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Hearing important information, especially speech, with background noise has been the holy grail of the research and development scientists from the beginning of amplified technologies.
The first electric hearing aid was invented in 1898 by Miller Reese Hutchison. His design used an electric current to amplify weak signals. In 1913, the world was introduced to the first
commercially manufactured hearing aids. For over a hundred years progress has been made to hear better with background noise. Recent developments in cell phone technology are introducing us to "Audio Erasing Technology."
"Google has introduced a feature called Magic Eraser in their Pixel 6, which allows you to remove unwanted subjects from the background of your photos. Now, Google has developed a similar feature for audio, appropriately named Audio Magic Eraser, which uses a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence to identify and remove unwanted background noise from videos.
"The tool first analyzes the audio signal to identify the different sounds present in the recording. It then uses machine learning to learn the characteristics of each sound, such as its frequency and amplitude. This Information is used to create a model of the desired audio signal, which is then used to remove the unwanted noise," CDNET September 2023.
Maybe you’ve seen the TV commercial when a man is proposing to a woman on a cliff. He is trying to record the moment but has high wind noise interfering so he asks his phone to reduce that wind noise when he plays back the recording.
All sounds make an identifiable electro/acoustical pattern that can be seen and measured.
"You can see sound waves when a microphone is connected to an oscilloscope. A microphone changes the sound waves into an electrical signal. The oscilloscope then shows what these electrical waves look like.," University Of Wisconsin-Madison. Visit https://wonders.physics.wisc.edu/oscilloscope.
Modern audio technology, especially now using artificial intelligence, can identify sounds by these patterns and manipulate the volume of those sounds in both recordings and live settings.
Digital hearing aids have been improving at doing this through directional microphones and software loaded directly onto the hearing aid micro-processing chips. A wireless signal ability called Bluetooth technology is making the link between the hearing aids and the cell phone not only possible but is opening the door very soon and at reasonable prices to look down at
your phone and see a list of competing noise and lower the volume on the non-speech noise.
Noise cannot be completely eliminated but it can be greatly reduced. It takes the phone screen and the application running the software between the phone and the hearing aids to be able to see and identify which sounds you want to adjust. Basic noise management is possible in digital
hearing aids that are not interacting with Bluetooth technology.
In a rapidly expanding technological ability world it might be tempting to wait until new developments are firmly in the market place before buying aids. Most hearing aid manufacturers make aids that have upgrade-able software and firmware so new features can be added without buying new hearing aids later
If you or someone you love has difficulty hearing properly, schedule an appointment with a hearing care professional soon. Merry Christmas!
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Jeff Bayliff, Owner-Hear the Birds Hearing Aid Center, Lock Haven and State College.