Subvocalization

My friend Michael Callahan (no, really, he is my close friend) and his team have been working hard for years on the Audeo, a device that sits on your neck and understands the electrical signals it can pick up from your nerve/vocal cord activity - even if you're subvocalizing. From the start, it's been a project to improve the quality of life for people with ALS and similar health issues, but they're expanding their vision in all sorts of awesome ways - including demonstrating the first subvocalized telephone call. Michael is a fantastic person doing amazing work, and he's getting recognition, from winning big grants to doing the Tour de Web - on BoingBoing, TechCrunch, and Netscape-creator Marc Andreessen's blog just in the last two days. That's got to be over a million viewers. Says Marc:

I have a feeling that someday, this may be up there with "Come here, Watson, I need you."

I wonder if Marc knows that Michael is doing his work at his alma mater. If you have read Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" (it's free, CC-BYNDNC), or have seen Michael's demonstrations, you can't help but be excited by this.