Rupert Brown, an Isle of Wight musician, mixes nature sounds with music to create a soundscape that helps distract his brain from the tinnitus.
“The island is my orchestra,” says Brown in a BBC video, about his efforts to record waves crashing, birds twittering, and wind in the trees, which he then mixes in the studio with non-classical music and the sounds of what he believes are others’ type of tinnitus to form the soundscape.
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Signia announced the launch of its newest lineup of Motion Charge&Go X hearing aids, which includes the Motion Charge&Go SP X – said to be the “first-ever rechargeable super power hearing aid that delivers uncompromised hearing with up to 61 hours of run-time per charge.” The Motion Charge&Go SP X, and its rechargeability, helps “ensure that even individuals with severe-to-profound hearing loss can enhance their human performance through improved hearing in every situation.”
This joins two other all-new Motion hearing aids – Motion Charge&Go P X and Motion Charge&Go X – to complete Signia’s latest lineup of Motion Charge&Go behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing solutions that are said to address “all levels of hearing loss.”
“Those with moderate to severe hearing loss depend heavily on their hearing aids – and not just for catching the total at the grocery checkout line or the specials at a restaurant, but for the real connections and sounds that give life meaning,” said Dr Tish Ramirez, Signia’s Vice President of Professional Relations and Product Management. “Signia Motion X delivers industry-best rechargeability and connectivity to ensure wearers stay better connected to their world without any limitations. Motion X hearing aids don’t just provide better hearing, they help provide a better life.”
Motion Charge&Go SP X is said to have up to 61 hours per charge, according to Signia, and is “the world’s most powerful rechargeable hearing aid.” The Motion Charge&Go P X offers up to 30 hours per charge, while the Motion Charge&Go X offers up to 24 hours per charge.
Signia Motion Charge&Go X: A new era in hearing technology
Signa’s “first-of-its-kind acoustic-motion sensor technology” is said to recognize one’s movements and adjusts sounds accordingly to ensure hearing in any situation is as precise and personalized as possible. Signia’s world’s-first OVP is a cutting-edge technology that processes the wearer’s voice separately from other sounds, leading to higher user satisfaction with the sound of their own voice.[1]
The Signia app provides access to hearing aid controls, streaming capabilities, tinnitus therapy, the Signia Assistant for a more personalized listening experience, and 24/7 digital support, Signia Telecare for remote care support, Signia Face Mask Mode for better speech understanding through masks, and much more.
Furthermore, the Xperience fitting (XFit) strategy helps offer a choice between more linear and more compressive gain settings for those with moderate-to-profound hearing loss. With the Dynamic Soundscape Processing slider, the wearer can “easily find a preferred balance of sound for best performance.” Additionally, the AI-based Signia Assistant helps allow the wearer to be more involved in actively shaping the sound quality of their own hearing aid.
All three models of Motion Charge&Go X offer Li-ion charging, Bluetooth connectivity, and an optional telecoil. They are available in all performance levels and can be ordered with an optional charger upgrade that includes a UV Dry&Clean function.
“Signia has invested heavily in developing first-of-its-kind, industry-leading technologies – across rechargeability, connectivity, speech intelligibility, and more,” said Ramirez. “However, this investment has been made with the sole aim of creating hearing solutions that prove people don’t have to be limited by their hearing loss – and that with one’s hearing restored, there’s nothing holding them back from performing their best.”
https://www.keynshamhearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/logo-300x79.png00adminhttps://www.keynshamhearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/logo-300x79.pngadmin2021-03-17 18:02:252021-03-17 18:02:25Signia Launches Motion X Hearing Aids
By Laura Winther Balling, PhD, Oliver Townend, BSc, and Dana Helmink, AuD
Sound quality plays a key feature for overall hearing aid satisfaction as well as in everyday moments of real-life hearing. A large international survey of hearing aid users confirms the importance of sound quality, showing higher satisfaction with the WIDEX MOMENT™ hearing aids for overall sound quality, for specific situations of real-life use and for hearing aid users’ ability to participate in daily life.
As one of the major global hearing aid manufacturers, Widex has a long history of focusing on sound quality, designing all signal processing with the aim of achieving the best and most natural sound quality possible. For example, True Input Technology, with a linear transfer function up to 113 dB SPL and a linear input dynamic range of 108 dB SPL, was groundbreaking when launched,1 as was Variable Speed Compression, which offers the benefits of both slow and fast-acting compression.2
Most recently, WIDEX MOMENT™ launched with the focus on sound quality expressed in two main features:
TruAcoustics™ is an intelligent algorithm by which the acoustics in the individual ear canal is integrated in the parameter settings of the hearing aid, so the output at the eardrum is exactly right for the individual ear canal with the specific earware choice.3
Widex PureSound™ drastically reduces hearing aid delay and eliminates the delay-based distortions which are characteristic of other digital hearing aids.4
Innovations like these improve the sound quality in clearly audible ways and result in sound quality preferences in studies, such as the one reported by Balling et al.4 However, it is also an important assumption of the Widex design philosophy that good sound is not an isolated quality but a means to achieving higher hearing aid satisfaction across many situations in real life. With this broader view of sound quality, it is arguably the most important parameter for hearing aid satisfaction, along with speech understanding (especially in noise).
For these reasons, the survey reported below focused on satisfaction with sound quality in itself, as well as the experience in diverse situations of real-life hearing with Widex MOMENT hearing aid.
Survey Method
Our survey included 101 experienced hearing aid users recruited at local hearing clinics in 7 countries (US, Canada, China, Germany, France, Portugal, UK). They all wore the MOMENT mRIC R D rechargeable hearing aids and rated their satisfaction with them in comparison to their own existing hearing aids, which were from all major brands. Respondents were 60% male with a median age of 66 years (range 18-88). Close to half (45%) were work active, and they had a median of 6 years’ hearing aid experience (range 1-59 years).
Respondents fell into two groups: 39 of them had mild-to-moderate hearing losses going from 40 dBHL at low frequencies to 70 dBHL at high and had as their primary program PureSound™, which is particularly suitable for open fits and milder losses. The other 62 respondents had hearing losses up to 80 dB HL across frequencies (the mRIC M-receiver fitting range) and were fitted with the Universal program as their primary program. The MOMENT hearing aids were fitted with the ear tip recommended in the Compass GPS fitting software.
The survey used a cross-over design where respondents started a 7-week survey period by rating their satisfaction with their own existing hearing aids before being fitted with the MOMENT hearing aids and wearing them for 3 weeks. After 3 weeks, they rated their satisfaction with the MOMENT devices, before switching back to their own hearing aids, wearing those for 2 weeks and rating them at Week 6. For the final 2 weeks of the survey, respondents wore MOMENT and filled in a final set of questions about those at Week 7. This resulted in two ratings for own hearing aids (at Weeks 0 and 5) and two for MOMENT (at Weeks 3 and 7).
The questionnaires were filled in online using SMART-TRIAL software, using a format inspired by the MarkeTrak surveys,5 where respondents rate their satisfaction with their hearing aids on a 7-point scale ranging from “Very dissatisfied” (a rating of 1) to ‘Very satisfied’ (a rating of 7). Following the MarkeTrak approach, respondents who gave ratings in the top-3 satisfaction categories may be classified together as being “satisfied.” We asked questions about satisfaction both in general and in specific real-life situations.
The responses show that people are reasonably satisfied with their own hearing aids at the beginning of the survey period, but once they try the MOMENT hearing aids, their ratings of their own hearing aids in many cases become significantly lower. This in itself is evidence in favor of the MOMENT devices. However, the more interesting direct comparison is between the ratings of own hearing aids in Week 5 and MOMENT in Week 7, where respondents have had the most time to form an opinion about the new hearing aids.
We also estimated the age of the respondents’ own hearing aids based on the launch date of the device. Interestingly, we found no significant effects of this variable, indicating that the MOMENT advantages that we observe throughout are not simply explained by the contrast between older own hearing aids and new MOMENT devices, but by a genuine preference for the MOMENT sound.
Unless otherwise indicated, statistical testing of results was done using mixed-effects models that take into account the crucial fact that we have multiple responses per person. The significance levels for the relevant contrasts between own and MOMENT hearing aids are all below 0.0001, which means that potential concerns about repeated testing are unfounded.
Sound Quality Across Situations
As we would expect given the Widex design focus, the responses show a solid sound quality advantage for the MOMENT hearing aids, with significantly higher satisfaction for MOMENT than for own hearing aids (p < 0.0001). Looking at the average ratings plotted in the left panel of Figure 1, there is a 1-point advantage for MOMENT, with the average rating “Satisfied” for MOMENT and “Somewhat satisfied” for own hearing aids. Examining the distribution of answers in the right panel of Figure 1, we see many more “Very satisfied” and “Satisfied” MOMENT users. In total, considering the top-3 satisfaction categories, 91% of respondents are satisfied with the MOMENT sound quality.
Figure 1. Ratings of satisfaction with sound quality. The left panel shows mean ratings of satisfaction with sound quality as filled circles, with the whiskers representing ±1 standard deviation (SD) around the mean. The right plot shows ratings of own hearing aids in Week 5 and of MOMENT hearing aids in Week 7 of the survey.
An intriguing question is which aspects of sound and hearing aid use influence these high-satisfaction sound quality ratings. This is a complex issue that this survey cannot fully address, but it is informative to look at which other questions are correlated with sound quality satisfaction. In Table 1, such correlations are listed for the ratings of MOMENT at the end of the survey period. They are all strong correlations ranging between 0.522 to 0.698, and although there is some variation between individual situations, the correlations are all highly significant and of similar size. These correlations do not, of course, indicate causation but do suggest that sound quality plays a similar role across different situations.
Table 1. Spearman Rho correlations between sound quality satisfaction and satisfaction in specific situations for WIDEX MOMENT. (Notations: *** indicates significance at the p<0.001 level; a) Speech-in-noise situations; b) Outdoor situations; c) Listening through devices.
Another way of assessing the impact of sound quality on everyday satisfaction with hearing aids is analyzing the average satisfaction across the specific situations listed in Table 1 (excepting satisfaction with soft and loud sounds, which are not specific situations). A regression model shows that satisfaction with sound quality is a highly significant predictor of mean satisfaction across situations, accounting for more than 50% of the variance in satisfaction across situations (R2 = 0.51).
Sound Quality and Naturalness
In addition to the different listening situations, Table 1 also lists respondents’ agreement with the statement “I find that the sound is natural with the MOMENT hearing aids” on a 7-point scale. This shows one of the highest correlations with sound quality satisfaction, which means that those hearing aid wearers who are highly satisfied with the sound quality also perceive the sound as more natural.
In addition, naturalness ratings show a very similar pattern across weeks to sound quality satisfaction, as illustrated in Figure 2. Again, we see approximately a 1-point difference between the ratings of own and MOMENT hearing aids, and many more who “Agree” or “Strongly agree” that the sound of MOMENT is natural.
Figure 2. Ratings of naturalness of sound, with the left panel showing mean ratings per week and the right panel showing ratings for own hearing aids in Week 5 and for MOMENT in Week 7.
Satisfaction in Everyday Situations
As seen in Table 1, the survey included questions on a wide range of everyday situations. In Figure 3, these are grouped into four different more general categories, showing the distribution of ratings in Week 5 (own hearing aids) and Week 7 (MOMENT hearing aids).
Figure 3. Histograms showing distribution of ratings in Weeks 5 (own hearing aids) and 7 (MOMENT hearing aids).
The top-left panel shows the satisfaction with conversations in quiet, assessed by a single question. Level of satisfaction is generally high, as we would expect for this relatively easy listening environment. However, although the baseline is already high, the MOMENT ratings are still higher, with the most frequent response being “Very satisfied” and the difference to own hearing aids being highly significant (p < 0.0001).
Speech-in-noise ratings are shown in the top-right panel, based on a mean across questions on satisfaction in restaurants and with conversations in noise and during transport. These tend to be difficult situations for hearing aid users, which is also clear if we compare the general level of satisfaction with speech in quiet. This makes the significant advantage for MOMENT (p < 0.0001) all the more noteworthy: the most frequent mean rating for these questions is clearly in the “Satisfied” category for MOMENT, whereas ratings for own hearing aids are more spread out, with “Somewhat dissatisfied” as the most frequent. If we compare the own-vs-MOMENT hearing aid ratings per respondent, five times as many respondents are more satisfied with the MOMENT hearing aids compared with their own: 74% of respondents are more satisfied with MOMENT, 12% more satisfied with their own, and the remaining 14% give the same ratings to both.
The bottom left panel illustrates mean ratings in outdoor situations, again with a markedly differently distribution of ratings for own and MOMENT hearing aids (p < 0.0001). Part of the explanation for the MOMENT advantage could be that respondents experience the sound of MOMENT as more natural, something that is likely to play a larger role outdoors.
The final panel of Figure 3 represents the frequent listening situations where sound comes from a device, with TV likely being the most frequent for most people, but also telephone and music. As for conversations in quiet, the general level of satisfaction is higher here than for more difficult listening situations, but the MOMENT advantage remains, with a significant difference to own hearing aids (p < 0.0001). Collectively, the four types of situations illustrated in Figure 3 give a comprehensive view of the everyday lives of hearing aid users, and across all these situations MOMENT shows a solid advantage.
Participation in Daily Life
A common problem for people with hearing loss, reported both scientifically6,7 and by hearing aid users and their relatives to HCPs all over the world, is the difficulty of participating in everyday life. Therefore, the survey included a question inspired by the International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA)8: “How satisfied are you with your ability to participate effortlessly in everyday life with [your own hearing aids/the WIDEX MOMENT hearing aids]?” The ratings for this question are shown in Figure 4, where both plots illustrate a similar 1-point MOMENT advantage that was also seen previously (p < 0.0001). An interesting statistic is how many people are satisfied (in the top-3 categories) with their ability to participate in everyday life; this number is 69% for own hearing aids but 90% for MOMENT. Conversely, only 6% of respondents indicate dissatisfaction with participation when wearing MOMENT, while the corresponding number is 20% for own hearing aids, in spite of the fact that the MOMENT devices are new to the respondents and they cannot be expected to be completely habituated to them yet.
Figure 4. Ratings of ability to participate in everyday life, with the left panel showing mean ratings per week and the right panel showing ratings for own hearing aids in Week 5 and for MOMENT in Week 7.
Overall Satisfaction
Finally, a question about overall satisfaction examines how all these different elements of real-life hearing come together in the respondents’ entire experience of wearing the MOMENT hearing aids, compared with their own. The responses to this question were tested in the same way as previous results, showing significantly higher ratings (p < 0.0001) for MOMENT than own hearing aids. The left panel in Figure 5 is a particularly clear example that respondents’ ratings of their own hearing aids change when they have tried MOMENT, as evidenced by the lower ratings in Week 5 compared to Week 0. More generally, Figure 5 confirms the MOMENT advantage that has also been clear in the more detailed questions, with the most frequent overall response to the MOMENT hearing aids being “Very satisfied.”
Figure 5. Ratings of overall satisfaction, with the left panel showing mean ratings per week and the right panel showing ratings for own hearing aids in Week 5 and for MOMENT in Week 7.
The Importance of Sound Quality in Real Life Hearing Aid Use
The results reported in this article show the importance of sound quality in many different moments of real life, confirming the Widex design philosophy that sound quality should be central. We see solid advantages for the MOMENT devices for sound quality satisfaction in general, as well as for ratings of a representative selection of real-life situations, and for the key factor of participation in daily life.
The results also show that sound quality should not be seen as a quality for experts only. The respondents in this survey were not selected to have a specific focus on sound quality; they represent a broad group of hearing aid users, with different lives and different (hearing) needs and wishes. Nonetheless, the results support the importance of sound quality, both as an overall phenomenon and as a continually relevant factor in many different situations of real-life hearing for many different people. So, although Widex does aim to fulfill the needs of musicians and other sound experts with great-sounding hearing aids, the target group is not limited to connoisseurs: the great sound quality of WIDEX MOMENT™ benefits everyone.
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Phonak announced the launch of the second generation of Roger Focus, the ear-level receiver that allows “children, teens, and adults to hear a speaker’s voice via any Roger microphone.” Research has shown that speech recognition in noise is significantly improved for children with unilateral hearing loss 1,2, autism spectrum disorder 3,4 , and auditory processing disorder 5 when using Phonak remote microphone technologies like Roger Focus II compared to no technology.
Potential applications for Roger Focus II include:
Unilateral hearing loss (UHL) UHL affects 1-3% of school children 6,7 and left untreated, can impact a child’s behavior, social engagement, and anxiety levels.8-10 Emerging research shows that when using Roger Focus II, children with UHL have 53 percentage-points better speech understanding in noise at five meters distance compared to their normal hearing peers and even show significant improvement in quiet environments compared to no technology.11
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) Some children on the autism spectrum with normal hearing have “functional hearing loss,” which is loosely defined as a hearing loss with no natural or physiological cause.12 In other words, these children have impaired auditory filtering that makes it difficult to hear, function, and complete tasks in the presence of background noise.8 Parents reported improved listening in children with ASD and teachers reported that classroom attentiveness, behavior, and listening improved in children with ASD when using Phonak remote microphone technology like Roger Focus II. 13-15
Auditory processing disorder (APD)
Children with APD may also experience functional hearing loss despite normal hearing and may have difficulties with spatial sound processing and word discrimination. This can result in poorer behavior, attention, and concentration7 while leading to negative psychosocial effects like social withdrawal, difficulty with interpersonal relationships, and increased anxiety.16 Speech understanding in noise is improved significantly in children with APD when using Phonak remote microphone technology like Roger Focus II compared to no technology, according to Phonak. Meanwhile, students report improvement in anxiety, depression, and interpersonal relationships.
“Roger Focus II was developed to help children overcome the challenges of hearing over distance and in background noise so that they can focus on what matters,” said Angela Pelosi, director of global audiology at Phonak. “As a leading innovator of world-class pediatric hearing solutions, it’s critically important that we provide children with unilateral or functional hearing loss the confidence that they can fully participate in everyday activities—and the Roger Focus II does just that.”
The new Roger Focus II is available in a new lithium-ion rechargeable option or a traditional zinc-air battery featuring a “tamper-proof” battery door. According to Phonak, it received an IP68-rating for water and dust resistance and has new coupling options to fit even smaller ears than its predecessor. The rechargeable version comes in ten assorted colors and offers up to 20 hours of battery life on a full charge.
Roger Focus II is intended for children over three years old and is available to order today via licensed hearing care professionals in the US and other select markets.
https://www.keynshamhearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/logo-300x79.png00adminhttps://www.keynshamhearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/logo-300x79.pngadmin2021-02-23 11:04:002021-02-23 11:04:00Phonak Launches Roger II Focus Ear-Level Receiver
GN Hearing announced the launch of ReSound Key, a full essential hearing aid line-up that provides “greater access to proven and award-winning hearing technology worldwide.” Based on “an advanced chip platform and GN’s Organic Hearing philosophy, ReSound Key promises clear, natural sound quality,” according to GN’s announcement.
Today, only one in five of those who could benefit from hearing aids are using them[i], leaving a large proportion to miss out on life’s sounds, communicating with family, and socializingwith friends. The ReSound Key is set to make “a huge difference to people with all types of hearing loss.” According to GN, the new hearing aids will help people “boost their confidence and connect with others and the world during times of social isolation; all with clear sound and leading rechargeability that offers up to 30 hours of power from one charge.” They can enjoy direct streaming using iOS and Android devices and Bluetooth Low Energy.
Not treating hearing loss comes at a personal cost, with implications for physical, social, emotional, and mental health.[ii],[iii],[iv] However, professional guidance is at hand, even remotely, thanks to the company’s telehealth solution, ReSound Assist Live. With this at-home service, hearing care professionals can program and adjust ReSound Key hearing aids via video consultations to help people grow with their hearing and nurture their relationships.
GN Hearing CEO and President, Gitte Aabo, explains:“At GN Hearing, we believe that everyone deserves great hearing. Treating hearing loss can radically transform lives, helping people to thrive and grow. The launch of ReSound Key gives more people access to the best care and professional guidance, which helps them feel more confident and stay in touch with others to participate fully in life.”
ReSound Key joins the ReSound ONE with M&RIE* and ReSound LiNX Quattro in “the strongest and broadest ReSound portfolio yet,” offering hearing solutions at all price levels.
ReSound Key helps to further enhance the individualized hearing experience and can connect to a range of wireless accessories for additional help in challenging listening situations. New integrated, streamlined fitting and software updates “ensure a seamless first fit and customer satisfaction,” GN says.
ReSound Key is available in 10 models, including the rechargeable Receiver-in-Ear (RIE) design, custom hearing aids, and Behind-the-Ear (BTE) options – even including high-power and super-power models for profound hearing loss. ReSound Key will roll out in markets around the world from February 1, 2021. The same technology and models are also available in the new Beltone Rely hearing aid portfolio.
A technology called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) can be used to objectively measure tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, according to a new study published November 18 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE by Mehrnaz Shoushtarian of The Bionics Institute, Australia, and colleagues. A summary of the study was published on the Science Daily website.
Tinnitus, the perception of a high-pitched ringing or buzzing in the ears, affects up to 20% of adults and, when severe, is associated with depression, cognitive dysfunction, and stress. Despite its wide prevalence, there has been no clinically used, objective way to determine the presence or severity of tinnitus.
In the new study, researchers turned to fNIRS, a non-invasive and non-radioactive imaging method which measures changes in blood oxygen levels within brain tissue. The team used fNIRS to track activity in areas of the brain’s cortex previously linked to tinnitus. They collected fNIRS data in the resting state and in response to auditory and visual stimuli in 25 people with chronic tinnitus and 21 controls matched for age and hearing loss. Participants also rated the severity of their tinnitus using the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory.
fNIRS revealed a statistically significant difference in the connectivity between areas of the brain in people with and without tinnitus. Moreover, the brain’s response to both visual and auditory stimuli was dampened among patients with tinnitus. When a machine learning approach was applied to the data, a program could differentiate patients with slight/mild tinnitus from those with moderate/severe tinnitus with an 87.32% accuracy. The authors conclude that fNIRS may be a feasible way to objectively assess tinnitus to assess new treatments or monitor the effectiveness of a patient’s treatment program.
The authors add: “Much like the sensation itself, how severe an individual’s tinnitus is has previously only been known to the person experiencing the condition. We have combined machine learning and non-invasive brain imaging to quantify the severity of tinnitus. Our ability to track the complex changes that tinnitus triggers in a sufferer’s brain is critical for the development of new treatments.”
BySarah E. McQuate, PhD, Science Writer | University of Washington News & UW College of Engineering
Smartwatches offer people a private method for getting notifications about their surroundings — such as a phone call, health alerts, or an upcoming package delivery.
Now University of Washington researchers have developed SoundWatch, a smartwatch app for deaf, Deaf, and hard-of-hearing people who want to be aware of nearby sounds. When the smartwatch picks up a sound the user is interested in — examples include a siren, a microwave beeping, or a bird chirping — SoundWatch will identify it and send the user a friendly buzz along with information about the sound, according to an article on the UW News website.
The team presented these findings October 28 at the ACM conference on computing and accessibility.
“This technology provides people with a way to experience sounds that require an action — such as getting food from the microwave when it beeps. But these devices can also enhance people’s experiences and help them feel more connected to the world,” said lead author Dhruv Jain, a UW doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “I use the watch prototype to notice birds chirping and waterfall sounds when I am hiking. It makes me feel present in nature. My hope is that other d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who are interested in sounds will also find SoundWatch helpful.”
The team started this project by designing a system for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing people who wanted to be able to know what was going on around their homes.
“I used to sleep through the fire alarm,” said Jain, who was born hard of hearing.
The first system, called HomeSound, uses Microsoft Surface tablets scattered throughout the home which act like a network of interconnected displays. Each display provides a basic floor plan of the house and alerts a user to a sound and its source. The displays also show the sound’s waveforms, to help users identify the sound, and store a history of all the sounds a user might have missed when they were not home.
The researchers tested HomeSound in the Seattle-area homes of six d/Deaf or hard-of-hearing participants for three weeks. Participants were instructed to go about their lives as normal and complete weekly surveys.
Based on feedback, a second prototype used machine learning to classify sounds in real time. The researchers created a dataset of over 31 hours of 19 common home-related sounds — such as a dog bark or a cat meow, a baby crying, and a door knock.
“People mentioned being able to train their pets when they noticed dog barking sounds from another room or realizing they didn’t have to wait by the door when they were expecting someone to come over,” Jain said. “HomeSound enabled all these new types of interactions people could have in their homes. But many people wanted information throughout the day, when they were out in their cars or going for walks.”
In the second prototype of HomeSound, the tablets sent information to a smartwatch, which is how the researchers got the idea to make the standalone app. Jain et al./CHI 2020
The researchers then pivoted to a smartwatch system, which allows users to get sound alerts wherever they are, even in places they might not have their phones, such as at the gym.
Because smartwatches have limited storage and processing abilities, the team needed a system that didn’t eat the watch’s battery and was also fast and accurate. First the researchers compared a compressed version of the HomeSound classifier against three other available sound classifiers. The HomeSound variant was the most accurate, but also the slowest.
To speed up the system, the team has the watch send the sound to a device with more processing power — the user’s phone — for classification. Having a phone classify sounds and send the results back to the watch not only saves time but also maintains the user’s privacy because sounds are only transferred between the user’s own devices.
The researchers tested the SoundWatch app in March 2020 — before Washington’s stay-at-home order — with eight d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing participants in the Seattle area. Users tested the app at three different locations on or around the UW campus: in a grad student office, in a building lounge and at a bus stop.
People found the app was useful for letting them know if there was something that they should pay attention to. For example: that they had left the faucet running or that a car was honking. On the other hand, it sometimes misclassified sounds (labeling a car driving by as running water) or was slow to notify users (one user was surprised by a person entering the room way before the watch sent a notification about a door opening).
The team is also developing HoloSound, which uses augmented reality to provide real-time captions and other sound information through HoloLens glasses.
“We want to harness the emergence of state-of-the-art machine learning technology to make systems that enhance the lives of people in a variety of communities,” said senior author Jon Froehlich, an associate professor in the Allen School.
Another current focus is developing a method to pick out specific sounds from background noise, and identifying the direction a sound, like a siren, is coming from.
The SoundWatch app is available for free as an Android download. The researchers are eager to hear feedback so that they can make the app more useful.
“Disability is highly personal, and we want these devices to allow people to have deeper experiences,” Jain said. “We’re now looking into ways for people to personalise these systems for their own specific needs. We want people to be notified about the sounds they care about — a spouse’s voice versus general speech, the back door opening versus the front door opening, and more.”
Whisper may have a quiet name, but it could reverberate loudly in the hearing healthcare industry. The company launched its first new hearing aid on October 15—a product that really is significantly different from all others dispensed by audiologists and hearing aid specialists. And, yes, that’s right: the Whisper Hearing System is designed for dispensing by hearing care professionals. As such, Whisper represents the first new major hearing aid manufacturer with a product specifically designed for dispensing since the InSound Medical XT was approved by the FDA in 2003 (later purchased in 2010 by Sonova and renamed Lyric).
The Whisper RIC hearing aids and brain.
And a bit like Lyric, Whisper will use a subscription payment model for consumers. The leasing concept is gaining ground in hearing healthcare, in part due to the fact that technology moves so fast, hearing aids can be expensive, and frequent product upgrades are now a given in the industry. Whisper will be available via a comprehensive monthly plan that includes ongoing care from a local hearing care professional, a lease of the Whisper Hearing System, regular software upgrades, and a 3-year warranty that not only covers the system itself but also loss and damage. The company is offering a special introductory rate of $139/month (regularly $179/month) for a 3-year term.
The New Whisper Hearing System
The Whisper Hearing System essentially has three components:
A hearing aid processor that resembles an advanced receiver-in-the-canal (RIC) hearing aid;
The Whisper Brain is a small device that runs an AI-driven Sound Separation Engine to optimize sound in real time. It also enables connectivity to iPhones, and
A phone app that provides an interface for the consumer.
The Whisper team, which is largely composed of executives from the AI field, created the Whisper brain as a dedicated, powerful sound processing system that also allows for updates and other capabilities—instead of relying on the wearer’s smartphone for many of these functions. “We developed the Whisper Brain to run the core technology we’ve developed for hearing,” said company Co-founder and President Andrew Song in an interview with Hearing Review. “Think about your smartphone and all the processing inside it. We’re using the Whisper Brain to apply this type of processing to hearing without having to compete with smartphone games or applications. The Whisper Brain is a dedicated processor designed to provide the best hearing.”
However, the Whisper Brain isn’t required to use the hearing aid, as there may be situations where the wearer wants to step away from it or not take it with them. In those situations, the hearing aid uses the “onboard” hearing aid algorithms in the RIC (similar to other advanced hearing aids when unpaired to the user’s cell phone).
Wireless connectivity with iPhones is also provided through the Whisper Brain via Bluetooth, and the company says it may support other phones and has plans to expand on this in the future. The RICs use a size 675 battery with an expected use of 4-5 days with typical use including streaming, and the WhisperBrain has a USB port for recharging.
Not Your Grandfather’s Hearing Aid
Andrew Song
According to Song, Whisper started about 3 years ago in San Francisco when he began discussions with another Whisper co-founder, Dwight Crow, the company’s CEO. Song is the former head of products for an online instant-messaging (IM) system most of us are familiar with: Facebook Messenger Core. A mathematics and computer science graduate of the University of Waterloo, he is an expert in artificial intelligence and a member of Sequoia Capital’s Scout Program which was formed to discover and develop promising companies. Crow is the founder of Carsabi, a machine-learning based car sales aggregator acquired by Facebook in 2012, and he helped build the e-commerce segment at Facebook which yields over $1 billion per quarter in revenue. A third co-founder, Shlomo Zippel, was the applications team leader at PrimeSense which built the 3D sensor technology behind Microsoft Kinect.
Jim Kothe
The company then added as head of sales Jim Kothe, an audiologist and hearing industry veteran who has a wealth of experience within both the dispensing community and manufacturing, in addition to an extremely impressive team of executives with experience and leadership roles at companies like Facebook, Nest, Google, Invisalign, Johnson & Johnson, Solta Medical, and Cutera. Together they are collaborating on a product that blends artificial intelligence, hearing care, hardware, and software for helping solve the challenge of providing better hearing.
“I think for me, and probably for everyone at the company, it’s a very personal mission,” says Song. “Personally, the starting point is really my grandfather. He has hearing loss and is not an uncommon story when you work in this business: I’d say that he’s a hearing aid owner, but not a hearing aid wearer.”
This set into motion Song’s investigation into what hearing aid technology was doing, what experiences people were having with it, and why his grandfather had the complaints he did. “That really opened my world to all the exciting things that could be done, but also the opportunity we have for how we can really build a product to help [people like him],” says Song. “Since then we’ve been putting the product together and bringing the expertise that comes from hearing folks like Jim and the others on our team—and blending it with the kind of product and technology ideas we almost take for granted here in Silicon Valley. Products are becoming more consumer friendly, more consumer oriented, and we’re building some of those ideas into a new type of hearing aid product. So, while Whisper is a hearing aid regulated by the FDA, all of these things influenced our approach, our mentality, and our vision towards this space, and we think our approach is a little different [from those of other hearing aid manufacturers].”
The larger capacity for processing power is extremely exciting for Song and his colleagues, and he likens this advancement to the leap from analog to digital hearing technology.
The larger capacity for processing power is extremely exciting for Song and his colleagues, and he likens this advancement to the leap from analog to digital hearing technology. He says some great hearing aid algorithms have been, and will continue to be, created that will result in substantially improved hearing. However, there’s little point in having these algorithms if they can’t be fully employed in a wearable device.
He also says the problem in hearing aids is much more complex than, for example, those solutions found in noise-cancelling headphones. “Over time, [we’ve had] very ambitious people with a lot of ideas on what we should do with this powerful processing. What’s really exciting is not just having this technology, but also having a learning platform to be able to develop it. I think one of the most interesting parts of development is that the goal, at the end of the day, really isn’t about perfect noise removal. You need noise in your life. We have demos we can run that more or less perfectly remove noise…and it just creates sort of a weird environment. So, I think in many cases, the unique aspect of what we’re doing revolves around how do we use [the research] and how do we invent some truly novel ideas? Obviously, it’s not only about noise removal, but how we can use the powerful processing specifically in these hearing aids to make hearing aids really good for the purpose of listening. That subtlety is where we feel like we can really differentiate ourselves and truly make a difference in people’s lives.”
A System that Relies on Professional Care
Song says there has been a patient-centric approach at every turn in the design, development, marketing, and especially distribution of the Whisper Hearing System. And it starts with the hearing care professional’s expertise.
“I think there’s several very important things along that path; the first of which was to work with hearing care professionals who are the ‘artists’ in delivering great care,” Song told HR via a Zoom interview. “If I look at my grandfather’s experience, it was pretty obvious to me that having the right professionals made a huge difference. And so you can talk about using Zoom or you can talk about going direct to consumer, but it’s very, very obvious—even as a Silicon Valley engineer—that the audiologist is extremely important in the process. That’s why we made a decision very early on that we’d be working with professionals. And if you remember, when the company started in 2017, that’s when the OTC laws were getting passed. That’s where all the ‘cool stuff’ was supposed to be. Everyone was saying, ‘Get rid of these professionals!’ …But there’s a care-oriented mindset in hearing healthcare. You can see that there’s a personal aspect [needed] to evaluate what would be good for my grandfather. And when you talk to patients and you talk to audiologists, this becomes very clear. So, I think that was a very early decision that’s not necessarily about the product, per se, but about our business and how we best deliver the hearing system.”
One of the things Whisper also wants to address is the post-purchase feeling of regret that can accompany a high-end, high-technology purchase. As with any car, computer, or consumer electronics device, when a consumer purchases an expensive top-of-the-line hearing aid, there is doubtlessly a more advanced model with new processing capabilities and features that will be launched 6 months later. But, with hearing loss, Song believes that sense of regret can be magnified because hearing is such a personal, important 24/7 activity.
The Whisper Hearing Aid Brain
That led to the idea of a subscription-based system using a machine-learning platform that can be upgraded on regular intervals without continually replacing the actual hearing aid or brain itself. “The nature of our product is that it gets better over time. You don’t need to pay for [the upgrades]; the hearing aid learns on its own, and we’ll also deliver you a software upgrade every few months. [It’s] similar to how you might think of a cell phone plan…Fundamentally, that’s really what we’re trying to offer.”
It’s also important that professionals have the margins and revenues to be able to cover their expenses in order to provide exceptional hearing care, says Song. Whisper plans to provide upfront fees and work with professionals, while offering patients a better way to pay for the product, support, and systems that the company has developed. Currently, a select number of hearing care professionals are using the Whisper Hearing System, and the company is now expanding from this base of dispensing offices.
When asked how he thinks Whisper will change the hearing aid market, Song quickly replied, “I really hope that everybody around the world gets an upgradable hearing aid in the next 5 years. And, of course, I hope it’s ours. We have a lot to offer. But if the market moves toward Whisper in 5 years, then we’re competing with everybody to make the best upgrades. Frankly, I think that’s a big win for the industry. And it’s also a big win for my grandfather, right? I think, as part of that vision, we have to be really mindful about how much we bite off in any of our product development. So this first product represents a first step, especially on the device with this kind of learning capability and working with professionals on this payment model—all of the new things that we’ve already talked about. But there are other aspects around this kind of patient-centric, consumer-centric model with the professional and I think there’s a lot of interactivity that we can build on. There’s a lot of new ideas we have about how to better integrate everything together. And so, more and more, we’ll be able to build that out and address those issues because we’ll have an excellent learning hearing aid on the market.”
Funding for Whisper
The initial investment to establish the company came from Sequoia Capital and First Round Capital, and on Thursday (October 15) Whisper announced the close of a $35 million Series B funding round led by Quiet Capital for total funding of $53 million. Advisors for the company include Mike Vernal of Sequoia and former VP of engineering at Facebook; audiologist Robert Sweetow who is the former UCSF Director of Audiology; Lee Linden of Quiet Capital and founder of TapJoy and Karma; Rob Hayes of First Round which also invested in Uber and Square, and Stewart Bowers, former VP of engineering at Tesla who was responsible for AutoPilot.
“Software-defined hearing technology is the future,” said Vernal in a press statement. “By building the Whisper Hearing System around software, the Whisper team will be able to improve patient care with a device that adapts, upgrades, and improves continuously for the wearer’s benefit. This is the start of a new paradigm for delivering hearing technology, and we’re thrilled to partner with Whisper on this journey.”
“What I look for in a company is the team,” said Hayes. “The Whisper team combines incredible expertise in cutting edge artificial intelligence, software, and hardware with a genuine passion for helping people. I’m excited to work with them to transform the hearing space.”
Hearing Speech Requires Quiet—In More Ways than One
A very interesting paper by:
Kim Krieger, Research Writer, University of Connecticut
Perceiving speech requires quieting certain types of brain cells, report a team of researchers from UConn Health and University of Rochester in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology. Their research reveals a previously unknown population of brain cells, and opens up a new way of understanding how the brain hears, according to an article on theUConn Today website.
Your brain is never silent. Brain cells, known as neurons, constantly chatter. When a neuron gets excited, it fires up and chatters louder. Following the analogy further, a neuron at maximum excitement could be said to shout. When a friend says your name, your ears signal cells in the middle of the brain. Those cells are attuned to something called the amplitude modulation frequency. That’s the frequency at which the amplitude, or volume, of the sound changes over time.
Amplitude modulation is very important to human speech. It carries a lot of the meaning. If the amplitude modulation patterns are muffled, speech becomes much harder to understand. Researchers have known there are groups of neurons keenly attuned to specific frequency ranges of amplitude modulation; such a group of neurons might focus on sounds with amplitude modulation frequencies around 32 Hertz (Hz), or 64 Hz, or 128 Hz, or some other frequencies within the range of human hearing. But many previous studies of the brain had shown that populations of neurons exposed to specific amplitude modulated sounds would get excited in seemingly disorganised patterns. The responses could seem like a raucous jumble, not the organized and predictable patterns you would expect if the theory, of specific neurons attuned to specific amplitude modulation frequencies, was the whole story.
UConn Health neuroscientists Duck O. Kim and Shigeyuki Kuwada passionately wanted to figure out the real story. Kuwada had made many contributions to science’s understanding of binaural (two-eared) hearing, beginning in the 1970s. Binaural hearing is essential to how we localise where a sound is coming from. Kuwada (or Shig, as his colleagues called him) and Kim, both professors in the School of Medicine, began collaborating in 2005 on how neural processing of amplitude modulation influences the way we recognise speech. They had a lot of experience studying individual neurons in the brain, and, together with Laurel Carney at the University of Rochester, they came up with an ambitious plan: they would systematically probe how every single neuron in a specific part of the brain reacted to a certain sound when that sound was amplitude modulated, and when it was not. They studied isolated single-neuron responses of 105 neurons in the inferior colliculus (a part of the brainstem) and 30 neurons in the medial geniculate body (a part of the thalamus) of rabbits. The study took them two hours a day, every day, over a period of years to get the data they needed.
While they were writing up their results, Shig became ill with cancer. But still he persisted in the research. And after years of painstaking measurement, all three of the researchers were amazed at the results of their analysis: there was a hitherto unknown population of neurons that did the exact opposite of what the conventional wisdom predicted. Instead of getting excited when they heard certain amplitude modulated frequencies, they quieted down. The more the sound was amplitude modulated in a specific modulation frequency, the quieter they got.
It was particularly intriguing because the visual system of the brain has long been understood to operate in a similar way. One population of visual neurons (called the “ON” neurons) gets excited by certain visual stimuli while, at the same time, another population of neurons (called the “OFF” neurons) gets suppressed.
Last year, when Shig was dying, Kim made him a promise.
“In the final days of Shig, I indicated to him and his family that I will put my full effort toward having our joint research results published. I feel relieved now that it is accomplished,” Kim says. The new findings could be particularly helpful for people who have lost their ability to hear and understand spoken words. If they can be offered therapy with an implant that stimulates brain cells directly, it could try to match the natural behavior of the hearing brain.
“It should not excite every neuron; it should try to match how the brain responds to sounds, with some neurons excited and others suppressed,” Kim says.
The research was funding by the National Institutes of Health.
Original Paper: Kim DO, Carney LH, Kuwada S. Amplitude modulation transfer functions reveal opposing populations within both the inferior colliculus and medial geniculate body. Journal of Neurophysiology. 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00279.2020.
BBC Looks at How Loud Music Can Lead to Early Signs of Hearing Damage
Those who frequently attend loud concerts and music events may be more likely to have earlier signs of hearing damage according to an article in BBC Science Focus Magazine.
The article examined a study from researchers at the University of Manchester, which suggests that although the damage observed is not enough to be diagnosed as a full-blown hearing loss, it could potentially have a cumulative effect on hearing later in life. Out of the 123 people tested, researchers found that those exposed to loud music had less functional hair cells.
To prevent this kind of damage, the researchers suggest avoidance of noisy situations, reduction of volume, or the use of hearing protection such as earplugs or earmuffs.
https://www.keynshamhearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/logo-300x79.png00adminhttps://www.keynshamhearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/logo-300x79.pngadmin2020-09-21 10:31:142020-09-21 10:31:14Loud Music Can Lead to Early Signs of Hearing Damage
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