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Artificial Larynx Nearly Capable of Human Voice

by Caleb Johnson on December 6, 2009 at 08:28 AM

We love reading and reporting about the latest technology unleashed on the world. Our favorite is the kind that truly changes the lives of people. But in a world that barely has the attention span to read a 140-character tweet, a lot of noble technology gets overlooked.

That's why we want everybody to pause and recognize the importance of a recent medical breakthrough. According to Technology Review, South African scientists have created an artificial larynx that recreates tones much more similar to a human's voice than the robotic-sounding tones of many existing devices. The team from the University of the Witwatersrand wrote a software program that can recognize 50 common English words, so far. The program works in conjunction with a palatometer, which is a device that fits in the mouth. The software translates the tongue's movements, which are detected by 118 pressure sensors mounted on the device, into words and then into speech.

There's a 0.3-second delay between movement and sound, and the system only reproduces the correct words about 94-percent of the time, according to researcher Megan Russell. Nonetheless, this new larynx is a vast improvement over the current available devices. For the thousands of laryngeal cancer survivors, the chance for a more natural voice is worth taking note. [From: Technology Review, via: DVICE]

Tags: health, larynx, mouth, science, software, speech, tongue, top, voice

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