Awareness! The Headphone App aims to keep users safe from harm – iPod/iPhone – Macworld UK

Posted on September 22, 2010 by dawnriser

Currently featured as part of the Apple iTunes App Store ‘New & Noteworthy’ choice selection, Awareness! The Headphone App from UK firm essency aims to let users listen to music and the outside world at the same time.

Highlighting ‘iPod zombies,’ Edmund King, the president of the AA, recently called for the Department for Transport to launch a campaign warning cyclists of the risks of being lost in music. “They [iPods] are meant to be mobile, but if you are cycling, you need all your senses about you,” the AA president said.

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The latest Department for Transport (DfT) figures show that 820 cyclists were killed or seriously injured in the three months to June of last year, a 19 per cent rise on the same period in 2008.

The Awareness! application promises to help rectify the problem, allowing users to listen to music at whatever volume they choose but, importantly, to remain fully aware in situations where they need to be safe. As well as cycling and jogging, examples could include when travelling late at night or when needing to listen out for important announcements or hear conversations.

Accessing the iPhone, iPod touch or headset microphones, Awareness! allows the user to set precisely the amount and type of external sound they want delivered into their headphone mix.

Offered fully auto or fully manual, users can bleed in some audio spatial awareness, while an auto-set microphone trigger level allows warnings to break through even the loudest music insists essency. You can also turn Awareness! off at any time.

The latest 1.1 update adds improved functionality and has implemented user requested features.

Essency co-founders Alex and Antony share a passion for technology and music making that spans over 25 years. With a background in the fields of music, sound engineering and computing, the duo plan a trio of applications lined up for the iPhone and iPod touch, which they believe could change headphones forever.

Available from the Apple iTunes App Store, Awareness! The Headphone App costs ??2.99 and requires the iOS 4.1 Software Update or later.

The makers add, Awareness! also requires the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch 3 generation – with headset, iPod touch 4 generation. The application will be iPad compatible when Apple release the iOS 4.2 update in November.

Awareness! will not work on the iPhone 3G or on wireless or Bluetooth headsets.

An Awareness! can be seen here and below.

A campaign group Youth for Road Safety, has recently launched a new campaign, ‘Tune into Traffic’ under the slogan ‘Your earphones could kill you’.

Manpreet Darroch, campaign director told the Daily Mail: “It???s a serious problem which is only going to get worse as the number of cyclists increases – lots of people are completely oblivious to what???s going on around them.”

“People don???t realise how dangerous listening to music is on the roads – whether pedestrian or cyclist. It takes one of your key senses away. People shouldn???t do it.”

“You can legislate until you are blue in the face. On the issue of iPods we just need to raise awareness.”

via macworld.co.uk

Useful? I think it could be.

You can’t even give them away

Posted on September 21, 2010 by dawnriser

It doesnt seem long ago that I was sitting in a technical seminar on the benefits of the latest video recording format from JVC – VHS. Soon afterwards the format wad adopted by the film industry as the defacto standard for video distribution. We all went out and joined video rental shops – and paid a subscription for the privilege. If we were very fortunate some kind soul would give us a VHS of our favourite film as a birthday or Christmas present. Today I spotted this notice in the window if a local charity shop. The humble VHS is a dead duck. You can’t even give them away confirming my decision to mothball my VHS recorders and discard all but my most treasured tapes to the skip earlier this year. How long before the DVD follows them?

The next challenge – The Way of the Roses

Posted on September 17, 2010 by dawnriser

Way of the Roses Map

It winds across 170 miles of some of Britain’s most spectacular countryside. The new Way of the Roses Cycle Route has just opened and I’m itching to get into the saddle to conquer it.

The route passes through places that are deeply embedded in my life – Ripon and York, places where I have lived and now live. The roads outlined in yellow on the map are both familiar and new. I have probably traversed the whole route at one time or another – but never strung together in one long trek from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. Altogether it looks to be better than the C2C which in my experience loses it’s charm as it crosses some of the more industrialised parts of county Durham and on to the sea. The Roses in contrast skirts the Yorkshire Wolds and heads towards Bridlington in its closing miles.

I have another reason to face the challenge of the ride. I am involved in setting up a new charity to provide homes for homeless people in York. It’s a daunting and challenging project in itself, but we need to some seed funding until it becomes self sustaining. At a meeting to form the charitable trust this week I raised the prospect of riding the Way of the Roses, and the challenge was immediately picked up by my relatively new friend Ed Hambleton. Ed and I separately had the vision to provide housing and support for homeless people and were brought together when, in the same week, we contacted Green Pastures Housing for some help and guidance. That was at the end of last year. Now we are working together with other Christians in York to breath life into the vision.

So expect another invitation to visit a giving website and donate to our cause.

One thing puzzles me about the Way of the Roses route. Next to the village of Clapham just off the A65 there’s a puzzling warning. “Steep hill, poor surface, pedestrians, children, dogs and dark tunnels” Just what awaits us there?