Future Ear Radio

Dave is joined this week by Bradley Metrock, CEO of Project Voice. In January, Bradley kicked off a tour of 35 cities across the US, Project Voice Coast-to-Coast, where he has been stopping at each destination to meet with members of the voice community. At the point of recording, Bradley had just hit his 25th city, St. Louis, where he sat down with me to share what this experience has been like.

During the discussion, Bradley shares stories from the road, including some of who he's had a chance to meet with, what it's been like traveling during the pandemic, the disparity between cities at this point in time, the future of events, the role of virtual events today and into the future, and more. A long conversation the spans a wide variety of topics.

Guests: David Eagleman, Neuroscientist at Stanford and Co-founder/CEO of Neosensory; Jacque Scholl, clinical Audiologist; Kevin Liebe, clinical Audiologist and President/CEO at HearingHealthMatters.org 

Topic: Neosensory's Buzz and The Next Generation of Hearing Science

Dave is joined this week by David Eagleman, neuroscientist and NYT best-selling author, and two audiologists, Jacque Scholl and Kevin Liebe, to talk about David's company, Neosensory, and the wrist-worn wearable the company has designed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, The Buzz.

The Buzz converts ambient sound into haptic vibrations using vibratory motors. The idea is that as the user continually wears The Buzz for extended periods of time, the user's brain will naturally begin to re-wire itself to better process and make sense of the subtleties in vibrations and what each vibration represents. This device stems from the research and work David has been conducting in his lab for years around sensory substitution, which he goes into thorough detail about throughout his newest NYT best-selling book, Livewired. 

Jacque provides the perspective of both an audiologist and a mother to a 13 year old deaf daughter, Jade, who has been wearing The Buzz for months. According to Jacque, Jade has seen a dramatic increase in her speech improvement and ability to discriminate speech. In addition, The Buzz serves as a body-worn alerting device as it helps to notify Jade that there are sounds coming from behind her or in the distance. As Kevin mentions, The Buzz provides "tri-modal" communication as it complements speech and lip-reading as a third modality to provide even more context to the user.

Transcript: here

Guests: Alan Davis, CPO at Nuheara; Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development at Knowles Corp

Topic: Building a Successful Hearable at Nuheara

Alan joins Andy and Dave on the podcast this week to talk through the first 5 years at Nuheara as the Chief Product Officer and how his team of engineers was able to successfully build and iterate three separate versions of Nuheara's flagship hearing-enhancement hearable, IQ Buds. During this conversation, the three discuss some of the biggest challenges that plagued the hearable industry just a short while ago, how companies like Nuheara were able to solve those dilemmas, and some of the key lessons learned from these formative first years. 

Nuheara is one of the biggest success stories in the hearables ecosystem, as the company not only survived the initial period, but are in as strong of a position as ever coming off the company's best earnings period yet. As the three discuss, there are many exciting innovations on the horizon that Nuheara should be well suited to incorporate into their future product offerings.

Episode Transcript

Guest: Anna Rosen, Enterprise Solutions Engineer at Voiceflow

Topic: Voiceflow 2.0 & The Democratization of Conversational App Creation

Anna joins Dave this week to break down the big update to Voiceflow's conversational AI platform, V2. Voiceflow is a prototyping and design tool that allows teams of designers and developers to bring ideas to life and test their conversational AI creations in robust ways before deploying to various channels & modalities. These channels now include everything from Alexa/Google Assistant/Siri, to SMS, Slack, Twilio, Facebook Messenger, and more, while the modalities have expanded beyond smart-speakers, to in-car experiences and mobile applications.

Anna and Dave talk through some of the major developments that were revealed and how Voiceflow's all-in-one tool is helping to enable conversational AI teams collaborate and work together remotely, whether that be in real-time or asynchronously. As the two discuss, some of the major challenges that conversational AI teams face are rooted in communication breakdowns between designers and developers, which is why V2 had such a major emphasis on building feature sets that enable a more unified language between the two. In essence, V2 enhances speed, efficiency and communication.

Ultimately, what makes Voiceflow so special is that it caters to any level of builder, from experienced developers/designers to first-timers. It's truly helping to democratize conversational app creation and grow the ecosystem. 

Episode Transcript

Guests: Luke Pearce, Market Analyst (Consumer Audio) at Futuresource Consulting; Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development at Knowles Corp

Topic: Breaking Down Hearables' Massive Growth in 2020 & What's on the Hearables' Horizon

Luke and Andy sit down with Dave this week to talk through Futuresource's 2020 Hearables Market Report, citing the key findings and then talking through some of the major trends indicated in the data. 

Major trends discussed are:

- People buying a second or third hearable device for different use cases and situations

- The current status of voice tech integration into hearables

- The growing demand for "conversational enhancement" and amplification hearable features within the consumer market

- The trajectory of biometric monitoring features, biometric data visualization, and the preventative health use cases built off bio data

The three each share their perspectives on these topics and provide their opinions on what comes next now that the era of hearables is truly upon us.

Episode Transcript

Guest: De Wet Swanepoel, Founder of HearX Group, Professor of Audiology at University of Pretoria, Editor in Chief at International Journal of Audiology

Topic: HearX, Having a Remote-Oriented Mindset, and Health Hearing for Everyone, Everywhere

De Wet joins Dave on the podcast this week to share the vision of his company, HearX Group, which is to provide healthy hearing to everyone, everywhere. HearX provides a suite of digital solutions, such as online hearing tests and self-fit hearing aids, that can be deployed by hearing professionals all around the world. In essence, HearX strives to utilize the power of the internet and today's digital tools to overcome and circumvent traditional barriers, so that as many people as possible can access the means to achieve healthier hearing. 

As the pandemic continues to accelerate trends such as video chat and telemedicine adoption, HearX Group embodies a true, remote-first mentality and is enabling hearing professionals with the type of digital solutions that will help professionals' businesses transition into having more remote options for patients available. As Dave and De Wet discuss, there are many low-cost tools available to professionals today that can be actioned on almost immediately, to help gradually increase the amount of digital avenues of access to hearing hearing care that any type of hearing practice can implement and offer their patients. 

Episode Transcript

Guests: Dr. Ed Farrar, Co-Founder of Oto; Ben Thompson, AuD, Audiologist, Tinnitus Specialist, and Founder of Pure Tinnitus.

Topic: Tinnitus Therapy Solutions in 2021

In honor of Tinnitus Awareness Week, Dave is joined this week by two leading tinnitus experts to talk through all things tinnitus. The three discuss Ed's company, Oto, which is an app-based solution that provides smartphone users with various methods of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (CBT) through the app. The app and its course modules were designed by leading tinnitus experts, including Future Ear guest, Anna Pugh, and built in an approachable, easy-to-access way, allowing for broad accessibility and usage for the millions of people suffering from tinnitus.

In addition, Ben shares his perspective as an Audiologist and tinnitus expert, and describes why solutions like Oto are so important to those suffering with tinnitus, as well as the profession of Audiology. Ben's YouTube channel, Pure Tinnitus, sheds a light on the various types of tinnitus treatment available, which includes group therapy or 1-to-1 therapy, as well as more general solutions for anyone broadly seeking treatment.

Transcript: here

Guests: Dr. Natalie Phillips, Audiologist at Advanced Otolaryngology and Audiology. Founder/CEO of Connect4Excellence; Dr. Angela Alexander,  Audiologist & Owner of Auditory Processing Network and APDSupport.com.

Topic: Breaking down the hot new social audio app, Clubhouse, and how hearing professionals might be able to leverage it.

Dave sits down this week with Dr. Natalie Phillips & Dr. Angela Alexander to discuss Clubhouse and how each of them have been utilizing the app the past few months. The three discuss the ins-and-outs of the app, describing how it works, as well as how Natalie & Angela each believe fellow audiologists and hearing professionals can use the app for personal and professional growth. 

Full transcript here.

Guest: Ron Jaworski - CEO & Founder of Trinity Audio

Topic: Making the Internet Audible

Dave kicks off Season 2 of the podcast with Ron Jaworski to discuss the innovation transpiring around text-to-speech, which Ron's company, Trinity Audio, is spearheading. The two chat about how the attention economy and the broad internet is gradually migrating toward our ears, and while audiobooks and podcasts have now been around for a little while, we're beginning to see spoken-word audio expand much more broadly, starting with many of the major publications' content libraries (i.e. WSJ, NYT, BBC, NPR, etc). 

Ron and Dave talk through why today's synthetic voices have started to get increasingly realistic and the implications of shifting content consumption to our ears. This leads into a robust discussion around AirPods, hearables and hearing aids increasingly serving the role as, "content machine" as more types of content can be consumed in its entirety, or content that can be handed off from text to audio in a seamless fashion. 

Full Episode Transcript: Here 

Guests: D'Anne Rudden, AuD; Kat Penno, AuD; Nick Reed, AuD; Geoff Cooling; Kim Cavitt, AuD; Cliff Olson, AuD

Topic: What are you looking forward to in 2021 as it relates to hearing health, audiology, and/or hearing technology?

For the last episode of 2020, Dave chats with six hearing professionals to understand what's on their mind heading into the new year.

This is part two of two. Part one (episode 54) featured seven individuals with backgrounds in consumer hearables, voice technology and hearing health advocacy.

Episode Transcript: here