Digital helpers for the hearing impaired
From: EurekAlert! - 08/16/2010

In response to the difficulties that Germans with hearing impairements have
communicating over the telephone or voice-over-Internet, developers at the
Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology IDMT in Oldenburg have come
up with a digital solution. In the "Speech-Improved Telephony" project
sponsored by the federal ministry for the economy and technology BMWi, they
work on algorithms typically used for hearing aids that can at least
partially compensate for the hearing loss. The trick: Each hearing impaired
person has quite specific frequencies that are difficult for him or her.
"Adjusted to the individual user, soft signals are intensified while loud
signals remain unchanged since they would otherwise be perceived as
unpleasantly loud," explains engineer Stefan Goetze of the Hearing, Speech
and Audio Technology project group at IDMT. The system also detects
background noises and reduces these to a minimum. This provides advantages
not only to people who have difficulty hearing. If a call originates from a
loud environment, such as an open-plan office, even persons with normal
hearing can benefit from the signal processing. The system can be set for
each call in such a manner that it delivers a consistently intelligible sound
pattern. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/f-dhf081610.php

Links:
Digital Media Technology IDMT
http://www.idmt.fraunhofer.de/index_eng.html

Stefan Goetz
stefan.goetze@idmt.fraunhofer.de