oh dear

[...] made it possible for the patient to produce vowels by thinking them

I hope the guy isn't welsh...

uh oh

In the future, this breakthrough may help patients with similar injuries produce entire sentences, using signals from their brains."

Or give rise to the Strogg [wikipedia.org]. I, for one, welcome our new cybernetic overlords.

Small Jump to Telepathy

There's a very small jump from a working version of this to transmitting words from one brain to another, or at least an earpiece.

Put that in a grant application.

I'd imagine a number of places (DARPA for example) would certainly be interested in seeing how this research progressed.

Re:Small Jump to Telepathy

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.

Do You Feel Like We Do

Easier to sing those Peter Frampton songs...

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?

In completely unrelated news...

...the group "Daft Punk" announced today that they had hired on a lead singer. That and the weather at 10.

Re:

I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Yessiree, Darth Vader is the voice I'M pickin!