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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.
Noise canceling aside, military superhuman hearing devices have been around for a long time, and the old ones look cooler, too.
And something else that takes exotic batteries to run.
You'd think you'd get a huge amount of the value out of a pair of fairly generic in-ear earplugs, which take no batteries and can get wet/lost/abused for little cost.