Thursday, January 5, 2006

The bionic music quest Cory summarizes a recent Wired story told by the man who lived it, Michael Chorost: Deaf hacker rewrites implant-firmware so he can enjoy music again. Cory Doctorow: A deaf geek diligently tinkered with the firmware on his cochlear implant, trying to get it to faithfully render out Ravel's composition, Boléro, eventually meeting with success. . . In this Wired feature, Chorost chronicles the amazing journey he embarked upon, learning the science of acoustics, of music, and of signal processing, reprogramming the firmware in his implanted prosthetic with the help of experts around the world with various theories about the psychoacoustic basis for music. . .The story is gripping, fascinating and informative . . . Link It is a fascinating story, one I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Even without gratuitous references to Bo Derek and Bolero. Oh, and the author has a regular job: he's a technical writer in Silicon Valley. 9:25:58 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

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