Frank Swain has been going deaf over the last 12 years and when fitted for hearing aids, he felt the “world didn’t sound like it should; it was completely different.” To enhance his hearing, he modified his hearing aids to be able translate wireless frequencies into sound as part of an experimental project, Phantom Terrains. The project’s goal is to “challenge the notion of assistive hearing technology as a prosthetic, reimagining it as an enhancement that can surpass the ability of normal human hearing.”
Working with sound artist, Daniel Jones, the team used a hacked iPhone’s Wi-Fi sensor to detect data from Wi-Fi hotspots including a router name, signal strength, encryption and distance. The data is then translated into an audio stream that is blended with the normal output of Swain’s hearing aids.
Read more about how wi-fi data is being translated into sound.
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