Tag:

Hearing

How to Clean Hearing Aids

by admin June 22, 2025

You can also use this tool to gently brush the tip of the dome of each eartip, where wax is most likely to accumulate. If any tenacious wax is stuck to the tip of the dome, try using the wire loop on the reverse of the brush to gently scoop it out. Next, check the back of the receiver, where the wire attaches to it, and brush this area as well. You can use a microfiber cloth to remove any material that is dislodged during this step.

Some very old hearing aids have a long vent that runs through them entirely. This can be cleaned with a special wire that is included with the product (as well as the wire loop on the back of the hearing aid brush). Vents like this are not common on modern hearing aids.

3. Change the Wax Guard

Photograph: Chris Null

Beneath your eartips, you will generally find a small white cylinder known as a wax guard, wax filter, or wax trap. Its function is exactly what it sounds like: Preventing wax from getting into the hearing aid mechanism and clogging it up. Eventually, these wax guards will get too clogged to clean with a brush, at which point they should be replaced. Depending on your usage and the volume of earwax you have, that could mean once a month.

If your hearing aid has a wax guard, it probably comes with a kit of replacement guards, invariably contained within a small plastic case of eight or so. Flip open the case and remove one of the plastic tools from the sleeve very delicately. The replacement guard is on the other side of the tool, and it is easy to accidentally dislodge when you take the tool out of the case.

With the eartip removed from the hearing aid, insert the bare (black) side of the tool directly into the wax guard, then remove it. This will pull the old wax guard out of the hearing aid completely.

Now flip the tool around to the other side, which will have a white tip. This is your new, clean wax guard, ready for use. Carefully insert the white tip into the hole created by removing the old wax guard, then remove the tool again. It will leave the new wax guard snugly in place. Discard the used tool, replace the eartips, and you’re ready to go.

4. Change the Eartips

Photograph: Chris Null

Eventually, eartips will wear out or break, especially if you remove them frequently to clean your hearing aids, or they will just become too filthy to clean effectively. Solution: Replace them with fresh ones. Your hearing aids probably came with additional eartips in your preferred size, but when you run out, you can purchase more directly from the manufacturer (along with additional wax guard tools, if needed). Third-party eartips are available for many model hearing aids, but quality will vary considerably.

When finished, give everything another quick wipe-down with your microfiber cloth. And remember to always keep your hearing aids stored in their case (never a pocket) when not in use.

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June 22, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Honkai: Star Rail Version 3.4 will finally introduce those Fate/stay night collab characters you’ve been hearing about

by admin June 20, 2025

The big Honkai: Star Rail version 3.4 livestream took place earlier today, right on schedule. As with every major new iteration of the incredibly popular HoYoverse game, the main thing people have been looking forward to has been, of course, the new characters. The livestream did, indeed, show off the new characters that will be arriving in the free-to-play RPG soon.

The big news from the program is, of course, the imminent arrival of the Fate/stay night collab event. A collaboration between Honkai: Star Rail and genre-defining fantasy visual novel Fate/stay night was first announced in August of last year, at the same time as the latter received its long-overdue official English localisation and modern remaster. It was apparent at the time that the Star Rail crossover was going to be in the oven for a while longer; and indeed, 10 months down the line, the wait is almost over.

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New characters introduced in Version 3.4 will include Fate series favourites Saber (as a 5-Star Wind/Destruction character who’ll be receiving her own banner in the gacha) and Archer (a 5-Star Quantum/Hunt character who will be claimable for free by everyone who logs into HSR during the collaboration). Both are expected to be available for longer than is usual in HSR, with the collab confirmed as lasting from Version 3.4 right through to the end of Version 3.6 (expected circa November of this year).

Additionally, Phainon — who’s been a major NPC since Version 3.0 launched early this year and was the first new character you met on Amphoreus — will finally be added as a playable unit, an honour already granted to several of his fellow Chrysos Heirs over the past few months. He’ll also be a 5-Star character, armed with a Physical/Destruction kit. Since the Fate collab characters exist outside of the usual banner cycle, all three new characters will be releasing in Phase 1.

Not only that, but the version will feature a grand total of six rerun banners, with Tribbie, Sunday, and Sparkle making a limited-time return to the gacha in Phase 1, while Firefly, Jingliu, and Blade all return during Phase 2. That means the latter half of this update will be a rare occasion when HSR receives no new characters, but considering how packed that line-up already is, I don’t think it’s exactly fair to complain.

And last but not least, everyone’s favourite Stellaron Hunters are getting some love in V3.4, with enhancements coming to the battle mechanics and Eidolon effects for Kafka, Silver Wolf, and Blade, as well as a new alternative outfit for Firefly. Jingliu will also be getting a kit enhancement of her own, which hopefully doesn’t mean this troubled Luofu loyalist is joining Elio’s morally-gray team of mercenaries now… although actually that could be rather cool.

Honkai: Star Rail 3.4 is scheduled to go live on July 2nd, with its changeover to the second banner phase expected on July 23rd. You can watch the whole special program livestream on the VOD below:

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Back in May, Honkai: Star Rail’s version 3.3 update introduced Hyacine to the game, and brought back The Herta for the first time as part of its first phase. The banner’s second phase, on the other hand, kicked off just last week and brought new character – Cipher – to the game, alongside a few returning favourites.

It also featured the controversial recasting of the English-language voice actors for the playable protagonists, the female and male Trailblazers (canonically named Stelle and Caelus). This followed the actors’ participation in solidarity action with SAG-AFTRA, who recently suspended their long-running video game voice actor strike after the arrangement of a tentative agreement with several major studios. The status of several other characters whose actors have been participating in the action — which includes two other main characters, Dan Heng and Himeko — remain unclear.

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June 20, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

I Tried Hear.com’s At-Home Prescription Hearing Aids Test

by admin June 19, 2025

Putting aside their exorbitant cost, the trouble with prescription hearing aids is the prescription. Find a doctor. Get an appointment. Sit in a waiting room. Suffer through an hour of testing before getting the hard sell on a pair of hearing aids. Why, the indignity of it all is even worse than going deaf.

Telehealth offers a glimmer of a solution, but as everyone who’s tried to show off a concerning mole to a doctor via a smartphone camera knows: Video technology can only get you so far. Audiological testing requires significant one-on-one interaction and plenty of technology to back that up. Every audiogram I’ve sat for has been inside a sophisticated, soundproof chamber.

Hear.com—a company that sells prescription hearing aids online and via traditional retail channels —has a workaround. It puts all the technology needed to perform a full-on hearing test in a box and mails it to you along with a set of prescription hearing aids, then walks you through the whole thing with an audiologist via a video call. I’ve taken Hear.com’s virtual hearing test twice—this is what a tele-hearing exam looks like, should you decide to take one.

It’s All Online

Photograph: Chris Null

The process begins with a simple discussion. If you’ve never had hearing aids before, this is probably a good first step; veterans will likely skip it, especially if they know what model hearing aids they want (or how much they want to spend). A Hear.com salesperson will discuss your personal impressions of your hearing loss, any hearing aid devices you have tried, prior audiological testing, and your budget (along with any insurance you have). From there, they will suggest the best hearing aids (from their product line) to meet your needs, though you can also advocate for a specific product if you’ve already identified one.

Next, you’ll set a time for your testing and hearing aid fitting, and a few days later, a box will arrive on your doorstep. Open it up, and the collection of hardware and the tangle of wires connecting it all may seem daunting, but rest assured, with even a modicum of technical knowledge, it all goes together quickly, and Hear.com professionals can guide you through any confusion over the phone.

Despite the significant amount of gear inside, the box is about as organized as it can get. On top, you’ll find a Microsoft Surface tablet that has been stripped down to do just one thing: serve as the conduit for a video-based audiology session. After plugging the Surface into wall power, you’ll find a USB breakout box to connect to the Surface’s USB port. Assuming all the other devices are still properly plugged into that USB breakout box (which is far from assured; it’s good to check everything is snug), you are effectively good to go. The Surface has no other functionality besides initiating the call with the audiology professional, and at the scheduled time you tap a button on the screen to get the session underway.

Photograph: Chris Null

After greeting you, the audiologist will guide you through a series of tests. First is a physical exam of your ears, which is made possible thanks to the included USB-powered otoscope, which you probably know better as the lighted tool with the black, conical tip a doctor uses to look into your ear canal. There’s no doctor to guide the tool by hand, so the audiologist will tell you how to position it in each ear so they can get a good look at your eardrum. And yes, you, too, can see what the doctor sees right on the Surface’s screen. Spoiler: There is more wax inside your ear canal than you think.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Assuming you have no physical damage that would preclude hearing aid use, it’s on to the traditional hearing exams. This series of tests will consume the bulk of the appointment time, and most involve wearing a pair of oversize, noise-isolating headsets like professional musicians use. The tests were very familiar to me, starting with tones played at varying frequencies and volume levels in each ear, during which you tap the Surface screen whenever you hear something.

The test is then repeated with a bone-conduction appliance that attaches to your forehead with a Velcro band for another look at the way you process sound. Lastly, a third test measures your ability to distinguish various consonant and vowel sounds—sh vs. ch, for example—which is performed by having you repeat the words you think you hear back to the audiologist multiple times.

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June 19, 2025 0 comments

Esports

NBA Finals 2025 – What we’re hearing on Durant, Giannis, Knicks coach search

by admin June 14, 2025

Tim Bontemps
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Tim Bontemps
ESPN Senior Writer
Brian Windhorst
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Brian Windhorst
ESPN Senior Writer
- ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010
- Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years
- Author of two books

Jun 13, 2025, 08:00 AM ET

The NBA world will be focused on Indianapolis’ Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Friday night, when the Oklahoma City Thunder will attempt to bounce back against Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers and tie the suddenly fun Finals at two games apiece.

But for the 28 teams not taking part, business hasn’t stopped. So, with less than two weeks until what could be a very eventful NBA draft, and less than three weeks until the start of this year’s free agency period, here’s our latest look at the happenings around the league.

And, with trade chatter involving Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and other stars, the spiraling New York Knicks coaching search and some early free agency buzz, there is no shortage of storylines outside of the Pacers-Thunder Finals duel.

Where is the Giannis saga headed?

Until either a trade materializes involving Antetokounmpo or there is definitive word out of Milwaukee that the two-time MVP will be staying, the offseason’s biggest headline is the Greek Freak’s future.

There are few players in league history of Giannis’ caliber. The chance to potentially acquire him — in his prime at 30 years old no less — is a tantalizing possibility for opposing teams and fans alike.

Game 1: Pacers 111, Thunder 110
Game 2: Thunder 123, Pacers 107
Game 3: Pacers 116, Thunder 107
Game 4: at Pacers, Friday, 8:30 p.m.
Game 5: at Thunder, Monday, 8:30 p.m.
Game 6*: at Pacers, Thu., June 19, 8:30 p.m.
Game 7*: at Thunder, Sun. June 22, 8 p.m.
* If necessary | All times Eastern

• More NBA playoffs from ESPN

A possibility is far from a certainty. And, as things stand today, the expectation is that Antetokounmpo will start next season as a Buck, sources told ESPN. To be clear, the emphasis is on today. There’s still a lot of road to be walked this offseason, and it’s hard to know exactly how everything will shake out.

In meetings with ownership since the end of the season, Bucks coach Doc Rivers and recently extended general manager Jon Horst have presented plans to keep the core of the team intact around Antetokounmpo, with a goal of competing for a top-six playoff spot and with a hope Damian Lillard could return from his Achilles recovery before the end of next season. The Bucks went 10-4 without Lillard to close the regular season as he dealt with a blood clot. That, plus Antetokoumpo’s larger role of keeping Milwaukee afloat, were the cornerstones of the team’s projection.

With Jayson Tatum facing his own Achilles rehab, the Boston Celtics perhaps cutting payroll around him, the uncertainty facing Joel Embiid’s health and several East teams still rebuilding, there is a pathway for the Bucks to ride their MVP back into contention.

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1:12

JWill: Giannis handles things differently than other players

Jay Williams weighs in on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s future in the NBA and how he handles things differently than other players.

Will the Bucks be willing to go into the luxury tax next season to do so? That’s been an open question around the league for months, with starting center Brook Lopez set to be a free agent and with Bobby Portis facing a decision on his $13.4 million player option.

If Lopez is re-signed, Milwaukee doesn’t have many realistic options to get under the tax. If he enters free agency, the Bucks can easily avoid it. Sources said the franchise is prepared to once again enter the tax after spending more than $200 million in luxury tax alone over the past few seasons — more than every team but the Golden State Warriors, LA Clippers, Brooklyn Nets, Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns since 2012, per Spotrac.

Rival teams suspect the Bucks will end up in the tax but keep their payroll below the $196 million first apron, which would open their ability to access more of the $14 million midlevel exception. They might need a large chunk of it for a starting point guard in place of Lillard, with the candidates including free agents such as Dennis Schroder, Tyus Jones and Malcolm Brogdon.

Much more will be known once Milwaukee’s roster comes into focus after the draft and free agency, and then we’ll have a better sense of where the Bucks stand — and how real the hopes of competing next year with Antetokounmpo really are.

Where will Durant land?

Unlike Antetokounmpo’s, there isn’t much ambiguity around Durant’s situation, with ESPN’s Shams Charania reporting Wednesday that the Suns and Durant are sifting through trade offers.

Charania listed five teams that have registered interest in Durant — the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves, Miami Heat and New York Knicks — and added that several other clubs have checked in on the 36-year-old Durant.

For Phoenix, a trade will be very complex for a trio of reasons.

Given the two sides are working together on a potential deal, Durant has to land somewhere he’s invested in going.
That team will likely need to be willing to consider giving Durant an extension of more than $60 million per season for his age-38 and age-39 seasons.
Perhaps most importantly, the Suns will need to get enough in return in a deal to satisfy owner Mat Ishbia and his front office.

For all of Durant’s brilliance across his career, that’s not going to be an easy task to marry those three things into a deal that works for everyone.

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At the February trade deadline, the Suns talked to a handful of teams about Durant without his knowledge. When he found out, just as the Suns and Warriors were nearing coming to terms, Durant blew up the talks. There was some disagreement within the team, sources said, about how that process was handled. It was one of the reasons new general manager Brian Gregory and Ishbia have repeatedly, ad nauseum, emphasized the promise of “alignment” in various news conferences since the end of the season.

What’s most important now is keeping Durant in the loop. Though whether there needs to be true alignment with Durant on the eventual deal is yet to be seen. The Suns need a favorable trade more than they need to keep Durant happy. If both can be achieved, terrific.

Besides the Warriors, the team that appeared to be the most serious about trading for Durant four months ago was the Minnesota Timberwolves. At the time, the Wolves and Suns were second apron teams, and it made a deal too complex to happen. But with several Wolves potentially opting out of their contracts (namely Julius Randle and Naz Reid) and Rudy Gobert taking a small pay cut as part of his new deal, Minnesota potentially has more flexibility to execute such a transaction.

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1:28

Shams shares Kevin Durant’s main trade suitors with McAfee

Shams Charania tells Pat McAfee that Kevin Durant is the biggest trade domino, with five teams interested: Rockets, Spurs, Heat, Timberwolves and Knicks.

One additional team to monitor, sources said, is the Clippers, who have the contracts to make another move to augment the roster around Kawhi Leonard and James Harden, presuming the latter either opts into his contract or signs a new deal this offseason.

Multiple league sources said they were skeptical that the price for Durant in a trade would get to a place where Phoenix would be satisfied with it.

What does seem clear is that this saga could easily be wrapped up on, or by, draft night on June 25. And with the weak free agent class and the lack of teams with cap space, one source said this year’s draft could easily wind up being an even busier night than normal — and it could be the high point of activity this summer.

Who, exactly, will coach the Knicks?

Wednesday morning, former Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau did an incredibly classy thing. He put out a full-page ad in The New York Times celebrating his time in New York and thanking the organization, players and fans for his five years in a job he grew up dreaming of having as a kid in Connecticut.

By the end of the day, any dreams the Knicks had of this being a smooth search to replace Thibodeau — already a difficult task, considering he finished his tenure as the fourth-winningest coach in franchise history — had been replaced by what’s quickly becoming a nightmare.

In the span of 24 hours, New York remarkably found itself being rejected by five teams in attempts to speak to their head coaches: the Atlanta Hawks (Quin Snyder); Chicago Bulls (Billy Donovan); Dallas Mavericks (Jason Kidd); Rockets (Ime Udoka); and Timberwolves (Chris Finch). This sort of thing simply doesn’t happen, and it has left plenty of people around the league shaking their heads in amusement. Or, in the case of some of the teams involved in denying permission, anger over the way it’s been handled.

From the play-in tournament to the NBA Finals, ESPN has you covered this postseason.

• Game 3 takeaways: Pacers strike back
• Paine: Five biggest Finals outliers
• Shelburne: Jenny Boucek’s path to Pacers
• MacMahon: Why Finals are a full-circle moment for Alex Caruso
• Shelburne: Tyrese Haliburton’s superstar ascension

Typically, a team in the Knicks’ situation — moving on from a coach who had won a series in three straight playoffs and coming off its first conference finals in 25 years — knows exactly who it is targeting in a new coach.

What has become abundantly clear: New York did not have a plan in place when the decision was made to move on from Thibodeau.

So what happens now? For starters, sources said, there’s some belief that things could change in the cases of Kidd in Dallas and Donovan in Chicago. Kidd has a long history of fiery departures from prior stops — including in 2014, when he wound up getting permission to leave the Brooklyn Nets to join the Bucks. Kidd also has a lot of relationships in New York from his year playing there in 2012-13 and has a relationship with Jalen Brunson from coaching him in Dallas before the guard came to New York three years ago as a free agent.

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3:00

Stephen A.: Knicks’ head coach search is ‘pathetic’

Stephen A. Smith breaks down why the Knicks’ head coach search looks so bad, calling it desperate and pathetic.

Donovan, meanwhile, is a Long Island native who played 44 games with the 1987-88 Knicks after starring at Providence College. He would undoubtedly be the kind of hit the Knicks are looking for locally after moving on from Thibodeau.

But if neither of those scenarios change, where do the Knicks go from there? Perhaps it’s someone like Taylor Jenkins, Mike Brown or Michael Malone, all proven coaches currently without a job. Maybe it’s Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Johnnie Bryant, who was a finalist for the Suns job that went to fellow Cavs assistant Jordan Ott last week, and who spent the few seasons before this one working for Thibodeau in New York. Maybe it’s someone completely off the radar.

Right now, the only thing that’s clear about this coaching search is that it’s not going the way the Knicks had hoped.

What will happen with Ty Jerome?

While this summer features a very light free agency class, at least one player will have an intriguing market around him: Cavaliers guard Ty Jerome.

Coming off a top-three finish for Sixth Man of the Year for the 64-win Cavaliers, Jerome averaged 12.5 points in fewer than 20 minutes per game, shooting over 51% from the field and over 43% from 3-point range. His return from an ankle injury that forced him to miss virtually all of the 2023-24 season was a catalyst for Cleveland’s explosion to the East’s No. 1 seed.

The Cavs are wary of losing him and fellow key reserve free agent Sam Merrill, a shooting specialist who could have suitors as a fellow unrestricted free agent.

Jerome, who was on a $2.5 million deal this past season with the Cavaliers, is in line for a very hefty raise from that number, sources said. The expectation around the league is that it will take the full midlevel exception — roughly $14.1 million — to get Jerome signed. Cleveland, however, is hoping to get him to return for a bit less, sources said, as it attempts to navigate the second luxury tax apron and the team-building challenges that go along with it.

Team president Koby Altman has said he has clearance from owner Dan Gilbert to go deep into the luxury tax. But as this new CBA era is showing, the deeper a team goes into the aprons, the harder it is to escape. And all second apron teams have the same desire: Get out as soon as possible.

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June 14, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

House Dems Get Bonus Hearing on Crypto Market Structure, Assail Trump Conflicts

by admin June 7, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures were once again under the microscope during a House Financial Services Committee hearing that otherwise saw legal experts express worries about how regulators might police digital assets under a market structure bill.

The committee held a “minority day” hearing — meaning the witnesses were primarily picked by the Democrats, the current minority party in the House — on Friday, letting lawmakers ask questions more targeted on concerns they have with the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the Republican-led market structure legislation that will receive a markup vote next week.

Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the committee who’d demanding this extracurricular hearing after the panel met earlier in the week on the same topic, pointed to Trump’s various crypto efforts in her opening statement, saying her goal was to stop Trump from profiting off of his crypto ventures to the extent he has been.

“What I’m opposed to in this act … is the crooked president of the United States of America, who’s decided to use the office of the presidency to enhance his access to profits,” Waters said.

Republicans focused on a different tack: “Currently, there is no federal framework for non-security digital assets,” Committee Chair French Hill said in his own opening statement, a stance echoed by his colleagues Bryan Steil and Warren Davidson. They contend that Democrats and the administration of former President Joe Biden allowed years to pass in which they failed to protect consumers by offering no rules to oversee crypto.

Crypto has driven an ideological wedge into the Democratic Party on Capitol Hill, with many Democrats — typically skewing toward the younger members — supporting the advancement of digital assets legislation despite the direction of their leadership. Most of the Democrats attending this bonus hearing on the Clarity Act were in the crypto-critical camp, though Representative Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, has supported crypto bills in the past and questioned witnesses at the hearing about his concerns that the bill may include loopholes that could allow financial firms to dodge oversight.

Himes, a yes vote on last year’s predecessor to the Clarity Act — the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, or FIT21 — said some of the provisions in the new effort may allow for a carveout that can be abused by certain types of issuers under Securities and Exchange Commission regulations.

The Clarity Act itself is more complicated than it needs to be and does not address some of the cybersecurity risks posed to the cryptocurrency industry, said Carole House, a former White House adviser who is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council GeoEconomics Center. She pointed to recent crypto hacks, including crypto exchange ByBit, as an example.

Amanda Fischer, policy director at Better Markets, a Washington group advocating for financial policies that favor the public, said her bigger issue was with the exceptions that exist for companies to seek regulation under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying that it might provide loopholes for issuers or other crypto companies that otherwise would be regulated under the SEC and be subject to securities registration and reporting requirements.

But as has been seen in other recent hearings, Trump’s crypto ties again reappeared as the star of the show.

Bart Naylor, a policy expert at Public Citizen and a former investigator for the Senate Banking Committee, said he believes Trump is specifically soliciting gifts through his memecoin and selling favors through actions like his memecoin dinner or by terminating SEC lawsuits against companies which donated money to him.

White House officials have routinely denied Trump is exhibiting a conflict of interests in his pursuit of digital assets business gains.

Waters had staged a walkout last month from what was meant to be a joint hearing of this and the House Agriculture Committee on crypto policy, though industry insiders were careful to note that not all the panel’s Democrats followed Waters’ departure.

Read More: Planned Crypto Hearing in U.S. House Derailed by Democrat Revolt

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June 7, 2025 0 comments