As Christians, we have important news to tell people—the greatest news ever, in fact! God has given us the gospel message. He calls us to tell it to everyone on Earth. Because of that, we should be especially interested in solving communication problems.

Thankfully, people are working hard to make communication easier for others who can’t hear well. Are you keeping your ears open for advances in hearing tech?

MotionSavvy Uni. This handheld tool is coming out this summer. The device looks like a tablet. It has a camera designed to follow a deaf person’s hands. Its software recognizes the movements and shapes made by all ten fingers. Then it translates those movements into words. The words appear on the screen and are read aloud. The device then “hears” the other person’s response. It translates it into text the deaf person can read.

Solar Ear. In many places in the world, people with hearing loss have no money to buy hearing aids. Solar Ear can help fix that. The company sells hearing aids for low prices. It also makes a hearing aid battery that gets its energy from the sun. The battery costs much less than normal hearing aid batteries. It also lasts a lot longer—two or three years instead of one week!

Hearing Aids. Hundreds of years ago, people with hearing trouble used ear trumpets—funnels that helped lead sound waves to the ear. Hearing aids have come a long way since then! Just in the last 10 years, electronic hearing aids have made huge improvements. Once, hearing aids made annoying whistling sounds. They picked up loud background noise. The user’s own voice sounded echoed and distant in his or her ears. But now many of these problems have vanished. Now hearing aids have automatic volume control. They even connect to wireless internet. That means users can hear TVs, cellphones, and other devices right through their hearing aids.