N.Tech headphones sing straight into your bones

We make no bones about the fact that we're not experts when it comes to audio engineering, but last we checked, headphones work pretty well when they're inserted directly into the ear. Clearly this isn't the case at the Next Generation Computing Show 2006 in Korea, where N.Tech demoed its latest front-wear (NVP200) and rear-wear (NVP100, pictured) vibration, or bone-conduction, headphones. The idea is that sound vibrates into the skull and then straight on to the auditory nerve; though if someone is blasting their iPod next to you on the train ride home, it would seem your auditory nerve is going to be getting a lot more noise than signal. Plus, constantly pressing buttons situated very near to your cerebellum and brain stem can't be a good idea, either. But we'll defer to the authorities on this one.

Read - NVP200
Read - NVP100

[James @ Nov 21st 2006 12:58PM]

What's with the color?

[flamer\\\'s grill @ Nov 21st 2006 12:59PM]

I, for one, welcome our new headphone-sized brain-sucking alien overlords.

[TreeSapX @ Nov 21st 2006 3:16PM]

LOL, yeah... I think Im going to wait a few years until the technology is a little more fleshed out. Somehow I don't trust this crap just yet.

[shamilton @ Nov 21st 2006 1:01PM]

Those are some ugly-ass phones, man. Like, even if you wanted to opt in for the whole bone conduction thing, you'd look like a total freak anyway. Put that on with a head-mounted display and you'd be a real freak!

[Maxx @ Nov 21st 2006 1:17PM]

Thats nice until someone on the subway yanks them off the back of your head.

[Grizz @ Nov 21st 2006 1:26PM]

Didn't N.Tech release headphones with a built in visor last year that failed miserably?

Oh-wai....

[GioNYC @ Nov 21st 2006 1:36PM]

Panasonic came up with something like this 4 years ago. You would insert a AAA battery in to the back and it would rest like the image above into the back of your skull and vibrate when the Bass would kick in. The problem was that it felt a bit heavy, and u would get this feeling in the back of your head that something was always pulling you back.
Well for the image above, we sure know that it wont work on Fottball player Linebackers, with thier big wide necks.

[pinakidion @ Nov 21st 2006 1:41PM]

It's the same idea as my son's hearing aid. His inner ear works fine, but he has little or no ear canal. The bone-conduction hearing aid takes sound directly to the auditory nerve by transmitting vibrations through the mastoid bone.

One side is an oscillator, the other is a microphone. When the sounds hits the mastoid bone it activates both ears, not just one.

The only problem I could see with this headphone is that, like my son's hearing aids, there's no stereo. Both ears receive the same signal.

[GadgetBrad @ Nov 21st 2006 1:53PM]

The great thing about bone conduction is that it works in a vacuum. This is just the thing for listening to your tunes while drifting naked in the vast emptiness of space.

[Matt B @ Nov 21st 2006 2:24PM]

So could you listen to your music as loud as you want without anyone around you hearing it? Still doesn't sit well with me. Now if they could make a device that empties the bladder sans 'whipping it out', that is a billion dollar idea.

[Little Man Buz @ Nov 21st 2006 2:28PM]

There is/was a vaguely similar concept used for a mobile phone headset a couple of years ago (called Jawbone, I think) that used a sensor on your cheek to read the resonance of your voice from your facial bones in order to use it for more accurate noise cancellation. This NTech product, however, is one step away from implanted electronic devices, a la The Borg.

[tom @ Nov 21st 2006 2:46PM]

I can see this being more for a military application than for any type of commercial use. Historically, devices such as this that use bone conduction use far less energy as opposed to standard headphones, and by using this technology, you can easily decrease power consumption by at least 50%. Currently, a device very similar to this is actually in use by several different branches of the US military on an experimental basis, as a means to first reduce energy cost, and to allow the wearer to communicate freely with people around them as well as those on a radio circuit.

But, (a) how does that apply to the consumer, and (b) how do you create a device that not only won't be bulky, but popular with the market as well? I'll admit that this device is a great idea, but it's design needs to be totally reworked if the company plans on marketing this for general consumption. It looks far too bulky, seems to be too easily removed from the head, and the color is way too loud.

[Tuna @ Nov 21st 2006 2:51PM]

Wouldn't this enable people who have problems with their ear drums, i.e. punctuated ear drum, to hear better?

[TheBadDancer @ Nov 21st 2006 2:56PM]

When I was a kid, my friend Mika picked up something called "Bone Phones" or something similar when she visited her grandpararents in Japan. This was like 25 years ago. These things rested on your collar bone and inducted the sound directly into your head. So as far as I am concerned, this isn't new technology.

[I'd like to lick it @ Nov 21st 2006 3:53PM]

LOL, when i first heard about sending audio waves (vibration) through your bones, i thought they had to poke a hole through your skin, muscle, (and possibly a blood vessel). Dispite all the blood running down you shirt( and tears if you are a wuss, it would be sweet i thought. NOW, i think i like the idea a tad better.

[Nando @ Nov 21st 2006 4:10PM]

Yep yep yep...Just lean back and enjoy the :headphones crack!: Oops.

[Junyo @ Nov 21st 2006 4:14PM]

Motorola makes a walkied talkie headset like this, only the contact points were forward of the ear near the temples, and they had a noise canceling mike attached, obviously. Pricey, but works really well in high ambient noise environments, where one would normally be tempted to amp the headphones up to ear damaging volume levels. Pretty clear, even with 100+ decibel background noise and earplugs in. I'd imagine that if you rode the subway daily or were in some other high noise environment on a regular basis, and still wanted entertainmentwithout hearing damage these wouldn't be bad.

[Young @ Nov 21st 2006 5:25PM]

There is already a bone-induction MP3 player on the market. It is called the SWIMP3. It is designed to let you listen to music while you swim. I own one and I have to say that I am impressed by how well it works.

You can hear the sounds more clearly when you are submerged than when you are above the surface. Compared to earphones, the sound is much poorer and you don't have nearly the same wide range of sounds.

Earphones just don't work well in water so bone induction makes sense in this application. However, if you're not swimming, I would stick with earphones.

[Jeff Duncan @ Nov 21st 2006 8:31PM]

Sorry but I think Engadget editor has this wrong. My friends frequently wear their sunglasses backward this way when they're indoors and if you added a couple of speaker pods you'd see what you see in that picture. In other words, imagine the guy in the picture is wearing them over his eyes and the speaker pods should match up to his ears like regular headphones do. Seems more like a 3D video glasses device than some bone conduction audio thingamabob.

[speedbaccon @ Nov 21st 2006 7:09PM]

The rear fin on my headphones would tend to look more like this:
http://tanetane92.web.infoseek.co.jp/052961.jpg