As part of their continued customer-focused approach Lucid Hearing announced the launch of fio, its “smallest in-canal, rechargeable hearing aid.”
“Fio is focused on delivering the most comfortable fit and function for the active individual who is looking to maximise every moment of their lives. Hearing health is a right of every individual and our goal at Lucid Hearing is to simply help people hear better” said Jason Kidd, CEO Lucid Hearing. “Part of that responsibility is to make products that are ready for use, discreet in nature, and empower the end user to customize their hearing profile.”
Compatible with LucidShape, fio allows the user to develop custom hearing levels for all types of environments making wearing fio a way to bring the user back into the conversation.
About Lucid Hearing:
Lucid Hearing’s mission is to advance hearing healthcare holistically across its family of brands that encompass hearing enhancement, enjoyment, protection, detection, and wellness. They believe every human should have access to better hearing, and is proud to offer free online and in-store assessments at over 500 Lucid Hearing clinics nationwide.
Hearing Aids Powered by Lucid are “highly sophisticated devices which have the capacity to make a real impact on the overall quality of life for those with hearing loss,” according to the company. They “help deliver natural sound quality that is superior to traditional compression hearing aid technology.” Powered by Lucid hearing aids help you “hear the sounds that are most important to you and ensure they are at the most understandable and comfortable volume.” For a smoother, richer sound, multiple channels create “greater sound quality allowing our Powered by Lucid technology to focus the most important part of the sound signal in a comfortable listening range while minimising distortion.”
Source: Lucid Hearing
Images: Lucid Hearing
https://honiton-hearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/fio_Earpieces_and_Charger.jpeg281499adminhttps://honitonnew.leecurran.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/honitonhearinglogo.pngadmin2022-04-18 09:20:042022-04-18 09:20:04Lucid Hearing Launches Fio Hearing Aid
Article Suggests Apps and Devices to Help with Tinnitus
Described as a “phantom sound generated by the brain” by audiologist Julie Prutsman, tinnitus is a common condition experienced as ringing or buzzing in the ears, often caused by loud noise exposure. While there is no “cure” for tinnitus, there are methods of coping with the symptoms, according to a recent article in Wired.
Prutsman recommends avoiding silence and exposing yourself to a sound-rich environment. The article’s author suggests the Lofi Work Playlist on Spotify and the Calm or Rainy Mood app at night from the Calm.com website. Additionally, the ReSound Relief App can be helpful, according to the article, because it allows users to create layered soundscapes and customised audio balance for each ear. Other options include sleep headbands, Bose’s SleepBuds II, fans, smart speakers, pillows with built-in audio, and tabletop sound generators.
“Nothing works for everyone, which is why seeking help can be maddeningly frustrating,” Joy Onozuka, a tinnitus research and communications officer for the American Tinnitus Association(ATA), was quoted as saying in the article. “We advise people to start with and explore inexpensive technologies, with free trials or good return policies.”
When searching for a treatment, the article stresses the importance of finding things approved by the FDA and/or with clinical data to support its claims. Prutsman says that the Neosensory Duo and Lenire devices have solid science behind them, and utilise bimodal stimulation, both touch and sound, to help “rewire the brain.”
Other options include features to monitor noise levels on Apple iOS devices and watches, apps like the NIOSH Sound Level Meter, or the SoundPrint app which lists noise levels at different venues.
“Hearing protection is really important for someone that has tinnitus and doesn’t want it to get worse,” Prutsman is quoted as saying in the article. “Unfortunately, a lot of people will go to the opposite extreme and overprotect their hearing at safe levels. This can create a worse situation called hyperacusis or hyper-sensitivity to sound.”
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Source: Wired
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Starkey announced the Evolv AI, its newest full line of hearing aids. According to the company, the Evolv AI “is setting the stage for an entirely new hearing ecosystem that not only emphasizes hearing’s impact on overall health and wellness but creates an effortless user experience.”
“In 2018, we reinvented the hearing aid with Livio AI,” said Starkey Chief Technology Officer Achin Bhowmik, PhD. “Today, the smartest hearing aid just got smarter. For example, every single hour, an Evolv AI hearing device will make 55 million adjustments – automatically. And we aren’t done yet. The next 18 months from Starkey will redefine hearing healthcare for the decade ahead.”
Evolv AI is built on Starkey Sound, a technology created by “years of refining Starkey’s research and science-based algorithms to power high-fidelity audio, which is modeled after the human auditory system.” Like the brain, Starkey Sound is designed to automatically suppress background noise and designed to increase speech audibility and intelligibility with machine learning technology, according to the company’s announcement.
Starkey also introduces the industry’s “smallest 2.4 GHz CIC,” as part of the Evolv AI line of hearing aids.
“Craftsmanship is something of a lost art,” said Chief Audiology Officer Sara Burdak, AuD. “At Starkey, Chairman Bill Austin pioneered the concept that designing and manufacturing hearing aids requires excellence. Our researchers, engineers, and manufacturing teams have continued that long-standing tradition of handcrafted excellence by dedicating themselves to create smaller, more powerful, and longer-lasting devices every single day.”
Additional features of the Evolv AI product family include:
“40% reduction in noise energy compared to Starkey’s previous technology,”
Additional refinement of Edge Mode,
Fall Alert and Voice Reminders at all technology tiers,
Thrive usability enhancements,
TeleHear first and follow-up fit additions.
Evolv AI’s always-on and always automatic approach helps “deliver realistic and genuine sound quality in every environment, without the need to do anything extra.”
“The connection between better hearing and improved overall health outcomes is indisputable,” said Starkey Chief Health Officer Archelle Georgiou, MD. “However, we know that if the technology inside a device isn’t easy to use, patients won’t reap the benefits. Evolv AI certainly leads the way in sound quality, but its ease of use is truly game changing.”
“We know better hearing is best served through you, the hearing professional,” said Starkey President and CEO Brandon Sawalich. “At Starkey, Hear Better, Live Better is much more than a tagline. It’s our commitment to you to help your patients live better through better hearing. We can’t wait for you to see how Evolv AI does that, in a way that is effortless out in the real world.”
The company also announces that Starkey Expo 2022, the hearing industry’s biennial event, will be held May 11– 15, 2022, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Stay tuned!
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Phonak, a global provider of hearing solutions, announced Naída Paradise, the power hearing aid that “gives people with severe-to- profound hearing loss the power, sound quality, and wireless connectivity they need to connect with everything around them.” Now in its seventh generation, Naída Paradise is said to be “14% smaller, 27% lighter1, and further improves upon the hearing performance that wearers expect from Phonak.” This includes “powerful sound, industry-leading connectivity, and soon a new custom program memory feature with the new myPhonak 5.0 app.”
Phonak Naida Paradise and Roger On
Naída Paradise features a powerful double receiver that delivers up to 141 dB of peak gain in the UP model and up to 130 dB in the rechargeable model, according to Phonak. It’s powered by the new PRISM sound processing chip and features AutoSense OS 4.0 for “a host of premium features that work together seamlessly.” For example, the hearing aids can “automatically enhance soft speech in quiet places or reduce noise in loud environments.” A built-in accelerometer detects movement and automatically steers the microphones to improve listening on-the-go.2
Phonak Naida Paradise
Naída Paradise helps eliminate connectivity barriers that previously existed for consumers who needed more power. With Phonak universal connectivity, wearers can wirelessly stream audio directly into both hearing aids from virtually any smartphone, TV, laptop, tablet, eBook, and more. Phonak Paradise technology helps allow two active Bluetooth connections at the same time, so wearers can stay connected to their smartphone and their video chat without having to manually switch back and forth.
In addition to universal Bluetooth connectivity, Naída Paradise hearing aids are also equipped with RogerDirect. This means wearers can also receive the Roger remote microphone signal with no additional accessory required. Launched in 2013, Roger™ technology is “proven to boost hearing performance in loud noise and over distance.” In fact, hearing aid wearers who receive the Roger signal have better speech understanding in noise and over distance than people with normal hearing.3 Some Roger microphones and receivers have also been shown to help users understand up to 61% more speech in a group conversation in 75dBA of noise than using hearing aids alone.4
Universal Bluetooth connectivity coupled with on-board microphones means Naída Paradise wearers can use their hearing aids as wireless headsets for hands-free calls. A new Tap Control2 feature allows users to double tap on their ear to accept or end a call, or pause or resume streaming. A tap on the other ear gives access to smartphone voice-assistants like Siri or Google Assistant.
“Naída has a long-lasting history of delivering power without sacrificing sound quality, so we knew that we needed to deliver an outstanding product to our wearers who depend so heavily on their devices,” said Jon Billings, Vice-President Phonak Marketing. “With Naída Paradise, we’re making history again by giving those with severe forms of hearing loss access to next-level, powerful sound with industry-leading connectivity.”
In late spring, the myPhonak app’s 5.0 update will include the myPhonak Memory feature. It helps allow consumers to save a custom program from the app to the hearing aids, access the last-used custom program using the hearing aid’s multi-function button, or access other custom programs via the app.
Phonak is also preparing for the newest member of the Roger family with the debut of Roger On. The new Roger On remote microphone will feature MultiBeam 2.0 technology and an “improved pointing mode that allows the user to zoom into a speaker by simply pointing.” Roger On will be compatible with most hearing aids and cochlear implants and will be able to stream a variety of audio content.
The new Phonak Naída Paradise is available for pre-order by licensed hearing care professionals in the US and other select markets and will begin shipping in late February. The myPhonak 5.0 app featuring myPhonak Memory feature as well as the new Roger On microphone will be introduced in the US and other select markets in late spring.
For US hearing care professionals to learn more and to pre-order: https://www.phonakpro.com/us/en/campaign/naida.html.
Source/Reference
1 Naída P UP with RogerDirect compared to Naída B UP + external Roger receiver.
2 In the Phonak power BTE portfolio, only Naída P-PR comes with motion sensor technology, including Tap Control.
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.
https://honiton-hearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Tinnitus-Honiton-Devon.jpeg385500adminhttps://honitonnew.leecurran.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/honitonhearinglogo.pngadmin2021-04-12 16:25:002021-04-12 16:25:00Musician Creates Soundscapes to Help Tinnitus
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://honiton-hearing.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Honiton-hearing-Devon.jpg480640adminhttps://honitonnew.leecurran.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/honitonhearinglogo.pngadmin2021-03-17 17:57:072021-03-17 17:57:07Signia Launches Motion X Hearing Aids
Widex Inc announced that it has been recognized by Digital Trends Media Group with a Tech for Change Award at CES 2021 for its WIDEX MOMENT hearing aids. Recipients were selected based on innovations intended to make the world a better place, as displayed during CES.
WIDEX MOMENT was selected for having pioneered “the first digital hearing aid to incorporate dual artificial intelligence engines to improve real-time listening,” according to the company’s announcement. Furthermore, the WIDEX MOMENT is said to leverage ZeroDelay technology to “reduce the standard sound delay from 7-10 milliseconds seconds to just 0.5 milliseconds to give people with hearing loss the most natural hearing experience available.”
“Hearing aids have historically delivered a ‘tinny’, tube-like sound due to the delay in digital sound processing; as the leader in natural sound, Widex could not stand for this,” said Søren Hvidberg Nielsen, President of Widex US. “Our engineers have worked tirelessly for five years to overcome this technical challenge, and with our breakthrough WIDEX MOMENT hearing aids we’ve now succeeded.”
Continued Nielsen, “These intelligent devices go far beyond simply boosting speech perception, offering wearers a true-to-life sound experience that’s been elusive until now. We are honored that Digital Trends Media Group recognized WIDEX MOMENT as an innovative, class-leading wearable and wellness device designed to make the world a better place through natural sound for all.”
Widex has pioneered the use of artificial intelligence to create a more personalized sound experience, which in turn leads to higher wearer acceptance and usage. WIDEX MOMENT leverages SoundSense Learn, an AI-based technology, to personalize hearing aid settings in two ways.
First, WIDEX MOMENT learns how users prefer to hear their surroundings by analyzing settings and guiding them through a series of A-B comparisons. Second, an AI-algorithm draws from millions of user settings stored in the cloud to help personalize the listening experience, according to the company.
Furthermore, WIDEX MOMENT also includes the PureSound ZeroDelay technology, a “parallel processing path that all but eliminates latency, resulting in a more natural sound without the ‘tinny’ distortions associated with other hearing aids.”
The WIDEX MOMENT is available now. Visit https://www.widex.com/en-us to find a hearing care provider in your area.
Source: Widex
Images: Widex
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Zoom Charges Monthly Fee for Closed Captioning During Pandemic, ‘WBFO’ Reports
The challenges for hearing impaired people working remotely and utilizing video conferencing services during the coronavirus pandemic can make communication difficult. According to an article on the WBFO/NPR website, hearing advocate and Living With Hearing Loss founder Shari Eberts recently wrote an open letter—that turned into a petition with 58,000 signatures—asking video conferencing companies to remove the paywall from their captioning services.
According to the article, both Google and Microsoft have complied, but Zoom is still charging a $200 monthly fee for users to be able to access closed captioning.
Issues with video conferencing that include poor audio and/or sound quality as well as spotty internet connection, can make lip reading difficult. Even when using workarounds like speaker mode to be able to see a larger version of the person they’re speaking with and/or headphones to improve sound quality, a person’s lips can be out of sync with their words, Eberts says in the article. Closed captions could improve communication in these situations, she says.
“It’s hard for us to want to jump in or to share our thoughts because we’re not sure what’s been said. And obviously, there’s a lot of trepidation about looking silly or repeating something that someone just said,” Eberts is quoted in the article as saying.
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
Source: WBFO
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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.
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