Gossip

Smileys - generated by your mobile phone, automatically?

New Scientist reckons we're five years away from a cellphone which can read your lips. Yes; but does this mean we have wireless email with automatic smileys?

The story in New Scientist describes it as "the world's first lip-reading mobile" - developed in DoCoMo laboratories, for release in half a decade - but in fact, it's not just a lip-reader. It's a face reader.

The story story describes the prototype as "working out which words are being said by using a contact sensor near the phone's mouthpiece"

It detects tiny electrical signals sent by muscles around the user's mouth.

Sniffer reckons it will take at least five years to turn this into anything capable of understanding speech. The subtleties of mouth muscles are, it's true, enough to tell a trained lip-reader (human) roughly what people are saying. Big deal! - that's a long way from getting a computer to do it. Humans are also pretty good at telling what people are saying from listening, and computers are absolutely crap at that.

But what about expressions?

Sniffer has made a close study of human facial grimaces, and reckons this could be the answer to impersonal texting. No more worrying whether the other side will laugh when you're serious, or be insulted when you're joking. Just click the expression button ...