Researchers have developed a device that could help protect people from hearing loss: It flashes red when a music player or lawn mower emits deafening noises.
Say, you’re near a tractor and worry the noise is loud enough to cause ear damage. Simply press your thumb on the handheld device’s sound port to see whether it’s too loud. Likewise, you can press your iPod’s ear buds against the port to know whether you ought to turn the volume down.
Three staff members with the Hollins Communications Research Institute, a nonprofit organization that does research on speech and hearing, spent about a year developing the device, called Ear3. The group is selling the handheld device for $50 at ear3.info.
“We’re so concerned about eating properly, exercising and getting physical checkups, and we’re idiots about our ears,” executive director Ronald Webster said.
People can lose half of their hearing range before they notice it, said Webster, a retired Hollins University psychology professor who founded the institute in 1972.
Of the 33 million American adults with some degree of hearing loss, about 22 million suffered permanent damage from loud noise, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
Webster said the institute team developed the measuring device because they were concerned about the sound that music players such as Apple Computer’s iPod can emit. A sound level of 85 decibels is a danger zone for hearing loss, he said, and music players can exceed that.
Major labels borrowing music store idea: After years of selling online music digitally wrapped with copy and playback restrictions designed to hinder piracy, major music labels are beginning to make some songs available in the unrestricted MP3 file format.
The releases are part of an experiment to gauge demand for tracks that can be played on any digital music player capable of playing MP3s, one of the oldest music compression formats.
The latest such offering comes from singer Norah Jones and rock band Relient K, both signed to labels operated by Britain’s EMI Music.
Jones’ “Thinking About You” and Relient K’s “Must Have Done Something Right” – both from their forthcoming albums – went on sale for 99 cents each as MP3 downloads Tuesday via Yahoo Inc.’s online music service.
Relient K also is selling the song on the band’s Web site with a bonus MP3 titled “Fallen Man,” while EMI has released an MP3 from British pop singer Lily Allen for sale only in Great Britain.
Car 54, where are you? An ambulance crew ferrying a mental health patient between two nearby hospitals drove an extra 400 miles roundtrip because they relied on a faulty coordinates in their satellite navigation system.
The 10-mile trip within London should have taken less than half an hour.
But the crew, having never driven to the destination before, relied only on the vehicle’s GPS system. They didn’t fathom that something was amiss until they had reached the outskirts of Manchester, more than 200 miles north of London.
The ambulance crew left King George’s Hospital early Tuesday of last week and arrived at Mascalls Park Hospital in the afternoon. The London Ambulance Trust said the patent remained comfortable and arrived safely.
Internet oversight agency wants to delete domain names: Over the past few years, the Internet has seen new domain names such as “.eu” for Europe and “.travel” for the travel industry. Now, the key oversight agency is looking to get rid of some.
Meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers began accepting public comments this week on how best to revoke outdated suffixes, primarily assigned to countries that no longer exist.
The Soviet Union’s “.su” is the leading candidate for deletion, although the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro are transitioning from “.yu” to their own country codes. A Google search generated millions of “.su” and “.yu” sites.
Also obsolete is Great Britain’s “.gb,” which produced no sites on Google. Britons typically use “.uk” for the United Kingdom.
ICANN assigns country codes based on standards set by the International Organization for Standardization, which in turn takes information from the United Nations.
Norwegians must love their TV ads: Some Norwegians will receive customized, interactive commercials while they watch television on their mobile phones.
The two-month test of customized advertising for mobile phone television is the world’s first, according to Norwegian broadcaster NRK and Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB. Some 20 Norwegian and international advertisers are participating in the project, which calls for ads tailored to viewers’ age, gender, interests and location.
During the test, volunteers will be able to view NRK’s two television stations and five of its radio channels on their regular mobile phones after installing a free Java application.
From Herald news services
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