Stephen Hawking hails ‘life changing’ speech upgrade (Video)

Stephen Hawking just got an artificial intelligence upgrade, Professor has launched his new communications system, developed in collaboration with Intel, which he says is “life changing”.

The custom-built system, called ACAT (Assistive Context Aware Toolkit), is twice as fast as its predecessor, meaning he will double the rate at which he speaks and increase his ability to navigate around his computer system tenfold.

It has been developed in cooperation with SwiftKey, which creates specialised keyboards for smartphones and tablets.

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The Swiftkey involvement means that Hawking now only needs to type just 15-20% of the characters in order to string together full sentences. This has helped to double his speech rate.

Hawking can now write and speak with greater ease for longer periods while minimising typos.

This was achieved because SwiftKey built a personal language model just for Hawking, based on this extensive works – looking at his books and other documents that he’s written.

The software learns which words he tends to use and which order, then suggests those words as he is typing. The system continues to learn as he uses it.

“We built a bespoke version for Stephen, adapting it to suit the particular challenges he faces, whether he is giving lectures, writing chapters of a new book or engaging in conversation,” said Swiftkey’s Joe Osborne.

“We estimate that our technology has roughly doubled Professor Hawking’s speech rate to date.”

Osborne adds that it was “extremely humbling” to meet with Hawking and his team.

“He has a sharp wit, and is happy to share a joke! Stephen has always been very curious about our technology, and how it works – and of course with his towering scientific and mathematical intellect, we can actually discuss with him the complex mathematical principles involved.”

The wider system, built by Intel, speeds up many other daily tasks by as much as TEN TIMES. This includes very common digital tasks such as browsing the web, editing, emails and documents, and saving, editing and switching between tasks.

Intel has even created a new toolkit – which will launch in 2015 – for developers so they can create their own communication systems for other people suffering from quadriplegia and motor neurone disease – which affect more than 3 million people worldwide.

Agencies/Canadajournal