Electronic Voice Box

When Michael Callahan was 17, he lost his short-term memory when he hit his
head in a skateboarding accident. "The neural pathways were all wrong, "he
recalls. Within weeks, he was back to normal, but the incident left him
thinking, how could he help people who had permanently lost abilities that
most of us take for granted? Five years later, he came up with the Audeo, a
tiny device that detects electrical activity between the brain and vocal
cords and turns it into audible speech. 

Read the entire article at:
http://officialtech.com/electronic-voice-box

Electronic Voice Box
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-05/electronic-voice-box

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Device Turns Body's Electrical Signals Into Speech
From: Popular Science - 05/20/2009
By: Lisa Katayama

The Audeo is "a voice synthesizer that gives back the ability to speak to
those with vocal cord or neurological damage." The device uses "three
pill-size electrodes on the throat" that "pick up electrical signals
generated between the brain and the vocal cords. A processor in the device
then filters and amplifies the signals and sends them to an adjacent PC,
where software decodes them and turns them into words spoken through the PC's
speakers." Currently, the device "allows people to use all English-language
phonemes...so there's no limit on what a user can say." And while it "can
pick up a maximum of 30 words per minute" it can also "do neat things like
enable people to carry on phone conversations without making a sound." Its
inventors are "working on a cellphone interface, with the goal of scrapping
the computer completely and reducing the price."  

Submitted by Greg Vanderheiden

Links:
Invention Awards: A Real-Life Babel Fish For the Speaking Impaired
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-05/electronic-voice-box