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The panel discussion at DEMO yesterday afternoon showcased three young entrepreneurs that are doing some pretty big things in technology. One guy, Arash Sabet, is working on a brain retractor. Which sounds fun and all, but I thought Michael Callahan's technology would b the most relevant to discuss on Mashable.
Callahan, hailing from the University of Illinois, is working on a thought-to-speech technology with his company Ambient. On stage, Callahan connected a wire to the back of his head, which is also connected to a computer. And out of the speakers we heard a digital voice that spoke his thoughts. It sounds kinda sci-fi, but it's cool nonetheless. Callahan has a lot of goals for this technology, and is currently using it to work with the disabled, finding ways for the speech-impaired. The image above is actually showing Callahan "speaking" through his computer.
Everyone is wondering what else this technology could be used for? And what implications does it have for our current form of digital communication? Instead of typing out all of our words for things like email, or even blogging, could we just think about it, and the text types itself? And returning back to Callahan's initial objective for this speech-to-text technology--this could open up a new world of social networking for te hearing impaired, or even the blind.
Now what about mobile: if we could "think" about what we want to say, we could leave voice messages without speaking, write a text message without picking up the phone, or send a Twitter update without typing a word. Could this change the way in which we create content, or direct action on a computer or cell phone? There's of course a million different ways in which this type of technology could be used for social networking, on every level.