Gizmodo highlights the Songfinder, which can take bird and insect songs that occur in higher frequency ranges and pitch shift them making the high-pitched calls of birds audible to those who may have lost sensitivity in later years.
The Songfinder also can locate birds. It works binaurally, providing a 3-dimensional sound field by placing a microphone in the earpiece of each headset, processing the sound that travels to each ear separately before feeding it back to the user. Since much of the point of listening to bird calls is to be able to spot them, having directional sound mixed back in is critical.
At $750-$900, it’s pricey for individual users, but maybe it could work in wireless birdhouses or for The Secret Lives of Insects like the Cicada.
