Improve Your Hearing With Vision

Ant writes "CNET News.com reports that there is a new pair of "hearing glasses," hearing-impaired people might both see and hear better--and have better social lives. A novel pair of glasses recently released on the market not only improve bad eyesight, but also work as a hearing aid. Developed by the Delft University of Technology and Dutch company Varibel, the glasses promise to keep hearing-impaired people active and social. While in-ear hearing aids usually work well for conversation in quiet surroundings, many people who wear them face problems in more lively environments. Since all incoming sounds are amplified, background noises easily take over, cause discomfort and make conversations difficult. Varibel says its glasses can detect which direction sounds come from, amplifying words spoken directly to the wearer while dampening background noise."

Comments

Prototype also popular among acid users.

[Zephyros]

"I can hear the lights, man...and the music of the colors.."

Truer words have never been spoken (or heard!)

[BadAnalogyGuy]

"Varibel is voor mij het einde van een speurtocht naar een goede oplossing voor mijn hoorproblematiek."

- Martine van Hulst (48)


I've got bad hearing due to a terrible Post-it note accident so I would definitely be in the market for something like this. Sometimes when my einde is oplossing, I hoor voor een naar with my goede van speurtocht and it works itself right out.

Uh,

[Ohreally_factor]

I'm Helen Keller, you insenstive clod!!

Re:Uh,

[antifoidulus]

And yet you read slashdot?

Oh god, I can only imagine what it is like trying to communicate the goatse man using only touching.....

Traditional Hearing Aids

[The Snowman]

For only having two ears, we humans are very good at determining the direction sounds come from. Thanks to the shape of the ear being able to sort sounds based on direction, we are able to know where a sound came from and whether it is background noise or not. While I do not wear hearing aids, I do hear from people that do wear them that while the aids amplify sounds, they completely screw up our sense of direction as well as what is background noise, voices, oncoming traffic, etc. Because they are so large, they interfere with the natural shape of the ear and the brain's trained response to figuring out what sounds come from where.

Isn't there a better way? Are there hearing aids that are less obtrusive to the natural function of the ear while still amplifying sounds? And I am not talking about glasses. This seems to be the band-aid and duct tape solution to me. Sure, vision tends to suffer in elderly people with bad hearing, but this is not always true. What about a young hearing-impaired person who does not need glasses? I have a friend with razor-sharp vision (20/15) but thanks to a previous job, is nearly deaf. While he gets by without a hearing aid (mainly because of his pride), I am sure if there was something less obtrusive that would still work and not require him to wear glasses he doesn't need, he would use it.

I really am interested to hear what people have to say. My vision already sucks, I know when I get older my hearing will probably follow. I would like to start following what technology can do for stuff like this that I will probably have to deal with in my old age. Now get off my lawn, damn kids!

Re:Traditional Hearing Aids

[hankwang]

My vision already sucks, I know when I get older my hearing will probably follow.

Decrease in hearing with aging is for a large part the cumulative effect of exposure to noise: It has been demonstrated that the most important factor of hearing degradation is not aging alone, but rather the cumulative long-term exposure to environmental and occupational noise that create the harm The standard guideline of 40 h/week at 85 dB(A) is way too lax from a medical point of view; 70 dB(A) (30 times lower acoustic power) would be more reasonable. So you yourself can for a great part affect how much of your hearing you will be losing.

For your information: I tested with a decibel meter how loud 70 dB(A) and 85 dB(A) are on a headphone. Well, 85 dB sounds to me like a nice listening volume, and someone sitting very close to you in the train might even hear some noise escaping from your headphone. (I used an over-ear open headphone). It boggles my mind what people in the train are doing to their ears when I hear their music coming out of their earbuds over the background noise from 3 meters distance.

As you can guess, 70 dB is actually quite soft. It might work in a quiet environment, but anywhere else you will clearly hear environmental sounds.

Name it right,,,

[GundamFan]

It should be "Improve hearing with glasses"...

I normaly don't do this but this one really bugs me

Deaf glasses

[Kangburra]

First of all, yes I am deaf.

I think these could help but the most important thing people need to do is get deafness into education at school and work level.

I am currently unemployed and finding work is (so far) impossible. I only recently lost my hearing (hereditary) so I know what work I can do, just need the right people to work with.

Being able to hear with these "glasses" would help but you need support from people around you too.

Re:Deaf glasses

[The Snowman]

It honestly doesn't take much. I went to college at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID). The whole campus was rigged to be deaf-friendly, and it really wasn't a big deal. All it took was people being aware of the deaf issue. I am sure job interviews would be challenging with an employer that is not prepared with sign language or an interpreter, but beyond that, it mainly takes the willingness to work together. Some people make disabilities in the workplace out to be huge hurdles, and some employers balk at installing wheelchair ramps, desks to accomodate certain disabilities, etc. when it really isn't all that bad. People just need to calm down, think rationally, and realize that being deaf is a disability but is not a huge deal as far as employment goes.

If I were you I would look around for organizations designed to help deaf people, such as giving employment advice. As I mentioned, the interviewing process will likely be challenging at first. Maybe someone has a list of deaf-friendly employers that made accomodations in the past. I am sure there is help out there if you need it.

Re:Deaf glasses

[SachiCALaw]

I was never a trial lawyer so I can't comment on juries. It had little to do with my hearing, and a lot on my skills - I discovered early on that I was utterly incompetent at asking questions. I was very good at writing legal briefs and then arguing them in front of judges. So I specialized in appeals.

My hearing (and voice) are good enough that I can communicate orally for the most part. I simply let the judges know before an argument that I cannot hear well, and that I may ask them to repeat themselves if I don't understand a question. The judges are usually old and hard of hearing themselves, so they understand! I never learned sign language, although some deaf attorneys use sign language interpreters in the courtroom. Some attorneys prefer not to use "terps" and instead use Computer-Aided Real-Time Captioning (CART). That works well in a trial situation, in particular, because the court stenographer is taking down the proceedings anyway, and since everything is all wired together anyway, that transcript can be sent directly to the deaf attorney's computer screen so he or she can follow along. There are other ways of helping hard-of-hearing attorneys as well.

The "big secret" is simply directional microphones

[SachiCALaw]

If you read TFA, the way the "glasses" work has nothing to do with seeing. The manufacturer puts four microphones in each sidepiece of the glasses, tuned so that they focus more on sound to the front of the wearer instead of sound to the sides or the back. I'm very hard of hearing (I had meningitis as little kid) and used hearing aids for years. Many of the behind-the-ear hearing aids have directional mikes already. I'm not sure how much this gadget would help; perhaps with the multiple mikes it could offer more signals to play with.

*Snigger*

[Hogwash McFly]

All sounds coming from the front of the carrier are intensified, while noise from other directions is dampened. This means that a person speaking to the carrier's face would be clearly heard even in noisy environments.

So it seems that when people want to laugh at the deaf guy with the weird glasses, they have to quite literally go behind his back...

This isn't new

[mcspoo]

What's new about this? Hearing aids have been embedded in glasses for years. The first time I got hearing aids (about 4 or 5 years old) they tried to sell hearing aids that were embedded in the thick, 50's style glasses, which is essentially what they're pushing here. That was 30 years ago. Sorry. This isn't remotely news, or even high tech. You insentive clod! I am deaf. "Hearing impaired" is an offensive term :)

Re:The "big secret" is simply directional micropho

[courtarro]

Rather than an independent "directional mic" in each ear, these glasses determine the origin of sounds based on timing, which is what the ears do in general. If a sound hits both ears at the same time, it's probably coming from directly in front of or directly behind the listener. If the array of hearing aids amplify only in-phase sounds, it will help to eliminate sounds that come from places other than where the user is looking. However, in order for all these microphones to coordinate, they must be able to communicate in some way, and a wire running through a pair of fake (or real) glasses is a good way to do that without looking strange. Thus, the glasses are just a transport mechanism.

That means the glasses (and TFA) make sense. However, like your first point, the /. article summary and title do not. But since when did the editors actually edit?

No background noise?

[PackerX]

"Varibel says its glasses can detect which direction sounds come from, amplifying words spoken directly to the wearer while dampening background noise."

Which is great until you're using a cell phone while standing on some train tracks.