Abstract: A hearing device may provide hearing-to-touch sensory substitution as a therapeutic approach to deafness. Through use of signal processing on received signals, the hearing device may provide better accuracy with the hearing-to-touch sensory substitution by extending beyond the simple filtering of an incoming audio stream as found in previous tactile hearing aids. The signal processing may include low bitrate audio compression algorithms, such as linear predictive coding, mathematical transforms, such as Fourier transforms, and/or wavelet algorithms. The processed signals may activate tactile interface devices that provide touch sensation to a user. For example, the tactile interface devices may be vibrating devices attached to a vest, which is worn by the user. The vest may also provide other types of information to the user.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is a confocal imaging system for imaging a specimen. The system comprises a light source, a light deflector capable of positioning a beam of light produced by the light source at one of a series of predetermined points on the specimen, an addressable spatial filter capable of selectively filtering light from the specimen, and a central processing unit capable of providing selective position control to the light deflector and the addressable spatial filter.