Thought Factory

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.

This idea has been rolling around in my head for a while and I’ve heard inklings of it on podcasts such as TWIT and Buzz Out Loud but have never heard/seen it really put together in the way I see it. I keep hearing about how cloud computing is the next big thing, how it is going to take change the we work, and how we will never be tied to computers because everyone will use web apps or desktop apps that sync to the cloud.

The problem with this way of thinking arises when you look at people, like myself, who need to use power hungry applications like photoshop that simply can’t currently function well as a web app. Now, I know that there are options available like Aviary or Adobe’s Photoshop.com but these are, in my opinion, hobbled apps that are just short of what I need in my work flow. What is very interesting however are the emerging technologies like the cloud gaming device/software, OnLive, that promise to bring full fledged, powerhouse computing to you through a minimally spec’ed computer or through a tiny device that can be plugged into your tv. What is amazing about this tech, if it indeed works in the real world environment, is that you will no longer need some incredibly expensive gaming rig to play games at their highest potential.

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