A New Speaker Sends Sound Directly Into Your Head With No Earphones - We Must Destroy It

LONDON (AP) — Imagine a world where you move around in your own personal sound bubble. You listen to your favorite tunes, play loud computer games, watch a movie or get navigation directions in your car — all without disturbing those around you.

That’s the possibility presented by “sound beaming,” a new futuristic audio technology from Noveto Systems, an Israeli company. On Friday it will debut a desktop device that beams sound directly to a listener without the need for headphones. The company provided The Associated Press with an exclusive demo of the desktop prototype of its SoundBeamer 1.0 before its launch Friday.

The listening sensation is straight out of a sci-fi movie. The 3-D sound is so close it feels like it’s inside your ears while also in front, above and behind them.By changing a setting, the sound can follow a listener around when they move their head. It’s also possible to move out of the beam’s path and hear nothing at all, which creates a surreal experience.

“You don’t need to tell the device where you are. It’s not streaming to one exact place,” Wallwater said. "It follows you wherever you go. So it’s personally for you — follows you, plays what you want inside your head.”

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. This thing can fuck right off. 

It is extremely hard to comprehend how this technology is even possible. Basically it's a speaker that shoots the sound directly into your head. Nobody else in the room will hear it. You don't need headphones. It is quite literally the definition of having voices inside your head. The scariest part?

"It follows you wherever you go."

I love them promoting that as a positive feature and not something that should send shivers right down your spine. You have to imagine the technology isn't going to be perfect at first, so I just imagine a nightmare scenario of some glitch where you can't disconnect the speaker and are just stuck with your sad song playlist on repeat in your head. One way ticket to the looney bin. 

I also do not see any point in this whatsoever? I suppose headphones can be a slight annoyance, but not enough to the point where I'm gonna drop thousands of dollars on some evil robot that's going to control my mind. And it's not like you can just take it with you on a commute. I guess the most useful place would be your office, but with everyone working from home now anyway, you could just play music through a good ole fashioned speaker that won't put voices in your head. 

Personally, I often think the whole "robots are going to take over the world and kill us all" narrative can be a bit overplayed. But if we're just voluntarily making devices that can infiltrate our minds, then maybe it is time to start hunkering down for the incoming robot apocalypse.