I want a hackable hearing aid for three reasons: disability compensation, protection, and augmentation. I was hoping to get one this year, but that seems unlikely now.
This body is considerably more sensitive to strong stimuli than average human bodies, due to a syndrome known as autism. Sounds such as a pneumatic cylinder opening a bus door or a whistle during applause cause it acute pain, though that pain fades immediately — the main difference from the pain of, for example, barking one’s shins on a pipe. Moreover, continued stimulation at a lower level, such as the traffic noise outside the window, cause continued low-level stress.
Earplugs mechanically block high-frequency sounds, reaching attenuations of some 30 dB above around 200–400 Hz, but they are helpless against sounds below 100 Hz. Complementarily, noise-canceling headphones like the Bose QuietComfort 25 can attenuate low-frequency sounds by some 30 dB by generating cancelation waves, but this benefit starts to roll off above some 100 Hz.
A hearing aid with noise-cancelation firmware offers both benefits at once, and has the major benefit that it is socially acceptable; the other humans will tolerate it considerably better than they will tolerate a human wearing earplugs or headphones during a conversation. Also, they can offer customizable nonlinear and time-variable attenuation curve, for example performing no attenuation while sound levels are under 60 dBa.
Hearing-aid earmolds are also safe and comfortable to wear for many hours a day, while disposable earplugs tend to cause irritation and even pain after more than an hour or three.
Aside from the pure pain, loud noises can also cause ear damage, and in the same way that earplugs and noise-cancelation headphones can prevent pain, they can also prevent damage.
A hearing aid with wireless communication can provide a private audio output channel from personal computers (pocket and otherwise), for example to provide alerts, reminders, or query results. Furthermore, it can also provide a private audio input channel to personal pocket computers, since it has a microphone; use as a substitute for Bell’s Telephone is one possibility. Autonomous computing operation, including peer-to-peer Bluetooth communication, is another whole class of potential uses.
As discussed in Bokeh pointcasting, a private bidirectional communication channel to an external computing resource can, under some circumstances, save your life — the case considered there was sounding an alarm during armed home invasion.
Cocktail-party beamforming, perhaps using a chest-mounted microphone array, might enable this body to participate in social events it is currently excluded from, due to its inability to understand anything anyone is saying.
With ultrasound-capable microphones, simple heterodyning software could make bat calls audible. Other forms of “extrasensory perception” are implementable: detection of magnetic fields, electric fields, radio waves, carbon monoxide, anoxic atmospheres, objects such as motorcyclists rapidly approaching from behind, and so on.
Such intimate integration of a computer into a human life demands extreme caution about privacy and computer security problems, given the deplorable state of human computer security.
All of this is limited by battery considerations, though perhaps a flat-flex cable from the hearing aid taped to the back of the neck with flesh-colored tape could provide access to a much larger battery in, say, a pocket; energy-harvesting antennas may also be an option.