Japanese engineer Takeuchi Masaki has developed a wearable voice box called Syrinx, which can be strapped on like a neck brace so that people who have lost their larynx to cancer are able to produce speech.
The device is intended to revolutionise the design of a traditional electrolarynx, which resembles a small flashlight that has to be held up to the throat. The project was named Japan's national winner of this year's James Dyson Award.
Modelled on the way that vocal cords are vibrated through air from the lungs to generate sound, an electrolarynx manually vibrates the neck to create a noise that the user can then form into words using their mouth and tongue.
Syrinx is a wearable, AI-powered electrolarynx
However, through a series of interviews with patients who have undergone a laryngectomee ? or surgical removal of their voice box ? Masaki found that the design for a traditional electrolarynx left much to be desired and "has not changed for 20 years". Users complained about the fact that it was impossible to use during essential, two-handed tasks such as driving, eating or typing, while the actual voice it generates sounds unnatural and mechanical.

"Many people said: 'I want to speak in the same voice as a healthy person'," Masaki told Dezeen.
"When used in public, the conventional electrolarynx stands out because of its robot-like sound, and people didn't want to use it except in an emergency."
Syrinx is intended to improve on this by ma...