earpods (can you iHear me now?)

and then i'm thinking -- whenever you have developing technologies with expanding bandwidth, you always get a similar progression of media types: first text, then graphix, then audio, then video. the first time that happened was "telegraph, telephone, television" but we saw it on the Internet (email, web, iTunes, YouTube), and again in mobile (texting, camera-phones, music-phones, iPhone video).

AND SO it stands to reason, that if wearable computing technology follows the same pattern (and i suspect only global catastrophic economic collapse can prevent it), there will first be an audio version of Vinge's network-connected visual displays -- a virtual audio reality, let's say -- and in fact, we are already seeing prototypes of this technology in Bluetooth stereo headsets.

well, this idea has obvious implications for mobile game audio, and so I talked about it at Austin GDC. Not long after that, i expanded on the concept for a presentation at AES NYC ... and was amazed by the number of conference attendees who were already working on parts of the idea.

there's (fellow o'reilly blogger) keith weiner of DiamondWare: 3D stereo processing for voice networks, currently available in Second Life, perfect for enhanced conference calling. there were the nokia guys doing research on automatic mixing of multiple audio streams for cell phone networks. there were the guys making custom-molded industrial-safety earplugs with bluetooth receivers built-in. there was even the motorola guy who came up after my session to say that the fictional functionality i'd been describing actually existed in the bluetooth spec ... but nobody had implemented it yet.

BUT THEN i went to BBQ, and as usual, i went with a mission: here we have a gathering of 50 of the smartest, coolest, funkiest, people you'd ever hope to meet, all experts in their various fields of interactive audio, and i really wanted to hear what they had to say on the subject. the group talked, and listened, and ate, and drank, and shot off weaponry (the conference is in texas, after all), and made noise, and discussed, and argued, and hemmed, and hawed, and ate and drank some more ...

finally, we got up and did a little song and dance about our discussions. remember, this was a group of really really smart guys, and they took the idea and ran with it further than i could have imagined (did imagine, actually). some of the main points:

• earpods: forget stereo headsets! here's what you really want - a device designed to fit comfortably in your ear, with a speaker, a microphone, ultra-wideband radio, and gigabytes of memory (heck, throw in GPS and an accelerometer while you're at it). basically, take your current cell phone with headset attached, and miniaturize the whole thing down to the size of a wireless earbud -- one in each ear for stereo.

  

  they automatically connect to the network, and to each other. you can listen to music, either from memory like an iPod, or streamed in from the web. when you talk on the phone, your conversation is received in high-resolution stereo, for clearer conversations and enhanced conferencing. however, music / phone applications are only the most obvious uses ...
  

• voice control: i'm sure there are some who will prefer to work with a physical/visual interface, a touch-screen or comm badge, but since there are no moving parts, and no external controls, earpods will mostly be operated by voice command. this technology is already available for automotive phone and stereo systems, and so should be fairly commonplace and reliable by the time earpods come to market. "phone home," "play music shuffle," and "turn mics on," will be some of the most common commands.
  

• noise cancellation: you can't fly these days without sitting near someone wearing noise-suppressing headphones. the concept is simple: record external sound and play it back inverted, thereby cancelling the energy of the wave (note: easy to describe, hard to do). now add that functionality to a pair of earpods! you could hear the most quiet passages of a Yo Yo Ma cello suite while sitting next to a jet engine, or talk on the phone in a regular voice while working on a construction site. it's like having your own portable sound-proof booth; just duck in when you want to make a call, it disappears when you hang up.
  

• rewind: i love this one! since you've got stereo mic input and gigabytes of storage, how about a rolling 5 minute (or 5 hour) audio buffer ... a continuous "court stenographer" that lets you playback anything you've ever heard. someone tells you a great joke -- voice command "save buffer" stores it in a date, time, and geo-tagged file, for later retrieval (and sharing). your mind wanders during a boring lecture -- play it back (fast-forward!) to hear what's going to be on the test. record directions to your next destination, coordinate with GPS -- and never get lost again.
  

• conversation: what happens when "talking to the person standing in front of you" is the same audio experience as talking to a person on the other side of the room, or down the hall, or down the street, or in another city? imagine: a man and a woman get separated at a noisy party, or a convention, or a protest march - the man can talk to people nearby, but he can also monitor her conversation, and join in as if she were standing next to him, even though she's "over there, somewhere." how will business meetings, multi-player games, and social interactions, change when the difference between a phone call, a conference, and a tête-à-tête becomes blurred?
  

• social consequences: will be profound! if everything you hear is always recorded, if your phone can be active with no external indication, if your main lines of communication can be tapped or hacked, the potential for Big Brother abuse grows exponentially. privacy concerns loom, piracy is facilitated, and safety issues escalate (hopefully, by the time earpods replace cell phones, cars will be driving themselves!) new forms of public and private behaviour will develop; work and personal relationships will evolve based on previously nonexistent modes of communication; new digital divides (those that can iHear vs those that can't) will deepen.

nevertheless, Personal Audio Network technology seems to be so mind-bogglingly useful, i suspect the technical and cultural problems will be resolved quickly, ingeniously, and profitably. there will always be old farts who grumble about "the good old days (when you couldn't hear nothin' but the wind)," but those who adopt this new medium (kids and uber-geeks at first) will seem to acquire super-sonic super-powers. they'll be able to hear more and better than mere mortals, communicate faster and more efficiently than their auricularly-unenhanced colleagues, and be interconnected in ways we can't even imagine.

eventually, not wearing earpods will be like not having a phone or a computer - you won't be able to do business without them. you'll simply control your audio environment as if you were in a mobile recording studio, enhancing one track while muting others, mixing and modulating sounds to suit your needs, talking and listening and interacting with wireless voice/data networks all around you.

now, i have no idea how long it will be before this kind of technology becomes commonplace, but here's one thing i do know: when Vernor Vinge's heads-up visual displays become available -- they'll have earpod connections built-in!

   - pdx