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Lip-Reading Headset Could Restore Voices Using Magnets

somegeekintn via Flickr/Creative Commons

British researchers say they have a new way for people who've lost their voice boxes to surgery or illness to regain speech - a headset that detects mouth shapes and turns them into speech.

Here's how it works: the system goes on a person's head, and little magnets placed in the mouth and on the tongue do a sort of motion-capture as the person mouths a word The system then translates the mouthed words into speech.

Researchers say they have work to do before the system is practical - the headsets are bulky, and so far they can only translate about fifty words through the device. Here's hoping that at least one of those words is "awesome."  [Smartplanet]

As always, we invite you to pull in some awesome links and share them with us in the comments.

 

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