EP 21 - Vampire Hearing

What if you could programme your earbuds to filter out the crying baby on the plane, the annoying colleague at work, or — controversially — your own spouse? Not sci-fi: the University of Washington already has it working, and it's two product cycles from your ears.Mark and Amanda dig in. Is this the most important accessibility breakthrough of the decade — finally giving the hard-of-hearing, the autistic, and the migraine-prone their cities back? Or is it the audio echo chamber that finishes off shared public space, available from £400 a pair?Along the way: babies and the social contract, marriages saved or quietly ended, a new class divide where silence becomes a paid amenity, and the question nobody's asked yet: Vampire hearing?The Judgement Giraffe weighs in.