Feature Friday: iPhone Hearing Test

Last week in a blog post, I wrote:

My daughter’s iPhone can’t deliver a strep test to her, yet. But it can deliver an eye exam and a hearing test.

So I thought I would showcase one of these iPhone based medical tests on feature friday today.

If you download an app on your iPhone called “Mimi Hearing Test” and install it, you can test your hearing with your earbuds.

I did that this morning.

It is just like the hearing tests you do at the doctor’s office. As I suffer from mild hearing loss, I have done this test a bunch in doctors offices over the years.

You sit in a quiet spot and wait for beeps in your right or left ear and when you hear them you press the right or left button.

Mimi Test

The quick test lasts about three or four minutes and when you are done you get results like this:

mimi results

and

mimi results 2

You then store your profile in the system and are then offered additional services:

mimi extra stuff

And, once you’ve done an in-depth test and stored that, you can use the Mimi Music app to enhance the music listening on your iPhone.

I assume that is just the start of a suite of enhanced audio apps and products that Mimi intends to offer.

Full disclosure – The Gotham Gal is an investor in Mimi and therefore I have a financial interest in the company too.

#hacking healthcare

Comments (Archived):

  1. awaldstein

    I’ve done this and also a fan.But, to me, adjusting phone for music is not the kicker here Fred.It is the knowledge that can then let you address a solution.Most of us have hearing loss which is not age related but damage related and tech in hearing aids is freaking incredible today.Taking the hearing test which is gathered in a format that can get programmed into a mini chip in the very best and high tech hearing devices is a true life changer.Trust me–a life changer as much as having glasses that can let you read clearly.I do not know if the format of the test of this app is compatible with chip set design. If not it should be as that is key to making this a seamless supply chain of data to true solutions.

    1. henrik_matthies

      disclaimer: I am one of the guys building Mimi. You are right, awaldstein, customizing music to individual’s hearing capabilities is the starting point. Soon, we will also personalize other audio, such as phone calls, TV and all other audio-related content. Yet, we are not targeting the on average 71 year old hearing aid customer (1 out of 40 needing a hearing aid has one). Instead we are targeting the other 39/40 people that have hearing loss across all ages but would never wear a hearing aid. Hearing loss doesn’t start in the 70s, but decreases already when you are >30 years old. There are simply no hearing improvement products for customer in their 30s to 60s. But they all consume audio via their smartphone. If you read the Appstore reviews, many of our users have exactly that life-changing effect when trying Mimi Music first, as if they suddenly wear glasses for their ears. Across all ages.

      1. awaldstein

        Fascinating.I specialize in branding and building markets for unique solutions so this is interesting to me.I guess my technical question is that if you consulted with an audiologist–which I’m sure you have–what would they think of the depth of the data?Volume is one thing and simple, actually understanding hearing loss or deficiencies is more interesting, maybe harder to monitize though.I generally like what you are doing though think it could be crispened up a bit.Best of luck this this.

        1. henrik_matthies

          thanks, awaldstein! We are constantly validating our technology with the Charité University Clinic in Berlin. Preliminary data show that the accuracy of our app is similar to the current gold standard, a yearly calibrated audiometer testing. And yes, hearing loss is more complex than what the current gold standard reflects. We are already researching on new ways how to detect also early hearing loss, and better adapt sound to existing one. Given the processing power and battery life of a smartphone, there is a lot more we can do in contrast to state-of-the-art hearing aids. Would be great to talk to you. Shall we connect via LinkedIn (Henrik Matthies)?

      2. Alex Murphy

        How long until the Android app is ready to go? I signed up on your site.For other Android users, go to http://www.Mimi.com and sign up assuming more sign ups will increase the priority of building the Android app.

        1. henrik_matthies

          hi Alex, we are working on Android – it’s tricky as we have to adapt our technology to every single device, not just the screen size as most of the apps, but actually take device-specific chip, microphones, sound processing etc into account.The MVP version will be out in ~2 weeks, focus will be on Mimi Music, so the sound personalization part, not the testing. For an accurate hearing test we need calibrated headphones. Earpod is a headphone standard for Apple hardware, that doesn’t exist for Android.But we hope to make you and all Android owners happy soon!

          1. Alex Murphy

            I vote for working on the Verizon Droid Turbo Maxx with Bose Noise Canceling earphone buds.One alternative is to center around the Earpod even on Android. I have a pair, and many other Android owners do too.

      3. SubstrateUndertow

        Where is the Apple Watch solution ?Process sound on the watch by mating the listener’s ear constraints to the sound environment’s audio challenges as specified by the listener’s sound-extraction goals then send processed audio to earpiece.Spy vs Spy audio systems 🙂

  2. JimHirshfield

    Never heard of this before. You really have your ear to the ground. Thanks for sharing.

    1. William Mougayar

      Hear! Hear!

      1. creative group

        William Mougayar:How is that Bitcoin account looking? That British exit has more economic effects globally than anticipated. Some good some not so much.$650.00https://techcrunch.com/2016…

        1. William Mougayar

          I’m not really sure how strong the correlations are between the GBP and Bitcoin. It’s a timing coincidence more than anything, IMO.

          1. creative group

            William Mougayar:It becomes frustrating for those of us still Daytrading hearing the built in excuses of missed numbers. The Brexit will undoubtedly be used and worn out as the new excuse. The Analyst’s unbiased (paid) reports, etc. Market corrections urged by market manipulators making money no matter where the market ends.A sure buying opportunity for traders seeking value and real market valuation. (Where many stocks should have been priced anyway). Will view this show from the sidelines while maintaining our core investment strategies and views seizing buying opportunities.Your view welcomed.

  3. Dan Moore

    Wow. I did not expect this to be the topic of your post today, even though discussing the Brexit obviously isn’t “fun” 🙂

    1. Donna Brewington White

      Trust me, this crew doesn’t need for it to be the stated topic to get the discussion going. And I’d bet on a discussion about Trump somewhere in the thread as well.

      1. pointsnfigures

        Money is fascist. It seeks stability and runs from uncertainty, no matter if the change is better in the long run.One early point that was interesting, Britain’s Labour Party wanted “remain”. It’s voters (the northern working class) voted overwhelmingly to leave. Huge disconnect between constituents and the elites in power.

        1. Dan Moore

          I might say conservative rather than fascist, though as Fred’s tweet reminds us, where there is change there is opportunity: https://twitter.com/fredwil

          1. pointsnfigures

            Fred is right. This is a buying opportunity in the stock market. This isn’t panic, it’s uncertainty. But, you are incorrect in your characterization of conservative vs fascist.

          2. Girish Mehta

            Re: < Change creates opportunityI dunno in the context of this event.A different perspective from a FT reader is in the comments below this article (its the featured first comment):http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e

        2. BillMcNeely

          There will always be an England!

          1. JLM

            .And England will always be free.Now, with the collapse of the Pound Sterling, it will also be inexpensive.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          2. Peter Beddows

            And, As an ex-pat Brit’, though happy to be a legal US citizen, I hopefully agree with you about “England will always be free”. Even the Romans back in, and up to, AD 61 had a really hard time curtailing the activities of the early (Celtic) Brits and both Napoleon and Hitler could not beat the Brits.Frankly, I think we have been our own worst enemy but also completely clueless about that. C’est la vie!

          3. Peter Beddows

            As an ex-pat Brit’, though happy to be a legal US citizen, I hopefully agree with you @billmcneely:disqus . 🙂

        3. Donna Brewington White

          Huge disconnect between constituents and the elites in power.Remind you of anything?

          1. Girish Mehta

            Hmmm….what ?

        4. sigmaalgebra

          Ah, sacred cows, and elites, make the best hamburger!

        5. Lawrence Brass

          My grandfather fought in WW1 in the trenches in France. He survived. Ironically he died during WW2 in London because of his lung problems due to his exposure to mustard gas at the trenches. My father, who by the time was serving in the RAF, buried him in a mass grave in London and sold his personal belongings in a pawn shop, before returning to the base. He had crossed the Andes and the Atlantic one year or so before, to volunteer for the war, as many young English descendants born in South America did.Today I don’t really know if their sacrifice was worth something or if they were really fighting other people’s wars. I am sad today.

          1. Girish Mehta

            The delta by age group. A generation voted for a future that another generation will live with.Happens often, but quite stark here.

          2. JLM

            .Isn’t this perfectly predictable?The older folk knew an England which ceased to exist with the embrace of globalism. They saw it happen and they may have paid the price.The young don’t know their country’s history. It is painful to watch young Americans being quizzed on current events. Only 1 American out of 10 could explain the phenomenon of Mount Rushmore.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          3. creative group

            JLM:MT. Rushmore was Sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum. An immigrant.

          4. JLM

            .Legal immigrants working with 400+ workers built the project using explosives and finished it for less than a million dollars.Nobody died in its construction and it was started as a boon to tourism, a mercantile objective showing that business, history, nationalism can work and plan well together.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          5. LE

            Yeah sob stories on the news yesterday regarding the deadlock scotus going against Obama wanting to grant legal status to people.Just amazing the way the bleeding hearts see this. Best way to think about it was a talking head who said something like “there are 7 billion people in the world and I am sure half of them would love to live in this country” (but we can’t take everyone, so why should we allow the people who broke the law to stay here, what kind of message does that send?)Amazing anchor baby entitlement in this NYT Opinion piece:http://www.nytimes.com/2016…This is true Robin Hood thinking. You break the law but good comes out of it so you shouldn’t go to prison for what you did (or in this case get deported).

          6. JLM

            .We have a legal immigration system which invites folks into our country in accordance with the promise at the base of the Statue of Liberty.We have a porous Southern border across which criminals are pouring into our country. This administration thumbs its nose at those standing in the LEGAL line while shepherding those in the country ILLEGALLY to the front.This results in a number of very bad things including a disastrous impact on wages and jobs caused by the injection of millions of low skill, low wage expectation workers.This policy is disastrous to American citizen workers who rightfully look to their gov’t (pay taxes to it by golly) to protect their interests at all costs.It is time to call illegal aliens what they are — criminals, criminals in the country illegally, criminals who are dousing the fires of the American dream.It is very simple, really. In the desire of the gov’t to serve its citizens, does it owe a higher duty to its legal citizens than what it wants to accommodate illegals?Not more complicated than that.Of course, the Democrat party sees the issue of illegal immigration as a voter registration drive. In California, they are actively trying to allow illegals to vote. That is an clear revelation of their end game.Not good for America.This is why “America First” resonates and has resonated since the 2014 mid-term elections.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          7. Matt Zagaja

            The best way to curb illegal immigration is to spread our innovation and culture throughout the world, and free trade and open borders are the best way to do that.

          8. JLM

            .I doubt there is a combination of words in the English language capable of expressing the strength of my disagreement with your utterance.Illegal immigration is a crime.It is reduced by enforcement, prophylactic prevention, and awareness.The notion of weaponizing love is just blather and nonsense.Please give reality a try, you may decide you like it.This is a gratuitous insult because, well, I love you, man.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          9. Peter Beddows

            !000% right on @JLM:disqus

          10. creative group

            LE:Another informative article outlined how one of the biggest loop holes being exploited is not by Mexicans but Asians. Having their children in the USA and returning to China with a US citizen. (That Chinese baby). Never talked about or discussed by the birther movement.http://www.usatoday.com/sto

          11. awaldstein

            That is our fault of course.My parents did their jobs.We had nothing growing up, but my dad insisted that we see Mount Rushmore.Three kids and a dog in the back seat driving from here to there for 4 days, car camping to make certain we kids understood and appreciated the county we were lucky enough to be born into.

          12. Girish Mehta

            I don’t know if we can tell yet what it was about JLM. There could be many reasons including the relationship between citizen constituents and the political / elite class ?Its interesting that there were people who were very critical of Brussels, but who thought Britan should still remain (e.g. Yanis Varoufakis). And it seems there are people who voted for Brexit to make a point, but also find Britain’s leaving unfortunateA binary vote does not mean there are binary reasons.I have no idea and am intrigued. It does seem like an Age of Disillusionment in many parts of the world.

          13. JLM

            .A very interesting and insightful comment.Two things:1. Occam’s Razor — we tend to over complicate things when surveying people’s motivations.2. Just because someone has an “unfavorable” view of anything does not mean they will not vote for a clear choice particularly when the choice is binary — zero or one.This is a phenomenon that pollsters can’t figure out how to poll.”I dislike Trump and I have an unfavorable opinion of him but I do intend to vote for him because he is the lesser of two evils or he’s the only one looking after my paycheck.”The inability to figure out what “unfavorables” mean when it comes to voting is a huge problem.Nobody saw the Republican 2014 sweep because of this very phenomenon.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          14. Girish Mehta

            “Unfavorables”.Likely Voters and “Un”Likely Voters.”His” Votes and “Their” Votes.Things that are difficult to figure out.In that spirit, (and never mind the politics of it JLM), enjoy these 2 minutes of wonderful writing.https://www.youtube.com/wat

          15. creative group

            Lawrence Bass:The worldwide Nationalist movement is alive and kicking against the inevitability of globalization. The influx of immigrants is making the natural populous diminish. The Nationalist appear to be scared as hell to become the minorities. Afraid the chickens will come home to roost.Important to treat people with a sense of humanity and those fears are minimized.(Much more complicated)

          16. JLM

            .The faux sense of globalism was a very high tide which came in and has now begun to recede taking with it the detritus, flotsam, jetsam, and debris of its misguided philosophy (and its leaders).Beneath it is a sense of national pride which is the strength of its people. As the tide of globalism recedes, this national spirit emerges again as if rediscovered. It was also with a guy named Noah and his ark.America is a nation of immigrants. Legal immigrants, is worth saying and noting.The chickens never really come home to roost. Everybody says they are but along the way the poor folk eat them. I like that.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          17. SubstrateUndertow

            Up voted for:(“Much more complicated”)

          18. JLM

            .Your family history is the thing of legend. Godspeed to the Brass clan.Anyone who crosses the Andes to get anywhere is a hero.It was worth it. It will once again be apparent. Evil is never going away and only tribes like yours stand between us and the barbarians at the gate.Who owns the gate will change from time to time. Evil v good, not so much.Take half a day off on Sunday in celebration.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        6. LE

          Huge disconnect between constituents and the elites in power.While that could be the case it is more likely that (in this particular case) the elites simply view the upside/downside differently. As such they are doing (in theory) what they feel is in the countries best interest, as opposed to a guy that gets his news and analysis having a pint in a pub.If you asked young kids what they wanted to do all day, it wouldn’t be sitting in school all day or be studying.And actually simply voting on each and every issue, “What do the people want”, unfortunately doesn’t have a safety net installed to make sure that the people doing the voting on an issue are intelligent enough to actually think through all of the issues.

      2. LE

        Here you go. Who does this man’s hair remind you of?…

        1. Donna Brewington White

          I knew I could count on you. 😉

        2. Peter Beddows

          Not only the hair; even the image reflects as if in a mirror!

    2. sigmaalgebra

      I’ve ignored the whole Brexit thingy. E.g. only about two days ago did I finally understand that Brexit abbreviates British exit.Then I paid attention to the issue for about 30 seconds and began to see that it looks like the European Union (EU) got a lot of stuffed suits, hot air, rule makers, standards formulators, bureaucrats, etc. pushing big government, more rules, long meetings in Brussels or some such, socialist this, do-good that, central planning whenever possible and often otherwise, low/no carbon footprints, no fracking, smaller cars, fewer cars, more public transportation, weak plumbing, one-world lots of times, collectivist otherwise, and meetings that start at 10 AM, break for lunch from 11 to 2, with lots of Beaujolais, work really hard again from 2 to 3, break for tea, then dinner with lots of Côte de Beaune, Haut-Médoc, and Champagne, the evening meetup until 2 AM, then sleep for another such really hard day.I’ve seen that pattern elsewhere, e.g., with the mostly European telecommunications standards CMIS/CMIP, OSI/ISO, naming hierarchy, registration hierarchy, object-oriented data definition inheritance hierarchy, etc. — huge mountains of obscure standards document drafts paperwork amounting to nothing, absurd nonsense. TCP/IP blew it all away.Then somehow I guessed that the huge flood of Mideast immigrants to the EU were heavily from such EU bureaucrats wanting to do some politically correct thing — which has led to Ali Abdul Fatwah al Jihad bin Boom Boom and his buddies raping women and children, shooting people, blowing things up, shouting something about some guy Akbar whoever he is, etc.Demented. Deranged. Delusional. Disgusting. Despicable. Dangerous, Destructive. And worse.So, a lot of people in England with at least a little common sense and but no more patience said to leave all that EU nonsense on the other side of the English Channel.That’s my guess. Building on what I learned about Europe from CMIS/CMIP, took about 30 seconds.There’s some standard rule, some Murphy’s law, something about bureaucracy expands to fill all available space, eat up all available money, choke everything with useless paperwork, etc.?I’m reminded of the movie Day of the Jackal which seems to be about an effort of some French underground to assassinate De Gaulle. So they hire an assassin, a “contract killer”.But watching the movie again, the main interest is seeing the whole French bureaucracy, security, intelligence service, police, etc., 100,000+, from just below De Gaulle down to the street level, fumble and totally blow it. There are lots of arrogance, big decisions, collecting data, searching all over, memos to tens of thousands of police, etc., all for nothing.A lot of the whole effort is brought down by one very cute, young French woman.In all the 100,000+ French forces, there is only one exception, a fairly bright police detective who literally at the last minute, as De Gaulle is holding Liberation Day ceremonies and has already by luck ducked one shot from the assassin, sees a suspicious partially open window, runs up several flights of stairs, and stops the next shot at De Gaulle just in time, within seconds.So, I watch the movie to see the digs by the movie director at the whole 100,000+ French bureaucracy and security force: Except for just the one good detective, they are all hopeless against just one cute, young woman (and she’s DARNED cute!) and one bright, lone assassin!No wonder Britain wanted OUT.But, no wonder the French mess up so much: The wine is really good, and the women, really cute! Also the pate, bread, cheese, deserts! With one of those cuties, could put together one heck of a nice picnic basket and afternoon in a quiet, secluded spot in some woods!British food? Well, apparently it’s possible to live on it!

      1. LE

        looks like the European Union (EU) got a lot of stuffed suits, hot air, rule makers, standards formulators, bureaucrats, etc. pushing big government, more rules, long meetings in Brussels or some such, socialist this, do-good that, central planning whenever possible and often otherwiseAmazing. All of the reasons (in my limited exposure over the years) to the EU why I didn’t like it.You forgot one diss though. My personal axe is that anything designed by academics, intelligentsia or elites (but primarily academics) always seems to ignore practical things that the everyday working guy could point out, flaws in the concept. Those designers are idealistic.A good example that I can think of this is how the entire email system was designed without regard to how easy it would be for someone to spoof being someone else (which in part is why we have so much spam). Academics never thought this out because in their world they couldn’t see something like that happening. Pretty stupid, eh? Of course that was back when being in academia was secure not like today but the thinking prevails and why they call it “egghead”.I am also reminded of my old Dentist who had a poster on his wall advertising Crest (with some helpful dental hints). When I was a kid I asked him “what do they pay you to put that poster on the wall?”. He looked at me with a mystified deer in headlight look and said “Nothing. I never even thought of that. They asked me and I just said it was ok”. [1][1] At that point I was glad that I had a dentist that wasn’t into making money (that was good) but realized that all sorts of people think differently and you have consider that not everyone has the same motives and drives that you do.

        1. Matt Zagaja

          Spam? To be honest at this point the Gmail spam filter is so good I don’t get any. Well it does land in my spam box but I rarely need to check there.

          1. LE

            Yeah but you are a) using gmail and b) you still need to go through the spam folder.Legitimate mail does end up in the spam folder all gmail does is give you a false sense of security and have you let your guard down. Imagine having all sorts of important mail coming inAnd try having an email address that has been around since 1996. Then multiply that by many email addresses (I have more than one). I would hate to tell you how much spam I filter through everyday it would blow your mind. Shitty system design, problem never going to get fixed. But sure yes there are all sorts of kludges that attempt to deal with the symptoms.

          2. LE

            The other thing I need to point out is that I take email and correspondence very seriously.This dates to 2010, Fred on email bankruptcy I can’t being to imagine the stress that this situation creates:http://avc.com/2010/05/emai

        2. sigmaalgebra

          Yes, if all the academic political scientists, economists, and sociologists were laid end to end, it would be a good thing.The best in academics dominates the best there is in our civilization. Then there is the other 99 44/100%, the *bathwater*. Or, academics is like a mountain stream bed — nearly all cold water with mud and worthless gravel but also one of the best places to look for gold. Tough to think of the gold when about all can see is the cold water, mud, and gravel.Yes, academics looks too much like a lot of wasted nonsense, and maybe 99 44/100% really is just that, but the best each 10-20 years is just fantastic stuff we very, very much do not want to be without.We’re well on the way to working with DNA like a general contractor works with bricks.To repair a car, need to know about the fuel-air mixture input, the valves, pistons, connecting rods, crankshaft, flywheel, transmission, U-joints, drive shaft, differential center section, half axles, wheel bearings, brake backing plates, steering box, tie rods, ball joints, bushings, shocks, etc. Well, to repair a human need to know about DNA, genes, proteins, cells, chemical messaging, etc., and we’re working to do just that. E.g., CRISPR, just in the last year or so, lets us do gene editing — cut and join, as in word whacking, carpentry, bricklaying, metal working, etc.Sure, microelectronics manufacturing: We’ve gone from 1 micron line widths down to 22 nm where 1000 nm = 1 micron and 1000 microns = 1 mm. 1 nm is about 10 times the diameter of one atom. And we are on the way to 14, 10, 7, and maybe 5 nm.I’ve got the cutest little thing; it looks like the purse of a girl about 6. It cost $75 from Western Digital. It has a USB interface for both data and power. It’s a hard disk drive and stores 2 trillion bytes (TB). Astounding. Nearly beyond belief. I use it for data backup, both full and incremental, both from just the old Windows program XCOPY (run from scripts with options very carefully selected and fixed in the scripts). How the heck to make that little girl’s purse with 2 TB? Sure: A lot of work in electro-magnetism, solid state physics, and microelectronics. At one time, when FedEx was already a major company, and tracking packages, IIRC their computer center had a total of a huge, humongous, jumbo, gigantic, 7 TB of disk storage! Gee, now can get that in a woman’s purse.To heck with that: Samsung now has 14 TB of solid state disk in the 3.5″ form factor.Amazing times we live in! Should be able to do something powerful and valuable with such resources!We can put, what, 100 billion bits per second on one wavelength of light? Shine that down an optical fiber. Put several dozen other such signals down the same fiber at the same time. Put 144 such fibers in one cable. Put several such cables along along a right of way — high voltage transmission line, pipeline, highway, lake, coastline, ocean, etc. How to do that? Ga-Al-As hetero-junction solid state lasers, that is, some really nice Bell Labs research in solid state physics based, right, on a lot on quantum mechanics.Quantum mechanics? Super nice, not very mathematical, course, MIT 804, lectures on YouTube athttps://www.youtube.com/wat…It goes on and on this way.To see the effects, roll the clock back to 2000, 1950, 1900, 1850, 1800, and compare with today. Well, nearly all the biggie improvements in standard of living came from research, usually university academic research.Or, since 1800, that’s only about 22 decades. So, starting with steel, steam, rails, steamships, oil, gasoline, internal combustion engines, electric power, …, can easily list 22 such biggies. So, we’re looking at an average of at least 1 such biggie each decade.Net, by a wide margin, nothing else within many miles, the best work in our civilization, by far the best ROI, is from the best in academic research.Economics? The subject is wildly important. E.g., profound misunderstanding of economics resulted in the crash of 1929, The Great Depression, WWII, and whatever it was, 75 million people dead. We did it again leading up to 2008 and since. Did it again leading up to 2000. Did it again when LBJ inflated the economy pursuing his coveted coonskin cap in VIet Nam.So, economics is darned, in a word, IMPORTANT. But, IMHO, the field is also something we dare not just flush because we don’t want to ruin our septic tank system.Social science — a field with lots of research results, nearly none of which are reproducible. Clearly the social sciences are tough fields in which to do good science, and IMHO the people doing the work don’t have anywhere near good enough interest, talent, or knowledge of crucial mathematics, that is, the language of science.So far, for applied social science, we are left mostly just looking at empirical data and applying good judgment and common sense.Again, the best of academic research is, medium to long term, sometimes also short term, nearly all of the best we have for ROI, standard of living, etc.

    3. JLM

      .Brexit is the canary in the mineshaft of a global shift in electorates rejecting their establishment leaders and forging their own course of action demanding elected officials pay attention to their own citizens first.Does this sound even remotely familiar?This is not an endorsement of the wisdom of the move but, rather, the reporting of the sighting of a waterspout at sea. Reportage?It is a huge blow to David Cameron who actually called for this referendum, confident he knew the outcome thereby violating one of the first rules of jurisprudence and politics — never call the question until you know you have the votes.It is a boon to one Donald J Trump as his policies are notably not globalist. HRC and Pres Obama are notoriously pro-globalism.The Pres went to England to “help” the debate along and garners amongst his unending list of failures being on the wrong side of both politics and history — in two countries, now.This is tied to the rejection of the trade implications of globalism (jobs), the resurgence of nationalism (which flag are YOU voting for, pal? why the Union Jack, of course) and immigration.No longer will a refugee be able to obtain a EU passport (legal or forged) in Italy or Greece and travel unimpeded and uninspected throughout Europe including England. For that I must say bravo!The immigration implications for the US are equally clear.It is also an interesting development for Scotland which voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU and which previously voted to remain part of the “United” Kingdom. Likely, Scotland heads back to the ballot box, severs relations with England, joins the EU.More like the EU collapses with Germany (the only serious economy left) no longer willing to support its poor relations in Greece, Italy, Spain, etc.This will all become quite clear and we will wonder WTF were we all thinking in the first place? The dollar will soar and European vacations will be very inexpensive. If we don’t screw it up — Trump is right about those stupid trade agreements — we may see real economic benefits in the US.Water spout sighted in the harbor, y’all! But, it’s a friendly one.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

      1. LE

        Yeah Cameron resigned today. Very Japanese of him.

        1. JLM

          .With the re-enactment of dueling, perhaps, we take a look at harakari/seppuku?Could be a way to thin the herd, no?JLM

          1. sigmaalgebra

            If all the bureaucrats, Greenies, etc. in Brussels were lined up end to end, it would be a good thing!

      2. sigmaalgebra

        > This will all become quite clear and we will wonder WTF were we all thinking in the first place?In the US, can drive from Maine to LA (not clear to me why anyone would want to be in LA or leave Maine) as one country, constitution, government, language (so far, and let’s keep it that way), market, and culture (so far, and let’s keep it that way). Well, there are some biggie standard of living advantages here, and the EU wanted to borrow those.A lot of people in the EU, who likely knew that such borrowing would for a long time be too difficult to do but wanted the political power to lead in that direction. Well, they bet on a slow horse.The EU wanted to keep a lid on absurd nonsense such as WWI that killed however many tens of millions of people all from just a lot of really silly small country pushing, shoving, and coalition building and a Balkan psycho, wacko, sicko who decided to assassinate some prince from Austria.The EU wanted to feel more secure against whatever Russia did.The EU wanted to join hands and all sing Kumbayah or some such.Well, it didn’t work.> we may see real economic benefits in the US.Then how the heck will the US sell anything to other countries?More generally, since supposedly the US imports so much, how the heck is the dollar so high?

        1. scottythebody

          I live in Europe and have for 10 years. As much as people talk about the EU, its potential advantages, and enjoy the lack of money changing, Amazon.EU, and passport control, they really just want to be in their tribes and all the same. It’s the opposite of the “America Idea” in almost every way here in terms of culture and identity.

          1. sigmaalgebra

            Standard. Who should have expected anything else. There’s a lot of security in tribal identity.Maybe in principle Europe could be a melting pot like the US has been to a considerable extent, but for Europe, Spain to the Urals, Sicily to Finland, Russia from the Arctic to the Black Sea, etc. to melt, is asking a lot, too much. It would take decades to centuries and maybe millennia. The costs quite broadly would be high.On the other hand, for the most important issue, all those separate countries, some quite small, need to live in peace. One way is to use NATO to put a lid on independent military activities.But to me, on the west side of the pond, the EU politics looks like too often a determined effort to extract miserable defeat from the jaws of a nice victory. Why? Too many people have too high goals for too much power in a central government that is short on discipline from voters and long on poorly considered, just impractical, socialistic dreams. Then the whole EU thing starts to fall from being too big at the top and too inefficient down to the bottom. For the whatever forces in Brussels or wherever, out of some version of humanitarianism, to decide to flood all the EU with immigrants from profoundly different, backward, and rigid cultures in the Mideast has to be about the last straw. Even if some Spanish, French, Italian, German, English, Polish, Swiss, Swedish, Latvian, etc. people can enjoy Oktoberfest together at the same table in Munich, sadly, only in delusions will those immigrants join and enjoy. Then with the Greenie stuff about wind turbines, solar panels, and really high electric rates, people are going to say “Too much”.The EU should not totally give up on doing well living together, but the overactive rush to total unification forces need to calm down, do less, sleep more, and then find something productive to do.In short, the EU needs to put the EU first, do what is good for the EU, quit worrying about saving the planet from the imagined threats of CO2, and just f’get about the agonies of the 500 year out of date Mideast cultures. Mostly just leave the Mideast cultures in the place from whence they came, in the Mideast.

          2. Peter Beddows

            I like this observation @sigmaalgebra:disqus. Very well put.Perhaps one other issue that plagues the efforts of peaceful collaboration between all of these EU partners is the fact that they do not share – apart from, for some of them, the Latin root – any commonality of language which thus goes to emphasizing respective nationalities.The very fact of having so many different languages tends to psychologically imply “I’m different from you and therefore I must be better than you rather than equal with you so why should I listen to you or support you and your ideas?” whereas at least here in the US we share – for the most part – a common language amongst the dialectic variations of America English, thus giving the potential of an even playing field on all levels of understanding for mutually beneficial collaboration.From personal example of how significant is the impact of even slightly different language in attempting to collaborate, I remember once accidentally talking with some Dutch people in a business meeting in German because what I heard from them sounded very much like German to me but then saw an immediate negative reaction.

      3. Donna Brewington White

        Brexit is the canary in the mineshaftGreat analogy/metaphor.I have to think the canary has been singing a lot longer than we realize. Maybe the “powers that be” need Mimi.

        1. Chimpwithcans

          One small correction – in the old mine shafts – it was when the canary stopped singing that there was a sign of trouble

      4. Peter Beddows

        Absolutely love your evaluations and insight @JLM:disqus. I could not have expressed those thoughts any better or clearer and agree with you from top to bottom.I really think a lot could be learned and explained – though not necessarily resolved – by reading the latest available resources referencing about “rejecting their establishment leaders and forging their own course of action demanding elected officials pay attention to their own citizens first”.The first book is “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right: Jane Mayer” – http://tbbhd.me/1XaFH0CThe second book is “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government: Mike Lofgren” – http://tbbhd.me/1VX3eDiNote: These are affiliate links taking you to Amazon about these books. We have read them and found the content to be very revealing and very interesting. I think that, taken together, they clearly explain why and how we are in the mess we now find ourselves and why there is an implicit soft rebellion of the voting public.In that context, I really do think that votes for both Trump, Sanders and for BREXIT represent the angst of the masses who feel disenfranchised and disillusioned by the evident lack of attention or efforts by their respective congressional reps and MP’s on their behalf in regard to the serious crimping of the middle class, huge loss of meaningful, well-paying, productive jobs that will never return no matter what Trump might think he can do, huge loss in the real value of the dollar and the obvious hijacking of our democracy by and for the vested elite. Perhaps ironic that I came to the US – actually by invitation – thinking we could “escape” that challenge in the UK only to find it alive and doing very well here in the US.As @thebigmix:disqus points out, the Canary being alive was simply what signaled that all was well in the mine: BREXIT is the death of the canary; I am certain that the populous at large in the UK will come to regret this choice in the long run but we shall see. That is not to say that I agree with their choice or think that the UK would have been better off in the long run to have stayed in. The exit sends a very clear message; whether or not the ruling class gets the message or even recognizes that there is a message and then acts appropriately in the interests of the people or inappropriately in the interests of saving themselves, remains to be seenIf the EU recent policies of accepting and inviting masses of refuges were really the issue that caused the exit choice, that seems a misplaced notion given that under the principle of “The Commonwealth”, the outcome of Britain’s many years of Imperial Expansion, has meant a literal open-door policy to all who live within “Commonwealth” territories – ergo, more than enough immigration has already happened down through the years from places such as India, Pakistan, et al to create pockets of non-ethnic people building up in all of the big cities in the UK so why get in a dither about immigration now?Taking a leaf from Trump’s examples of non-politically correct expressions of viewpoint, as an ex-pat Brit’ I am confident that many ethnic Brit’s do believe that the UK should have been taking a stronger role in leadership of the EU: Being subjugate to central power based in Brussels – where many actually speak French – which implicitly, in my view, gives the French an easy doorway to have too much influence upon decisions and directions way out of proportion to the way things should be going given that the French had to be “rescued” in WWII and, having also beaten off Hilter, it seems ironic and backwards to have Germany be in a commanding position overseeing and influencing so much of what goes on relative to the influence that should be coming from the UK in my opinion so small wonder that the older generation has said “enough already! We want out” whereas the younger generation has no memory or experience of “how things once were!” regardless of whether or not “how things were” were actually any better n reality than what exists in today’s globalization reality.And then, perhaps this is just another of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s classic “Black Swan” type events – certainly the outcome of the vote has not been as “expected” and no one expected to see Trump in the race for the WH.

    4. Amar

      If you look back at Fred’s posting history, he does a good job of not reacting knee-jerk for major events. There is a lot of anxiety, fear and (top of the mind) emotional reactions floating all around the web right now. Taking a step back and allowing for reflection time often results in wiser feedback. Not speaking for Fred -just my $0.02

    5. jason wright

      i voted for Brexit, and not because it is the opportunity to change the relationship between Britons and Brussels, but because it is the unique opportunity to fix the broken relationship between Britons and their domestic political elite class. i deeply regret that the UK will be leaving the EU.

      1. Matt Zagaja

        In America we have a saying that is something along the lines of “cutting off your nose to spite your face”.

        1. jason wright

          A very British saying

        2. Peter Beddows

          @mzagaja:disqus Just where do you think this “message” originated? 🙂

  4. Donna Brewington White

    This would be worth borrowing one of my family member’s iPhones to try. (I’m on Android.)Except… not sure of the value of knowing the average AGE range of my hearing. Or is this just me?

    1. William Mougayar

      Android will be available for Mimi, but there are a number of Android Apps already. Good point that there is value in comparing your results to others in your group. Apparently our hearing prime is between age 18-35.

      1. awaldstein

        Your prime hearing age should be now, is the point.If you can understand loss–of hearing at least–you can have it back in most cases.The app is behavior not technology, technology is the solution and it certainly is not channeled into music listening.

        1. henrik_matthies

          Agree, conducting the hearing test is behavior. But the “hear better” section in the hearing profile overview is then technology: based on your hearing profile, the sound is tailored to your individual hearing.And that is what our second app Mimi Music (www.mimi.io/app) is all about. Integrations with Spotify, SoundCloud, iTunes make sure that you can enjoy your daily music – yet with significantly improved sound, based on the hearing test results.

          1. awaldstein

            I’m listening…Hearing music better is a nice to have. Hearing language better is a life changer.If you spend time traveling and working out of work spaces like WeWorks that while amazing are designed by people who are accoustically tone deaf, you may discover that this issue is less age specific than you might imagine.

          2. LE

            are designed by people who are accoustically tone deafInteresting, how so? I actually am amazed at how many places that I visit that are like that. I am always making comments on venues and thinking that they need a bit of carpeting or sound deadening material to knock the edge off the sound banging around.

          3. awaldstein

            Accoustics are beyond horrid in every conference room everywhere.I know this personally. A secondary business adding accoustical enhancers has already developed.

    2. awaldstein

      not very useful info in my opinion and missing the power of this which is that in almost all cases the technology chain between diagnosis and remedy is there, albeit expensive.

      1. henrik_matthies

        disclaimer: I am one of the guys building Mimi.The age range is the aggregated result from the test. you can check your hearing profile in greater detail after conducting the test – to understand what frequencies and sounds (incl. consonants/vocals) you cannot hear anymore. This is pure user education and awareness building.The second step of Mimi is to use your hearing profile to personalize sounds to your very individual hearing. People usually take 7 years from realizing they have a hearing loss until they actually see an ENT doctor. In the US, the time span is even 10 years. Hearing loss is irreparable, so that’s horrible.With our app, you can directly experience what you have missed so far, hear music and sounds optimized to your hearing. Yet, you can do it directly on your couch at home, after taking the test.We believe that this low-threshold / direct benefit approach is necessary to help people realize what they miss in their everyday life, and how much more they could hear/experience when they have an appropriate hearing solution.

        1. awaldstein

          I think you have something interesting here.I would bet that very shortly you will have to make directional decisions on where to take this and what is the core of your brand to your market.

        2. JoeK

          Personalize sounds? What does that even mean? It appears that you implement a linear equalizer (like every music player does), with the sole difference being that instead of allowing the user to control to the equalizer settings, you select them based on what you think they ought to be hearing.Beyond that though, let’s assume that you’re losing your ability to hear mid-range sounds and you install mimi. Which increases the mid-range sound level for all the music you listen to. Are you guys sure that doing this over long periods of time (years) will not reduce your mid-range hearing capability, given the positive feedback loop you’re creating (hear less at frequency x, increase the volume at frequency x)?

          1. henrik_matthies

            hi JoeK, we use a non-linear compression and add psycho-acoustic cues to sound which mimic the functioning of a healthy human ear. Our audio processing is based on years of research and post-doc work of one of our founders, and currently patent-pending in the EU. On top, we adapt the sound to your audiogram when you link the hearing test with Mimi Music. Have you tried it out yourself? Would be interesting to get your feedback on Mimi Music!The personalization bit is similar to what hearing aids do. In fact you have to keep especially those frequencies activated which are affected by hearing loss, otherwise – in easy words – your brain forgets mid-term about them, with the effect that the hearing loss in those frequencies degenerates further.

  5. William Mougayar

    Amazing what you can do on a smartphone now in the field of healthcare screening. It’s increasing and getting better.Can you compare your results to other cohorts in your age & gender group for example?

    1. henrik_matthies

      Thanks for your feedback. We are working on a more social/comparison feature. The hearing age tells you already if your hearing is better or worse than the average person of your age. It takes your gender into account.

  6. pointsnfigures

    That’s a great innovation. I read about this on Joanne’s blog. I have terrible hearing from being in a trading pit for 25 years. Imagine sitting near an airplane runway for 6-8 hrs every day. It’s gotten uncomfortable to go to certain places because you can’t hear anything.

  7. dovcohn

    This kind of app will be even more exciting as HealthKit and related health data interfaces make it easy (even possible!) to share ongoing, longitudinal health-related data with your healthcare network, allowing doctors using big data to recognize potential issues early.

    1. henrik_matthies

      Exactly, one of our next steps will be to integrate Mimi into the HealthKit. The hearing test is our starting point to measure and learn everything about your hearing. The objective data from the hearing test is the first dimension of hearing, but we also track your hearing preferences, and will soon take into account the environment you are in and the hardware you use – to make sure that all dimensions of hearing are reflected when personalizing sound to your ears.

  8. sigmaalgebra

    Clever. Nice.Suggestion: Since the app will be of greatest interest for older people with some hearing loss, they may also have some vision loss. So, for the fonts on the screens, make them LARGER and more BOLD. From the screen shots, there is plenty of room for larger fonts. As it is, the fonts are often so darned small that maybe the developers were concerned about the extra cost of ink from larger fonts!Also good to tell the hyper sensitive graphic artists to please go get some coffee while change the screen and font colors to give a lot of CONTRAST.Fonts too small are a big problem in computing now. Here is a simple rule: Put no more than 60 characters on a single line of text. Too often I’ve found > 110 which is absurd, maybe from people who just ignored font size and took some tiny default font.Next, understand that about 25% of males are partially red-green color blind.

    1. henrik_matthies

      disclaimer: I am one of the guys building Mimi.Thanks a lot for the feedback. Most of our users are in their 40s-50s, but you definitely have a point here. I will double the budget for ink 🙂 We will work on both, larger/bold fonts and a sharper contrast – to make it accessible for all users.Regarding red/green: Our new app, Mimi music (www.mimi.io/app) is already mostly in blue, also because of that reason. We will improve also the hearing test app in the next weeks, keeping your feedback in our minds.

  9. Tom Labus

    It’s great to have the test. The next step should be helping you find the solution and right Doc.

    1. henrik_matthies

      In the hearing profile, you’ll find the “hear better” section. There you can experience sounds & music which are personalized to your individual hearing profile. The second app, Mimi Music, then is integrated with Spotify, SoundCloud, iTunes to enjoy from then on personalized music wherever you are. That is a first solution. We will add more solutions step by step. Long-term we want to be the go-to place whenever you wonder if your hearing is not perfect / can be improved

      1. Tom Labus

        Good fortune with this one

  10. Cookie Marenco

    Thanks, Fred! Here’s an idea for someone more capable than myself… take an app like Mimi Music, add a feature that measures the amount of time a person is using the ear buds, measure the hearing of person periodically and calculate the hearing loss over time. Take the data of all using to see how earbuds affect the hearing over time and which frequencies. Could also monitor which headphones/earbuds/smartphones do the least amount of damage.I believe we’d find loss of hearing happening much sooner with more frequent use. I also suspect that the quality of sound (which has gotten worse with phones over time) causes us to increase the volume and penetrate our hearing with frequencies/distortion that speed up the loss.Since I produce high quality recordings, I might be more hyper critical about my hearing… still, I think people would “choose not to lose” (their hearing) and product developers would be more mindful in creation if we were exposed to the data.

    1. henrik_matthies

      Cookie – you outlined some of our R&D tasks for the next couple of months! 😉 there is so much we can do once we start to measure how people can & want to hear. We are already building the biggest data base on hearing, and will continue to measure every detail in order to improve any audio-related content for the individual person. And also make sure that we don’t continue to use products that damage our hearing long-term.By far the highest quality loss is at the intersection of content & ear/hearing. Everything else can be highest-end produced/mastered/transmitted. As soon as someone in his fifties hears it, there will be an age related hearing loss, and thus some frequencies which cannot be heard.

      1. Cookie Marenco

        Henrik, thank you for responding. I worked in the early development of digital audio in the 80’s and development of digital downloads in mid 90’s (pre Napster) with an audio pioneer, Gerry Kearby. His 3rd company was focused on hearing called Neurotone. He and I had many conversations about what you’ve built… and I believe he ended up selling his eq for cell phones to google pre Android days. Neurotone eventually focused on retraining the brain to listen with a series of exercises in listening. Sadly, Gerry passed away in 2011, but the company lives on. They have research you might be interested in. I’m still close with them. If interested, contact me at [email protected] Our audiophile market is also interested in learning how to listen better. I often teach how to hear differences in formats (along with producing music for my label). Happy to help if I can.

        1. henrik_matthies

          Many thanks, Cookie! That sounds very interesting indeed. I will follow up via email. We also have some thoughts on how to train the hearing, not just improve it – especially interesting when you are about to purchase a hearing aid your brain & cochlear need some preparation. Salt Shaker describes his first-days experience with a hearing aid in his comment to this blog post further up. That will be an interesting discussion – looking forward!

  11. John Revay

    FRED:Full disclosure – The Gotham Gal is an investor in Mimi and therefore I have a financial interest in the company too.You should mention to Joanne — that she should suggest they go on Shark Tank :)I think I recall Mark Cuban likes these types of investments (phone sensors) – if not a deal – it will generate great air time / PR#canyouhearmenow

    1. henrik_matthies

      #wecanhearyou – and thanks for the feedback. air time / PR wise it is a great chance, we’ll look into it. Maybe you see us soon on TV then 😉

  12. bobmonsour

    I was very keen to try the app as I lost nearly all of my hearing in my left ear last October. I only retain some very low frequency response in that ear. It was a sudden loss accompanied by intense vertigo (which is far less fun than the spinning that occurs you’ve had too much to drink). I’m 60 years young (not old).I applaud the goal of the app and tried it out of curiosity more than anything else as I’ve had a half dozen tests already over the last 8 months.I am using the Apple in-ear buds, not the pods that come with the iPhone. I prefer the in-ear as they block out more of the surrounding environment.I got through the test run and proceeded part way through the test. At one point, an alert came up saying that I had pressed the wrong button. After acknowledging the alert, the test ceased, the right and left button remained along with the larger top circle with no text inside. My only option was to quit the test.While Fred indicated that the test was a lot like the tests in the doctors office, it differed from what I had in the doctors office. In addition to the tone volume tests, there were also one-sided tests where tones were input to one ear while noise was input to the other ear to prevent some type of cross interference. In addition, there were word recognition tests.With my left ear, at high volumes during the word recognition tests, I could tell that words were being spoken but I was unable to tell what they were as they came across very distorted.Unfortunately for me, the prognosis is that my hearing in my left ear will not likely return. The reality is that they have no real clue as to the causes of sudden hearing loss. They treat it with an anti-viral and steroids at first, based on the assumption that it might be caused by a virus. And the steroid can reduce any inflammation around the relevant nerves. The only positive out of the treatment was that after playing tennis, the steroids precluded me from feeling any joint pain. Among the downsides were difficulty sleeping.Regardless, I’m able to cope with it reasonably well. Loud environments can be a challenge to have a discussion and I have to make doubly sure to look to my left when crossing the street.

    1. JLM

      .Unless there is a clear reason for your loss, you should not give up hope.I have a high loss in my right ear from shooting rifles in the Army. I never wore any ear protection — world class stupid on my part.I had a sudden loss of hearing in my left ear and it came back a couple of months later. I think it may have been swimming or diet related.Don’t give up.I am older than you.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

      1. bobmonsour

        Thanks for your thoughts, JLM.I won’t give up and have been proceeding with remaining active and healthy in the hopes that it will return. If after a year or so it has not returned, I may investigate other measures, e.g., a cochlear implant. That’s one of the approaches that was offered during my second opinion doctor visit.Onward!

    2. John Fazzolari

      You should definitely consider a cochlear implant. Not sure how familiar with it but it changed my life after I lost all of my hearing a few year ago. it will work especially well for you because you’ve had your hearing prior to the incident. Happy to talk about my experience or offer any feedback if it is helpful.

      1. bobmonsour

        Thanks John. The doctor that I saw for a second opinion offered that as an option to consider, along with a couple of other hearing aid options. Since that was just a few months after the onset of the loss, I had decided to wait for a while to see how things progressed. My thinking is that I’ll give it a year or so to see if anything changes and have a follow-up audio test.I would love to talk with you about your experience. You can reach me at bob dot monsour at gmail. I look forward to connecting.

        1. John Fazzolari

          Cool Bob- just sent an email. Look forward to connecting further.

    3. henrik_matthies

      Thank you Bob for sharing this. I am one of the guys building Mimi, and I am sorry that you were not able to complete the hearing test.I will put you in contact with our dev team to understand why the test stopped in your case. The current version of the hearing test is a tone volume test – which covers a great variety of hearing loss typologies, yet not all. We are working on additional testing methodologies to make the test valuable for even more people.The hearing test is calibrated for the standard Apple earpods, we used an artificial ear at the Charité University clinic to analyse all determinants of this specific headphone model in order to produce a very accurate test result. Using other headphones will result in a less accurate test, no matter if the headphones are in-ear or over-ear.Some of our users have also strong hearing loss, yet benefit from the audio processing we use in Mimi Music (www.mimi.io/app). Maybe that app is able to help you as well when listening to music.

  13. Salt Shaker

    I used a hearing test app 6 months ago to validate an ENT’s findings that I have significant high end hearing loss. Don’t remember if it was via Mimi, though. (Is there an app for memory loss?) I ended up getting a pair of high tech in the canal hearing aids for $5K (mostly and quite unusually covered by my insurance.) You can’t see them at all and I’m far too vain to get anything even marginally less. I wear them occasionally and have a small in the pocket remote w/ volume settings that is programmed w/ 3 pre-sets to my audio profile. What’s the experience like? Total sensory overload. I walk the streets of Manhattan and hear stuff that I’d never heard before, or prob hadn’t for many a year. Someone walking five paces behind me sounded like they were right next to me. Sirens sounded alarmingly loud. I frankly yearned for some peace and quiet :)Experts allege that if not addressed hearing loss can subtlety and unknowingly increase over time, while user’s experience a form of muscle memory loss, albeit in an audio form.This is big biz! The out of pocket expense for hearing aids is quite large w/ undoubtedly high margins attached.Hearing aids are fundamentally audio equalizers set to address a user’s audio deficiencies, which is what Mimi does w/ music listening. Not sure what their biz model is but there’s def a large missed opp if they’re not getting a piece of the hardware sale by providing a referral engine to local audiologists and ENT’s. Closing this loop would seem to be obvious, natural and worthwhile.BREXIT=Can You Hear Me Now

    1. henrik_matthies

      Thanks for your feedback, Salt! I am one of the guys building Mimi.We have talked to a number of people who have had a very similar experience with their first-time hearing aids. It is a sensory overload in the first weeks. Your ears/cochlear and your brain need to get used to the “normal dose” of noise again. Thus, you normally adjust the volume and processing step by step.We totally see the business model for funneling people with non-perfect hearing to a variety of solutions, starting from an app-based product like our Mimi Music app, the right headphones for your special type of hearing, to soon also hearables – which we believe will replace midterm the current overpriced / rather low-tech hearing aids.Our goal is to personalize any sounds around you (mobile, TV, home-entertainment, car), and with the build-in live sound processing feature we can already improve conversations in-app.

  14. Pranay Srinivasan

    The Gotham Gal always picks the best ones to invest in 🙂

  15. muratcannoyan

    Very cool. The S7 edge I’m using has something similar that lets a user setup a hearing profile. Interesting that is wasn’t positioned more as a hearing test since they are doing a lot in the mhealth space. After doing the 10 minute test my hearing experience through the buds was vastly improved. I also suffer from mild hearing loss so the adjustments really helped.

  16. Caleb Kemere

    Super cool. But in contrast to an audiologist, my iPhone doesn’t have calibrated headphones, so how can they report absolute intensities? I would imagine that the variability in headphone design would yield several dB of difference.

    1. henrik_matthies

      Valid question Caleb. We are validating our technology continuously with the Charité University clinic in Berlin. The hearing test app is calibrated to the Apple Earpod, using an artificial ear at the Charité audiology clinic. On top, we have tested 73 people in our sound-proof hearing lab with both, a calibrated audiometer which are used by ENT docs, and our test. Preliminary results show that our test has a similar accuracy.Using the iPhone + Apple earpods thus give an accurate result.

      1. Caleb Kemere

        Ah! The benefit of single platform. I shouldn’t be surprised that their headphones are super consistent! Thanks for the follow up

      2. creative group

        henrik_matthies:The audience that dominates mobile penetration is none other than Android. Why is the huge market being neglected by you developers? Appears counterproductive.DISCLOSURE: Will only use mobile devices on Android platform. Every opportunity we yell about the demise of iOS platform. No position held in Alphabet or Apple.

  17. Nir Dremer

    I just gave it a try and the experience was good except two thing:1. Asking to signup before showing results. it takes a moment of small stress / high curiosity and ruins it with focus on conversion2. Asking for age before showing age based on the test. Makes the result feel significantly less trustworthy

    1. henrik_matthies

      hi Nir, thanks for your feedback. I am one of the guys building Mimi.to 1: True, from a user-perspective it would be best to see directly the results. And you can skip this step (see the bottom line of that conversion screen). But if you don’t create a profile, the data is only stored on your device, cannot be used for other products/services e.g. to personalize music with our second app Mimi Music. Long-term we want to use your hearing profile to personalize whatever sound you enjoy – thus need a cloud profile and your consent that we can use your hearing data.2. By building the largest data base on hearing, we want to understand how people of different age groups can hear today, and if the main hearing & age related data in this field (from the 1970s) is still valid today. In the old data, there is e.g. a significant difference between genders – we believe this was due to the fact that the man went to the loud factory while the wife stayed at the more quiet home. We want to understand if that and many other topics are still valid, or if hearing across ages and genders has changed. Today, e.g. way more teenagers have hearing loss than 20 years ago, probably thanks to products like Beats and Spotify.Regarding trust: We are validating our technology continuously with the Charité University clinic in Berlin. On top, we have tested 73 people in our sound-proof hearing lab with both, a calibrated audiometer which are used by ENT docs, and our test. Preliminary results show that our test has a similar accuracy.

  18. creative group

    Contributors:Off topic post!New York, New York big city of dreams.NYC second to Silicon Valley.http://upstart.bizjournals….

  19. Peter Beddows

    This looks to be a really useful app: Thank you for posting about it @fredwilson:disqus for I would not have known about it without this lead.So I went to my iPad to download it only to discover that the battery was flat because I have not used in in weeks. My principle tools are my Windows PCs and trusty BlackBerry!! Yup; I do not mind admitting that I love BlackBerry and am distressed by their earlier loss of direction before Chen took over. I use the iPad almost exclusively just to check on our web developments to ensure iPad users can see what they are supposes to be able to see.So, as an ex rock-band Bass player and singer, this could be very helpful. My wife tells me that I need help with my hearing but yet the last hearing check showed surprisingly little loss at the top end of the sound spectrum. Pretty amazing since the reverberations from my bass knocked the chocks out from under the beer barrels under the stage at one venue, cutting off the supply of beer at the bar but since everyone there loved us and were dancing madly, no one noticed or cared!

  20. ElaineSaunders26

    It’s interesting but not very relevant to real life. Look at the http://www.BlameySaunders hearing test which tells you which sounds of speech you hear well and which you don’t

  21. Matt A. Myers

    Hey Fred, is it hearing loss from damage from a specific event, or could your hearing just currently be hypo-sensitive?

  22. JLM

    .A memorial to organic bread making entrepreneurs? I think so.Be good, breadman. Have a slightly better than average weekend. [Sensitive, I am to over promising and wishing.]JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

  23. henrik_matthies

    hi Charlie, I am one of the guys building Mimi. Have you tried the “hear better” section in the hearing test app? Based on your individual hearing profile, we adapt music to your hearing capabilities – so that you hear all frequencies / nuances / details as good as possible. You can also get the Mimi Music app directly at http://www.mimi.io/app. btw: many professions, such as musicians and pilots depend on their hearing. And it is something everyone should check regularly.

  24. Donna Brewington White

    That’s pretty impressive given that many of the musicians I know have suffered hearing loss as a result of their trade.

  25. henrik_matthies

    Thanks for trying it out. The “mimification” wheel gives you full control how much processing should be added. And you can finetune the processing itself in the “my earprint” section.Anyways, really interested to get your feedback on the audio processing. By adapting sound to your hearing profile, we might be able to bring back some frequencies / sounds which you haven’t heard for a longer time. A user wrote me last week totally excited that he can hear the handdrum in his favorite Beatles song again, as if he was listen to it the very first time as a teenager.