Imagine
a world where you control what you hear – tuning out annoying sounds while
amplifying others. Further, imagine
making sound a non-factor, from silencing all surrounding sound to having the
capacity to hear far-away conversations from across the room. According to
Newsweek, that time is about to arrive.
According
to an 8/14/15 article entitled “What Big Ears You Have," soon you’ll hear like Superman, and be able to tune out that barking dog, with a revolutionary new hearing
device to be unleashed in 2015. It
states:
“Before
the end of the year, startup Doppler Labs plans to come out with a promising
product called Here—oversized earbuds, about the size of a quarter, meant to
give you control over live sounds. They don’t play Spotify songs; instead, they
filter and alter the thrum of the real world around you. The early versions
will have volume control and some noise cancellation, so you can put them in
your ears and make city sounds less harsh while boosting conversations so they
come through loud and clear. One Here setting is “Baby Suppress,” which sounds
like birth control but is meant to squash the sound of the crying kid behind
you on a cross-country flight.”
The
article contemplated how this device could even influence real estate and where
people live. If you could wear noise-canceling
buds anywhere, anytime, would people live by trains and jet runways – or above
noisy commercial venues? But the
potential for this tool could go beyond the obvious. The article explores this:
“Another
idea is to allow us to hear wavelengths never meant for our ears. Color is a
wavelength we see but can’t hear, but what if you could hear green? Imagine the
impact on the colorblind. Or what if you could hear infrared, essentially
letting you see in the dark through your ears?
"This
stuff is likely to happen. With Google Glass and the stalled Apple Watch and
other wearables, there’s no there there. Now, however, we’ll soon have a Here
here.”
Enhanced
or controlled hearing could be just the beginning. Our senses are up for grabs and technology will
tinker – by pill, surgery or device – with the possibilities. How about an enhanced reading device?
Could
there be something invented to help us read faster, retain more information, and
to assist in fully understanding and appreciating what we just read? Will we put on a special pair of glasses that
can help us with this? Will a computer chip be installed into our body? Something will come about to revolutionize
the reading process. It’s just a matter
of time.
But
perhaps the reading process is fine the way it is. It’s not just a means to an end; we enjoy the
act of reading. It can’t be a rushed pace
– reading is fun. Then again, if a
device can be made to help us skim fast or to cut out certain portions of a book
that should’ve been edited out anyway, that would be interesting. Just as we use a DVR to get past commercials
or even lulls in the action, cold we devise something to help us gloss over the
insignificant or even boring passages in a book?
For
now, we’ll see if the sound-editing device is a hit. If it is, look out, books can be next.
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