What was that? - Soon phones will help us hear better

By Ernest Gill Aug 30, 2010, 11:23 GMT

Berlin - Forget text-messaging. In future, phones will filter out extraneous noise to help hearing-impaired people to communicate better, according to a team of German scientists.

Currently, profoundly deaf people rely on text-messaging. But people who have partial hearing losses - especially older people - find it difficult to use mobiles because the sound quality is poor and amplification only makes the background noise louder. Even people with normal hearing have a hard time when phoning in a loud environment.

Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT) in Oldenburg have come up with a digital solution.

In the Speech-Improved Telephony Project sponsored by federal funding, they worked on algorithms typically used for hearing aids that can at least partially compensate for the hearing loss.

The problem is that each hearing-impaired person has quite specific frequencies that are difficult for him or her to hear.

'Adjusted to the individual user, soft signals are intensified while loud signals remain unchanged since they would otherwise be perceived as unpleasantly loud,' explains engineer Stefan Goetze of the Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology project group at IDMT.

The system also detects background noises and reduces these to a minimum. This provides advantages not only to people who have difficulty hearing.

If a call originates from a loud environment, such as an open-plan office or a busy street or crowded subway train, even people with normal hearing can benefit from the signal processing.

The system can be set for each call in such a manner that it delivers a consistently intelligible sound pattern.

'One particular challenge is to figure out how users can moderate the algorithms themselves in a user-friendly manner,' Goetze adds. 'For older people in particular, simple methods for making adjustments needed to be found. We were able to solve this on a test telephone through a special display.'

'Two audio signals with different sound were visualized through flowers. By pressing on the flowers, the seniors can regulate the desired sound. This automatically adjusts the algorithm parameters to the hearing ability of the individual user,' explains Goetze.

The algorithms can be integrated into all audio devices. Scientists have already installed them on an iPod Touch, a telephone system, a video conferencing system and a television. The devices are currently available as demo models.

'The first products will probably become available in two years,' says Goetze. 'If our technology is incorporated into consumer devices, then those affected will no longer have to constantly rely on their hearing aids.'

The researchers will display a video conferencing system in which their algorithms are installed at this year's 50th IFA consumer electronics trade fair in Berlin, the leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances.

While only a small percentage of the population is profoundly deaf, nearly one in five persons over age 14 exhibit some degree of hearing loss. In most cases it is minimal or confined only to one ear. Most people go through their lives without realizing they cannot hear optimally.

Hearing abilities diminish primarily between the ages of 40 and 50. In the over-65 bracket, the numbers increase to every second person.