Slashdot Mirror
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.
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)
Is there option not to turn off feature when my boss or my mother is law is speaking?
hilarious
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
This is a patent. The patent probably just includes a small black box labelled "ambient noise analyzer" in what is otherwise just a standard set of headphones. The related text explains that (not how, never how) the "ambient noise analyzer" will monitor noise and listen for command phrases to enable additional functionality.
Now that this is patented, R&D has 20 years to make it work and sell enough to make profit.
Recognizing sounds and phrases isn't new. Executing a control action based on that input is not new. Noise cancellation is not new. If it were me I'd laugh loudly when rejecting this patent.
Now, if you could just allow that phrase only to pass through in real time, or even with some delay, that would be quite a technology to patent.
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.
Oh, it hears you. It's just passive-aggressively ignoring you. I can imagine its internal computer voice quietly muttering to itself, "You're not the boss of me." or screaming into the electronic abyss, (as Cheryl from Archer "You're not my supervisor!"
On the up side, it's good practice for when/if you ever have children.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .