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"I realized there was a heavy-duty change coming in biology, and I could write a really compelling novel about catastrophic evolution, punctuated equilibrium."
- Greg Bear

Visi-Sonor  
  An entertainment device which appeared to create both sound and light by acting directly on brain cells. It also stimulated emotions directly.  

Okay, so it would never get FCC approval. But the basic idea is that of stimulating the brain directly, rather than being forced to go through the (primitive!) step of needing to create sounds that would be heard by the ears and then interpreted by the brain.

His long fingers caressed softly and slowly, pressing lightly on contacts with a rippling motion, resting themselves momentarily on one key then another - and in the air before them there was a soft glowing rosiness, just inside the range of vision.
Technovelgy from Foundation and Empire, by Isaac Asimov.
Published by Doubleday in 1952
Additional resources -

Lots of unanswered questions; does this work regardless of how the brain was socialized?

Compare to the peeper from Shadow World (1957) by Clifford Simak, the empathy box from The Little Black Box (1964) by Philip K. Dick and the krang from The Tar-Aiym Krang (2007) by Alan Dean Foster.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Foundation and Empire
  More Ideas and Technology by Isaac Asimov
  Tech news articles related to Foundation and Empire
  Tech news articles related to works by Isaac Asimov

Visi-Sonor-related news articles:
  - MusicPad Pro: Digital Sheet Music File Player

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Science Fiction in the News

Thermostabilized Wet Meat Product (Prototype)
There are no orbiting Michelin stars. Yet.

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'It is necessary... for your own protection.'

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'It's so light that you can set it up in five minutes by yourself...'

Is It Time To Forbid Human Driving?
'Heavy penalties... were to be applied to any one found driving manually-controlled machines.'

Replace The Smartphone With A Connected Edge Node For AI Inference
'Buy a Little Dingbat... electropen, wrist watch, pocketphone, pocket radio, billfold ... all in one.'

Artificial Skin For Robots Is Coming Right Along
'... an elastic, tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'

Robot Guard Dog On Duty
I might also be thinking of K-9 from Doctor Who.

Wearable Artificial Fabric Muscles
'It is remarkable that the long leverages of their machines are in most cases actuated by a sort of sham musculature...'

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'Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress.'

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