I

N
N
O
V
A
T
O
R

S

C
O
R
N
E
R
iMergence: iPhone
and the Hearing Industry
Brent Edwards, Ph.D.
science fact of today. So how is it even possible
to predict where technology will be in the next
20 years? The next 10? Or even the next ve?
In order to understand what the future holds, we
can look to what is happening today. Theres a
convergence of thinking, conrmed by the Consumer
Electronics Show, that wearable computing is the
next wave in technology. Google

Glass
TM
is the most
famous example of this wearable computer wave, but
Glass is just the beginning of things to come, just like
pagers were the beginning of mobile communication.
Eventually, Glass will evolve into something that will
be used by everyone and be pervasive throughout
society. Hearing professionals have been tting
wearable computers hearing aids on people
for years. Thats right: hearing aids are the worlds
rst wearable microcomputers. They are worn all
day; they integrate technology with human perception;
they enhance the capabilities of the wearer all
things that dene wearable computing. In the same
way that Glass is just a rst glimpse of an explosion
of things to come in wearable visual computing, the
Made for iPhone

(MFi) Hearing Aid is just the rst

glimpse of an explosion of things to come in wearable
audio computing.
Technology is developing at an accelerated pace.
While it took the telephone 64 years after its
introduction to reach 40-percent market penetration,
the smartphone took only 10 years to do the same.
Ten years ago, people still looked for information in
physical encyclopedia books instead of on Wikipedia;
Gmail

, Facebook

and Twitter

didnt exist. Four years

ago, iPad

didnt exist; Blackberry

and Nokia

were
the biggest smartphone makers in the world. More
inventions were created in the last 13 years than in
30 years before that, which saw more inventions than
the previous 100 years.
What does this mean for the future of technology?
Ray Kurzweil, one of the greatest inventors and
technology thinkers of our time, predicts that this
technology acceleration will soon produce what he
calls a singularity, where technology will advance so
rapidly that humans will not be able to keep up with
it, let alone comprehend it. Kurzweil also predicts that
hand in hand with a singularity will be the integration
of man with machine, where nanobots exist throughout
your body to ght disease, and people will wear
technology to enhance physical and mental capabilities
(Kurzweil, 2014). That seems pretty far out there,
doesnt it? Or does it?
People today can take pills with embedded technology
that transmits information to a patch on the skin and
from there to an iPhone

app. People today can move

robotic arms just by thinking about that movement by
using current brain sensor technology. A one-legged
man earlier this year climbed the 103 stories of the
Willis Sears Tower using a thought-controlled, bionic
leg. All of these would have been unimaginable just
ve years ago the science ction of yesterday is the
The science ction of yesterday
is the science fact of today ...
Wearable computing is the
next wave in technology.
It took the telephone 64 years
after its introduction to reach
40-percent market penetration;
the smartphone took only
10 years to do the same.
15 14 STARKEY.COM/BLOG
INNOVATIONS | VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2 | 2014
I
N
N
O
V
A
T
O
R

S

C
O
R
N
E
R
iMergence: iPhone
and the Hearing Industry
Brent Edwards, Ph.D.
science fact of today. So how is it even possible
to predict where technology will be in the next
20 years? The next 10? Or even the next ve?
In order to understand what the future holds, we
can look to what is happening today. Theres a
convergence of thinking, conrmed by the Consumer
Electronics Show, that wearable computing is the
next wave in technology. Google

Glass
TM
is the most
famous example of this wearable computer wave, but
Glass is just the beginning of things to come, just like
pagers were the beginning of mobile communication.
Eventually, Glass will evolve into something that will
be used by everyone and be pervasive throughout
society. Hearing professionals have been tting
wearable computers hearing aids on people
for years. Thats right: hearing aids are the worlds
rst wearable microcomputers. They are worn all
day; they integrate technology with human perception;
they enhance the capabilities of the wearer all
things that dene wearable computing. In the same
way that Glass is just a rst glimpse of an explosion
of things to come in wearable visual computing, the
Made for iPhone

(MFi) Hearing Aid is just the rst

glimpse of an explosion of things to come in wearable
audio computing.
Technology is developing at an accelerated pace.
While it took the telephone 64 years after its
introduction to reach 40-percent market penetration,
the smartphone took only 10 years to do the same.
Ten years ago, people still looked for information in
physical encyclopedia books instead of on Wikipedia;
Gmail

, Facebook

and Twitter

didnt exist. Four years

ago, iPad

didnt exist; Blackberry

and Nokia

were
the biggest smartphone makers in the world. More
inventions were created in the last 13 years than in
30 years before that, which saw more inventions than
the previous 100 years.
What does this mean for the future of technology?
Ray Kurzweil, one of the greatest inventors and
technology thinkers of our time, predicts that this
technology acceleration will soon produce what he
calls a singularity, where technology will advance so
rapidly that humans will not be able to keep up with
it, let alone comprehend it. Kurzweil also predicts that
hand in hand with a singularity will be the integration
of man with machine, where nanobots exist throughout
your body to ght disease, and people will wear
technology to enhance physical and mental capabilities
(Kurzweil, 2014). That seems pretty far out there,
doesnt it? Or does it?
People today can take pills with embedded technology
that transmits information to a patch on the skin and
from there to an iPhone

app. People today can move

robotic arms just by thinking about that movement by
using current brain sensor technology. A one-legged
man earlier this year climbed the 103 stories of the
Willis Sears Tower using a thought-controlled, bionic
leg. All of these would have been unimaginable just
ve years ago the science ction of yesterday is the
The science ction of yesterday
is the science fact of today ...
Wearable computing is the
next wave in technology.
It took the telephone 64 years
after its introduction to reach
40-percent market penetration;
the smartphone took only
10 years to do the same.
15 14 STARKEY.COM/BLOG
INNOVATIONS | VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2 | 2014
We need to understand the needs of patients. And one
way we will understand those needs is through a design
thinking approach. Design Thinking takes a human-
centered approach to data gathering to understand the
unarticulated needs of patients. It relies heavily on the
observation of users in their normal environments at
home, at work, when socializing, when working out to
create a deep understanding of their needs and develop
simple and effective solutions to those needs.
A great example of design thinking success is the
company Nest

, founded by Tony Fadell, the former

Apple exec who invented the iPod

and led the

development of the rst three iPhone versions. Nest
is revolutionizing mundane home appliances like
home thermostats and home smoke alarms. Fadell has
achieved this through the application of Design Thinking
to understand the needs of customers and the creative
integration of those two products with iPhone. Fadells
philosophy for how to revolutionize a product is to think
of the product as iPhone. He calls the Nest thermostat
iPhone as a thermostat. When thinking about how to
revolutionize the smoke alarm, he asked himself what
iPhone as a smoke alarm is. iPhone doesnt replace these
products it enhances them. So, what is iPhone as a
hearing aid? It does not replace hearing aids, but instead
enhances their capabilities by integrating them with
iPhone and creating amazing opportunities never before
seen in our industry. That is the question we face right
now, what is iPhone as a hearing aid? The answer to that
will dene the future.
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
While I suspect that Ray Kurzweils singularity,
if it happens at all, will not happen in our
lifetime, I do believe that our technology and
our business and our patients will change
over the next several years. It is impossible to
know how. But heres a vision: The
traditional patient will always be with
us the 70+ patient who is retired
and not tech savvy and wants to talk
to his or her grandkids and needs
counseling and rehabilitation
for hearing loss. In fact, this
traditional group will grow as
the average life expectancy
continues to increase. But a new
client group will also appear.
In the same way that Glass is
going to evolve to solve unmet needs and be
useful for everyone, MFi hearing aids will evolve
in the same way. This technology will
provide benet for everyone, not just
people with a hearing loss. People with
normal hearing are going to want this
product. When that happens, that elusive
underserved patient professionals in their
50s with mild hearing loss will become
clients, not because they are seeking a
hearing aid, but because they want
this amazing technology that
everyone is wearing and that,
by the way, also helps with
the speech understanding
problem that they are
starting to experience.
If you want to provide
solutions for this new group, you are going to have to
change because they are going to require a different
approach to tting and selling. Your traditional
business model that will continue to work well for
traditional patients wont work for these early adopters,
and these early adopters will be there, demanding
their Personal Audio Network, demanding their audio
wearable computer, demanding all those amazing
features that will result from MFi Hearing Aids over the
next decade. So the important thing about the future,
ultimately, is the emergence of this new group of early
adopters wanting a solution. Will you continue to serve
the traditional patient only, or will you change with the
future to serve both the traditional patient and this
new group as well? That future is predictable
because it lies in your hands.
REFERENCES
Kurzweil, R. (2014). Ray Kurzweil: Technology and the New,
Improved You. Ray Kurzweil says technology will make us smarter,
healthier and more productive. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023035
19404579352991317516828.
Luhrmann, T. (2010). What Students Can Teach Us About iPhones.
Salon. Retrieved from www.salon.com.
"Made for iPhone," means that an electronic accessory has been
designed to connect specically to iPhone, and has been certied
by the developer to meet Apple performance standards. Apple is
not responsible for the operation of this device or its compliance
with safety and regulatory standards. Please note that the use of
this accessory with iPhone may affect wireless performance.
Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and FaceTime are
trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.
What is the future of this technology? We can look
at trends in visual wearable computing that are occurring
today to give us a hint of what to expect in the audio
wearable computing world. Researchers today are
working on three breakthrough areas in visual wearable
computing by augmenting reality, by diminishing reality
and by mediating reality.
Augmented reality is taking what you see and
enhancing it in some way. For example, just by looking
in a certain direction in London one can see where the
nearest Tube stations are and how far away they are
(Figure 1).
Diminished reality eliminates unnecessary objects in
your visual sight and allows you to focus on important
things. Visually, researchers have developed ways to
eliminate unwanted objects from view (Figure 2).
Mediated reality, on the other hand, is not limited
to enhancing or diminishing what is currently being
perceived but adding to it in many creative ways. For
example, a person is sculpting a vase that doesnt exist in
real life, but as far as her visual reality is concerned,
it is real (Figure 3).
All the ideas being developed with visual wearable
computing have equivalents with audio wearable
computing. Hearing aids today do augmented reality with
multiband compression and diminished reality with noise
reduction. MFi technology allows us to go far beyond
these concepts and provide augmented, diminished and
mediated reality with what people hear. Where this will
lead and how MFi technology will enhance our hearing
life in ve to 10 years is impossible to imagine.
Some people are concerned about how iPhone will affect
people and society. A recent study at Stanford University
found that 75 percent of iPhone users fell asleep with
an iPhone in bed with them, just two percent less than
the number who said they slept in the same bed with
their spouses (Luhrmann, 2010). Now I dont know if
iPhone can affect marriages, but it can affect products,
technologies and whole industries.
Two years ago there was a $300 product that read to the
blind what denomination a bill was, telling them whether
they had a ve-dollar bill or a 20-dollar bill. Today, that
product has been replaced by a 99-cent app. Ive heard
people ask if the same thing will happen to the hearing
aid industry whether hearing aids will be replaced by
an iPhone app. To answer that, you have to ask if an app
will meet the needs of a hearing aid wearer. It is discreet?
Can it be comfortably worn all day? Is it high delity? Is
it user-friendly? Does it improve speech understanding?
Does it reduce listening effort? Can you imagine a
patient spending all day holding iPhone toward what
they want to hear so that the earpiece can hear an
amplied version of the sound being picked up by the
iPhone mic? Guess what, that technology existed a long
time ago it was called a body aid, and hearing aids
have evolved far beyond basic body aids. iPhone wont
replace hearing aids but will spectacularly enhance
them by integrating with them to create new patient
benets never before seen.
DESIGN THINKING
How is Starkey Hearing Technologies going to develop
these wearable computer technologies and Personal
Audio Network features that will change peoples lives?
Figure 1: Augmented reality.
Figure 2: Diminished reality.
Figure 3: Mediated reality.
17 16 STARKEY.COM/BLOG
INNOVATIONS | VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2 | 2014
We need to understand the needs of patients. And one
way we will understand those needs is through a design
thinking approach. Design Thinking takes a human-
centered approach to data gathering to understand the
unarticulated needs of patients. It relies heavily on the
observation of users in their normal environments at
home, at work, when socializing, when working out to
create a deep understanding of their needs and develop
simple and effective solutions to those needs.
A great example of design thinking success is the
company Nest

, founded by Tony Fadell, the former

Apple exec who invented the iPod

and led the

development of the rst three iPhone versions. Nest
is revolutionizing mundane home appliances like
home thermostats and home smoke alarms. Fadell has
achieved this through the application of Design Thinking
to understand the needs of customers and the creative
integration of those two products with iPhone. Fadells
philosophy for how to revolutionize a product is to think
of the product as iPhone. He calls the Nest thermostat
iPhone as a thermostat. When thinking about how to
revolutionize the smoke alarm, he asked himself what
iPhone as a smoke alarm is. iPhone doesnt replace these
products it enhances them. So, what is iPhone as a
hearing aid? It does not replace hearing aids, but instead
enhances their capabilities by integrating them with
iPhone and creating amazing opportunities never before
seen in our industry. That is the question we face right
now, what is iPhone as a hearing aid? The answer to that
will dene the future.
A VISION OF THE FUTURE
While I suspect that Ray Kurzweils singularity,
if it happens at all, will not happen in our
lifetime, I do believe that our technology and
our business and our patients will change
over the next several years. It is impossible to
know how. But heres a vision: The
traditional patient will always be with
us the 70+ patient who is retired
and not tech savvy and wants to talk
to his or her grandkids and needs
counseling and rehabilitation
for hearing loss. In fact, this
traditional group will grow as
the average life expectancy
continues to increase. But a new
client group will also appear.
In the same way that Glass is
going to evolve to solve unmet needs and be
useful for everyone, MFi hearing aids will evolve
in the same way. This technology will
provide benet for everyone, not just
people with a hearing loss. People with
normal hearing are going to want this
product. When that happens, that elusive
underserved patient professionals in their
50s with mild hearing loss will become
clients, not because they are seeking a
hearing aid, but because they want
this amazing technology that
everyone is wearing and that,
by the way, also helps with
the speech understanding
problem that they are
starting to experience.
If you want to provide
solutions for this new group, you are going to have to
change because they are going to require a different
approach to tting and selling. Your traditional
business model that will continue to work well for
traditional patients wont work for these early adopters,
and these early adopters will be there, demanding
their Personal Audio Network, demanding their audio
wearable computer, demanding all those amazing
features that will result from MFi Hearing Aids over the
next decade. So the important thing about the future,
ultimately, is the emergence of this new group of early
adopters wanting a solution. Will you continue to serve
the traditional patient only, or will you change with the
future to serve both the traditional patient and this
new group as well? That future is predictable
because it lies in your hands.
REFERENCES
Kurzweil, R. (2014). Ray Kurzweil: Technology and the New,
Improved You. Ray Kurzweil says technology will make us smarter,
healthier and more productive. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023035
19404579352991317516828.
Luhrmann, T. (2010). What Students Can Teach Us About iPhones.
Salon. Retrieved from www.salon.com.
"Made for iPhone," means that an electronic accessory has been
designed to connect specically to iPhone, and has been certied
by the developer to meet Apple performance standards. Apple is
not responsible for the operation of this device or its compliance
with safety and regulatory standards. Please note that the use of
this accessory with iPhone may affect wireless performance.
Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and FaceTime are
trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.
What is the future of this technology? We can look
at trends in visual wearable computing that are occurring
today to give us a hint of what to expect in the audio
wearable computing world. Researchers today are
working on three breakthrough areas in visual wearable
computing by augmenting reality, by diminishing reality
and by mediating reality.
Augmented reality is taking what you see and
enhancing it in some way. For example, just by looking
in a certain direction in London one can see where the
nearest Tube stations are and how far away they are
(Figure 1).
Diminished reality eliminates unnecessary objects in
your visual sight and allows you to focus on important
things. Visually, researchers have developed ways to
eliminate unwanted objects from view (Figure 2).
Mediated reality, on the other hand, is not limited
to enhancing or diminishing what is currently being
perceived but adding to it in many creative ways. For
example, a person is sculpting a vase that doesnt exist in
real life, but as far as her visual reality is concerned,
it is real (Figure 3).
All the ideas being developed with visual wearable
computing have equivalents with audio wearable
computing. Hearing aids today do augmented reality with
multiband compression and diminished reality with noise
reduction. MFi technology allows us to go far beyond
these concepts and provide augmented, diminished and
mediated reality with what people hear. Where this will
lead and how MFi technology will enhance our hearing
life in ve to 10 years is impossible to imagine.
Some people are concerned about how iPhone will affect
people and society. A recent study at Stanford University
found that 75 percent of iPhone users fell asleep with
an iPhone in bed with them, just two percent less than
the number who said they slept in the same bed with
their spouses (Luhrmann, 2010). Now I dont know if
iPhone can affect marriages, but it can affect products,
technologies and whole industries.
Two years ago there was a $300 product that read to the
blind what denomination a bill was, telling them whether
they had a ve-dollar bill or a 20-dollar bill. Today, that
product has been replaced by a 99-cent app. Ive heard
people ask if the same thing will happen to the hearing
aid industry whether hearing aids will be replaced by
an iPhone app. To answer that, you have to ask if an app
will meet the needs of a hearing aid wearer. It is discreet?
Can it be comfortably worn all day? Is it high delity? Is
it user-friendly? Does it improve speech understanding?
Does it reduce listening effort? Can you imagine a
patient spending all day holding iPhone toward what
they want to hear so that the earpiece can hear an
amplied version of the sound being picked up by the
iPhone mic? Guess what, that technology existed a long
time ago it was called a body aid, and hearing aids
have evolved far beyond basic body aids. iPhone wont
replace hearing aids but will spectacularly enhance
them by integrating with them to create new patient
benets never before seen.
DESIGN THINKING
How is Starkey Hearing Technologies going to develop
these wearable computer technologies and Personal
Audio Network features that will change peoples lives?
Figure 1: Augmented reality.
Figure 2: Diminished reality.
Figure 3: Mediated reality.
17 16 STARKEY.COM/BLOG
INNOVATIONS | VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2 | 2014