Augmented Sound
All of our five major senses are on the whole time.
There is not one of them that we have to turn on when we want to access it. It is always available.
That’s awesome, good to know, but what does this have to do with the digital world or anything that I am interested in?
Enter Augmented Reality…
Augmented Reality (AR), not to be confused with Virtual Reality or Glass, is the idea of taking this digital world and introducing it to us in our real world in context.
I’ll dive a little more into augmented reality in another post, but one thing I want to bring out here, and this is a fundamental belief of mine, is that we will be controlling — interacting if you will, with this world using primarily our five senses.
These augmented devices will be akin to adding digital sense to ourselves. By adding senses to ourselves we can dramatically increase what we are able to do, and how we able to do things. Our current devices are becoming just that, extensions to our bodies.
Just look at your smartphone.
What happens when you leave it at home?
Have you ever experienced phantom phone? (when you feel a vibration in your pocket when your phone is not there)
Our devices are becoming extensions of our own bodies, so why are they still distracting us?
Why is our digital world trying to compete with the real world around us (RL)?
Augmented Reality, if done right, will address just this problem.
Again, I will go into this, and various other methods that I think will help us overcome this digital isolation another time, but for now I want to focus on the five senses, and mainly hearing, because all the big names seem to be racing to focus on just the one — sight.
“Augmented Sound”
Augmented Sound, an offshoot of AR, is dealing with just this one sense — our hearing.
Nowadays all our devices that we plug into, headphones, earphones, wireless, in-ears, headsets, they all remove us from this world, distancing us away from everyone around us. They all clamour for our attention. To focus on just them solely, and G_d forbid you remove one wire from your ear to hear what the next person is saying, or what is going on in the street around you. How would you ever be able to really get that bass.
Focus on the music.
Focus on the game.
Focus on anything but the people around you.
These have all ‘cut cords’, they are easier to take around, and more unlikely to have that annoying wire caught in the door handle.
But one things neither of them have achieved is sociability. You cannot have a conversation with someone with these in. They effectively tell people that you are busy, you are doing something, and not to annoy them.
What comes next? What take place of that question mark?
This is where Eight comes in.
Eight wants you to be connected to the digital world of sound.
Eight wants to open you up to your world.
Eight is an invisible pair of earphones that is socially acceptable, and comfortable to wear all day long.
Eight is that device that you put on all day and forget about.
And you are allowed to forget about it because it never gets in the way of you and the world surrounding you.
- It does not cut you off from your co-workers.
- It does not stop people from coming and initiating conversation with you.
- It does not have you scrambling in your pocket or purse for your wires.
- It does not have you missing a notification because you couldn’t feel your phone.
- It does not build up pneumatic pressure inside your ear canal, resulting in hearing loss over time.
- It does not have the ‘douchebag’ effect.
- Imagine what happens when you are connected to the digital world of sound — like your ears are.
- Imagine what happens when that connection does not have to be started conciously — but can be turned off whenever you want.
- Imagine what happens when that rich, happening metaverse is fully available to you.
- Imagine what happens when this allows clear spatial, directional sound.
- Imagine what happens when VUI really gets the chance to shine.
- Imagine what happens when you can be notified of things during
a meeting,
speaking to a friend,
on a bike ride,
riding the bus,
doing Crossfit,
or giving a TED talk.
You continuously get massive amounts of sensory data from the real world while doing all these things
— so why is digital sensory data different?
Lets open you up.Lets augment your reality.Nay, lets augment your hearing.
Imagine the possibilities.
