On the Right Track

In 'Diamonds are Forever' (1971) James Bond's nemesis Blofeld uses an electronic gadget to synthesise casino owner Willard Whyte's voice to fool our favourite spy. Fast-forward to today and we have technologies that can not only synthesise any voice or accent but that can generate speech by someone glancing at text on a screen. For Tony Nicklinson, suffering from locked-in syndrome after a brain stem stroke in 2005, communication software The Grid 2 linked to an eye-tracker enabled him to argue eloquently for doctors to end his life, until his natural death in august 2012 shortly after losing his High Court appeal.