Indisputably, hearing technology has advanced considerably in the last decades. Nonetheless, the basic instrument to improve moderate-to-severe hearing loss, the hearing aid, has remained fundamentally the same since its creation. New developments, such as digital sound processing and directional microphones, have greatly improved the basic device; however, many people continue to spend thousands of dollars on hearing devices that end up in drawers after several weeks or months of use. Audiologists might suggest that what is needed is more training to help a person new to a hearing aid hear the best they can with their aid. Inventor Woody Norris suggests what is needed is a new paradigm for hearing technology.
No novice to sound, Norris is the San Diego-based phenomenon who created the base technology for the sonogram while only in his 20s. Another huge hit was a microphone that picks up a person’s voice through the vibrations in the bones of the head – the technology used in all-in-one cell phone headsets now on the market. Another of Norris’ inventions gained notoriety last November by aiding the crew of a Seaborne Cruise Line ship to foil a pirate attack off the coast of Somalia. Long-range acoustic device (LRAD), intended as a hailing and warning device for the ship, targeted the pirate ship almost two-thirds of a mile away with painfully loud sound that thwarted the attackers.
His latest breakthrough is HyperSonic Sound (HSS), a technology that has been in the spotlight since its debut, having been featured in Newsweek, Discovery and USA Today, to name a few, garnering Norris a great deal of attention. Fortunately for people with hearing loss, Norris is focusing some of his attention on using HSS to improve technology for people with hearing impairment.
Inspired by his mother and other members of his family who have hearing loss, Norris believes it is time to offer a fundamentally different alternative to conventional hearing aids. Starting from the premise that having a microphone adjacent to the receiver and in the ear is a limiting factor that must be abated, Norris’ designing board includes ideas that he believes will perform drastically better than current instruments because of two components: HSS and a remote microphone.
HSS transmits sound in a beam that is highly concentrated – the sound equivalent of laser for light. The advantage of a beam over the typical sound wave is that sound stays “intact” – it does not disperse in all directions as it travels. Beamed sound from 100 yards away can seem as though you are hearing it through headphones. HSS provides a broader band width – a greater range in the lower and higher frequencies – than can be achieved through digital sound processing. It also provides better fidelity, which means electronically processed sound traveling through a receiver and amplifier sounds more like the source.
With potential applications from marketing to military weapons, HSS has turned the heads of major corporations and the military, including Wal-Mart, Sony, McDonald’s and the United States Navy. The limitation of this revolution in sound is that one must be “in the beam” to hear HSS. Walk away from the beam and you walk right out of the sound. But what if you could take the beam with you? HSS “to go” is the concept Norris believes can make a significant difference for people with hearing loss.
Like many great inventors before him, Norris’ brilliant idea of using HSS for people with hearing loss was more the product of a happy accident than a carefully formulated theory. One afternoon, he was demonstrating HSS to a factory rep who had brought his wife along. “I aimed the HSS at the rep’s wife and as I was talking with him, I glanced over at her and noticed she had tears in her eyes. She told me she was almost totally deaf in one ear but when she heard HSS, it seemed like the sound was centered in her head. Now, I always make sure I let any visitors with hearing loss have that same experience. They hear a much more natural sound than a hearing aid can produce.”
Norris is working on a lightweight emitter approximately one-tenth of an inch thick that can be worn near the ear, thus alleviating another frequent complaint of hearing aid wearers, that of sore and uncomfortable ears. The emitter would receive the HSS beam from a wireless remote microphone that is truly directional. There is a patent pending on the use of HSS as a hearing aid.
Norris cites one of the main problems with current hearing aid technology as the microphone’s placement. Located next to the speaker/amplifier, not only does it inevitably cause feedback, but confining it to the tiny hearing device limits its power and flexibility. The best directional microphones available in today’s hearing aids point to the front or accept sounds from all directions equally and they make the “decision” to direct to the front versus all directions automatically. However, it is not possible to aim a hearing aid microphone in a specific direction, at the passenger seated next to you in the car, for instance. Given the limitations of the conventional hearing aid, current microphone technology is impressive yet cannot compare to the performance of truly directional microphones in use in the entertainment industry – the high-powered stick microphones such as those used in movie-making. Norris says to harness this potential, the microphone must have size and it must be controlled by the human hand, not a listening program. Norris’ microphone solution for people with hearing loss looks a lot like an ink pen. For what users might give up in the convenience of having the microphone neatly packaged in an earmold shell, they would gain significantly in sound, Norris maintains.
Norris expects his alternative to the hearing aid could be the first of several products available for people with hearing loss. Further from the shelves is an idea for a technology that would bypass the ear’s heavy equipment – the hammer, anvil and stirrup – to “shake up” the saline-based cochlear fluid by way of an electromagnetic impulse via a small exterior attachment also tapping HSS to deliver the sound.
If he works diligently, Norris might have enough time to bring his idea to fruition by the time, according to his own estimates, that even his own technologies will have become obsolete. The visionary Norris realizes his endeavors are interim solutions while we await the root cure. Norris estimates, “In 15 years, maybe less, every aspect of hearing problems will be cured with our knowledge of genetic engineering.” He predicts that we will learn to regrow hair cells in the human ear, a field of study in its infancy now, and that the study of the miniscule will revolutionize hearing healthcare, as well as other healthcare fields. “We’ll be fixed for Mother Nature’s failings and enhanced with bio- and nanotechnologies. I have recently come to realize that not very much of significance has been invented yet. If we live long enough, we’ll get to see some of it,” reflects Norris.
