Oscars 2015: The Technology That Gives Stephen Hawking a Voice
Stephen Hawking was able to type a congratulatory message to Eddie Redmayne.
— -- After Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking Sunday, the cosmologist posted a congratulatory message on Facebook that would not have been possible without a computer speech system.
"Congratulations to Eddie Redmayne for winning an Oscar for playing me in The Theory of Everything Movie. Well done Eddie, I'm very proud of you. -SH," he wrote.
Hawking, 73, who has a motor neuron disease and is almost entirely paralyzed, relies on technology and that famous computer-generated voice to allow him to share his thoughts with the world. His system got a modern upgrade from Intel engineers in December, which Hawking showed off at a London event.
Intel said it was able to increase the efficiency of Hawking's system by integrating predictive text technology from SwiftKey. The software knows Hawking's communication patterns, meaning he has to type less than 20 percent of all characters to convey what he wants to say.
The result is a system that allows Hawking to type faster, browse the Internet much easier and seamlessly switch between tasks.
Hawking's existing cheek sensor syncs with a switch on his glasses, allowing him to choose characters he wishes to type, which can then be processed by his speech synthesizer and spoken out loud from his Lenovo laptop.
Intel said it planned to make the technology available for free, allowing researchers and technologists to build on the software and tailor it in different ways that could help the more than 3 million people worldwide who have motor neuron disease or quadriplegia better communicate.
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