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AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

washington.edu

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Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#371

Post by itsoktocry »

duped wrote: post #362
londons_explore wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> restaurants can have good sound design, but it doesn't come cheap. Carpet the ceiling and the walls. Super cheap, super effective. Ideally carpet the floor too - and if you use carpet tiles then when a customer spills something uncleanable on a tile it's a 5 minute non-expert job to pull up a tile and put in a new one.

> Carpet the ceiling and the walls. Super cheap, super effective. Super dangerous and illegal, too. The reason that professionals don't do this is because no one will permit it, not because there's some scam on acoustic foam and diffusers... well there is but it's not the acousticians' fault. It's a massive fire hazard.

>It's a massive fire hazard.

You mean we haven't figured out a material that both dampens sound and is fire resistant?

Being as how the former quality is pretty easy, I find this hard to believe.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#372

Post by duped »

brulard wrote: post #369
duped wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carpet the ceiling and the walls. Super cheap, super effective. Super dangerous and illegal, too. The reason that professionals don't do this is because no one will permit it, not because there's some scam on acoustic foam and diffusers... well there is but it's not the acousticians' fault. It's a massive fire hazard.

source? Seems like with this logic, wood, wallpapers etc. would be illegal as well. Doesn't make sense to me

My source is the IBC section 803 (1), which I only know about because I've had the misfortune of needing to know about getting building permits for acoustically treating an office space in my career (which itself is a long and boring story about a failed startup).

The way the building code is written doesn't explicitly ban any material from walls/ceilings, but rather sets the constraints on the performance of the material when exposed to heat. There are higher limits for walls/ceilings than for floors because flames climb. Wall coverings (including wall paper and its glue) have to be flame retardant to meet code. There have been some infamous fires in the past, which is why this code exists (building codes are written in blood, as they say).

Most carpet doesn't go on walls, so it doesn't meet code, unlike wallpaper. And building inspectors are conservative people that are unlikely to permit you to do anything weird, even if you can prove by the letter of the IBC that some material is up to snuff.

(1) https://codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2021P2/chapter-8-interi...

Scroll down to see the details on wall textiles, specifically.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#374

Post by duped »

itsoktocry wrote: post #371
duped wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carpet the ceiling and the walls. Super cheap, super effective. Super dangerous and illegal, too. The reason that professionals don't do this is because no one will permit it, not because there's some scam on acoustic foam and diffusers... well there is but it's not the acousticians' fault. It's a massive fire hazard.

> It's a massive fire hazard. You mean we haven't figured out a material that both dampens sound and is fire resistant? Being as how the former quality is pretty easy, I find this hard to believe.

No we have this, it just isn't as cheap as floor carpeting.

In fact, if you ever DIY some acoustic gobos or panels, rockwool insulation is about the best material you can find at the hardware store. But like another comment mentioned there are other concerns in commercial spaces, like cleaning/dusting.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#375

Post by buildsjets »

brulard wrote: post #369
duped wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carpet the ceiling and the walls. Super cheap, super effective. Super dangerous and illegal, too. The reason that professionals don't do this is because no one will permit it, not because there's some scam on acoustic foam and diffusers... well there is but it's not the acousticians' fault. It's a massive fire hazard.

source? Seems like with this logic, wood, wallpapers etc. would be illegal as well. Doesn't make sense to me

Does one hundred dead bodies count as a source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#376

Post by duderific »

floatrock wrote: post #232
superultra wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not hear anyone in any crowded situation. At middle age I thought my hearing was leaving. Yet every audiologist I went to said my hearing was fine. So I found the best audiologist in my fairly large metro area, and scheduled a year in advance (the wait list was that long). After a whole day of tests the audiologist comes in and says I have good news and bad news and good bad news. The good news is that my hea…

> restaurant and public space designers have stopped thinking about sound. Most bars opened in the last 15 years have cement floors, very little sound insulation, and they’re based on the idea that you’re not having a good time unless your ears are ringing. Recently listened to a really good podcast about this phenomenon https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gastropod/id918896288?... (or pick your favorite podcast ap…

> Loud restaurants are damaging for the waitstaff's health. You can work for hours in an environment so loud that OSHA would demand hearing protection.

I should preface by saying that I have some existing tinnitus that developed from playing drums in rock bands in my 20's without proper ear protection. It's manageable and quiet enough that it can be largely ignored.

Recently I visited Las Vegas, and I ate at the well known restaurant Tao. It was so incredibly loud, for a sustained period of time, that it triggered the tinnitus in my left ear to such an extent that I was essentially deaf in my left ear the next morning. It gradually receded to loud ringing, and then was back to my "normal" level of tinnitus after a couple of weeks.

I guess I'll have to bring my own hearing protection to restaurants now. Kind of a sad state of affairs.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#377

Post by Arrath »

albert_e wrote: post #367
simmons wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the name of this disorder and link! I've also had this my whole life, and I knew it was a thing that wasn't terribly rare (based on reading comments from others in the past, here on HN and elsewhere), but I think this is the first time I've seen a name for this condition. The Wikipedia page seems to really describe my condition, except for the potential overlap with ADHD. For example, the "difficulty fo…

One thing I feel in my personal experience -- while I am doing something -- inability to switch attention to someone speaking to me if they do not first ask for my attention (excuse me / hello / myname / cough / knock) before diving into speaking in sentences. very often by the time i start paying attention to them speaking -- they are 4-5 words into their sentence and I have missed the context of what they are talki…

This describes well something I've learned about myself. I just figured it was excessive focus, to the point of drowning out the outside world.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#378

Post by doctorwho42 »

superultra wrote: post #185
serial_dev wrote: post #162

If the size could shrink to the size of a small earplug, I'd love to use this as a person who is not hearing-impaired (at least they couldn't diagnose me with it, so now I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well) . In groups and with friends, it's inevitable that you end up in a busy restaurant or a bar, and it always frustrates me th…

I could not hear anyone in any crowded situation. At middle age I thought my hearing was leaving. Yet every audiologist I went to said my hearing was fine. So I found the best audiologist in my fairly large metro area, and scheduled a year in advance (the wait list was that long). After a whole day of tests the audiologist comes in and says I have good news and bad news and good bad news. The good news is that my hea…

I am like you, I have extremely sensitive hearing.

My solution to this problem is to carry on my keychain a pair of concert rated hearing protection earbuds. It's not a perfect solution, but you'd be surprised at how helpful it is to have some highs and lows filtered out.

Only downside beyond not being perfect, is people tend to think I put them in to block sound entirely. So I usually end up fielding questions about what they are, with a resulting 'man that's a smart idea'

Ymmv

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#379

Post by eks391 »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #321
0_____0 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the SNR is already low enough that you're having issues discerning speech, lowering the volume won't help.

Ha. Classic techie parachuting in and incorrectly intuiting how something works. Show me earplugs that REDUCE equally across all frequencies and I’ll invest every dollar I have to my name.

> Show me earplugs that REDUCE equally across all frequencies and I’ll invest every dollar I have to my name.

It has been a long time since I worked tangentially with frequencies, but IIRC it physically isn't possible to block/dampen all frequencies of sound. Although due to different physical phenomena, this is why everything has a color and nothing is truly black - it is impossible for a material to suck in every wavelength of light.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#380

Post by bigfudge »

jefurii wrote: post #328
kk6mrp wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a good earplug recommendation?

I like Etymotic ( https://www.etymotic.com ). The design lowers the decibels without affecting the sound too much. I used to play in a band with a drummer who always wore their high-end plugs which you have to have molded to your ear canals, but they also make cheaper standardized ones that do a good job.

The cheap etymotic plugs are great value. I always have a pair on my keyring. The advantage over foam plugs is that the attenuation is more linear so you don’t feel so weird wearing them.
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