Kickstart: A technology shift for hearing aids from a glasses maker

You're going to see a lot of news in the next few days about big TV screens, smartphones, artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, self-driving cars and virtual reality as CES 2024 gets underway in Las Vegas.

Glasses maker EssilorLuxottica thinks you should also hear something about technological breakthroughs as well as it prepares to unveil a prototype that integrates hearing assistance into the plastic frame of a pair of glasses, without the need for clunky wires or attachments.

The electronics trade show, which opens for media events on Jan. 7, has been the global platform for the introduction of high-technology devices and concepts, with attendance and publicity soaring during the past decade.

For EssilorLuxottica — the company that produces brand names such as Ray-Ban, Oakley, Prada and Foster Grant — the show is key to its entry into the hearing aid industry.

The U.S. government approved over-the-counter hearing aid sales in late 2022, a move intended to cut costs and add competition to the industry. A few months later, EssilorLuxottica announced it was entering the market.

Its new Super Audio team is working on its first product, embedding a "completely invisible" audio component within a pair of glasses, "removing a psychological barrier" to hearing aids. It is planned for users with mild to moderate hearing loss, a group that includes more than 1 billion people.

"While sight remains our core business … we are uniquely positioned to open up a new avenue for the industry by addressing the need for good hearing with innovative technologies," CEO Francesco Milleri said in a news release.

It's been a long time since the "Big Three" dominated most U.S. car sales. Just the fact that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler — or Chrysler's parent company Stellantis — are now called the "Detroit Three" instead is a sign of the strength of Japan-based automakers in U.S. markets.

As of 2023, Stellantis lost even more ground as South Korea's Hyundai, which also includes the Kia brand, outsold Stellantis in the U.S.

In 2023, U.S. auto sales topped 15 million, according to industry watchers GlobalData.

GM was the top seller in the U.S., with 2.57 million vehicles, followed by Toyota with 2.2 million vehicles sold and Ford at 1.98 million. Hyundai/Kia finished in fourth place with 1.6 million and Stellantis at 1.53 million.

What will it take to recycle more flexible packaging? Why not start by providing more places to drop off bags and pouches?

Plastics News' Steve Toloken writes that the Canada Plastics Pact has a report out on the long and winding road toward a goal of boosting recycling rates for flexible packaging. Right now, only 3-4 percent is recycled.

About 70 percent of Canadians can place flexible packaging in curbside recycling, but most systems accept only single-material polyethylene bags. Many pouches include multiple materials.

But the province of British Columbia has set up a network of 200 drop-off locations that accept multimaterial packages and has been able to capture about 25 percent of flexible packaging products, he writes.