Mobile Phones Learn to Lip Read
From: BBC News - 03/05/2010

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology professor Tanja Shultz demonstrated a
prototype device for communicating without speaking at the recent CeBIT
conference. The technology uses electromyography to detect the electrical
signals muscles produce when someone speaks, which also is a technique
commonly used to diagnose certain diseases. For the prototype, nine
electrodes are attached to a user's face. "These capture the electrical
potentials that result from you moving your articulatory muscles," Shultz
says. The technology passes the electrical pulses to a device that records
and amplifies them, and transmits the signal via Bluetooth to a laptop, where
software translates the signals into text that can be spoken by a
synthesizer. Shultz says the technology could be used by people who have lost
their voice, or could support an instant translation system. Also, by
integrating the lip-reading technology into mobile phones, commuters would be
able to engage in silent phone conversations, Shultz says. 

Read the entire article at:
Lip reading mobile promises end to noisy phone calls
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8549454.stm

Links:
Tanja Shultz
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tanja/

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
http://www.fzk.de/fzk/idcplgIdcService=KIT&lang=en