The Bone Conductor

This theory isn't new at all, as a matter of fact, people have discovered that sound can travel by means of human skeleton a long time ago. Now, the problem remaining to be solved was how to make sound audible as it was transmitted through bones? Of course, the solution was vibrations but all the previously imagined gear was huge, besides looking ridiculous.

These days the Chinese Temco company have put in practice the project once more and finally came with a rather neat looking headset based on such technology. The HG40SAN-TBT does not have any earpieces or buds, instead it sports vibration-generating units that will actually make your head ring to the music or conversation, accordingly.

Basically, the vibrations will be sent to your internal ear by means of a "tremoring skull": you'll thus be able to hear as if you wore usual headphones. Now, don't think that things will sound like my hi-end Sennheiser units or your audiophile-grade Bose headgear... it's possible that future will bring such development to this (yet very young) technology, but until then there is the present day.

The Temco set will run for 3 hours on a battery in the conversation-hearing mode while the same battery will provide you with 5 hours of MP3-listening. The signal transmission, in case you haven't figured it out from watching the pictures, is made via a Bluetooth channel.

If you're somehow scared of having things vibrate in and around your head it's possible you won't want to wear them at all; however, those who think they'll enjoy this kind of headphones will have to carry only a roughly 50 grams burden. I wonder if you're on you bike while driving on a very bumpy road... what happens if the whole human-headset ensemble is shaken thoroughly... would it be like a subwoofer?