WEBVTT 00:00:08.964 --> 00:00:12.948 [APPLAUSE] 00:00:12.948 --> 00:00:13.910 HELGA VELROYEN: Hi. 00:00:13.910 --> 00:00:15.145 Can you hear me? 00:00:15.145 --> 00:00:15.930 Ah, nice. 00:00:15.930 --> 00:00:18.370 That's what it's all about. 00:00:18.370 --> 00:00:19.920 Welcome to my talk. 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:22.160 I will talk about hearing aids and what the 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:24.010 state-of-the-art is. 00:00:24.010 --> 00:00:26.420 There will be a little hacking, but not my own. 00:00:30.910 --> 00:00:33.890 I know that there are some people interested in my talk 00:00:33.890 --> 00:00:36.570 that can not hear very well or not at all. 00:00:36.570 --> 00:00:41.380 So I will publish slides that have very detailed speaker 00:00:41.380 --> 00:00:43.060 notes so that you can read it afterwards, 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:45.390 if you missed anything. 00:00:45.390 --> 00:00:47.430 I hope there will be a recording available. 00:00:47.430 --> 00:00:51.145 And if it's possible to add subtitles, I will do those. 00:00:53.970 --> 00:00:54.330 OK. 00:00:54.330 --> 00:00:56.000 First, a few words about me. 00:00:56.000 --> 00:00:57.275 I'm a software engineer. 00:00:57.275 --> 00:00:58.490 I am based in Munich. 00:00:58.490 --> 00:01:03.480 Some people might know me from my time in Cologne, as well. 00:01:03.480 --> 00:01:05.840 I'm more a software geek than a hardware hacker. 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:07.910 So all this is also new to me. 00:01:07.910 --> 00:01:13.280 From university, I have a background in data mining and 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:14.690 signal processing. 00:01:14.690 --> 00:01:17.040 I worked in the medical industry for a while. 00:01:17.040 --> 00:01:20.860 But that had nothing to do with hearing aids. 00:01:20.860 --> 00:01:22.710 Also, my current job has nothing to do 00:01:22.710 --> 00:01:23.250 with hearing aids. 00:01:23.250 --> 00:01:28.220 So this is really just my personal project. 00:01:28.220 --> 00:01:32.400 I'm hearing impaired for about 3 and 1/2 years. 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:36.510 So this is when I started to dig into the topic. 00:01:36.510 --> 00:01:40.295 And well, yeah, that's just what I will talk about. 00:01:44.830 --> 00:01:47.910 Since I haven't seen many talks about audiology here at 00:01:47.910 --> 00:01:49.940 the Hacking Congress, I will start with a short 00:01:49.940 --> 00:01:53.220 introduction and the process of how you get 00:01:53.220 --> 00:01:55.030 hearing aids, actually. 00:01:55.030 --> 00:01:58.190 Then what are the current hearing aid models, and what 00:01:58.190 --> 00:01:59.830 can they actually do. 00:01:59.830 --> 00:02:01.900 Some words about the peripheral hardware. 00:02:01.900 --> 00:02:04.610 There's quite a lot of it outside. 00:02:04.610 --> 00:02:07.650 And there is some hacking. 00:02:07.650 --> 00:02:10.360 And another point is self-tuning, that are people 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:13.160 that tune their own hearing aids, although they are not 00:02:13.160 --> 00:02:14.410 audiologists. 00:02:18.180 --> 00:02:20.170 So this is an audiogram. 00:02:20.170 --> 00:02:24.040 This is a result of a hearing test that you usually do at 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:27.020 ENT doctors. 00:02:27.020 --> 00:02:32.250 The x-axis shows the frequency in kilohertz, and the y-axis, 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:35.520 the loudness, level of volume. 00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:38.180 The silence is at the top, the really loud 00:02:38.180 --> 00:02:39.660 sounds at the bottom. 00:02:39.660 --> 00:02:43.020 And the green line you see here is that result of a 00:02:43.020 --> 00:02:45.230 normal-hearing person. 00:02:45.230 --> 00:02:49.460 And this is obtained by the audiologist. Or the doctor 00:02:49.460 --> 00:02:51.530 plays sounds in the different frequencies. 00:02:51.530 --> 00:02:54.810 It starts at a very low volume. 00:02:54.810 --> 00:02:58.610 And as soon as you hear it, you hit a buzzer or say, yes. 00:02:58.610 --> 00:03:02.790 And then they create this curve. 00:03:02.790 --> 00:03:06.592 So the blue curve is a typical curve of a 00:03:06.592 --> 00:03:08.410 hearing impaired person. 00:03:08.410 --> 00:03:12.330 So what you can see here-- that, at the low frequencies, 00:03:12.330 --> 00:03:13.700 their hearing is quite well. 00:03:13.700 --> 00:03:15.610 That's very typical. 00:03:15.610 --> 00:03:20.120 Their hearing starts to get worse in the high frequencies. 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:24.660 And bear in mind that the decibel scale is actually 00:03:24.660 --> 00:03:25.780 logarithmic. 00:03:25.780 --> 00:03:31.015 So if you have a hearing loss of 60 decibels, it's 1 million 00:03:31.015 --> 00:03:33.420 worse than 10 decibels. 00:03:33.420 --> 00:03:36.790 So it's not linear. 00:03:36.790 --> 00:03:41.270 Another thing that gets measured at an audiogram is 00:03:41.270 --> 00:03:43.900 actually the maximum that you can hear or that 00:03:43.900 --> 00:03:45.530 you can stand hearing. 00:03:45.530 --> 00:03:49.130 So the audiologist raises the volume more and more, and you 00:03:49.130 --> 00:03:51.600 have to say yes until it hurts. 00:03:51.600 --> 00:03:53.780 So what you see here is the red curve. 00:03:53.780 --> 00:03:56.290 It's the level of discomfort. 00:03:56.290 --> 00:04:00.370 And also the typical thing is that it raises exactly at the 00:04:00.370 --> 00:04:02.870 areas where the hearing goes bad. 00:04:02.870 --> 00:04:06.110 This is a very complicated thing for tuning aids because 00:04:06.110 --> 00:04:09.610 they can not just amplify everything. 00:04:09.610 --> 00:04:14.830 Because you would hurt people very soon, as soon as you get 00:04:14.830 --> 00:04:16.080 below the red line. 00:04:18.269 --> 00:04:22.019 Another thing is the area where speech takes place. 00:04:22.019 --> 00:04:23.560 This is called speech banana. 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:26.570 Actually, that's the technical term for it. 00:04:26.570 --> 00:04:30.710 It will rise, of course, according to the language and 00:04:30.710 --> 00:04:31.790 the speaker. 00:04:31.790 --> 00:04:33.970 For example, female speakers have a little slightly 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:37.740 different curve than male speakers. 00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:44.030 And this is the area where hearing aids target, which is 00:04:44.030 --> 00:04:47.650 they are used to make you understand speech again. 00:04:47.650 --> 00:04:49.830 So they focus on this area, actually. 00:04:49.830 --> 00:04:52.290 And you can see the blue line here. 00:04:52.290 --> 00:04:54.960 So half of the banana is actually cut. 00:04:54.960 --> 00:04:57.800 And this is the high frequencies, which, in speech, 00:04:57.800 --> 00:05:02.360 are the consonants like S and F, for example. 00:05:02.360 --> 00:05:07.010 The vowels are usually understood quite well. 00:05:07.010 --> 00:05:11.090 To give you an impression how I hear, I made a sample. 00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:20.730 So this is a song called, "Sad Robot" from Pornophonique. 00:05:20.730 --> 00:05:24.520 It's a nice band which makes music with a 00:05:24.520 --> 00:05:26.480 Game Boy and a guitar. 00:05:26.480 --> 00:05:27.155 And the original-- 00:05:27.155 --> 00:05:27.430 [SAD ROBOT, BY PORNOPHONIQUE] 00:05:27.430 --> 00:05:29.690 HELGA VELROYEN: --has really nice high 00:05:29.690 --> 00:05:30.910 frequencies at the beginning. 00:05:30.910 --> 00:05:34.110 This is why I use it for testing. 00:05:34.110 --> 00:05:35.730 And later, there's also some singing. 00:05:40.130 --> 00:05:42.570 So this is the original. 00:05:42.570 --> 00:05:48.230 And now I'm going to play my version, so with less high 00:05:48.230 --> 00:05:50.990 frequencies and a tinnitus as well. 00:05:50.990 --> 00:05:53.710 There's actually a web site where you can download 00:05:53.710 --> 00:05:55.245 tinnitus sounds. 00:05:55.245 --> 00:05:58.095 [LAUGHTER] 00:05:58.095 --> 00:06:00.920 HELGA VELROYEN: And it says that you should actually turn 00:06:00.920 --> 00:06:04.140 down the volume when you start broadcasting that because it 00:06:04.140 --> 00:06:07.750 can hurt the audio equipment. 00:06:07.750 --> 00:06:10.290 So I hope I don't destroy anything. 00:06:10.290 --> 00:06:15.080 So I will turn it down first, then slightly increase it. 00:06:15.080 --> 00:06:26.915 [SAD ROBOT, BY PORNOPHONIQUE] 00:06:26.915 --> 00:06:28.060 HELGA VELROYEN: So this is not a feedback 00:06:28.060 --> 00:06:30.120 loop, it's the tinnitus. 00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:32.980 And without the high frequencies, 00:06:32.980 --> 00:06:36.860 this is how it is. 00:06:42.400 --> 00:06:49.490 So it's really hard to actually hear the high 00:06:49.490 --> 00:06:50.740 frequencies. 00:06:53.090 --> 00:06:57.440 Yeah, so this is just an impression of what hearing 00:06:57.440 --> 00:07:00.860 aids have to work with. 00:07:00.860 --> 00:07:04.090 Getting hearing aids, I like to compare 00:07:04.090 --> 00:07:05.400 it to getting glasses. 00:07:05.400 --> 00:07:08.380 So one day you wake up and everything is really blurry. 00:07:08.380 --> 00:07:11.800 And you decide well, this is very not so good. 00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:12.990 I should go to a doctor. 00:07:12.990 --> 00:07:14.590 And then you go to a doctor. 00:07:14.590 --> 00:07:15.860 You make some tests. 00:07:15.860 --> 00:07:18.130 Then he sends you to an optometrist. He makes some 00:07:18.130 --> 00:07:19.610 more tests. 00:07:19.610 --> 00:07:22.060 Then you choose a model for your glasses. 00:07:22.060 --> 00:07:25.550 And the optometrist orders the glasses and puts 00:07:25.550 --> 00:07:26.300 them into the frame. 00:07:26.300 --> 00:07:29.150 And then you're happy, seeing nerds. 00:07:29.150 --> 00:07:30.540 And then you can see ponies. 00:07:30.540 --> 00:07:32.460 [LAUGHTER] 00:07:32.460 --> 00:07:34.210 HELGA VELROYEN: Getting hearing aids, unfortunately, 00:07:34.210 --> 00:07:35.040 is not that easy. 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:39.530 So one day you realize you can not hear very well any more. 00:07:39.530 --> 00:07:40.400 You go to a doctor. 00:07:40.400 --> 00:07:41.360 You make some tests. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:43.690 He sends you to an audiologist. He makes some 00:07:43.690 --> 00:07:44.870 more tests. 00:07:44.870 --> 00:07:49.010 You choose from the shop of the audiologist 00:07:49.010 --> 00:07:52.240 some hearing aids. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:57.480 And then the audiologist has to adjust the hearing aids 00:07:57.480 --> 00:07:59.532 according to your audiogram. 00:07:59.532 --> 00:08:01.970 And then it doesn't stop. 00:08:01.970 --> 00:08:04.010 So then, actually, the work starts. 00:08:04.010 --> 00:08:07.340 You have to go through all the difficult hearing situations 00:08:07.340 --> 00:08:10.480 to test if it works with that tuned hearing aid. 00:08:10.480 --> 00:08:11.570 So you drive a car. 00:08:11.570 --> 00:08:14.440 You listen to music or other people in the car. 00:08:14.440 --> 00:08:18.610 You try to have someone whisper something in your ear. 00:08:18.610 --> 00:08:22.440 You listen to the TV. Or you go to a party where a lot of 00:08:22.440 --> 00:08:25.030 people are talking to each other, and you have to make 00:08:25.030 --> 00:08:28.610 out the person that's talking directly to you. 00:08:28.610 --> 00:08:31.165 Or you listen to a talk like that where this speaker is 00:08:31.165 --> 00:08:33.350 actually quite far away from your hearing aids. 00:08:33.350 --> 00:08:36.340 And if you have done all that, you go back to the 00:08:36.340 --> 00:08:39.640 audiologist. And you have to tell him why it doesn't work 00:08:39.640 --> 00:08:42.610 or in what situations it doesn't really work. 00:08:42.610 --> 00:08:45.140 And then he does some changes in the parameters. 00:08:45.140 --> 00:08:47.070 And then you have to do that again. 00:08:47.070 --> 00:08:49.420 And sometimes you switch to a different 00:08:49.420 --> 00:08:50.300 hearing aid, as well. 00:08:50.300 --> 00:08:54.060 So this whole process, these iterations, it takes weeks or 00:08:54.060 --> 00:08:57.580 months until you have something that is actually 00:08:57.580 --> 00:08:59.650 fitting to your ears. 00:08:59.650 --> 00:09:04.800 And after that, you're sort of happy. 00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:07.230 Actually, I haven't met a person that has hearing aids 00:09:07.230 --> 00:09:11.170 that actually compensate for the hearing loss completely. 00:09:11.170 --> 00:09:14.600 So whenever you are done with that, you're usually just 00:09:14.600 --> 00:09:16.990 stopping because you don't want to spend any 00:09:16.990 --> 00:09:18.200 more time on that. 00:09:18.200 --> 00:09:22.950 And it works well enough. 00:09:22.950 --> 00:09:26.470 Compared to glasses, this is actually a lot more effort and 00:09:26.470 --> 00:09:28.260 a lot more frustrating. 00:09:28.260 --> 00:09:32.050 Another thing is that hearing aids are really expensive. 00:09:32.050 --> 00:09:36.990 A good hearing aid starts at like, 1,500 up to 3,000. 00:09:36.990 --> 00:09:41.530 And I only have the numbers for the German health system. 00:09:41.530 --> 00:09:45.060 The normal German insurance pays 500. 00:09:45.060 --> 00:09:47.305 So there's a lot of money you have to pay for yourself. 00:09:58.610 --> 00:10:01.490 Hearing aid models and their features. 00:10:01.490 --> 00:10:04.920 There are roughly three types, in-ear units that go 00:10:04.920 --> 00:10:08.590 completely into the ear canal. 00:10:08.590 --> 00:10:11.110 A more common one is behind-ear hearing aids. 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:15.980 They are for mediocre to severe hearing losses. 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:18.440 The main part is behind the ear. 00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:22.360 And another special thing are cochlear implants where parts 00:10:22.360 --> 00:10:26.670 of it are implanted into the head and some is attached from 00:10:26.670 --> 00:10:28.580 the outside. 00:10:28.580 --> 00:10:32.360 I will mostly talk about the behind-ear hearing aids, 00:10:32.360 --> 00:10:36.760 because that's what I have and where is a lot of variety on 00:10:36.760 --> 00:10:39.380 the market. 00:10:39.380 --> 00:10:42.190 Hearing aids got pretty invisible. 00:10:42.190 --> 00:10:44.670 These are pictures of me wearing my hearing aid and not 00:10:44.670 --> 00:10:45.240 wearing it. 00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:48.640 So except for this little wire on the right side, you can not 00:10:48.640 --> 00:10:51.120 really see it. 00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:53.510 Most people that don't have hearing aids 00:10:53.510 --> 00:10:56.080 find this an advantage. 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:59.530 People who have a hearing aid, actually, are not that sure 00:10:59.530 --> 00:11:03.700 about it, because sometimes, when you have to ask someone 00:11:03.700 --> 00:11:07.240 to repeat a sentence, if they know you're wearing a hearing 00:11:07.240 --> 00:11:10.460 aid, they think, OK, she didn't get it 00:11:10.460 --> 00:11:11.510 because of the acoustics. 00:11:11.510 --> 00:11:14.660 And if they don't see it, they think, she didn't get it 00:11:14.660 --> 00:11:16.370 because she was stupid. 00:11:16.370 --> 00:11:19.550 So it's really not that obvious. 00:11:19.550 --> 00:11:23.240 And sometimes it just helps that people see that you have 00:11:23.240 --> 00:11:25.630 a handicap. 00:11:25.630 --> 00:11:26.820 They also got pretty small. 00:11:26.820 --> 00:11:29.920 This is an example of my hearing aids with a $0.50 00:11:29.920 --> 00:11:32.460 piece, so you have an impression of the size. 00:11:32.460 --> 00:11:35.610 And you can see that, actually, have just by the 00:11:35.610 --> 00:11:36.860 battery compartment. 00:11:40.930 --> 00:11:44.062 Out of curiosity, I took my hearing aids apart. 00:11:44.062 --> 00:11:44.503 And-- 00:11:44.503 --> 00:11:45.826 [LAUGHTER] 00:11:45.826 --> 00:11:46.880 HELGA VELROYEN: Of course. 00:11:46.880 --> 00:11:47.380 [LAUGHS] 00:11:47.380 --> 00:11:52.145 [APPLAUSE] 00:11:52.145 --> 00:11:55.500 HELGA VELROYEN: You can see they have shells which you can 00:11:55.500 --> 00:11:58.620 take off, which is like for mobile phones. 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:01.340 You can switch the color and choose a different one. 00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:03.480 And the body-- 00:12:03.480 --> 00:12:05.640 so I know this picture is not really good. 00:12:05.640 --> 00:12:08.050 There's still a lot of plastic around it. 00:12:08.050 --> 00:12:11.610 And the white part there is two microphones, the signal 00:12:11.610 --> 00:12:14.220 processor and antenna. 00:12:14.220 --> 00:12:16.120 That's useful peripheral hardware. 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:17.436 I will come to that. 00:12:17.436 --> 00:12:19.970 And the speaker is actually at the part that 00:12:19.970 --> 00:12:21.640 goes into the ear. 00:12:21.640 --> 00:12:24.900 And what you can also see here, the part that goes into 00:12:24.900 --> 00:12:29.490 the ear has also holes where the natural sound can still 00:12:29.490 --> 00:12:30.210 come to the ear. 00:12:30.210 --> 00:12:35.660 So if you still hear low frequencies, then you can 00:12:35.660 --> 00:12:37.410 receive them naturally. 00:12:37.410 --> 00:12:41.890 And the hearing aids only add what you can not hear. 00:12:41.890 --> 00:12:43.460 This is called open hearing aid. 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:47.300 And it has the advantage that you still hear natural sounds, 00:12:47.300 --> 00:12:51.310 which is really nice if you're really sort of an audiophile 00:12:51.310 --> 00:12:53.850 person that likes to listen to music. 00:12:53.850 --> 00:12:57.590 And so the first thing you do is actually choose that one. 00:13:00.550 --> 00:13:02.820 Yes. 00:13:02.820 --> 00:13:06.200 I think in the last two centuries, 00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:08.260 hearing aids got digital. 00:13:08.260 --> 00:13:12.250 And with that, they come with a lot of new features that you 00:13:12.250 --> 00:13:15.040 couldn't do with analog hearing aids. 00:13:15.040 --> 00:13:16.800 And right now, they are standard in 00:13:16.800 --> 00:13:18.880 most first world countries. 00:13:18.880 --> 00:13:24.950 And the most important thing is that they can analyze the 00:13:24.950 --> 00:13:29.450 situation and react to it instantly, since they have 00:13:29.450 --> 00:13:34.310 signal processing in it much more sophisticated than analog 00:13:34.310 --> 00:13:35.560 hearing aids did. 00:13:38.350 --> 00:13:43.310 Coming back to the audiogram, this is actually a feature 00:13:43.310 --> 00:13:46.460 that can also be done by analog hearing aids. 00:13:46.460 --> 00:13:49.300 I don't know in what extent, actually. 00:13:49.300 --> 00:13:52.500 So if you have a look at this audiogram and only consider 00:13:52.500 --> 00:13:57.960 one frequency band, like for four kilohertz, here the 00:13:57.960 --> 00:14:02.090 hearing loss is between 60 and 90 decibels. 00:14:02.090 --> 00:14:04.540 Over 90 decibels, it gets too loud. 00:14:04.540 --> 00:14:06.717 And the input of the environment still has the 00:14:06.717 --> 00:14:07.410 whole range. 00:14:07.410 --> 00:14:12.230 So the hearing aid has to map 0 to 130 decibels to this 00:14:12.230 --> 00:14:14.840 small area between 60 and 90. 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:16.360 It can not just amplify everything, 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:18.080 because that will hurt. 00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:19.450 And this is called compression. 00:14:19.450 --> 00:14:22.900 This should not be mistaken with compression in audio 00:14:22.900 --> 00:14:24.360 files like MP3 or something. 00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:26.850 It's a little bit different. 00:14:26.850 --> 00:14:31.740 And if you have a look at the software that is used to 00:14:31.740 --> 00:14:33.835 adjust hearing aids, it looks like that. 00:14:40.420 --> 00:14:44.270 This controls here at the amplification. 00:14:44.270 --> 00:14:48.830 And this here reduces the maximum level. 00:14:48.830 --> 00:14:53.470 So my hearing aids can, at maximum, do 108 decibels. 00:14:53.470 --> 00:14:56.310 And if you have minus 12, you just subtract it from that. 00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:04.740 This has the problem that, if you compress it, the volume 00:15:04.740 --> 00:15:08.440 gets increased and decreased all the time. 00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:12.610 And this can actually make it harder to understand speech, 00:15:12.610 --> 00:15:14.990 because the hearing aid is adjusting all the time. 00:15:14.990 --> 00:15:20.310 And so to avoid that, they don't compress every time. 00:15:20.310 --> 00:15:28.640 So the first area here is linearly amplified. 00:15:28.640 --> 00:15:32.390 And only after a certain level, they start compressing. 00:15:32.390 --> 00:15:34.850 And this is called knee point. 00:15:34.850 --> 00:15:41.790 So they usually try to avoid compressing the speech signal 00:15:41.790 --> 00:15:45.350 and only something above that. 00:15:45.350 --> 00:15:48.220 And hearing adjusting software, it looks like that. 00:15:48.220 --> 00:15:50.430 This is actually an example only from Siemens. 00:15:50.430 --> 00:15:52.590 Every branch has their own adjusting 00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:55.440 software or tuning software. 00:15:55.440 --> 00:15:57.290 So this is just an example. 00:15:57.290 --> 00:15:59.960 So here you have the knee point in the first row and the 00:15:59.960 --> 00:16:02.800 factor by what it is compressed. 00:16:02.800 --> 00:16:09.050 And the third row is a factor regarding how 00:16:09.050 --> 00:16:10.300 fast it should react. 00:16:12.580 --> 00:16:15.890 So within one syllable, it's adjusted to the right volume. 00:16:18.770 --> 00:16:20.020 Ah, OK. 00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:28.680 The problem is what do you do when your hearing loss is so 00:16:28.680 --> 00:16:32.230 bad that the red and the blue curve actually meet each other 00:16:32.230 --> 00:16:34.850 or the blue curve goes all the way down? 00:16:34.850 --> 00:16:38.150 And this is actually a problem because then you can not do 00:16:38.150 --> 00:16:41.150 compression any more, at least not in the original sense. 00:16:45.320 --> 00:16:50.050 So this is a simplified audiogram. 00:16:50.050 --> 00:16:52.220 This is the area that is dead. 00:16:52.220 --> 00:16:54.840 So instead of compressing in one frequency band, you 00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:56.920 compress the frequencies. 00:16:56.920 --> 00:17:01.120 So you reserve a part of the still alive hearing 00:17:01.120 --> 00:17:03.920 frequencies and map it there. 00:17:03.920 --> 00:17:06.440 This is called frequency compression. 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:10.660 And it works only if you have closed hearing aids, meaning 00:17:10.660 --> 00:17:13.589 those where you can not hear natural sound any more, where 00:17:13.589 --> 00:17:16.980 the ear canal is really blocked by the hearing aid, 00:17:16.980 --> 00:17:19.530 because, otherwise, it would be really confusing. 00:17:19.530 --> 00:17:23.079 And this is actually offered by only one brand right now, 00:17:23.079 --> 00:17:25.859 by a company called Phonak. 00:17:25.859 --> 00:17:32.830 And it's actually quite hard to get used to that. 00:17:32.830 --> 00:17:36.800 The brain has to adjust to that for a very long time. 00:17:36.800 --> 00:17:37.470 What I heard. 00:17:37.470 --> 00:17:40.370 I mean, I don't have this. 00:17:40.370 --> 00:17:42.710 But still, it's interesting that they try 00:17:42.710 --> 00:17:46.020 to do it like that. 00:17:46.020 --> 00:17:48.580 A very common problem with hearing aids is feedback 00:17:48.580 --> 00:17:51.130 loops, especially if you have open hearing aids. 00:17:51.130 --> 00:17:54.880 Then it can happen that the hearing aid captures its own 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:57.680 sound and amplifies it a lot. 00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:00.540 There is just this squeaking, what you get when you get too 00:18:00.540 --> 00:18:02.270 close to them. 00:18:02.270 --> 00:18:04.140 And this is really annoying. 00:18:04.140 --> 00:18:06.260 It happens every time something gets 00:18:06.260 --> 00:18:08.060 close to your ears. 00:18:08.060 --> 00:18:10.540 It can simply be hair, wearing open. 00:18:10.540 --> 00:18:12.190 Or you put on a hat. 00:18:12.190 --> 00:18:15.035 Or you hold a telephone handle next to your ear. 00:18:15.035 --> 00:18:17.200 Or you just want to lie down on the sofa. 00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:21.070 Or especially when you hug someone, you start squeaking. 00:18:21.070 --> 00:18:23.020 Like you give bionic feedback. 00:18:23.020 --> 00:18:24.972 [LAUGHTER] 00:18:24.972 --> 00:18:28.570 HELGA VELROYEN: Yeah, this is really, really annoying. 00:18:28.570 --> 00:18:31.140 And what the hearing aids do, they try to 00:18:31.140 --> 00:18:32.770 detect feedback loops. 00:18:32.770 --> 00:18:36.030 So they look for clear sinus signals. 00:18:36.030 --> 00:18:40.930 And when they detect one, they send an un-hearable flag. 00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:42.280 So oh, I detected one. 00:18:42.280 --> 00:18:46.950 And then the affected frequencies get damped until 00:18:46.950 --> 00:18:49.800 it doesn't squeak any more. 00:18:49.800 --> 00:18:51.070 They can adapt in real time. 00:18:51.070 --> 00:18:53.600 So it actually works really fast, 00:18:53.600 --> 00:18:55.000 but it's still hear-able. 00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:00.130 So the problems with that is that music contains clear 00:19:00.130 --> 00:19:01.330 sinus signals. 00:19:01.330 --> 00:19:04.870 And those get then damped, which make your music 00:19:04.870 --> 00:19:09.470 experience a lot worse. 00:19:09.470 --> 00:19:13.060 And also the damp frequencies can be in the speech banana. 00:19:13.060 --> 00:19:16.240 And then that means whenever you put on a hat, then you get 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:16.940 a feedback loop. 00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:18.380 Then the frequencies get damped. 00:19:18.380 --> 00:19:22.510 And then you can not understand anyone any more. 00:19:22.510 --> 00:19:24.870 Analog hearing aids did not have a measure against that. 00:19:24.870 --> 00:19:28.210 So this is something that is clearly new with the digital 00:19:28.210 --> 00:19:29.740 hearing aids. 00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:31.800 The screenshot here is also taken 00:19:31.800 --> 00:19:33.520 from the tuning software. 00:19:33.520 --> 00:19:36.930 When you have tuned your hearing aid, you can make a 00:19:36.930 --> 00:19:40.060 feedback loop test, where you place a lot of different 00:19:40.060 --> 00:19:44.400 sounds and tries if it detects the feedback loop. 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:49.360 And then it reduces the maximum power of the output of 00:19:49.360 --> 00:19:50.540 your hearing aid. 00:19:50.540 --> 00:19:53.070 That means you spend hours tuning your hearing aid, and 00:19:53.070 --> 00:19:54.690 then everything gets reduced by that. 00:19:57.740 --> 00:20:00.820 A very common problem for people with hearing impairment 00:20:00.820 --> 00:20:03.550 is the cocktail party problem. 00:20:03.550 --> 00:20:06.660 This is when you're in an acoustic setting where a lot 00:20:06.660 --> 00:20:09.540 of people are talking and you have some background noise. 00:20:09.540 --> 00:20:11.130 And then someone is talking to you. 00:20:11.130 --> 00:20:14.180 And you have really problems to figure out the person that 00:20:14.180 --> 00:20:15.870 is talking to you. 00:20:15.870 --> 00:20:18.485 And there are several factors in that. 00:20:18.485 --> 00:20:22.450 And hearing aids react to that in several ways. 00:20:22.450 --> 00:20:25.580 So first of all, directional hearing is impaired when you 00:20:25.580 --> 00:20:27.340 have a hearing impairment. 00:20:27.340 --> 00:20:31.345 The human ear uses two ears and the brain 00:20:31.345 --> 00:20:33.110 to locate the sound. 00:20:33.110 --> 00:20:37.280 And we use the pinna, that is actually the outer part of the 00:20:37.280 --> 00:20:40.858 ear, ohrmuschel, in German. 00:20:40.858 --> 00:20:45.090 If you have behind-ear hearing aids, of course, most of the 00:20:45.090 --> 00:20:47.370 microphones and everything else is behind the ear. 00:20:47.370 --> 00:20:49.640 So you can not use the pinna. 00:20:49.640 --> 00:20:52.300 You have to simulate that in a different way. 00:20:52.300 --> 00:20:56.100 And this is why both hearing aids have two microphones. 00:20:56.100 --> 00:20:59.540 So you have four microphones in total, when you have a 00:20:59.540 --> 00:21:02.050 hearing impairment in both ears. 00:21:02.050 --> 00:21:05.860 And this way, they can detect if the sound comes 00:21:05.860 --> 00:21:07.640 from front or back. 00:21:07.640 --> 00:21:12.830 And they talk to each other, so they can also detect if the 00:21:12.830 --> 00:21:14.550 source of the signal is right or left to you. 00:21:18.170 --> 00:21:23.420 Additionally, they try to recognize the situation and 00:21:23.420 --> 00:21:27.170 automatically focus on the person that is talking to you 00:21:27.170 --> 00:21:32.660 and also to reduce the background noise in general. 00:21:32.660 --> 00:21:35.240 The in-ear hearing aids I showed before, they, of 00:21:35.240 --> 00:21:37.600 course, still can use the features of the pinna. 00:21:40.380 --> 00:21:43.740 This is also a screenshot from the tuning software. 00:21:43.740 --> 00:21:46.390 You can actually test your directional 00:21:46.390 --> 00:21:47.740 hearing in real time. 00:21:47.740 --> 00:21:49.230 So you can wear your hearing aids 00:21:49.230 --> 00:21:51.150 connected to the software. 00:21:51.150 --> 00:21:56.430 And then you can do something like that, and see if it's 00:21:56.430 --> 00:21:59.070 recognized correctly. 00:21:59.070 --> 00:22:01.790 It works, more or less, in a silent room. 00:22:01.790 --> 00:22:07.410 But yeah, not in a cocktail party. 00:22:07.410 --> 00:22:11.990 Yeah, generally, it's really hard to extract foreground 00:22:11.990 --> 00:22:16.780 from background noise, because foreground noise has all the 00:22:16.780 --> 00:22:19.140 high frequencies and background noise doesn't. 00:22:19.140 --> 00:22:23.190 And if you don't hear high frequencies at all, everything 00:22:23.190 --> 00:22:28.082 is one blob of sound. 00:22:28.082 --> 00:22:33.800 Hearing aids help with that because they mostly focus on 00:22:33.800 --> 00:22:35.510 high frequencies. 00:22:35.510 --> 00:22:38.420 And they have filters to filter out 00:22:38.420 --> 00:22:39.850 the background signal. 00:22:39.850 --> 00:22:44.210 But actually, that doesn't really help so much, because 00:22:44.210 --> 00:22:47.920 those situations, recognitions, they tend to 00:22:47.920 --> 00:22:48.900 fail as well. 00:22:48.900 --> 00:22:51.690 So sometimes it's likely that a person that is talking to 00:22:51.690 --> 00:22:55.774 you gets faded out because it is considered as noise. 00:22:55.774 --> 00:22:57.256 [LAUGHTER] 00:22:57.256 --> 00:23:01.320 HELGA VELROYEN: But sometimes they also work very well. 00:23:01.320 --> 00:23:04.620 I mean, it's also coincidence. 00:23:04.620 --> 00:23:07.070 Sometimes you're in a setting which has exactly the 00:23:07.070 --> 00:23:10.100 situation that the hearing aid can work well with. 00:23:10.100 --> 00:23:13.520 So sometimes you are here with a hearing person, actually, 00:23:13.520 --> 00:23:15.600 and then you hear him quite well. 00:23:15.600 --> 00:23:18.380 And then you start talking in a normal voice, because you 00:23:18.380 --> 00:23:19.970 can actually understand everything. 00:23:19.970 --> 00:23:21.820 And then that hearing person is asking 00:23:21.820 --> 00:23:23.410 you to repeat a sentence. 00:23:23.410 --> 00:23:24.970 This is really weird sometimes. 00:23:28.110 --> 00:23:30.560 The tuning software for hearing aids also has a real 00:23:30.560 --> 00:23:34.280 time monitor where you can see some parameters. 00:23:34.280 --> 00:23:37.950 So you wear your hearing aids and then, for 00:23:37.950 --> 00:23:39.580 example, listen to music. 00:23:39.580 --> 00:23:47.090 And then you can see here the dark areas are where the 00:23:47.090 --> 00:23:50.000 hearing aid actually started to work. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:51.860 Below that, it doesn't need to amplify. 00:23:51.860 --> 00:23:55.590 And the grey thing here is the speech banana. 00:23:55.590 --> 00:23:57.940 So you see that it's optimized in a way that it starts 00:23:57.940 --> 00:24:01.100 amplifying in the speech banana. 00:24:01.100 --> 00:24:05.340 It also has the situation recognition 00:24:05.340 --> 00:24:06.410 and different settings. 00:24:06.410 --> 00:24:08.790 And one of those is music, actually. 00:24:08.790 --> 00:24:11.970 I tried it with different types of music. 00:24:11.970 --> 00:24:14.120 Actually, if you like heavy metal, you will never see 00:24:14.120 --> 00:24:14.960 music here. 00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:16.170 It's usually noise. 00:24:16.170 --> 00:24:21.856 [LAUGHTER] 00:24:21.856 --> 00:24:23.260 HELGA VELROYEN: A problem with hearing aids 00:24:23.260 --> 00:24:25.010 is humidity, actually. 00:24:25.010 --> 00:24:27.380 So most hearing aids are not waterproof. 00:24:27.380 --> 00:24:32.320 That doesn't sound so bad, but actually, a lot of things are 00:24:32.320 --> 00:24:33.060 related to that. 00:24:33.060 --> 00:24:36.590 So that means no swimming with friends, no pool parties, no 00:24:36.590 --> 00:24:39.880 water sports where you'll have to talk to someone. 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:41.740 Sweat is a problem, especially for people 00:24:41.740 --> 00:24:43.970 who do a lot of sports. 00:24:43.970 --> 00:24:45.770 No audio books in the bathtub. 00:24:45.770 --> 00:24:46.680 No heavy rain. 00:24:46.680 --> 00:24:49.680 So if you go to an open air concert and it starts raining, 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:52.610 you will really have to take care of that. 00:24:52.610 --> 00:24:57.880 Also, just like wet hair, when you go out of the shower, you 00:24:57.880 --> 00:25:01.340 have to wait until your hair is dry until you can put your 00:25:01.340 --> 00:25:03.490 hearing aids in again. 00:25:03.490 --> 00:25:07.730 A very recent development is that Phonak also offers 00:25:07.730 --> 00:25:10.200 hearing aids that are waterproof or water-resistant. 00:25:13.310 --> 00:25:16.180 They claim that you can hold it under water for 30 minutes, 00:25:16.180 --> 00:25:21.020 and then there will be no irreparable damage. 00:25:21.020 --> 00:25:22.350 I'm not really sure what that means. 00:25:22.350 --> 00:25:24.250 So I guess you probably have to dry it. 00:25:24.250 --> 00:25:25.531 [LAUGHTER] 00:25:25.531 --> 00:25:30.290 HELGA VELROYEN: Or if you have to give it into repair for 00:25:30.290 --> 00:25:31.760 weeks until you get it back. 00:25:31.760 --> 00:25:35.250 Oh yeah, by the way, you don't have a spare hearing aid. 00:25:35.250 --> 00:25:38.260 So whenever your hearing aids break, you have to go to an 00:25:38.260 --> 00:25:41.560 audiologist. And you get spare hearing aids, which is like, 00:25:41.560 --> 00:25:43.940 when you drive a Porsche, you get a tractor. 00:25:43.940 --> 00:25:48.800 And also, audiologists have opening hours for the elderly. 00:25:48.800 --> 00:25:51.580 So if your hearing aids break on Friday night, you have to 00:25:51.580 --> 00:25:53.840 wait until Monday until you actually can hear again. 00:25:56.790 --> 00:26:00.780 Yeah, those were the important features of hearing aids. 00:26:00.780 --> 00:26:03.890 But there is some peripheral hardware that I 00:26:03.890 --> 00:26:06.060 would like to present. 00:26:06.060 --> 00:26:10.800 So there are different interfaces for which you can 00:26:10.800 --> 00:26:12.950 use to plug into your hearing aids. 00:26:12.950 --> 00:26:15.850 So the oldest one is the direct audio input, which is 00:26:15.850 --> 00:26:17.970 just here, a cable. 00:26:17.970 --> 00:26:20.950 So it looks like that. 00:26:20.950 --> 00:26:23.830 And it's usually connected to the hearing aid with some sort 00:26:23.830 --> 00:26:26.170 of shoe, which looks like that. 00:26:26.170 --> 00:26:30.610 And it has the pros and cons of cables, of course, if you 00:26:30.610 --> 00:26:31.720 like being on the leash. 00:26:31.720 --> 00:26:35.180 But you also have no interference with other 00:26:35.180 --> 00:26:37.330 wireless stuff. 00:26:37.330 --> 00:26:40.470 It's usually used to plug something else in, for 00:26:40.470 --> 00:26:43.415 example, FM or Bluetooth adaptors. 00:26:43.415 --> 00:26:47.570 And yeah, this is pretty old technology, 00:26:47.570 --> 00:26:48.980 but it's still around. 00:26:48.980 --> 00:26:52.310 Although, for really small ones, the plug is actually too 00:26:52.310 --> 00:26:55.530 big, so they leave it out there. 00:26:55.530 --> 00:27:00.860 Another very common technology is FM systems. You can buy 00:27:00.860 --> 00:27:02.370 those from several vendors. 00:27:02.370 --> 00:27:05.480 You have receivers and transmitters. 00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:07.940 They have different setups like for a meeting, that you 00:27:07.940 --> 00:27:10.960 can put a microphone on the meeting table and hear all the 00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:15.060 participants talk, or for lecture halls like that, that 00:27:15.060 --> 00:27:18.120 you can connect the microphone to the transmitter 00:27:18.120 --> 00:27:19.720 and listen to it. 00:27:22.260 --> 00:27:26.080 There are some standards, but most receivers and 00:27:26.080 --> 00:27:29.200 transmitters don't work with others from other companies. 00:27:29.200 --> 00:27:33.730 But at least, if you plug them in with these direct audio 00:27:33.730 --> 00:27:38.490 input, you can choose an FM system from a different vendor 00:27:38.490 --> 00:27:40.626 than from your hearing aids. 00:27:40.626 --> 00:27:43.760 The sound quality is said to be quite good. 00:27:43.760 --> 00:27:45.140 I actually could never try it. 00:27:45.140 --> 00:27:51.210 But I heard that, actually, in schools, hearing impaired 00:27:51.210 --> 00:27:55.290 students listen to music while actually they should listen to 00:27:55.290 --> 00:27:56.180 the teacher. 00:27:56.180 --> 00:27:59.130 And teachers call the audiologists and ask, could 00:27:59.130 --> 00:28:00.390 you make this stop? 00:28:00.390 --> 00:28:02.070 They don't listen to what I am saying. 00:28:05.880 --> 00:28:08.860 A really common problem for hearing impairment is calling 00:28:08.860 --> 00:28:11.700 on the phone. 00:28:11.700 --> 00:28:15.230 The problem is, first of all, most people do lip reading. 00:28:15.230 --> 00:28:17.660 So they don't rely only on the audio input. 00:28:17.660 --> 00:28:20.240 We use the visuals as well. 00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:22.510 And of course, you don't have that on the 00:28:22.510 --> 00:28:24.330 radio or the telephone. 00:28:24.330 --> 00:28:27.000 And also, for technical reasons, the frequency range 00:28:27.000 --> 00:28:29.780 of the phone line is reduced. 00:28:29.780 --> 00:28:34.710 In Germany, it's like 300 hertz to 3.4 kilohertz. 00:28:34.710 --> 00:28:38.560 That's the blue box in this audiogram. 00:28:38.560 --> 00:28:41.360 Also the background noise that you have in the room where you 00:28:41.360 --> 00:28:44.910 are talking on the phone, it does have the full range. 00:28:44.910 --> 00:28:46.650 So you get, actually, background noise in a better 00:28:46.650 --> 00:28:50.250 quality than the signal from your person that you're 00:28:50.250 --> 00:28:51.650 talking to. 00:28:51.650 --> 00:28:55.670 Then, often, the signal is altered and unnatural. 00:28:55.670 --> 00:28:57.510 Sometimes you have bad reception. 00:28:57.510 --> 00:29:01.490 And also, you hear it only in one ear if you just use a 00:29:01.490 --> 00:29:02.880 usual telephone. 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:05.460 And if you hold it to your ear, you get a feedback loop. 00:29:05.460 --> 00:29:07.400 So a lot of things make it really annoying 00:29:07.400 --> 00:29:08.200 to talk on the phone. 00:29:08.200 --> 00:29:11.200 And there are some technical solutions for that. 00:29:11.200 --> 00:29:14.935 The most old one is the telecoil or T-coil. 00:29:18.610 --> 00:29:20.910 And the source is connected to an induction loop. 00:29:20.910 --> 00:29:24.710 And you take off the electromagnetics. 00:29:24.710 --> 00:29:26.850 And this is from the telecoil. 00:29:26.850 --> 00:29:30.610 It's there in the picture, a really small antenna. 00:29:30.610 --> 00:29:35.240 And there are different setups for the induction loop. 00:29:35.240 --> 00:29:38.030 So there are adapters that have the induction loop 00:29:38.030 --> 00:29:40.420 actually used to hang it around your neck. 00:29:40.420 --> 00:29:42.660 Or there are induction loops installed in 00:29:42.660 --> 00:29:43.920 lecture halls like this. 00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:47.900 I don't know if there is one here. 00:29:47.900 --> 00:29:51.140 It's widely used in Europe, especially in Scandinavia. 00:29:51.140 --> 00:29:54.340 They even have laws where every public building has to 00:29:54.340 --> 00:29:59.640 have one or these public lecture halls. 00:29:59.640 --> 00:30:01.760 You have some pros and cons, of course. 00:30:01.760 --> 00:30:03.580 You have interference. 00:30:03.580 --> 00:30:07.580 When you move inside the induction loop, the level of 00:30:07.580 --> 00:30:10.030 volume changes. 00:30:10.030 --> 00:30:12.730 So it's nothing where you should dance or something. 00:30:12.730 --> 00:30:14.520 But if you sit still in a theater or 00:30:14.520 --> 00:30:17.320 something, it works. 00:30:17.320 --> 00:30:19.840 Installing an induction loop in a lecture 00:30:19.840 --> 00:30:21.440 hall is quite expensive. 00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:23.990 But there are actually DIY kits available. 00:30:23.990 --> 00:30:26.210 It's quite common that people build their own ones. 00:30:28.820 --> 00:30:31.430 And telephones also have an induction loop, 00:30:31.430 --> 00:30:33.010 even very new ones. 00:30:33.010 --> 00:30:36.770 So all telephones which are called hearing aid compatible, 00:30:36.770 --> 00:30:38.870 they have an induction loop that can be used with a 00:30:38.870 --> 00:30:41.525 telecoil, even the new iPhone, for example. 00:30:44.920 --> 00:30:46.170 And then there's Bluetooth. 00:30:48.370 --> 00:30:51.820 There are, right now, no hearing aids that can do 00:30:51.820 --> 00:30:54.940 Bluetooth directly because, mostly, of the batteries. 00:30:54.940 --> 00:30:59.840 Usually, hearing aid batteries last one week to 10 days. 00:30:59.840 --> 00:31:02.260 But with Bluetooth, I think they would only 00:31:02.260 --> 00:31:03.950 last a couple of hours. 00:31:03.950 --> 00:31:08.100 Although there are no Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids 00:31:08.100 --> 00:31:12.140 on the market right now, I've heard that they 00:31:12.140 --> 00:31:13.770 are working on that. 00:31:13.770 --> 00:31:17.220 Siemens is located in Erlangen, which is not that 00:31:17.220 --> 00:31:18.230 far from Munich. 00:31:18.230 --> 00:31:23.510 So I have heard about people who would test prototypes. 00:31:23.510 --> 00:31:28.615 Right now, you have to use a Bluetooth adapter to use your 00:31:28.615 --> 00:31:30.460 hearing aids, attach that. 00:31:30.460 --> 00:31:34.380 And there's different versions of it. 00:31:34.380 --> 00:31:36.940 So this is an example of Phonak. 00:31:36.940 --> 00:31:39.290 They built a really nice thing. 00:31:39.290 --> 00:31:41.910 This piece, you hang it around your neck. 00:31:41.910 --> 00:31:45.040 And the ribbon is actually the induction loop that is used 00:31:45.040 --> 00:31:46.340 with a telecoil. 00:31:46.340 --> 00:31:51.030 And to this gadget you can connect several things. 00:31:51.030 --> 00:31:53.720 It has direct audio input, which you can use to plug in 00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:55.090 an FM system. 00:31:55.090 --> 00:31:57.760 It also has aux-in that you can directly 00:31:57.760 --> 00:31:59.576 plug in your MP3 player. 00:31:59.576 --> 00:32:01.930 And it has Bluetooth. 00:32:01.930 --> 00:32:04.310 It actually also has a warning to combine this with 00:32:04.310 --> 00:32:05.800 pacemakers. 00:32:05.800 --> 00:32:10.600 And I have a friend who has a pacemaker and this thing. 00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:11.920 He just ignored the warning. 00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:12.790 But I think this is-- 00:32:12.790 --> 00:32:13.470 [LAUGHTER] 00:32:13.470 --> 00:32:16.720 HELGA VELROYEN: Luckily, he's still alive. 00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:18.810 And I think this is a good example for what we are 00:32:18.810 --> 00:32:20.050 heading in the future. 00:32:20.050 --> 00:32:21.970 We will get more and more cyborgs. 00:32:21.970 --> 00:32:26.680 And I doubt that every hearing aid vendor is trying their 00:32:26.680 --> 00:32:29.850 adapters with every pacemaker there is. 00:32:29.850 --> 00:32:33.320 So we will get a lot of compatibility 00:32:33.320 --> 00:32:34.680 problems in the future. 00:32:34.680 --> 00:32:38.580 And if this really works, it might be an option to kill 00:32:38.580 --> 00:32:41.140 people really, really silently, remotely. 00:32:41.140 --> 00:32:41.485 [LAUGHTER] 00:32:41.485 --> 00:32:44.694 HELGA VELROYEN: I mean, you have to think of that. 00:32:44.694 --> 00:32:47.600 [LAUGHS] 00:32:47.600 --> 00:32:50.710 Siemens' solution was, of course, not to use any of the 00:32:50.710 --> 00:32:52.150 existing standards. 00:32:52.150 --> 00:32:53.574 Just build something new. 00:32:53.574 --> 00:32:54.068 [LAUGHTER] 00:32:54.068 --> 00:32:57.032 [APPLAUSE] 00:32:57.032 --> 00:33:00.530 HELGA VELROYEN: So they built something called Siemens Tek. 00:33:00.530 --> 00:33:03.720 And it hooks Bluetooth to the phone, or to whatever you're 00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:09.290 connected to, and some wireless NFC protocol to the 00:33:09.290 --> 00:33:10.840 hearing aids. 00:33:10.840 --> 00:33:12.880 So the hearing aids also have a small antenna in it, which 00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:15.760 looks kind of like a telecoil, but it is not. 00:33:15.760 --> 00:33:18.810 And it is not compatible to anything the telecoil is 00:33:18.810 --> 00:33:19.930 compatible to. 00:33:19.930 --> 00:33:22.100 So you can only use it with this. 00:33:22.100 --> 00:33:25.230 And it has a signal around 3.3 megahertz. 00:33:25.230 --> 00:33:26.340 You can see it on that picture. 00:33:26.340 --> 00:33:28.030 I tried that. 00:33:28.030 --> 00:33:31.600 And it's compatible with every Bluetooth 00:33:31.600 --> 00:33:33.420 speaking device, in theory. 00:33:33.420 --> 00:33:35.820 And practically, you have to check it with everything. 00:33:35.820 --> 00:33:39.050 So whenever I get a phone at work or whatever, I have to 00:33:39.050 --> 00:33:40.590 check if it will actually work. 00:33:40.590 --> 00:33:44.170 So of course, it works best with Siemens mobile phones. 00:33:44.170 --> 00:33:46.670 But you can imagine how old they are. 00:33:46.670 --> 00:33:53.040 And yeah, they also are supposed to work with land 00:33:53.040 --> 00:33:53.670 line phones. 00:33:53.670 --> 00:33:59.310 But on their websites, they say, I think, it was only to 00:33:59.310 --> 00:34:02.850 Siemens land line phones, of course. 00:34:02.850 --> 00:34:07.910 And other than that, they don't guarantee that it works. 00:34:07.910 --> 00:34:12.139 It comes with an additional transmitter that you can 00:34:12.139 --> 00:34:15.219 connect to your source that is more far away. 00:34:15.219 --> 00:34:18.760 The Tek itself has a range of one meter. 00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:22.880 So if you want to have a flat screen TV, I don't know, five 00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:26.210 meters away from you, you could use the transmitter. 00:34:26.210 --> 00:34:30.659 This thing costs about 400 euros for just turning one 00:34:30.659 --> 00:34:33.260 wireless protocol into the other. 00:34:33.260 --> 00:34:35.230 And no insurance is going to pay for that. 00:34:35.230 --> 00:34:38.949 So you have to pay for this on your own. 00:34:38.949 --> 00:34:42.050 If you have a generous employer, you might 00:34:42.050 --> 00:34:44.989 get some for it. 00:34:44.989 --> 00:34:48.120 They also released a new version of it. 00:34:48.120 --> 00:34:50.040 This is on the right side here. 00:34:50.040 --> 00:34:50.929 It's called miniTek. 00:34:50.929 --> 00:34:54.280 And it has, actually, less features than the old one 00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:57.440 because they removed the display. 00:34:57.440 --> 00:34:59.170 And they still want 400 euros for that. 00:34:59.170 --> 00:35:03.290 And you don't get a discount if you bought the old one. 00:35:03.290 --> 00:35:06.940 Well, but I guess that's marketing. 00:35:06.940 --> 00:35:08.210 This is the sender with the transmitter. 00:35:08.210 --> 00:35:11.070 So you connect it to the computer, and you wear the Tek 00:35:11.070 --> 00:35:13.190 around your head. 00:35:13.190 --> 00:35:16.370 It also has some patents for the different programs. So 00:35:16.370 --> 00:35:19.220 hearing aids have different programs that you can change 00:35:19.220 --> 00:35:23.250 manually so that you have one for listening to music, or one 00:35:23.250 --> 00:35:29.880 for your living room, and one for outside, or whatever. 00:35:29.880 --> 00:35:31.785 Of course, I took that apart as well. 00:35:31.785 --> 00:35:34.530 [LAUGHTER] 00:35:34.530 --> 00:35:37.790 HELGA VELROYEN: You have to couple this Tek with the 00:35:37.790 --> 00:35:39.840 tuning software of hearing aids. 00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:43.110 So there is some kind of authentification via a 00:35:43.110 --> 00:35:45.480 7-character serial number. 00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:49.330 I doubt that there is actually a lot of encryption in there, 00:35:49.330 --> 00:35:51.370 because the latency is crucial. 00:35:51.370 --> 00:35:53.130 Bluetooth already has a latency. 00:35:53.130 --> 00:35:55.320 And you don't want to add that much to it. 00:35:55.320 --> 00:35:58.680 But I also tried to use a different Tek with my hearing 00:35:58.680 --> 00:36:00.190 aids, and it actually doesn't work. 00:36:00.190 --> 00:36:03.910 So some kind of authentication must be in there. 00:36:03.910 --> 00:36:06.350 But if you're too lazy to hack that, you can 00:36:06.350 --> 00:36:08.100 still hack the Bluetooth. 00:36:08.100 --> 00:36:11.550 There are lots of talks about that here. 00:36:11.550 --> 00:36:14.460 And of course, the PIN is 000. 00:36:14.460 --> 00:36:19.390 And something that is not directly about the Tek, but 00:36:19.390 --> 00:36:21.520 the hearing aids also communicate with each other. 00:36:21.520 --> 00:36:23.970 So if I switch the program-- there's actually a small 00:36:23.970 --> 00:36:25.370 switch on my hearing aids-- 00:36:25.370 --> 00:36:28.800 if I switch between the programs on one ear, it also 00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:30.480 tells that to the other ear. 00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:33.010 And that one doesn't use authentification. 00:36:33.010 --> 00:36:35.600 I have heard that, when people have the same model of hearing 00:36:35.600 --> 00:36:37.480 aids and they're close to each other-- for example, this 00:36:37.480 --> 00:36:40.040 happens when couples buy the same hearing aids-- 00:36:40.040 --> 00:36:43.310 then you switch your program, and your spouse also gets the 00:36:43.310 --> 00:36:44.485 program switched. 00:36:44.485 --> 00:36:45.315 [LAUGHTER] 00:36:45.315 --> 00:36:48.080 HELGA VELROYEN: And this can actually only be changed by 00:36:48.080 --> 00:36:50.430 the audiologist by changing the channel. 00:36:50.430 --> 00:36:54.190 So they have, like for wireless, different channels. 00:36:54.190 --> 00:36:55.590 And you'd set it to a different one. 00:36:55.590 --> 00:36:57.640 That's the security about that. 00:37:00.184 --> 00:37:03.590 Yeah, hacking. 00:37:03.590 --> 00:37:06.200 When I started to dig into that topic, I was really 00:37:06.200 --> 00:37:09.950 disappointed that there is not very much hacking. 00:37:09.950 --> 00:37:12.530 So there's one forum called hearingaidhacks. 00:37:12.530 --> 00:37:15.160 livejournal.com. 00:37:15.160 --> 00:37:19.320 This is the biggest one I found. 00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:23.810 But if you go through the entries, it's mostly people 00:37:23.810 --> 00:37:27.940 asking for technical advice, So, I bought this and this 00:37:27.940 --> 00:37:28.450 hearing aid. 00:37:28.450 --> 00:37:32.090 What peripheral hardware can I use with it? 00:37:32.090 --> 00:37:35.610 I guess the reason for that is that the 00:37:35.610 --> 00:37:36.980 devices are really expensive. 00:37:36.980 --> 00:37:41.470 And the warranty and the insurances are really not that 00:37:41.470 --> 00:37:43.300 nice if you break your own hearing aids. 00:37:43.300 --> 00:37:46.230 And you still have this problem that audiologists 00:37:46.230 --> 00:37:47.710 don't have opening hours. 00:37:47.710 --> 00:37:50.920 They can not be used by people who still have a life. 00:37:50.920 --> 00:37:54.520 So people are a little resistant to actually hack the 00:37:54.520 --> 00:37:56.970 hearing aids. 00:37:56.970 --> 00:38:00.270 But there is a little hacking on the peripheral hardware. 00:38:00.270 --> 00:38:04.920 I will show two examples for that. 00:38:04.920 --> 00:38:07.660 There's one guy called Gertlex who built his 00:38:07.660 --> 00:38:10.650 own Bluetooth adapter. 00:38:10.650 --> 00:38:14.570 And he posted this on Flickr, quite detailed. 00:38:14.570 --> 00:38:18.810 And what you can see here, he used a Sony wireless Bluetooth 00:38:18.810 --> 00:38:24.220 headset, and hacked it in a way where you can connect the 00:38:24.220 --> 00:38:28.230 direct audio input cables from the hearing aids. 00:38:28.230 --> 00:38:30.920 The picture here in the upper-right corner shows the 00:38:30.920 --> 00:38:32.810 setup when he tested it. 00:38:32.810 --> 00:38:35.020 So he actually didn't test it with his 00:38:35.020 --> 00:38:36.020 original hearing aids. 00:38:36.020 --> 00:38:38.030 He used an old one that he had. 00:38:38.030 --> 00:38:41.330 And he even used an old MP3 player because he was afraid 00:38:41.330 --> 00:38:43.040 of frying that as well. 00:38:43.040 --> 00:38:49.770 So this is the precaution that you have to do when you start 00:38:49.770 --> 00:38:51.700 frying your hearing aids. 00:38:51.700 --> 00:38:55.090 You can not only fry your hearing aids, you can also fry 00:38:55.090 --> 00:38:56.150 your hearing even more. 00:38:56.150 --> 00:38:58.800 So you should be careful. 00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:03.200 And there's another guy who also made a Bluetooth adapter. 00:39:03.200 --> 00:39:11.026 And he also took the DYI cables here, those shoes that 00:39:11.026 --> 00:39:16.080 you use to connect them, and a Bluetooth mono thing here. 00:39:16.080 --> 00:39:21.080 And this is actually the result, that you connect it 00:39:21.080 --> 00:39:22.830 directly to the hearing aids. 00:39:22.830 --> 00:39:26.770 He also provided some nice diagrams for that. 00:39:26.770 --> 00:39:30.500 The slightly bigger scene is actually the self-tuning 00:39:30.500 --> 00:39:36.570 scenes for hearing aids because, as I said, it's kind 00:39:36.570 --> 00:39:38.460 of frustrating to get hearing aids. 00:39:38.460 --> 00:39:41.510 You have to go to the audiologist a lot of times. 00:39:41.510 --> 00:39:43.600 And he asks you, yeah, what's wrong? 00:39:43.600 --> 00:39:45.870 And then you have to describe the situation. 00:39:45.870 --> 00:39:48.480 But you're sitting in this silent cavern at the 00:39:48.480 --> 00:39:54.290 audiologist, so the adjustment is not really done in 00:39:54.290 --> 00:39:56.070 realistic circumstances. 00:39:56.070 --> 00:39:58.690 And a lot of people get frustrated about that. 00:39:58.690 --> 00:40:02.930 So they spend weeks tuning their hearing aids at the 00:40:02.930 --> 00:40:05.570 audiologist. And still they're unhappy with it. 00:40:05.570 --> 00:40:09.120 So they try to get the hardware and software that is 00:40:09.120 --> 00:40:10.770 necessary for it. 00:40:10.770 --> 00:40:13.190 And those are actually only sold to doctors and 00:40:13.190 --> 00:40:14.480 acousticians or audiologists. 00:40:17.150 --> 00:40:18.820 And they are not sold on eBay because 00:40:18.820 --> 00:40:19.820 it is medical equipment. 00:40:19.820 --> 00:40:25.310 And that is not supposed to be sold on eBay. 00:40:25.310 --> 00:40:30.590 So you have to use other channels. 00:40:30.590 --> 00:40:33.810 There's a black market for it. 00:40:33.810 --> 00:40:39.200 It's kind of hard to put a price on that, but I've seen 00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:42.130 offers for the hardware, which is called Hipro. 00:40:42.130 --> 00:40:45.160 And there are different versions for 00:40:45.160 --> 00:40:47.670 serial use via Bluetooth. 00:40:47.670 --> 00:40:49.920 And it starts with a couple of hundred euros. 00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:52.160 So you can imagine the pain that people have when they 00:40:52.160 --> 00:40:54.860 already spent 5,000 euros for two hearing aids. 00:40:54.860 --> 00:40:59.430 And then they spend even more money, because they want to 00:40:59.430 --> 00:41:01.830 tune them themselves. 00:41:01.830 --> 00:41:04.760 And there is this self-tuning scene. 00:41:04.760 --> 00:41:07.475 And people really hack the system. 00:41:07.475 --> 00:41:12.100 The effort for people who actually installed a fake 00:41:12.100 --> 00:41:16.250 business, so they register a business for an audiologist to 00:41:16.250 --> 00:41:19.110 buy this hardware and then stop the business again. 00:41:19.110 --> 00:41:22.960 So there are actually people doing a lot of effort to get 00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:25.300 this hardware and software. 00:41:25.300 --> 00:41:27.440 But of course, then you have no customer support. 00:41:27.440 --> 00:41:30.120 And when you fry your ears or your hearing aids, then it's 00:41:30.120 --> 00:41:31.640 your own fault. 00:41:31.640 --> 00:41:32.540 There's one exception. 00:41:32.540 --> 00:41:35.920 In America, there's a hearing aid manufacturer called 00:41:35.920 --> 00:41:37.410 America Hears. 00:41:37.410 --> 00:41:41.460 They sell quite low-budget hearing aids, up to 00:41:41.460 --> 00:41:45.030 $1,000, if I'm right. 00:41:45.030 --> 00:41:47.340 Then you send in an audiogram of yours. 00:41:47.340 --> 00:41:51.680 And they tune it at their place for the first time. 00:41:51.680 --> 00:41:56.320 And then you can download the software and tune it a little 00:41:56.320 --> 00:41:58.930 bit more at home. 00:41:58.930 --> 00:42:00.910 Unfortunately, I've never seen that software. 00:42:00.910 --> 00:42:02.530 You can only order it in the US. 00:42:02.530 --> 00:42:06.370 But I would be interested to have a look at that as well, 00:42:06.370 --> 00:42:08.590 if someone has channels for that. 00:42:11.240 --> 00:42:15.580 Of course, some of this hardware ended up in my hands. 00:42:15.580 --> 00:42:19.705 This is a serial Hipro. 00:42:19.705 --> 00:42:23.290 This looks really fancy, like a modem from the '80s. 00:42:23.290 --> 00:42:26.570 It's connected via serial. 00:42:26.570 --> 00:42:28.740 And you connect the hearing aids to it. 00:42:28.740 --> 00:42:31.460 I have some close-up pictures for that. 00:42:31.460 --> 00:42:35.730 So you take out the battery and put on a small cable which 00:42:35.730 --> 00:42:39.740 has a contact of the battery, the size of the battery, a 00:42:39.740 --> 00:42:40.770 very flat cable. 00:42:40.770 --> 00:42:42.610 And this is connected to a bigger cable. 00:42:42.610 --> 00:42:44.030 And that is connected to the Hipro. 00:42:46.740 --> 00:42:50.960 The Hipro is the same for nearly all hearing aid brands, 00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:54.600 so you can use it for Siemens, and Phonak, and whatever. 00:42:54.600 --> 00:42:58.355 But these small, flat cables, they are different for nearly 00:42:58.355 --> 00:42:59.930 every hearing aid. 00:42:59.930 --> 00:43:05.160 So if you try to buy this Hipro on the black market, you 00:43:05.160 --> 00:43:07.610 also have to buy those cables. 00:43:07.610 --> 00:43:09.880 There's also a Bluetooth version that also 00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:12.310 ended up in my hands. 00:43:12.310 --> 00:43:13.070 It looks like that. 00:43:13.070 --> 00:43:16.850 And it has the advantage that you are not 00:43:16.850 --> 00:43:19.900 connected to it via cable. 00:43:19.900 --> 00:43:22.380 So you don't feel like on a leash. 00:43:22.380 --> 00:43:27.140 And I haven't really used that much. 00:43:27.140 --> 00:43:29.890 But this way, you could actually go outside and tune 00:43:29.890 --> 00:43:33.710 it in the subway or at your office, because 00:43:33.710 --> 00:43:35.790 you just need a laptop. 00:43:35.790 --> 00:43:38.450 And it works without your powerful wire. 00:43:43.560 --> 00:43:45.890 The tuning software, I showed you some excerpts from it. 00:43:45.890 --> 00:43:47.850 This is just another screenshot. 00:43:47.850 --> 00:43:52.790 On the right side here, you see the different programs. So 00:43:52.790 --> 00:43:56.160 the universal one, here is one for music, and one for the 00:43:56.160 --> 00:43:59.158 tech, if you work with that. 00:44:02.340 --> 00:44:05.700 When I was playing with the tuning software, I found 00:44:05.700 --> 00:44:07.020 something very interesting. 00:44:07.020 --> 00:44:09.170 That it's actually spying on me. 00:44:09.170 --> 00:44:13.340 So it locks some stuff and, for example, 00:44:13.340 --> 00:44:15.570 how much I wear it. 00:44:15.570 --> 00:44:18.990 Although I find 14 hours a day a little bit-- 00:44:18.990 --> 00:44:22.550 I think I'm awake, actually, longer than 14 hours. 00:44:22.550 --> 00:44:24.740 But they use this, actually, because people come and 00:44:24.740 --> 00:44:26.820 complain, yeah, this doesn't really work much. 00:44:26.820 --> 00:44:29.960 And then they see they only wear it half an hour a day. 00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:31.950 And so, of course, you can not get used to it 00:44:31.950 --> 00:44:33.470 and adapt to it. 00:44:33.470 --> 00:44:35.900 And you can also see what different programs are used. 00:44:35.900 --> 00:44:37.960 So mostly I use the universal program. 00:44:37.960 --> 00:44:42.730 And sometimes I have another one called universal that is 00:44:42.730 --> 00:44:45.950 actually tuned to have less feedback loops. 00:44:45.950 --> 00:44:48.760 That's the one I use when I put on a hat so that I still 00:44:48.760 --> 00:44:53.080 hear a little bit, but don't have too many feedback loops. 00:44:53.080 --> 00:44:56.910 And it also tracks how often I was in a noisy environment or 00:44:56.910 --> 00:44:58.480 was listening to music. 00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:01.745 And since I like to listen to heavy metal, this is actually 00:45:01.745 --> 00:45:03.750 not correct. 00:45:03.750 --> 00:45:05.320 Yeah, I found it really interesting 00:45:05.320 --> 00:45:06.260 what you can see here. 00:45:06.260 --> 00:45:12.290 And yeah, I hope that it doesn't record anything what I 00:45:12.290 --> 00:45:15.840 talk about or what I listen to. 00:45:15.840 --> 00:45:19.420 We have a little bit more time, so I will talk about the 00:45:19.420 --> 00:45:21.470 cochlear implants, as well. 00:45:21.470 --> 00:45:25.840 I mentioned that those are the ones that are half implanted 00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:29.760 in the head and also have an external device. 00:45:33.650 --> 00:45:37.420 This shows this part is implanted. 00:45:37.420 --> 00:45:42.200 And we have a wire that is drawn into the cochlea. 00:45:42.200 --> 00:45:44.590 And it's connected to the nerve. 00:45:44.590 --> 00:45:47.180 So actually, the whole ear is circumvented. 00:45:47.180 --> 00:45:50.020 Only the wire goes directly to the nerve and 00:45:50.020 --> 00:45:51.390 then through the brain. 00:45:51.390 --> 00:45:56.350 And cochlear implants are what I find really fascinating. 00:45:56.350 --> 00:45:58.450 They really make deaf people hear. 00:45:58.450 --> 00:46:02.190 It's only applied to people who have a really severe 00:46:02.190 --> 00:46:05.580 hearing loss, like less than 20% or something. 00:46:05.580 --> 00:46:08.970 So they hear only less than 20%. 00:46:08.970 --> 00:46:13.630 Of course, it's a surgery to insert that. 00:46:13.630 --> 00:46:16.530 It destroys any remaining hearing, because you poke a 00:46:16.530 --> 00:46:17.640 wire into the nerve. 00:46:17.640 --> 00:46:21.470 So everything else is gone then. 00:46:21.470 --> 00:46:23.400 It can also affect other nerves. 00:46:23.400 --> 00:46:26.460 So I have a friend who had this surgery. 00:46:26.460 --> 00:46:31.650 And they touched some taste nerves as well, so everything 00:46:31.650 --> 00:46:33.120 tastes as metallic. 00:46:33.120 --> 00:46:33.830 It was kind of weird. 00:46:33.830 --> 00:46:37.260 But it actually went away after a while. 00:46:37.260 --> 00:46:38.510 The signal is really different. 00:46:40.980 --> 00:46:43.810 The brain has to adjust to that very long. 00:46:43.810 --> 00:46:46.070 There are actually hearing courses after you get this 00:46:46.070 --> 00:46:48.440 surgery and the device is started. 00:46:48.440 --> 00:46:52.340 You have to really get used to that, because it's like 00:46:52.340 --> 00:46:56.040 electrical signals directly [? intruded. ?] 00:46:56.040 --> 00:46:59.750 And the technology of this device, this is usually behind 00:46:59.750 --> 00:47:02.440 the usual hearing aid technology, because it has to 00:47:02.440 --> 00:47:07.360 be well-tested before you put something into your head. 00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:09.850 And like for the other hearing aids, there are not many 00:47:09.850 --> 00:47:13.920 standards, no interoperability between the brands. 00:47:13.920 --> 00:47:19.220 So if you decide to take the cochlear implant of one brand, 00:47:19.220 --> 00:47:22.120 you can never switch to another one. 00:47:22.120 --> 00:47:25.790 So yeah, you have to think that through. 00:47:25.790 --> 00:47:32.700 I have an example of how it sounds 00:47:32.700 --> 00:47:35.640 with a cochlear implant. 00:47:35.640 --> 00:47:37.840 So it sounds kind of spooky. 00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:41.930 It starts with a normal sample that everyone can hear it. 00:47:41.930 --> 00:47:45.380 And then they have different channels and reduce the number 00:47:45.380 --> 00:47:45.810 of channels. 00:47:45.810 --> 00:47:47.530 And then it gets less and less hear-able. 00:47:47.530 --> 00:47:47.840 [AUDIO PLAYBACK] 00:47:47.840 --> 00:47:49.980 -A boy fell from the window. 00:47:49.980 --> 00:47:51.668 A boy fell from the window. 00:47:51.668 --> 00:47:54.090 A boy fell from the window. 00:47:54.090 --> 00:47:55.795 A boy fell from the window. 00:47:55.795 --> 00:47:58.552 A boy fell from the window. 00:47:58.552 --> 00:48:00.544 A boy fell from the window. 00:48:00.544 --> 00:48:01.042 [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. 00:48:01.042 --> 00:48:01.540 [END AUDIO PLAYBACK] 00:48:01.540 --> 00:48:04.730 HELGA VELROYEN: Yeah, so you can imagine that it takes a 00:48:04.730 --> 00:48:06.855 while until you actually can understand speech with that. 00:48:09.700 --> 00:48:12.790 Yeah, I'm coming to an end. 00:48:12.790 --> 00:48:18.010 So there are a lot of things that I want from the industry. 00:48:18.010 --> 00:48:20.220 First of all, better service. 00:48:20.220 --> 00:48:22.710 And that goes into the consideration of young 00:48:22.710 --> 00:48:27.490 people's needs, because you can feel it every time, that 00:48:27.490 --> 00:48:29.510 everything is designed for the elderly. 00:48:29.510 --> 00:48:32.250 They don't consider that people actually have to work, 00:48:32.250 --> 00:48:35.480 and have a life, and actually want to go out and talk to 00:48:35.480 --> 00:48:41.100 people, and not only in a silent room one-on-one. 00:48:41.100 --> 00:48:44.820 And there are a lot of things where you miss the support 00:48:44.820 --> 00:48:49.340 when you have hearing aids and are not 60 or something. 00:48:49.340 --> 00:48:53.330 Generally, I'd like to have better signal processing. 00:48:53.330 --> 00:48:58.290 Of course, regarding the size, they already did a really good 00:48:58.290 --> 00:49:01.110 job, if you consider what they do already. 00:49:01.110 --> 00:49:03.980 But actually, the cocktail party problem is not solved. 00:49:03.980 --> 00:49:06.280 So a lot of people who have hearing aids and then who also 00:49:06.280 --> 00:49:09.030 have really good hearing aids, they just avoid social 00:49:09.030 --> 00:49:09.960 situations. 00:49:09.960 --> 00:49:11.140 So they don't go out. 00:49:11.140 --> 00:49:13.180 They don't go to the Congress. 00:49:13.180 --> 00:49:15.160 They don't go to parties. 00:49:15.160 --> 00:49:19.550 So whenever you would ask them to go for dinner, they'd 00:49:19.550 --> 00:49:22.760 really carefully choose the restaurant, if it's a more or 00:49:22.760 --> 00:49:27.040 less crowded one so you can understand people, actually. 00:49:27.040 --> 00:49:29.460 What I'm really missing is some standards. 00:49:29.460 --> 00:49:32.800 It would be even cool if it was open standards, because, 00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:35.915 this way, you feel really trapped as a patient. 00:49:38.790 --> 00:49:43.635 There's this saying, "If you can't open it, you don't own 00:49:43.635 --> 00:49:48.730 it." And I really miss that when having hearing aids. 00:49:48.730 --> 00:49:52.820 So I have a lot of ideas how to improve that. 00:49:52.820 --> 00:49:56.300 But I don't see most of it coming in the next 500 years, 00:49:56.300 --> 00:50:00.280 because the companies are not very open source friendly. 00:50:00.280 --> 00:50:02.550 So what would be really cool, to have something like a 00:50:02.550 --> 00:50:06.960 hearing aid app market that you can download the newest 00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:12.720 feature for a background noise remover or something, and that 00:50:12.720 --> 00:50:17.170 you can write you own filters and share those, and 00:50:17.170 --> 00:50:22.090 especially exchange those between different brands. 00:50:22.090 --> 00:50:24.840 And the funny thing is, when I was browsing through the 00:50:24.840 --> 00:50:28.550 websites of the vendors, the marketing of some hearing aid 00:50:28.550 --> 00:50:31.460 companies actually got this idea already. 00:50:31.460 --> 00:50:34.880 They just call their features apps. 00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:37.460 So this is just an enumeration of what the 00:50:37.460 --> 00:50:38.720 hearing aid can do. 00:50:38.720 --> 00:50:40.458 But they just call it app. 00:50:40.458 --> 00:50:42.330 [LAUGHTER] 00:50:42.330 --> 00:50:44.690 HELGA VELROYEN: And it would be really cool if there was 00:50:44.690 --> 00:50:45.490 something like that. 00:50:45.490 --> 00:50:49.010 You can exchange those. 00:50:49.010 --> 00:50:53.270 What I would also like, hearing aids do not use 00:50:53.270 --> 00:50:54.780 reoccurring situations. 00:50:54.780 --> 00:50:57.810 Most people have a rather steady lifestyle. 00:50:57.810 --> 00:50:59.570 You live in the same apartment. 00:50:59.570 --> 00:51:01.790 Most of the time, you work in the same office. 00:51:01.790 --> 00:51:05.540 You take the same subway to work every day. 00:51:05.540 --> 00:51:10.430 And hearing aids are only tuned for a general situation. 00:51:10.430 --> 00:51:15.620 But I think signal processing works well the more you know 00:51:15.620 --> 00:51:17.030 about the surrounding. 00:51:17.030 --> 00:51:19.770 So it would be really cool if you have one program for the 00:51:19.770 --> 00:51:24.100 office and one program for at home and one for the journey 00:51:24.100 --> 00:51:25.460 to the office. 00:51:25.460 --> 00:51:30.520 And we carry something around that knows all this. 00:51:30.520 --> 00:51:33.720 I mean, we have smartphones, and they have a calendar, and 00:51:33.720 --> 00:51:35.050 it shows where you are. 00:51:35.050 --> 00:51:39.350 And it knows the people that you're talking to and even if 00:51:39.350 --> 00:51:40.990 you talk to them on the phone. 00:51:40.990 --> 00:51:43.950 So there could be parameters for each person 00:51:43.950 --> 00:51:44.880 that you talk to. 00:51:44.880 --> 00:51:47.930 And that could be saved on the smartphone, if there wasn't 00:51:47.930 --> 00:51:51.810 enough space in the memory in the hearing aids themselves. 00:51:51.810 --> 00:51:54.140 So all the information is actually there. 00:51:54.140 --> 00:51:56.040 But I don't see any of the hearing aid 00:51:56.040 --> 00:51:59.390 vendors adapting to that. 00:51:59.390 --> 00:52:03.990 And what I also think, there are people building 3-D models 00:52:03.990 --> 00:52:07.140 of houses, and you could take this information into 00:52:07.140 --> 00:52:08.550 consideration as well. 00:52:08.550 --> 00:52:12.580 So if I have never been to the BCC, but someone has made a 00:52:12.580 --> 00:52:16.440 3-D model, you could also get the characteristics of the 00:52:16.440 --> 00:52:17.540 acoustics here. 00:52:17.540 --> 00:52:20.740 And then, before you go to the Congress, you could download 00:52:20.740 --> 00:52:23.690 the acoustic settings for your hearing aids. 00:52:23.690 --> 00:52:25.020 That would be really cool. 00:52:25.020 --> 00:52:28.240 But, well, this is just ideas. 00:52:28.240 --> 00:52:33.690 Yeah, and then also regarding the hardware, it would be nice 00:52:33.690 --> 00:52:36.210 if there were some open standards. 00:52:36.210 --> 00:52:38.770 It would be cool if you could print your own hearing aids 00:52:38.770 --> 00:52:42.010 with a 3-D printer, at least the part that goes into your 00:52:42.010 --> 00:52:45.110 ear so that it fits really well. 00:52:45.110 --> 00:52:47.290 And there are a lot of possibilities. 00:52:47.290 --> 00:52:49.820 But the market is really, really slow. 00:52:49.820 --> 00:52:52.880 And they still try to figure out how 00:52:52.880 --> 00:52:54.510 do we connect Bluetooth. 00:52:54.510 --> 00:52:59.440 And for me, it's just way too slow. 00:52:59.440 --> 00:53:03.680 I'd like to see more progress in that. 00:53:03.680 --> 00:53:04.030 Yes. 00:53:04.030 --> 00:53:07.490 Actually, with that, I would like to conclude. 00:53:07.490 --> 00:53:11.413 And I have to thank some people who helped me with this 00:53:11.413 --> 00:53:18.210 work, with the talk itself and all the stuff I talked about. 00:53:18.210 --> 00:53:22.490 And yeah, I think we have some minutes for questions. 00:53:22.490 --> 00:53:23.375 FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah, and that's-- 00:53:23.375 --> 00:53:36.125 [APPLAUSE] 00:53:36.125 --> 00:53:37.500 FEMALE SPEAKER: Wonderful. 00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:40.960 So before we come to the questions, I need to say three 00:53:40.960 --> 00:53:45.410 things, which means please stay seated while the question 00:53:45.410 --> 00:53:47.020 and answers are going on. 00:53:47.020 --> 00:53:49.990 Then please pick up your trash and your water bottles and 00:53:49.990 --> 00:53:51.540 take them out with you. 00:53:51.540 --> 00:53:55.215 And then please leave through the front door here, while the 00:53:55.215 --> 00:53:58.290 last door over there is the entrance for the new people. 00:53:58.290 --> 00:54:00.820 So now we can go over to the question and answers. 00:54:00.820 --> 00:54:03.880 We have a signal angel again in the IRC sitting and 00:54:03.880 --> 00:54:05.130 watching Twitter. 00:54:05.130 --> 00:54:07.850 And we have an audio angel in the back running around with a 00:54:07.850 --> 00:54:08.550 microphone. 00:54:08.550 --> 00:54:10.050 So please, questions now. 00:54:18.159 --> 00:54:19.130 AUDIENCE: Hi. 00:54:19.130 --> 00:54:22.680 I have a question about the cochlear implant [? hat. ?] 00:54:22.680 --> 00:54:28.330 I'm a neuropsychologist. And I know that, with eyes, there's 00:54:28.330 --> 00:54:33.450 an approach to re-engineer the signal 00:54:33.450 --> 00:54:35.290 processing of the retina. 00:54:35.290 --> 00:54:40.950 And with this kind of knowledge, you can make better 00:54:40.950 --> 00:54:42.480 retina implant [? hats ?] 00:54:42.480 --> 00:54:47.250 to enhance the possibilities of seeing with 00:54:47.250 --> 00:54:48.610 this kind of aid. 00:54:48.610 --> 00:54:52.850 And is there a similar approach for hearing aids and 00:54:52.850 --> 00:54:54.240 the cochlear implant [? hat ?]? 00:54:54.240 --> 00:54:55.560 HELGA VELROYEN: There are different 00:54:55.560 --> 00:54:57.340 types of cochlear implants. 00:54:57.340 --> 00:55:02.500 And this is really not much of my field of expertise. 00:55:02.500 --> 00:55:07.590 I know there are those who still use the membrane in the 00:55:07.590 --> 00:55:13.930 ear or some directly, the ones that I showed, that directly 00:55:13.930 --> 00:55:16.530 insert the wire into the nerve. 00:55:16.530 --> 00:55:19.990 But I am not that familiar with the field, so I don't 00:55:19.990 --> 00:55:21.240 know what's coming there. 00:55:23.570 --> 00:55:27.570 AUDIENCE: OK, there's a question from the front row. 00:55:27.570 --> 00:55:30.490 I wonder, is there any connection of research in 00:55:30.490 --> 00:55:33.600 companies like Siemens or whoever builds these parts? 00:55:33.600 --> 00:55:36.180 Is that, in any way, connected with other 00:55:36.180 --> 00:55:39.170 consumer good research? 00:55:39.170 --> 00:55:40.920 I'm not hearing disabled. 00:55:40.920 --> 00:55:45.660 But if somebody would come up with a decent set of in-ear 00:55:45.660 --> 00:55:49.160 headphones that would fit and would be able to have some 00:55:49.160 --> 00:55:52.410 noise cancellation also, I'd be quite interested in 00:55:52.410 --> 00:55:54.730 spending money on that. 00:55:54.730 --> 00:55:58.315 But this seems to be totally uncorrelated altogether. 00:55:58.315 --> 00:55:59.630 HELGA VELROYEN: Yeah, that's true. 00:55:59.630 --> 00:56:04.900 I mean, it's pretty close to in-ear headphones. 00:56:04.900 --> 00:56:08.970 But it's still, from what I've seen, a different market. 00:56:08.970 --> 00:56:11.710 You still can buy new hearing aids, if you 00:56:11.710 --> 00:56:13.600 don't really use them. 00:56:13.600 --> 00:56:15.630 No one can prevent you from that. 00:56:15.630 --> 00:56:20.710 But I don't see any trend in merging that very much. 00:56:23.770 --> 00:56:24.715 Is there any more questions? 00:56:24.715 --> 00:56:26.060 AUDIENCE: Hello. 00:56:26.060 --> 00:56:30.710 I would like to add two things to your wish list. One thing, 00:56:30.710 --> 00:56:34.220 I would like the hacker community to find out what the 00:56:34.220 --> 00:56:37.260 real differences in devices from different price ranges 00:56:37.260 --> 00:56:40.870 are, what is done in hardware and what is 00:56:40.870 --> 00:56:41.910 actually only firmware. 00:56:41.910 --> 00:56:44.620 My audiologist reported devices coming back from 00:56:44.620 --> 00:56:48.320 repairs or programming to report as more expensive 00:56:48.320 --> 00:56:51.380 devices, for instance, where it's just a firmware thing. 00:56:51.380 --> 00:56:57.390 And the other thing is I see an interesting hacking attack 00:56:57.390 --> 00:57:01.550 angle for hacking in the protocol that the devices use 00:57:01.550 --> 00:57:05.330 to communicate with each other, with the devices which 00:57:05.330 --> 00:57:08.830 transfer Bluetooth into the body area network that really 00:57:08.830 --> 00:57:10.090 speaks to the devices. 00:57:10.090 --> 00:57:13.170 So do you know any off-the-shelf components that 00:57:13.170 --> 00:57:17.142 can speak these body area network protocols? 00:57:17.142 --> 00:57:19.380 HELGA VELROYEN: For the Siemens thing I showed, I 00:57:19.380 --> 00:57:20.230 haven't found anything. 00:57:20.230 --> 00:57:25.270 So this is just that gadget that I have. But I think 00:57:25.270 --> 00:57:28.540 people are experimenting with the audio induction loops and 00:57:28.540 --> 00:57:34.290 the FM systems. But yeah, it's not that much that you can see 00:57:34.290 --> 00:57:35.950 documentation of that. 00:57:35.950 --> 00:57:38.660 So I'd like to see more here. 00:57:38.660 --> 00:57:42.260 I made this talk because I would tell you hackers what's 00:57:42.260 --> 00:57:43.000 on the menu. 00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:45.490 And it would be really nice if there was more 00:57:45.490 --> 00:57:46.620 activity in the scene. 00:57:46.620 --> 00:57:49.980 And it's kind of hard to start that if you're all alone. 00:57:49.980 --> 00:57:55.890 So I hope I've risen some interest. And if you have any 00:57:55.890 --> 00:58:00.360 pointers for me or anything I didn't mention here, I'm also 00:58:00.360 --> 00:58:01.870 happy if you send me an email. 00:58:01.870 --> 00:58:05.186 Or I will be around the next couple of days. 00:58:05.186 --> 00:58:07.430 FEMALE SPEAKER: Before we finish, there are some 00:58:07.430 --> 00:58:10.240 questions from the internet. 00:58:10.240 --> 00:58:13.640 The first one is Gilligan who asked, does the fact that you 00:58:13.640 --> 00:58:16.780 have tinnitus make the process of tuning a hearing aid for 00:58:16.780 --> 00:58:17.780 you harder? 00:58:17.780 --> 00:58:20.700 Does a hearing aid have a negative or positive effect on 00:58:20.700 --> 00:58:22.885 your tinnitus when you wear it? 00:58:22.885 --> 00:58:23.890 HELGA VELROYEN: Of my what? 00:58:23.890 --> 00:58:25.690 Sorry. 00:58:25.690 --> 00:58:26.780 A positive or negative-- 00:58:26.780 --> 00:58:28.815 FEMALE SPEAKER: Does the hearing aid have a negative or 00:58:28.815 --> 00:58:33.150 a positive effect on your tinnitus when you wear it? 00:58:33.150 --> 00:58:35.510 HELGA VELROYEN: Actually, yeah. 00:58:35.510 --> 00:58:39.230 There are hearing aids that claim to [? counter-fy ?] 00:58:39.230 --> 00:58:42.130 the tinnitus, that they generate the 00:58:42.130 --> 00:58:44.440 counter-frequencies against that. 00:58:44.440 --> 00:58:49.560 I also asked my acousticians or my audiologists about that. 00:58:49.560 --> 00:58:50.750 They actually don't work. 00:58:50.750 --> 00:58:53.230 I mean, they usually are not really offered. 00:58:53.230 --> 00:58:56.020 And even if you ask for it, they tell you, yeah, usually 00:58:56.020 --> 00:58:58.770 they don't really make a difference. 00:58:58.770 --> 00:59:01.880 My choice was actually just to make a normal hearing aid. 00:59:01.880 --> 00:59:06.300 And because the frequencies that you don't hear very well 00:59:06.300 --> 00:59:11.590 are amplified, the tinnitus, in relation, gets as loud. 00:59:11.590 --> 00:59:15.510 And you learn to ignore it. 00:59:15.510 --> 00:59:18.080 That's not really magic, but that's the only thing that 00:59:18.080 --> 00:59:19.756 seems to work. 00:59:19.756 --> 00:59:24.870 FEMALE SPEAKER: OK, the next one is from [? Schpegmada ?]? 00:59:24.870 --> 00:59:28.100 Are there hearing aids with documented RP for the tuning 00:59:28.100 --> 00:59:29.790 official doc reverse engineered? 00:59:29.790 --> 00:59:32.450 Can you get the official tuning software to tune 00:59:32.450 --> 00:59:36.240 yourself that you write through any people who 00:59:36.240 --> 00:59:37.200 manufacture them? 00:59:37.200 --> 00:59:39.830 HELGA VELROYEN: I haven't found anything about that. 00:59:39.830 --> 00:59:43.430 The only thing you can do is get the software on the black 00:59:43.430 --> 00:59:46.160 market and disassemble it, if possible. 00:59:46.160 --> 00:59:48.630 But there are no API system thing. 00:59:48.630 --> 00:59:51.705 That's really what I'm missing as well. 00:59:51.705 --> 00:59:55.770 FEMALE SPEAKER: OK, the last one is from Lucy, I guess. 00:59:55.770 --> 00:59:58.810 What frequency range can you usually hear 00:59:58.810 --> 01:00:00.560 using a cochlear implant? 01:00:00.560 --> 01:00:03.440 How fine can you resolve frequencies? 01:00:03.440 --> 01:00:06.990 HELGA VELROYEN: They are about the range that you have in the 01:00:06.990 --> 01:00:07.580 speech banana. 01:00:07.580 --> 01:00:09.820 But actually, I'm not that familiar 01:00:09.820 --> 01:00:10.890 with cochlear implants. 01:00:10.890 --> 01:00:15.195 So I can not give the details here. 01:00:15.195 --> 01:00:16.910 AUDIENCE: OK, hi. 01:00:16.910 --> 01:00:22.330 You showed us the programming tool for changing the settings 01:00:22.330 --> 01:00:23.890 on the hearing aid. 01:00:23.890 --> 01:00:27.365 I've forgotten the name, but the 1980's modem. 01:00:27.365 --> 01:00:30.210 Have there been any attempts to clone that hardware or 01:00:30.210 --> 01:00:33.530 reverse-engineer the spec? 01:00:33.530 --> 01:00:36.010 HELGA VELROYEN: I'm not sure if I understood correctly. 01:00:36.010 --> 01:00:39.280 You mean like how you get the hardware for this? 01:00:39.280 --> 01:00:41.920 AUDIENCE: Yeah, so the moment you have to buy the 01:00:41.920 --> 01:00:43.740 programming tool, as I understand, 01:00:43.740 --> 01:00:44.760 to update the software. 01:00:44.760 --> 01:00:48.730 HELGA VELROYEN: Since it's only delivered and sold to 01:00:48.730 --> 01:00:52.860 audiologists and doctors, you have to be friends with 01:00:52.860 --> 01:00:54.670 audiologists or doctors. 01:00:54.670 --> 01:00:57.250 And somehow they can give you that. 01:00:57.250 --> 01:00:59.190 But there's no official channel. 01:00:59.190 --> 01:01:03.560 So you have to find the black market. 01:01:03.560 --> 01:01:06.970 AUDIENCE: Yeah, sorry, my question was has anyone tried 01:01:06.970 --> 01:01:10.937 to create an open hardware variant? 01:01:10.937 --> 01:01:11.152 HELGA VELROYEN: No. 01:01:11.152 --> 01:01:12.365 AUDIENCE: Has anyone copied? 01:01:12.365 --> 01:01:13.760 HELGA VELROYEN: No, I haven't found 01:01:13.760 --> 01:01:14.780 anything like that either. 01:01:14.780 --> 01:01:19.210 So that was actually also on my wish list, that makes the 01:01:19.210 --> 01:01:21.060 tuning hardware open source as well. 01:01:21.060 --> 01:01:22.290 That would be really nice. 01:01:22.290 --> 01:01:25.880 But it's a serial device, so you could actually do some 01:01:25.880 --> 01:01:26.830 sniffing there. 01:01:26.830 --> 01:01:29.410 But I haven't seen any approaches there. 01:01:29.410 --> 01:01:30.610 AUDIENCE: Yeah, because it looks pretty 01:01:30.610 --> 01:01:31.530 easy, I would say. 01:01:31.530 --> 01:01:32.016 [LAUGHTER] 01:01:32.016 --> 01:01:33.960 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 01:01:33.960 --> 01:01:36.580 FEMALE SPEAKER: So we are running out of time. 01:01:36.580 --> 01:01:40.590 Is there any really, really important question left? 01:01:40.590 --> 01:01:45.180 I mean, because she's around, so you can meet her in the 01:01:45.180 --> 01:01:48.550 next days on the Congress again and 01:01:48.550 --> 01:01:49.610 ask her more questions. 01:01:49.610 --> 01:01:51.480 And thank you very much for the talk. 01:01:51.480 --> 01:01:52.470 It was very interesting. 01:01:52.470 --> 01:02:13.680 [APPLAUSE]