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New Hearing Aid Uses Your Tooth To Transmit Sound
kkleiner writes to share a new device from Sonitus Medical that transmits sound to the inner ear via the teeth and jawbone. Dubbed "SoundBite," the device captures sound using a microphone in the ear and transmits to an in-the-mouth device that in turn sends the sounds through the jaw. "There are other hearing aid devices that utilize bone conduction. Most, however, use a titanium pin drilled into the jaw bone (or skull) to transmit sound to the cochlea. SoundBite seems to be the first non-surgical, non-invasive, easily removable device. While they are likely years from retail production, Sonitus Medical plans on having SoundBite ITMs fitted to each individual's upper back teeth and fabricated fairly quickly (1 to 2 weeks). A complete system is planned to include two ITMs, 1 BTE, and a charger. In the wider world of cochlear implants, SoundBite may only be fit for relatively specialized use. Still, the ability to easily upgrade or replace individual components makes the device competitive. A similar device could be adapted to provide audio for a personalized augmented reality system. Perhaps the Bluetooth headset of the future will involve actual teeth."
Don't mind me, I only look crazy; I pulled my cochlear implant teeth out so they couldn't send me back to the apocalyptic future!
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
This will only make hearing the occasional biting criticism of one's peers harder for them.
Ezekiel 23:20
The government has had this technology for years. They use these dental implants to send auditory signals to the populace while people are asleep. It's all part of the one-world government conspiracy. Many of the so-called paranoid schizophrenics are really just people who don't tolerate the subconscious aural programming very well. Take a look outside your window for the black helicopter before you mod me down. I'm the guy leaning out the back with the parabolic microphone, waving at you.
Quite a lot of boomers who were way too close to the stacks at concerts may be happy about this in a few years, but here's hoping that it doesn't require real teeth since dentures may be a big part of the demographic.
My mouth hurts just thinking about it. What if I am listing to a TV program about dentistry? Am I supposed to enjoy the sound of the drill?
Wheeeeeeeeeee Grind Grind....
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Kent! This is God!
Didn't this happen on to Gilligan in 1965?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Didn't Beethoven hook a wire between his teeth and clavichord (small piano-like instrument) to aid in composing his music when is ears were failing?
Table-ized A.I.
I remember buying a fifty cent lollipop that was made in Mexico that had a metal stick in the middle that let you hear music when you bit it. This happened about a month or so after first reading about this technology in a magazine I had ten years ago. Why are they just now coming to market with this for serious applications?
No, an intra-aural speech synthesizer for the mute is what logically follows.
Ezekiel 23:20
If it worked, yes, that would be coming soon.
For the record, this isn't exactly a "hearing aid in the mouth." The reciever seems to go on your ear, it just wirelessly transmits to an emitter on your teeth, presumably because putting a microphone in your mouth would pick up you talking and not much else, and keeping your mouth open anytime you wanted to hear something would get annoying.
"Dubbed "SoundBite," the device captures sound using a microphone in the ear and transmits to an in-the-mouth device that in turn sends the sounds through the jaw."
The other way around!!!
I saw/heard an external bone conduction device with no spill over into the air, at the Lake County, Indiana fair around 1962 give or take a couple years. It was shaped like a small, rectangular pencil sharpener cut in half so that a half-cone was cut out of one side. That hollow was placed on the bridge of the nose. The fidelity was superb for the time. The drawback was, no stereo, hence no or very poor localization. I've watched for the commercial version ever since, but have never seen one.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
I remember reading when Edison was working on the phonograph he would bite the speaker (actually it was more like a megaphone) to hear it better as he was partially deaf. I believe he lost his hearing from being smacked around on his head by his boss when he was a child.
The CIA cafeteria menu for the week of May 15th is as follows: Monday: shepherd's pie. Tuesday:...
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Houston TX, USA
It might actually be possible. Each tooth has a nerve. The sodium channels in those nerves are sensitive to a few millivolts. They include mechanisms which effectively amplify signals and convert them to bistable, digital streams. It wouldn't surprise me if a tooth could act as a self powered radio receiver, in conjunction with the rest of the body.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Assuming it could attach well enough that swallowing/choking wouldn't be a concern, this would be very nice to use an alarm clock that wouldn't wake up other people in the same bed / dorm room / apartment.
Didn't 007 use some thing like this at one time to do some spy work in ..........
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
"When Hiro hit the switch, I was dreaming of Paris, dreaming of wet, dark streets in winter. The pain came oscillating up from the floor of my skull, exploding behind my eyes in a wall of blue neon; I jackknifed up out of the mesh hammock, screaming. I always scream; I make a point of it. Feedback raged in my skull. The pain switch is an auxiliary circuit in the bonephone implant, patched directly into the pain centers, just the thing for cutting through a surrogate's barbiturate fog. It took a few seconds for my life to fall together, icebergs of biography looming through the fog: who I was, where I was, what I was doing there, who was waking me. Hiro's voice came crackling into my head through the bone-conduction implant. 'Damn, Toby. Know what it does to my ears, you scream like that?'"
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
I wear one of these types (hasn't changed for over a decade since Oticon went digital years ago to improve and requires implants which I refused). These hearing aid were always mono (not stereo). I can't hear directional and can only hear a few channels. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It would be a lot more impressive if they'd invent a hearing aid that doesn't need an expensive custom-fitting that has to be repeated every few years.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Would be great if the equipment came in blue color :)
-- Sig down
Nuff said... (quick, trademark that!).
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Obligatory reply.
How much data is transmitted, with one bite of sound ?
Disclaimer: I am a dentist...
Is this such a good idea? The mouth is a rather harsh environment... moist, corrosive environment; very very abundant in bacteria (which just love to grow onto anything foreign we place in there); and subject to some very strong forces (hundred or two pounds of pressure of conscious biting force, can be many times more unconscious [eg. sleeping]).
Less invasive I suppose, but it'll have its own issues.
-- Silhouette
i don't have any real teeth you insensitive clod!
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Who needs Bluetooth anyway... GET the revolutionary BLUETEETH!
Call now and get two BLUETEETH at the price of a tooth!
Call now! now, nooooooow!
Of course! Put the microphone in your ear, and the speaker in your mouth.
Maybe this is a way for people to get in touch with their inner dolphins... Heh. There's something for the furry crowd.
Dolphins have been said to receive sound through their jawbones -- albeit their lower jaws, which thin out to supposedly vibratory "panbones" -- for quite some time now. (It's not hard to find a source for this -- a lot of books (even through something like National Geographic) that talk about dolphin anatomy have a figure about echolocation, for which the jaw receiver system is thought to work.)
"What's the use in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" --Fourth Doctor, "Robot"
The Tooth shall set you free. Tell others about the Tooth, the whole Tooth, and nothing but the Tooth.
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I have a new Phonak - it has no mould but a soft silicone guide for the in-ear speaker which is cheaply replaceable. The guides come in a few standard sizes. The main problem with it is, quite literally, not knowing if it is there or not. It makes me wonder why bluetooth headsets are so big and heavy.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I've used this tech in my military days and there was one problem I had with it. You have to plug your ears and close off the external pressure for it to work, otherwise you can't hear the jawbone mic (think of it like when you plug your ears and talk how loudly you can hear yourself). Not sure deaf people would have this problem though, if their ears don't work in the first place.