Alt Visions Blog

I was walking down the street the other day, listening to my iPod and complaining to myself about the stupid plugs I had stuck in my ears. The ear buds are uncomfortable, always get tangled up, and they inhibit my awareness of what’s going on around me. So, I started thinking about how they could be better or how they might work in the future. I then remembered about a sound weapon under development by the U.S. military and it hit me: maybe the headphones of the future won’t be headphones at all!

The technology I’m referring to is called MEDUSA or Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio and it works by projecting microwaves that are converted to sound when they interact with your head so no one else can hear the sound except you. The military is, of course, developing this to send excruciating sound directly into your head to incapacitate or deter you. This device currently fits onto a tank but think if the same tech further evolved into a gadget that you could clip onto your shirt. From there, it would interface with your digital media player and pump the sound directly into your head. If it worked the way I think it should, you would hear it as if there was a radio playing in the room with you. Only you could hear the music and you could also pick up on any other sounds in the room. But, what if you want to cancel out the background noise? I would think that because the sound is going directly into your head, you would be able to just put in ear plugs and voilà, sound isolated music. You could basically have your own personal sound system playing for you where ever you go. You could actually have a sound track for your life. Sounds pretty cool to me. Let me know what you think.