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| Apple AirPod Pro |
The main information processing difference between a $17 chinese wireless earbud set & the $249 AirPod Pro, that Apple working with TSMC using ASML latest mirror bounce deep UV lithography able to produce chipsets that are more power efficient to perform more kinds of microphone transparency mode & active noise canceling & voice call clarity improvement modulation- so on the same ~40 mAh of stored chemical energy it the tiny LiPo batteries common in these kinds of devices, the AirPod's can do more computational real time signal processing & produce better functions & more features. Bose noise canceling & Jawbone earbuds have similar amazing signal processing performance!
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| Apple AirPod Pro |
I don't want to wear white colored objects in my ear & was given a free black colored set of cheap Chinese true wireless earbuds & will refrain from buying any AirPods because they have sealed batteries & have to be broken to open them- meaning e-waste within 3 years of purchasing / I hope Apple reads this & takes it into consideration - they could use ultra-capacitors instead of tiny LiPO for faster charging (though runtime per charge would be reduced) / my car's Aukey 4K dash cam has super-capacitors since its sits in direct sun in the front window & gets heated to 160F or hotter, something that would quickly damage lithium ion batteries included in lesser units with worse technology that are similar.
Wearable electronics include smartwatches & wireless in ear speaker systems similar to a high technology hearing aid device. Apple iPhone accessories include the Apple Watch & AirPods & AirTag that pair with the U1 chip - an ultra wide band low energy optimized transceiver, over wifi & bluetooth LE these official Accessories work as an ecosystem with the iPhone by forming a personal on body wireless network, mostly over bluetooth low energy 5.0, 5.1, 5.2 & 5.3 respectively.
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Active Noise Canceling a matter of taking data from 2,4,6 or more microphone sensors & putting it through DSP or digital signal processing in a low power high performance chipset so that the wearer of ear mounded audio products, from hearing aids, to headphones & other noise canceling in ear & on ear technologies, can enjoy the blocking of background noises around them so their brain can focus on the music or conversation or audiobook or other content played through the speaker or speakers.
6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 11mm drivers or speakers are the most common sizes of in ear true wireless earbud audio generating devices - using titanium, graphene, bio-cellulose, aluminum, magnesium, stainless steel & high magnetic flux density niobium iron boron magnets - these tiny speakers in in ear monitors & other ear mounted audio solutions can produce audio output ranging from 10 hz to 20,000 hr, to cover the entire audio detecting range of human hearing sensor input- where the brain takes signals from the ears & tries to make sense of the signals using stored in neuron information from previous audio experiences where the person has been hearing different sounds their entire life, well at least non dear people with normal or similar hearing function.
Someone might accuse me of worshiping technology because of my fanatical obsessive level of interest in information technology, especially the devices that people use to connect with information from screens & speakers respectively. I tend to be conservative & never purchase the first generation of any new technology & wait for a cost optimized later revision that gives more function at lower prices. My iPhone SE2 for example from 2020 sold for $449 with its 128GB internal memory- ~3X less expensive than the then available iPhone 12 Pro for example.
My previous smartphone an original iPhone SE, that sold for $449 with 128GB storage capacity. I do not believe in upgrading to the latest smartphone if your existing one works perfectly & only has a faded battery. Change the battery or have a professional do it at a device repair shop like Batteries + Bulbs or similar. The battery often the first thing to fail in portable electronics & most modern smartphones & smartwatch have a non-user replaceable battery that is hard or difficult to change & requires technical know how or special skills & tools to replace.
The rub with true wireless earbuds with rechargeable LiPO batteries is that within a few years the entire product becomes e-waste as the internal tiny battery not able to be replaced without breaking the Apple AirPod's for example-something that IFIXIT covers in their YouTube videos on this topic or website posting- in great detail - including the lowest or worse repairability score of 0 for AirPods because they cannot be opened without breaking them or damaging them during the opening process- effectively they have a sealed design that gives them a finite useful life - which means people will be forced to buy more every couple of years, which is terrible for the environment but highly profitable for Apple's revenue stream or profit generating mechanism.
There is the rub, Apple wants to be eco-friendly, but to really do it means making people's iPhones & Apple Watches & AirPods easy to repair, easy to fix & easy to extend the useful life thereof. I am not sure if Apple will every truly become eco-friendly as a company, though they really are trying to not be wasteful or toxic to the world. More than many other companies they compete with, Apple has one of the lowest environmental footprints, lowest carbon footprints & lowest emissions of pollutants all the way back to the mining of raw materials & production of the materials & manufacturing of Apple devices.
Apple even improving EOL or end of life recycling of their products, with robots that can take apart hundreds of iPhones per hour, like Apple Daisy for example. I am not tooting Apple's horn or praising Apple here - I actually dislike most large corporations for the same reasoning that I consider non-user replaceable batteries unethical - a consumer & environmental betrayal. The AirPods for example, could use super capacitors, just like the S Pen in Samsung smartphones. Apple already works with Samsung to get Super AMOLED screens for the latest Apple Watch & iPhone models.
Cheap true wireless earbuds are fine if you just want to steam music from your smartwatch or smartphone wirelessly, to your ears. If you want transparency mode so that environmental sounds from natural first person discussions can easily make it through the earbuds to your brain, then the higher technology more expensive models offer this kind of signal processing intelligence. ANC or active noise canceling technology comes in many different levels of performance.
The cheapest ANC processing in ANKOR Soundcore earbuds for example, produces poor noise canceling with artifacts & hissing & other unpleasant noise - while the latest Apple, Bose, Jawbone & Samsung earbuds have state of the art ANC with the best signal processing performance to meaningfully reduce background noise during your music listening sessions or phone calls. You pay extra for the better functions, which require better chipset & software technology - since they all have similar energy storage capacitor or energy budget of 24-60mAh - each LiPO battery slightly different- they are chemical devices as subtle differences in the manufacturing of each produces variability in the energy capacity of each LiPo or lithium polymer battery, often a Lithium Cobalt Nickel cathode : Hard Carbon or silicon anode / there are 12 different mainstream lithium ion chemistries available to Tesla & Apple & other OEMS & ODMS to put into consumer electronics products, COTS etc
We are not talking about custom fitted & custom tuned by an audiologist hearing-aids that cost $800-$10,000 per set / that run on tiny Zinc Air pull tab batteries that have to be changed daily // We are talking about bluetooth audio earbuds from the cheapest Chinese stuff on Amazon.com to the best available directly from an Apple Store or its website- they are all made in China or nearby in Asia, where its easier & less costly to manufacture tiny electronics by the tens of millions. This is in sharp contrast to the low value high cost hearing-aids that older people obtain to compensate from progressive age related hear loss or hearing sensitivity reduction- that makes it harder for them to heart the TV or music or conversations. Hear-aids & wireless rechargeable earbuds have a lot of technology in common in the microphone pickup & audio signal processing (dynamic EQ, balancing frequencies) to be produced by the tiny speakers.
Its amazing that so much tech can fit into an ear mounted audio system // The focus hear, popular consumer electronics like the Apple AirPod & why it costs more & has more functions when paired to an iPhone or Apple Watch ecosystem of on body wireless networking // that connects to LTE or wifi to the internet. I stream Pandora like this, through my iPhone SE2 & Apple Watch SE to a pair of cheap S20 TWS wireless earbuds to enjoy music without the annoying wires of my classic 4th Gen. iPod Touch & its 1/8' stereo connected wired earbuds. This system, wrist mounted computer, pocket computer with LTE, bluetooth low energy in ear wireless speakers - holy cow thats a wildly complicate technologically advanced kit.
What an astonishing time to be alive with such technology available - though obviously that did not enable mankind to solve all of the climate change & air pollution & poverty & crime problems - though I do believe that applying the same kind of engineering that makes AirPods possible & enables amazing products like iPhone to exist, can solve all problems in the world.
I believe the main inhibitors are not scientific or technological, many off the shelf existing technologies could be applied to solve climate change & fossil fuel causing tail pipe toxic emissions from automobiles for example- the main thing holding mankind back political & cultural, bigotry, hatred, negativity, toxic thinking, greed, corruption, arrogance, selfishness, avarice & glib materialism to the point of blaspheming the Lord our God with idolatry & idle worship & false worship & speech with lies & dishonesty & criminal actions that harm or hurt other people - not the technology, its the people.
Guns for example cannot operate without a human making a while string of choices before hand- a gun requires a human operator to pick it up, to load ammo into the clip or magazine, to chamber a round of ammunition, to aim the gun & to pull the trigger - at every stage human volitional choice or free will being executed by the person with the gun -- therefor gun crimes are human problem, a mental illness problem. The way you use a pen or pencil to write, or stab someone. Using a knife to open boxes or for recycling or processing an animal hunted or when preparing food, vs using a sword or dagger to hurt someone. Its the people & their philosophies & choices that make the difference - what people are thinking about & thats the basis of this blog - what I think about! Thanks for reading it! Cheers & Godspeed! Make wise decisions & enjoy the benefits of living a better life that results!
Speaking of Guns, analog & digital signal processing or mixed signal processing technologies were originally developed for defensive & military applications in heat seeking missiles & other smart munitions & imaging technology from space satellites to FLIR or forward looking infrared, which now via SEEK thermal smartphone dongles available for $250 to nearly anyone. The war in the Ukraine shows how some portable rocket launchers use a cryocooler FLIR solution that works day or night with optical zoom, in a setup that costs more than the average new car sold in America.
NASA & other government agencies like the NSA & CIA use a lot of computational resources & energy, mostly electrical, to perform signal analytics on video, audio & other data - to collect useful intelligence or insight on targets, individuals, businesses, other governments etc. The idea is that any bitstream containing data can be extracted & analyses using artificial intelligence enhanced software running on high performance computers, server clusters or cloud computer platforms. Some of the most powerful supercomputers on Earth are dedicated to predictive model generation for the ongoing active maintenance of nuclear weapons - because of radioactive decay in the core of the nuclear weapon, these weapons have a complicated type of change that occurs while they are stored, which influences their reliability & functional properties - such that at some point, the core materials have to be extracted & replaced with new cores- the decay of enriched plutonium & highly enriched uranium produced radioactive isotope decay products that come in all phases, liquid, solid & gas - complicating the storage of such materials - important in nuclear waste management & in the core physics & operation of commercial nuclear power plants - which I promote as an intelligent way to phase out coal power with a net negative carbon fuel breeding nuclear fuel cycle IFR or 4th Gen. Breeder reactor //
As you can understand, signal processing has tremendous economic & national security importance, in aviation, security, telecommunications, e-commerce, music, entertainment, military operations, at banks & financial institutions - how people make sense of informatics & information & data - influences all aspects of modern civilization worldwide. Even people living in small tribes as though it were the stone-age - small native populations in rural South America, even people not connected with any modern technology, their brain, using signals from their sensory perception, sight, smell, taste & touch, like all people, doing signal intelligence. You could actually call the brain a signal analytics computer - thought it also performs adaptive information modeling & predictive analytics - by insight & with creative intelligent unique to human consciousness - the evidence all around us with all the technology that people have created to insulate themselves from natural hazards & disasters & temperature extremes & with commercial agriculture to make the season-less grocery store access to foods available 24/7/365 -- by moving food all around the world! If you are part of an industrialized country, amazing amounts of energy, fuel, electricity & intelligence are applied to make it all possible! In a way, we are all, all human people on Earth, working together - with nature - where our food, air & water comes from- thats why pollution unethical - it adds toxic things to our body though nature, and those toxic substances cause disease, which are preventable. Consider all the micro plastics everywhere & what they do to developing human fetus, or the next generation of people! Think about it!
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