EDEN PRAIRIE, MINNESOTA — Starkey Hearing Technologies recently announced that it was expanding its global research and development (R&D) by establishing an advanced development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, and that it would be closing the company’s research center located in Berkeley, California.
Amit Shahar, hired by the company to be the new VP of Advanced Development, will head up the center in Tel Aviv. Prior to to joining Starkey, Shahar was the senior director of the Systems Innovations Group at Intel, and will now be reporting directly to Starkey CTO and Executive VP of Engineering Achin Bhowmik, who is also a former Intel executive.
The move, according to Starkey, is designed to expand the company’s global footprint. The Israeli R&D team, which will complement the company’s research conducted at it’s headquarters in Minnesota, will focus on biosensor technology, algorithm development and signal processing research.
Starkey Offers Glimpse of New Livio AI Hearing Aid
As first reported by the Hearing Review, Starkey recently offered a small glimpse of its upcoming Livio AI hearing aid this week. According to the report, and the video preview (seen below), the soon-to-be-revealed device is said to be the “world’s first hearing aid with sensors and artificial intelligence”.
There are no further details on what the sensors may do, but speculation on possible fitness and/or health applications have been mentioned.
Starkey is said to reveal details of the new device on August 27th.
