Originally published August 20 2005
New gadgets can provide hearing assistance for the unimpaired
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Technology gurus are working on hearing aids for the hearing unimpaired, making useful gadgets such as aids that filter out background noise and glasses with ear buds that play back the last few moments of conversation, but these contraptions are also being made with a focus on style, Wired News reports.
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LONDON -- Hearing aids are not just for deaf people.
The much-maligned ear implants also hold the key to a new era in personal audio technology, designers say -- if only they can make them as fashionable as spectacles.
HearWear -� The Future of Hearing, a new exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, shows off trendy deaf-tech prototypes like gadgets that can filter out annoying noises and memory glasses that replay the last few seconds of conversation -- handy for wearers who might have missed someone's name.
It's not just the hard-of-hearing who can benefit from applications inspired by traditional hearing aids.
Hearing is the next sense ripe for a technological revolution, according to the exhibition's organizer, Royal National Institute for the Deaf, or RNID.
The exhibit features personal hearing devices, such as aids that enhance conversational speech or filter out ambient noise in a crowded bar.
From the same design team, an earphone-linked remote control that can mute sounds coming from whatever it is pointing at could also be just a couple of years away.
Exhibits include pink plastic flowers and sleek silver surfaces that disguise unsightly implants as elegant jewelry, underlining an effort to turn Europe's underdeveloped $5 billion hearing aid market into a fashion industry.
"The hearing aid industry has been led by engineering rather than design," said design writer and exhibition curator Henrietta Thompson.
"It's only really recently that personal electronics and gadgets like phones and MP3 players have become mainstream.
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