Small mikes are easier to fit into earpieces, and recently they have been getting very small indeed.

ECONOMIST: Noise-cancelling technology

Television cameras and radio mikes bring us right into the action when Bernanke and his regional compadres speak.

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Hemmer was on a platform set talking with a producer when Moore approached, a gaggle of cameras, boom mikes and reporters in tow.

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These mikes use a technology known as MEMS (microelectromechanical systems).

ECONOMIST: Noise-cancelling technology

Mr Bouchaud is finding more than one MEMS microphone inside ever more of the products he disassembles, and these extra mikes are often being used to add noise-cancelling features.

ECONOMIST: Noise-cancelling technology

Former McCain consultant Mike Murphy and conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, were caught on live mikes, but off the air, talking to NBC political director Chuck Todd.

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There was, like, little children screaming on the mikes.

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She is trapped somewhere behind the electronic thicket--a mad bristling of boom mikes and long lenses, tape recorders and power packs, TV cameras shouldered by guys who look like defensive linemen gone to seed, all of them barreling hell-bent for Bradley.

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