This isn't Carol Brady's first foray into tech support however. She was also on the front lines during the DTV conversion. Perhaps that, along with her confusion regarding the intricacies of her own cellphone provided the inspiration to start up FloH.

"I didn't grow up with this technology," she said. "It's like learning a new language."

Now, as a proficient text-messenger, Skyper and active member on Facebook, she wants to help others learn to do the same.

FloH memberships run $25 for a month or $250 for the year and includes access to their telephone support network for any computer-related queries. For an additional $50, users can participate in one-time personal training session on issues ranging from setting up a Facebook account to tuning up your PC. In other words, it's quite a racket. Although, Florence doesn't have to be the one manning the phones from 8am to 2am. To those people all I can say is...Godspeed. [FloH and NYT]

Stacked with the same bone conduction technology we've been seeing in Bluetooth headsets for some time now, along with wired and wireless device connectivity, a new class of hearing aids in making its way into patients' ears—or more accurately, their skulls. Bone conduction makes a big difference to hearing aids' core functionality, eliminating all manner of noise issues, but the heart of these new plugs is a powerful processing platform, with a gadgety twist:

[T]he newer processors, costing about $6000 (AUD) each, shut out background noise, giving users up to 25 per cent better hearing, and can be attached directly to MP3 music players or wireless headsets for talking on the phone

This makes a lot of sense—wearing earbuds or a Bluetooth headset on top of hearing aids would feel a little redundant, no? Anyway, as they are, the systems, made by Australian company Cochlear, aren't as cyborgian as you might imagine. The processor, with its headphone jack and wireless radio, isn't actually drilled into your head—that's just the cochlear implant—but instead worn around your ear, headset-style. The company's even got a range of "Freedom Accessories" which, let's be clear here, are consumer tech accessories meant to indirectly plug into your bone. It's a great time to be an old.

UPDATE: It looks like we got a few things wrong first time around. Here's an in-depth explanation of how this tech works:

What your recent article refers to is the Bone-Anchored Hearing Aid or BAHA. This device has been around for at least the last 4 years and is not a fully implantable device nor is it a cochlear implant. The BAHA is designed for people who are unable to wear conventional hearing aids because of chronic ear infections that prevent occlusion of the ear canal, or because they have congenital skull abnormalities including failure of the middle ear and/or ear canal to form.

The BAHA consists of a titanium screw and abutment which is implanted into the skull. Titanium is capable of osseointegration, which basically means that the screw is integrated into the bone when it heals, while the skin grows around the abutment. After the healing process is complete, an external processor is then clipped to the abutment. An external processor allows for regular maintainance, and easy removal and adjustment and battery replacement.

The BAHA processor is amplifies the incoming sound waves and vibrates the skull. These vibrations stimulate surviving hair cells within the inner ear which in turn convert sound into signals that the brain can interpret. They work just like a conventional hearing aid, except vibrations are transferred via the skull, rather than being captured by the eardrum and amplified by the middle ear bones before passing to the inner ear.

A cochlear implant (the picture in your post is of the Nucleus Freedom speech processor which is the external portion of a cochlear implant system) on the other hand converts sound into an electrical signal which is passed across the skin to a receiver-stimulator which provides electrical current to an electrode array implanted into the inner ear, to directly stimulate auditory neurons, providing a perception of sound. Cochlear implants are only recommended when the level of sensory hair cell damage is so severe that even with hearing aids, speech perception cannot be supported.

Cochlear is a manufacturer of both the BAHA and the nucleus implant. That cochlear is touting the 'noise-cancellation abilities' of their new device is more a reflection of the fact that advanced signal processing is now possible with the updated processor, unlike their first generation device. On the other hand, noise cancellation technologies are touted as being the greatest thing since sliced bread by every hearing aid manufacturer, yet no peer-reviewed studies have shown any more than minor improvements in speech understanding with noise cancellation technologies, and these improvements have been limited to very specific listening laboratory testing situations that tend not to generalize well to everyday life.

If you want to find out more, check out Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochlear_implant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_Anchored_Hearing_Aid They have pictures to help explain things better.

—Thanks, Chris! [Sydney Morning Herald via Neatorama via BoingBoing]

It's been a long road, paved with delays, misunderstandings, and altercations with the rare Hawaiian dark-rumped petrel. We'd love to hear your experiences: Has anybody actually tried it out? Good experiences? Bad? Let us know in the comments. [DTV]

Hard as it may be to believe for nerds like you and me, there are some people who just can't wrap their heads around this whole DTV mess. Those people...are old. And they need someone nonthreatening and of comparable age to explain the process in plain, large-print words. Preferably with pretty colors. Florence Henderson, better known as Carol Brady, has stepped up to what we're sure is a thankless job. You can download the explanatory PDF here if you're so inclined. [Consumer Reports]

Here's how it works: In the initial setup, you program a time limit—say, 20 minutes—for your future bathroom. From that point on, whenever you close the door and activate the alarm, the Help Lock will sound a preliminary alarm after the allotted time, giving the bathroom inhabitant 30 seconds to deactivate it. After that, the doorknob will initiate an alert call to whatever number you've chosen to enter, whether it be a neighbor or emergency services.

The concept seems like a pragmatic approach to a real problem for senior citizens, but begs for one minor modification. Does forcing an old person to scramble from a bathtub to deactivate an alarm that your forgot about sound like a good idea? Throw another minute on there and we've probably got a winner. Check out a more in-depth description of the Help Lock's functionality at [Yanko]

Yes, Surfing for Seniors is a real gem, explaining how computers work in terms old people understand, like fair games and libraries. The video itself isn't too exciting, mostly consisting of a shot of this old lady's back as she scrolls up and down intercut with close-ups of her clicking those mouse buttons of hers. But the sensible, incredibly dumbed down advice is pretty awesome. [Cynical C via The Daily What]

Details are a bit sparse for the time being, but Honda claims that the legs transparently reduce the strains of walking, standing and crouching, and should be "as easy to use as a bicycle." The AP reporter who got to test the robo-legs had this to say about them:

This reporter found it does take some getting used to. But I could sense how it supported my moves, pushing up on my bottom when I squatted and pushing at my soles to help lift my legs when I walked.

Uses will not be limited to assisting mobility for seniors. Honda claims that one of the most practical uses for the legs would be at factories, where workers may have to assume repetitive, uncomfortable postures. The device is still in its experimental stages, but Honda plans to start testing early models on its factory workers as soon as next month. [Honda via AP]

The car systems, which will are now going into development, will be able to determine whether or not the driver was doing anything dangerous or erratic, and control for that or even act to prevent that kind of behavior.

There might be a system that uses both climate control and navigation to make sure the drivers stay alert, for instance. The system might automatically slows the car down if it senses an irrational punch of the gas pedal. There's no mention of the opposite, however. You know, the system that speeds the hell up when it determines that you've just merged onto a 75mph freeway and you're only doing 34. [SMH]