Gizmodo: voice synthesizer

Audeo Captures Electrical Signals From The Brain To Create Sound

Rosa Golijan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:40:00 EST

Your lungs deliver air, vocal cords vibrate, mouth moves, and...nothing. One of those processes failed and you're left voiceless, speaking impaired. Enter Audeo which captures electrical signals intended for the vocal cords and interprets them to produce sound.

Michael Callahan invented this incredible tool after a traumatic accident left him wondering how difficult life is for those who lose an ability most of us take for granted. His invention is actually a system of devices enabling audible speech:

Three pill-size electrodes on the throat 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. By placing the electrodes on the neck and "speaking" silently through vocal-cord movements (but without moving the mouth), the wearer generates enough neural activity to trigger this chain of events.

Audeo is capable of more than just giving a voice to those physically impaired though. It could be used to speak on the phone without ever actually vocalizing anything, opening up the possibilities to fantastical spy or military applications. That and it could one day get rid of that is-he-talking-to-me-or-someone-on-the-phone confusion around people wearing BlueTooth headsets. [Pop Sci]

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It's about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature's ultimate machine.

Vocaloid 3: Japanese Synthesized Singing Sensation Now Knows English

Elaine Chow — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:30:00 EST

Vocaloid, the super-popular singing synthesizer from Japan has now gotten an update—and it (she) is bilingual! Meet Megurine Luka, who's "moody and husky" voice is now yours to command in both Japanese and English.

Vocaloids 1 and 2, featuring much higher-pitched robotic singers became the #1 selling software on Amazon Japan. I think the fact that they had pretty, doe-eyed, teenage anime android girls (complete with "personalities" and "back stories") as mascots probably helped their appeal.

That's Luka-chan trying out her synthesized vocal chords in English—singing Amazing Grace. Previously, Western vocaloid fans had to enter all the text in katakana... like this admittedly adorable version of Miku (Vocaloid 2) singing The Proclaimer's 500 Miles.

[ Gizmodo Japan]

Brain Surgeons Give Mute Man Second Chance to Speak

Elaine Chow — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 03:00:00 EST

Brain surgeons at Boston University have enabled a mute man to speak again by implanting an electrode into his brain. The electrode senses when he's thinking about vowels and reproduces them using a speech synthesizer.

The man first lost his ability to speak after head trauma caused extensive bleeding into the pons area of his brain stem. BU researchers loaded him into a fMRI machine and asked him to attempt to produce specific vowels. After determining that his brain still worked regularly, they implanted an electrode directly onto its speech production parts.

The electrode itself is a marvel of science, containing neurotrophic factors which allow tissue to grown into and around it. While it sounds kind of gross, this stabilizes the electrode and allows it to reside long-term in the brain. It can only sense vowels right now, but the BU team is hoping that this type of technology will let mutes produce words directly in five years or so. [The Future of Things]