2 High-Tech Questionnaire

Please answer the following questions:

1. What do you feel will be the major technological development in the next 10 years?

I think we will see the biggest advances in genetic engineering. However, this is not really my field, so i couldn't say too much about it. Within my field (electrical engineering and speech science), I think we will see improvements in cochlear implants making them feasible not only for deaf people, but also for people with mild to moderate hearing losses.

2. Please describe the development and explain why it will be so important.

A cochlear implant is a device which bypasses the inner ear and uses electric signals to stimulate the auditory nerve in the brain directly. Part of the device must be implanted surgically - the rest is worn on the body (a hearing aid type piece, and a speech processor which can be clipped to a belt). Current cochlear implants provide users with a fairly clear speech signal in quiet environments, but it is somewhat distorted/degraded compared to what a normal hearing person would hear. In addition, the implant users have greater difficulty than normal hearing people in understanding speech in noisy environments. Plus, of course, surgery is required to make use of the implant. for these reasons, only profoundly deaf people are currently candidates for cochlear implants.

Within the next 10 years, I think improvements to cochlear implants will be great enough to restore hearing to "normal". As a result, I think more and more people with mild and moderate as well as profound hearing losses will be candidates. Since people are living longer and longer and aging is often accompanied by hearing loss, there will be a large number of middle-aged and elderly people who will be candidates for this procedure. I think we will begin to see a population in which it becomes common place for these people to receive cochlear implants and thus maintain normal hearing into old age.

3. How can we learn more about this development research wise such as web sites, books, and magazines?

the major cochlear implant companies all have websites:
Clarion -- http://www.cochlearimplant.com/
Cochlear -- http://www.cochlear.com/
Advanced Bionics -- http://www.advancedbionics.com/

Grad student in electrical engineering at MIT, research interests in speech science

Name: Jean Krause
Occupation: Grad student in electrical engineering at MIT, research interests in speech science
May we contact you again if we have further questions or to set up an interview (Yes/No)? Yes