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Amazon Patents Noise-Canceling Headphones That Could Automatically Turn Off When It Detects Certain Sound Patterns (thenextweb.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report via The Next Web: Noise-canceling headphones are great for tuning out the din around you when you just want to focus on listening to music or enjoy some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, they also mute sounds that you might need to hear -- like someone calling your name. Amazon has a pretty cool idea for solving that problem. It was recently granted a patent for headphones that not only cancel out noise, but also listen to specific sounds or phrases (like 'Hey Ben') and respond by automatically turning off the feature so the user can hear sound from their surroundings. That should make it safer for use in noisy environments where you might actually need to pay attention to the occasional alert, such as a construction site or an industrial facility. In addition, the headphones can also listen for phrases to turn noise canceling back on again, so the user can resume their listening experience hands-free.
They could design and patent a process to selectively filter out the bullshit from Bezos
If there is so much noise around you that you need noise cancelling headphones, how are they going to accurately detect these sound patterns?
As an example, my GPS has voice controls. Very handy, except if the radio is playing at even the faintest volume levels the GPS simply can't recognize the activating words 'voice control'. Hell, even with the radio off I sit there like a fool repeating 'Voice control. Voice. Control. Voicecontrol. VOICE CONTROL DAMMIT!' to get it to work.
This seems more like a gimmick than a truly useful piece of hardware.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Just sayin'.
I feel like it'd be a better idea to put this in the devices that are actually playing the audio. Rather than put it in a pair of headphones, build it in as part of Android, iOS, Tizen, FireOS, and whatever else the devices are running these days. That way we can have this awesome safety feature with ANY headphones.
Non DRM music being played shutting down!
Patents were meant to protect inventions from being copied and sold by people that didn't put any effort in inventing.
Nowadays, anyone with enough money can patent ideas, so that no one can actually invent them.
like someone calling your name
or attempting to use these headphones in an area where marketing teams are using subaudible markers in video media to disable the headphones for a "brief" advertisement. Remember, this is the same company that brought you a talking plastic tube that spies unaccountably on your every action and may, or may not, be tapped by the NSA.
unrelated: ive found locking an Amazon Echo in a closet with an ipod shuffle full of muslim nasheeds causes an intense need for icecream in the neighbourhood that can apparently only be fuelled by round-the-clock ice cream truck drivers.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Peril sensitive headphones, FTW!
The Joo Janta 200 Super-Audio Peril Sensitive Headphones have been designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. They work by completely tuning out at the first sign of danger, thus preventing you from hearing anything that might alarm you.
The Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses have been designed to help people develop a relaxed attitude to danger. They work by turning completely dark at the first sign of danger, thus preventing you from seeing anything that might alarm you. This does, however, mean that you see absolutely nothing, including where you're going.
(With apologies to Douglas Adams)
IANA.. anything relevant here. I work in construction management (many years prior in IT, security, etc, hence me being here), and often at my desk on the jobsite the grinding, hammering, cutting, you name it gives piercing noise that makes it f'ing near impossible to concentrate. So I've been eager to use noise cancelling.. however there are issues.
The obvious one, pointed out, is possible cancellation of noise you really need to hear instead of ignore, like something collapsing, someone calling you, etc. (especially when walking the site instead of at the desk) In a construction environment, it'd be very hard to programmatically distinguish the good loud noise versus bad loud noise- scaffolding may be collapsing, or it may just be a steel worker cutting an extra toe angle off of a joist that was manufactured incorrectly and that falling to floor. It's probably kind of like if an active shooter scenario happened at a gun range- which gun shot is bad? You can perhaps tell by direction sound was aimed in that case, but standard folks listening will mostly just hear shots until they notice something amiss. (I pray I never experience that.) I suspect the best answer in industrial application would be "partial cancellation," a bit more noise let through than Bose currently lets through, kill plainly regular noises like compressors but let irregular noises like crashes or hammering through.
However, my sister is an audiologist and pointed out something else- there really hasn't been a study of noise cancellation in loud environments, and it's benefit to ear health. While the cancellation is creating opposing waves and all, there's no study on the actual sound pressure that gets to the ear drum and possible effects of that, even if it is in an inaudible range. I can say when sitting at my desk and I turn on cancellation with my Bose QC20i's, it does WONDERS for noises like compressors and such- but I can tell there's a pressure in my ear from the cancellation. So there's still a valid health concern to be investigated before they'd be OSHA approved for use- I'd rather not lose my hearing thinking the cancellation was a good noise reducer when it had negligible health effects. As such, right now OSHA doesn't really approve noise cancellation in any construction environment, just standard NRR rated blocking materials.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Aren't we getting a bit silly here? Maybe those people should leave their hard hats at home too, so they don't mess up their hair
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I want something that filters out my wife's incessant complaining but lets other sounds through.
I want headphones that mute the volume whenever they detect Adele singing through the line-in.
I prefer just hitting the zoned out person with a coke can thrown from my passing car to get their attention.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You'd think it would be a better idea to work in the opposite way like a welder's auto-darkening facemask works. It should let all sound through till it detects high dB levels or a certain level of white-ish noise and then instantly start cancelling and then disabling the cancelling feature when the noise or loud sounds stop.
The obvious one, pointed out, is possible cancellation of noise you really need to hear instead of ignore, like something collapsing, someone calling you, etc. (especially when walking the site instead of at the desk)
I have a set of high-end Bose noise-cancelling headphones that I use occasionally.
They're made for airplane pilots, so they to cancel loud noises and noise in certain frequency ranges, but don't cancel the ranges of human speech. Talking while driving is pretty clear - the phones cancel out all the engine and road noise. (Which makes them less useful to me, because I wanted them to cancel *all* noise in the environment - to get some sleep at Burning Man.)
I don't know about construction specifically, but you can still hear all ambient noise through the phones - it's just attenuated.
Not that you should use these in construction, but the cancellation is not that bad or complete.
This could change everything, if it simply filled in its own content instead of unmuting. Agreement with my bizarre political opinions would be universal, that cab {buy Crest} driver would be yelling compliments concerning my driving (and parentage), and the homeless people yelling at their imaginary friends would {buy Crest now!} be shouting the current news and {buy Crest immediately!} weather. Hard to see the harm in that ...
I use some pretty decent samsung noise cancelling headphones (Level Over) and I am able to hear people's voices crystal clear with them active because it removes the background noise. This feature would be useful if I were listening to music however.
This will rule: when my mom opens the door slowly the headphones tip me off by shutting down, thus preventing her from witnessing The Fappening.
But I don't see the benefit over a simple button.
I've tried expensive noise cancelling headphones and found them pretty useless. They didn't filter out things like conversations at all, just made them tinny-sounding. Still just as distracting. What I find does work is IEMs with triple flange earpieces. They effectively become earplugs with headphones in them. My $50 headphones with those are massively better than the $300+ "noise cancelling" ones I tried.
I'm looking forward to headphones that cancel every sound except advertising.
Amazon got a patent on using trigger words to change noise canceling. But like a lot of inventions, the military is out in front.
Check out this collaboration between Mary Roach (writes on the science of...whatever) and the 99% invisible podcast. Note that rather than trigger words disabling full blocking, the design problem being solved is "communication in variably noisy environments". I've seen a lot of speculation in these comments about industrial and military applications, but what Amazon is doing is probably not the solution.
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/combat-hearing-loss/
I can’t imagine how this could be reasonably accurate, since there is no predefined list of noises requiring attention. Even a sophisticated AI program would IMHO fail most of the time.
And then of course some will complain that they missed something important or had an accident because of that
Posting to undo bad moderation. My apologies.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Once I wanted to make a device that would turn down the music in my car when a siren is detected outside .. When I googled it I saw it was patented many times over. More recently I thought about headphones like this too when I wanted to listen to music at work .. Headphones that detect when you are being spoke to and reduce volume when you are being spoken to seems like an obvious feature to me, I would bet there is already prior art and patents very similar to this Amazon thing. It seems like an obvious evolution of the siren thing especially now that we have good voice recognition technology.
Yay!
If they want to patent something cool, patent it to replace works like BUR-GER-KING with CHIK-FIL-ET :)
Amazon patents noise canceling headphones that turn off when participating advertisers content it audible.
of how my grandfather would want it to work.
I remember when people were talking to him, he'd pointedly remove his hearing aids and look the other way.
He didn't give a damn, but he was the only one in the house the kids and the dogs would listen to.
crying baby = off
Can it detect a woman's voice?
Assuming this will be an intelligent device that can be trained by the user and upgraded by the manufacturer, then it will be an online device. And as an online device that can hear, is anyone concerned that someone might be listening in addition to the user?
Seems to be a stealth opportunity. The Chinese manufacturer will insert code to relay your most intimate moments to the Beijing authorities. If you fit the profile you will be invited to foment revolt and mayhem in America. God forbid you should spank your kids or the listening three-letter-agencies will be all over you in a flash. And for the right price, your boss can check up on your extracurricular activities. Your life will be an open book to any interested party (if it isn't already).
...omphaloskepsis often...
>to get some sleep at Burning Man
>Burning Man
>Burning Man
Enjoy your syphilis and crabs.
Noise cancelling headphones already are pretty terrible at eliminating sound from conversations (they're best at eliminating sounds from nearly-constant sources, such as from an HVAC or an airplane engine). Seems like a worthless feature to me, unless they can also come up with a mechanism to effectively cancel speech (which is really, really difficult).
That should make it safer for use in noisy environments where you might actually need to pay attention to the occasional alert, such as a construction site or an industrial facility.
In most industrial facilities I have ever been in it is a serious violation to wear ANYTHING not OSHA approved hearing protection out on the work floor. Listening to music while working around heavy machinery is a safety violation that WILL get you fired, I've seen it happen.
I've had a pair of Audio Technica noise cancelling headphones for a while. They're great for getting rid of constant background noise, like on planes, but they don't cancel out talking very much. In fact, I find it easier to understand people while wearing them because it gets rid of the other noise. Demonstrated it to a flight attendant once when she insisted I take them off for the safety lecture (which I practically know by heart anyway..).
Unless I'm playing music loudly, in addition to the noise cancellation, hearing someone yell out my name wouldn't be an issue.
End of line..