This is quite extraordinary (and straight out of 24 or CSI). Researchers at MIT, CSAIL and Microsoft are experimenting with the recovery of speach from vibrations. In one experiment they were able to ‘recover’ speach from the vibrations of a crisp packet behind glass 15 feet away. The same tech can be applied to a glass of water or the leaves of a plant. Awesome! Somewhere I’ve got a timeline of emerging tech with Speach Recognition CCTV on it. This is far in advance of that. Any criminal or terrorist seen to be talking can potentially have their conversation intercepted via the video recording and analysis of vibrations on everyday objects around them. One for GCHQ or MI5 perhaps? (but I’m sure they’ve already listened in on this innovation).

Thanks to Nik at ITF who picked this up.