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Why it’s exciting: Automatic text-to-speech programs have multiplied in recent years. Live computer-generated captions are now available on most video conferencing platforms, and smartphone apps can generate real-time transcripts for in-person conversations. The problem: Users have to be in front of a computer or looking at a phone, which undermines full social engagement, says Raja Kushalnagar, professor of information technology at Gallaudet University who studies speech-to-text technology for people who are hard of hearing. Now companies are making captions more natural by using “smart glasses” technology, which can project text into a user’s field of vision in a comfortable and non-intrusive way. Kushalnagar, who is deaf, recently tested a prototype. “I was able to walk the trail with my son and have a conversation with him easily, which was more difficult with the phone app,” he says. “I could also cut vegetables and cook while listening to her talk about her day.”
Who could benefit: While captioned conversation might solve a problem for people with hearing loss, these “smart” glasses with captions might find other users, such as non-native speakers, who might find it easier to read a new language than to read. listen to it. In addition, the captioning software could be combined with real-time translation applications, making it easier to travel abroad.
When we could see it: In a few years. In 2019, Vuzix, a tech company, launched high-end smart glasses that work with Zoi Meet’s transcription software. And Google Research is testing its own lightweight experimental glasses with captions designed for all-day use. Kushalnagar estimates that affordable and comfortable eyeglasses integrated with automatic captions will be on the market within two or three years.
2. An app that lets you hear someone in a crowded room
The big idea: You can isolate a person’s speech in a noisy environment, addressing what scientists call the “cocktail problem”.
How it might work: An app would “listen” to the soundscape around you and separate the different sound streams, including voices, banging dishes, piped music, and other background noises. Then that would isolate the sound you want to hear based on the direction you’re facing – and reduce everything else. The cleaned, “denoised” sound would then be delivered directly to your ear via your hearing aid, cochlear implant or headphones.
Why it’s exciting: The cocktail problem is the “number one complaint from hearing aid users or people with hearing loss in general,” says Fan-Gang Zeng, professor of otolaryngology at the University of California at Irvine who studies the technology. auditory. Hearing aids and cochlear implants can help in individual situations, but they work best when there is only one voice to focus on. Artificial intelligence could not only help but boost the listening experience for people with hearing loss so that it is “better than normal,” says Zeng. For example, a team from Ohio State University recently developed a powerful AI program that can take audio from two competing speakers in an echo room and edit a voice, leaving only the target voice. In a test of the program, older people with hearing aids went from less than 10 percent of a conversation to more than 80 percent, which actually outperforms their younger, normal hearing counterparts, who understood less than 80 percent of a conversation. 70 percent with their own ears.
Who could benefit: Anyone, including people with normal hearing, who have difficulty hearing in crowds or in other noisy situations. Zeng says the line between hearing aids and headphones is already starting to blur, as commercial in-ear headphones continue to add more sophisticated noise cancellation and speech enhancement capabilities. “The denoising algorithms will lead to use not only in hearing aids and cochlear implants, but also in atria and ‘hearing aids’ which will improve normal hearing and facilitate conversations in noise,” he says.
When we could see it: Zeng estimates that powerful denoising programs will be available on hearing technology within five years.
3. Gene therapy that repels cells that help your hearing
The big idea: Your body will repair the damage done to your inner ear, much like salamanders grow back a tail.
How it might work: A drug given to your inner ear would activate a gene to regrow the cells responsible for hearing – and most hearing loss. People born with hearing loss or those who lose hearing later in life would receive a few injections to restore some or all of their hearing.
Why it’s exciting: In normal inner ears, these crucial hair cells – which are long and flexible and look like tiny fields of grass – react dynamically when sound vibrations come from the outer ear: they begin to ‘dance’. The dancing movement of hair cells is what allows sound to travel up the auditory nerve to the brain. We’re born with around 15,000 of these delicate cells in each ear, and once damaged, they’re gone for good – in humans, at least. In the 1980s, researchers made an interesting discovery, says Lawrence Lustig, MD, an otolaryngologist (i.e., ENT doctor) at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. They found that birds can regrow damaged hair cells after trauma; fish, reptiles and amphibians can also repair their hair cells. Because of this ability, these animals never become permanently deaf. Hearing researchers are trying to reproduce this process in humans.
Who could benefit: Regenerating hair cells would be a game-changer for anyone who has lost their hearing due to missing or damaged hair cells. Babies born deaf from specific genetic diseases would likely be an early group to receive this therapy. People who started to lose their hearing later in life – soldiers and workers who worked in extreme noise, for example, or just those whose inner ear suffered from the wear and tear of aging – might also be good candidates.
When we could see it: Not very soon. A few hair cell regrowth therapies are currently in clinical trials in humans, including those from Novartis, Eli Lilly, Frequency Therapeutics and Pipeline Therapeutics, but most are still being tested in the lab. Lustig is confident that researchers will find ways to treat hearing loss with medication.
Regina Nuzzo writes on science, health and medicine. His work appeared in Reader’s Digest, Prevention, Scientific American, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times, among others. She is professor of mathematics at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC
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