Sound of silence, subvocal speech recognition
NASA’s Charles Jorgensen is developing sebvocal speech recognition technology, which can recognize what you say even if you don’t make a sound. Normally, when we speak we shape words with our articulator muscles as we force air past the larynx. However, these muscles work even when there is no air pushed through. Just saying words to yourself sends weak electrical signals, known as electromyograms, to your mouth. Electromyograms can be recorded, processed with statistical algorithms, and turn into speech, all without wasting precious air. This technology would be especially useful to astronauts, scuba divers, fighter pilots, as well as anybody working in loud, chaotic environments. Researchers have already used subvocal commands to drive a car (virtually) and navigate the web, while Japanese NTT Docomo hopes to apply subvocal speech recognition to make a silent cel phone. This would be great, because then we would not have all these people with tiny headsets going around seemingly talking to themselves like schizophrenics.
Silent Speaker, Forbes.com