It's been a while!

It's been a while since my last post here. I moved interstate recently so blogging has been on the backburner! I've got a few different things relating to hearing loss that I've noticed over the past few months, so I'll share them here.

1. I went to a Subway sandwich outlet last week in Brisbane and to my delight, they had a touch screen ordering system. This is very user-friendly for people with hearing or speech issues as all you have to do is touch through the options, select your roll or wrap, select the ingredients you want on it and then it spits out a piece of paper with your order clearly written and how much it costs. I wish they had these everywhere because I had trouble understanding people in the noisy food court with all that background noise around! It also makes the process much quicker for everyone. I often have trouble ordering food in noisy environments as I can't hear the words clearly, so this ordering system is a great way around that. Some smart person has come up with a great idea, so hats off to them! =)

2. I discovered an awesome new assistive listening device (ALD) that I would love to buy, but sadly it's still in the early stages. The (not at all questionably named) Vibering Sensor is basically a device that determines sound direction for people (like me) who are hard of hearing or deaf, or who missed out on the standard hearing package at birth as I did. I know I've mentioned this before, but you need 2 ears to work out the direction a sound is coming from and how far away the sound is from you. As I have 1 ear that works, I guess my brain is the hard drive that could use a speaker system upgrade! haha. People invent cool gadgets all the time and I reckon this one is going to be a lifesaver if I can get my hands on one.

Here's what the website says:
"The deaf of the world are not just being deprived of music, a sweet whisper and a simple phone call. They are also lacking the ability to be fairly warned of impending danger from out of sight sources. Designers Kwang-seok Jeong, Min-hee Kim and Hyun-joong Kim really deserve a round of silent applause for this inspired design. “Vibering” is an ingenious way to help the deaf, by fashionably housing a sound detection and identification system to be worn as a pair of rings and a wristwatch. The rings are to be worn on both hands and are the ears that not only listen for sounds emanating from behind, they also determine distance, position and vibrate according to source. The wristwatch aspect, identifies the sound wave and presents this info to the wearer in an easy to read display. The watch is programmed to listen for certain key phrases from humans like “Excuse Me..”, your name being called and any number of car noises including the most important one, a car’s horn. This device concept could not just be a major life enhancer for the deaf, it would most certainly save lives."
http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/06/03/stereo-listening-rings-two-rings-to-rule-them-all/

3. Finally, I saw Claire Hooper (from Good News Week) do some stand up comedy on saturday night. One of the audience members was a sign interpreter for deaf kids, so Claire got on the topic of sign language. She only knew how to sign 3 things. They weren't useful but they were funny! Here's the phrases she signed:
"I'm behind this wall!!"
"So, Steve tells me you're blind"
"And that's how I lost my arms!"