Soundtrack to Life

These headphones sound sort of fun, in an artsy-way, and in fact are not an original idea, but I personally enjoy the juxtaposition of random iTunes offerings on my iPod and the urban infrastructure. I don't turn the volume up so loud as to drown everything out (which would be dangerous on a bike), I just enhance my movie with a soundtrack.
SelfPortrait Headphones Warholesque

The Ambient Walkman A graduate student at the M.I.T. Media Lab has created a pair of headphones that tunes the listener back in to the world around him.

The device, which Vawter calls Ambient Addition, consists of two headphones with transparent earpieces, each equipped with a microphone and a speaker. The microphones sample the background noise in the immediate vicinity — wind blowing through the trees, traffic, a cellphone conversation. Then, with the help of a small digital signal-processing chip, the headphones make music from these sounds. For instance, percussive sounds like footsteps and coughs are sequenced into a stuttering pattern, and all the noises are tuned so that they fuse into a coherent, slowly changing set of harmonies.


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This page contains a single entry by Seth A. published on December 12, 2006 8:18 PM.

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