Read how to use a 3D printer to make a model of a sound bite on the makezine.com web site.

A company called Soundhawk is about to release their product Scoop which is an earpiece that looks similar to a bluetooth headset, but far more powerful. The device is intended to augment your hearing and remove background noise from speech.

The web site engadget.com has a good review article of the product.

For those of you into retro TV series, you may remember The Bionic Woman (a spin-off series from The Six Million Dollar Man), who had a bionic ear to help her hear the quietest sounds.

HARMAN and Lotus Engineering have worked together to create some interesting noise cancellation and generating (!) technology for automotive applications, and marketed under the brand name of HALOsonic. Lotus Engineering have been in the active noise control and sound generation game for a while. They’ve made electronic audio systems to give car driver the impression of a range of customised engine sounds at the push of a button. HALOsonic make audio systems to:

• cancel engine noise at the cylinder firing frequency,
• road noise cancelling that uses accelerometers on the suspension system as a reference signal,
• noise generating system for hybrid cars to alert pedestrians,
• noise generating systems for passengers to provide a customised engine sound.

Seven scientists and engineers from CERN have created music and performed based on the sonification of data obtained by four detectors – ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb – during the Large Hadron Collider run 2010-2013.

Read the full article and hear their music on the CERN web site.

Wired.com has an article on several expensive headphones, 9 of the World’s Most Outrageously Expensive Headphones, some are $5,500 ??

It has got me puzzled why consumer grade headphones are expensive, after all they are 2 speakers, a headband, and a chord. It was announced this week that Apple will be buying Beats for $3.4b (see SMH article) !