nication patterns, usage patterns, and physical and cognitive needs." Oviatt's research could prove to be important to developers working to meet the demands created by a soaring speech recognition market. According to Frost & Sullivan, a technology research firm located in San Antonio, Texas, the voice recognition market will climb from $107 million in 2002 to $1.24 billion in 2009. 9.3 IMPROVED AUDIO OUTPUT Along with developing speech recognition technologies, researchers are also working to improve audio output. New acoustic sensor research could soon help many people hear better and lead to improved audio clarity for mobile phone and other telecom devices. The research being conducted by Ron Miles, a mechanical engineering pro- fessor at the State University of New York at Binghamton, is expected to lead to a revolution in hearing aid technology within the next four years. Miles' aim is to dramatically improve the ability of the hearing-impaired to understand IMPROVED AUDIO OUTPUT speech in noisy environments. The work could help the more than 28 million Americans who already suffer from or face imminent hearing loss. The number of people with hearing problems is likely to become even larger as aging baby boomers move into their senior years. "Our focus is to improve the technol- ogy of acoustic sensing and signal processing SO that we can minimize the influ- ence of unwanted sounds," says Miles. "Research shows that hearing in noisy environments remains the number one unsolved problem faced by hearing aid wearers." Miles' work is based on discoveries about the directional hearing capabili- ties of a small fly-Ormia ochracea. Miles has used a tiny structure found in the fly's ear as a model to develop the world's smallest directional micro- phones. The research holds promise in any number of civilian and military applications where microphones and acoustic-sensing systems are or could be employed. Improving the directionality of hearing aids, enhancing their ability to filter out unwanted noise, and producin