How about an Apps for Deaf people for smart phone!

[Mikefromlondon]

I am not a great fan of texting, in the last 10 years perhaps I have sent no more than 100 texts, mostly wishing people seasonal greetings.

Already the mobile phones have a fairly good software that composes text in one of the T6 modes if I am right, where the words get auto composed to speed up texting, similarly on sound to text apps can have a software that can compose automatic sentences when for example the system cannot make out a spoken word, the software could fill in a correct word by looking at the whole sentence,

There can be a facility which then speaks the texted word back at the person who spoke so as to confirm if the spoken words have correctly been interpreted.

 

[masona]

she can hear about 10%

So basically it's 90% hearing loss? Or is it she can hear 90% with 10% loss?
This why they don't measure hearing loss in percentage, it's all in decibel levels, do you know where the decibels level is and is it like a ski-slope or straight line across on the audiogram?

 

[Mikefromlondon]

she can hear about 10%

So basically it's 90% hearing loss? Or is it she can hear 90% with 10% loss?
This why they don't measure hearing loss in percentage, it's all in decibel levels, do you know where the decibels level is and is it like a ski-slope or straight line across on the audiogram?

Sorry masona, this is according to my own assessment, may be the figures I quoted are on the higher side, but let us say given the amount of shouting I have to do, or repeat myself often 3 times, each time raising the level higher, i would place her around 70% .

I normally start with a higher level of voice with her, so if I was talking to people with perfect hearing, I would need to speak to her with twice as much effort, when she fails to hear that, I would raise my voice further, and if she still doesn't get it, along with my lip reading, then 3 rd time its even louder almost reaching shouting level, 4th time I give up altogether!

Her last audiology tests were conducted about 5 years ago, and I purchased for her a second pair of bone conduction spectacles, earlier ones had seen the best part of 8 years, and had been repaired so many times with ear pad replaced about 3 times, the latest ones she now has are 5 years old, currently there seem to be a little problem with whistling, (acoustic feedback) which could be due to microphone not cushioned properly against stem vibrations, that cost me well over 2grand, she also went for a digital hearing aid that can be programmed to amplify exact frequency bands to compensate her hearing loss, but sadly she cannot wear these almost invisible as both of her ears drums were damaged when she had infection of one ear first then soon afterwards the other, he doctor failed to give her antibiotics but instead gave her ear drops to remove wax, she was wrongly diagnosed and when it became much worst, the infection took a long time to heal, and by the time it was healed, she lost her hearing, and then they had to try and operate on her ear drums to bring her hearing back, this did not really help! her ear drums are now more like a scar tissue!

She can hear me when i speak directly into her ears from a few inches using the same sound level as if I were speaking to you from a distance of about 15 feet away! she needs to be spoken to from about 5 inches!

As for watching TV, when I am not in the room, the TV Volume would be unbearably loud for me, whilst she sits very close to the tV, I often tell her to turn the damn thing down as its the neighbours that we have to consider, and also the tv gets on my nerves when its too loud!

 

[masona]

Please delete

 

[masona]

Her last audiology tests were conducted about 5 years ago, and I purchased for her a second pair of bone conduction spectacles, earlier ones had seen the best part of 8 years, and had been repaired so many times with ear pad replaced about 3 times, the latest ones she now has are 5 years old, currently there seem to be a little problem with whistling, (acoustic feedback) which could be due to microphone not cushioned properly against stem vibrations,

The feedback is from the high frequency range and also the mircophone and speaker being too close together is a well known problem


Have you considered an Cochlear Implant which is known as Bonic Ear?

 

[ellal]

If you get locked out again, a device from yesteryear to alert her may help...

(couldn't resist... )

 

[EddieM]

Guys, thanks a million, I am really really overwhelmed by all of your kind response, and lots of useful information that you have provided.

After I posted about someone coming up with an App, that could help the deaf community, I thought rather than being greedy and keeping the idea to myself and for my selfish profit, I will publish it here, so that anyone out there can develop the App to help these hearing impaired people without an element of greed!

After I posted , I thought I and my wife would be insulted and ridiculed! with insults like Mike about time you found another wife etc etc ! (lol)
Now I know you are all decent people deep down in your heart! thanks much!

Such an app could only work in walkie takie mode and voice recognition isn't very accurate. Personally I think it would be more bother than it was worth sadly.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Guys, thanks a million, I am really really overwhelmed by all of your kind response, and lots of useful information that you have provided.

After I posted about someone coming up with an App, that could help the deaf community, I thought rather than being greedy and keeping the idea to myself and for my selfish profit, I will publish it here, so that anyone out there can develop the App to help these hearing impaired people without an element of greed!

After I posted , I thought I and my wife would be insulted and ridiculed! with insults like Mike about time you found another wife etc etc ! (lol)
Now I know you are all decent people deep down in your heart! thanks much!

Such an app could only work in walkie takie mode and voice recognition isn't very accurate. Personally I think it would be more bother than it was worth sadly.

I agree it won't be easy as people speak with different accents and pronunciations, it will have to be highly intelligent device in order to process the information and relate it contextually, and indeed it needs to be free standing i.e. without having to use a mobile network, but it could be implemented within mobile phones as a stand alone feature if required for the deaf community.


In fact, I googled sound to text and was surprised to see these apps already exists for dictation taking, or writing text messages, Dragon is one system that I had on my first laptop that I bought in the year 1995, then laptops were relatively new and my one cost me over two grand and it came with this Dragon dictation software, but I never used it, I still have that laptop that had a total of 2,2Gb HD and a processor speed of 400Mhz and weighed in at nearly 4 kg! it was called Notino, made by a local company called Hi-grade computers

 

[EddieM]

Without a mobile network?? Then you would need something like skype with voice input. But I dont really see too much benefit in that in this situation or how it solves ur problem?

 

[cajar]

contact god, like you did for your cat. This is affecting both your lives far more than the loss of a cat would.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

contact god, like you did for your cat. This is affecting both your lives far more than the loss of a cat would.

I do not expect God to be waiting for me on a standby for me to contact him whenever I wished, and for him to intervene in every nook and cranny! I don't think it is funny that you bring God into disrepute every time.

Thank God that my wife is still alive and well and is there most of the time, and despite a small set back, it is not as distressful as it was for my cat who I loved above my own life, and was dieing and of course I love my wife too, and if it came to protecting her from half a dozen thugs, I will jump in knowing that my chances of survival are nil against 6 men, but may be my intelligence may exceed that of 6 thick men put together, so may be I will back out like a coward and then work out a way to get them later on, so they will pay the ultimate price!


ha ha ha...it comes to what is bigger a brain or an elephant?

as an example, if Saddam Hussein did not flex his muscles, back then (1990s) when he first invaded Kuwait, and then he did not back out when demanded by the Americans and UN, he was repulsed by coalition forces, his army was practically destroyed!

despite this the thick head still did not learn his lesson then, so later on he started to develop weapons of mass destruction, including that special long range artillery to threaten the Israelis, he refused UN Inspectors access to his nuclear sites, in the end his bravery to stand against the powerful paid ultimate price, sill if you ask me, if he had used his brains, he could kept Americans at bay, by backing down and today he would still be ruling Iraq and wouldn't have been lynched! and thousands upon thousands more innocent lives could have been saved too!

 

[cajar]

Yeah but mike a hero dies once, a coward dies a thousand times before his death!

And about the god comment, I hesitated posting it as it is a rather glib comment, and this is a serious post about your wife. but then i realised its only glib if you KNOW there is no god and prayers dont work. So the fact you take it as a flippant comment says something about your belief in god. Thought I'd post it to point that out. You made a point about god acting for your cat and you truly believe that, but i dare say you have prayed about this and your wife is still deaf, but rather than realise that disproves your theory, you just say you dont want to bother him with trivial stuff. As the amercians say, go figure!

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Yeah but mike a hero dies once, a coward dies a thousand times before his death!

And about the god comment, I hesitated posting it as it is a rather glib comment, and this is a serious post about your wife. but then i realised its only glib if you KNOW there is no god and prayers dont work. So the fact you take it as a flippant comment says something about your belief in god. Thought I'd post it to point that out. You made a point about god acting for your cat and you truly believe that, but i dare say you have prayed about this and your wife is still deaf, but rather than realise that disproves your theory, you just say you dont want to bother him with trivial stuff. As the amercians say, go figure!

Utter rubbish! what do you know about God and prayers? prayers do work when said with full faith and through one's heart, you won't have a slightest clue what that means, because you lack any faith, and I know I will not put God to test by asking him to heal her hearing, as that is something I can live with, I will only ask God for something I could not live with, there is nothing wrong with her hearing apart from the fact her eardrums have popped when she had a bad infection, and she has been left with a scar tissue. Prayers can save or extend lives, not heal scar tissue!

However, with God's blessings, someone would come up with a device that can help deaf people (not talking about my wife as she can still hear although loud, but for those who are completely deaf, they might find it a very useful tool using an iphone or other dedicated hand held device that can hear people talking and print the speech on its screen, with a possibility long range of hearing and audio filters to filter out background noise, and some could even be made to function to help deaf people know that a car or other traffic is approaching so they could safely know and avoid crossing a road through vibration pad.

and let us go one or two even better, what if the device could segregate the voice of two or three or even more people all talking in a group and the deaf person could see 3 or more different coloured texts so that they could tell who is saying what !

God gives you the ideas! so this is his way of intervention.


and let us stick to the subject, don't divert this thread into another 45 pages of God discussion please! because end of the day you will still not be able to convince me and others, who have a faith in a God, that you are trying to convince us wrongly that God does not exist, and perhaps more than likely we might be able to convince you that he actually does exist, but you cannot see him as he is unseen to our eyes, just like Higgs Boson! we do not have the ability to see him as he is invisible energy!

And I am sorry to say, that greatest parts of this earth believes in the existence of God, it is only a tiny scientific community that thinks they have cracked the puzzle, its not even a start!