A futurist digs his hearing aids
The Accidental Cyborg - "These [hearing aids] aren't just dumb amplifiers; they're little digital signal processors, small enough to fit into the ear canal, and smart enough to know when to boost the input and when to leave it alone... And here's where therapeutic augmentation starts to fuzz into enhancement: one of the program modes I'm considering would give me far better than normal hearing, allowing me to pick up distant conversations like I was standing right there." [Open the Future via BoingBoing]
The blogger at Open the Future's hearing aids have apparently confirmed his enthusiasm about the coming (eventually, honest!) wave of cyborg-ness. I had a similar rush of optimism after getting my own hearing aids, but it's faded somewhat with time.
They're great, and they've improved my quality of life considerably, but they're incredibly expensive, and could certainly be better. For example: I don't get distortion or interference from my GSM cell phone, but orienting my Motorola's earpiece so that the speaker lines up with the microphone in my hearing aids is hit-and-miss at best.
I often feel a little lame, having spent around $3,000 for custom-molded, high quality 'headphones' that I have to take out to listen to some phone calls or my iPod. That problem can be addressed with bluetooth add-ons, which are compatible with the larger BTE (behind-the-ear) devices, not my small ones. Oticon, the manufacturer of my own devices, has developed a relatively small BTE aid with built-in bluetooth as well as wireless co-ordination between the two aids -- awesome, but presumably battery-devouring.
Not to mention that being able to "pick up distant conversations like I was standing right there" is approximately the most annoying superpower ever when riding the bus.
