Hearing Economics

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD.  For those of you who have been reading my monthly posts, you know that my focus has been on exploring the differences between the medical and rehabilitative models of audiology. I’m devoting this month’s post, however, to something a little different – a response to Dr. Amyn Amlani’s thoughtful

“Signal & Noise” is a bimonthly, or sometimes monthly, column by Brian Taylor, AuD.   Disruptive innovation is a hot topic within our industry. The mere utterance of the term “disruptive innovation” at a confrence likely conjures thoughts of futuristic gadgets and gizmos that eliminate the need for audiologists and hearing instrument specialists.  Look no further than the May-June 2015

Today’s post by frequent contributor Amyn Amlani, PhD,  is a fitting salute to David Kirkwood, who retires this week as Editor-in-Chief of HHTM.  Kirkwood was first to report MarkeTrak IX findings, a month before they became available to the public.  Wayne Staab, HHTM’s new Editor-in-Chief, followed Kirkwood’s lead with two posts analyzing portions of the MarkeTrak report several weeks before

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD.  To date, “Peeling the Onion” has focused on a rehabilitative approach to audiologic treatment to include such concepts as the Health Belief and Transtheoretical (Stages of Change) models. The primary objective (and, many would say, the compelling advantage) of the rehabilitative approach is to better understand the needs of

Q: What if the hearing aid industry  designed its own auditory augmentation “facilitory system” to compete with existing visions on the drawing boards of giant software and consumer electronics companies? That rhetorical question, posed previously, envisioned an industry-wide platform strategy built on existing binaural, Bluetooth-enabled RIC-type products with the requisite amplification features married to emerging Hearable connectivities to the Internet

Samsung Electronics’ history of suit-counter-suit patent-infringement litigation was referenced last post.  The patent-infringement lawsuit strategy is not peculiar to Samsung.  Such lawsuits increased by 25% in 2013 online pharmacy buy actos online no prescription pharmacy .  Recent bills introduced in the US House and Senate have bipartisan congressional and White House support.  Among other things, the bills propose to reduce

It makes sense for  companies like Apple and Samsung to gain competitive advantage through optimized supply chains that  “lock up key product and component supplies.” (4/21/15 post) Samsung Electronics agrees, judging by recent developments in its patent activity, infrastructure, component acquisitions, and newly announced products.  Moreover, Samsung Electronics thinks it makes especially good sense to focus on the hearing aid industry in

“Peeling the Onion” is a monthly column by Harvey Abrams, PhD “There is nothing wrong with change as long as it is in the right direction” – Winston Churchill   To date, the theme of my posts has focused on the two primary approaches to audiologic care – medical and rehabilitative. The rehabilitative approach recognizes adult-onset hearing loss as a

The last post described future ear-level devices as conduits for highly personalized, exquisitely targeted, near and far-field individual communication systems that work in real time.  Such a vision combines past and ongoing R&D efforts in Hearables, Hearing Aids, and Augmented Reality (AR).  As the media hypes it, these will not be your grandfather’s hearing aids and this will not be

A previous post floated the idea that ear-level amplification processing, including cochlear implants, represents the first and most advanced wearable Augmented Reality (AR)  available to a widespread consumer market to date.  It also noted that AR is considered an “emerging” field in which many psychoacoustic thoughts and hearing aid components are being rediscovered and rethought by smart people in other fields.