Eden Prairie, Minnesota, April 05, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Starkey is proud to announce its all-new Genesis AI hearing aids have received a Red Dot Award: Product Design 2023, marking the second award won by the completely redesigned hearing technology, just weeks after its launch. This is the seventh year Starkey has won this award, which is one of the most renowned international product competitions in the world. The annual awards program recognizes the year's best products that are aesthetically appealing, functional, innovative, and most importantly, have outstanding design. "At Starkey, product development begins by pushing the edge of what's possible," said President and CEO, Brandon Sawalich. "Five years ago, we set out to make the impossible possible when we began to imagine our next-level product offering. Receiving this honor is a tribute to the amount of research and development we devoted to producing our all-new hearing technology, which is making a real impact on reducing the stigma around hearing aids."

Achin Bhowmik discusses how Starkey's Livio AI came to market and what it means for the future of amplification devices. All my life, I've been passionate about developing perceptual computing technologies, such as sensors and artificial intelligence. My focus at Intel was to use these technologies to make more intelligent machines. That was an incredible time in my career as the world is getting smarter and there is so much to explore and invent. But Starkey CEO, Mr Austin came to me and asked, "Do you want to use the same advanced technologies, but instead of focusing on making more intelligent machines, help people perceive and understand the world better?"

Among the mountains of sexy technology on the market, it's fair to say that hearing aids don't feature too highly when it comes to innovation and aspirational living. But as Starkey Hearing Technologies demonstrated with its Livio AI device last year, there's a lot to be done in this field -- and now its smart hearing aid has gotten even smarter. Granted, not many people view hearing aids as smart devices -- they are traditionally the preserve of the elderly, and therefore not particularly synonymous with The Internet of Things. But new updates to the device which already boasted a host of useful features -- such as Alexa voice control and built-in language translation -- are set to completely reimagine the concept of the hearing aid. Announced at CES, the Livio AI device now comes with fall detection, heart rate measurement and a built-in virtual assistant.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my website and a glimpse at what keeps my world ticking. Today I am thrilled to announce the launch of our new healthable hearing technology, Livio AI. Innovation is the cornerstone of what we've achieved at Starkey Hearing Technologies over the past five decades. The Starkey Hearing Technologies team makes this breakthrough innovation possible by developing world-leading technology to help thousands hear better. With our new product launch, I thought it was the perfect time to share how artificial intelligence is disrupting the hearing aid industry. Today, Starkey Hearing Technologies launched Livio AI, the world's first hearing aid with artificial intelligence and integrated sensors.

Starkey Hearing Technologies, Eden Prairie, Minn, has offered a teaser video of the company's Livio AI hearing aid, what it reports to be the world's first hearing aid with sensors and artificial intelligence. The official launch of Livio AI is on August 27. As reported in The Hearing Review, the company announced at its 2018 Innovations Expo that it would be bringing to market the world's first hearing aid with inertial sensors that can provide information for physical activity tracking. Along with physical fitness applications (like the Dash Pro tailored by Starkey), these sensors may also be used for balance management and the detection of falls--a massive $67.7 billion public health problem by 2020 which is currently responsible for an older adult being admitted to a US emergency room every 13 seconds. At the 2018 Innovations Expo, Starkey CTO and Executive VP of Engineering Achin Bhowmik--who had previously served as VP of Perceptual Computing at Intel--also spoke about how, in the future, artificial intelligence (AI) would be used in hearing aids for natural responses to voice commands, and eventually be able to provide advanced capabilities like real-time language translation.

This is part of CNET's "Tech Enabled" series about the role technology plays in helping the disability community. When Shannon Conn puts her hearing aids in her ears in the morning, a few things happen. The coffee maker starts brewing. When someone rings the doorbell, the chime streams straight into her ear. Conn, a 43-year-old special education advocate from College Grove, Tennessee, wears the Oticon Opn, which features the ability to link up with other connected devices.

If tapping your cheek to ask Siri a question isn't futuristic enough, Bragi's new "wireless ear computers" might impress you. The headphone maker has announced two new versions of its high-end Dash earbuds, the "Dash Pro" and the "Dash Pro tailored by Starkey" (a hearing-aid manufacturer). These wireless, in-ear devices will also be powered by a new operating system (OS). The Bragi OS3 will bring new features like real-time face-to-face translation, a hands-free gestural menu system, and AI built right into the earpieces. Existing Bragi Dash owners can also upgrade to BOS3 to get these tools.

When my mother's mother was in her early twenties, a century ago, a suitor took her duck hunting in a rowboat on a lake near Austin, Texas, where she grew up. He steadied his shotgun by resting the barrel on her right shoulder--she was sitting in the bow--and when he fired he not only missed the duck but also permanently damaged her hearing, especially on that side. The loss became more severe as she got older, and by the time I was in college she was having serious trouble with telephones. Her deafness probably contributed to one of her many eccentricities: ending phone conversations by suddenly hanging up. I'm a grandparent myself now, and lots of people I know have hearing problems. A guy I played golf with last year came close to making a hole in one, then complained that no one in our foursome had complimented him on his shot--even though, a moment before, all three of us had complimented him on his shot. The man who cuts my wife's hair began wearing two hearing aids recently, to compensate for damage that he attributes to years of exposure to professional-quality blow-dryers. My sister has hearing aids, too. She traces her problem to repeatedly listening at maximum volume to Anne's Angry and Bitter Breakup Song Playlist, which she created while going through a divorce. My ears ring all the time--a condition called tinnitus.