Dr. Hosford-Dunn began blogging in her audiology private practice in Tucson, AZ. Back in 2009, blogging was a new and interesting way to quickly share and improve information with colleagues, consumers, and patients. As blogging gained attention, she had the opportunity to serve as chief editor of a multi-author blog for an hearing industry publication. The format was fun and successful. It rapidly evolved into Hearing Health & Technology Matters! (HHTM), an independent blogsite that she founded in partnership with other colleagues in 2011. Since its inception, Dr. Hosford-Dunn has served as HHTM’s first Editor-in-Chief, then Managing Editor, and now is CFO of the organization. After graduating with a BA and MA in Communication Disorders from New Mexico State, she completed a PhD in Hearing Sciences at Stanford and did post-docs at Max Planck Institute (Germany) and Eaton-Peabody Auditory Physiology Lab (Boston). Post-education, she directed the Stanford University Audiology Clinic; developed multi-office private practices in Arizona; authored/edited numerous text books, chapters, journals, and articles; and taught Marketing, Practice Management, Hearing Science, Auditory Electrophysiology, and Amplification in a variety of academic settings. Dr. Hosford-Dunn participates in life long learning by writing weekly posts and by embracing sequential learning endeavors. She spent a year training with the Gemological Institute of America, gaining certification as a Graduate Gemologist (GIA). She graduated with a B.A. in Economics and Psychology from the University of Arizona in 2013. Currently — and probably forever — she studies the Spanish language.
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Mar. 06, 2024

Ear device patents for January 2024

Holly Hosford-Dunn
ObjectVideo Labs’s patent 11875571, is for hearing aid users who stay at home, but not in the way you’d think. Entitled Smart hearing assistance in monitored property, the patent envisions the house as a wireless blueprint for everyday activities in which: An analysis system can communicate with sensors included in a smart home to improve audio content provided to a
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Feb. 07, 2024

Ear device patents for December 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Selective Listening Ups Its Game Magic Leap’s patent #11843931, Efficient rendering of virtual soundfields, proposes different processing methods, depending on the number of sounds in your surround. There’s one method for small numbers of sounds and another for large numbers. The goal is to develop an audio system … that increases the efficiency based on the number of sound sources
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Jan. 02, 2024

Ear device patents for November 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
You Know I Can’t Hear You When the Water’s Running Hearing Aid Counseling 101 usually includes the caution against magical thinking that hearing aids enable wearers to hear through walls when others are talking or shouting at them from other locations. It’s a communication mismatch where the odds are stacked against the wearer — not only is s/he expected to
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Dec. 07, 2023

Ear device patents for October 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Lookin’ Good and Driving Good Self driving vehicles are a reality now, which has ushered in a great deal of thinking and innovation to ensure safety for those in the car and in the surround. That includes the car being able to hear in varying driving conditions. Not surprisingly, such thinking also extends in a good way to cars driven
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Oct. 25, 2023

Ear device patents for September 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Sonova’s patent #11758341 has an intriguing title: Coached fitting in the field.  Whatever the coaching, it seems to involve a hearing device [which] may comprise a plurality of preset hearing programs and at least one configurable hearing program. Regents Of The University Of Minnesota’s patent #11765523, Ultrasonic hearing system and related methods, uses a microphone  and creates modulated ultrasound signals
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Oct. 02, 2023

Ear device patents for August 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Apple’s patent #11716567 works the headset comfort angle by eliminating it.  It describes a device worn on the user’s clothing, directing audio to the ears while limiting audibility to others: the privacy of the audio directed to the user can be maintained without requiring the user to wear audio headsets on, over, or in the ears of the user. Apple being
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Sep. 07, 2023

Ear device patents for July 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
The aptly named MDIdeaFactory Inc has come up with an uncomfortable new application for in-ear devices, melding autonomic response with classic Skinnerian psychology to shape wearers’ behaviors. Negative reinforcement isn’t a new idea but adopting ear calorics for that purpose may explain the MDIdea part of the company’s name. Their patent #11707380, Ear apparatus and methods of use, describes a
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Aug. 06, 2023

Ear device patents for June 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Big Tech has been in the hearing device sector for awhile now. Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised to see Intel-the-chip-maker pop up as Intel-the-hearing-device-devisor in June with two patents: 11688515 Mobile device based techniques for detection and prevention of hearing loss 11684516 Hearing protection and communication apparatus using vibration sensors But some of us were surprised and wanted to
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Jul. 13, 2023

Ear device patents for May 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Fun and Useful Things to Do with Your Earbuds Bragi’s patent #11651238 for an Earpiece advisor offers new and improved ways to provide opportunities for contextual or potentially sponsored content in a manner helpful to users and viewed favorably by users. In case you weren’t aware that you needed such earbud help, Bragi notes that too much advertising can be
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Jun. 08, 2023

Ear device patents for April 2023

Holly Hosford-Dunn
Toss our baby out with the bath water…. Iyo Inc, a “secret moonshot startup founded by ex-Google leaders,” doesn’t think much of hearing aids. Their patent #11632648, for an Ear-mountable listening device having a ring-shaped microphone array for beamforming, iterates the many failings of hearing aids as follows (heavily paraphrased): Hearing aids … often fail to accurately reproduce environmental cues