Audiovisual speech processing
We have reported activities in audiovisual speech processing, with emphasis on lip reading and lip synchronization. These research results have shown that, with lip reading, it is possible to enhance the reliability of audio speech recognition, which may result in a computer that can truly understand the user via hand-free natural spoken language even in a very noisy environments. Similarly, with lip synchronization, it is possible to render realistic talking heads with lip movements synchronized with the voice, which is very useful for human-computer interactions. We envision that in the near future, advancement in audiovisual speech processing will greatly increase the usability of computers. Once that happens, the cameras and the microphone may replace the keyboard and the mouse as better mechanisms for human-computer interaction.