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The US Army Is Rolling Out Superhuman Hearing to Soldiers (popularmechanics.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Army has developed an all-in-one hearing system that not only boosts the hearing of troops in the field, it also acts to cut down the noise of battle. The system, known as Tactical Communication and Protective System (TCAPS), is currently rolling out to units in the field. TCAPS is $2,000 pair of earbuds designed to limit battlefield noise exposure, cutting off noise that reaches a set decibel threshold. The wearer can still hear gunshots and estimate their direction, but the noise is dampened to a non-damaging level thanks to microphones that detect the noise, and internals that use sound canceling technology to modify it for a wearer's ears. At the same time, the decibel cap allows TCAPS-equipped soldiers to hear the voices of others around him, including through radios and other communications equipment.
It's a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35, army edition?
Damn those priorities...
It's also how they send the mind control beams into the soldiers too!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What?
Weapon industry develops weapons that goes MEOW instead of BANG!
of a toddler, I would like to have a pair of these.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
say what?
Noise canceling aside, military superhuman hearing devices have been around for a long time, and the old ones look cooler, too.
I hear they are also equipping the troops with other super human abilities. The technology uses advanced materials to protect the soldier's feet and lower leg from damaging temperatures and surfaces that would injure a normal human foot while still allowing the user to sense when they are standing on the ground. This advanced superhuman enhancement is definitely not just called boots.
I'm not interested and not impressed unless it can help soldiers do that. That could enable our soldiers to use the ringtone and not miss a call while enemy prisoners wonder how they knew they got a call since they didn't hear it vibrate.
So many friends came back with massive hearing damage. the M16A4 is loud as hell and every single vet comes back with horrible tinnitus at best and major hearing damage to DEAF at worst.
we need to tell NATO to fuck themselves and issue supressors to all troops along with these hearing protection devices.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... is it actually better than, say, (Native) American hearing? Or Amazonian Native hearing? Possibly not, us whiteys tend to have shitty hearing and growing up in cities isn't doing us any favours either. Then there's the earbuds just about everyone's sporting, that actually supply us with loud noise to drown out the outside world's loud noises. Plenty teenagers already walk around with tinnitus. Once you have it, no fancy device is going to make it go away.
Even so, I'd like to try these. There's plenty noise here even if it isn't actually loud, it's annoying enough that I routinely wear (shoddy, cheap, scuffed) hearing protection and trying something else might be interesting. Though I wouldn't be able to stump up the price tag. All the more's the pity.
So basically they are smart earplugs?
Hopefully will cut down on the veterans with permanent hearing loss.
Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
The real reason for this is so that soldiers can more clearly notice and listen to the words of Jesus when they abruptly appear out of thin air.
..."the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 47,725 veterans are homeless on any given night."
Not to mention the general population of our citizens who are poor, unable to get needed medical treatment, services, etc.
But that's cool that we'll give the ones that aren't broken yet shiny new things to make them more efficient.
Several countries' military have been using typical noise-cancelling hearing protection used in shooting sports and hunting for over a decade, if not more.
Let's skip the middle man and just give the money directly to defense contractors' cocaine dealers and mistresses?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Probably not noise cancelling since it needs much of the info in the environment to retain position info. More likely a compression algorithm that instead of looking like an upside down hockey stick (with input volume on x axis and output on y), it does a combination of adjustable upward compression on lower volumes and downward compression/brickwall limiting on higher volumes. This will attenuate loud events and boost background sound. Positional data would come from stereo mic pair, one on each ear, which would approximate the way ears do locational info.
Is it official now? Have we given up on explaining that dampening something makes it wet? Dampened != Damped.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
I have a $50 pair of "active headphones for shooters" that muffle gunshots, let me hear conversations, and even let me plug in my phone to listen to MP3s while I'm shooting. These sound like a slightly more advanced version of that (especially if they can indicate the direction of gunfire), but $2k?!?
We've got a container on the wall near the entrance to the factory floor that deposits a pair of ear plugs when you crank a handle. I had no idea those were $2K a pair! They're worth more to the company than I am. Damn.
In other words, they're using noise-dampening hunting headphones, just like may hunters have been using for years.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
What dictionary are you using that doesn't have a second definition for "Dampen"?
Because it's wrong -- and your pedantry is ill-founded.
Yes, it is official:
dampen
verb
past tense: dampened; past participle: dampened
1.
make slightly wet.
"the fine rain dampened her face"
synonyms: moisten, damp, wet, dew, water; literarybedew
"the rain dampened her face"
2.
make less strong or intense.
"nothing could dampen her enthusiasm"
synonyms: lessen, decrease, diminish, reduce, moderate, damp, put a damper on, throw cold water on, cool, discourage, disincentivize
US is already how far in debt? Spy ears on soldiers seriously?
People are starving and you pass out $2000 headphones for soldiers to fight cunt battles for CIA concocted foreign enemies as dickheads let foreigners move in and get your tax money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrvMs3PlWcg
Allll to Hell.
The enemy can now encrypt their communications BY TALKING VERY LOUDLY
rewriting history since 2109
The US military can now kill while jamming out to their favorite tunes and still hear the comm of their fellow hitmen.
What an age we live in.
You might want to read the actual dictionary definition.
The creative energy that had made it the center of European literature before the war was dampened.
I don't think creative energy can get wet/
I thought they were talking about some sort of cutting edge tech. Nope. Just active hearing pro. The Australian army has used 3M Peletors for years - I don't think they are issued to individuals, but the Q-Stores hold them for use on ranges and they're included (2 pair) in the newer Carl Gustuv 84mm recoiless rifle trunks too.
Guys buy their own knock-offs from Amazon so that they don't have to use ear-plugs while doing fire and movement (as they're not usually handed out for this). I hate the plug style shown in the article - the last thing I want to do when living in the dirt is start shoving stuff in my ears. Ears, eyes and hands need to be treated well or you die, or are a burden to your team.
The problem with conventional foam style earplugs is that they muffle hearing when loud stuff isn't happening. So you have to remove them, and hopefully stick them in when a firefight starts.
The idea with actives like this would be that you could stick them in when you're getting ready to leave the FOB, and remove them when you return.
The expense might be providing more DBs of protection, last an extended period on a battery, or even that they're rated to not emit radiation that would allow others to track you if they know what to look for.
It's probably also 'program cost', which includes testing, selection, customization, training, batteries, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
Reduce the volume of the Carl Gustav you're firing?
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Active ear muffs for shooters have been around for a long time, I bought my first pair in about 1998. With separate controls for each ear, you can tell the direction of sounds to some extent, not as good as bare ears, but not bad. There are a few options now under ~$50 retail, but the problem is they would not easily fit under a helmet.
Ear bud based active protection is also available off the shelf, Etymotic, a hearing aid company, makes one with a NRR 40 with 5X amplification, GSP15 GunSportPro, that retails for $299. It shouldn't be that difficult to integrate it to a radio/mic system.
Reactive ear plugs have been around since the 1980s in a niche market for competitive target shooters. They react to sudden high decibel levels in a microsecond saving your ears from concussive sound. The pricier ones have a frequency notch filter that only allows human vice frequencies through.
The price has reduced over the decades and I guess someone is budgeting for general issue of an item that is long overdue in the field.
NRRPT/RCT
That's an answer to my question that makes me very sad. Apparently, the misuse has become common enough in this context that it's now in the dictionary, so the answer to my question is "yes, we've given up".
The article was talking about acoustic vibrations (sound). Lessening vibration is called damping. Dampening has connotations related to emotion that do not apply in the same way, but the words are similar enough and dampen misused enough that now it doesn't matter, apparently.
Comparative graph for usage of "acoustic damping" and "acoustic dampening" since 1920
Discussion of this topic.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
The British Army has been using the PIHP from Racal Acoustics for quite some time now. It was an urgent operational requirement for Afghanistan troops. The device neatly integrates with their personal role radios, can be turned off for use as passive ear defenders, and still allows radio comms when unpowered.
They went as far as ordering individually moulded ear plugs for each soldier in theatre :-)