TECHNOLOGY UPDATE: The Content Analyzer
An inside glimpse at what's new in emerging technologies
 The content analyzer indicates whether a person's spoken words have any content whatsoever. |
Professor Anatoly Zharovsky of the Moscow Language Techno-Institute has demonstrated a remarkable machine that weighs and measures spoken words.
Dr. Zharovsky's device analyzes semantic content. It gives an accurate reading of the percentage of content (i.e., meaning) in a subject's speech.
The technology is based on a simple adaptation of the breathalyzer — a machine that chemically analyzes the alcoholic content of a subject's breath. Dr. Zharovsky discovered that by performing a simultaneous acoustical analysis, the semantic content of the breath can also be obtained.
The results are
measured on the so-called "Engels Scale," which
ranges from a value of zero for empty rhetoric to a value of 100 for intellectually
complex discourse. The Engels scale was originally developed for use in
the dialectical analysis of proletarian speech.
Early versions of the Content Analyzer suffered from performance problems.
Often, they seemed to indicate that jet engines and bus exhausts have semantic
content. Current versions of the machine do not.
Dr. Anatoly Minov, the Moscow Language Techno-institute's Director of Research Marketing, says that some preliminary work has been done in using the Content Analyzer with animals, including cattle, birds, insects and fish. Minov stresses that this aspect of the research is highly experimental. The readings thus far have been "very difficult to decipher," he said.
Minov also speculates that the Content Analyzer might be applied, via multiple baloon-borne sensors, to large scale moving masses of air in an attempt to make sense of weather patterns.
Dr. Minov and his colleagues are exploring
the commercial potential of the Content Analyzer. "Everyone jokes
that the politicians will try to prohibit this machine," he mused. "And
who knows, perhaps they have good reason to be scared of it." Some
of my fellow scientists may have reason for concern, too," he said,
weighing his words carefully.
The machine works equally well on all languages except French.
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