4 ms·

This is my field, more or less, though I'm on the basic research side. Traditional hearing aid companies have no idea how large a freight train is barreling do

This is my field, more or less, though I'm on the basic research side. Traditional hearing aid companies have no idea how large a freight train is barreling down on them in the form of Apple and Google. It's going to be a fun ride.

richforrester 9y ago
These types of comments always restore my faith in the world. Nothing like a bit of justice.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  I have nothing against the major hearing aid companies per se. Their approach to product development is hidebound and stuck in about 1987, though, and they are going to find out in short order that that doesn't fly any more. Personally, my money is on Apple and Google squabbling over who gets to buy Cochlear, Oticon, and Starkey for their IP and regulatory know-how, and then just mopping up the floor with the rest of the players in the space. It's already begun, actually: https://www.wired.com/story/how-apple-is-putting-voices-in-users-headsliterally/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-apple-is-putting-voices-in-u... Wired fundamentally does not understand how crappy CIs can be, so it's too enthusiastically reported, but I'm pretty sure this is the opening salvo.
  - mwcampbell 9y ago
    > Wired fundamentally does not understand how crappy CIs can be Just curious, can you explain what you mean by CIs being crappy, or point to an existing explanation?
    - hprotagonist 9y ago
      Briefly, you get 16 frequency bands if you’re lucky. A healthy ear has about 3,000. It’s more complicated than that, but in a nutshell, the fidelity with which CIs can represent the world is very limited. They work for speech, mostly, in quiet. There are simulations of what they sound like on YouTube, somewhat.
      - Kluny 9y ago
        "Crappy" is one way of putting it. Those 16 frequencies, for me, are the difference between a life worth living, and a life in crippling, hopeless isolation, ended by suicide at an early age.
        akvadrako 9y ago
        Hum... I'm pretty sure my life wouldn't be much different if I could only communicate non-verbally.
        hprotagonist 9y ago
        just to be clear: i’m not knocking their utility! many normal-hearing people just seem to believe that CIs are bionic ears with perfect performance, though, and that’s manifestly false. the CI users know are glad to have them, and they are, as you say, a lifeline for many. i’m glad my research ultimately contributes to better ones. we just have a long way to go.
      - LX8DvZFL 9y ago
        This needs to be more widely known. You'd think from reading marketing material that you would be listening to Mozart and jazz the week after implantation. The reality is that you have basically no pitch perception. 16 frequency bands across, say, the four octaves that music is interesting? You're lucky to discriminate half-octaves let alone semitones. Temporal aspects of music come through alright. I suppose you could be a drummer.
      - AstralStorm 9y ago
        You would be surprised. Closer to 100 or 200 bands actually, overlapping. There is a plenty of redundancy. The number cited is about the number of neurons.
        hprotagonist 9y ago
        I am not sure I agree with you. Given that you get ~16 electrodes, and some greenwood-like frequency-place map along the basilar membrane, and given that the place specificity of stimulation from those electrodes is significantly larger than the width of an inner hair cell, I'm not really seeing "200 bands".
  - junkcollector 9y ago
    The way I see it though, the limitations of CI implants are primarily driven by the internal electrode interface that limits the number of available frequencies to the person. This isn't something that any of the "big tech" companies are positioned to innovate in. I'd be more interested if Hewlett Packard got involved because they actually have a significant and successful micro/nanotech group. Hearing aids though could be ripe for disruption by improved computational power and large supply chain leverage. So it will be a matter of whether or not Apple/Google/ back off once they meet the intractable reality of regulatory compliance in a limited market a la their infrastructure plans. I think it's most likely that they will buy up those medical companies for expertise, then spin off the medical device manufacturing into a new separate company or otherwise sell it off but keep the key engineers to roll into other random consumer products that are less regulated and more profitable. This is what Google has more or less done with robotics after buying basically every major robotics research company in the US a few years back.
peterburkimsher 9y ago
I'm disappointed in the lack of innovation in the tech industry. Many people talk about many different topics, and come back to the refrain "Wait for Apple and Google to do it". Why not make a startup? Waiting for large companies to innovate is like saying "I won't build the Apple II because I'd rather wait for the IBM PC to be invented". The fact that these market leaders (IBM and DEC then, Apple and Google now) have so much power to uproot industries means that people are afraid to pursue their ideas. I don't have a full solution, but investors like Y Combinator are certainly helping.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  >Why not make a startup? as other commenters on this thread have noted (correctly), medtech doesn't work that way. You need a long runway, and the regulatory scene does not favor "move fast and deafen people".
  - AstralStorm 9y ago
    Deafening is easy to avoid. The main concern is about effectiveness and this is tested in medical trials. Second concern is with infections caused due to design.
- blahedo 9y ago
  > Why not make a startup? Why would you want to buy anything so important from a startup? Either it'll suck or it'll be good, and if it sucks you don't want it, and if it's good, Google or FB or someone will acquihire the engineers and shut down the product.
- raesene6 9y ago
  There are start-ups in the "hearable" marketplace. Things like https://www.nuheara.com/ https://www.nuheara.com/ have products out already and there's various ones like http://www.waverlylabs.com/ http://www.waverlylabs.com/ coming along focusing on things like instant translation as well as hearing augmentation. Of course whether they'll all just getting steam-rollered by Apple/Google is another matter...
0xbear 9y ago
Not going to happen. Too large a pain in the ass for too little profit margin.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  we're living longer, going deaf earlier, and believe that our phones can do nearly anything. The market keeps getting bigger and bigger.
- leejoramo 9y ago
  Apple has already invested heavily in accessibility across all of their platforms. The market for hearing aids is far larger than some of the tools that they currently deliver. https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ While Apple is arguably ahead in the quality and features of their accessibility technology, the potential convergence of hearing aids and voice based tools means that Google, Amazon and Microsoft are certainly looking into this.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Accessibility doesn’t require FDA approval.
- bluthru 9y ago
  Does there really need to be a hardware difference between AirPods and hearing aids down the line?
LX8DvZFL 9y ago
Apple and Google have no idea how sewn up the market is with regulation and patent warfare. The tech is easy and well-known. Being able to legally sell the product without getting sued? That's hard.
chrisdbaldwin 9y ago
Former Starkey Engineer: the executives are/were totally aware of what's going on with regards to wearable technology. So much so, that the 5 or 6 top executives thought they could get away with embezzling millions -- siphoning funds from Starkey into their start-up. Internally, Starkey employees were confused why we weren't moving in on wearables. Starkey already owned the ear among 65+, why not go for the giant market of people with ears under 65? The FBI case hit the papers and it all made sense. Fucking assholes. I left the company over it, and I'm only a little bitter about it.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  Thanks for this. I had no idea.

richforrester 9y ago

These types of comments always restore my faith in the world. Nothing like a bit of justice.

hprotagonist 9y ago
I have nothing against the major hearing aid companies per se. Their approach to product development is hidebound and stuck in about 1987, though, and they are going to find out in short order that that doesn't fly any more. Personally, my money is on Apple and Google squabbling over who gets to buy Cochlear, Oticon, and Starkey for their IP and regulatory know-how, and then just mopping up the floor with the rest of the players in the space. It's already begun, actually: https://www.wired.com/story/how-apple-is-putting-voices-in-users-headsliterally/ https://www.wired.com/story/how-apple-is-putting-voices-in-u... Wired fundamentally does not understand how crappy CIs can be, so it's too enthusiastically reported, but I'm pretty sure this is the opening salvo.
- mwcampbell 9y ago
  > Wired fundamentally does not understand how crappy CIs can be Just curious, can you explain what you mean by CIs being crappy, or point to an existing explanation?
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    Briefly, you get 16 frequency bands if you’re lucky. A healthy ear has about 3,000. It’s more complicated than that, but in a nutshell, the fidelity with which CIs can represent the world is very limited. They work for speech, mostly, in quiet. There are simulations of what they sound like on YouTube, somewhat.
    - Kluny 9y ago
      "Crappy" is one way of putting it. Those 16 frequencies, for me, are the difference between a life worth living, and a life in crippling, hopeless isolation, ended by suicide at an early age.
      - akvadrako 9y ago
        Hum... I'm pretty sure my life wouldn't be much different if I could only communicate non-verbally.
      - hprotagonist 9y ago
        just to be clear: i’m not knocking their utility! many normal-hearing people just seem to believe that CIs are bionic ears with perfect performance, though, and that’s manifestly false. the CI users know are glad to have them, and they are, as you say, a lifeline for many. i’m glad my research ultimately contributes to better ones. we just have a long way to go.
    - LX8DvZFL 9y ago
      This needs to be more widely known. You'd think from reading marketing material that you would be listening to Mozart and jazz the week after implantation. The reality is that you have basically no pitch perception. 16 frequency bands across, say, the four octaves that music is interesting? You're lucky to discriminate half-octaves let alone semitones. Temporal aspects of music come through alright. I suppose you could be a drummer.
    - AstralStorm 9y ago
      You would be surprised. Closer to 100 or 200 bands actually, overlapping. There is a plenty of redundancy. The number cited is about the number of neurons.
      - hprotagonist 9y ago
        I am not sure I agree with you. Given that you get ~16 electrodes, and some greenwood-like frequency-place map along the basilar membrane, and given that the place specificity of stimulation from those electrodes is significantly larger than the width of an inner hair cell, I'm not really seeing "200 bands".
- junkcollector 9y ago
  The way I see it though, the limitations of CI implants are primarily driven by the internal electrode interface that limits the number of available frequencies to the person. This isn't something that any of the "big tech" companies are positioned to innovate in. I'd be more interested if Hewlett Packard got involved because they actually have a significant and successful micro/nanotech group. Hearing aids though could be ripe for disruption by improved computational power and large supply chain leverage. So it will be a matter of whether or not Apple/Google/ back off once they meet the intractable reality of regulatory compliance in a limited market a la their infrastructure plans. I think it's most likely that they will buy up those medical companies for expertise, then spin off the medical device manufacturing into a new separate company or otherwise sell it off but keep the key engineers to roll into other random consumer products that are less regulated and more profitable. This is what Google has more or less done with robotics after buying basically every major robotics research company in the US a few years back.

peterburkimsher 9y ago

I'm disappointed in the lack of innovation in the tech industry. Many people talk about many different topics, and come back to the refrain "Wait for Apple and Google to do it". Why not make a startup? Waiting for large companies to innovate is like saying "I won't build the Apple II because I'd rather wait for the IBM PC to be invented". The fact that these market leaders (IBM and DEC then, Apple and Google now) have so much power to uproot industries means that people are afraid to pursue their ideas. I don't have a full solution, but investors like Y Combinator are certainly helping.

hprotagonist 9y ago
>Why not make a startup? as other commenters on this thread have noted (correctly), medtech doesn't work that way. You need a long runway, and the regulatory scene does not favor "move fast and deafen people".
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Deafening is easy to avoid. The main concern is about effectiveness and this is tested in medical trials. Second concern is with infections caused due to design.
blahedo 9y ago
> Why not make a startup? Why would you want to buy anything so important from a startup? Either it'll suck or it'll be good, and if it sucks you don't want it, and if it's good, Google or FB or someone will acquihire the engineers and shut down the product.
raesene6 9y ago
There are start-ups in the "hearable" marketplace. Things like https://www.nuheara.com/ https://www.nuheara.com/ have products out already and there's various ones like http://www.waverlylabs.com/ http://www.waverlylabs.com/ coming along focusing on things like instant translation as well as hearing augmentation. Of course whether they'll all just getting steam-rollered by Apple/Google is another matter...

0xbear 9y ago

Not going to happen. Too large a pain in the ass for too little profit margin.

hprotagonist 9y ago
we're living longer, going deaf earlier, and believe that our phones can do nearly anything. The market keeps getting bigger and bigger.
leejoramo 9y ago
Apple has already invested heavily in accessibility across all of their platforms. The market for hearing aids is far larger than some of the tools that they currently deliver. https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ While Apple is arguably ahead in the quality and features of their accessibility technology, the potential convergence of hearing aids and voice based tools means that Google, Amazon and Microsoft are certainly looking into this.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Accessibility doesn’t require FDA approval.
bluthru 9y ago
Does there really need to be a hardware difference between AirPods and hearing aids down the line?

LX8DvZFL 9y ago

Apple and Google have no idea how sewn up the market is with regulation and patent warfare. The tech is easy and well-known. Being able to legally sell the product without getting sued? That's hard.

chrisdbaldwin 9y ago

Former Starkey Engineer: the executives are/were totally aware of what's going on with regards to wearable technology. So much so, that the 5 or 6 top executives thought they could get away with embezzling millions -- siphoning funds from Starkey into their start-up. Internally, Starkey employees were confused why we weren't moving in on wearables. Starkey already owned the ear among 65+, why not go for the giant market of people with ears under 65? The FBI case hit the papers and it all made sense. Fucking assholes. I left the company over it, and I'm only a little bitter about it.

hprotagonist 9y ago
Thanks for this. I had no idea.