Xconomy: Neosensory Translates Sounds Into Vibrations to Aid Hearing-Impaired
Summary
Neosensory Translates Sounds Into Vibrations to Aid Hearing-Impaired Xconomy Texas — David Eagleman, noted for his work at his eponymous lab at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the face of a popular public television series on the brain, figured out something rather unexpected about himself this year: He likes being an entrepreneur.“What I’m realizing is it’s really useful to do things on basic science but, in the end, the stuff that really makes a difference for people’s lives is to do the hard work and take a product idea and commercialize it.” Eagleman says this year he’s spent as much time in his lab as he has at the Texas Medical Center’s startup accelerator, TMCx, where his healthIT company BrainCheck was part of the first class.And recently, his second company, Neosensory, raised $4.2 million to further develop and manufacture its Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer, a vest worn by the severely hearing impaired which is designed to translate sounds into vibrations.The vest, which Eagleman demonstrated in a TED talk last March in Vancouver, Canada, is composed of a network of tiny vibrating motors that turn sounds into sensations that then correspond to elements of a word.The device, which was developed by co-founder Scott Norvich’s doctoral work in Eagleman’s lab, is designed so that specific patterns of vibrations translate into a word that is “heard” by the user.