The Lying Game

What would the world be like if no one could lie without getting caught? Salespeople would have to divulge actual car prices. Kids would have to tell parents where they are really going.

Implausible as all that sounds, that's the world a company called V is trying to encourage by developing a variety of lie-detecting consumer electronics. V believes its products, based on a technique dubbed layered voice analysis (LVA), will be able to detect lying.

"We think we're 95 percent accurate," says V's CEO Richard Parton. "That's better than voice stress analysis or polygraph."

Originally developed for the military, the program applies 8,000 algorithms to over 120 voice parameters, looking for telltale signs of deception, stress, aggression, uncertainty, and concentration. So far, V has demonstrated a pair of $700 glasses attached to a microphone and a PDA that can analyze voice patterns and flash warnings inside the glasses.

The idea of being secretly interrogated might not appeal to everyone. (Suppose you prevaricate to protect someone's feelings?) But the software has some serious applications, such as for security personnel at airport checkpoints. Truth-telling glasses may seem like the gag X-ray specs advertised in the back of comic books, but V isn't afraid of the possible entertainment value.

"We want to show that the technology can be fun," claims Parton, "and that there is nothing for people to be afraid of." Of course, if it works, there might be a few people in Washington who won't think it's funny at all.