Wednesday, November 6

Tag: headphones

Amazon Partners with Qualcomm to put Alexa assistant in More Headphones
Tech

Amazon Partners with Qualcomm to put Alexa assistant in More Headphones

Amazon is joining hands with microchip firm Qualcomm for the purpose of spreading the use of Amazon's Alexa voice assistant in wireless headphones. Following the deal, Qualcomm will release a set of chips that any maker of Bluetooth headphones can use to embed Alexa directly into the device. With this, when the headphones are paired to a phone with the Alexa app on it, the users will be able to talk to the voice assistant by pressing a button on the headphones. The functioning of the device would be similar to Apple's AirPods wireless earbuds, which enable users can tap the devices to talk to Apple's virtual assistant, Siri. Qualcomm has developed a pre-made circuit that headphone makers can drop into their device to imbue it with Alexa. "This radically reduces their cost and time t...
16-yr-Old NRI Student Invents Low-Cost Hearing Aid
Story

16-yr-Old NRI Student Invents Low-Cost Hearing Aid

A 16-year-old Indian-American boy has created a low-cost hearing aid costing USD 60 to help those who cannot afford expensive devices. Technology that could help hearing-impaired individuals have come along with over the years with items such as phones for hearing impaired and other items. Mukund Venkatakrishnan of Kentuckys Louisville city worked on the device for two years and presented it at the Jefferson County Public Schools Idea Fest and recently won first place the Kentucky State Science and Engineering Fair. The device, which can be used with even the cheapest set of headphones, is built to first test hearing by playing several different sounds at seven different frequencies through headphones. It then programs itself to be a hearing aid, amplifying volume based on the test r...