PHOTO: Tired Of Carrying It About, Man Implants Invisible Headphone In His Ear

Rich Lee, who might be the first person to have ever implanted an
earbud in his ear, explained the process this week in a post on
Humanity+, a nonprofit that "advocates the ethical use of technology
to expand human capacities."


Lee, who is part of a subculture of body modification artists, had a
smallmagnet embedded into his tragus, the stiff flesh directly outside
his ear. He then built himself a device, resembling a chunky necklace,
that "creates a magnetic field causing theimplant to vibrate and
produce sound," as Gizmodo reports.


Now Lee can listen to music any timehe wants, but that's not the only
thing he plans to do with his newly implanted earbud. He wrote that
since he might soon be considered legally blind, he would hook up the
earbud to an "ultrasonic rangefinder," which would help him use sound
to estimate how far away things are.


He also wrote that he will attach the earbud to a "directional mic of
some sort" so he can listen to conversations happening across a room.


Body modification increasingly incorporates "biohackers," those who
modify their bodies with things like magnets and radio-frequency
identification chips to get additional senses. The Pittsburg-based
collective Grindhouse Wetwares says that the ultimate aim of the
subculture is "augmenting humanity using safe, affordable, open source
technology."