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C00002 00002	\centerline{\bf EARLIDS AND TELEPHONES}
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\centerline{\bf EARLIDS AND TELEPHONES}
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	Eyelids are useful organs, and earlids that would enable one to
shut out sound voluntarily would also be useful.  However, if we put our
technological imagination to work, we can do much better than that.

	Suppose all sound reaching a person's auditory nerve comes through
an electronic channel.  The source of the sound is selected and the sound
may be filtered.  Ambient sound, coming from microphones attached to the
person, can be processed this way.  It could then be selected by frequency
to eliminate band limited noises.  Ideally, one could filter out a snoring
spouse while being able to hear the baby if it cries.  The volume of sound
could be adjusted, which would be useful at concerts---some would turn the
volume up and others would turn it down.  It could also be selected
directionally to allow conversation at a distance, or to hear a performance
but not the people sitting around one.

	The earlid could also transmit radio or recorded sound, making it
a descendant of the Walkman.

	Taking the earlid a step further produces the wearable telephone, in
which phone calls are among the signals the earlid can transmit or exclude.

	We already have cellular mobile radio telephones.  In this system,
a region is divided into cells.  A computer keeps track of which cell a
subscriber is in, finds him when he is called, and assigns him an unused
channel.  However, the subscriber has to carry a telephone around.  I
propose to extend this to the wearable telephone which will be feasible when
electronics are yet more compact.

	Even before we get earlids, we could make telephone numbers
attachable to persons as well as places.  Thus you could tell any telephone
anywhere to ring if someone calls your number.

	The wearable telephone will have social effects some of which
might be bad unless compensated for by suitable customs or laws.  Any
person will be able to reach any other person at any time.  This can allow
people who are physically separated instantaneous communication while they
are engaged in other activities.  This will enable separated people to
maintain much closer social relationships of a personal or family or
professional or hobby character.  It obviously requires an elaborate
system for the protection of privacy from unwanted calls.  One must be
able to reject calls from certain people, accept calls only from a
certain class of people, allow urgent communication, etc.  Perhaps if
a call is declared urgent, the sender incurs a charge on his telephone
bill if the recipient doesn't agree that the call was urgent.  If this
charge was rather high, telephone solicitation would be suitably limited.
In general customs will be better than laws, because they can change
more readily and be more readily adapted to the needs and desires
of subgroups of our society.

	Children with wearable telephones could be allowed more freedom
than they have now, since they could call for help or be called to find out
what they're up to, no matter where they were.  Whether they would be allowed
more freedom is another question.

	Wearable telephones could come in different forms. A beeper is a
primitive form of wearable telephone, with the unsatisfactory feature that
the person beeped may know that he is urgently wanted, yet be unable to get
to a telephone and find out why and where.  Another form of wearable telephone
would produce simple call-forwarding if desired.  

But many people spend as much time on the telephone as they want to, anyway.
They might prefer a wristwatch-like form of wearable telephone which would
transmit written messages, analogous to electronic mail.

	The extreme of personal control over sound would be achieved
by having one's normal hearing apparatus removed and replaced by
an electronic connection to the auditory nerve.  No unwanted sound,
however loud, would get through.  There are several remarks to be made.

	1. It isn't currently feasible, but efforts to provide hearing
for the deaf will lead to its development.

	2. It requires a permanent implant of an apparatus in the body.
This apparatus will have to be powered, optimally by the body itself.
(One can imagine a fuel cell electric generator that uses glucose and oxygen
supplied by the blood, i.e., uses the same sources of energy as the
other organs of the body).  The apparatus must be safe for a lifetime
of use and unnoticeable except through its function.  Replacement ought
to be made as simple as possible.

	3. The current ideology of the medical profession must be
overcome.  Medicine views the normal as ideal.  Doctors are eager to fix
subnormal conditions to reach a normal state, but are reluctant to make
people supernormal.  For example, normal vision is considered to be 20--20,
but quite a few people have better vision.  Chuck Yeager had 20--10,  part of
the reason he was an outstanding fighter pilot.  But when fitting people with
glasses, doctors aim for 20--20 because it's normal.  When I last had new
glasses prescribed, the doctor adjusted lenses until he could produce
20--20 acuity.  When I told him that my vision used to be 20--15, he was
willing to adjust them to that level, since that was `normal' for me.  The
major exception to this dislike of improvements is length of life.  Being
alive is normal, though some grumble at the idea of all those 120-year-olds
running around.  At any rate, current medical ideology would find objections
to improved hearing for people with normal ears and make no effort to get
around them.

	4. Probably people wouldn't take so extreme a step until they had
first gotten used to other forms of wearable telephone.  Then it would be
easier to perceive the advantages of having it built in.

       	The wearable telephone is probably one of those inventions that
seems to be a mere frill until it comes into use, when it becomes
indispensable.  Electronic mail appears to be superfluous to many people who
don't have it available.  Yet people who have electronic mail access
rely on it heavily and find it hard to do without.  Earlids could become
as indispensable as eyelids.
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