An Official Complaint About Poor Video Captions Is Actually A Vote For Better Captions — Make Your Vote Count!

Everyone who needs open or closed captions to understand the TV, DVDs and web videos knows captioning services in general could stand substantial improvement. Ever since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) mandated captioning for almost all television shows, many hard-of-hearing people have come to depend on them. On my home set I keep the “CC1″ setting on all the time. But that doesn’t mean the captions always work. In fact, as often as not the captions provided by broadcasters — especially for talk shows, the news, or other live broadcasts — are woefully delayed or infuriatingly wrong. But I recently realized that bellyaching to family and friends was not going to result in better captions, and I discovered there’s a better way to complain. You can start with the FCC itself — there’s a simple online form on the FCC.gov web site that makes it easy to detail your complaint. The form has room for plenty of information, so make sure you jot down the specific problem you experienced, at what time, on what station, and with what television show. And make sure you have the contact information for your cable or broadcast service provider. Read more

Cochlear Ltd. Gets FDA Approval For Water-Resistant Rechargeable Batteries for Cochlear Implants

Cochlear implant recipients will be able to enjoy visits to the beach and swimming pool following the recent approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the new water-resistant rechargeable batteries in Cochlear Limited’s new Nucleus 5 cochlear implant systems.

Cochlear’s next-generation Nucleus 5 system, introduced in 2009, features the industry’s smallest behind-the-ear sound processor, the thinnest implant, a wireless remote assistant that makes it easy to change program settings, and an “Autophone” sensor that knows when you are on the telephone and automatically switches from the external microphone to telecoil reception. Cochlear also claims it has documentation of superior speech comprehension with the new system.

All those advanced features and slick packaging won a prestigious Red Dot design award for Cochlear Ltd. in June. But when you consider how important it is not to worry about getting caught in the rain or how much fun it can be to hear the waves splashing when you’re taking a dip in the ocean, it’s no wonder the water-resistant feature is getting so much attention. Cochlear says the Nucleus 5 device can be submerged in water for up to 30 minutes.

“No other cochlear implant system has ever come close to providing patients with this level of confidence around water,” said Chris Smith, president of Cochlear Americas. “With other cochlear implant systems, patients are forced to weigh the risk of accidentally dropping their sound processor in water and destroying it versus the benefit of hearing in and around water. With Nucleus 5, when using our new rechargeable battery option, there are no risks to weigh.”

When you think of the number of deaf children who use cochlear implants from infancy, it’s gratifying to know there’s one more activity of a normal childhood they’ll be able to enjoy. It’s also gratifying news for harried parents who must make sure the precious equipment that gives their kids the gift of hearing survives the rough-and-tumble of a normal active childhood.

Starkey Group Enters Invisible Hearing Aid Market Under Five Different Brand Names

The Starkey Group is jumping into the invisible hearing aid market, with five of its brand names selling a tiny new device that fits deep within the ear canal. It also set up a web site, Invisible Hearing Aid.com, to promote what appears to be a common platform product that is being shared by all five Starkey Group companies — Starkey Laboratories, NuEar, MicroTech, AudioSync, and Audibel. Each brand is selling the digital device under its own name, but all the hearing aids feature similar technology and features, including: a design enabling deep insertion within the “second bend” of the ear canal, making it nearly impossible to see; a 16-channel digital signal processor; processing software with noise reduction and “speech preservation;” feedback cancellation; and an innovative “T2″ controller enabling you to adjust volume and memory settings from your cell phone or touch-tone phone. Read more

ReSound Alera Hearing Aids Provide Wireless Connectivity To TV And Mobile Phones

GN ReSound’s new flagship family of Alera hearing aids will provide wireless connectivity directly with mobile phones and television sets equipped with ReSound’s new Unite assistive listening device (ALD) accessories.

Like other new wireless ALD accessories from Widex and other hearing-aid manufacturers, the ReSound Unite accessories eliminate the need for transmission through the hearing aid’s telecoil from a neckloop attached to the transmitter. And because the new ReSound Alera hearing aids communicate with the Unite accessories at 2.4 gigahertz, they eliminate the interference and delays sometimes experienced with slower wireless transmission speeds used by other manufacturers. Read more

VitaSound Neuro-Compensator Applies Brain Science To A Unique And Potentially Revolutionary New Sound Processing System For Hearing Aids

VitaSound Audio, Inc., a young hearing-aid company in Canada, has come up with an entirely new approach to sound-processing software for hearing aids that could fundamentally change the way we think about compensating for damaged hearing. I got a demo of VitaSound’s Neuro-Compensator technology several months ago and have been struggling ever since to come up with appropriate words to describe it. “Unique,” “new,” “unprecedented” and “potentially revolutionary” are the best I can do for starters.

The Neuro-Compensator sound processing system is based on nearly two decades of research at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, into how the human brain comprehends the signals processed by the auditory system, from the middle ear through the auditory nerve. The researchers mapped the signals produced by hundreds of auditory inputs processed by people with healthy hearing, coming up with a hugely complex model of “normal” hearing response to sounds ranging from human speech to music to pure tones to rush-hour traffic to cocktail-party noise. Then they developed the Neuro-Compensator software to compare the norm to that of a person with damaged hearing, and to produce a hearing-aid amplification program that not only amplifies the frequencies where hearing has been lost, but also filters out sounds that a healthy auditory processing system would normally suppress. The benefit is better comprehension because the system constantly adjusts amplification at multiple frequencies in response to different sounds to match the auditory profile of a normal, healthy auditory system responding to various listening environments. Read more

How Google, Congress and Marlee Matlin Will Make Universal Video Captioning Inevitable For The Web, Television And Movies

Universal captioning of videos on the web, television, in the movies and everywhere else video can be shown may still be a long time coming, but it is definitely on its way. Propelled by a combination of new technology developments, political advocacy, legislative action, court rulings, and the marketplace laws of supply and demand, universal captioning of videos is inevitable. The movement, which got its first big push in the 1990s when the Federal Communications Commission required television broadcasters to provide closed captioning, has recently gotten a burst of new energy. When the government was slow to regulate the explosion of digital video on the web, the momentum for captioning stalled for a while. But now a new wave of advocacy, aided by Google’s desire to extend its web search technology to every nook and cranny of the globe, is making the dream of universal captioning come true. Read more

‘Invisible Hearing Aid’ Pioneer Lyric Hearing Is Fast Out Of The Gates In A Market That Is Sure To Draw Plenty Of Competition

Lyric Hearing is only a few years old, but the “invisible hearing aid” pioneer is first out of the gate in a market that is sure to attract plenty of competition. Lyric Hearing Aids are tiny devices placed so deep within the ear canal that it is truly impossible to see them. Because they are so small and located so close to the ear drum, they claim to deliver auditory benefits that normal hearing aids can’t provide. And, once they are inserted, they remain in place 24 hours a day for up to four months, so the user doesn’t have to worry about replacing batteries or keeping track of them when not being worn. Lyric Hearing also has an unusual business model, selling the hearing aids on an annual subscription basis, with old hearing aids removed and replaced with new ones every few months by your audiologist. Just as the transition to soft, extended-wear contact lenses expanded the share of contacts versus regular glasses and changed the dynamics of the vision correction market in substantial ways, Lyric Hearing’s innovation has the potential to dramatically alter the hearing-aid market. How big an impact will Lyric Hearing and other “invisible” hearing aids like it have on the market? It depends largely on the tradeoffs between the many benefits and several significant drawbacks. Read more

Sonic Innovations’ Super-Power Endura Hearing Aid Has All The Bells And Whistles Patients With Severe Hearing Loss Need

With the first shipments of its new super-power Endura behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids this month, Sonic Innovations is providing a satisfying high-end bookend to its line of hearing aids spanning the needs of all users.

The market for hearing aids for patients with severe-to-profound hearing loss is smaller than the markets for patients with mild-to-moderate hearing impairments, and sometimes manufacturers’ high-end product lines lack the bells and whistles available to their mainstream customers. But features such as adaptive directional microphones, Bluetooth capability, multiple programs for different listening environments and the latest and greatest feedback cancellation and noise-reduction algorithms are just as if not more important to people with severe hearing impairments as they are to those with more moderate hearing loss.

Sonic Innovations Endura hearing aids provide a maximum gain of 140 decibels, enough power to fit even the most profound hearing loss. They provide adaptive and automatic directional microphones and utilizes the company’s latest “Sonic Sound” digital sound processing software. They also feature integrated Direct Audio Input (DAI) for external personal sound amplifiers, cell phones, MP3 players and other devices. Because DAI provides a hard-wired connection rather than the wireless connection through a telecoil favored by many mainstream hearing aid systems, it can provide a more reliable signal that provides a welcome improvement in comprehension to severely impaired users who need as clear and undistorted audio as possible.

“With the addition of Endura to our family of products, we offer high quality, cutting-edge products for people with all levels of hearing loss,” said Sonic Innovations CEO Sam Westover. Read more

Let’s Boycott Super Bowl Advertisers Who Don’t Supply Captions

What do BlockBuster, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Expedia.com have in common? Their Super Bowl ads this year didn’t have captions. They must not want our business. Captionless ads have been bothering me ever since I began noticing how many advertisers don’t supply them, even after the first of the year when the FCC began requiring broadcasters to caption all their regular programming. The number of captionless ads on SuperBowl XL was especially disappointing. Read more

Hyper-Vigilance Is The Price Of Independence For Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing People

I can relate to Thomas Jefferson’s warning that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. You need only look as far as the recent headlines about Miss Deaf Texas, killed by a train as she was distracted by text messaging while crossing some railroad tracks, to see why I regard hyper-vigilance as the price of my independence as a hard-of-hearing person. Read more

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