Science & Technology

Deaf man is able to hear using Wi-Fi signals

By T.K. Randall
November 20, 2014 ·  3 comments

The system uses a mobile phone to send the audio to a hearing aid. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 kalleboo The 32-year-old teamed up with sound artist Daniel Jones to create "Phantom Terrains", a tool that can convert Wi-Fi signals in to noise through a smartphone and then output it to a hearing aid.

The system, which was developed thanks to a grant from UK innovation charity Nesta, can pick up specific details about nearby signals and assign each one a unique sonic tone.

With it Swain is able to build up a Wi-Fi map as he walks around."It was a big blow to learn I was going deaf at such a young age, but through this project I've seen that actually I can use the situation I'm in to my advantage, and explore abilities that nobody else gets to experience," he said.

"I don't feel like I've lost something any more, instead I feel like I've gained something."

Swain believes that with the rise in voice activated systems like Siri it might not be long before we see a lot more people wearing earpieces designed to communicate information from a smartphone.

"We're reaching a new stage of how we interact with our devices," he said.

Source: Independent | Comments (3)

Tags: Deaf, Hearing, Wi-Fi