I recently read an article in Popular Science regarding cell phone speakers and noisy environments and thought to share it on GS.
We all know its really difficult to carry a conversation when surronded by noise around as and it looks like engineers at Kyocera have developed a system where sound is converted into vibrations and transmitted to the body of the cell phone where the vibrations then travel down human skin and are picked up by the eardrum as sound.
The conversion of sound to vibrations is performed by an actuator and a ceramic actuator creates stronger vibrations so they can be picked up clearly by an eardrum. Apparently this system works so well that it may even replace a regular speaker in a cell phone in the near future.
It sounds like an impressive technology and cant wait it to be implemented in cell phones. I wonder though if cell phones would still have a regular speaker for audio playback and for speakerphone purposes.