LONDON — Shouting down your mobile phone may become a thing of the past, thanks to the latest gadget being developed by a Japanese company.

NTT DoCoMo Inc, a subsidiary of NTT Communications Corp, is working on the world's first lip-reading telephone that could relieve the annoyance of loud mobile phone conversations, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday.

"Although still some way off, the phone should put an end to users having to shout down their handsets, even in noisy environments. All they have to do is mouth their words silently, and the phone will convert them to speech or text," according to the weekly magazine.

Engineers at NTT DoCoMo have developed a prototype and hope to have a lip-reading mobile phone available in about five years.

Contact sensors near the mouthpiece in the phone detect tiny electrical signals sent by muscles around the mouth. A speech synthesiser converts the signals into spoken words or text for a message or email.

So far the phone can recognize vowels and engineers are now working on consonants.

In addition to making public places quieter, the lip-reading phone could also help people who have lost their voice.

(c) Reuters News 2002