[fb-exchange] Bone Conduction Headphones
- From: "Dominique Farrell" <hollyandopal@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <fb-exchange@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 28 Apr 2013 22:48:23 +0100
Sometimes, a good sales pitch can begin with a story. What follows is a story
about someone I met at the recent CSUN13 conference. If you can stay with me
until the end, I will try to make it worth your while.
One morning during the conference week while sitting alone at the Grand Hyatt
Starbucks, at a tiny table adjacent to the busy lobby coffee bar, a voice said,
"Excuse me, Mind if I join you?"
I looked up. "Of course not," I answered, hurriedly clearing away the detritus
of my coffee and muffin. "Thanks," he said. "Tables are at a premium here."
We introduced ourselves, and he asked if I was attending the conference. I said
yes, then realized that I had not noticed that he was using a service dog, nor
did he seem to have a white cane. "Are you?" I asked. "Are you exhibiting? A
vendor?"
"Not exactly," he explained. "But I'm here to market my product to the blind
community. Here. Let me show you." Then, he placed something on the table in
front of me. "It's a pair of headphones," he said.
I picked up a feather-light, super-streamlined piece of gear, noticing
immediately that it resembled no pair of headphones I had ever seen. "They're
called bone-conduction headphones," he continued. "Let me put them on you." He
placed the headphones around the back of my neck, placing what would normally
be the portion worn over the ears at my temporal bone instead. Then, I
experienced a surreal sensation. I was hearing both full volume music coming
from the headphones, along with the ambient noise of the crowded coffee shop. I
could.feel.the sound, while not only hearing it, but also being fully aware of
the activity around me.
Dennis Taussig is the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer VP
of AfterShokz, a company that has produced the world's first open ear bone
-conduction headphones for runners, cyclists, sports enthusiasts, and now,
thanks to the blind community, an ingenious application for us, too.
Originally, the technology was created by VoxTech, one of the leading companies
in the world to supply this technology to the military. Dennis worked on a
number of projects with the principle of Voxtech, and one day Dennis was
contacted to find out if a consumer version of this technology was possible.
Within months, a company was formed, and AfterShokz made it's debut at the
Consumer Electronics show )International CES in January, 2012.
AfterShokz bone- conduction headphones are ideal for anyone who wants to
maintain situational awareness while still listening to important audio cues,
such as that which is provided by text-to-speech GPS navigation devices. You
can travel to your destination while hearing instructions from your iPad or
iPhone, listen to music or a podcast while on a bus, or work out at the gym to
your favorite motivational guru and still hear the tap of your white cane, the
driver call out your bus stop, or your personal trainer counting off the reps.
It's a fascinating product, and Dennis credits the blind community with
providing the ideas that expanded the business.
"I was getting calls from people who are blind," says Taussig. "And they kept
asking if the headphones could be used with their Bluetooth devices for
navigation."
Since his exposure to the disability community, Dennis has gone "all in" with
respect to his commitment to accessibility. He volunteers at Syracuse
University working with disabled students, and he has assisted educators to
enable their blind students to learn math by providing the headphones so that
the students can hear their screen reader and the professor at the same time.
"They're not cut off from the teacher, nor the teacher from them," Dennis
explains.
The sonification lab at Georgia Tech has conducted a study on teaching systems
for blind students, who are learning math graphing using audio.
AfterShokz is providing equipment for the testing, enabling the students to
hear the sonification and teacher at the same time.
Dennis wants these headphones to be available to all of us, and he is so
emphatic that they should not be financially out of reach that he has permitted
me to offer my readers a generous discount towards the purchase of AfterShokz.
Go to the AfterShokz web site at
www.aftershokz.com
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