--- title: "Facebook Wants to Give You Superhuman Hearing Using AR Glasses" description: "Scientists at Facebook are investigating if they can use augmented reality to allow people with hearing loss to hear another person in loud environments." date: "2020-11-02" modified: "2020-11-02" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/facebook-augmented-reality-glasses-hearing-aids" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Prosthetics and Devices" --- # Facebook Wants to Give You Superhuman Hearing Using AR Glasses ![Scientists at Facebook are investigating if they can use augmented reality to allow people with hearing loss to hear another person in loud environments.]() *\Image: Facebook\* Researchers at Facebook are investigating whether a pair of augmented reality glasses can isolate a specific conversation in a noisy environment like a bar, [*Digital Trends* reports](). "Many people with hearing loss don’t use hearing aids — in part — because they don’t work well in everyday situations like a noisy restaurant, a conversation involving multiple people at a loud party, or in a moving car," Thomas Lunner, research lead for Facebook’s Hearing Science lab, told *Digital Trends*. The team quickly realized that advancements in augmented reality glasses could actually help out hearing aids as well, creating a "system that understands what you want to listen to, isolates and enhances the sounds you want to hear, and reduces distracting background noise," according to Lunnar. Lunnar and his team recently published [a study]() in the journal *Ear and Hearing* detailing how an AR platform could enhance hearing aids, thereby "closing the gap... through multimodal sensor integration, leveraging extensive current artificial intelligence research, and machine-learning frameworks." While the hearing aids would still handle the amplification of sound, the new tech could allow them to isolate certain sounds while suppressing others — especially in "problematic listening situations," such as noisy party. To pull it off, the team suggests isolating "digital objects," such as the person somebody is talking to at a party, using the spatial mapping capabilities of AR. ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()