Testing necklaces that receive commands through whispers

The experts who developed the experimental necklace were able to track the wearer's chin movement to see what they were asking for.

Associate professor Cheng Zhang and graduate student Ruidong Zhang at Cornell University, USA, developed Speechin necklace - an experimental device with the ability to recognize the wearer's whisper, New Atlas on February 14 reported. The device is built on the NeckFace necklace that Cheng Zhang unveiled last year with the ability to track facial expressions.

When you are in a meeting room or a quiet library and can't use your hands, it's also not convenient for smartphone users to give voice commands to their phones. The new study, published in the Computing Society's Professional Proceedings, on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable Technologies.

In addition to the processor, battery and Bluetooth module, Speechin also has an infrared camera pointing up to record images of the lower part of the wearer's chin. It is held in this direction by a set of "wings" that spread out to the sides and a coin that acts as a weight at the base. It is not pointed directly at the user's face to ensure privacy.

Using machine learning algorithms, the device can determine what commands the wearer is whispering based on chin movements. It then forwards these commands to the connected smartphone.

 New technology can be used not only in situations where people have to keep quiet.

Initially, the team trained the system by observing the chin movements of 20 volunteers as they whispered a number of words and phrases, of which 10 spoke English and 10 spoke Mandarin. In follow-up tests, the participants spoke 54 commonly used English commands and 44 Mandarin words and phrases.

Speechin demonstrated an accuracy of 90.5% and 91.6%, respectively, in recognizing English and Mandarin speech. These numbers dropped dramatically when volunteers used the device while walking, because each person's walking style caused head movements to be unpredictable.

Experts hope that with further improvement, the new technology can be used not only in situations where people must keep quiet, but also in noisy environments, when smartphones cannot hear people clearly. user. Speechin necklaces can also be used by people who are unable to speak.