[HN Gopher] Vibrating vests translate music for deaf concertgoer...
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       Vibrating vests translate music for deaf concertgoers (2023)
        
       Author : sargstuff
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2024-03-02 20:06 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (techxplore.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (techxplore.com)
        
       | krzat wrote:
       | It's fascinating how plug & play our brain is. Just consistently
       | supply information to it and voila, you have a new sense.
       | 
       | One day we may have a marketplace where you can purchase a sense
       | of north or your spouse's body temperature, it will be
       | interesting and weird.
        
         | Vecr wrote:
         | The sense of north is (was) already a thing. It kind of sucked
         | though, and injecting a HUD into the front of a night vision
         | tube is a lot more practical.
        
           | edwcross wrote:
           | I've seen a few hacky projects (e. g.
           | https://www.carlosterminel.com/wearable-compass) over the
           | years about haptic belts, and I've been wanting to try one of
           | these, but I've never seen them commercialized. Have you
           | tried them? Otherwise, could you please describe why the
           | sense of north "kind of sucked"?
           | 
           | In my experience, having a flagship Android phone with
           | unreliable compass such that I cannot even get my bearings
           | when leaving a subway station, is extremely annoying. Such a
           | belt would seem more useful to me.
        
         | vincnetas wrote:
         | There are languages without the terms "Left, Right, Front, and
         | Behind." These cultures use "North, South, East, and West"
         | their whole lives no matter if they are in a room or in the
         | woods. The result is a compass brain. They always know how they
         | are oriented.
         | 
         | https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.htm...
        
           | hinkley wrote:
           | I'm curious how or if that affects physical training, like
           | gymnastics or martial arts.
        
             | hanniabu wrote:
             | No, they don't magically have some sense of north. They're
             | just used to using it so much that they have a lot of
             | points of reference to know which direction is which no
             | matter where they are.
        
               | anononaut wrote:
               | It's just a succinct abstraction.
        
               | arjvik wrote:
               | Not necessarily just a sense of reference, but also a
               | practice of always keeping in mind what direction one is
               | when changing direction (mentally summing up the deltas
               | in direction).
               | 
               | I do this when driving - I always know what direction I'm
               | headed, even in an unfamiliar place (unless there are a
               | ton of non-right-angle turns that confuse me, and then I
               | have to check a map).
        
               | hinkley wrote:
               | Blocking a punch or doing a kata also has no concept of
               | north. It's usually bilateral. So if you don't have left
               | or right... Do you pretend your face is north and
               | instruct that way?
        
               | thfuran wrote:
               | I'm not sure what you mean. Whichever way you happen to
               | be facing, you can use an earth-relative coordinate
               | system to disambiguate limbs rather than a person-
               | relative one. I guess don't practice martial arts while
               | standing on the north or south pole and you'll be fine.
        
           | cebu wrote:
           | Others do not have language for absolute directions. The
           | Murrinhpatha in Australia. https://www.degruyter.com/document
           | /doi/10.1515/opli-2016-000... I think the Piraha may only use
           | directions relative to the river
        
       | radarsat1 wrote:
       | Reminds me of Cutaneous Grooves (2003)
       | 
       | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1076/jnmr.32.4.369.18...
       | 
       | Although that idea was more about using haptics as a medium to
       | compose explicitly for rather than translate existing music to.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Url changed from
       | https://old.reddit.com/r/gadgets/comments/15b1d3z/vibrating_...,
       | which points to this.
        
       | gnicholas wrote:
       | This guy does a lot of great work on sensory substitution. [1] He
       | runs a company that makes tools that help with tinnitus and other
       | chronic issues/disabilities, and he writes books about the brain.
       | 
       | 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1lqFXHvqI
        
       | whartung wrote:
       | I wonder if they would need a vest at the last hard rock/metal
       | concert I went to.
       | 
       | Sheesh, I think they almost blew off my glasses with one of their
       | drum/bass hits that night.
       | 
       | Its interesting that now we have tech to let the deaf participate
       | in concert events while at the same time you have folks like me
       | cramming earplugs as deep as they'll go to be able to enjoy them
       | comfortably.
        
         | 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
         | Not even just concerts. I went to a movie theater recently and
         | could not believe how deafeningly loud it was. This was for a
         | stupid comedy film, not a boomy action flick.
        
         | RajT88 wrote:
         | The show which you could feel the music the most (at least that
         | I have been to) is GWAR.
         | 
         | You'd think they wouldn't have great audio guys working on
         | their shows, but you'd be wrong. The drums, the guitars, the
         | bass, it all rumbles through you in the best way.
         | 
         | If you're deaf, go check out a GWAR show! Bring a rain poncho,
         | if you're not familiar with the band.
        
         | chiph wrote:
         | I used to work for the firm that sells "The Vest", which helps
         | people with cystic fibrosis and other lung problems clear their
         | airways (I worked on a different product).
         | 
         | It rapidly inflates/deflates to vibrate the chest cavity (not
         | unlike attending a metal concert and standing in front of the
         | speaker stack) to dislodge mucus. Using it can significantly
         | increase the life span of people who haven't/can't have a lung
         | transplant.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rZbDcPiJv0
        
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