Can you Hear A Skeleton Earpiece Whilst Wearing Earplugs?

There’s no motive why not. The principle elements of your ears are actually, fundamentally, removed from the hearing practice when  ‘Bonephones’.

A skeleton earpiece is a conveyable speaker system manufactured to bypass the most sensitive parts of the ear to be able to reduce the risk of hearing loss. Based on current research, any noise over 100 decibels causes hearing problems like tinnitus and short-term deafness, even giving you everlasting harm. Your standard iPod can reach sounds as extreme as one hundred fifteen decibels within the US, but here within the UK, special programs restricts most gadgets to approximately 100db.

Anyway, a skeleton earpiece (a technology occasionally known as ‘Bonephones’) can be the best way to listen to your music securely. Patrick J. Kiger of How Stuff Works.com explains the science behind ‘Bonephones’.

“To understand how bone conduction works, you first have to understand how we hear sounds, which we do in two ways: Sound travels in waves through the air. Normally, sound waves travel through several structures in the ear, before being translated and transmitted through our nervous systems to our brains. First, the waves enter the outer ear, or pinna, which is the big flappy piece of cartilage that helps to focus the sound. From there, the sound goes into the air-filled middle ear, which includes the auditory canal and the eardrum, a flap of skin that vibrates when exposed to the energy from sound waves. On the other side of the eardrum, there are three small bones, the ossicles, which are attached to it. They transmit the vibration to the cochlea, a fluid-filled structure that takes those vibrations and converts them to electrical impulses that are sent along the auditory nerve to the brain. But that’s not the only way our body can process sound. Sound waves can also be transmitted through the bones in your head. When the bones vibrate, the sound reaches the cochlea, just as it would by going through the middle ear and eardrum, and results in the same sort of nerve impulses being transmitted to your brain. This method of sound transmission is called bone conduction”

Based on Kiger, the great composer Beethoven utilized a kind of prototype version of this technique. By attaching a rod both to his piano also to his skull, he might ‘hear’ the music he was making, an revolutionary answer that shares equivalent key principle with bone conduction.

‘Bonephones’ should have no effect at all on whether or not a user is wearing earplugs or not, because the part of the ear that is ‘plugged’ is not actually in use.

My very own private reservations concerned the safety to the user of these new headsets, but Kiger affirms that,

“Deborah Price, a doctor of audiology and vice-chair of the Audiology Foundation of America, told Wired in 2004 that bone conduction is “very safe”

Additionally, ‘Bonephones’ are particularly good for our good for the visually impaired user, who might need to play music, audiobooks or additional content without having to hide their ears.

The tech is still comparatively new, but in the interim it appears being perfectly safe and generally in a position to match the fundamental capabilities of a standard set of earbuds, although questions remain about the level of audio quality achieved via this method.

School musical spared by Roots drummer Questlove

Musician Ahmir Khalib Thompson, also called Questlove, has offered to aid to fund the twelve-monthly musical at his old school, the Philadelphia High School for Inventive and The stage Arts (CAPA), it was exposed this week.

Questlove, who plays drums for that Grammy-award winning Hip Hop group ‘The Roots’ (the crew presently occupying the position as house band for US chat TV show ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’), is also a extremely asked for record producer, music journalist and DJ.

The 42-year-old drummer heard that his old school was being forced to cancel their 2013 musical due to funding cuts and opted to ensure that next year’s show wouldn’t suffer an identical destiny.

Thompson actually called the school’s principal, Johnny C. Whaley, JR and offered a “sizeable donation” to ensure that the show would go to the fore next year.

As a result of Questlove’s kindness as well as the hard work of other donors (such as local lawyers Charles Peruto and Abe Kasbo) the college’s annual musical custom is predicted to resume in 2014.

Whaley told KYW Newsradio that Thompson has “reached out to our school in the past and given us equipment”, he went on to say that “you have to understand that we’re an extremely close-knit organization, and when our alumni see things changing, when they possess the fiscal ability to aid, they reach out to us.”

The annual event, that’s an important platform both for CAPA as an establishment and for young talent inside the Philadelphia neighborhood, costs about $65,000 (approximately £42,000) to provide, but is not part of CAPA’s annual budget. “There’s a particular standard of brilliance we now have,” says Whaley of that cost, “We don’t compromise when it comes to production”

The earlier show was funded by The Home and School Association, following a grant from The William Penn Foundation.

CAPA is noted for the fostering of imaginative talent and many of the school’s graduates have gone on to successful careers in arts and leisure. Notable alumni include record-breaking RnB vocal group ‘Boyz II Men’, author and ‘Scrubs’ co-producer Angela Nissel and former James Brown and Sting bassist Christian McBride as well numerous more.

Questlove met and befriended MC and fellow ‘Roots’ cofounder Tariq Trotter (better known as ‘Black Thought’) whilst both were students at CAPA.

Sources:

http://www.okayplayer.com/news/questlove-saves-capa-high-school-play.html

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/05/06/questlove-steps-up-to-ensure-next-years-capa-musical-will-go-on/

http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-06/news/39044128_1_questlove-capa-the-roots

Microsoft window 8 Tablets: What is already available

So it is Christmas and so the Coca Cola truck (yes, one out of the ‘Holidays are Coming’ advertisements) made its route to the city where I live. My friend was overjoyed, whilst I was rather ambivalent, but I went along anyway to keep them company. The bus ride was a solid 30 – 35 minutes away, so we settled in for a journey by sitting in the front of the double decker’s top floor (my favorite position since childhood).

Somehow, a person next to me overheard our conversation and, apropos of nothing, decided to take part (at full, ear splitting, volume). It seems that, it was not enough that I had to talk to him, the entire bus had to listen to him as well. He did not talk so much as publicize himself everywhere, principally when making statements like “this bus service is sh*t!” at the top end of his voice.

Our new pal seemed inordinately happy when the topic of Windows 8 came up and proudly (and noisily) introduced that he had constructed his own computer and downloaded Microsoft’s new os for free. He was very pleased about that exact fact.


In no way one to miss an opportunity, I requested the local bus-banshee how he felt about Windows 8. Unsurprisingly, he loved it on his desktop, but had identical doubts everybody else does about Windows on the pc tablet. After that, we got on quite well in reality. The loud man noisily wished us both a Merry Christmas and we wished him good luck along with his impending move (the one he’d been broadcasting about). I resisted the urge to apologise to the bus driver when we arrived at our getaway, (his bus service had not been sh*t in the slightest).


Far be it from me to employ the testimony of this crazy man I met on the bus for a tool for judging the success of a multi million Dollar information technology venture, I have asked a couple of other, less mad, people as well. They all say the same point.

It appears that Windows RT would be the real judge, jury and possible assassin for Microsoft’s latest venture. In meantime, if you want a Microsoft window 8 pc tablet, but are a bit dissuaded with the assorted response, here’s our review of the Microsoft window 8 tablets up to now:

The Microsoft Surface, despite lots of media attention and high expectations, may be a mixed bag. The general consensus seems to be that the hardware is superb and very well developed, but Microsoft window 8 just doesn’t hold up to close examination. Frankly, the most important mistake Microsoft have made here’s to compete with a apple ipad on price. If ever the tablet pc was a lttle bit less expensive, they might have a high-spec, viable substitute to Apple’s world-beater. Instead, they’ve a tablet pc that costs as much as the iPad, but is not nearly as user friendly or universally praised. It’s not bad, nonetheless it’s not quite the flagship product that its parent company was planning.

The Asus Vivo Tab, the next out of the gate, was another mixed bag. Windows RT does it a couple of favours, however it does not come anywhere near the Microsoft surface in hardware terms and, in consequence, does feel a little bit overpriced.

Elsewhere, the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga is kind of pleasant. Although it’s nowhere near fast enough for difficult functions like gaming, the Ideapad is comparatively affordable, has a fantastic screen and also the keyboard can change happily between ‘tablet’ and ‘laptop’ modes with total ease. The Yoga is a great decision for someone who likes laptop computers but still wants to get a pc tablet.

The Samsung Ativ is sweet, but the cost, quite frankly, is a joke (and not an particularly funny one either). Elsewhere, the Acer Iconia 700 might be the most effective all rounder on this list, but it is ridiculously costly (although not in comparison to its upcoming rivals, several of which may actually scrape the dizzying heights of £900+). It also suffers considerably from having no SD card slot.

All told, we are still waiting for the first ‘classic’ Windows 8 pc tablet. Microsoft need to see the materialization of the tablet that brings out the very best in their new software. Essentially, they need the model that produces it all worthwhile.

Now, I can’t help them invent their dream machine, when they have someone who can put a computer together (with Microsoft window 8 thrown in free of charge), It looks like I’d know a man…