I know someone who uses tones as an easy way of knowing if there's a market move on some cryptocurrencies. Basically, there's different tones for a trade that traded higher than previous and for a trade that traded lower than the previous. Possibly pitch or volume or something was used to indicate the volume of the trade, I don't quite remember. Either way, he could quickly hear if there was a major market move or something just by the amount and tone of the beeps. He used this as a way to know then he should look at the chart or whatever.

We spend a lot of time training digital computers to deal with analog information that has been converted into digital forms, and I wonder how much we could also gain by finding better ways to convert digital information into analog forms that our brains (as analog computers) can better parse.

Oh you're also friends with Gilfoyle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS1KcjkWdoU

Hahaha I forgot about this

I had a related idea, to make a running program produce an audible hum like a car engine would. And the hum would vary depending on what paths of the program are executing, so you get an idea what/how your code is "doing" by listening in.

This is what NPR does on the market segment (Kai Rysdal?) The background music reflects the changes in the market over the day.

Also, if you haven't read Douglas Adam's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", there's a good subplot around this exact idea.