1 00:00:08,964 --> 00:00:12,948 [APPLAUSE] 2 00:00:12,948 --> 00:00:13,910 HELGA VELROYEN: Hi. 3 00:00:13,910 --> 00:00:15,145 Can you hear me? 4 00:00:15,145 --> 00:00:15,930 Ah, nice. 5 00:00:15,930 --> 00:00:18,370 That's what it's all about. 6 00:00:18,370 --> 00:00:19,920 Welcome to my talk. 7 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:22,160 I will talk about hearing aids and what the 8 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:24,010 state-of-the-art is. 9 00:00:24,010 --> 00:00:26,420 There will be a little hacking, but not my own. 10 00:00:30,910 --> 00:00:33,890 I know that there are some people interested in my talk 11 00:00:33,890 --> 00:00:36,570 that can not hear very well or not at all. 12 00:00:36,570 --> 00:00:41,380 So I will publish slides that have very detailed speaker 13 00:00:41,380 --> 00:00:43,060 notes so that you can read it afterwards, 14 00:00:43,060 --> 00:00:45,390 if you missed anything. 15 00:00:45,390 --> 00:00:47,430 I hope there will be a recording available. 16 00:00:47,430 --> 00:00:51,145 And if it's possible to add subtitles, I will do those. 17 00:00:53,970 --> 00:00:54,330 OK. 18 00:00:54,330 --> 00:00:56,000 First, a few words about me. 19 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:57,275 I'm a software engineer. 20 00:00:57,275 --> 00:00:58,490 I am based in Munich. 21 00:00:58,490 --> 00:01:03,480 Some people might know me from my time in Cologne, as well. 22 00:01:03,480 --> 00:01:05,840 I'm more a software geek than a hardware hacker. 23 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:07,910 So all this is also new to me. 24 00:01:07,910 --> 00:01:13,280 From university, I have a background in data mining and 25 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:14,690 signal processing. 26 00:01:14,690 --> 00:01:17,040 I worked in the medical industry for a while. 27 00:01:17,040 --> 00:01:20,860 But that had nothing to do with hearing aids. 28 00:01:20,860 --> 00:01:22,710 Also, my current job has nothing to do 29 00:01:22,710 --> 00:01:23,250 with hearing aids. 30 00:01:23,250 --> 00:01:28,220 So this is really just my personal project. 31 00:01:28,220 --> 00:01:32,400 I'm hearing impaired for about 3 and 1/2 years. 32 00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:36,510 So this is when I started to dig into the topic. 33 00:01:36,510 --> 00:01:40,295 And well, yeah, that's just what I will talk about. 34 00:01:44,830 --> 00:01:47,910 Since I haven't seen many talks about audiology here at 35 00:01:47,910 --> 00:01:49,940 the Hacking Congress, I will start with a short 36 00:01:49,940 --> 00:01:53,220 introduction and the process of how you get 37 00:01:53,220 --> 00:01:55,030 hearing aids, actually. 38 00:01:55,030 --> 00:01:58,190 Then what are the current hearing aid models, and what 39 00:01:58,190 --> 00:01:59,830 can they actually do. 40 00:01:59,830 --> 00:02:01,900 Some words about the peripheral hardware. 41 00:02:01,900 --> 00:02:04,610 There's quite a lot of it outside. 42 00:02:04,610 --> 00:02:07,650 And there is some hacking. 43 00:02:07,650 --> 00:02:10,360 And another point is self-tuning, that are people 44 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:13,160 that tune their own hearing aids, although they are not 45 00:02:13,160 --> 00:02:14,410 audiologists. 46 00:02:18,180 --> 00:02:20,170 So this is an audiogram. 47 00:02:20,170 --> 00:02:24,040 This is a result of a hearing test that you usually do at 48 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:27,020 ENT doctors. 49 00:02:27,020 --> 00:02:32,250 The x-axis shows the frequency in kilohertz, and the y-axis, 50 00:02:32,250 --> 00:02:35,520 the loudness, level of volume. 51 00:02:35,520 --> 00:02:38,180 The silence is at the top, the really loud 52 00:02:38,180 --> 00:02:39,660 sounds at the bottom. 53 00:02:39,660 --> 00:02:43,020 And the green line you see here is that result of a 54 00:02:43,020 --> 00:02:45,230 normal-hearing person. 55 00:02:45,230 --> 00:02:49,460 And this is obtained by the audiologist. Or the doctor 56 00:02:49,460 --> 00:02:51,530 plays sounds in the different frequencies. 57 00:02:51,530 --> 00:02:54,810 It starts at a very low volume. 58 00:02:54,810 --> 00:02:58,610 And as soon as you hear it, you hit a buzzer or say, yes. 59 00:02:58,610 --> 00:03:02,790 And then they create this curve. 60 00:03:02,790 --> 00:03:06,592 So the blue curve is a typical curve of a 61 00:03:06,592 --> 00:03:08,410 hearing impaired person. 62 00:03:08,410 --> 00:03:12,330 So what you can see here-- that, at the low frequencies, 63 00:03:12,330 --> 00:03:13,700 their hearing is quite well. 64 00:03:13,700 --> 00:03:15,610 That's very typical. 65 00:03:15,610 --> 00:03:20,120 Their hearing starts to get worse in the high frequencies. 66 00:03:20,120 --> 00:03:24,660 And bear in mind that the decibel scale is actually 67 00:03:24,660 --> 00:03:25,780 logarithmic. 68 00:03:25,780 --> 00:03:31,015 So if you have a hearing loss of 60 decibels, it's 1 million 69 00:03:31,015 --> 00:03:33,420 worse than 10 decibels. 70 00:03:33,420 --> 00:03:36,790 So it's not linear. 71 00:03:36,790 --> 00:03:41,270 Another thing that gets measured at an audiogram is 72 00:03:41,270 --> 00:03:43,900 actually the maximum that you can hear or that 73 00:03:43,900 --> 00:03:45,530 you can stand hearing. 74 00:03:45,530 --> 00:03:49,130 So the audiologist raises the volume more and more, and you 75 00:03:49,130 --> 00:03:51,600 have to say yes until it hurts. 76 00:03:51,600 --> 00:03:53,780 So what you see here is the red curve. 77 00:03:53,780 --> 00:03:56,290 It's the level of discomfort. 78 00:03:56,290 --> 00:04:00,370 And also the typical thing is that it raises exactly at the 79 00:04:00,370 --> 00:04:02,870 areas where the hearing goes bad. 80 00:04:02,870 --> 00:04:06,110 This is a very complicated thing for tuning aids because 81 00:04:06,110 --> 00:04:09,610 they can not just amplify everything. 82 00:04:09,610 --> 00:04:14,830 Because you would hurt people very soon, as soon as you get 83 00:04:14,830 --> 00:04:16,080 below the red line. 84 00:04:18,269 --> 00:04:22,019 Another thing is the area where speech takes place. 85 00:04:22,019 --> 00:04:23,560 This is called speech banana. 86 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,570 Actually, that's the technical term for it. 87 00:04:26,570 --> 00:04:30,710 It will rise, of course, according to the language and 88 00:04:30,710 --> 00:04:31,790 the speaker. 89 00:04:31,790 --> 00:04:33,970 For example, female speakers have a little slightly 90 00:04:33,970 --> 00:04:37,740 different curve than male speakers. 91 00:04:37,740 --> 00:04:44,030 And this is the area where hearing aids target, which is 92 00:04:44,030 --> 00:04:47,650 they are used to make you understand speech again. 93 00:04:47,650 --> 00:04:49,830 So they focus on this area, actually. 94 00:04:49,830 --> 00:04:52,290 And you can see the blue line here. 95 00:04:52,290 --> 00:04:54,960 So half of the banana is actually cut. 96 00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,800 And this is the high frequencies, which, in speech, 97 00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:02,360 are the consonants like S and F, for example. 98 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:07,010 The vowels are usually understood quite well. 99 00:05:07,010 --> 00:05:11,090 To give you an impression how I hear, I made a sample. 100 00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:20,730 So this is a song called, "Sad Robot" from Pornophonique. 101 00:05:20,730 --> 00:05:24,520 It's a nice band which makes music with a 102 00:05:24,520 --> 00:05:26,480 Game Boy and a guitar. 103 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:27,155 And the original-- 104 00:05:27,155 --> 00:05:27,430 [SAD ROBOT, BY PORNOPHONIQUE] 105 00:05:27,430 --> 00:05:29,690 HELGA VELROYEN: --has really nice high 106 00:05:29,690 --> 00:05:30,910 frequencies at the beginning. 107 00:05:30,910 --> 00:05:34,110 This is why I use it for testing. 108 00:05:34,110 --> 00:05:35,730 And later, there's also some singing. 109 00:05:40,130 --> 00:05:42,570 So this is the original. 110 00:05:42,570 --> 00:05:48,230 And now I'm going to play my version, so with less high 111 00:05:48,230 --> 00:05:50,990 frequencies and a tinnitus as well. 112 00:05:50,990 --> 00:05:53,710 There's actually a web site where you can download 113 00:05:53,710 --> 00:05:55,245 tinnitus sounds. 114 00:05:55,245 --> 00:05:58,095 [LAUGHTER] 115 00:05:58,095 --> 00:06:00,920 HELGA VELROYEN: And it says that you should actually turn 116 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:04,140 down the volume when you start broadcasting that because it 117 00:06:04,140 --> 00:06:07,750 can hurt the audio equipment. 118 00:06:07,750 --> 00:06:10,290 So I hope I don't destroy anything. 119 00:06:10,290 --> 00:06:15,080 So I will turn it down first, then slightly increase it. 120 00:06:15,080 --> 00:06:26,915 [SAD ROBOT, BY PORNOPHONIQUE] 121 00:06:26,915 --> 00:06:28,060 HELGA VELROYEN: So this is not a feedback 122 00:06:28,060 --> 00:06:30,120 loop, it's the tinnitus. 123 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,980 And without the high frequencies, 124 00:06:32,980 --> 00:06:36,860 this is how it is. 125 00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:49,490 So it's really hard to actually hear the high 126 00:06:49,490 --> 00:06:50,740 frequencies. 127 00:06:53,090 --> 00:06:57,440 Yeah, so this is just an impression of what hearing 128 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:00,860 aids have to work with. 129 00:07:00,860 --> 00:07:04,090 Getting hearing aids, I like to compare 130 00:07:04,090 --> 00:07:05,400 it to getting glasses. 131 00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:08,380 So one day you wake up and everything is really blurry. 132 00:07:08,380 --> 00:07:11,800 And you decide well, this is very not so good. 133 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:12,990 I should go to a doctor. 134 00:07:12,990 --> 00:07:14,590 And then you go to a doctor. 135 00:07:14,590 --> 00:07:15,860 You make some tests. 136 00:07:15,860 --> 00:07:18,130 Then he sends you to an optometrist. He makes some 137 00:07:18,130 --> 00:07:19,610 more tests. 138 00:07:19,610 --> 00:07:22,060 Then you choose a model for your glasses. 139 00:07:22,060 --> 00:07:25,550 And the optometrist orders the glasses and puts 140 00:07:25,550 --> 00:07:26,300 them into the frame. 141 00:07:26,300 --> 00:07:29,150 And then you're happy, seeing nerds. 142 00:07:29,150 --> 00:07:30,540 And then you can see ponies. 143 00:07:30,540 --> 00:07:32,460 [LAUGHTER] 144 00:07:32,460 --> 00:07:34,210 HELGA VELROYEN: Getting hearing aids, unfortunately, 145 00:07:34,210 --> 00:07:35,040 is not that easy. 146 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:39,530 So one day you realize you can not hear very well any more. 147 00:07:39,530 --> 00:07:40,400 You go to a doctor. 148 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:41,360 You make some tests. 149 00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:43,690 He sends you to an audiologist. He makes some 150 00:07:43,690 --> 00:07:44,870 more tests. 151 00:07:44,870 --> 00:07:49,010 You choose from the shop of the audiologist 152 00:07:49,010 --> 00:07:52,240 some hearing aids. 153 00:07:52,240 --> 00:07:57,480 And then the audiologist has to adjust the hearing aids 154 00:07:57,480 --> 00:07:59,532 according to your audiogram. 155 00:07:59,532 --> 00:08:01,970 And then it doesn't stop. 156 00:08:01,970 --> 00:08:04,010 So then, actually, the work starts. 157 00:08:04,010 --> 00:08:07,340 You have to go through all the difficult hearing situations 158 00:08:07,340 --> 00:08:10,480 to test if it works with that tuned hearing aid. 159 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:11,570 So you drive a car. 160 00:08:11,570 --> 00:08:14,440 You listen to music or other people in the car. 161 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:18,610 You try to have someone whisper something in your ear. 162 00:08:18,610 --> 00:08:22,440 You listen to the TV. Or you go to a party where a lot of 163 00:08:22,440 --> 00:08:25,030 people are talking to each other, and you have to make 164 00:08:25,030 --> 00:08:28,610 out the person that's talking directly to you. 165 00:08:28,610 --> 00:08:31,165 Or you listen to a talk like that where this speaker is 166 00:08:31,165 --> 00:08:33,350 actually quite far away from your hearing aids. 167 00:08:33,350 --> 00:08:36,340 And if you have done all that, you go back to the 168 00:08:36,340 --> 00:08:39,640 audiologist. And you have to tell him why it doesn't work 169 00:08:39,640 --> 00:08:42,610 or in what situations it doesn't really work. 170 00:08:42,610 --> 00:08:45,140 And then he does some changes in the parameters. 171 00:08:45,140 --> 00:08:47,070 And then you have to do that again. 172 00:08:47,070 --> 00:08:49,420 And sometimes you switch to a different 173 00:08:49,420 --> 00:08:50,300 hearing aid, as well. 174 00:08:50,300 --> 00:08:54,060 So this whole process, these iterations, it takes weeks or 175 00:08:54,060 --> 00:08:57,580 months until you have something that is actually 176 00:08:57,580 --> 00:08:59,650 fitting to your ears. 177 00:08:59,650 --> 00:09:04,800 And after that, you're sort of happy. 178 00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:07,230 Actually, I haven't met a person that has hearing aids 179 00:09:07,230 --> 00:09:11,170 that actually compensate for the hearing loss completely. 180 00:09:11,170 --> 00:09:14,600 So whenever you are done with that, you're usually just 181 00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:16,990 stopping because you don't want to spend any 182 00:09:16,990 --> 00:09:18,200 more time on that. 183 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:22,950 And it works well enough. 184 00:09:22,950 --> 00:09:26,470 Compared to glasses, this is actually a lot more effort and 185 00:09:26,470 --> 00:09:28,260 a lot more frustrating. 186 00:09:28,260 --> 00:09:32,050 Another thing is that hearing aids are really expensive. 187 00:09:32,050 --> 00:09:36,990 A good hearing aid starts at like, 1,500 up to 3,000. 188 00:09:36,990 --> 00:09:41,530 And I only have the numbers for the German health system. 189 00:09:41,530 --> 00:09:45,060 The normal German insurance pays 500. 190 00:09:45,060 --> 00:09:47,305 So there's a lot of money you have to pay for yourself. 191 00:09:58,610 --> 00:10:01,490 Hearing aid models and their features. 192 00:10:01,490 --> 00:10:04,920 There are roughly three types, in-ear units that go 193 00:10:04,920 --> 00:10:08,590 completely into the ear canal. 194 00:10:08,590 --> 00:10:11,110 A more common one is behind-ear hearing aids. 195 00:10:11,110 --> 00:10:15,980 They are for mediocre to severe hearing losses. 196 00:10:15,980 --> 00:10:18,440 The main part is behind the ear. 197 00:10:18,440 --> 00:10:22,360 And another special thing are cochlear implants where parts 198 00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:26,670 of it are implanted into the head and some is attached from 199 00:10:26,670 --> 00:10:28,580 the outside. 200 00:10:28,580 --> 00:10:32,360 I will mostly talk about the behind-ear hearing aids, 201 00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:36,760 because that's what I have and where is a lot of variety on 202 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:39,380 the market. 203 00:10:39,380 --> 00:10:42,190 Hearing aids got pretty invisible. 204 00:10:42,190 --> 00:10:44,670 These are pictures of me wearing my hearing aid and not 205 00:10:44,670 --> 00:10:45,240 wearing it. 206 00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:48,640 So except for this little wire on the right side, you can not 207 00:10:48,640 --> 00:10:51,120 really see it. 208 00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:53,510 Most people that don't have hearing aids 209 00:10:53,510 --> 00:10:56,080 find this an advantage. 210 00:10:56,080 --> 00:10:59,530 People who have a hearing aid, actually, are not that sure 211 00:10:59,530 --> 00:11:03,700 about it, because sometimes, when you have to ask someone 212 00:11:03,700 --> 00:11:07,240 to repeat a sentence, if they know you're wearing a hearing 213 00:11:07,240 --> 00:11:10,460 aid, they think, OK, she didn't get it 214 00:11:10,460 --> 00:11:11,510 because of the acoustics. 215 00:11:11,510 --> 00:11:14,660 And if they don't see it, they think, she didn't get it 216 00:11:14,660 --> 00:11:16,370 because she was stupid. 217 00:11:16,370 --> 00:11:19,550 So it's really not that obvious. 218 00:11:19,550 --> 00:11:23,240 And sometimes it just helps that people see that you have 219 00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:25,630 a handicap. 220 00:11:25,630 --> 00:11:26,820 They also got pretty small. 221 00:11:26,820 --> 00:11:29,920 This is an example of my hearing aids with a $0.50 222 00:11:29,920 --> 00:11:32,460 piece, so you have an impression of the size. 223 00:11:32,460 --> 00:11:35,610 And you can see that, actually, have just by the 224 00:11:35,610 --> 00:11:36,860 battery compartment. 225 00:11:40,930 --> 00:11:44,062 Out of curiosity, I took my hearing aids apart. 226 00:11:44,062 --> 00:11:44,503 And-- 227 00:11:44,503 --> 00:11:45,826 [LAUGHTER] 228 00:11:45,826 --> 00:11:46,880 HELGA VELROYEN: Of course. 229 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:47,380 [LAUGHS] 230 00:11:47,380 --> 00:11:52,145 [APPLAUSE] 231 00:11:52,145 --> 00:11:55,500 HELGA VELROYEN: You can see they have shells which you can 232 00:11:55,500 --> 00:11:58,620 take off, which is like for mobile phones. 233 00:11:58,620 --> 00:12:01,340 You can switch the color and choose a different one. 234 00:12:01,340 --> 00:12:03,480 And the body-- 235 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:05,640 so I know this picture is not really good. 236 00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:08,050 There's still a lot of plastic around it. 237 00:12:08,050 --> 00:12:11,610 And the white part there is two microphones, the signal 238 00:12:11,610 --> 00:12:14,220 processor and antenna. 239 00:12:14,220 --> 00:12:16,120 That's useful peripheral hardware. 240 00:12:16,120 --> 00:12:17,436 I will come to that. 241 00:12:17,436 --> 00:12:19,970 And the speaker is actually at the part that 242 00:12:19,970 --> 00:12:21,640 goes into the ear. 243 00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:24,900 And what you can also see here, the part that goes into 244 00:12:24,900 --> 00:12:29,490 the ear has also holes where the natural sound can still 245 00:12:29,490 --> 00:12:30,210 come to the ear. 246 00:12:30,210 --> 00:12:35,660 So if you still hear low frequencies, then you can 247 00:12:35,660 --> 00:12:37,410 receive them naturally. 248 00:12:37,410 --> 00:12:41,890 And the hearing aids only add what you can not hear. 249 00:12:41,890 --> 00:12:43,460 This is called open hearing aid. 250 00:12:43,460 --> 00:12:47,300 And it has the advantage that you still hear natural sounds, 251 00:12:47,300 --> 00:12:51,310 which is really nice if you're really sort of an audiophile 252 00:12:51,310 --> 00:12:53,850 person that likes to listen to music. 253 00:12:53,850 --> 00:12:57,590 And so the first thing you do is actually choose that one. 254 00:13:00,550 --> 00:13:02,820 Yes. 255 00:13:02,820 --> 00:13:06,200 I think in the last two centuries, 256 00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:08,260 hearing aids got digital. 257 00:13:08,260 --> 00:13:12,250 And with that, they come with a lot of new features that you 258 00:13:12,250 --> 00:13:15,040 couldn't do with analog hearing aids. 259 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:16,800 And right now, they are standard in 260 00:13:16,800 --> 00:13:18,880 most first world countries. 261 00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:24,950 And the most important thing is that they can analyze the 262 00:13:24,950 --> 00:13:29,450 situation and react to it instantly, since they have 263 00:13:29,450 --> 00:13:34,310 signal processing in it much more sophisticated than analog 264 00:13:34,310 --> 00:13:35,560 hearing aids did. 265 00:13:38,350 --> 00:13:43,310 Coming back to the audiogram, this is actually a feature 266 00:13:43,310 --> 00:13:46,460 that can also be done by analog hearing aids. 267 00:13:46,460 --> 00:13:49,300 I don't know in what extent, actually. 268 00:13:49,300 --> 00:13:52,500 So if you have a look at this audiogram and only consider 269 00:13:52,500 --> 00:13:57,960 one frequency band, like for four kilohertz, here the 270 00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:02,090 hearing loss is between 60 and 90 decibels. 271 00:14:02,090 --> 00:14:04,540 Over 90 decibels, it gets too loud. 272 00:14:04,540 --> 00:14:06,717 And the input of the environment still has the 273 00:14:06,717 --> 00:14:07,410 whole range. 274 00:14:07,410 --> 00:14:12,230 So the hearing aid has to map 0 to 130 decibels to this 275 00:14:12,230 --> 00:14:14,840 small area between 60 and 90. 276 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:16,360 It can not just amplify everything, 277 00:14:16,360 --> 00:14:18,080 because that will hurt. 278 00:14:18,080 --> 00:14:19,450 And this is called compression. 279 00:14:19,450 --> 00:14:22,900 This should not be mistaken with compression in audio 280 00:14:22,900 --> 00:14:24,360 files like MP3 or something. 281 00:14:24,360 --> 00:14:26,850 It's a little bit different. 282 00:14:26,850 --> 00:14:31,740 And if you have a look at the software that is used to 283 00:14:31,740 --> 00:14:33,835 adjust hearing aids, it looks like that. 284 00:14:40,420 --> 00:14:44,270 This controls here at the amplification. 285 00:14:44,270 --> 00:14:48,830 And this here reduces the maximum level. 286 00:14:48,830 --> 00:14:53,470 So my hearing aids can, at maximum, do 108 decibels. 287 00:14:53,470 --> 00:14:56,310 And if you have minus 12, you just subtract it from that. 288 00:14:59,590 --> 00:15:04,740 This has the problem that, if you compress it, the volume 289 00:15:04,740 --> 00:15:08,440 gets increased and decreased all the time. 290 00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:12,610 And this can actually make it harder to understand speech, 291 00:15:12,610 --> 00:15:14,990 because the hearing aid is adjusting all the time. 292 00:15:14,990 --> 00:15:20,310 And so to avoid that, they don't compress every time. 293 00:15:20,310 --> 00:15:28,640 So the first area here is linearly amplified. 294 00:15:28,640 --> 00:15:32,390 And only after a certain level, they start compressing. 295 00:15:32,390 --> 00:15:34,850 And this is called knee point. 296 00:15:34,850 --> 00:15:41,790 So they usually try to avoid compressing the speech signal 297 00:15:41,790 --> 00:15:45,350 and only something above that. 298 00:15:45,350 --> 00:15:48,220 And hearing adjusting software, it looks like that. 299 00:15:48,220 --> 00:15:50,430 This is actually an example only from Siemens. 300 00:15:50,430 --> 00:15:52,590 Every branch has their own adjusting 301 00:15:52,590 --> 00:15:55,440 software or tuning software. 302 00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:57,290 So this is just an example. 303 00:15:57,290 --> 00:15:59,960 So here you have the knee point in the first row and the 304 00:15:59,960 --> 00:16:02,800 factor by what it is compressed. 305 00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:09,050 And the third row is a factor regarding how 306 00:16:09,050 --> 00:16:10,300 fast it should react. 307 00:16:12,580 --> 00:16:15,890 So within one syllable, it's adjusted to the right volume. 308 00:16:18,770 --> 00:16:20,020 Ah, OK. 309 00:16:25,500 --> 00:16:28,680 The problem is what do you do when your hearing loss is so 310 00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:32,230 bad that the red and the blue curve actually meet each other 311 00:16:32,230 --> 00:16:34,850 or the blue curve goes all the way down? 312 00:16:34,850 --> 00:16:38,150 And this is actually a problem because then you can not do 313 00:16:38,150 --> 00:16:41,150 compression any more, at least not in the original sense. 314 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:50,050 So this is a simplified audiogram. 315 00:16:50,050 --> 00:16:52,220 This is the area that is dead. 316 00:16:52,220 --> 00:16:54,840 So instead of compressing in one frequency band, you 317 00:16:54,840 --> 00:16:56,920 compress the frequencies. 318 00:16:56,920 --> 00:17:01,120 So you reserve a part of the still alive hearing 319 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:03,920 frequencies and map it there. 320 00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:06,440 This is called frequency compression. 321 00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:10,660 And it works only if you have closed hearing aids, meaning 322 00:17:10,660 --> 00:17:13,589 those where you can not hear natural sound any more, where 323 00:17:13,589 --> 00:17:16,980 the ear canal is really blocked by the hearing aid, 324 00:17:16,980 --> 00:17:19,530 because, otherwise, it would be really confusing. 325 00:17:19,530 --> 00:17:23,079 And this is actually offered by only one brand right now, 326 00:17:23,079 --> 00:17:25,859 by a company called Phonak. 327 00:17:25,859 --> 00:17:32,830 And it's actually quite hard to get used to that. 328 00:17:32,830 --> 00:17:36,800 The brain has to adjust to that for a very long time. 329 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:37,470 What I heard. 330 00:17:37,470 --> 00:17:40,370 I mean, I don't have this. 331 00:17:40,370 --> 00:17:42,710 But still, it's interesting that they try 332 00:17:42,710 --> 00:17:46,020 to do it like that. 333 00:17:46,020 --> 00:17:48,580 A very common problem with hearing aids is feedback 334 00:17:48,580 --> 00:17:51,130 loops, especially if you have open hearing aids. 335 00:17:51,130 --> 00:17:54,880 Then it can happen that the hearing aid captures its own 336 00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:57,680 sound and amplifies it a lot. 337 00:17:57,680 --> 00:18:00,540 There is just this squeaking, what you get when you get too 338 00:18:00,540 --> 00:18:02,270 close to them. 339 00:18:02,270 --> 00:18:04,140 And this is really annoying. 340 00:18:04,140 --> 00:18:06,260 It happens every time something gets 341 00:18:06,260 --> 00:18:08,060 close to your ears. 342 00:18:08,060 --> 00:18:10,540 It can simply be hair, wearing open. 343 00:18:10,540 --> 00:18:12,190 Or you put on a hat. 344 00:18:12,190 --> 00:18:15,035 Or you hold a telephone handle next to your ear. 345 00:18:15,035 --> 00:18:17,200 Or you just want to lie down on the sofa. 346 00:18:17,200 --> 00:18:21,070 Or especially when you hug someone, you start squeaking. 347 00:18:21,070 --> 00:18:23,020 Like you give bionic feedback. 348 00:18:23,020 --> 00:18:24,972 [LAUGHTER] 349 00:18:24,972 --> 00:18:28,570 HELGA VELROYEN: Yeah, this is really, really annoying. 350 00:18:28,570 --> 00:18:31,140 And what the hearing aids do, they try to 351 00:18:31,140 --> 00:18:32,770 detect feedback loops. 352 00:18:32,770 --> 00:18:36,030 So they look for clear sinus signals. 353 00:18:36,030 --> 00:18:40,930 And when they detect one, they send an un-hearable flag. 354 00:18:40,930 --> 00:18:42,280 So oh, I detected one. 355 00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:46,950 And then the affected frequencies get damped until 356 00:18:46,950 --> 00:18:49,800 it doesn't squeak any more. 357 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:51,070 They can adapt in real time. 358 00:18:51,070 --> 00:18:53,600 So it actually works really fast, 359 00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:55,000 but it's still hear-able. 360 00:18:55,000 --> 00:19:00,130 So the problems with that is that music contains clear 361 00:19:00,130 --> 00:19:01,330 sinus signals. 362 00:19:01,330 --> 00:19:04,870 And those get then damped, which make your music 363 00:19:04,870 --> 00:19:09,470 experience a lot worse. 364 00:19:09,470 --> 00:19:13,060 And also the damp frequencies can be in the speech banana. 365 00:19:13,060 --> 00:19:16,240 And then that means whenever you put on a hat, then you get 366 00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:16,940 a feedback loop. 367 00:19:16,940 --> 00:19:18,380 Then the frequencies get damped. 368 00:19:18,380 --> 00:19:22,510 And then you can not understand anyone any more. 369 00:19:22,510 --> 00:19:24,870 Analog hearing aids did not have a measure against that. 370 00:19:24,870 --> 00:19:28,210 So this is something that is clearly new with the digital 371 00:19:28,210 --> 00:19:29,740 hearing aids. 372 00:19:29,740 --> 00:19:31,800 The screenshot here is also taken 373 00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:33,520 from the tuning software. 374 00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:36,930 When you have tuned your hearing aid, you can make a 375 00:19:36,930 --> 00:19:40,060 feedback loop test, where you place a lot of different 376 00:19:40,060 --> 00:19:44,400 sounds and tries if it detects the feedback loop. 377 00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:49,360 And then it reduces the maximum power of the output of 378 00:19:49,360 --> 00:19:50,540 your hearing aid. 379 00:19:50,540 --> 00:19:53,070 That means you spend hours tuning your hearing aid, and 380 00:19:53,070 --> 00:19:54,690 then everything gets reduced by that. 381 00:19:57,740 --> 00:20:00,820 A very common problem for people with hearing impairment 382 00:20:00,820 --> 00:20:03,550 is the cocktail party problem. 383 00:20:03,550 --> 00:20:06,660 This is when you're in an acoustic setting where a lot 384 00:20:06,660 --> 00:20:09,540 of people are talking and you have some background noise. 385 00:20:09,540 --> 00:20:11,130 And then someone is talking to you. 386 00:20:11,130 --> 00:20:14,180 And you have really problems to figure out the person that 387 00:20:14,180 --> 00:20:15,870 is talking to you. 388 00:20:15,870 --> 00:20:18,485 And there are several factors in that. 389 00:20:18,485 --> 00:20:22,450 And hearing aids react to that in several ways. 390 00:20:22,450 --> 00:20:25,580 So first of all, directional hearing is impaired when you 391 00:20:25,580 --> 00:20:27,340 have a hearing impairment. 392 00:20:27,340 --> 00:20:31,345 The human ear uses two ears and the brain 393 00:20:31,345 --> 00:20:33,110 to locate the sound. 394 00:20:33,110 --> 00:20:37,280 And we use the pinna, that is actually the outer part of the 395 00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:40,858 ear, ohrmuschel, in German. 396 00:20:40,858 --> 00:20:45,090 If you have behind-ear hearing aids, of course, most of the 397 00:20:45,090 --> 00:20:47,370 microphones and everything else is behind the ear. 398 00:20:47,370 --> 00:20:49,640 So you can not use the pinna. 399 00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:52,300 You have to simulate that in a different way. 400 00:20:52,300 --> 00:20:56,100 And this is why both hearing aids have two microphones. 401 00:20:56,100 --> 00:20:59,540 So you have four microphones in total, when you have a 402 00:20:59,540 --> 00:21:02,050 hearing impairment in both ears. 403 00:21:02,050 --> 00:21:05,860 And this way, they can detect if the sound comes 404 00:21:05,860 --> 00:21:07,640 from front or back. 405 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:12,830 And they talk to each other, so they can also detect if the 406 00:21:12,830 --> 00:21:14,550 source of the signal is right or left to you. 407 00:21:18,170 --> 00:21:23,420 Additionally, they try to recognize the situation and 408 00:21:23,420 --> 00:21:27,170 automatically focus on the person that is talking to you 409 00:21:27,170 --> 00:21:32,660 and also to reduce the background noise in general. 410 00:21:32,660 --> 00:21:35,240 The in-ear hearing aids I showed before, they, of 411 00:21:35,240 --> 00:21:37,600 course, still can use the features of the pinna. 412 00:21:40,380 --> 00:21:43,740 This is also a screenshot from the tuning software. 413 00:21:43,740 --> 00:21:46,390 You can actually test your directional 414 00:21:46,390 --> 00:21:47,740 hearing in real time. 415 00:21:47,740 --> 00:21:49,230 So you can wear your hearing aids 416 00:21:49,230 --> 00:21:51,150 connected to the software. 417 00:21:51,150 --> 00:21:56,430 And then you can do something like that, and see if it's 418 00:21:56,430 --> 00:21:59,070 recognized correctly. 419 00:21:59,070 --> 00:22:01,790 It works, more or less, in a silent room. 420 00:22:01,790 --> 00:22:07,410 But yeah, not in a cocktail party. 421 00:22:07,410 --> 00:22:11,990 Yeah, generally, it's really hard to extract foreground 422 00:22:11,990 --> 00:22:16,780 from background noise, because foreground noise has all the 423 00:22:16,780 --> 00:22:19,140 high frequencies and background noise doesn't. 424 00:22:19,140 --> 00:22:23,190 And if you don't hear high frequencies at all, everything 425 00:22:23,190 --> 00:22:28,082 is one blob of sound. 426 00:22:28,082 --> 00:22:33,800 Hearing aids help with that because they mostly focus on 427 00:22:33,800 --> 00:22:35,510 high frequencies. 428 00:22:35,510 --> 00:22:38,420 And they have filters to filter out 429 00:22:38,420 --> 00:22:39,850 the background signal. 430 00:22:39,850 --> 00:22:44,210 But actually, that doesn't really help so much, because 431 00:22:44,210 --> 00:22:47,920 those situations, recognitions, they tend to 432 00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:48,900 fail as well. 433 00:22:48,900 --> 00:22:51,690 So sometimes it's likely that a person that is talking to 434 00:22:51,690 --> 00:22:55,774 you gets faded out because it is considered as noise. 435 00:22:55,774 --> 00:22:57,256 [LAUGHTER] 436 00:22:57,256 --> 00:23:01,320 HELGA VELROYEN: But sometimes they also work very well. 437 00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,620 I mean, it's also coincidence. 438 00:23:04,620 --> 00:23:07,070 Sometimes you're in a setting which has exactly the 439 00:23:07,070 --> 00:23:10,100 situation that the hearing aid can work well with. 440 00:23:10,100 --> 00:23:13,520 So sometimes you are here with a hearing person, actually, 441 00:23:13,520 --> 00:23:15,600 and then you hear him quite well. 442 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,380 And then you start talking in a normal voice, because you 443 00:23:18,380 --> 00:23:19,970 can actually understand everything. 444 00:23:19,970 --> 00:23:21,820 And then that hearing person is asking 445 00:23:21,820 --> 00:23:23,410 you to repeat a sentence. 446 00:23:23,410 --> 00:23:24,970 This is really weird sometimes. 447 00:23:28,110 --> 00:23:30,560 The tuning software for hearing aids also has a real 448 00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:34,280 time monitor where you can see some parameters. 449 00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:37,950 So you wear your hearing aids and then, for 450 00:23:37,950 --> 00:23:39,580 example, listen to music. 451 00:23:39,580 --> 00:23:47,090 And then you can see here the dark areas are where the 452 00:23:47,090 --> 00:23:50,000 hearing aid actually started to work. 453 00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:51,860 Below that, it doesn't need to amplify. 454 00:23:51,860 --> 00:23:55,590 And the grey thing here is the speech banana. 455 00:23:55,590 --> 00:23:57,940 So you see that it's optimized in a way that it starts 456 00:23:57,940 --> 00:24:01,100 amplifying in the speech banana. 457 00:24:01,100 --> 00:24:05,340 It also has the situation recognition 458 00:24:05,340 --> 00:24:06,410 and different settings. 459 00:24:06,410 --> 00:24:08,790 And one of those is music, actually. 460 00:24:08,790 --> 00:24:11,970 I tried it with different types of music. 461 00:24:11,970 --> 00:24:14,120 Actually, if you like heavy metal, you will never see 462 00:24:14,120 --> 00:24:14,960 music here. 463 00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:16,170 It's usually noise. 464 00:24:16,170 --> 00:24:21,856 [LAUGHTER] 465 00:24:21,856 --> 00:24:23,260 HELGA VELROYEN: A problem with hearing aids 466 00:24:23,260 --> 00:24:25,010 is humidity, actually. 467 00:24:25,010 --> 00:24:27,380 So most hearing aids are not waterproof. 468 00:24:27,380 --> 00:24:32,320 That doesn't sound so bad, but actually, a lot of things are 469 00:24:32,320 --> 00:24:33,060 related to that. 470 00:24:33,060 --> 00:24:36,590 So that means no swimming with friends, no pool parties, no 471 00:24:36,590 --> 00:24:39,880 water sports where you'll have to talk to someone. 472 00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:41,740 Sweat is a problem, especially for people 473 00:24:41,740 --> 00:24:43,970 who do a lot of sports. 474 00:24:43,970 --> 00:24:45,770 No audio books in the bathtub. 475 00:24:45,770 --> 00:24:46,680 No heavy rain. 476 00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:49,680 So if you go to an open air concert and it starts raining, 477 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,610 you will really have to take care of that. 478 00:24:52,610 --> 00:24:57,880 Also, just like wet hair, when you go out of the shower, you 479 00:24:57,880 --> 00:25:01,340 have to wait until your hair is dry until you can put your 480 00:25:01,340 --> 00:25:03,490 hearing aids in again. 481 00:25:03,490 --> 00:25:07,730 A very recent development is that Phonak also offers 482 00:25:07,730 --> 00:25:10,200 hearing aids that are waterproof or water-resistant. 483 00:25:13,310 --> 00:25:16,180 They claim that you can hold it under water for 30 minutes, 484 00:25:16,180 --> 00:25:21,020 and then there will be no irreparable damage. 485 00:25:21,020 --> 00:25:22,350 I'm not really sure what that means. 486 00:25:22,350 --> 00:25:24,250 So I guess you probably have to dry it. 487 00:25:24,250 --> 00:25:25,531 [LAUGHTER] 488 00:25:25,531 --> 00:25:30,290 HELGA VELROYEN: Or if you have to give it into repair for 489 00:25:30,290 --> 00:25:31,760 weeks until you get it back. 490 00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,250 Oh yeah, by the way, you don't have a spare hearing aid. 491 00:25:35,250 --> 00:25:38,260 So whenever your hearing aids break, you have to go to an 492 00:25:38,260 --> 00:25:41,560 audiologist. And you get spare hearing aids, which is like, 493 00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:43,940 when you drive a Porsche, you get a tractor. 494 00:25:43,940 --> 00:25:48,800 And also, audiologists have opening hours for the elderly. 495 00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,580 So if your hearing aids break on Friday night, you have to 496 00:25:51,580 --> 00:25:53,840 wait until Monday until you actually can hear again. 497 00:25:56,790 --> 00:26:00,780 Yeah, those were the important features of hearing aids. 498 00:26:00,780 --> 00:26:03,890 But there is some peripheral hardware that I 499 00:26:03,890 --> 00:26:06,060 would like to present. 500 00:26:06,060 --> 00:26:10,800 So there are different interfaces for which you can 501 00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:12,950 use to plug into your hearing aids. 502 00:26:12,950 --> 00:26:15,850 So the oldest one is the direct audio input, which is 503 00:26:15,850 --> 00:26:17,970 just here, a cable. 504 00:26:17,970 --> 00:26:20,950 So it looks like that. 505 00:26:20,950 --> 00:26:23,830 And it's usually connected to the hearing aid with some sort 506 00:26:23,830 --> 00:26:26,170 of shoe, which looks like that. 507 00:26:26,170 --> 00:26:30,610 And it has the pros and cons of cables, of course, if you 508 00:26:30,610 --> 00:26:31,720 like being on the leash. 509 00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,180 But you also have no interference with other 510 00:26:35,180 --> 00:26:37,330 wireless stuff. 511 00:26:37,330 --> 00:26:40,470 It's usually used to plug something else in, for 512 00:26:40,470 --> 00:26:43,415 example, FM or Bluetooth adaptors. 513 00:26:43,415 --> 00:26:47,570 And yeah, this is pretty old technology, 514 00:26:47,570 --> 00:26:48,980 but it's still around. 515 00:26:48,980 --> 00:26:52,310 Although, for really small ones, the plug is actually too 516 00:26:52,310 --> 00:26:55,530 big, so they leave it out there. 517 00:26:55,530 --> 00:27:00,860 Another very common technology is FM systems. You can buy 518 00:27:00,860 --> 00:27:02,370 those from several vendors. 519 00:27:02,370 --> 00:27:05,480 You have receivers and transmitters. 520 00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:07,940 They have different setups like for a meeting, that you 521 00:27:07,940 --> 00:27:10,960 can put a microphone on the meeting table and hear all the 522 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:15,060 participants talk, or for lecture halls like that, that 523 00:27:15,060 --> 00:27:18,120 you can connect the microphone to the transmitter 524 00:27:18,120 --> 00:27:19,720 and listen to it. 525 00:27:22,260 --> 00:27:26,080 There are some standards, but most receivers and 526 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:29,200 transmitters don't work with others from other companies. 527 00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:33,730 But at least, if you plug them in with these direct audio 528 00:27:33,730 --> 00:27:38,490 input, you can choose an FM system from a different vendor 529 00:27:38,490 --> 00:27:40,626 than from your hearing aids. 530 00:27:40,626 --> 00:27:43,760 The sound quality is said to be quite good. 531 00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,140 I actually could never try it. 532 00:27:45,140 --> 00:27:51,210 But I heard that, actually, in schools, hearing impaired 533 00:27:51,210 --> 00:27:55,290 students listen to music while actually they should listen to 534 00:27:55,290 --> 00:27:56,180 the teacher. 535 00:27:56,180 --> 00:27:59,130 And teachers call the audiologists and ask, could 536 00:27:59,130 --> 00:28:00,390 you make this stop? 537 00:28:00,390 --> 00:28:02,070 They don't listen to what I am saying. 538 00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,860 A really common problem for hearing impairment is calling 539 00:28:08,860 --> 00:28:11,700 on the phone. 540 00:28:11,700 --> 00:28:15,230 The problem is, first of all, most people do lip reading. 541 00:28:15,230 --> 00:28:17,660 So they don't rely only on the audio input. 542 00:28:17,660 --> 00:28:20,240 We use the visuals as well. 543 00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,510 And of course, you don't have that on the 544 00:28:22,510 --> 00:28:24,330 radio or the telephone. 545 00:28:24,330 --> 00:28:27,000 And also, for technical reasons, the frequency range 546 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,780 of the phone line is reduced. 547 00:28:29,780 --> 00:28:34,710 In Germany, it's like 300 hertz to 3.4 kilohertz. 548 00:28:34,710 --> 00:28:38,560 That's the blue box in this audiogram. 549 00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:41,360 Also the background noise that you have in the room where you 550 00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,910 are talking on the phone, it does have the full range. 551 00:28:44,910 --> 00:28:46,650 So you get, actually, background noise in a better 552 00:28:46,650 --> 00:28:50,250 quality than the signal from your person that you're 553 00:28:50,250 --> 00:28:51,650 talking to. 554 00:28:51,650 --> 00:28:55,670 Then, often, the signal is altered and unnatural. 555 00:28:55,670 --> 00:28:57,510 Sometimes you have bad reception. 556 00:28:57,510 --> 00:29:01,490 And also, you hear it only in one ear if you just use a 557 00:29:01,490 --> 00:29:02,880 usual telephone. 558 00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,460 And if you hold it to your ear, you get a feedback loop. 559 00:29:05,460 --> 00:29:07,400 So a lot of things make it really annoying 560 00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:08,200 to talk on the phone. 561 00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,200 And there are some technical solutions for that. 562 00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:14,935 The most old one is the telecoil or T-coil. 563 00:29:18,610 --> 00:29:20,910 And the source is connected to an induction loop. 564 00:29:20,910 --> 00:29:24,710 And you take off the electromagnetics. 565 00:29:24,710 --> 00:29:26,850 And this is from the telecoil. 566 00:29:26,850 --> 00:29:30,610 It's there in the picture, a really small antenna. 567 00:29:30,610 --> 00:29:35,240 And there are different setups for the induction loop. 568 00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,030 So there are adapters that have the induction loop 569 00:29:38,030 --> 00:29:40,420 actually used to hang it around your neck. 570 00:29:40,420 --> 00:29:42,660 Or there are induction loops installed in 571 00:29:42,660 --> 00:29:43,920 lecture halls like this. 572 00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:47,900 I don't know if there is one here. 573 00:29:47,900 --> 00:29:51,140 It's widely used in Europe, especially in Scandinavia. 574 00:29:51,140 --> 00:29:54,340 They even have laws where every public building has to 575 00:29:54,340 --> 00:29:59,640 have one or these public lecture halls. 576 00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:01,760 You have some pros and cons, of course. 577 00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:03,580 You have interference. 578 00:30:03,580 --> 00:30:07,580 When you move inside the induction loop, the level of 579 00:30:07,580 --> 00:30:10,030 volume changes. 580 00:30:10,030 --> 00:30:12,730 So it's nothing where you should dance or something. 581 00:30:12,730 --> 00:30:14,520 But if you sit still in a theater or 582 00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,320 something, it works. 583 00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,840 Installing an induction loop in a lecture 584 00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:21,440 hall is quite expensive. 585 00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:23,990 But there are actually DIY kits available. 586 00:30:23,990 --> 00:30:26,210 It's quite common that people build their own ones. 587 00:30:28,820 --> 00:30:31,430 And telephones also have an induction loop, 588 00:30:31,430 --> 00:30:33,010 even very new ones. 589 00:30:33,010 --> 00:30:36,770 So all telephones which are called hearing aid compatible, 590 00:30:36,770 --> 00:30:38,870 they have an induction loop that can be used with a 591 00:30:38,870 --> 00:30:41,525 telecoil, even the new iPhone, for example. 592 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:46,170 And then there's Bluetooth. 593 00:30:48,370 --> 00:30:51,820 There are, right now, no hearing aids that can do 594 00:30:51,820 --> 00:30:54,940 Bluetooth directly because, mostly, of the batteries. 595 00:30:54,940 --> 00:30:59,840 Usually, hearing aid batteries last one week to 10 days. 596 00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:02,260 But with Bluetooth, I think they would only 597 00:31:02,260 --> 00:31:03,950 last a couple of hours. 598 00:31:03,950 --> 00:31:08,100 Although there are no Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids 599 00:31:08,100 --> 00:31:12,140 on the market right now, I've heard that they 600 00:31:12,140 --> 00:31:13,770 are working on that. 601 00:31:13,770 --> 00:31:17,220 Siemens is located in Erlangen, which is not that 602 00:31:17,220 --> 00:31:18,230 far from Munich. 603 00:31:18,230 --> 00:31:23,510 So I have heard about people who would test prototypes. 604 00:31:23,510 --> 00:31:28,615 Right now, you have to use a Bluetooth adapter to use your 605 00:31:28,615 --> 00:31:30,460 hearing aids, attach that. 606 00:31:30,460 --> 00:31:34,380 And there's different versions of it. 607 00:31:34,380 --> 00:31:36,940 So this is an example of Phonak. 608 00:31:36,940 --> 00:31:39,290 They built a really nice thing. 609 00:31:39,290 --> 00:31:41,910 This piece, you hang it around your neck. 610 00:31:41,910 --> 00:31:45,040 And the ribbon is actually the induction loop that is used 611 00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:46,340 with a telecoil. 612 00:31:46,340 --> 00:31:51,030 And to this gadget you can connect several things. 613 00:31:51,030 --> 00:31:53,720 It has direct audio input, which you can use to plug in 614 00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:55,090 an FM system. 615 00:31:55,090 --> 00:31:57,760 It also has aux-in that you can directly 616 00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:59,576 plug in your MP3 player. 617 00:31:59,576 --> 00:32:01,930 And it has Bluetooth. 618 00:32:01,930 --> 00:32:04,310 It actually also has a warning to combine this with 619 00:32:04,310 --> 00:32:05,800 pacemakers. 620 00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:10,600 And I have a friend who has a pacemaker and this thing. 621 00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:11,920 He just ignored the warning. 622 00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:12,790 But I think this is-- 623 00:32:12,790 --> 00:32:13,470 [LAUGHTER] 624 00:32:13,470 --> 00:32:16,720 HELGA VELROYEN: Luckily, he's still alive. 625 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:18,810 And I think this is a good example for what we are 626 00:32:18,810 --> 00:32:20,050 heading in the future. 627 00:32:20,050 --> 00:32:21,970 We will get more and more cyborgs. 628 00:32:21,970 --> 00:32:26,680 And I doubt that every hearing aid vendor is trying their 629 00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,850 adapters with every pacemaker there is. 630 00:32:29,850 --> 00:32:33,320 So we will get a lot of compatibility 631 00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:34,680 problems in the future. 632 00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:38,580 And if this really works, it might be an option to kill 633 00:32:38,580 --> 00:32:41,140 people really, really silently, remotely. 634 00:32:41,140 --> 00:32:41,485 [LAUGHTER] 635 00:32:41,485 --> 00:32:44,694 HELGA VELROYEN: I mean, you have to think of that. 636 00:32:44,694 --> 00:32:47,600 [LAUGHS] 637 00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,710 Siemens' solution was, of course, not to use any of the 638 00:32:50,710 --> 00:32:52,150 existing standards. 639 00:32:52,150 --> 00:32:53,574 Just build something new. 640 00:32:53,574 --> 00:32:54,068 [LAUGHTER] 641 00:32:54,068 --> 00:32:57,032 [APPLAUSE] 642 00:32:57,032 --> 00:33:00,530 HELGA VELROYEN: So they built something called Siemens Tek. 643 00:33:00,530 --> 00:33:03,720 And it hooks Bluetooth to the phone, or to whatever you're 644 00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:09,290 connected to, and some wireless NFC protocol to the 645 00:33:09,290 --> 00:33:10,840 hearing aids. 646 00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:12,880 So the hearing aids also have a small antenna in it, which 647 00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,760 looks kind of like a telecoil, but it is not. 648 00:33:15,760 --> 00:33:18,810 And it is not compatible to anything the telecoil is 649 00:33:18,810 --> 00:33:19,930 compatible to. 650 00:33:19,930 --> 00:33:22,100 So you can only use it with this. 651 00:33:22,100 --> 00:33:25,230 And it has a signal around 3.3 megahertz. 652 00:33:25,230 --> 00:33:26,340 You can see it on that picture. 653 00:33:26,340 --> 00:33:28,030 I tried that. 654 00:33:28,030 --> 00:33:31,600 And it's compatible with every Bluetooth 655 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:33,420 speaking device, in theory. 656 00:33:33,420 --> 00:33:35,820 And practically, you have to check it with everything. 657 00:33:35,820 --> 00:33:39,050 So whenever I get a phone at work or whatever, I have to 658 00:33:39,050 --> 00:33:40,590 check if it will actually work. 659 00:33:40,590 --> 00:33:44,170 So of course, it works best with Siemens mobile phones. 660 00:33:44,170 --> 00:33:46,670 But you can imagine how old they are. 661 00:33:46,670 --> 00:33:53,040 And yeah, they also are supposed to work with land 662 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:53,670 line phones. 663 00:33:53,670 --> 00:33:59,310 But on their websites, they say, I think, it was only to 664 00:33:59,310 --> 00:34:02,850 Siemens land line phones, of course. 665 00:34:02,850 --> 00:34:07,910 And other than that, they don't guarantee that it works. 666 00:34:07,910 --> 00:34:12,139 It comes with an additional transmitter that you can 667 00:34:12,139 --> 00:34:15,219 connect to your source that is more far away. 668 00:34:15,219 --> 00:34:18,760 The Tek itself has a range of one meter. 669 00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:22,880 So if you want to have a flat screen TV, I don't know, five 670 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:26,210 meters away from you, you could use the transmitter. 671 00:34:26,210 --> 00:34:30,659 This thing costs about 400 euros for just turning one 672 00:34:30,659 --> 00:34:33,260 wireless protocol into the other. 673 00:34:33,260 --> 00:34:35,230 And no insurance is going to pay for that. 674 00:34:35,230 --> 00:34:38,949 So you have to pay for this on your own. 675 00:34:38,949 --> 00:34:42,050 If you have a generous employer, you might 676 00:34:42,050 --> 00:34:44,989 get some for it. 677 00:34:44,989 --> 00:34:48,120 They also released a new version of it. 678 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,040 This is on the right side here. 679 00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:50,929 It's called miniTek. 680 00:34:50,929 --> 00:34:54,280 And it has, actually, less features than the old one 681 00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,440 because they removed the display. 682 00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,170 And they still want 400 euros for that. 683 00:34:59,170 --> 00:35:03,290 And you don't get a discount if you bought the old one. 684 00:35:03,290 --> 00:35:06,940 Well, but I guess that's marketing. 685 00:35:06,940 --> 00:35:08,210 This is the sender with the transmitter. 686 00:35:08,210 --> 00:35:11,070 So you connect it to the computer, and you wear the Tek 687 00:35:11,070 --> 00:35:13,190 around your head. 688 00:35:13,190 --> 00:35:16,370 It also has some patents for the different programs. So 689 00:35:16,370 --> 00:35:19,220 hearing aids have different programs that you can change 690 00:35:19,220 --> 00:35:23,250 manually so that you have one for listening to music, or one 691 00:35:23,250 --> 00:35:29,880 for your living room, and one for outside, or whatever. 692 00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:31,785 Of course, I took that apart as well. 693 00:35:31,785 --> 00:35:34,530 [LAUGHTER] 694 00:35:34,530 --> 00:35:37,790 HELGA VELROYEN: You have to couple this Tek with the 695 00:35:37,790 --> 00:35:39,840 tuning software of hearing aids. 696 00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,110 So there is some kind of authentification via a 697 00:35:43,110 --> 00:35:45,480 7-character serial number. 698 00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:49,330 I doubt that there is actually a lot of encryption in there, 699 00:35:49,330 --> 00:35:51,370 because the latency is crucial. 700 00:35:51,370 --> 00:35:53,130 Bluetooth already has a latency. 701 00:35:53,130 --> 00:35:55,320 And you don't want to add that much to it. 702 00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:58,680 But I also tried to use a different Tek with my hearing 703 00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:00,190 aids, and it actually doesn't work. 704 00:36:00,190 --> 00:36:03,910 So some kind of authentication must be in there. 705 00:36:03,910 --> 00:36:06,350 But if you're too lazy to hack that, you can 706 00:36:06,350 --> 00:36:08,100 still hack the Bluetooth. 707 00:36:08,100 --> 00:36:11,550 There are lots of talks about that here. 708 00:36:11,550 --> 00:36:14,460 And of course, the PIN is 000. 709 00:36:14,460 --> 00:36:19,390 And something that is not directly about the Tek, but 710 00:36:19,390 --> 00:36:21,520 the hearing aids also communicate with each other. 711 00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,970 So if I switch the program-- there's actually a small 712 00:36:23,970 --> 00:36:25,370 switch on my hearing aids-- 713 00:36:25,370 --> 00:36:28,800 if I switch between the programs on one ear, it also 714 00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,480 tells that to the other ear. 715 00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:33,010 And that one doesn't use authentification. 716 00:36:33,010 --> 00:36:35,600 I have heard that, when people have the same model of hearing 717 00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:37,480 aids and they're close to each other-- for example, this 718 00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,040 happens when couples buy the same hearing aids-- 719 00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,310 then you switch your program, and your spouse also gets the 720 00:36:43,310 --> 00:36:44,485 program switched. 721 00:36:44,485 --> 00:36:45,315 [LAUGHTER] 722 00:36:45,315 --> 00:36:48,080 HELGA VELROYEN: And this can actually only be changed by 723 00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:50,430 the audiologist by changing the channel. 724 00:36:50,430 --> 00:36:54,190 So they have, like for wireless, different channels. 725 00:36:54,190 --> 00:36:55,590 And you'd set it to a different one. 726 00:36:55,590 --> 00:36:57,640 That's the security about that. 727 00:37:00,184 --> 00:37:03,590 Yeah, hacking. 728 00:37:03,590 --> 00:37:06,200 When I started to dig into that topic, I was really 729 00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:09,950 disappointed that there is not very much hacking. 730 00:37:09,950 --> 00:37:12,530 So there's one forum called hearingaidhacks. 731 00:37:12,530 --> 00:37:15,160 livejournal.com. 732 00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:19,320 This is the biggest one I found. 733 00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:23,810 But if you go through the entries, it's mostly people 734 00:37:23,810 --> 00:37:27,940 asking for technical advice, So, I bought this and this 735 00:37:27,940 --> 00:37:28,450 hearing aid. 736 00:37:28,450 --> 00:37:32,090 What peripheral hardware can I use with it? 737 00:37:32,090 --> 00:37:35,610 I guess the reason for that is that the 738 00:37:35,610 --> 00:37:36,980 devices are really expensive. 739 00:37:36,980 --> 00:37:41,470 And the warranty and the insurances are really not that 740 00:37:41,470 --> 00:37:43,300 nice if you break your own hearing aids. 741 00:37:43,300 --> 00:37:46,230 And you still have this problem that audiologists 742 00:37:46,230 --> 00:37:47,710 don't have opening hours. 743 00:37:47,710 --> 00:37:50,920 They can not be used by people who still have a life. 744 00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:54,520 So people are a little resistant to actually hack the 745 00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:56,970 hearing aids. 746 00:37:56,970 --> 00:38:00,270 But there is a little hacking on the peripheral hardware. 747 00:38:00,270 --> 00:38:04,920 I will show two examples for that. 748 00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,660 There's one guy called Gertlex who built his 749 00:38:07,660 --> 00:38:10,650 own Bluetooth adapter. 750 00:38:10,650 --> 00:38:14,570 And he posted this on Flickr, quite detailed. 751 00:38:14,570 --> 00:38:18,810 And what you can see here, he used a Sony wireless Bluetooth 752 00:38:18,810 --> 00:38:24,220 headset, and hacked it in a way where you can connect the 753 00:38:24,220 --> 00:38:28,230 direct audio input cables from the hearing aids. 754 00:38:28,230 --> 00:38:30,920 The picture here in the upper-right corner shows the 755 00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:32,810 setup when he tested it. 756 00:38:32,810 --> 00:38:35,020 So he actually didn't test it with his 757 00:38:35,020 --> 00:38:36,020 original hearing aids. 758 00:38:36,020 --> 00:38:38,030 He used an old one that he had. 759 00:38:38,030 --> 00:38:41,330 And he even used an old MP3 player because he was afraid 760 00:38:41,330 --> 00:38:43,040 of frying that as well. 761 00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:49,770 So this is the precaution that you have to do when you start 762 00:38:49,770 --> 00:38:51,700 frying your hearing aids. 763 00:38:51,700 --> 00:38:55,090 You can not only fry your hearing aids, you can also fry 764 00:38:55,090 --> 00:38:56,150 your hearing even more. 765 00:38:56,150 --> 00:38:58,800 So you should be careful. 766 00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:03,200 And there's another guy who also made a Bluetooth adapter. 767 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:11,026 And he also took the DYI cables here, those shoes that 768 00:39:11,026 --> 00:39:16,080 you use to connect them, and a Bluetooth mono thing here. 769 00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:21,080 And this is actually the result, that you connect it 770 00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:22,830 directly to the hearing aids. 771 00:39:22,830 --> 00:39:26,770 He also provided some nice diagrams for that. 772 00:39:26,770 --> 00:39:30,500 The slightly bigger scene is actually the self-tuning 773 00:39:30,500 --> 00:39:36,570 scenes for hearing aids because, as I said, it's kind 774 00:39:36,570 --> 00:39:38,460 of frustrating to get hearing aids. 775 00:39:38,460 --> 00:39:41,510 You have to go to the audiologist a lot of times. 776 00:39:41,510 --> 00:39:43,600 And he asks you, yeah, what's wrong? 777 00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:45,870 And then you have to describe the situation. 778 00:39:45,870 --> 00:39:48,480 But you're sitting in this silent cavern at the 779 00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:54,290 audiologist, so the adjustment is not really done in 780 00:39:54,290 --> 00:39:56,070 realistic circumstances. 781 00:39:56,070 --> 00:39:58,690 And a lot of people get frustrated about that. 782 00:39:58,690 --> 00:40:02,930 So they spend weeks tuning their hearing aids at the 783 00:40:02,930 --> 00:40:05,570 audiologist. And still they're unhappy with it. 784 00:40:05,570 --> 00:40:09,120 So they try to get the hardware and software that is 785 00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:10,770 necessary for it. 786 00:40:10,770 --> 00:40:13,190 And those are actually only sold to doctors and 787 00:40:13,190 --> 00:40:14,480 acousticians or audiologists. 788 00:40:17,150 --> 00:40:18,820 And they are not sold on eBay because 789 00:40:18,820 --> 00:40:19,820 it is medical equipment. 790 00:40:19,820 --> 00:40:25,310 And that is not supposed to be sold on eBay. 791 00:40:25,310 --> 00:40:30,590 So you have to use other channels. 792 00:40:30,590 --> 00:40:33,810 There's a black market for it. 793 00:40:33,810 --> 00:40:39,200 It's kind of hard to put a price on that, but I've seen 794 00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,130 offers for the hardware, which is called Hipro. 795 00:40:42,130 --> 00:40:45,160 And there are different versions for 796 00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:47,670 serial use via Bluetooth. 797 00:40:47,670 --> 00:40:49,920 And it starts with a couple of hundred euros. 798 00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,160 So you can imagine the pain that people have when they 799 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,860 already spent 5,000 euros for two hearing aids. 800 00:40:54,860 --> 00:40:59,430 And then they spend even more money, because they want to 801 00:40:59,430 --> 00:41:01,830 tune them themselves. 802 00:41:01,830 --> 00:41:04,760 And there is this self-tuning scene. 803 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:07,475 And people really hack the system. 804 00:41:07,475 --> 00:41:12,100 The effort for people who actually installed a fake 805 00:41:12,100 --> 00:41:16,250 business, so they register a business for an audiologist to 806 00:41:16,250 --> 00:41:19,110 buy this hardware and then stop the business again. 807 00:41:19,110 --> 00:41:22,960 So there are actually people doing a lot of effort to get 808 00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,300 this hardware and software. 809 00:41:25,300 --> 00:41:27,440 But of course, then you have no customer support. 810 00:41:27,440 --> 00:41:30,120 And when you fry your ears or your hearing aids, then it's 811 00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,640 your own fault. 812 00:41:31,640 --> 00:41:32,540 There's one exception. 813 00:41:32,540 --> 00:41:35,920 In America, there's a hearing aid manufacturer called 814 00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:37,410 America Hears. 815 00:41:37,410 --> 00:41:41,460 They sell quite low-budget hearing aids, up to 816 00:41:41,460 --> 00:41:45,030 $1,000, if I'm right. 817 00:41:45,030 --> 00:41:47,340 Then you send in an audiogram of yours. 818 00:41:47,340 --> 00:41:51,680 And they tune it at their place for the first time. 819 00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:56,320 And then you can download the software and tune it a little 820 00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:58,930 bit more at home. 821 00:41:58,930 --> 00:42:00,910 Unfortunately, I've never seen that software. 822 00:42:00,910 --> 00:42:02,530 You can only order it in the US. 823 00:42:02,530 --> 00:42:06,370 But I would be interested to have a look at that as well, 824 00:42:06,370 --> 00:42:08,590 if someone has channels for that. 825 00:42:11,240 --> 00:42:15,580 Of course, some of this hardware ended up in my hands. 826 00:42:15,580 --> 00:42:19,705 This is a serial Hipro. 827 00:42:19,705 --> 00:42:23,290 This looks really fancy, like a modem from the '80s. 828 00:42:23,290 --> 00:42:26,570 It's connected via serial. 829 00:42:26,570 --> 00:42:28,740 And you connect the hearing aids to it. 830 00:42:28,740 --> 00:42:31,460 I have some close-up pictures for that. 831 00:42:31,460 --> 00:42:35,730 So you take out the battery and put on a small cable which 832 00:42:35,730 --> 00:42:39,740 has a contact of the battery, the size of the battery, a 833 00:42:39,740 --> 00:42:40,770 very flat cable. 834 00:42:40,770 --> 00:42:42,610 And this is connected to a bigger cable. 835 00:42:42,610 --> 00:42:44,030 And that is connected to the Hipro. 836 00:42:46,740 --> 00:42:50,960 The Hipro is the same for nearly all hearing aid brands, 837 00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:54,600 so you can use it for Siemens, and Phonak, and whatever. 838 00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,355 But these small, flat cables, they are different for nearly 839 00:42:58,355 --> 00:42:59,930 every hearing aid. 840 00:42:59,930 --> 00:43:05,160 So if you try to buy this Hipro on the black market, you 841 00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:07,610 also have to buy those cables. 842 00:43:07,610 --> 00:43:09,880 There's also a Bluetooth version that also 843 00:43:09,880 --> 00:43:12,310 ended up in my hands. 844 00:43:12,310 --> 00:43:13,070 It looks like that. 845 00:43:13,070 --> 00:43:16,850 And it has the advantage that you are not 846 00:43:16,850 --> 00:43:19,900 connected to it via cable. 847 00:43:19,900 --> 00:43:22,380 So you don't feel like on a leash. 848 00:43:22,380 --> 00:43:27,140 And I haven't really used that much. 849 00:43:27,140 --> 00:43:29,890 But this way, you could actually go outside and tune 850 00:43:29,890 --> 00:43:33,710 it in the subway or at your office, because 851 00:43:33,710 --> 00:43:35,790 you just need a laptop. 852 00:43:35,790 --> 00:43:38,450 And it works without your powerful wire. 853 00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:45,890 The tuning software, I showed you some excerpts from it. 854 00:43:45,890 --> 00:43:47,850 This is just another screenshot. 855 00:43:47,850 --> 00:43:52,790 On the right side here, you see the different programs. So 856 00:43:52,790 --> 00:43:56,160 the universal one, here is one for music, and one for the 857 00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,158 tech, if you work with that. 858 00:44:02,340 --> 00:44:05,700 When I was playing with the tuning software, I found 859 00:44:05,700 --> 00:44:07,020 something very interesting. 860 00:44:07,020 --> 00:44:09,170 That it's actually spying on me. 861 00:44:09,170 --> 00:44:13,340 So it locks some stuff and, for example, 862 00:44:13,340 --> 00:44:15,570 how much I wear it. 863 00:44:15,570 --> 00:44:18,990 Although I find 14 hours a day a little bit-- 864 00:44:18,990 --> 00:44:22,550 I think I'm awake, actually, longer than 14 hours. 865 00:44:22,550 --> 00:44:24,740 But they use this, actually, because people come and 866 00:44:24,740 --> 00:44:26,820 complain, yeah, this doesn't really work much. 867 00:44:26,820 --> 00:44:29,960 And then they see they only wear it half an hour a day. 868 00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:31,950 And so, of course, you can not get used to it 869 00:44:31,950 --> 00:44:33,470 and adapt to it. 870 00:44:33,470 --> 00:44:35,900 And you can also see what different programs are used. 871 00:44:35,900 --> 00:44:37,960 So mostly I use the universal program. 872 00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:42,730 And sometimes I have another one called universal that is 873 00:44:42,730 --> 00:44:45,950 actually tuned to have less feedback loops. 874 00:44:45,950 --> 00:44:48,760 That's the one I use when I put on a hat so that I still 875 00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:53,080 hear a little bit, but don't have too many feedback loops. 876 00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:56,910 And it also tracks how often I was in a noisy environment or 877 00:44:56,910 --> 00:44:58,480 was listening to music. 878 00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:01,745 And since I like to listen to heavy metal, this is actually 879 00:45:01,745 --> 00:45:03,750 not correct. 880 00:45:03,750 --> 00:45:05,320 Yeah, I found it really interesting 881 00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:06,260 what you can see here. 882 00:45:06,260 --> 00:45:12,290 And yeah, I hope that it doesn't record anything what I 883 00:45:12,290 --> 00:45:15,840 talk about or what I listen to. 884 00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:19,420 We have a little bit more time, so I will talk about the 885 00:45:19,420 --> 00:45:21,470 cochlear implants, as well. 886 00:45:21,470 --> 00:45:25,840 I mentioned that those are the ones that are half implanted 887 00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:29,760 in the head and also have an external device. 888 00:45:33,650 --> 00:45:37,420 This shows this part is implanted. 889 00:45:37,420 --> 00:45:42,200 And we have a wire that is drawn into the cochlea. 890 00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,590 And it's connected to the nerve. 891 00:45:44,590 --> 00:45:47,180 So actually, the whole ear is circumvented. 892 00:45:47,180 --> 00:45:50,020 Only the wire goes directly to the nerve and 893 00:45:50,020 --> 00:45:51,390 then through the brain. 894 00:45:51,390 --> 00:45:56,350 And cochlear implants are what I find really fascinating. 895 00:45:56,350 --> 00:45:58,450 They really make deaf people hear. 896 00:45:58,450 --> 00:46:02,190 It's only applied to people who have a really severe 897 00:46:02,190 --> 00:46:05,580 hearing loss, like less than 20% or something. 898 00:46:05,580 --> 00:46:08,970 So they hear only less than 20%. 899 00:46:08,970 --> 00:46:13,630 Of course, it's a surgery to insert that. 900 00:46:13,630 --> 00:46:16,530 It destroys any remaining hearing, because you poke a 901 00:46:16,530 --> 00:46:17,640 wire into the nerve. 902 00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:21,470 So everything else is gone then. 903 00:46:21,470 --> 00:46:23,400 It can also affect other nerves. 904 00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,460 So I have a friend who had this surgery. 905 00:46:26,460 --> 00:46:31,650 And they touched some taste nerves as well, so everything 906 00:46:31,650 --> 00:46:33,120 tastes as metallic. 907 00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:33,830 It was kind of weird. 908 00:46:33,830 --> 00:46:37,260 But it actually went away after a while. 909 00:46:37,260 --> 00:46:38,510 The signal is really different. 910 00:46:40,980 --> 00:46:43,810 The brain has to adjust to that very long. 911 00:46:43,810 --> 00:46:46,070 There are actually hearing courses after you get this 912 00:46:46,070 --> 00:46:48,440 surgery and the device is started. 913 00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,340 You have to really get used to that, because it's like 914 00:46:52,340 --> 00:46:56,040 electrical signals directly [? intruded. ?] 915 00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:59,750 And the technology of this device, this is usually behind 916 00:46:59,750 --> 00:47:02,440 the usual hearing aid technology, because it has to 917 00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:07,360 be well-tested before you put something into your head. 918 00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:09,850 And like for the other hearing aids, there are not many 919 00:47:09,850 --> 00:47:13,920 standards, no interoperability between the brands. 920 00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:19,220 So if you decide to take the cochlear implant of one brand, 921 00:47:19,220 --> 00:47:22,120 you can never switch to another one. 922 00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:25,790 So yeah, you have to think that through. 923 00:47:25,790 --> 00:47:32,700 I have an example of how it sounds 924 00:47:32,700 --> 00:47:35,640 with a cochlear implant. 925 00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:37,840 So it sounds kind of spooky. 926 00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:41,930 It starts with a normal sample that everyone can hear it. 927 00:47:41,930 --> 00:47:45,380 And then they have different channels and reduce the number 928 00:47:45,380 --> 00:47:45,810 of channels. 929 00:47:45,810 --> 00:47:47,530 And then it gets less and less hear-able. 930 00:47:47,530 --> 00:47:47,840 [AUDIO PLAYBACK] 931 00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:49,980 -A boy fell from the window. 932 00:47:49,980 --> 00:47:51,668 A boy fell from the window. 933 00:47:51,668 --> 00:47:54,090 A boy fell from the window. 934 00:47:54,090 --> 00:47:55,795 A boy fell from the window. 935 00:47:55,795 --> 00:47:58,552 A boy fell from the window. 936 00:47:58,552 --> 00:48:00,544 A boy fell from the window. 937 00:48:00,544 --> 00:48:01,042 [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. 938 00:48:01,042 --> 00:48:01,540 [END AUDIO PLAYBACK] 939 00:48:01,540 --> 00:48:04,730 HELGA VELROYEN: Yeah, so you can imagine that it takes a 940 00:48:04,730 --> 00:48:06,855 while until you actually can understand speech with that. 941 00:48:09,700 --> 00:48:12,790 Yeah, I'm coming to an end. 942 00:48:12,790 --> 00:48:18,010 So there are a lot of things that I want from the industry. 943 00:48:18,010 --> 00:48:20,220 First of all, better service. 944 00:48:20,220 --> 00:48:22,710 And that goes into the consideration of young 945 00:48:22,710 --> 00:48:27,490 people's needs, because you can feel it every time, that 946 00:48:27,490 --> 00:48:29,510 everything is designed for the elderly. 947 00:48:29,510 --> 00:48:32,250 They don't consider that people actually have to work, 948 00:48:32,250 --> 00:48:35,480 and have a life, and actually want to go out and talk to 949 00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:41,100 people, and not only in a silent room one-on-one. 950 00:48:41,100 --> 00:48:44,820 And there are a lot of things where you miss the support 951 00:48:44,820 --> 00:48:49,340 when you have hearing aids and are not 60 or something. 952 00:48:49,340 --> 00:48:53,330 Generally, I'd like to have better signal processing. 953 00:48:53,330 --> 00:48:58,290 Of course, regarding the size, they already did a really good 954 00:48:58,290 --> 00:49:01,110 job, if you consider what they do already. 955 00:49:01,110 --> 00:49:03,980 But actually, the cocktail party problem is not solved. 956 00:49:03,980 --> 00:49:06,280 So a lot of people who have hearing aids and then who also 957 00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,030 have really good hearing aids, they just avoid social 958 00:49:09,030 --> 00:49:09,960 situations. 959 00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:11,140 So they don't go out. 960 00:49:11,140 --> 00:49:13,180 They don't go to the Congress. 961 00:49:13,180 --> 00:49:15,160 They don't go to parties. 962 00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:19,550 So whenever you would ask them to go for dinner, they'd 963 00:49:19,550 --> 00:49:22,760 really carefully choose the restaurant, if it's a more or 964 00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:27,040 less crowded one so you can understand people, actually. 965 00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,460 What I'm really missing is some standards. 966 00:49:29,460 --> 00:49:32,800 It would be even cool if it was open standards, because, 967 00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:35,915 this way, you feel really trapped as a patient. 968 00:49:38,790 --> 00:49:43,635 There's this saying, "If you can't open it, you don't own 969 00:49:43,635 --> 00:49:48,730 it." And I really miss that when having hearing aids. 970 00:49:48,730 --> 00:49:52,820 So I have a lot of ideas how to improve that. 971 00:49:52,820 --> 00:49:56,300 But I don't see most of it coming in the next 500 years, 972 00:49:56,300 --> 00:50:00,280 because the companies are not very open source friendly. 973 00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:02,550 So what would be really cool, to have something like a 974 00:50:02,550 --> 00:50:06,960 hearing aid app market that you can download the newest 975 00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:12,720 feature for a background noise remover or something, and that 976 00:50:12,720 --> 00:50:17,170 you can write you own filters and share those, and 977 00:50:17,170 --> 00:50:22,090 especially exchange those between different brands. 978 00:50:22,090 --> 00:50:24,840 And the funny thing is, when I was browsing through the 979 00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,550 websites of the vendors, the marketing of some hearing aid 980 00:50:28,550 --> 00:50:31,460 companies actually got this idea already. 981 00:50:31,460 --> 00:50:34,880 They just call their features apps. 982 00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:37,460 So this is just an enumeration of what the 983 00:50:37,460 --> 00:50:38,720 hearing aid can do. 984 00:50:38,720 --> 00:50:40,458 But they just call it app. 985 00:50:40,458 --> 00:50:42,330 [LAUGHTER] 986 00:50:42,330 --> 00:50:44,690 HELGA VELROYEN: And it would be really cool if there was 987 00:50:44,690 --> 00:50:45,490 something like that. 988 00:50:45,490 --> 00:50:49,010 You can exchange those. 989 00:50:49,010 --> 00:50:53,270 What I would also like, hearing aids do not use 990 00:50:53,270 --> 00:50:54,780 reoccurring situations. 991 00:50:54,780 --> 00:50:57,810 Most people have a rather steady lifestyle. 992 00:50:57,810 --> 00:50:59,570 You live in the same apartment. 993 00:50:59,570 --> 00:51:01,790 Most of the time, you work in the same office. 994 00:51:01,790 --> 00:51:05,540 You take the same subway to work every day. 995 00:51:05,540 --> 00:51:10,430 And hearing aids are only tuned for a general situation. 996 00:51:10,430 --> 00:51:15,620 But I think signal processing works well the more you know 997 00:51:15,620 --> 00:51:17,030 about the surrounding. 998 00:51:17,030 --> 00:51:19,770 So it would be really cool if you have one program for the 999 00:51:19,770 --> 00:51:24,100 office and one program for at home and one for the journey 1000 00:51:24,100 --> 00:51:25,460 to the office. 1001 00:51:25,460 --> 00:51:30,520 And we carry something around that knows all this. 1002 00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,720 I mean, we have smartphones, and they have a calendar, and 1003 00:51:33,720 --> 00:51:35,050 it shows where you are. 1004 00:51:35,050 --> 00:51:39,350 And it knows the people that you're talking to and even if 1005 00:51:39,350 --> 00:51:40,990 you talk to them on the phone. 1006 00:51:40,990 --> 00:51:43,950 So there could be parameters for each person 1007 00:51:43,950 --> 00:51:44,880 that you talk to. 1008 00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,930 And that could be saved on the smartphone, if there wasn't 1009 00:51:47,930 --> 00:51:51,810 enough space in the memory in the hearing aids themselves. 1010 00:51:51,810 --> 00:51:54,140 So all the information is actually there. 1011 00:51:54,140 --> 00:51:56,040 But I don't see any of the hearing aid 1012 00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:59,390 vendors adapting to that. 1013 00:51:59,390 --> 00:52:03,990 And what I also think, there are people building 3-D models 1014 00:52:03,990 --> 00:52:07,140 of houses, and you could take this information into 1015 00:52:07,140 --> 00:52:08,550 consideration as well. 1016 00:52:08,550 --> 00:52:12,580 So if I have never been to the BCC, but someone has made a 1017 00:52:12,580 --> 00:52:16,440 3-D model, you could also get the characteristics of the 1018 00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:17,540 acoustics here. 1019 00:52:17,540 --> 00:52:20,740 And then, before you go to the Congress, you could download 1020 00:52:20,740 --> 00:52:23,690 the acoustic settings for your hearing aids. 1021 00:52:23,690 --> 00:52:25,020 That would be really cool. 1022 00:52:25,020 --> 00:52:28,240 But, well, this is just ideas. 1023 00:52:28,240 --> 00:52:33,690 Yeah, and then also regarding the hardware, it would be nice 1024 00:52:33,690 --> 00:52:36,210 if there were some open standards. 1025 00:52:36,210 --> 00:52:38,770 It would be cool if you could print your own hearing aids 1026 00:52:38,770 --> 00:52:42,010 with a 3-D printer, at least the part that goes into your 1027 00:52:42,010 --> 00:52:45,110 ear so that it fits really well. 1028 00:52:45,110 --> 00:52:47,290 And there are a lot of possibilities. 1029 00:52:47,290 --> 00:52:49,820 But the market is really, really slow. 1030 00:52:49,820 --> 00:52:52,880 And they still try to figure out how 1031 00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:54,510 do we connect Bluetooth. 1032 00:52:54,510 --> 00:52:59,440 And for me, it's just way too slow. 1033 00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:03,680 I'd like to see more progress in that. 1034 00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:04,030 Yes. 1035 00:53:04,030 --> 00:53:07,490 Actually, with that, I would like to conclude. 1036 00:53:07,490 --> 00:53:11,413 And I have to thank some people who helped me with this 1037 00:53:11,413 --> 00:53:18,210 work, with the talk itself and all the stuff I talked about. 1038 00:53:18,210 --> 00:53:22,490 And yeah, I think we have some minutes for questions. 1039 00:53:22,490 --> 00:53:23,375 FEMALE SPEAKER: Yeah, and that's-- 1040 00:53:23,375 --> 00:53:36,125 [APPLAUSE] 1041 00:53:36,125 --> 00:53:37,500 FEMALE SPEAKER: Wonderful. 1042 00:53:37,500 --> 00:53:40,960 So before we come to the questions, I need to say three 1043 00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:45,410 things, which means please stay seated while the question 1044 00:53:45,410 --> 00:53:47,020 and answers are going on. 1045 00:53:47,020 --> 00:53:49,990 Then please pick up your trash and your water bottles and 1046 00:53:49,990 --> 00:53:51,540 take them out with you. 1047 00:53:51,540 --> 00:53:55,215 And then please leave through the front door here, while the 1048 00:53:55,215 --> 00:53:58,290 last door over there is the entrance for the new people. 1049 00:53:58,290 --> 00:54:00,820 So now we can go over to the question and answers. 1050 00:54:00,820 --> 00:54:03,880 We have a signal angel again in the IRC sitting and 1051 00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:05,130 watching Twitter. 1052 00:54:05,130 --> 00:54:07,850 And we have an audio angel in the back running around with a 1053 00:54:07,850 --> 00:54:08,550 microphone. 1054 00:54:08,550 --> 00:54:10,050 So please, questions now. 1055 00:54:18,159 --> 00:54:19,130 AUDIENCE: Hi. 1056 00:54:19,130 --> 00:54:22,680 I have a question about the cochlear implant [? hat. ?] 1057 00:54:22,680 --> 00:54:28,330 I'm a neuropsychologist. And I know that, with eyes, there's 1058 00:54:28,330 --> 00:54:33,450 an approach to re-engineer the signal 1059 00:54:33,450 --> 00:54:35,290 processing of the retina. 1060 00:54:35,290 --> 00:54:40,950 And with this kind of knowledge, you can make better 1061 00:54:40,950 --> 00:54:42,480 retina implant [? hats ?] 1062 00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:47,250 to enhance the possibilities of seeing with 1063 00:54:47,250 --> 00:54:48,610 this kind of aid. 1064 00:54:48,610 --> 00:54:52,850 And is there a similar approach for hearing aids and 1065 00:54:52,850 --> 00:54:54,240 the cochlear implant [? hat ?]? 1066 00:54:54,240 --> 00:54:55,560 HELGA VELROYEN: There are different 1067 00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:57,340 types of cochlear implants. 1068 00:54:57,340 --> 00:55:02,500 And this is really not much of my field of expertise. 1069 00:55:02,500 --> 00:55:07,590 I know there are those who still use the membrane in the 1070 00:55:07,590 --> 00:55:13,930 ear or some directly, the ones that I showed, that directly 1071 00:55:13,930 --> 00:55:16,530 insert the wire into the nerve. 1072 00:55:16,530 --> 00:55:19,990 But I am not that familiar with the field, so I don't 1073 00:55:19,990 --> 00:55:21,240 know what's coming there. 1074 00:55:23,570 --> 00:55:27,570 AUDIENCE: OK, there's a question from the front row. 1075 00:55:27,570 --> 00:55:30,490 I wonder, is there any connection of research in 1076 00:55:30,490 --> 00:55:33,600 companies like Siemens or whoever builds these parts? 1077 00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:36,180 Is that, in any way, connected with other 1078 00:55:36,180 --> 00:55:39,170 consumer good research? 1079 00:55:39,170 --> 00:55:40,920 I'm not hearing disabled. 1080 00:55:40,920 --> 00:55:45,660 But if somebody would come up with a decent set of in-ear 1081 00:55:45,660 --> 00:55:49,160 headphones that would fit and would be able to have some 1082 00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,410 noise cancellation also, I'd be quite interested in 1083 00:55:52,410 --> 00:55:54,730 spending money on that. 1084 00:55:54,730 --> 00:55:58,315 But this seems to be totally uncorrelated altogether. 1085 00:55:58,315 --> 00:55:59,630 HELGA VELROYEN: Yeah, that's true. 1086 00:55:59,630 --> 00:56:04,900 I mean, it's pretty close to in-ear headphones. 1087 00:56:04,900 --> 00:56:08,970 But it's still, from what I've seen, a different market. 1088 00:56:08,970 --> 00:56:11,710 You still can buy new hearing aids, if you 1089 00:56:11,710 --> 00:56:13,600 don't really use them. 1090 00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:15,630 No one can prevent you from that. 1091 00:56:15,630 --> 00:56:20,710 But I don't see any trend in merging that very much. 1092 00:56:23,770 --> 00:56:24,715 Is there any more questions? 1093 00:56:24,715 --> 00:56:26,060 AUDIENCE: Hello. 1094 00:56:26,060 --> 00:56:30,710 I would like to add two things to your wish list. One thing, 1095 00:56:30,710 --> 00:56:34,220 I would like the hacker community to find out what the 1096 00:56:34,220 --> 00:56:37,260 real differences in devices from different price ranges 1097 00:56:37,260 --> 00:56:40,870 are, what is done in hardware and what is 1098 00:56:40,870 --> 00:56:41,910 actually only firmware. 1099 00:56:41,910 --> 00:56:44,620 My audiologist reported devices coming back from 1100 00:56:44,620 --> 00:56:48,320 repairs or programming to report as more expensive 1101 00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:51,380 devices, for instance, where it's just a firmware thing. 1102 00:56:51,380 --> 00:56:57,390 And the other thing is I see an interesting hacking attack 1103 00:56:57,390 --> 00:57:01,550 angle for hacking in the protocol that the devices use 1104 00:57:01,550 --> 00:57:05,330 to communicate with each other, with the devices which 1105 00:57:05,330 --> 00:57:08,830 transfer Bluetooth into the body area network that really 1106 00:57:08,830 --> 00:57:10,090 speaks to the devices. 1107 00:57:10,090 --> 00:57:13,170 So do you know any off-the-shelf components that 1108 00:57:13,170 --> 00:57:17,142 can speak these body area network protocols? 1109 00:57:17,142 --> 00:57:19,380 HELGA VELROYEN: For the Siemens thing I showed, I 1110 00:57:19,380 --> 00:57:20,230 haven't found anything. 1111 00:57:20,230 --> 00:57:25,270 So this is just that gadget that I have. But I think 1112 00:57:25,270 --> 00:57:28,540 people are experimenting with the audio induction loops and 1113 00:57:28,540 --> 00:57:34,290 the FM systems. But yeah, it's not that much that you can see 1114 00:57:34,290 --> 00:57:35,950 documentation of that. 1115 00:57:35,950 --> 00:57:38,660 So I'd like to see more here. 1116 00:57:38,660 --> 00:57:42,260 I made this talk because I would tell you hackers what's 1117 00:57:42,260 --> 00:57:43,000 on the menu. 1118 00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:45,490 And it would be really nice if there was more 1119 00:57:45,490 --> 00:57:46,620 activity in the scene. 1120 00:57:46,620 --> 00:57:49,980 And it's kind of hard to start that if you're all alone. 1121 00:57:49,980 --> 00:57:55,890 So I hope I've risen some interest. And if you have any 1122 00:57:55,890 --> 00:58:00,360 pointers for me or anything I didn't mention here, I'm also 1123 00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:01,870 happy if you send me an email. 1124 00:58:01,870 --> 00:58:05,186 Or I will be around the next couple of days. 1125 00:58:05,186 --> 00:58:07,430 FEMALE SPEAKER: Before we finish, there are some 1126 00:58:07,430 --> 00:58:10,240 questions from the internet. 1127 00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:13,640 The first one is Gilligan who asked, does the fact that you 1128 00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:16,780 have tinnitus make the process of tuning a hearing aid for 1129 00:58:16,780 --> 00:58:17,780 you harder? 1130 00:58:17,780 --> 00:58:20,700 Does a hearing aid have a negative or positive effect on 1131 00:58:20,700 --> 00:58:22,885 your tinnitus when you wear it? 1132 00:58:22,885 --> 00:58:23,890 HELGA VELROYEN: Of my what? 1133 00:58:23,890 --> 00:58:25,690 Sorry. 1134 00:58:25,690 --> 00:58:26,780 A positive or negative-- 1135 00:58:26,780 --> 00:58:28,815 FEMALE SPEAKER: Does the hearing aid have a negative or 1136 00:58:28,815 --> 00:58:33,150 a positive effect on your tinnitus when you wear it? 1137 00:58:33,150 --> 00:58:35,510 HELGA VELROYEN: Actually, yeah. 1138 00:58:35,510 --> 00:58:39,230 There are hearing aids that claim to [? counter-fy ?] 1139 00:58:39,230 --> 00:58:42,130 the tinnitus, that they generate the 1140 00:58:42,130 --> 00:58:44,440 counter-frequencies against that. 1141 00:58:44,440 --> 00:58:49,560 I also asked my acousticians or my audiologists about that. 1142 00:58:49,560 --> 00:58:50,750 They actually don't work. 1143 00:58:50,750 --> 00:58:53,230 I mean, they usually are not really offered. 1144 00:58:53,230 --> 00:58:56,020 And even if you ask for it, they tell you, yeah, usually 1145 00:58:56,020 --> 00:58:58,770 they don't really make a difference. 1146 00:58:58,770 --> 00:59:01,880 My choice was actually just to make a normal hearing aid. 1147 00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:06,300 And because the frequencies that you don't hear very well 1148 00:59:06,300 --> 00:59:11,590 are amplified, the tinnitus, in relation, gets as loud. 1149 00:59:11,590 --> 00:59:15,510 And you learn to ignore it. 1150 00:59:15,510 --> 00:59:18,080 That's not really magic, but that's the only thing that 1151 00:59:18,080 --> 00:59:19,756 seems to work. 1152 00:59:19,756 --> 00:59:24,870 FEMALE SPEAKER: OK, the next one is from [? Schpegmada ?]? 1153 00:59:24,870 --> 00:59:28,100 Are there hearing aids with documented RP for the tuning 1154 00:59:28,100 --> 00:59:29,790 official doc reverse engineered? 1155 00:59:29,790 --> 00:59:32,450 Can you get the official tuning software to tune 1156 00:59:32,450 --> 00:59:36,240 yourself that you write through any people who 1157 00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:37,200 manufacture them? 1158 00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,830 HELGA VELROYEN: I haven't found anything about that. 1159 00:59:39,830 --> 00:59:43,430 The only thing you can do is get the software on the black 1160 00:59:43,430 --> 00:59:46,160 market and disassemble it, if possible. 1161 00:59:46,160 --> 00:59:48,630 But there are no API system thing. 1162 00:59:48,630 --> 00:59:51,705 That's really what I'm missing as well. 1163 00:59:51,705 --> 00:59:55,770 FEMALE SPEAKER: OK, the last one is from Lucy, I guess. 1164 00:59:55,770 --> 00:59:58,810 What frequency range can you usually hear 1165 00:59:58,810 --> 01:00:00,560 using a cochlear implant? 1166 01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,440 How fine can you resolve frequencies? 1167 01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:06,990 HELGA VELROYEN: They are about the range that you have in the 1168 01:00:06,990 --> 01:00:07,580 speech banana. 1169 01:00:07,580 --> 01:00:09,820 But actually, I'm not that familiar 1170 01:00:09,820 --> 01:00:10,890 with cochlear implants. 1171 01:00:10,890 --> 01:00:15,195 So I can not give the details here. 1172 01:00:15,195 --> 01:00:16,910 AUDIENCE: OK, hi. 1173 01:00:16,910 --> 01:00:22,330 You showed us the programming tool for changing the settings 1174 01:00:22,330 --> 01:00:23,890 on the hearing aid. 1175 01:00:23,890 --> 01:00:27,365 I've forgotten the name, but the 1980's modem. 1176 01:00:27,365 --> 01:00:30,210 Have there been any attempts to clone that hardware or 1177 01:00:30,210 --> 01:00:33,530 reverse-engineer the spec? 1178 01:00:33,530 --> 01:00:36,010 HELGA VELROYEN: I'm not sure if I understood correctly. 1179 01:00:36,010 --> 01:00:39,280 You mean like how you get the hardware for this? 1180 01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,920 AUDIENCE: Yeah, so the moment you have to buy the 1181 01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:43,740 programming tool, as I understand, 1182 01:00:43,740 --> 01:00:44,760 to update the software. 1183 01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:48,730 HELGA VELROYEN: Since it's only delivered and sold to 1184 01:00:48,730 --> 01:00:52,860 audiologists and doctors, you have to be friends with 1185 01:00:52,860 --> 01:00:54,670 audiologists or doctors. 1186 01:00:54,670 --> 01:00:57,250 And somehow they can give you that. 1187 01:00:57,250 --> 01:00:59,190 But there's no official channel. 1188 01:00:59,190 --> 01:01:03,560 So you have to find the black market. 1189 01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:06,970 AUDIENCE: Yeah, sorry, my question was has anyone tried 1190 01:01:06,970 --> 01:01:10,937 to create an open hardware variant? 1191 01:01:10,937 --> 01:01:11,152 HELGA VELROYEN: No. 1192 01:01:11,152 --> 01:01:12,365 AUDIENCE: Has anyone copied? 1193 01:01:12,365 --> 01:01:13,760 HELGA VELROYEN: No, I haven't found 1194 01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:14,780 anything like that either. 1195 01:01:14,780 --> 01:01:19,210 So that was actually also on my wish list, that makes the 1196 01:01:19,210 --> 01:01:21,060 tuning hardware open source as well. 1197 01:01:21,060 --> 01:01:22,290 That would be really nice. 1198 01:01:22,290 --> 01:01:25,880 But it's a serial device, so you could actually do some 1199 01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:26,830 sniffing there. 1200 01:01:26,830 --> 01:01:29,410 But I haven't seen any approaches there. 1201 01:01:29,410 --> 01:01:30,610 AUDIENCE: Yeah, because it looks pretty 1202 01:01:30,610 --> 01:01:31,530 easy, I would say. 1203 01:01:31,530 --> 01:01:32,016 [LAUGHTER] 1204 01:01:32,016 --> 01:01:33,960 AUDIENCE: Yeah. 1205 01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:36,580 FEMALE SPEAKER: So we are running out of time. 1206 01:01:36,580 --> 01:01:40,590 Is there any really, really important question left? 1207 01:01:40,590 --> 01:01:45,180 I mean, because she's around, so you can meet her in the 1208 01:01:45,180 --> 01:01:48,550 next days on the Congress again and 1209 01:01:48,550 --> 01:01:49,610 ask her more questions. 1210 01:01:49,610 --> 01:01:51,480 And thank you very much for the talk. 1211 01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:52,470 It was very interesting. 1212 01:01:52,470 --> 01:02:13,680 [APPLAUSE]