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According to a report in the latest New Scientist magazine, Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo is working on technology that will let mobile phones read lips so users will not have to shout into the mouthpieces of their handsets. The technology could also be used to help people who have lost their voice to use mobiles.
Another possible use of the technology would be its ability to convert movements of the mouth into text to be sent as an SMS or e-mail.
The magazine says that the company's engineers have developed a prototype device which can read vowels and now they are focusing on consonants. Within the next five years the company hopes to launch a working model.
Phones equipped with the technology should be able to convert minute electrical signals generated by the muscles in the mouth into a computer synthesised voice so that users would only need to mouth what they want to say and a synthesised voice would speak to a listener.
The magazine says that the system in place now, which is only able to detect vowels, has an acceptable error rate, but consonants are much harder to detect. The engineers are thought to be considering the use of tiny digital cameras to aid in the lip-reading technology.
One of the benefits of such technology, according to NTT, would be the effect it would have on already noisy locations, or places where it may be considered rude to chat on a phone such as a quiet restaurant. With the technology in place, users could have discrete conversations over their phone while also respecting generally accepted mobile phone etiquette.
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