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HearingLoss posts

Sprint WebCapTel On the Go brings call transcription to the mobile

by Darren Murph posted Oct 21st 2008 @ 9:29AM

Sprint has just made its WebCapTel service even better. In an effort to provide greater accessibility to Americans with hearing loss, the carrier has introduced the aforementioned service to allow "hard of hearing customers to read word-for-word captions on Windows Mobile 6 web browsers," and for what it's worth, it's also compatible with Safari 2.0. The free web-based system enables hearing impaired individuals to make a call using two phones -- one of which is used for reading captions while the other is used for listening and speaking. The process seems simple enough; before making a call, the user would log onto www.sprintcaptel.com on one device in order to receive the transcription of the discussion on the other. It's available now for calls made within the US (and its Territories).

[Via RCRWireless]

Cellphones are dangerous/not dangerous, hearing loss edition

by Michael Caputo posted Sep 28th 2007 @ 4:13PM

Apparently, talking on a cellphone for 60 minutes or more per day can result in a partial loss of hearing -- at least that's what some researchers in India are saying. The scientists conducted an experiment to test the correlation of hearing loss to the average use of a cellphone call. The experiment covered 100 participants with cellphone usage ranging from four years and over to just started using a cellphone. The results? Long-time users seemed to suffer some high-frequency hearing loss, usually in their right ears -- the ear most commonly used for chatting on the celly. There also seemed to be some correlation between warm, full, or ringing sensations in the ear, so if you're experiencing any of those, enjoy the stealth ringtone while you still can.

[Via textually.org]

Motorola slapped with lawsuit over Bluetooth headsets

by Chris Ziegler posted Oct 23rd 2006 @ 3:01PM

We've personally had more trouble with headsets not being loud enough, but a California man has worked himself into a lather over "injury" allegedly suffered from using a Motorola Bluetooth headset at high volume. A lawsuit has been filed (naturally) against Moto on behalf of the suffering individual, seeking class action status with unspecified damages -- suggesting that many of us are victims of our own stupidity and are hard of hearing as a result. Ultimately, the issue is that the headsets can apparently reach 85-100 decibels, a volume that risks causing gradual hearing loss, and nothing in Motorola's safety documentation makes mention of the danger (someone actually reads that booklet?). Though we think this is a typically silly suit looking to shake the Motorola tree for some free goodies, we'll admittedly be the last to complain if a free H5 comes our way. Sorry, could you speak up a bit?

[Via The Inquirer]