EoW January 2012

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EuroWire – January 2012 30
Technology
A wire-based advance in audiology, well
established in Europe, is gaining ground
with US advocates for the hearing-impaired
A hearing loop, typically installed on the oor around the
periphery of a room, is a thin strand of copper wire radiating
electromagnetic signals that can be picked up by a tiny receiver
built into hearing aids and cochlear implants. When the receiver
is turned on, the hearing aid receives only the sounds coming
directly from a microphone, not the background sound-spatter.
As noted by John Tierney of the New York Times, advocacy
groups for the tens of millions of hearing-impaired Americans
have recognised the potential of the technology, already in wide
use in Northern Europe. He observed: “As loops are installed
in stores, banks, museums, subway stations, and other public
spaces, people who have felt excluded are suddenly back in
the conversation.” (“A Hearing Aid That Cuts Out All the Clatter,”
23rd October).
The Midwest leads the movement to embrace the hearing loop,
but New York is starting to catch up. According to the Times,
loops have been installed at the ticket windows of Yankee
Stadium and Citi Field, at the Apple store in SoHo, and at exhibits
and information kiosks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the American Museum of Natural History, and the Ellis Island
Immigration Museum.
Mr Tierney wrote: “Even in that infamous black hole of acoustics
– the New York subway system – loops are being placed in about
500 fare booths, in what will be the largest installation in the
United States.”
Basic induction-loop technology has been around for decades as
a means of relaying signals from a telephone to a tiny receiver
– a telecoil, or t-coil – that can be attached to a hearing aid.
As telecoils became standard on hearing aids sold in Britain and
Scandinavia, they were also used to receive signals from loops
connected to microphones in halls, stores, taxis, and many other
spaces.
The delay in the adoption of the hearing loop in the United
States is probably explained by the $50 add-on cost of a telecoil,
formerly an optional accessory to a hearing aid.
But, according to the Times, today telecoils are built into
two-thirds of the hearing aids on o er. Thus the number of
Americans able to bene t from loops is growing, and suggests a
sizable developing market.
† “This isn’t just about disability rights – it’s about good
customer service,” the Times ’s Mr Tierney was told by Janice
Schacter Lintz, who heads the Hearing Access Program, a
New York-based group that is promoting the use of hearing
loops. Noting that the rst baby-boomers turn 65 this year
– and that more than 30 per cent of people over 65 have
some hearing loss – Ms Schacter Lintz said: “That’s a big
group of customers who won’t go to museums or theatres or
restaurants where they can’t hear. Put in a loop, and they can
hear clearly without . . . wearing a special headset.”
† Mr Tierney reported that hearing loop systems are more
complicated to install than the assistive-hearing systems in
common use, which beam infrared or FM signals to special
headsets or neck loops that must be borrowed from the hall.
Installing a loop in an auditorium typically costs $10 to $25
per seat, an initial outlay that may discourage the facility
manager. But, Mr Tierney wrote: “Advocates for the loops
argue that the cost per user is lower over the long run.”
Energy
Helping to meet a demand for electricity
from renewable sources, a young
battery-storage technology
holds promise for wind farms
To many Americans a wind farm is no longer a novelty. But
Laurel Mountain, which opened on a windy ridge in Elkins, West
Virginia, in late October, is unusual for an auxiliary element: a
cluster of big steel boxes containing 1.3 million batteries. This is
plausibly claimed to be the largest battery installation attached
to the power grid in the continental United States. As reported
by Matthew L Wald in the International Herald Tribune, both
the wind farm – whose 61 turbines stretch out over 12 miles,
generating up to 98 megawatts of electricity – and the battery
project were developed by AES Corp (Arlington, Virginia).
AES says the battery installation at Laurel Mountain is intended
to function as a kind of shock absorber, making variations in
wind energy production a little less jagged and the farm’s output
more useful to the grid. (“Batteries at a Wind Farm Help Control
Output,” 28th October).
Power systems have always faced uctuations in demand.
Mr Wald noted that, as they incorporate more wind into the mix,
they will have to cope with supply uctuations as well. Other
power sources, mainly natural gas plants, can be tapped in time
of need. But such plants take longer to ramp up and ramp down
than a wind farm or a eld of solar panels.
Transatlantic Cable
Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel