Hawking how does he talk

But once he lost use of his hands, he started depending on twitching a cheek muscle to communicate. Most computers designed for him relied on running lists of words.

Whenever the cursor reached a word or phrase he wished to use, Hawking twitched his cheek muscle to select it. Then he'd go on to the next word until he created a sentence. In the s, by selecting words with his finger, he could pick 10 to 15 words per minute.

But with the difficulty of twitching a cheek muscle, he could select just about one word per minute [source: Ferguson ]. Because of this, most of Stephen Hawking's speeches and interviews were done in advance to save time. Hawking died at age 76 at his home in Cambridge, leaving behind three children and three grandchildren. Sign up for our Newsletter! Mobile Newsletter banner close. Mobile Newsletter chat close.

Mobile Newsletter chat dots. Mobile Newsletter chat avatar. Mobile Newsletter chat subscribe. Prev NEXT. Famous Scientists. We hope that this team has a breakthrough and identifies a technique that allows him to communicate at levels he had a few years ago.

Hawking had been too ill to attend his own birthday party, so he met the Intel experts some weeks later at his office in the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge. She told me that people in wheelchairs can still do amazing things.

Looking back, I realize how prophetic that was. After the Intel team introduced themselves, Haussecker took the lead, explaining why they were there and what their plans were.

Haussecker continued speaking for 20 minutes, when, suddenly, Hawking spoke. It took him 20 minutes to write a salutation of about 30 words. It stopped us all in our tracks. It was poignant. We now realized that this was going to be a much bigger problem than we thought.

At the time, Hawking's computer interface was a program called EZ Keys, an upgrade from the previous softwares and also designed by Words Plus. It provided him with a keyboard on the screen and a basic word-prediction algorithm. A cursor automatically scanned across the keyboard by row or by column and he could select a character by moving his cheek to stop the cursor.

EZ Keys also allowed Hawking to control the mouse in Windows and operate other applications in his computer. He surfed the web with Firefox and wrote his lectures using Notepad. He also had a webcam that he used with Skype. The Intel team envisaged an upheaval of Hawking's archaic system, which would involve introducing new hardware. Gaze tracking couldn't lock on to Hawking's gaze, because of the drooping of his eyelids. Before the Intel project, Hawking had tested EEG caps that could read his brainwaves and potentially transmit commands to his computer.

Somehow, they couldn't get a strong enough brain signal. They weren't able to get a strong enough signal-to-noise. After returning to Intel Labs and after months of research, Denman prepared a minute video to send to Hawking, delineating which new user-interface prototypes they wanted to implement and soliciting his feedback.

The changes included additions such as a "back button," which Hawking could use not only to delete characters but to navigate a step back in his user interface; a predictive-word algorithm; and next-word navigation, which would let him choose words one after another rather than typing them. The main change, in Denman's view, was a prototype that tackled the biggest problem that Hawking had with his user interface: missed key-hits. It was unbearably slow and he would get frustrated. He's not somebody who just wants to get the gist of the message across.

He's somebody who really wants it to be perfect. To address the missed key-hits, the Intel team added a prototype that would interpret Hawking's intentions, rather than his actual input, using an algorithm similar to that used in word processing and mobile phones.

The problem is that it takes a little time to get used to and you have to release control to let the system do the work. The addition of this feature could increase your speed and let you concentrate on content. The video concluded: "What's your level of excitement or apprehension?

They implemented the new user interface on Hawking's computer. But the genius went on to live till he turned 76 and passed away in March A person which such rare degenerative disease went on to do phenomenal work in physics on Black holes and became one of the world-renowned scientists of all times.

He was the best selling author of his time. Now, one wonders how did a wheelchair-ridden man who could barely move his muscles get around to giving lectures and writing books? Here comes the intervention of Intel that has helped the genius with a speech-generating device for communication. Hawking used an infrared switch mounted on his spectacles which can be moved by twitches in his cheek.