It’s the first warm day of the year, so you lace up your shoes and hit the road.

The weather is perfect and the rising sun warms your back as your Android beats out a rhythmic pace straight to your brain via earbuds. But what is that annoying sound in the background?

Three days later, when you wake up in the hospital, you discover that the annoying sound was the blaring horn of a car — right before it hit you.

If this scenario sounds a little farfetched, it shouldn’t. Recent studies show that pedestrian accidents while wearing earphones have increased threefold since 2004.

Related Story

5 apps parents should know about

According to a Pew Internet study released in August 2012, 78 percent of American teens have a cellphone.

One company, however, is trying to do something about it.

One Llama Labs, a company that bills itself as “a machine learning company,” plans to introduce a new app this month for Android phones that can warn you of sounds that might clue you in to danger nearby.

The new app, called One Llama Alert, will constantly sample the background noise around you looking for sounds that match the danger sounds stored in its database. When one is detected, the app will immediately silence your music and play an amplified warning. It may be the actual sound or a cartoon sound that you can easily recognize.

The initial offering of the app is free. CEO Kurt Bauer said that as the technology advances and new applications and features become available they may consider some sort of pricing for add-ons.

Bauer said the company is working on additional “packs” that you can eventually download to have a bank of sounds particular to a country or locale you are planning to visit.

#poll

“As you step off the plane, your device can download the danger sounds particular to that region,” Bauer said.

And for bird lovers, One Llama Labs has plans to produce a pack for bird sounds that will help you identify the bird waking you up every morning.

One Llama Labs is in talks with several manufactures of wearable devices to incorporate this technology into this new and rapidly growing commercial market. Do you wish your new wrist device could gently squeeze your wrist to warn you of squealing tires nearby? Your wish may soon be reality.

The first edition of One Llama Alert comes pre-programed with a standard set of sounds. However, users will soon be able to train their devices to recognize sounds unique to their needs.

Let’s say you want to be alerted by the sound of your home burglar alarm or your baby crying — the choice is yours. Then, after you have personalized your list of sounds, One Llama Labs want to provide a crowd-sourcing option online so you can share your important sounds with others.

“This is not new technology for One Llama Labs,” Bauer said. “The basics have been in development for over 10 years.”

It all began as a project to find ways that computers could recognize music and the technology has grown from there.

So what about that recent study describing the dangers of wearing headphones while walking?

Lead author, Richard Lichenstein, director of pediatric emergency medicine research at the University of Maryland reports that of the 116 accidents reviewed for this study, 70 percent resulted in death to the pedestrian involved and nearly a third of the vehicle drivers reported sounding some type of warning prior to the crash. Most of the victims were male and under the age of 30, and most of these deaths occurred in urban areas.

"Unfortunately as we make more and more enticing devices, the risk of injury from distraction and blocking out other sounds increases," Lichenstein said in the news release from the university. Hugh Bouchelle is a freelance writer and works full time at Southern Virginia University. You can contact him at hugh.bouchelle@SVU.edu.

Related topics