Here Active Listening - Change The Way You Hear The World

[TheAmmoniacal]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dopplerlabs/here-active-listening-change-the-way-you-hear-the/description

"Through two truly wireless, in-ear buds and a smartphone app, Here allows you to instantly control real world audio so you can hear what you want to hear - no matter the situation - and be fully immersed in your audio environment."

Basically it records the sounds/audio in your environment, adds a filter (blocks frequencies) and plays the rest back into your ear. Comes with an app that lets you select rough frequencies that you want to block or enhance.



Thoughts?

[Ian.M]

I think anyone using devices capable of sensory modification in public (whether visual or audio) other than for mitigating a diagnosed disability should be required by law to wear a hazard tape headband and a hi-viz jacket!

Cyclists listening to music in both ears are bad enough, I don't want to be on the same road as any that are filtering out traffic noise.

[con-f-use]

And I don't want people from across the street listening in on what I talk about with my buddies on a fun night out.

[Pillager]

And I don't want people from across the street listening in on what I talk about with my buddies on a fun night out.

Right, but they can already do that, directional microphones and the like

And I don't want to sound negative, but cutting out certain frequencies sounds a lot like distorting your audio input. And then, almost nothing sounds like it should, because sound is more complex than just individual frequencies.

[con-f-use]

Right, but they can already do that, directional microphones and the like

Yes but not by accident and not this readily. It will not give me sleepless nights, but if devices like this become mainstream, e.g. as headphones or apps for your cellphone, I'd feel uncomfortable.

[PeterFW]

Basically it records the sounds/audio in your environment, adds a filter (blocks frequencies) and plays the rest back into your ear. Comes with an app that lets you select rough frequencies that you want to block or enhance.
(...)
Thoughts?

I know manny people who allready have something like this.
They are called hearing aids and they seem to work tremendously well.

They have a tiny remote were you can change the filter settings and presets, can be paired to your smartphone and iirc even to hear music.
Since i never have seen someone change them during the day i would say they have a decent battery life.

[kaz911]

For people with chronic pain it can be a good thing. I have a back injury - and when my back gets tired and painful - I get a lot of issues separating voices - especially if there are lots of noise around. So if it can help that - then my social life becomes a lot easier.

[Ian.M]

As I said above, mitigating a diagnosed disability - a perfectly socially acceptable use.

The flip side of the coin for sensory enhancent and modification gadgets is the glassholes, possibly endangering themselves and those around them by their lack of attention to the real world..

[Towger]

Sound like a modern digital hearing aid!

[Sigmoid]

As I said above, mitigating a diagnosed disability - a perfectly socially acceptable use.

That is a really bad way to approach technology. Who determines where you draw the line demarcating "disability"? And what if the tool to overcome the disability provides better capabilities than regular human ability?

Say, let's posit the creation of a bioaugmentation device, that is capable of giving even those with the worst eye problems 20/20 vision equivalent to that of the very top few percent of humanity, such as snipers. Due to "ethical" issues, the original manufacturer intentionally limits the capabilities of the system, and health regulations disallow its sale to any but those with a serious vision problem.

Now, someone with a slight myopia may shout injustice, as they cannot get perfect vision, while a near-blind person can.

Also, soon a Chinese company running a crowdfunding campaign comes out with an unlimited, open source, Linux-based hackable version, that uses the hardware to its full capability, giving users night vision and the equivalent of a 10x optical zoom in terms of object recognition.

Governments, driven by a moral panic about eavesdropping cyborgs, and some kind of semi-religious bullshit about "meddling with human nature" or somesuch nonsense, might ban the use of such devices. People will still use them. The governments may impose irrational and cruel penalties like those used against psychotropic drugs in order to curb this. People would then manage to hack the "medical" device to unlock the same capabilities.

Now the government has to make sure that people who depend on technology in the most intimate way ("cyborgs"), HAVE TO be locked out of their own bodies by both technical and legal means, and servicing or hacking your own eye or arm can and will land you in prison. (While the company selling you the thing has full access of your complete vision stream through their cloud servers, of course sharing it with government agencies as mandated by law.)

EDIT: Not long before the first airline decides that their pilots must have such a device implanted, which automatically switches to milspec capabilities during work hours, and regular human operation during off hours... and of course forwards the vision stream to the HR department, for "quality control" purposes. Not subjecting oneself to this monitoring is a firing offense. Your boss will soon be inquiring about your sexual preferences, and mandating a psychiatric check-up after footage of your visit to a BDSM club on a layover in Berlin. Browsing anti-capitalist portals will get you fired due to "being hostile to the company". Attempting to hack the device nets you $100000 in damages and four years behind bars. Oh and now you're blind.

Welcome to the worst dystopia ever.

We have to accept the ways technology changes and improves human ability. If one wants privacy, the countermeasures taken need to be adjusted for the new ways people are capable of intruding upon each other. Otherwise we may open up a Pandora's box of nightmarish oppression we had no idea ever existed.

The flip side of the coin for sensory enhancent and modification gadgets is the glassholes, possibly endangering themselves and those around them by their lack of attention to the real world..

We have had those since the invention of the written word (or at least since pocket books).

Just think about all those bookies suddenly reading their Bibles and stuff on the streets instead of watching the traffic and engaging with their fellow man!

[Ian.M]

Been reading William Gibson much?

I want the users to be easily identifiable at a glance in public spaces so I can take avoiding action.

[PeterFW]

(...)

Man... whatever you take, next time take less. Or if you do not take annything at all, maybe a few drugs prescribed by your mental health care physician might help.

[tggzzz]

The ear-brain combination is the most astoundingly non-linear that I'm aware of. Deafaids have enormous complexity in the form of both dynamic algorithms and static tuning. There is no indication the creators understand that. Hence, while the device will do something, there is no reason to believe it will do what they claim.

As for batteries and battery lifetime. Modern digital deafaids have batteries that can last for weeks, so clearly it is possible. However, and it is a big however, they use very highly specialised semiconductor processes which use transistors in esoteric ways. Standard design techniques and stabdard digital and analogue semiconductor processes cannot and do not compete.

[MFX]

Their claims go way above what normal hearing aids do and hearing aids aren't known for being HiFi  devices. The more advanced digital aids are still relatively bulky behind the ear devices and can have as little as 3 days battery life. Also the fact that in the video he says they use a "CODEC" rather than a "DSP" makes me smell bullshit unless he is just a poorly briefed PR guy.

Martin.

[Howardlong]

Their claims go way above what normal hearing aids do and hearing aids aren't known for being HiFi  devices. The more advanced digital aids are still relatively bulky behind the ear devices and can have as little as 3 days battery life. Also the fact that in the video he says they use a "CODEC" rather than a "DSP" makes me smell bullshit unless he is just a poorly briefed PR guy.

Martin.

TI's tlv320aic3254 codec includes an autonomous DSP engine that would achieve what they're claiming. It's very low power, but no sure it's low enough for an in ear device.

The PCB CAD shot at 1:13 is worthless as it shows a USB host controller chip, not sure why you'd use one of those in an in ear audio device.

[edy]

Sounds like a graphic equalizer (software-based DSP) which modifies the Mic input before it outputs to the Earbud speaker. And with a bluetooth interface to the DSP chip bridging the app on your phone, it lets you essentially send it the DSP equalization profile you want. Not a bad idea.... Sounds like something that could already be in a standalone Bluetooth speaker pod.

It could be as simple as setting up 10 to 20 "zones" along the graphic spectrum (say 0-100 Hz, 101 Hz-200 Hz, etc... up to 20 kHz) by dividing up the audible range and then setting a value of 0 to 10 (or other resolution) to tell the DSP how much to attenuate that frequency range. The app would have presets or a little graphic equalizer that lets you tune it up and down, which will then via Bluetooth pass on the values to the earbud.

The reason for app/bluetooth is that for something that small you will need some kind of interface to allow you to make setting adjustments. With the old boombox stereos you have a row of sliders you can adjust all you want. Even in my computer software I can change audio on-the-fly with the sound-card DSP to change my sound.

ONE OTHER POSSIBLE IMPLEMENTATION:

The phone itself does the DSP.... The earbud/speaker combo uses a Bluetooth send/receive channels to essentially send the earphone signal to the PHONE... which then processes the sound, and then sends it back to the earbud speaker. In this case, the PHONE APP MUST RUN all the time, and BLUETOOTH must be active ALL THE TIME. Not sure if that is what is going on or not.


As far as COST is concerned, I wouldn't pay $179 for this gadget. That's another issue... If you want to "modify" what you hear, just plug earphones into your phone and open up an AUDIO-RECORDING-MIC app with a graphic equalizer and you will use your phone as the mic and hear the processed sounds on your earbuds. Cost for the app is a few bucks... Earbuds probably free with phone. Problem solved.

But I can see many people paying $179 for "augmented reality audio". Just not my cup of tea.