Project Glass May Have Indirect Bone Conduction Speaker
Google is proposing bone conduction to deliver audio in Project Glass.
Up until now, there was no indication of how Google's Project Glass would provide sound to the user. After all, if you're going to make calls using the AR specs, you need to hear what the other person has to say (unless it's a good scolding of course – that calls for a dose of quick muting). Will the user wear earbuds connected to the specs in order to receive sound? Will there be external speakers just loud enough for the user to hear?
According to a patent filed by Google, the company proposes using bone conduction to deliver sounds. This will be done using elements embedded within the Project Glass specs that will vibrate the frames. In turn, that vibration will reach the user's skull and pass the sound down into the user's inner ear.
Google calls this method "indirect" because the specs don't directly vibrate your bones. Instead, the frames act as a transport mechanism which actually brushes up against your nose, your ears, your cheek bones, your temples and more. Where the vibrations will actually enter the skull is unknown at this point, but this could possibly be a setting within Project Glass, allowing the user to pick the best audio "reception" point.
The patent, called "Wearable Computing Device with Indirect Bone-Conduction Speaker", was actually filed on October 10, 2011, but made public on January 24, 2013. The abstract states that the specs will include at least one vibration transducer that is configured to vibrate at least one portion of the specs based on the audio signal. Does that mean a stereo reception will require an element on both sides of the head?
Bone-conducting headphones have been around on the consumer market for quite a while. For example, Outi introduced a pair back in 2007 that resembled a pair of clip-on earrings. Sound was reverberated through the earlobes, passing tunes through the user's cartiledge instead of the air. And during CES 2013, Panasonic introduced a Bluetooth pair that delivered sound through the user's temples.
Wikipedia defines bone conduction as "the conduction of sound to the inner ear through the bones of the skull." Our skulls conduct lower frequencies better than air, and that's why our voice sounds different when it's recorded and played back.

Well, every time you speak, your skull vibrates a little bit. That's why people usually don't recognize their own voice if it was played on a record, because the skull vibration from the talking affects the auditory system.
Well, every time you speak, your skull vibrates a little bit. That's why people usually don't recognize their own voice if it was played on a record, because the skull vibration from the talking affects the auditory system.
that is true, but the intensity varies. I wonder if it influences your nerves to act funny after a while. I mean, right now, not many people use such devices, but who knows what it could do to you health wise. But then again, using your keyboard and mouse for long duration will have health issues as well.
Take a peice of straw (as in hay) and clench it tightly between your teeth. Then align the other end of that same blade of straw onto a record player. You will "hear" the music, in your head, It's quite a neat trick.
I believe it's the same concept.
They make implants that do the same thing, only they're mounted into your skull. Obviously, I wasn't too keen on that and since I still have one good ear I skipped out but the concept is the same.
Basically, your ear hears in two ways: Sound pressure waves and bone vibrations. If the hairs inside your inner ear don't work, you could use the bone part of your hearing instead.
I think it's pretty cool stuff and might even allow me to listen to music with two ears again. Liking this device more and more...
thanks for sharing. To be honest, I didnt know they had such "headphones". Ive seen the speakers before where you can mount them to any surface and they use the vibrations of the surface to generate the sound.
If we listened to more people like you, no tech advance can ever be made.
Snake: This is Snake... Colonel... Can you hear me ?
Roy Campbell: Loud and clear......
The expression "i feel the music" might have gotten a bit literal here thou.
I guess we will have to wait and see.
Actually, lots of people use devices like this. In cases of extreme hearing loss, doctors will sometimes embed a stainless bolt directly into the skull behind the ear. A hearing aid is then fitted to the ear, and passes it's output into the bolt via vibratory conduction.
And as was mentioned above, the Navy has been using bonephones for quite some time.
Though they'd be much more appealing to me if I didn't need to jam earbuds into my ears. I always use over the head headphones because I hate jamming things in my ear..
Kudos, once again Google!
(So long as battery life is reasonable)