LONDON: A freelance science writer in the UK, who has been slowly going deaf since his 20s, has developed a new software to turn local WiFi signals into audible sounds.

Frank Swain from north London worked with sound artist Daniel Jones to create a software hack, called Phantom Terrains, which works with smartphones and hearing aids. The system uses the smartphones's WiFi sensors to analyse data from nearby fields.

The data is then decoded and turned into sound patterns that are wirelessly transmitted to Swain's customised hearing aids.

New software that turns WiFi signals into audible sounds

A freelance science writer in the UK, who has been slowly going deaf since his 20s, has developed a new software to turn local WiFi signals into audible sounds. (WiFi, via Shutterstock)

With his smartphone in his pocket, Swain gets a kind of aural map blended in with the normal output of the hearing aids, Discovery News reported.

Distant signals are interpreted as background clicks that vary with proximity. Closer and more powerful signals sing out their own network ID information in a looped melody.

"In essence, I am listening to a computer's interpretation of the soundscape. I am intrigued to see how far this editorialisation of my hearing can be pushed.

"If I have to spend my life listening to an interpretative version of the world, what elements could I add?" Swain wrote in the latest issue of New Scientist.

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