Translator: Keith McElveen Reviewer: Emma Gon
Isn't human hearing amazing?
As long as those around you are quiet, you can probably hear me loud and clear.
And if you have normal hearing,
even if they started talking, you could still hear me.
Scientists call this ability to hear through a crowd
the "cocktail party effect."
It is like having a superpower.
Of course, my story didn't start in a cocktail party.
It actually began during a war crimes investigation.
Back at the end of the Cold War,
I was asked to analyze some audio recordings
for evidence of war crimes.
Now, these recordings were pretty bad.
They sounded like a crowd of people all talking at once.
After spending a quarter of a million dollars
and nearly a year working on them,
I was only able to pull out a few voices.
That's how my story started.
Now, for the last 25 years, I, along with others,
have been looking for better ways to pull voices out of crowds.
We found one
by studying something that's even more common than needing glasses,
hearing loss.
Now, most people probably associate hearing loss
with needing things to be louder, and that does help sometimes.
That's why hearing aids were invented in the first place, right?
To make things louder.
Now, the ear trumpet was a wonderful invention,
but once electronic hearing aids came out, they rapidly replaced the trumpet.
(Laughter)
But there's still one thing in particular that hearing aids still have trouble with:
hearing in crowds.
Why is that?
Try this with me and you'll see.
I want you to hold your arms out straight.
Now, bend one elbow a bit.
Turn your hands over and point your index fingers at each other.
Close one eye.
Now, using only your shoulders -
no cheating -
I want you to quickly touch your fingertips together.
That didn't work so well.
(Laughter)
Let's do it again, but this time do it with both eyes open.
Even I can do it, and I'm nervous.
(Laughter)
What did we learn?
That you need two eyes to see in 3-D.
Why?
So your depth perception
can help you focus on and distinguish objects.
Guess what?
Your ears work the same way. You need two ears to hear in 3-D
so that you can focus on and distinguish sounds.
Well, would making things louder help that?
Using what we just learned,
would making this picture bigger help your depth perception?
No.
And that is why I had so much trouble with those war crime recordings,
and it's also why people with hearing loss
have trouble hearing in crowds, even if they have hearing aids.
Like my dad.
At home, he could just turn the television up louder.
If people complained, he put his hearing aids in.
Problem solved.
If you ask me what technology has saved the most marriages,
I'd have to say hearing aids.
(Laughter).
Because it ended the argument over how loud the television is.
But when he went out somewhere crowded,
what happened?
He put his hearing aids in his pocket, right?
Folded his hands, withdrew,
and looked around, passing the time.
Why?
Because making lots of voices louder didn't help his depth perception.
If he left them in, well, he got tired very quickly,
he got distracted by conversations at other tables,
and shouted at the waitstaff when they came by.
Or take my friend Noah.
He's got many stories about living without 3-D hearing.
Like the time he was at the airport in the body scanner.
You know the position.
Except this is Noah.
He can tell that someone is talking to him,
but he can't tell what's being said.
Of course, it's the TSA agent,
"Sir, I said face forward!"
Noah...
"Face forward, sir!"
It didn't go well from there.
He missed his flight, but at least he didn't get arrested.
These are the types of problems
that 466 million people go through every day.
Think about it.
That's more people than live in the entire United States of America
have so much hearing loss that they are disabled.
And when did it start?
As early as age six.
More when they get to their 30s.
More when they get to their 50s.
I'm one of them.
I have trouble distinguishing voices every day.
Just ask my kids.
(Laughter)
And I've got bad news for you.
One day, you'll likely be one of them too.
Now, we went looking for technologies
that could help with this problem,
to help people like my dad, like Noah, like me.
And we investigated this technology that lets you hear in 3-D.
Now, if you've ever watched a game of American football on television,
you'll have seen the technology that lets you hear the quarterback
all the way from the sidelines.
It's called a parabolic dish.
It looks like a large salad bowl with handles.
Now, that dish is special.
It's got the right size and the shape to focus on and distinguish sounds.
Unfortunately, carrying one of those around all of the time
might become a bit awkward.
What we needed was something that worked like this dish
but wasn't so dishy.
So, we came up with the idea of replacing the dish with microphones,
spread widely enough in patterns inspired by math and physics,
with some clever computing,
that could actually distinguish sounds even better than the dish.
Now, that's very useful.
But to make it convenient,
we needed to put the microphones in something.
We came up with the idea of clothes.
After all, most of us do wear clothes when we're in crowds.
At least I do.
(Laughter)
So, companies were already experimenting with putting electronics in garments
to do things like measure your heartbeat or your respiration
or control your phone.
Okay. So, what did we do?
We sewed tiny microphones into various garments,
along with the electronics that they needed.
Basically, we invented underwear
that overhears.
(Laughter)
It worked!
Now, at the beginning,
our early concept garments were not very fashionable,
but we've gotten better over time.
And thanks to the involvement of some nearby universities
that have cutting-edge textile programs,
we're finally able to actually make a standard t-shirt and camisole
that anybody could wear without embarrassment,
and even wash.
Now, there have been lots of great ideas
that worked wonderfully well in the laboratory
but then failed when they get into the real world.
So, we went to the types of real-world places
that drove my dad crazy, like crowded restaurants.
I'm going to play you a recording of what it sounds like
if you don't have any 3-D hearing and you're in such a place.
(Indistinguishable voices in crowded restaurant)
Got that?
Well, let's try it again with super-powered clothes.
(One voice over crowd) "We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
lying quietly at your ease."
It wasn't just me and my friends testing it,
we also went to people
who have lived their lives with disabling hearing loss
and let them try it in those same types of places.
This is Wendy. She has no hearing in one ear.
She wore the clothes, went into a crowded coffee shop
and heard her order being called out from all the way across the room.
So, the story began with a Cold War cocktail party problem.
And during our journey, we learned a lot about a superpower -
our 3-D hearing -
and how to replace it with technology.
So, what I'd like you to do with this story is to be proactive
and to protect your superpower from harmful noises,
from infections, from medications.
And if you notice somebody having trouble hearing loud and clear,
remember that there are super-powered clothes
that could save their day.
Hi, Noah, can you hear me?
Noah: Loud and clear!
Thank you!
(Applause)