by Mark Sparrow, Forbes, July 5, 2019
World enables the user to decide the amount of external sound comes through to the earphones, even when playing music. It’s ideal for when cycling or jogging, as it makes the user aware of their surroundings.
There are three other features included in the app starting with a control called Focus. This can either be set to the default of picking up external sounds from 360 degrees or t can be set in Focus mode which zeros on a speaker or a sound coming from a forward direction.
The second feature in the app is something called SINC. This is an audio mixer that can blend between the sounds amplified by the World function and Speech. Moving the setting towards speech cuts out a lot of background noise can be a big help if you’re struggling to hear someone speak. The last feature in the Settings menu is the World EQ function, which works as an EQ adjustment, altering the sound on a sliding scale from bass to treble. It’s a subtle control but works well, especially for shaping speech.
These earbuds help to amplify the surrounding noises that might be difficult for someone to hear, but don’t want to get hearing aids. They operate as normal earbuds as well, but the noise amplificiaton aspect is what interests me. I wonder if you could use this technology to give someone a sort of “superpower” to have a hyper aware sense of the noises in the surrounding, allowing them to react better and anticipate people that are behind.
