Direct to brain communication Edelman
Just what you need in聽the age of ubiquitous surveillance: the latest cochlear implants will allow users stream audio directly from their iPhone into their cochlear nerve. Apple聽and implant manufacturer Cochlear聽have made聽“Made for iPhone” connectivity聽available for any聽hearing implants that use聽the聽next-generation Nucleus 7 sound processor. The advance means that these implants can also stream music and Netflix shows.
The technology was first unveiled in 2014 when it was聽added to hearing aids such as the Starkey Halo and ReSound LiNX. But this is the first time it’s been linked into the central nervous system.
While some cochlear implants already offer Bluetooth connectivity, these often require users to wear extra聽聽to pick up digital signals, and then rebroadcast them to the hearing aid as radio. This technology simply聽beams the signal right into the brain.
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It’s also a聽better way to use聽Bluetooth. Bluetooth headsets have been commonplace since the early 2000s, but the energy-sapping technology聽has meant they are typically clunky devices with poor battery life.
In 2014, Apple technicians developed a way to stream audio over the low energy Bluetooth format used by wearables such as FitBits.聽Now,聽tiny devices like hearing aids聽–聽and Apple’s Airpods — can stream audio signals for up to a week on a battery the size of an aspirin.
There is a small cost – the audio signal is highly compressed, and can sound much flatter than sounds from typical Bluetooth headsets. That鈥檚 unlikely to be a problem for cochlear implant users, as these devices can only stimulate a limited number of frequencies in the ear anyway聽— because of this low sound quality, .
However, the technology behind the new audio streaming models is likely to be adopted by consumer audio devices. Technology giants are betting heavily on audio interfaces becoming the norm in the future, all the better to further integrate voice-activated assistants such as Siri, OK Google, Cortana and Alexa into our daily routines.
It鈥檚 likely that in the future most of us will wear discreet, 鈥渢ransparent鈥 ear buds that allow us to hear the world around us while also allowing us to field calls, texts, emails, and hear updates and directions directly from our phone.
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