Announcements

A research team is recruiting adults age 50 and older who have hearing loss and use voice calls with captions to take part in a study on captioned telephone services. The research is funded by the Federal Communications Commission and conducted by MITRE, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Gallaudet University. Participants will complete four brief captioned phone conversations with a research…

The Speech Accessibility Project is recruiting adults with any degree of hearing loss to participate in a research study aimed at improving voice recognition technology for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The project is supported by Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. Participants will record speech samples and answer questions online at their own pace, using a personal computer or…

Apple announced a set of new and updated accessibility features, which are expected to arrive later this year across Apple devices. One such feature is automatic subtitles feature for video. According to Apple, it will automatically display transcriptions of spoken audio when captions or subtitles are not already present, covering personal videos, clips shared by others, and streamed content.…

Apple has introduced Name Recognition, an accessibility feature available in iOS 26 that allows iPhone to listen for a user's name and send a notification when it hears it. The feature is designed to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing stay aware when someone is trying to get their attention. Users set up the feature by going to Settings > Accessibility > Sound & Name Recognition…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is accepting applications for participation in working groups under CSRIC X, the 10th term of its Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council. One of the working group topics is expanding multimedia availability in Next Generation 911 (NG911) systems and increasing 911 accessibility. The FCC is seeking applicants from a range of…

The Federal Communications Commission is accepting public comments on a proposed change to its accessible emergency information rules for television broadcasters. The proposal, adopted at the FCC's April 30, 2026 Open Meeting, would revise the existing "Audible Crawl" requirement, which obligates broadcasters to provide spoken descriptions of visual, non-textual emergency content (such as radar…

Researchers at Columbia University published a study in Nature Neuroscience demonstrating a real-time system that reads EEG brain wave signals to identify which speaker a person is trying to listen to and automatically amplifies that voice while reducing others. The system addresses what researchers call the cocktail party problem, the difficulty of isolating a single voice in a noisy…

Oticon has introduced Verit, a new family of premium hearing aids designed for users who prefer disposable zinc-air batteries over rechargeable devices. The line includes three styles: the miniRITE T, miniBTE T 85, and BTE T 105. According to Oticon, the devices are built on the company's Sirius platform with second-generation AI sound processing and support for Bluetooth LE Audio, including…

Amplifon, the world's largest hearing aid retailer with more than 10,000 clinics globally, announced a definitive agreement to acquire GN Hearing, the hearing division of Danish conglomerate GN Store Nord, for approximately €2.3 billion. GN Hearing's brands include ReSound and Beltone. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026, pending regulatory and antitrust approvals and the completion…

Wired published a hands-on review of multiple live-captioning smart glasses, testing devices from several manufacturers including Even, Leion, AirCaps, Captify, and XRAI. The review assessed real-world captioning accuracy, latency, battery life, weight, prescription lens availability, and pricing. The reviewer found the Even G2 to be the standout option, citing its combination of captioning…