Boffins invent molar-mounted microphone

US inventors have come up with a microphone which can be attached to the back teeth.

The tiny device is designed for use in high noise environments where an external microphone's sound pickup would be distorted. The signal is relayed to headphones so that the user can hear himself speak.

Sounds are heard by the human ear via air and bone conduction. In quiet environments speech travels by air, but can be transmitted via the bones in the head, as in the case of the tooth microphone.

"A communicator situated in a noisy environment can wear a 'tooth bone conduction microphone' in the mouth and will be able to transmit his or her voice with high signal to noise ratio and filtering out the surrounding noise," says the patent filing.

"Hence the speaker can have hands-free conversation at normal voice level, and has complete freedom to stay in the desired location and position.

"Simultaneously the communicator situated in the noisy environment can hear the voice transmitted by the other party through a conventional earset or headset."

The device is operated via tongue controls, and can be used in environments with up to 160 decibels of noise.

The team sees a primary use for the device in speech translation. A current product used by the US Army called The Phraselator translates a soldier's speech into the local dialect.