Are you curious about the future of smart wearables and how they may impact our lives?
Look no further than my first weekly special series of thought letters, where we will explore current and potential emerging strategies that will shape the next generation of audio based wearable technology.
In my upcoming issues, we will take a deep dive into the potential of smart glasses as the perfect storm of software and hardware comes together to create new and innovative products.
By exploring the past ideas and future trends, and workable examples used in Science Fiction, we can uncover how these technologies will drive the evolution of wearable in both the consumer and business worlds.
But that's not all.
We will also examine the often-overlooked impact of sound on our experiences and how it can be utilized in the development of current smart glasses products. From the emotional connection of music to the subtleties of cognition, we will explore how audio will play a vital role in the development of these devices.
By looking beyond, we can envision a future where audio content and personal sound reproduction products deliver immersive experiences that improve business productivity, our well-being and reduce stress.
You and I will also examine emergent audio based strategies and how they can connect to create entirely new products or services. The ride-sharing industry, led by companies like Uber and Lyft, is an excellent example of how spontaneous innovation can transform an industry and create a whole new market.
Let me present an amazing IRL example of a Future(s) of wearable technology which is ever-evolving and now it includes eyeglasses that can recognize silent speech!
Developed by Cornell’s Smart Computer Interfaces for Future Interactions (SciFi) Lab, EchoSpeech is a low-power wearable interface that uses acoustic-sensing and artificial intelligence to recognize up to 31 unvocalized commands, based on lip and mouth movements.
With just a few minutes of user training data, EchoSpeech can be paired with a smartphone to communicate in places where speech is inconvenient or inappropriate, like a noisy restaurant or quiet library. It can also be used with design software like CAD, making the need for a keyboard and a mouse obsolete.
EchoSpeech glasses are outfitted with microphones and speakers smaller than pencil erasers, sending and receiving soundwaves across the face and sensing mouth movements. A deep learning algorithm analyzes these echo profiles in real-time with about 95% accuracy.
“We’re moving sonar onto the body,” said Cheng Zhang, assistant professor of information science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and director of the SciFi Lab.
But the real excitement comes from the technology’s potential for people who cannot vocalize sound, like patients who could benefit from a voice synthesizer. "It could give patients their voices back,” said lead author Ruidong Zhang.
The technology's features include performance, privacy, and size, all of which are crucial for new, wearable technologies in the real world. Additionally, EchoSpeech technology removes the need for wearable video cameras, as audio data is much smaller and requires less bandwidth to process, and privacy-sensitive information never leaves the user's control.
As SciFi Lab researchers explore smart-glass applications to track facial, eye, and upper body movements, we believe glass will be an important personal computing platform to understand human activities in everyday settings.
Do you want to stay ahead of the curve and gain an unfair advantage over your competitors?
Consider starting an internal pilot program where I can guide you and your teams with an expertise in analyzing trends and forecasting future developments. I can provide you with the skills and knowledge you need to navigate the ever-changing business landscape with confidence.
Don't wait until it's too late - take action now and invest in your future success.
Next Week: Spatial Audio
