Using headset while walking or driving on the street amid all that traffic is advised against as these devices distract you and certainly will be the catalyst for mishappenings and accidents. But what about if the headset you had been using notified you about an approaching automobile, thus prompting one to move away on time? Such a smart device is under development at the Data Science Institute at Columbia University with a prototype being tested on the streets of New York. The researchers have got $1.2 million as investment for the project.
So, how can these headset detect outside sound? With the help of small microphones that take in the traffic noise and through smart signal processing, sends a sound alert to the headset. The researchers on the project claim to have used the latest data science techniques and so as to develop innovative signal processing mechanisms. Also, these ‘smart’ headset will be in a position to find a identify hundreds of acoustic cues of close-by vehicles with the assistance of machine learning models placed on the user’s smartphone.
A report on the Columbia University website states, “The headset has miniature microphones and smart signal processing which detects sounds of approaching automobile. If a hazard is found near, the device transmits a sound alert to the pedestrian’s headsets.”
Globally, we have seen a great deal of deaths due to wearing headsets or earphones while walking on the street. While the most effective alternative still appears to be avoiding using them while walking, this particular analysis appears to be optimistic about the capability of people currently being lost in the sound community and alert at the exact same time in traffic.
But are smart headset only a band-aid solution? Why not focus on changing pedestrian behaviors to promote alertness, or concentrate on engineering means to generate streets safer?. I believe we must tackle all these methods at the exact same time, claims Jiang. And he claims which the data Science Institute is working on technology which will make streets less hazardous, also, by adding sensors and edge computing materials on light poles that track moving items in real-time and send that data to other vehicles and pedestrians.