Today Isabella presented her science news on eavesdropping:
Eavesdropping soon might have another way to listen to conversations from a far away distance. All they need is the perfect camera pointed at the speaker 's throat.
The team that experimented this used a high-speed camera to record thousands of images per second of the speaker's throat. Those images captured the throat as it moved and vibrated each time a word was spoken. The team then transferred those images into a computer program. The program could then re-create the sound of what the person was saying.
This technique is similar to lip reading. They both rely on sight to read what the person is saying but the difference between them is that lip reading relies on the lip movement and tongue movement, whereas this new technology relies on the vibration of the throat. The use of computers isn't new either. Lip reading programs already exist. But the difference between them is that they monitor the motions of the speaker's lips, jaws and tongue. As a result they can only identify what the person is saying and not how they were said.
This new technique reads both the speech and how it was said. This is way more accurate than lip reading because the way people communicate their emotions is through the volume, pitch and tone of the words. Analysing just the vibration of the throat can find those things plus what they were saying. Soon enough, there will be high enough speed cameras in the shops for you to buy so you can listen to your next victim. But for now you can just use the old cup next to the wall trick or classic lip reading.
Thank you for listening