AI earbuds are now available that cancel out noise, a threat to autistic people. We are entering an era of personalized noise cancellation.
【AI earbuds now available that completely cancel out noise, a threat to autistic people.】
https://www.turtlewiz.jp/archives/37168
・Samsung and Cheil Worldwide Spain Develop Breakthrough AI App “Unfear” to Completely Cancel Noise Threatening Autistic People
・The first ever smart noise management app that works in real time, allowing people to manage individual sounds according to their needs
・Many autistic people have auditory sensitivity and may experience discomfort or anxiety in response to certain sounds. Some are hoping for an AI app that can block out only unpleasant sounds without completely blocking out all sounds.
・The app developed was launched during World Autism Acceptance Week and is available in Spanish and English, and will be rolled out globally through 2023.
These are the quotes from the article
Imagine a world without noise
Noise canceling earbuds are still available, but this AI app is amazing, personalizing the noise for you and setting your own settings to cancel out the noise.
In case you’re on the edge of being a musician who deals with sound,
I will explain how noise cancellation works in a very simple way.
Sound is a wave. If you cancel out that wave, the sound disappears.
So, if you invert the undulating sound waveform and bump it, the sound will disappear. Only the waveform of the noise sound is inverted and bumped to cancel it out.
【World’s first inner earphone with digital noise cancellation】
https://www.turtlewiz.jp/archives/37168
Borrowing images.
The figure will give you some idea of what it means to reverse and cancel out a wave.
A slightly more technical term for inverting a wave is to invert the phase. This is something that musicians are also aware of when they make music. (They build up the music so that the waves don’t collide.)
So far, I have said it would be easy, but the explanation has been long.
We can assume that the AI app is probably reading the noise wave for you, and then inverting & canceling that noise wave in the earphones.
Since I haven’t actually used it, I don’t know how far it can cancel out noise, but assuming it is at a practical level, I can imagine many cases.
For example,
Turn off only the sound of a noisy dog next door, turn off only the sound of nagging parents, turn off only the sound of recently started construction next door, etc.
If this technology is used well, it may be possible not only to erase, but also to make only specified sounds stand out, as in “make it easier to hear only the voice of your loved one”!
Wear sunglasses to cut out sunlight and UV rays. Just as you filter your vision in this way, this AI application and earphones would be like a filter for your hearing.
I can’t help but imagine that perhaps in the future, other senses, such as smell, taste, and touch, will also be filtered by technology.
Imagining such a future in which the five senses will be entrusted to the digital world, I thought, with an exaggerated sense of humor, that we may be living in a precious time when we are experiencing our senses in an analog, unfiltered, and unadulterated state.
See you then.
Just as the chirping of bellbirds sounds like noise to people overseas, different people define noise differently. What is noise to you? I also wondered if it would be a good idea to eliminate all noise too much.
