Wired News: Hearing Aids for the Unimpaired

Wired News: Hearing Aids for the Unimpaired: "LONDON -- Hearing aids are not just for deaf people. The much-maligned ear implants also hold the key to a new era in personal audio technology, designers say -- if only they can make them as fashionable as spectacles.

HearWear - The Future of Hearing, a new exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, shows off trendy deaf-tech prototypes like gadgets that can filter out annoying noises and memory glasses that replay the last few seconds of conversation -- handy for wearers who might have missed someone's name"

One of the exhibits, called surround-sound eyewear, uses four microphones built into a pair of glasses to amplify sound depending on which direction the wearer is facing.

"The result is a type of three-dimensional superhuman hearing similar to that found in certain animals such as coyotes," said designer Sam Hecht of London's Industrial Facility. The company harnessed a theory known as "superdirectivity beamforming" to build the specs, projected for release in 2007.

Another concept, the Goldfish, named for its short-term memory, is a set of earphones that would repeat the previous 10 seconds of conversation in case the wearer missed a snippet.

From the same design team, an earphone-linked remote control that can mute sounds coming from whatever it is pointing at could also be just a couple of years away. ..