Hearing Aids and the History of Electronics Miniaturization

Mills, Mara

doi:10.1109/mahc.2011.43

Cited by 86 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Early hearing aids, some of which were purely mechanical devices, have also been considered to be precursors to audio headphones [13]. The early history of audio headphones can largely be situated within the radio and telecom industries [14].…”

Section: Headphonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a spectrum of "visibility" for hearables that ranges from completely covert to intentionally visible. Several devices that are essentially invisible, such as Third Skin's Hy [50], have been noted as being similar to many recent hearing aid designs [13,51], and it has yet to be determined whether this will be desirable to consumers. The main affordance of covert designs is that they avoid social judgments that can be passed on visibly noticeable wearables [52], thereby blending seamlessly into the background of our lives and potentially becoming more likely for user adoption.…”

Section: Visibility (Covertness)mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Survey on the Affordances of “Hearables”

Plazak

Kersten-Oertel

2018

Inventions

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Recent developments pertaining to ear-mounted wearable computer interfaces (i.e., "hearables") offer a number of distinct affordances over other wearable devices in ambient and ubiquitous computing systems. This paper provides a survey of hearables and the possibilities that they offer as computer interfaces. Thereafter, these affordances are examined with respect to other wearable interfaces. Finally, several historical trends are noted within this domain, and multiple paths for future development are offered.

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Section: Headphonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Visibility (Covertness)mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey on the Affordances of “Hearables”

Plazak

Kersten-Oertel

2018

Inventions

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“…As a result, crip technoscience engages with rather than eschews the relationships, activisms, and products of engineering, design, and other technoscientific practices. In this regard, crip technoscience draws upon forms of lived experience (O'Toole, 2015;Lifchez & Winslow, 3 1979) and the historical archive (Petrick, 2015;Williamson, 2012aWilliamson, , 2012bSerlin, 2004Serlin, , 2012Mills, 2011b) that have captured an array of activist design and access projects, from software coding to wheelchair repair to architectural design. In this sense, crip technoscience emphasizes difference and embodiment at the core of disability politics while affirming an open rather than hostile relationship to technoscience, often regarded as anathema to disability politics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to Special Section on Crip Technoscience

Fritsch¹,

Hamraie²,

Mills³

et al. 2019

Catalyst

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This special section of Catalyst maps the central nodes of the emerging field of crip technoscience, which we situate at the intersection of feminist technoscience studies and critical disability studies. Crip technoscience marks areas of overlap between these fields as well as productive disciplinary and political tensions. Our section brings together critical perspectives on disability and science and technology in order to grapple with historical and contemporary debates related to digital and emerging technologies, treatments, risk, and practices of access, design, health, and enhancement.

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“…Utilizing transistors first employed by the commercial hearing aid industry (Schiffer, 1991;Mills, 2011), this series of more compact and efficient portable radios became commercially available starting in 1954. While the high price of their components led manufacturers to initially market these radios to adults, as the decade 123 "The futuristic camera radios were rather popular," writes Schiffer (1991).…”

Section: The Portable Radio Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ears Wide Shut: Headphones and Moral Design

Everrett¹

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Over the last thirty-five years, headphones have been linked to a range of worrisome listening trends: from ostensibly encouraging antisocial behaviour, to putting listeners at risk of permanent hearing loss, to increasing otherwise avoidable pedestrian injuries and deaths. Efforts to address these issues have typically fallen into one of two categories.One approach has been to lobby for the strict regulation or banning of headphones in environments where they might pose a heightened risk. A second approach has been to advocate better public education on the potential dangers involved. Yet neither approach -blaming technology or blaming behaviour -has been particularly effective in developing long-term solutions to these problems. According to recent studies, instances of headphone-relating hearing loss and pedestrian accidents continue to be on the rise, and the cultural stereotype of headphone listening as a quintessentially "antisocial" listening practice remains as strong as ever.Drawing on Peter-Paul Verbeek's (2005; post-humanist moral philosophy of technology, this dissertation develops a different framework: namely, a design-oriented approach to what I call "the moral problem of headphones." My premise is that in order to address the problem of headphones in a meaningful way we must begin, not by isolating technology or behaviour and treating them as underlying "causes," but by forging a deeper understanding of how headphone-related devices, listening strategies, and moral values are mutually shaped. By examining three historical moments in which headphones took on clear moral significance -(1) the introduction of broadcast radio in the 1920s, (2) the proliferation of television and hi-fi in the 1950s and 1960s, and (3) the ii rise of the "personal stereo" in the early 1980s -this thesis demonstrates that headphone-related technologies, listening practices, and moralities are not immutable but have changed over time. It does so in service of a greater argument that our ability to make headphone listening safer and more responsible depends not on our ability to commit more strongly to, or oscillate more freely between, "bad technology" and "bad behaviour" perspectives, but to better engineer good headphone-listener "relations" through smarter moral design.iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are a great many people I wish to thank for their help and support in completing this project. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Institute of Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture for welcoming me to Ottawa and providing an incredible learning and working environment. In particular, I would like to thank Paul Théberge for his ongoing counsel and wisdom, as well as Chris Faulkner,

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Hearing Aids and the History of Electronics Miniaturization

Cited by 86 publications

References 11 publications

A Survey on the Affordances of “Hearables”

A Survey on the Affordances of “Hearables”

Introduction to Special Section on Crip Technoscience

Ears Wide Shut: Headphones and Moral Design

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