David Kirkwood

A longtime observer of the hearing healthcare scene, David Kirkwood was editor-in-chief of The Hearing Journal from 1990 through 2010. Among the honors he received was a 2006 President’s Award from the American Academy of Audiology. Previously, he spent 15 years as editor and publisher of a weekly community newspaper in Scarsdale, NY. Before finding his way into journalism, he earned degrees in history from Cornell University (where he was an outstanding pinball player) and the University of California at Berkeley. When he isn’t blogging at Hearing Health & Technology Matters, David enjoys spending time with his wife, Annie, going to plays and movies in New York, traveling, and relaxing in their vacation place in Mid-Coast Maine. His other avocations include rooting for the Yankees and throwing tennis balls for his puli, Isaac.

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Five inventors of the cochlear implant to be awarded Russ Prize in engineering

WASHINGTON, DC–Five scientists whose contributions led to the invention of the cochlear implant, which has provided hearing to hundreds of thousands of deaf people, will receive the 2015 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, awarded biennially by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The honorees–Graeme M. Clark, MD, PhD; Michael M. Merzenich, PhD; Erwin Hochmair, D.Tech; Ingeborg J. Hochmair-Desoyer, PhD;

Bernstein Research is bullish on ReSound; sees it gaining on Sonova and Demant

By David H. Kirkwood LONDON–Bernstein Research, a leading analyst of the hearing aid industry, sees continued growth and higher stock prices in 2015 and beyond for GN Store Nord (GN), parent company of ReSound. However, as the title of its latest report, Hearing Aids: A Review of the Major Sector Trends Going into 2015. Still Prefer GN and Would Stay

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Hearing aid from ReSound called an “innovation that improved the world”

BLOOMINGTON, MN—Rarely is a hearing aid credited by anyone outside the hearing industry with changing the world. But that is just what happened when Mashable.com selected ReSound LiNX as one of “14 innovations that improved the world in 2014.” LiNX, which was introduced last January, is a Bluetooth-enabled hearing aid that allows the user to stream stereo sound

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NPR joins the audiology world in celebrating the life of Marion Downs

DENVER—As 2014 drew to a close, National Public Radio paid tribute to the late Dr. Marion Downs as someone whose life’s story deserved to be better known than it had been. On the December 28 broadcast of the program All Things Considered, the NPR reporter Becky Sullivan noted that until the past 20 years or so babies who were

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FCC asks for comments on revising rules for hearing aid-wireless compatibility

WASHINGTON, DC—How well are the current Federal Communication Commission (FCC) hearing aid compatibility rules for wireless handsets meeting the needs of people who are deaf and hard of hearing? And should the compatibility rules be changed to apply to all mobile wireless devices used for voice communications? Those are issues that the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunication Bureau and its Consumer and

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Readers’ Choice 2014: Phonak and Costco team up

Dear Readers: During this holiday season, the editors at Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) are taking some time off. However, we are not leaving you without anything to read on our blog this week. Instead, we are publishing a special holiday edition filled with what we call our Readers’ Choices. HHTM has had more than half a million page

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A rising IntriCon will provide hearing aids to the UK’s National Health Service

By David H. Kirkwood ARDEN HILLS, MN—Hearing care providers are familiar with the world’s “Big Six” hearing aid manufacturers, or at least their flagship brands. That’s only natural, as together Sonova, William Demant, GN Store Nord, Siemens, Starkey, and Widex account for over 90% of the devices sold in the U.S. and Western Europe. However, while their names are much

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AARP launches a Hearing Resource Center

WASHINGTON, DC—If more than 25 million of your members have a hearing loss, it really does makes sense to offer them information about the condition and how to address it. That’s just what AARP announced last week that it was doing with the launch of its Hearing Resource Center. The purpose of the online platform is to provide AARP’s

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Audiology Patient Choice Act picks up momentum, as AAA adds its endorsement

By David H. Kirkwood LEXINGTON, KY—Support is growing rapidly for the Audiology Patient Choice Act (HR 5304), ambitious federal legislation initiated by the Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA) and introduced into the House of Representatives last July. If enacted, the measure would provide Medicare patients direct access to audiologists and would grant audiologists limited license status within Medicare.

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As use of wind power grows, so do fears that turbines may be hazardous to your ears

There is no more fiercely disputed topic these days than what source of energy we should draw on to power our ever-more power-consuming world. Words and phrases like greenhouse gases, war on coal, Solyndra, Keystone pipeline, fracking, Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl, energy independence, rising sea level, global warming and scientific conspiracy are invoked to defend or attack pretty much every