“People who have difficulty understanding speech in noise simply don’t participate in social events,” says Tal Rosenwein, COO at OrCam, noting that social isolation can lead to depression. The company’s OrCam Hear helps reduce noise – literally. Trained on hundreds of thousands of hours of sound, the AI-powered smart hearing aids due out by the end of the year are capable of isolating voices amid the bustle of a crowded room. Users move a dot on the screen on a phone app to focus on who they want to hear; the system accommodates the voice coming from that direction while reducing background noise.

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